"Linchpin," Priabin echoed dubiously. "The launch of the laser battle station?"
"Yes. Just that." His face was close to Priabin s eyes. Priabin could smell the meat from the sandwiches on his breath, scent the last whiff of the boy's heavy cologne. "I said nothing else — understand? Nothing." He moved away, then drawled affectedly and without real conviction: "I can go now?"
"Yes."
Rodin nodded, placed his cap on his pale hair, clicked his boot heels in an ironic gesture, and left the room. Priabin heard him whistling in the outer office. The noise faded in the corridor.
Why had he been threatened? Rodin had forgotten everything else, even his petty revenge, because of that one word, his slip of the tongue. Lightning? Rodin had quite evidently and deliberately threatened him, told him to forget the slip.
Lightning? What the devil was Lightning?
It was important, and it was a secret…
He was startled by the opening of the door, having failed to register the polite knock. Viktor Zhikin, his second-in-command, appeared relieved.
Tm glad you — dropped the matter," he said at once.
"What? Oh." Priabin attempted a broad, dismissive smile. "Why try to buck the system, Viktor? who wants the heartache, mm?"
Zhikin moved his hand almost as if to pat Priabin s shoulder. Priabin grinned unconvincingly. His awareness returned to—
— Lightning. Not Linchpin, as the first of the laser weapons was code-named. Lightning.
"What?" he mumbled, aware that Zhikin was speaking once more.
"Sorry — are we going to pull Kedrov and the cycle-shop owner in for questioning? The surveillance teams want to know. You said tonight." Zhikin's voice was firm, even parental. It reminded Priabin of his responsibilities. It reminded him, too, that the spy was perhaps the key to his own future, now that he had made an enemy of Rodin, even of the boy's father. "They want to know if they should go in and try to find the transmitter. It doesn't look as if Kedrov is going to go back there since he was spooked by those clods following him." Zhikin was angry, self-critical.
"Not your fault, Viktor — they should never have been spotted by an amateur like him. Idiots." He rubbed his chin.
"Where's the dog?"
"What? Oh, Grechkova's taken him for his walk. Now, what do we do about Kedrov?"
"Where is he?"
"Still in his flat.'
"And Orlov?"
"In bed above the shop."
Priabin looked at his watch. Midnight. Rodin had been there since early evening. He wouldn't have liked that, he'd want some revenge for the — the inconvenience he'd been put to. Yes, it would be better to have the agent and his transmitter man in the bag before the shit hit the fan.
Priabin nodded. "OK. It's a bit late in the day to let him go on running around. Time to chop off that particular chicken's head. We'll go in at dawn — warn the teams. You and I will supervise Orlov's arrest. I want that transmitter, and no cock-ups."
Zhikin smiled. "Great," he said. "Fine — sir."
"Sure."
Threat, insolence, superiority, arrogance, contempt — he'd seen all those on Rodin's face. And fear, too, together with concern, self-accusation, anxiety — and a clear sense of danger.
Lightning. It meant something, something vitally important concerning the laser weapon. Lightning.
What the hell did it mean?
Snow was blowing across the tinted green windows, making their color colder, almost repellent. The illuminated spike of the Washington Monument looked even more than ever like some spacecraft waiting to be launched. Anders felt uncomfortable in the Oval Office. He wanted to loosen his tie, relax his sitting posture. It wasn't awe, or even tension. It was the weight of events.
New Year's, he thought. Just New Year's — and now this. He looked down at the sheet covered with his own handwriting. Come for me at once, before they find me. I must go into hiding, the agreed rendezvous. Hurryy come immediately.
Kedrov's panic button, his cry for help. He was terrified. Of something he referred to as Lightning, though he didn't explain. 1 know about Lightning, and they know I know. Hurry. The desperation was clearly there. Kedrov had gone into the undergrowth. Gant and his people were stalled at Nellis in Nevada. It was coming unglued, the whole operation.
Kedrov might even have been picked up by now
Because of the tension, Anders felt cut off from the outside. Langley, across the Potomac, was separated from him by a vast gulf. He was there to report, at the director's insistence, as mission officer for Winter Hawk. But there was nothing to report. The Galaxy transport aircraft was still sitting in its hangar at Nellis AFB in Nevada, two hours after the mission was activated. Three hours now. Winter Hawk was stalled.
As if rebuffing the tension, the defeat in the room's air, Calvin was rehearsing old speeches, old hopes.
"We fell for it — we were suckered into this treaty, Dick. We thought they were so frightened they had to agree — they just wanted to divert some defense spending. Years ahead of us all the time, and overjoyed when we offered to save them billions of rubles so they could spend it on their own SDI! We threw in Talon Gold, our AS AT program, all in good faith, hoping to encourage them to do the same, went ahead with the surveillance satellite program instead — and all the time they had their own laser weapon program going. By God — I won't be forgiven for this — none of us will," he added darkly, turning to face the others.
Gunther looked down, as did the director, seated next to Anders. The silence loomed, waiting to be filled. Calvin was staring at him, accusingly, it seemed to Anders.
"And now you tell me our last chance is on hold," he snapped.
Anders glanced at the row of television screens along one wall. The mission room at Langley appeared on four of them in glaring color, from different angles. The scene appeared slow, underwater, almost inactive.
"Mr. President, the repairs they have to effect to one of the two gunships can't be done while they're in the air."
"How long, Mr. Anders, how long?"
"They can't give me a closer estimate than — maybe tonight."
"Maybe tonight?"
"I'm sorry, Mr.—"
"That isn't good enough, Anders, and you know it." Calvin turned his accusing gaze on the director. "Bill, you pleaded with me to initiate this operation. Forty-eight hours, maximum, that's what you said. They haven't taken off from Nellis yet, and three of your forty-eight have already disappeared."
The director shifted awkwardly on his chair like a chastened schoolboy.
Calvin sat at his desk, almost an interloper masquerading as President. His eyes looked lost and afraid.
"There's nothing I can say, Mr. President," the director offered apologetically. There was only disappointment in his voice, and an overwhelming sense of past events.
"What's the extent of the damage to the transport helicopter?" Dick Gunther asked.
"It's in the rotor head," Anders replied. "And in the hydraulic control jacks below the rotor head" Calvin appeared impatient with detail, as if he suspected lies or excuses. "They thought they had time to work on it — they're flat out now, Mr. President," he said mollifyingly. "It's a long and difficult job. They can't adapt U.S. parts to fit, not easily—"
"The hell with it, Mr. Anders," Calvin snapped. "Just chalk it up as another Company mistake — in your catalog of errors, Bill. You advised me to leave this guy in place in Baikonur until the last moment, you insisted the crews weren't ready to undertake the mission, that more weeks of training were required — and all that it's gotten us is nowhere. We've lost the game, Bill. You've fumbled the pass."