Inside, he felt himself tightening even further. Somehow it hurt to breathe. His lungs ached, his joints pinched. So many things could go wrong. So many things had gone wrong. In any operation, count on a sixty percent fuck-up rate. The way you win a war has nothing to do with brilliance; it has to do simply with showing up and fucking up less than the other guy. Some Napoleon! And now there was nothing to do but wait just a few more minutes.
At this point at Midway, Raymond Spruance went to bed, figuring he’d done his best.
U. S. Grant got drunk.
Georgie Patton gave a lecture on patriotism.
Ike Eisenhower prayed.
Dick Puller went back to work.
Thinking, yes, still, now, with just minutes to go he might have missed something, he began to page again through the various Spetsnaz documents and photographs that had poured in the past hour or so. There was too much to be gotten through; he was simply scanning the material, hunting for associational leaps, for blind luck, for — well, for whatever.
The dope included more reports on known Spetsnaz operations, defector debriefings (significantly all third party; no known man had defected from a Spetsnaz unit proper); satellite photos, newspaper accounts, everything the CIA had vacuumed up in thirty years of Russia watching, which had been shipped him high speed via phone computer line.
Lazily, more to drive the anxiety from his brain than for any real reason, he skimmed through it.
What if the Rangers bog down and the pretty kids of Third Infantry turn out not to be worth a shit off a parade ground?
What if the Soviets have more men and ammo than we ever suspected?
What if there’s not as much titanium between Pashin and that key as we thought?
What if Thiokol can’t get through the shaft door?
What if the Delta assault team can’t fight its way to the LCC?
What if—
And then his eyes hit something.
“Stop the attack!” he screamed. “Tell all units to hold!”
“Sir, I—”
“Tell all units to hold!”
There was a pause and some fumbling at the other end as the FBI agents debated among themselves what to do. He thought they might be trying to cross-check the authenticity of his call over another line while he waited, and as he stood there, he felt his chest seem to fill with gravel and his breath wheezed between the loose stones.
Funny, he thought. The world may end tonight and yet that doesn’t mean a thing to me. But here I am waiting to talk to my wife and I’m shaking like a leaf.
He wondered if he had the strength for the next few minutes.
And then he heard her voice.
“Peter?”
Her voice had a sadness in it, as if weighted with regret. Megan never apologized, not formally, not for anything; but she had little signals by way of indicating her small responsibility for whatever might have happened, and it was in this softened tone he heard her say his name. It did exactly what he had willed it not to: it earned his instant and total forgiveness and his total surrender. Shorn of his moral certitude, he knew he was lost.
“Hi,” he said softly and raggedly. “How are you?”
“God, Peter, it’s so awful. These awful men. They’ve been here for hours.”
“It’s unpleasant, yes,” Peter said, irked instantly at the way he immediately agreed with her. “But look, you’ve got to give them everything you can. Later, if you can demonstrate how hard you worked for them, it’ll help. I guarantee it.”
“I suppose,” she said. “It’s just all so awful. They’re going to send me to prison, aren’t they?”
“A good lawyer will get you off. Your father will know some hotshot; he’ll get you out of it. I guarantee it, Megan.” He took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Look, I don’t know what they’ve told you—”
“Not much. It’s something terrible though, isn’t it?”
“It’s a mess.”
“It’s all my fault, isn’t it?”
“No. It’s all my fault. I see that now. How I played into their hands and made it easy for them. Now I need your help. Your absolute, total, trusting help.”
“Yes. Tell me what I can do.”
He paused.
“This Soviet officer you identified. The older man, Pashin.”
There was silence. He waited as long as he could, until he could wait no longer.
“Somehow,” he said to her finally, “it was personal with him. That is, between him and me. It was intimate and personal. That’s why you were so important to him. Megan, I have to go where I’m scared to go, and look at what I don’t want to see. You’ve got to take me there, and be strong, and make me see the truth. It’s the most important thing you’ll ever do, do you see?”
Too much emotion tainted his voice, and he struggled to hold the words in proper register. But the words were treacherous; they broke and splattered on him and odd high notes, strange sounds of anxiety, splashed through them. He felt as if he were weeping, but he could feel no tears.
Megan was still silent.
Then she said, “Peter, there are men here. All around me. Don’t make me talk in front of them. Can’t we do it later, in private? I’ll tell you everything in private.”
“There isn’t time. There’s a question I have to ask you. Only one.”
He waited, but she wouldn’t help him.
In the silence, he thought, the sex with Ari. He was good at it? He was really good at it? He was better than me?
Stop it, he told himself.
He’d played the whole thing to get here, and now that he was here, he had a moment’s terror.
You can look at anything, he told himself. You’re a realist. That’s your strength. That’s how you’ll beat him.
“Tell me if I’m not right. I’ve figured out how his mind works. I can read him now. I get him now.”
“Ari?”
“Ari! Ari’s nothing, Megan. Ari’s a tool, a big stud for hire. No, it’s this other guy. He’s the one that’s pulling the strings. Megan, there was a night, wasn’t there, where you passed out? Where you had too much to drink or you were tired or something? Some night where you can’t quite account for four or five hours? In fact, you probably haven’t really acknowledged it in your own mind, because at some subconscious level you’re not quite ready to face it. But wasn’t there a night when … when you can’t really remember what happened?”
Her silence grew, and as it grew it confirmed his suspicion.
Finally, she said, “He said it was the champagne. That I had too much and that I passed out. We had gone to an inn in Middleburg, Virginia, for a ‘romantic weekend’ at a very lovely inn. But I passed out Saturday night. When I awakened I could tell … that it had been romantic.”
Peter nodded.
“When was this?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“After—?”
“Yes. After I had been with you. I went straight from you to Ari. I’m sorry.”
“And that was the last time you saw him?”
“Yes. I took some pictures of some documents you had. I just gave him the camera. We didn’t use the usual routine. And then we went to this inn. And the next morning he left me. Said he was returning to his wife in Israel. He just walked away from me. I cried, I begged. He hit me. Peter, he hit me, and then he just left me in that place, as if I didn’t matter to him.”
You didn’t.
“Okay,” he said. “You’ve been a great help.”
“Peter, is that all? You called—”
“Megan, you should be all right. That lawyer, he’ll get you a walk. Those FBI guys, throw a little charm at them. They’ll melt. They’re men, after all. And when this is over—”