“Twenty and ten percent tip,” Yocke said cheerfully. “Twenty-two American smackeroos to get past that squat lady at the door.”
“These bastards bypassed capitalism and went straight into highway robbery,” Toad mumbled as he stared at the mess on the plate in front of him. “No wonder Marx was appalled. Twenty-two fucking dollars! Jeeezus!”
Jake looked slowly around at the huge, splendid room in which they sat with the businessmen and tourists, eating nervously. There were just no Russian restaurants that served food a Western stomach could tolerate — none. “This place is a boom town, like San Francisco during the gold rush. There’s no price competition right now.” He shrugged. “Maybe it’ll come.”
Yocke tried to change the subject. “What are you guys here for?”
Jake Grafton eyed the reporter and this time his gray eyes didn’t twinkle. “Give it up, Jack.”
“You gotta admit, Admiral, this whole thing is curious as hell. The embassy has gotta have enough communications gear to put you in touch with Slick Willie Clinton snarfing gut bombs in a McDonald’s.”
Yocke shrugged, then leaned back in his chair and assumed his philosophical attitude: “This whole darn country is curious. Everything is falling apart, nothing works right, yet everybody you meet is a literature expert, a music scholar, or an authority on eighteenth-century Russian poetry. Not a solitary one of them owns a screwdriver or a pair of pliers or even knows what they’re for. So the commodes don’t work, the light bulbs are burned out, the furnace in the basement crapped out last year, the pipes are busted — and they sit amid the rubble and talk about the nuances in Dostoyevski, the genius of Tolstoy. The whole place is a nuthouse, one giant pyscho ward, some psychiatrist’s wet dream.”
“They must have something going for them,” Jake said as he smeared jam inside a croissant. “They kicked the hell out of Hitler. They’re tough, resilient people. They’re survivors.”
Jack Yocke rubbed his head and thought about it. He was having trouble getting the right perspective, having trouble seeing the human beings hidden behind the body armor they all wore. “Maybe,” he muttered. “Maybe.”
“So what stories have you been working on while you’ve been here?” Toad Tarkington asked this question.
“Been wandering around trying to get a feel for the place, for the people. They’re desperate. It’s a scary situation. The people seem to just have no hope. And the Commies are playing to their fears. The anti-Semitism is right out in the open and it’s ugly.”
Toad glanced at Jake Grafton, who was looking out the window at the street, now bathed in weak sunshine, as Jack Yocke rambled on about the more prominent Communists and their stump rantings. When the reporter finally paused Jake asked, “How ugly?”
“What?”
“How ugly is the anti-Semitism?”
“They’re prosecuting Jews for hooliganism, profiteering and hoarding. Throwing them into jail. Everyone is doing it but the only people being prosecuted are Jews charged before they changed the law. The persecution is even more blatant outside of Moscow, out in those little provincial towns nobody ever heard of where old Communists are still running the show. To hear some of the Commies tell it, they never had a chance to run this country right because the Jews screwed up everything. It’s Hitler’s big lie one more time.”
“It worked before,” Jake murmured.
He looked at his watch. Almost eleven. Five or six hours to wait. Maybe Toad could spend the afternoon with Yocke and he could get some sleep in Yocke’s bed. He managed only an hour or two’s sleep last night. Jet lag. He felt hot and dirty and tired. Or maybe he had caught a dose of that desperation that everyone here seemed to be infected with.
And this would be a good time to call Richard Harper, his private computer hacker, to ask if he had made any progress finding the money. If someone was buying nuclear weapons, then someone was getting paid.
But what will you do when you know?
Hayden Land was the first black man to hold the top job in the American military. A highly intelligent soldier and top-notch political operator, he also had the ability to think very straight when everyone else was panicking. This quality had served him well during the Gulf War several years ago when his sound leadership made him a national hero. Those in the know in national politics even mentioned him as possible presidential timber in 1996, when presumably he would be retired.
Jake Grafton had worked for Land in the past, so the general’s calmness on the telephone was no surprise. Hayden Land never lost his cool.
“What did you want to talk about, Admiral?”
“Sir, I understand General Brown died a few days ago. I wonder if you have the autopsy results.”
“Well, I don’t even know if an autopsy will be performed,” General Land said. “I thought he died at home of a heart attack.”
“One more question, sir. Have you seen a report from General Brown about listening devices being found in the DIA office spaces?”
Silence. It dragged for several seconds. “No. Is there such a report?”
“The day I left to come over here General Brown said he was going to write one. We found the bugs a day or so before. Both he and I suspected they were planted and monitored by our friends at Langley, suspected for some very good reasons, but we had no rock-solid proof. One of the things my aide and I had discussed where it could be overheard by those bugs was the death a year or so ago of Nigel Keren, the British publisher. We thought we had some indications that someone from Langley might have killed him with binary poison.”
Jake paused for a moment. Land said nothing.
“Are you still with me, sir?”
“I’m here.”
“General Brown’s death might also have been caused by binary poison. Since he apparently didn’t write that report of those listening devices, I suggest you ensure that there will be an autopsy, a damn good one.”
“Just what were you and General Brown working on, Admiral?”
“We were discussing Nigel Keren, how he died, who might have killed him. I don’t want to go any further into that on this telephone, sir. The KGB is probably eavesdropping. Still, this telephone was preferable to using the embassy communications systems. And I request that you don’t use the telephones in your office, car or home to discuss this matter.”
More silence, then a slow, “I think I see what you’re driving at.”
“I don’t know what is going on, General, but something is and I’m on the edge of it. So I need some help.”
“What?” That one-word response was pure Hayden Land. No beating around the bush, no questioning of his subordinate’s assessment of the situation or demands for further information, just a straight, quick trip to the heart of the matter.
So Jake told him. The two officers talked for another twenty minutes before they spent a few minutes discussing what they were going to tell the Washington Post to explain this curious method of communication. Their answer — nothing at this time.
Jake straightened his uniform and put his shoes back on and locked the door behind him.
He found Toad Tarkington and Jack Yocke in the bar drinking espresso and gobbling pretzels. They both stood as Jake walked toward them.
“Thanks a lot, Jack,” Jake said.
“He called you?”
“Yes.”
“One word?” Yocke looked incredulous. “That’s all you’re going to give me?”
Jake grinned. He extended his hand and the reporter took it.
As Toad and Jake were walking toward the main entrance, Yocke called, “You owe me a steak when I get back to Washington.”
Jake lifted his hand in acknowledgment.