“What has this to do with me?”
“Comrade General, your caution is admirable but misplaced. There is a time to speak with honesty and force. You are still young, and so you still watch your step so that you will not muddy your boots in the thaw. But I do not care about those things anymore.” Again, the old man paused. A smile creased the pale, translucent features. “I am dying.”
“Comrade—”
“What did you think of this plan, this Shattered Eye? Eh? Do you understand the implications of it?”
Garishenko nodded but did not speak. Even the nod was a betrayal of himself, but the old man had somehow extracted the truth from him.
“It is a dance of death,” Belushka said. “We will trick the Americans to the point of war while we steal Western Europe from them, and then expect them, in their good sense, to step back from the brink. What utter madness.”
“It is not for me to say,” Garishenko said.
“Not for you? Are you a soldier? Look around you. Do you wish to see Moscow obliterated, to see the world in ruins because we have deluded ourselves?”
“I am a soldier,” Garishenko repeated. “I follow my orders.”
“You protested the game because it was rigged against you. I can tell you, the computer in Washington has been rigged as well. We have unleashed terrorists on both sides of the world and they are war dogs; they cannot be controlled. What if the Americans will not lose France or Western Europe? Then can we call the terrorists back? Can we say, ‘Only this much and no more’? Madness. What was the final order you gave Naya in the war game?”
“I can’t—”
“Yes. You must. The final response.”
Garishenko stared at the old man, who fixed him with watery eyes. The old man placed his white, skeletal hand on his sleeve. “What was the final response?”
“A nuclear attack.”
“Yes. Against Russia.”
“Yes.”
“And what did Naya do with your entry?”
“It was rejected.”
“Yes,” the old man said. “Not valid.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think it was not valid?”
“No.”
“Gogol fixed the game. He has deluded everyone. Even the first secretary. They think there will be no war.”
“But you think there will be war.”
“I don’t want to risk it. Not for this. In twenty years we will have all of Europe in our orbit. The West declines. There is industry in Europe but they have no oil or gas. We have the resources and we will draw them to us. But this stroke, this sudden rash act to compress the process of twenty years into a single day — madness.”
“But what can you do?”
“Call it down.”
“What?”
“Call it down. Gogol said the Americans have tapped into the computer at the War College. Then let us send them a message.”
Garishenko stared at him.
“You see.”
And Belushka pulled out the plastic-covered plan of the Shattered Eye that Garishenko had seen at the secret meeting three days ago.
“How did you obtain that?”
“Everything can be obtained,” Belushka said. “What I need to obtain now is access to Naya.”
“But you can’t enter the building, you—”
“How have the Americans tapped the computer?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can they do it through ordinary phone lines?”
“Yes. It’s possible. If they know the access.”
“Then what is the access?” Belushka said.
“If I give you my code, you—”
“No. Not your code, Comrade General.” The old man smiled, the lips pulled back from the teeth, and the smile was not unpleasant.
“Who?”
“Comrade General Warnov, I think. Yes. Warnov is a posturing fool. He has access to the computer but he cannot use it because he does not understand the computer. He will not even be able to explain how the plan got into the computer.”
“Comrade Belushka, I don’t—”
“Of course you do.” The voice was mild. “You know all about General Warnov. You know everything about Naya.”
“General—”
“In ten minutes you will be in a classroom instructing twenty-one senior-grade field officers. You will be with them for three hours. They will all testify to that. For those three hours, General Warnov will be with a whore I have provided him at his dacha outside the capital.” Belushka smiled. “In those three hours, someone will enter Naya and outline the plan of the Shattered Eye.”
“But, Comrade, what if it doesn’t work? What if the Americans do not—”
“Do not what? Every American base has been on alert for more than a month. They are constantly monitoring Naya. They have seen the war game and they have concluded that we are about to attack Western Europe. Why would they not monitor the plan for the Shattered Eye?”
“This is almost an act of betrayal to…”
“To what? To Russia? What is the real betrayal? Those who have deluded the first secretary into thinking the Americans will not go to war over this? Or you? You have shown them the truth and they choose not to believe it. What will be the point of being vindicated when Russia is destroyed and the world is in flames? I am going to die very soon; I do not want Russia to die.”
“I must have time to think,” Garishenko said, staring at the corpselike face.
“No. There is no time. Not for you or me or for Russia. You know that. To delay means they will have succeeded. And then, the day after tomorrow or the next day, when we are committed to war, then you will say, ‘I had the time.’”
“But you could obtain the access.”
“Yes. In a week. Perhaps in five days. But I do not have time either.”
The car stopped. They were at a curb next to the old cemetery a block south of the college. The trees in the cemetery were full of leaves. A warm, humid breeze blew gently across the grounds.
Garishenko sat for a moment and stared at the cemetery. He smelled the sweet cologne, smelled the corruption. He sat and thought, in silence, as he watched the trees rustle in the gentle wind.
32
Herbert Quizon sat at the wooden table in the little kitchen of his apartment on the boulevard Richard-Lenoir and ate his breakfast. He always ate the croissants dry, now and then dipping a flaky piece into his steaming cup of café au lait. Everything about the breakfast had rituals connected to it: He made the coffee in the same way, he steamed the cream at the same time, he purchased his croissants the night before from the same pâtisserie, he read yesterday afternoon’s copy of Le Monde. Herbert Quizon was a man of habits carefully acquired, carefully adhered to.
The night before, Simeon had given him an envelope full of colorful franc notes. It was for the information about Devereaux. He wondered what would happen to Devereaux now.
The death of Manning had shocked him. He had passed along the information about Manning’s possible dereliction in his assignment simply because Simeon had expressed such a strong interest in Madame Clermont and her workings inside the government. It was impossible to understand all the nuances of French politics, even for one who had spent most of his adult life in the capital city; it was utterly impossible to begin to understand the secret motives of the agents of the Deuxième Bureau. But when he had read of Manning’s death in Le Monde, he knew that Simeon had killed him. The shock had worn off, of course; death was an old friend to the aged. He had genuinely liked Manning, even if Manning, like so many other young men, made himself a bit of a fool over a woman. It was too bad about Manning.
Still, one made compromises in life.
He tasted the last of the croissant and wondered if he should eat another. The companion croissant sat under the glass bell that served as a pastry freshener on the counter. He thought about the second croissant with the satisfied idleness of a man of leisure who can afford his leisure. Simeon’s arrangement had been a good one, and except for the episode with Manning, nothing bad had come of it. He had certainly not betrayed his country, in any case.