Ryder took another sip of the thin, bitter coffee to clear his head and glanced again at the subject file. He had almost memorized the data. The case was a windfall, a miracle of good luck — but it promised to be tough going, perhaps the most important and difficult interrogation in which he had ever been involved. The subject was potentially very lucrative, but there would be layers of defenses. And time was critical. The Soviets were collapsing, and Ryder had just learned that morning, at the prebreakfast U.S. staff meeting, that the Seventh Cavalry, who were out in the thick of things beyond the Urals, were going to be committed early. None of the officers of the Tenth Cavalry, all military intelligence specialists, had been happy to hear that. Men had mumbled through their hangovers, still wearing the smell of women with whom they were not supposed to be fraternizing. The speedup in events meant that carefully plotted work schedules had to be discarded and that the officers, got up in a poor imitation of businessman's dress, would have to wake up properly and scramble to get some results with their well-meaning but hopelessly bureaucratic Soviet counterparts.
Ryder knew he had been lucky in at least one regard. Nick Savitsky, his counterpart interrogator, seemed to be completely open, and he was relatively flexible for a Soviet, anxious to learn about the American methods. Of course, much of that was simply the desire to gain information for the KGB files — but Ryder was doing the same for the U.S. It was the nature of the business.
Ryder was worried about Savitsky today, however. The subject they were going to work on had the potential of opening up the enemy's entire infrastructure. But you had to go delicately, patiently. Savitsky, like the other Soviets Ryder had encountered, did not always seem to understand that. They were given to excesses that sometimes ruined a subject's ability to respond. A Soviet interrogation, no matter how sophisticated, always had an air of violence about it, and there was a tendency to mishandle a subject severely, without really thinking through the consequences. He had already seen Savitsky in one fit of vengeful fury.
The door opened, and Savitsky came in, smiling, ill-shaven.
"Good morning, Jeff," he said, pronouncing the name as "Cheff." He dropped into a chair just opposite Ryder. "And how are things?"
Usually, the two men worked in English, which Savitsky spoke reasonably well. For highly technical exchanges, they switched to Japanese, but Savitsky was less comfortable in that language than was Ryder.
"Horrasho," Ryder replied, using one of his half-dozen words of Russian. He had been told that the word meant "very good." It was a very popular word with the officers of the Tenth Cavalry, who liked to pronounce it "whore-show," and regularly applied it to the nightly follies in the hotel bar.
"Today will be a big day," Savitsky said, helping himself to the coffee, "an important day." Ryder had learned that the coffee was put there each morning especially for him, and its presence was a treat for Savitsky, who never made a move toward the interrogation chamber until they had finished each last sip. Ryder had also noted that Savitsky would quietly wrap the used grounds in newspaper and slip them into his briefcase.
Ryder watched for a moment as the Russian thickened his coffee with teaspoon after teaspoon of sugar.
"Nick," he said, trying to sound nonchalant, "I had an idea last night about how to approach this case. I think I've got an angle—"
"Don't worry, don't worry," Savitsky interrupted. "Today — everything is the Russian way. I will show you something. A thing you have not seen." Savitsky smiled, either at the thought of the interrogation or at the piercing warmth of the coffee. "You will like it, I know." The Russian cradled his chipped cup in red hands, and nodded his head happily. "You must trust me."
Oh, shit, Ryder thought.
But Nick was in high spirits. "I have learned so much from you, my friend. You Americans… you Americans… always with such technology perfection. But today, I am showing you something splendid. Something I know you have not seen." The Russian laughed slightly into the steam from his cup. "All of your American comrades will have a great interest."
Ryder let it go for the moment. He did not want to do anything to spoil the cooperation between the two of them. But neither did he wish to waste a subject of such incredible possibilities. He decided to wait, at least until things threatened to get out of hand. If nothing else, he was anxious just to see the subject. Until now, the Soviets had played this one close to the chest.
Nick drained the last of his coffee, his facial expression moving from near ecstasy to regret.
"Everything is very good," he told Ryder. "Now we will go to work."
Ryder followed the Soviet through the cramped maze of hallways and security barriers that was slowly becoming familiar. Corridors as decayed and dank as an inner-city school after hours, stinking of disinfectant and age. Standard locking systems, not all of which worked the first time Savitsky tried them. Sometimes the vault doors were simply propped open, or minded by an inside guard. Framed photographs on the walls showed mostly unimportant men, since the years of infighting had stripped the walls of the readily recognizable faces. Bad air, poor light. An old woman mopping the floor with formidable slowness.
The last security door slammed shut behind the two men.
They followed a short hallway that was cluttered with electronics in various stages of disassembly, then turned into a small room that resembled the inside of a recording studio's control booth. The walls and counters were covered with racks of artificial-intelligence terminals, direct-function computers, environmental controls, recording and auto-translating devices — the tools of the contemporary interrogator's trade. Only these were all a bit nicked or chipped. There was a smell of old burned-out wires, and not all of the monitor lights worked. Much of the equipment was a generation out of date, while the most modem gear was of European or even U.S. manufacture. The Soviets had specialized in the areas of electronic translation, inferential patterning, and specialized software, and one of Ryder's superiors had compared them to brilliant tacticians who were forced to rely on foreign weaponry.
A long glass window covered most of one wall. To anyone out in the interrogation chamber, the window appeared to be a mirror, but from Ryder's position in the musty booth he could look out on the shadowy forms of the "application room." The design was a holdover from the old days, and the room remained so dark that he could not yet see the subject. He waited impatiently for Savitsky to turn up the lighting.
"The subject is already wired into our system," Savitsky said, as he touched over the control panel in the bad light. "We'll double-check, as you Americans like to say. But you will see. Everything is fine. Today, everyone is anxious to see how our performance will be." Savitsky turned his shadowy face toward Ryder. "Today, for the first time, I have received a direct call from the Kremlin. There is very much interest."
"I hope they're not too impatient," Ryder said. "This could take time."
Savitsky laughed slightly. It was a friendly laugh, that of a confident man. "But that is the surprise," he said. "Soon you will see. A very big surprise for our American friends."
Ryder did not know how to respond. This was so important. If any sort of foolishness were allowed to destroy the utility of the subject, an enormous opportunity would go to waste.
Turn up the damned lights, Ryder thought. Let me see. As if responding to Ryder's thoughts, Savitsky flipped a row of switches. Beyond the big window, spotlights came up to scour an electronic operating room with a sterile white glare. Despite the complicated disorder of the interrogation chamber, with its cascades of wires that connected one clutter of electronics to the next, Ryder focused immediately on the subject.