The more he thought about it, the more convinced Jake was that he had tripped over just such an operation. Who controlled it, what its goals were, how many people were involved — he had no answers to any of these questions.
So the encrypted voice circuits were out. A commercial line? Every phone in the embassy was monitored.
And if he found a circuit, who was he going to talk to? If these people could casually squash a three-star general, no one was beyond reach. The ambassador? That Boston Brahman, that man of distinction in a whiskey ad? Yet he had to trust someone.
The military was built on trust. Trust and communications. In today’s world of high-tech weapons systems and instant communications everyone in the system was merely a moving part. Amazingly, none of the moving parts were critical. As soon as one wore out, was wounded or killed, it was replaced. And the machine never paused, never faltered as long as the communications network remained intact.
Herb Tenney was a soldier too. Staring at the ceiling, Jake told himself he must not forget that fact.
As he began to go over it all for the third or fourth time, his frustration got the better of him. He climbed from the bed and went to the window. The sun hadn’t set yet. He tried to visualize what the city must look like in the snow, for snow was the norm. The mean annual temperature here was minus two degrees centigrade. These long, balmy days were but a short interlude in the life of the city and those who inhabited it. In spite of the sun’s golden glow he could see buildings in a gray winter’s half-light amid the snow driven along by the wind. He could feel the cutting cold.
The Russian winter had killed tens of thousands of soldiers in the past three hundred years, he reflected. No doubt it could kill a few more.
7
He was going to have to take some chances, run some risks that were impossible to evaluate. As a young man he had learned to stay alive in aerial combat by carefully weighing the odds and never taking an unnecessary chance, so now the unknown dangers weighed heavily upon him. And back then he had only his life at stake, his and his bombardier’s. Now…
But there was no other way.
When Toad came to the room this morning Jake sent him to get a car. “You’ll drive it,” Jake told him. “Bring the blanket off your bed.” He put on his short-sleeved white uniform shirt and examined the ribbons and wings insignia in the mirror. All okay.
Three blocks away from the embassy Jake told Toad to stop. They searched the car as traffic whizzed by and the exhaust fumes wafted about them. Not much wind today, drat it.
They opened the hood and examined everything as a crowd of pedestrians gathered, probably attracted by their white uniforms. The two naval officers ignored the curious Russians. It took them five minutes to identify all the wires of the electrical system to their satisfaction. They opened the trunk and lifted out the spare tire and scrutinized every square inch and cranny. Toad put the blanket on the pavement and wormed under the car while Jake opened his pocket-knife and took off the door panels. He probed the seat cushions and sliced open the roof liner. They peeled back the carpet on the floor.
Nothing.
When they started the car again they sat staring at the traffic zipping by and the onlookers on the sidewalk, who were drifting away one by one.
“You’d think if there was a bug in this thing we’d find it,” Toad said with disgust in his voice.
“Maybe.” You could never prove a negative to a certainty. All you could do was try to determine the probability.
“Miserable goddamn country,” Toad growled.
After a few moments Jake said, “If anything happens to me, I’d like you to do me a favor.”
Toad waited.
“Kill Herb Tenney.”
“That,” Toad said with heat, “will be a real pleasure.”
“Better be quick about it. I’ve got a feeling that if I die you’re going to be knocking on the pearly gate very soon thereafter.”
Toad put the car into gear and pulled away from the curb.
They parked in front of the Hotel Metropolitan amid the taxicabs, right around the corner from Red Square.
Jake left Toad with the car and went inside. “I wish to speak with one of your guests, an American named Jack Yocke.” And since the man nodded politely, Jake added, “Pashah’lsta.” Please.
“Yaw-key?”
“That’s right.” Jake spelled it.
As the desk attendant consulted his files Jake surveyed the lobby. He had visited the embassy public affairs office earlier that morning and had gotten the name of Yocke’s hotel from the file. He had looked it up himself so the clerk would not see what name he wanted. He felt foolish, paranoid.
“Here it is,” the desk man said, straightening from the files. “I will telephone him.” The clerk looked natty in a dark suit and tie. Apparently these folks were going after those hard dollars with a vengeance. Jake nodded and went over to one of the plush chairs on the other side of the room to wait. Several of the tourists in line at the counters stared at him. A white uniform certainly had an effect.
Three minutes later the elevator door opened and Jack Yocke stepped out. He was visibly surprised when he saw Jake Grafton. He came over smiling and stopped in front of Jake with his hands held out to his sides.
“Clean and sober, Admiral. In the flesh.” He shook Jake’s outstretched hand. “How goes the war effort?”
“Off the record?”
Yocke laughed. “You’re the last man on earth I expected to see around here.”
“I came to see Lenin. I hear they’re selling the body to some outfit in Arizona.”
“Yep. Gonna put the old boy on display right near the London Bridge in Lake Havasu City. Five bucks a head. Old ladies from Moline in stretch polyester and tennis shoes will be filing by the coffin whispering, ‘Well, I never!’”
“Toad’s out in the car. How about coming outside for a minute or two for a chat?”
You had to hand it to Yocke. He didn’t even blink. “Sure,” he said.
“So how’s the foreign correspondent gig going?” Toad asked Yocke when they were seated in the car.
“I don’t know how I’m holding up,” Yocke said sadly. “Every day three or four beautiful women, not less than a quart of vodka, meals fit for a czar or local party chief, a ballet or—”
“We’ve got a little problem,” Jake said firmly, interrupting the litany, “that we thought you might be able to help with. It’s an I’ll-never-tell type of problem.”
“No story?”
“Not even a whisper.”
Yocke snorted. “Do you know how damn tough it is to get a story in this Cyrillic borsch house? I’ve had exactly one, yesterday, when someone snuffed Yegor Kolokoltsev.”
“We heard about that. Five gunmen in Soviet Square?”
“I was there on the fifty-yard line, six rows back. Just lucky, I guess. I’ve been upstairs writing it up for the Sunday paper, three thousand sensitive, powerful words that would melt the heart of a crack salesman. The story is what I saw and a bunch of denials from the Russian cops. No, they did not know Kolokoltsev was going to speak. No, they did not keep the police away. That’s about it. Lots of on-scene detail and a bunch of denials.”
“So,” Jake asked curiously, “were they in on it?”
“Something smells, that’s for sure. No police or military in the square. Five gunmen drill Kolokoltsev and all his bodyguards. They looked like they were shooting an army qualification course. Just pros punching holes in a professional manner. Then they dropped the guns and walked away. No haste, no waste.”