Uckley had no talent with kids. He somehow never saw them, and his few exchanges with them in the past had been perfunctory and stupid. But now, looking at the girl, her solemn face, her pale button nose, her huge, dark, questing eyes, her perfect little hands gathered in front of her, he had the terrible urge to kneel and clasp her to him and beg her for forgiveness. The skin of her neck was so soft.
“My name’s Jim,” he said. “Honey, I have to ask you to look at some pictures.”
“Are you going to shoot me?” she asked.
The ache he felt splintered into a couple of thousand pieces, and each of the pieces began to hurt.
“No, honey. What happened was a terrible, terrible accident. I am so sorry. I’d do anything if it wasn’t so.”
“Is my mommy in heaven? Nana said you sent her to heaven because Jesus wanted her as his best friend.”
“I guess so. Jesus, uh”—he didn’t know what to say—“Jesus is sometimes a mysterious guy, you know. But I guess he knows what’s the best thing.”
She nodded gravely, considering.
“Jesus loves us very much but he loved Mommy best of all. My mommy will be very happy with him,” she said.
“I’m sure she will. Now, sugar, please, do me this one little favor and I’ll get out of here forever. I’ve got some pictures. They sent them from Washington. I want you to look at them and tell me if these are the men who took your daddy away.”
He led her to the table, and she went through the pictures, one after another, in her deliberate way.
Finally, she picked one, and handed it over.
“Him. He was here this morning. He’s my daddy’s new boss. He took him to his new job. He was Herman’s friend.”
Uckley looked at the picture. It displayed the remarkably robust face of an obvious professional soldier, a man with a broken nose, a short crew cut, and a set of hard, flinty eyes. He wore some kind of camouflage tunic, and Uckley could make out the spout of an AK-47 over his shoulder, obviously carried on a sling. The picture had a fuzzy quality in its background, as if taken from hundreds of feet away through an extremely powerful lens.
He scanned the accompanying sheet.CLASSIFIED TOP SECRETCENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCYRESEARCH DIRECTORATE; SOVIET MILITARY DESK/ELITEUNITSSUBDIVISIONYASOTAY, ALEKSANDR, Major. Last authenticated posting, 22 Spetsnaz Brigade, GRU, attached 15th Guards Motor Rifles, Kabul, Afghanistan. Subject YASOTAY graduated Reconnaissance Faculty of Frunze Military Academy; the Cherepovetski Higher Military Engineering School of Communications; the Spetsnaz Faculty of the Ryazan Higher Parachute School, the Serpukhovski Higher Command Engineering School. Qualified member Parashutn-Desantny Polk (Soviet Airborne), sniper and HALO-insertion trained. Thought to have seen action in Angola, Central America, the Sino-Soviet border. Subject YASOTAY first identified by Israeli Mossad when instructor at Iraqi guerrilla camp in 1972. Subsequent sightings place him at Karlovy Vary, KGB training camp on the Black Sea and as infantry adviser to 15 Commando, Cuban force operating in Angola. Presence Afghanistan authenticated by Agent HORTENSE, Kabul, 14 January, 1984. Mentioned by source FLOWERPOT, Moscow, 1986, as possible member PAMYAT (Memory), held to be right wing nativist movement of indeterminate strength, possibly extending to higher councils of government. PAMYAT remains of great interest to Western intelligence units.
“Is he a nice man?” asked Bean.
“Yes, honey, he’s a very nice man.”
“Will he bring my daddy back to me?”
“Yes, honey. I promise you, he will.” He looked at her eyes, bold and honest. “Honey, I promise you, hell bring your daddy back to you.”
2100
The phone buzzed and buzzed.
“Hello?”
Gregor’s heart leapt! The sound of her voice was lyric pleasure, so intense he thought he’d gag. He was almost too dumbfounded to say anything, and then he found himself blurting out, “Molly, oh, Molly, it’s you, sweet Jesus, it’s you!”
What he heard in response was equally marvelous.
“Oh, God, Gregor, darling, I was afraid I’d missed you and you weren’t going to call anymore! Gregor, I’ve got it! You won’t believe what’s going on, Gregor. It’s incredible, and I’ve got the whole story for you.”
“Molly, what is it? Please, tell me now. I have to know.”
“Gregor, this is more than you could have hoped for. You won’t just save your career, you’ll make it. It’s incredible. I’ve got it all for you. Where are you?”
Gregor was in another bar, this one on 14th Street, one of the few remaining go-go places in the District itself.
“Uh, I’m in Georgetown,” he lied.
“Gregor, how soon can you get here? I’ve got documents, I’ve got pictures, I’ve got reports. God, you won’t believe it. It’s going on right now, out in central Maryland. It involves — listen, darling, get here as fast as you can.”
“I’m almost there now. Oh, Molly. Molly, I love you, do you know that? I love you, I’m so grateful.”
Sniveling with joy, Gregor lurched out of the bar. The night air was fresh and clean; it smelled of triumph. He needed a drink to celebrate. He looked, saw a liquor store open down the block. But when he got there and stepped into its fluorescent brightness, he found he had only three dollars.
“Vodka. A pint, how much?” he demanded.
“Russian stuff’s best,” the clerk said. “Stolichnaya, four twenty-five. Absolut, five fifty. Then, there’s—”
So Gregor, as he had that morning, bought something called Vodka City, an American concoction which, quickly sampled outside, had the mere strength of a small woman’s slap to it and didn’t quite amplify the joy he felt hugely enough.
Well, no matter. Any vodka being better than no vodka, he took several more hits on it as he ran back to his car, which had picked up a fresh parking ticket. Merrily, he crumpled the ticket into a ball and sent it sailing into the street. He climbed in, and drove to Alexandria.
It took twenty minutes and several more bolts of the drink before he pulled into her parking lot. He’d left it this morning in the dark and now he returned in the dark: full circle. From despair to triumph, his course magically assured by superior cunning and tactics. He slid the vodka into his coat pocket and raced to the foyer. There he took the elevator up and all but flew down the hall.
He knocked.
She threw the door open.
“Gregor!”
God, what a lovely woman! Molly, as usual, wore a muu-muu, but her meaty shoulders gave her the odd look of a professional football player. She’d applied two great vivid smears of blue eye shadow; her hair was waved and exquisite; and she wore, at the end of her stocky legs, two gold lame strapped high-heeled slippers. Her toenails were painted pink.
“I wanted to look beautiful for this evening,” she said.
“You do, my dear. Oh, you do, you look glorious.”
She took his hand and pulled him into the room. He was so eager, his heart was beating like a metronome. He had an erection like an SS-24. He was set to blast off. The room was candlelit; he could see a bottle of wine on the table in the rear and two beautiful dinner settings.
“I thought we had something to celebrate,” she said.
“We do! We do! This means I can stay forever!”
“Please sit down darling,” she said. “May I pour you some champagne?”
“Champagne! Yes! God, wonderful!” The champagne would combine with the vodka to incredible
