"No. We have her picture," said the young general. The man in charge of Russia's execution efforts was simply named Ivan. His last name was Ivanovich. He was really a staff officer and explained at the outset that he had never actually killed anyone. Perhaps, suggested Colonel Ivan Ivanovich, Field Marshal Zemyatin would prefer one more skilled in the art of killing. The young paper shuffler had a face clean as a washtub, and lips like rosebuds.
What were they making policemen of nowadays? wondered Zemyatin. Still, he had to have some intelligence to have risen so far.
"No, no," said Zemyatin. "You're all the same. What we are going to do, Ivan, is let this American show us how to kill him. Until then, he is perfect."
This time there was no reference to old theories being outmoded. The first random shot into the crowd had settled that. It had unsettled the most settled bureaucracy in the Kremlin. Now he might be able to get some work out of these incompetents.
There had been no reports of weapons testing in the last two days. This lull had given Russia time to build more raw-button missiles. Meanwhile, a man and a woman had to be found somewhere in the world, and if the KGB did one thing well, it was keeping track of the world. There was more useless information coming into Moscow than even the computers stolen from the Americans could handle. But on this day, the entire network shifted to searching for three things. A man. A woman. And a weapon.
Alexei Zemyatin felt the tingle of war come just a touch closer that cold night. The Americans had sent their best to protect the woman in charge of the experiment. Therefore, there wasn't even the slightest doubt that they were behind this weapon as a weapon.
If they had been honest, a fact Zemyatin would never have believed too readily, why steal the woman back? And why use a heretofore secret force? One only exposed a secret to protect a geater one. It meant war. And yet, the millions who would die in this one made Alexei Zemyatin push the waiting time to the limit. They would look for things. Watch America closely. Maybe the experiments would stop. Maybe there was a flaw in the weapon. Maybe it did not work in certain situations.
Russia would continue to build its raw-button missiles.
The day of war would remain the same. He had designated it to make America prove to him that they were not preparing their own final solution to communism. And the only way it could be proven now was for his security system to find the three things he had requested of them.
Zemyatin walked with just a single bodyguard that night through the streets of Moscow, hearing drunks sing sad songs and watching an occasional dark car head busily out of the city toward the better apartments, He breathed deeply. The air was good. He even wondered, if they did get a good first launch, how much-if any-of this would be left.
He also wondered what the Americans thought they would win by such a conquest. Stupidity in an enemy bothered Zemyatin. There was still time for him to stop the crude nuclear assault system which continued to add more sites. Still time. He did not know that even now an American was going to erode the very mildest hope of peace, because he had something more important to think about than the survival of the human race. His career was in jeopardy.
Chapter 10
Reemer Bolt hadn't heard from Kathy since immediately after the test. It did not matter. The system had cost CC of Massachusetts more than the magic fifty million dollars. The figure was magic because now the corporation could not, under any circumstances, fail to push forward without being destroyed. In a way this financial disaster had put Reemer Bolt in the driver's seat, and he realized there was only one last bug to work out. One little obstacle that had nothing to do with the machine itself.
"Praise the Lord," said the chairman of the board. "It does work, then?"
The board was meeting in the director's room, a comfortable spacious room with wood floors, open windows, and a sense of an exiting tomorrow in it. It was used for board meetings and for presenting possible customers CC's solutions to their chemical problems.
"We can direct the ozone opening across an entire ocean for a controlled period," said Bolt. "Gentlemen, we have put a window into the ozone and we control the sash cords. What we can deliver is no less than the most powerful force in our universe."
Bolt stood up when he said this. He paused. There were smiles on the faces of the board of directors. Reemer Bolt had dreamed of a day like this. And now it was happening. Men with the money giving him approval. Actually, if he had told them that everything was still not a disaster, they would have been pleased. But this had replaced their fear with greed. He smiled back.
There was applause. Light at first, then hearty. Reemer Bolt knew how to work an audience.
"And we have the patent." More applause.
"And we submitted this patent in such a way that no one will know exactly what we have until we make our announcement."
More applause.
"Gentlemen. You have gambled and you have won." Applause.
"You have bet on tomorrow, and that was yesterday. You own today. The sunlight and all."
There were a few technical questions which Bolt delayed answering "until Dr. O'Donnell returns."
"This is CC of M's most important project," said one of the directors. "This is the whole story now, so to speak. Why isn't Dr. O'Donnell here?"
"She has phoned and told us she is taking what I believe is a well-deserved rest."
More applause. Even for this. Reemer Bolt owned these men. The phone call was not so much a request for a vacation as a hurried message from a phone booth, saying she would get back to him soon and not to do anything without her. And then: "He's coming back now. I have to hang up."
"Him? Who's him? A he?"
"Not like you, darling," Kathy had said, blowing a kiss through the phone and hanging up. So his orders had been to do nothing. But he knew what that was about. She wanted to take the big share of the credit for the device's success. If there was one thing Reemer Bolt prided himself on, it was his knowledge of women. After all, he had been married many times.
So he told the board that Dr. O'Donnell had done well within her limited area, and that her presence was not necessary for pushing on the success of CC of M's sun access device.
"I don't know if I like the name 'sun access,' " said one of the directors. "Everybody has access to the sun. We've got to sell something exclusive."
"Good point, sir. 'Sun access' is just a working name," said Bolt.
"I think 'Mildred' might not be a bad working name," said the director. He was a stuffy sort, quite erect, who smoked long cigarettes neatly and then tortured the cinder into submission.
"Why 'Mildred'?" asked another director.
"My mother's name," he said.
"Perhaps something more sellable," said the other director.
"Just a working name. I like it."
"Why don't we let Mr. Bolt continue? He's brought us this far."
More applause. Reemer Bolt had dreamed of a day like this.
"Where to now, Reemer?" said the chairman of the board. He did not smoke. He did not drink the water set in front of him, and his applause was the weakest. He had a face with all the human warmth of cold cooking fat. "Toward making you all the richest men in the world." Applause.
"Good. What's your direction?"
"Multifaced, yet with a strong directional thrust, only when we devise the maximum benefit avenue for us to drive down. In other words, we have so many damned streets to take, we want to make sure we have the best one."
"Sounds good, Mr. Bolt. Which streets are you considdering?"
"I don't want to lock us in right now. I think the worst thing we can do is go running off in a direction just to run. I don't want to look back at these days and think we had the power of the unfiltered sun in our hands and then we let it get away because we didn't think."