It'sabout rescue, Kelly told himself. What had started the whole adventure was saving Pam, and the fact of her death was his fault. Then he had killed, to get even, telling himself it was for her memory and for his love, but was that really true? What goods things came from death? He'd tortured a man, and now he had to admit to himself that he'd taken satisfaction for Billy's pain. If Sandy had learned that, then what? What would she think of him? It was suddenly important to consider what she thought about him. She who worked so hard to save that girl, who nurtured and protected, following through on his more simple act of rescue, what would she think of someone who'd torn Billy's body apart one??ll at a time? He could not, after all, stop all the evil in the world. He could not win the war to which he was now returning, and as skilled as this team of Recon Marines was, they would not win the war either. They were going for something else. Their purpose was rescue, for while there could be little real satisfaction in the taking of life, saving life was ever something to recall with the deepest pride. That was his mission now, and must be his mission on returning. There were four other girls in the control of the ring. He'd get them clear, somehow... and maybe he could somehow let the cops know what Henry was up to, and then they could deal with him. Somehow. How exactly he wasn't sure. But at least then he could do something that memory would not try to wash away.
And all he had to do was survive this mission. Kelly grunted to himself. No big deal, right?
Toughguy, he told himself with bravado that rang false even within the confines of his own skull. Ican do this. I've done it before. Strange, he thought, how the mind doesn't always remember the scary parts until it was too late. Maybe it was proximity. Maybe it was easier to consider dangers that were half a world away, but then when you started getting closer, things changed...
'Toughest part, Mr Clark,' Irvin said loudly, sitting down beside him after doing his hundred push-ups.
'Ain't it the truth?' Kelly half-shouted back.
'Something you oughta remember, squid - you got inside and took me out that night, right?' Irvin grinned. 'And I'm pretty damned good.'
'They ought not to be all that alert, their home turf an' all,' Kelly observed after a moment.
'Probably not, anyway, not as alert as we were that night. Hell, we knew you were coming in. You kinda expect home troops, like, go home to the ol' lady every night, thinking about havin' a piece after dinner. Not like us, man.'
'Not many like us,' Kelly agreed. He grinned. 'Not many dumb as we are.'
Irvin slapped him on the shoulder. 'You got that right, Clark.' The master gunnery sergeant moved off to encourage the next man, which was his way of dealing with it.
Thanks, Guns, Kelly thought, leaning back and forcing himself back into sleep.
Alberto's was a place waiting to be fully discovered. A small and rather typical mom-and-pop Italian place where the veal was especially good. In fact, everything was good, and the couple who ran it waited patiently for the Post's food critic to wander in, bringing prosperity with him. Until then they subsisted on the college crowd from nearby Georgetown University and a healthy local trade of neighborhood diners without which no restaurant could really survive. The only disappointing note was the music, schmaltzy tapes of Italian opera that oozed out of substandard speakers. The mom and pop in question would have to work on that, he thought.
Henderson found a booth in the back. The waiter, probably an illegal Mexican who comically tried to mask his accent as Italian, lit the candle on the table with a match and went off for the gin-and-tonic the new customer wanted.
Marvin arrived a few minutes later, dressed casually and carrying the evening paper, which he set on the table. He was of Henderson's age, totally nondescript, not tall or short, portly or thin, his hair a neutral brown and of medium length, wearing glasses that might or might not have held prescription lenses. He wore a blue short-sleeve shirt without a tie, and looked like just another local resident who didn't feel like doing his own dinner tonight.
'The Senators lost again,' he said when the waiter arrived with Henderson's drink. 'The house red for me,' Marvin told the Mexican.
'Si,' the waiter said and moved off.
Marvin had to be an illegal, Peter thought, appraising the man. As a staffer for a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, Henderson had been briefed in by serious members of the FBI's Intelligence Division. 'Legal' KGB officers had diplomatic covers, and if caught could only be PNG'd - declared persona non grata - and sent home. So they were secure from serious mishandling on the part of the American government, which was the good news; the bad news was that they were also more easily tracked, since their residences and automobiles were known. Illegals were just that, Soviet intelligence officers who came into the country with false papers and who if caught would end up in federal prison until the next exchange, which could take years. Those facts explained Marvin's superb English. Any mistake he made would have serious consequences. That made his relaxed demeanor all the more remarkable.
'Baseball fan, eh?'
'I learned the game long ago. I was a pretty good shortstop, but I never learned to hit a curve ball.' The man grinned. Henderson smiled back. He'd seen satellite imagery of the very place where Marvin had learned his trade, that interesting little city northwest of Moscow.
'How will it work?'
'I like that. Good, Let's get down to business. We won't be doing this very often. You know why.'
Another smile. 'Yeah, they say that winters at Leavenworth are a motherfucker.'
'Not a laughing matter, Peter,' the KGB officer said. 'This is a very serious business.' Please, not another bloody cowboy, Marvin thought to himself.
'I know. Sorry,' Henderson apologized. 'I'm new to this.'
'First of all, we need to set up a way of contacting me. Your apartment has curtains on the front windows. When they are all the way open, or all the way closed, there is nothing to concern us. When there is, leave them halfway closed. I will check your windows twice a week, on Tuesday and Friday mornings, about nine. Is that acceptable?'
'Yes, Marvin.'
'For starters? Peter, we'll use a simple transfer method. I will park my car on a street close to your home. It's a dark-blue Plymouth Satellite with license number HVR-309. Repeat that back to me. Don't ever write it down.'
'HVR- 309.'
'Put your messages in this.' He passed something under the table. It was small and metallic. 'Don't get it too close to your watch. There's a powerful magnet in it. When you walk past my car, you can bend down to pick up a piece of litter, or rest your foot on the bumper and tie your shoe. Just stick the container on the inside surface of the bumper. The magnet will hold it in place.'
It seemed very sophisticated to Henderson, though everything he'd just heard was kindergarten-level spy-craft. This was good for the summer. Winter weather would require something else. The dinner menu arrived, and both men selected veal.
'I have something now if you're interested,' Henderson told the KGB officer. Might as well let them know how important I am.
Marvin, whose real name was Ivan Alekseyevich Yegorov, had a real job, and everything that went along with it. Employed by the Aetna Casualty and Surety Company as a loss-control representative, he'd been through company training on Farmington Avenue in Hartford, Connecticut, before returning to the Washington regional office, and his job was to identify safety hazards at the many clients of the company, known in the trade as 'risks.' Selected mainly for its mobility - the post even came with a company car - the job carried with it the unexpected bonus of visiting the offices of various government contractors whose employees were not always as careful covering up the papers on their desks as they ought to have been. His immediate boss was delighted with Marvin's performance. His new man was highly observant and downright superb at documenting his business affairs. He'd already turned down promotion and transfer to Detroit - sorry, boss, but I just like the Washington area too much - which didn't bother his supervisor at all. A guy with his skills, holding a fairly low-paying job, just made his part of the office look all the better. For Marvin, the job meant being out of the office four days out of five, which allowed him to meet people whenever and wherever he wished, along with a free car - Aetna even paid gas and maintenance - and a life so comfortable that had he believed in God he might have thought himself dead and in heaven. A genuine love for baseball took him to RFK Stadium, where the anonymity of the crowd was as perfect a place for brush-passes and other meets as the KGB Field Operations Manual dared to hope for. All in all, Captain Yegorov was a man on the way up, comfortable with his cover and his surroundings, doing his duty for his country. He'd even managed to arrive in America just in time to catch the sexual revolution. All he really missed was the vodka, something Americans did poorly.