“That’s my business,” she said.
“I’m making it mine,” McDermott snapped. “It’s Project JOVE business, you know.”
Her back stiffened. “You told me to do what I could to make certain he stays at the house up there without making any more trouble. So I’m doing what I can.”
McDermott drummed his fingers on the report resting on his desktop. “Does that include mailing letters overseas for him?”
She hesitated for just a fraction of a second. “What do you mean?”
“Somehow, Stoner got a letter out. To Russia, no less. To some Russian linguist, according to Washington.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Jo said.
“You’re the only one who could have smuggled a letter out for him.”
She shook her head stubbornly. “I didn’t mail any letters to Russia for him or anyone else. I wouldn’t do that.”
“You’re certain?”
“How does Washington know he sent a letter to this Russian?”
McDermott chuckled. “They don’t tell me where their information comes from. I imagine we have spies in the Kremlin, just as they have spies in Washington.”
“What’s in the letter?”
“Enough to put Stoner into a federal prison for a long, long time.” McDermott realized that it was true, as he spoke the words. His heart lightened. With Stoner out of the way…
“You wouldn’t do that!” she said.
He shrugged. “It’s not up to me. It’s a Navy problem.”
“But…you said you need him for the project.”
Smiling, McDermott said, “I imagine we can get along without him now. He’s been more trouble than he’s worth, actually.”
“No. You can’t.”
Her voice was almost pleading. McDermott realized that she was suddenly tense, leaning forward in the chair, her face tight with concern.
“Stoner did it to himself,” he said, as he felt his blood stirring, the heat starting to build inside him.
“He wouldn’t do anything wrong,” she was saying. “This must be some kind of misunderstanding…”
But McDermott was barely listening. He heard the tone of her voice, saw the anxiety in her eyes, and realized with an inward shock of discovery that he wanted her for himself. Very much. For himself and no one else.
“There must be something you can do!” Jo begged.
He still had the broken stem of his pipe in his hand. Dropping it into the ashtray, he took another pipe and wordlessly began to fill it, working methodically, silently, watching her watching him, waiting for her to break the stretching silence.
“Couldn’t you…do something? Help him?”
“He’s broken the security laws,” McDermott said slowly. “He signed a security agreement and then dashed off a letter to Soviet Russia.”
“Maybe it’s an old letter. Maybe he wrote it before he signed the agreement.”
McDermott tamped the tobacco down and put the pipe in his mouth. “It’s still a federal crime.”
Jo glanced around the room, as if looking for help. “There must be something you can do.”
Trembling inside, McDermott heard himself tell her, “I suppose I could tell the Navy that he’s too valuable to the project to be sent to jail.”
Jo nodded eagerly.
“But why should I? Why should I risk the project’s chance of success for him? What’s in it for me?”
For several moments she said nothing. McDermott could hear his pulse pounding in his ears.
Finally he could stand it no longer. “If I…saved his neck, what would you do?”
Understanding dawned in her eyes. She sat up straighter in the chair. “What would I do?”
“For me.”
She almost smiled. “What would you want me to do?”
Taking the pipe out of his mouth, still unlit, McDermott said shakily, “Stop seeing him. Spend your time with me instead.”
She nodded slowly. “And what do I get out of that?”
He felt confused. “What do you mean…?”
“I want a letter of recommendation from you, to NASA. A letter recommending me for a position in the astronaut training corps.”
“You want…”
“I’ll give you what you want, if you give me what I want.”
“And Stoner?”
“He stays with the project. I’ll stop seeing him. You write the letter.”
Swallowing hard, McDermott answered, “When…when the project is finished. I’ll write the letter then. We have a lot of work ahead of us, you know.”
“You could still send the letter off to NASA. Now. I’ll stay with the project until it’s finished.”
His head was throbbing. “It’s not that simple, young lady. If you expect me to…”
“I’ll do what you want,” Jo said. “But first you write that letter.”
“I…we’ll see about that. I have to think about this.”
Jo got up from her chair and clamped the books under her arm, against her hip. “Okay, you see about it. When you give me the letter and guarantee that Dr. Stoner will stay with the project, I’ll live up to my end of the deal.”
She went to the door, turned back to him. “Uh, just so we understand each other…I’m not into bondage or S&M, but anything else you want I can give you.”
McDermott sat in a hot sweat as she left his office and shut the door firmly behind her.
Markov sat like a guilty schoolboy in the anteroom, waiting, waiting endlessly. Academician Bulacheff’s secretary, a portly woman of fifty or more, glared at him now and then. Men shuttled in and out of the academician’s office. But no one spoke to Markov.
Outside it was snowing. Markov watched the white flurries paste themselves against the windowpanes. Little by little, Moscow disappeared from sight beneath the snow-filled gusts. Even the spires and walls of the Kremlin became indistinct blurs.
A real blizzard, Markov told himself. It will be a long walk home.
Finally, when he had nearly hypnotized himself into a snow-induced slumber, the secretary’s nasal voice rasped, “Kirill Vasilovsk Markov?”
He snapped to full alertness. There was no one else in the anteroom, but still she made a question of his name.
“Yes, that’s me,” he said.
“Academician Bulacheff will see you now.”
Markov got to his feet, a trifle unsteadily, and walked to the plain wooden door of the academician’s office.
Bulacheff is the key man, he heard his wife’s voice warning him. He is the one you must satisfy. If you can convince him that the signals are not a language, then all may be well. But if he is dissatisfied with your work…. Maria had let the sentence dangle, like a noose over Markov’s head.
Bulacheff’s office was neither spacious nor imposing, but a cheerful gleaming samovar chugged away in one corner of the neat little room. And the academician came up from behind his desk and greeted Markov warmly.
“Kirill Vasilovsk! It was good of you to come in person. I hope you are not caught by the snow on your way home.”
Markov smiled and nodded and mumbled polite inanities, thinking, I had to come in person, you summoned me. And how can I avoid being caught in the snow, unless we stay here until spring?
“I have read your report,” the academician said, returning to his desk. “Most interesting. Most interesting.”
He winked at Markov, then reached down to the bottom drawer of his desk and produced a bottle of vodka and two glasses.
“It’s not iced,” he said apologetically.
Markov grinned at the old man. “Not to worry. I am already chilled quite thoroughly.”
Bulacheff gestured his guest to the worn leather sofa at the side of the room. Portraits of Mendeléev, Lobachevski, Oparin and Kapitza hung in gilt above the sofa. The inevitable portrait of Lenin was over the academician’s desk. But no contemporary politicians, Markov noted.