“They wouldn’t notice.”
“Are you rattled too?”
“I suppose I am. I keep craving a thick American steak with all the trimmings.” But abruptly and unaccountably he had an image of Carol Ann’s melancholy frown in a flyspecked El Paso cafe; and he said, “Or maybe a big plate of chili and beans.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said. When this was over he would write to her. Just a polite note: how are things? — the sort of thing that couldn’t do her harm if her husband happened to see it. It was something he owed her: acknowledgment that she hadn’t been forgotten. She’d seen him through the worst of it, the months he’d thought he wasn’t going to see Irina again. Suddenly he brought her into the semicircle of his arm and gripped her shoulder.
“It’s all right,” she said, very gentle. “Do you want to come to bed?”
“In a little while.”
In the beginning the challenge had stirred him and made his juices run; he had formulated the plan in quick broad strokes with brilliant speed and then he had filled in the fine touches with careful foresight; he’d been confident he’d got the composition right, drawn every line and every dot where it had to be. Wherever there had been a conflict between methods or means he’d chosen the alternative that had the best odds of success. It was a plan worthy of the masters but now he began to believe in all the things that could go wrong and he knew he had to shake that off. It was the delay that did it. They’d keyed themselves up for a specific hour; it had been put back seventy-two hours and that was more than enough time to ruin the edge.
Buckner and Cosgrove entered the room: an odd pair-the gaunt one-armed brigadier, professionally reserved; the blunt cheerful American with his foolish facade of amiable buffoonery. They’d hit it off without any of the competitive rivalry he’d half expected to see.
Irina said, “Our two referees seem to be fast friends. Last night I caught them talking with feverish excitement about murder mysteries. Can you believe that? They’re both fanatical admirers of Dashiell Hammett. It’s incredible. They’re like two small boys who’ve just met and discovered they’ve got the same passion for backgammon and toy airplanes.”
Felix came toward them arching an eyebrow. “You two look disgustingly cozy and domestic together. Under the circumstances it’s hardly sporting.”
Alex smiled a little. “You’re nervous.”
“It’s probably a good thing. When I didn’t begin to get nervous the day before a race I knew I wasn’t going to win.”
“Keep it under control,” Alex said. “You’ve got nearly thirty-six hours before you take off.”
“You’ve got only twenty-four. How do you feel?”
Alex shook his head. “That’s a military secret.”
“You’re scared half to death like the rest of us.”
“Of course he is,” Irina murmured.
Alex dropped his voice. “I don’t like losing that third bomber. It doesn’t leave you much margin for error.”
“We’ll manage,” Felix said. “We’d manage with one if we had to.” His teeth flashed. “It’s only one train, isn’t it?”
“Don’t be cocky,” Irina said.
“Still trying to change my character, aren’t you.”
“Felix, I adore your character.”
Felix drifted away and Irina said in her soft way, “Did you know he was up half the night composing letters to the families of the men who died in that bomber crash-Vinsky and the others?”
“No-”
“Compassion is a quality Russia’s not used to in her leaders. Felix will be something new to all of them. I wonder how they’ll take to him.”
“I wonder how he’ll take to them,” Alex answered. “I hope he doesn’t get bored with it.”
“He’ll find ways to make it interesting. Trust him.”
“I do,” he said. “In the beginning I wasn’t sure they’d made the right decision. There was no way to see what he was like under the bravado. He might have been a smaller man you know-he might have let it go to his head. It’s the small ones who turn greedy and arrogant when you put power in their hands.”
“Like Vassily.”
“Yes…”
“Do you still dream about him?”
“No. Not since that night we talked about it.”
“Sometimes the answer’s that simple-talking it out. It gets the poison out of your system so that it can’t stay and fester.”
The room was a sea in which animate islands floated, each of them absorbed in its own storms and troubles. He turned and a trick of acoustics carried to his ears a soft exchange between Anatol and Baron Ivanov; Anatol was saying, “… unprecedented to say the very least. We are not a society that is accustomed to having its opposing views aired in public forums.”
“It will be an interesting experiment,” the little Baron answered, “to find out whether men of our persuasion can live and work in the same halls with men like Oleg. I am rather eager to see what comes of it.”
Anatol grumbled a reply. Irina was laughing very softly in her throat. “I’ve made a fine discovery,” she whispered. “My awesome brilliant father is in fact an old grouch.”
He was able to laugh and the ability pleased him more than the amusement itself. He began to steer her toward the door but they’d only crossed half the room when Oleg intercepted them. “A word with you?” Oleg gave Irina his brusque nod of apology. “Only for a moment.”
Oleg took him away into the corner and spoke as conspiratorially as a pimp in a third-class hotel. “The moment of truth is upon us.”
Alex had to fight down the impulse to laugh.
Oleg kneaded the pipe in his fingers; the veins stood out along the backs of his blunt square hands. “It has been torture for me these past weeks-not knowing whether I had done the right thing. You have kept faith with Vlasov. I owe you my apologies and my deepest thanks. His safety was my responsibility-it would have been my fault, my guilt if he had been exposed.”
“I didn’t do it for you.” He was harsh because he didn’t want Oleg misplacing his loyalty.
“I realize that, Alex. Quite fully. Nevertheless I must apologize again for my lack of faith in your discretion and your talent. Indeed I might say your genius. I’m quite prepared now to believe that neither Vassily Devenko nor any other man alive could have brought us this far, let alone made success possible. The debt we all owe you is incalculable.”
“We’d better wait and see how it turns out before we start parceling out the glory, Oleg.”
“I have no more doubts of our success. None at all.”
He wondered what it was that had brought the always skeptical Oleg around to such an extreme position of faith. Perhaps it was the panic of these last hours: needing an anchor Oleg had pounced on Belief and was clinging to it with the grip of hysteria.
Alex said, “In any case we’ll know soon enough, won’t we,” and managed to break away.
He reached Irina at the door; Felix was there, sparkling. “Just one thing before I let you both go.” He hesitated and his glance whipped from Alex’s face to Irina’s and back. Then with a sudden shy tip of his head: “Alex, I’d very much like to be your best man.”
Over the top of Felix’s head his eyes met Irina’s; they had gone very wide and he thought she wasn’t breathing. She gave him no helpful signals. In the end he gripped Felix’s shoulder.
“Done.”
The bedroom was tiny, spartan, stark: a flying officer’s cell, the place where a knight hung his armor and broadsword between jousts. Bare wooden walls and a single shelf nailed along one wall; a steel-frame cot with a green wool blanket; a row of wooden pegs for hanging clothes; a single lamp suspended from the ceiling with a conical metal shade.