Oh, come on! the prosecutor mentally rebuked him. Don’t be so open about things, we’re not alone here. Out loud he replied, beaming brightly, “Excellent! I’ll do everything I can… And now, please pardon me, I have to run…”
He shook the enormous hand of his Mak, the Mak he had already caught, the Mak who had already conclusively taken the bait. He played along quite excellently, he undoubtedly does want to meet, and now I’ll sink the hook home…
The prosecutor halted in the doorway and clicked his fingers, and looked back: “Let me see now, Mak, what are you doing this evening? I’ve just realized that I have a free evening today…”
“Today?” said Mak. “Well, why not? Of course, I have—”
“Bring someone along!” the prosecutor exclaimed. “That’s even better, I’ll introduce you to my wife, it will be a splendid evening… Eight o’clock—does that suit you? I’ll send a car to pick you up. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
Agreed, the prosecutor triumphantly thought as he walked around the final laboratories in the division, smiling, slapping shoulders, and shaking hands. Agreed! he thought as he signed the report in Brainiac’s office. “Agreed, massaraksh, agreed!” he triumphantly shouted to himself on the way home.
He gave the driver his instructions. He told his secretary to inform the department that the prosecutor was busy—nobody was to be received, the phones were to be disconnected, and in general they should all clear out and go to hell, but in a way that meant they would still remain within easy reach all the time. He summoned his wife and kissed her on the neck, recalling in passing that it had been ten days since they saw each other, and asked her to make arrangements for a good dinner, something light and delicious for four, to behave herself at the table and prepare herself to meet a very interesting man. And plenty of wines, various kinds and all of the very best quality…
After that he locked himself in his office, laid out the contents of the green folder on his desk again, and started thinking everything through once more from the very beginning. He was only disturbed once, when a Military Department courier brought the latest communiqué from the front. The front had fallen apart. Someone had tipped off the Hontians that they should focus on the blocking detachments, and last night they had bombarded the radiation emitter tanks with atomic shells, destroying up to 95 percent of them. No more information had been received concerning the fate of the army that had broken through. This was the end. This was the end of the war. It was the end of General Shekagu and General Odu. It was the end of Four-Eyes, Teapot, Stormcloud and other, more minor figures. It could very possibly be the end of Father-in-Law and Stepbrother. And of course, it would have been the end of Egghead, if only Egghead weren’t such a smarty pants…
He dissolved the report in a glass of water and started walking around the office in circles. He felt a tremendous sense of relief. Now, at least, he knew for certain when he would be summoned to the top. They would finish off Father-in-Law first, and then spend at least twenty-four hours choosing between Twitcher and Tooth. Then they would have to waste a bit of time on Four-Eyes and Stormcloud. That was another twenty-four hours. Well, they would casually whack Teapot in passing, and then just dealing with General Shekagu would take them at least forty-eight hours. And after that, and only after that… After that they wouldn’t have any “after that.”
He didn’t leave his office until the very moment when his guest arrived.
The guest made a quite exceptionally pleasant impression. He was magnificent. He was so magnificent that the prosecutor’s wife, who was a cold woman, sophisticated in the most formidable meaning of the word, and had long ago ceased to be a woman in his eyes but was his old battle comrade, shed twenty years at the first sight of Mak and acted in a devilishly natural manner—she could not have acted any more naturally even if she had known the part that Mak was destined to play in her fate.
“But why are you alone?” she asked in surprise. “My husband ordered dinner for four.”
“Yes, indeed,” the prosecutor put in. “I thought you would come with your lady friend—I remember the young woman, she almost came to grief because of you.”
“She did come to grief,” Maxim calmly replied. “But with your permission, can we talk about that later? Which way would you like me to go?”
They sat over dinner for a long time, in a cheerful atmosphere, laughing a lot and drinking a little bit. The prosecutor recited the latest lines of gossip—those that had been approved and were recommended for release by the Department of Public Health. The prosecutor’s wife very charmingly cracked indiscreet little jokes, and Mak described his flight in the bomber in humorous tones. As the prosecutor laughed at the story, he thought in horror about what would have become of him if even a single missile had hit the target…
When everything had been eaten and drunk, the prosecutor’s wife made her excuses, suggesting that the men prove their ability to survive without a lady for at least one hour. The prosecutor combatively accepted this challenge, grabbed Mak by the arm, and drew him into the study to regale him with a wine that only thirty or forty people in the country had ever had a chance to try.
They settled into soft armchairs on each side of a low table in a very cozy corner of the study, took a sip of the precious wine, and looked at each other. Mak was very serious. This smart fellow Mak clearly knew what the conversation would be about, and on a sudden impulse the prosecutor abandoned his initial plan for a discussion that would be artful and wearying, constructed out of veiled allusions and designed to facilitate gradual mutual revelations. Rada’s fate, Wanderer’s intrigues, the Fathers’ machinations—all that was not of the slightest importance. With breathtaking clarity that induced a sense of desperation, he acknowledged that all his mastery in conversations of that kind would be redundant with this man. Mak would either agree or refuse. It was absolutely simple, as simple as the fact that the prosecutor would either carry on living or be splatted in a few days. Hastily setting down his little glass on the little table with trembling fingers, he began without any preliminaries:
“I know, Mak, that you are an underground activist, a member of Central HQ, and a passionate enemy of the existing order of things. In addition to which, you are also a fugitive convict and the killer of the crew of a special forces tank… And now about me. I am the state prosecutor, a trusted agent of the government who has access to the highest state secrets, and also an enemy of the existing order of things. I am proposing that you should depose the Unknown Fathers. When I say ‘you,’ I mean you and only you, in person—this does not concern your organization. I ask you to please understand that any intervention by the underground can only make a hash of the job. I am proposing a conspiracy with you, based on my knowledge of the most important state secret of all. I shall inform you of that secret. Only the two of us must know it. If any third person discovers it, we shall be eliminated in the very, very near future. Don’t forget that the underground and its HQ are teeming with agent provocateurs. Therefore, do not even think of putting your trust in anybody—especially in your close friends.”
The prosecutor drained his little glass in a single gulp, without even tasting the wine.
“I know the location of the Center. And you are the only man who is capable of capturing this Center. I am proposing to you a complete, detailed plan for seizing the Center and the actions to follow that. You carry out this plan and become the head of the state. I remain as your political and economic adviser, because you know absolutely damn all concerning matters of that kind. I am familiar with the general outline of your political program: use the Center for reeducating the people in a spirit of humane values and elevated morality, and on that basis build a just society in the absolute shortest term possible. I don’t have any objections. I accept it—simply because nothing could be worse than the present situation. That’s all I have to say. You have the floor.”