The Day Before Midnight

to flee the coop? Wouldn’t I be at some FBI estate eating steak and squeezing the bottoms of tarts?”

Gorshenin, a humorless youngster of thirty-two with a brightly lit bald head and two dim little technocrat’s eyes behind his glasses, looked at him without emotion. These young ones never showed emotion: they were machines.

“Explain please your whereabouts today.”

“Ah, comrade, you know that GRU operations are off limits to KGB, no? I can’t inform you, it’s the rules. Both units operate here by strictly enforced rules. Or would you prefer the Washington station be entirely staffed by GRU and all you KGB lads could go on to some interesting city like Djakarta or Kabul?”

“Attempts at levity are not appreciated, comrade. This is serious business.”

“But, comrade, that’s just it, it isn’t serious.” Gregor was using all his charm, making sly eye movements at the young prick, smiling with sophisticated wisdom and slavish eyelash flutters. “Frankly, this young Klimov and I don’t get along. I’m old school, orthodox, hardworking, play by the rules. Klimov is all this modern business, he wants corners cut, this sort of thing. So we are locked in struggle, you know. This is just a little business to embarrass me.”

Gorshenin eyed him coolly. He touched his finger to his lips.

“Hmmm,” he said. “Yes, yes, I know how such things can happen in a unit.”

“So it’s merely personal, you see. Not professional. That’s all. A misunderstanding between the generations.”

Gorshenin licked at the bait. Went away. Came back, licked some more. Then bit.

“So, there seems to be a morale problem in GRU?” he said.

“Oh, it’s nothing. We’ll work it out amongst ourselves. Most of our chaps are good fellows, but sometimes one bad apple can — well, you know the saying. Why, only yesterday Magda was saying to me—”

But Gorshenin was no longer listening. His eyes were locked in an abstract of calculus. He whirled through his calculations.

“Ah, say, old fox, do you know what would be the wonderful solution to your problems?”

“Eh? Why, the only solution is that I’ll just wait it out.”

“Now, Gregor Ivanovich, don’t be hasty. You know how excitable young Klimov is. Suppose he were to really fly off the handle? It could be the Gulag for you, no?”

Arbatov shivered.

“Now, Gregor Ivanovich, consider. A transfer to KGB!”

“What! Why, that’s pre—”

“Now, wait. Stop and consider. I could get you in, at the same posting. A man of your experience and contacts. Why, you’d be invaluable.”

Gregor made as if to study the proposition.

“It could be a very profitable move for you. Very comfortable too. None of this backbiting, this snipping and nipping like two hungry pups in a crate.”

Gregor nodded, the temptation showing like a fever on his fattish face.

“Yes, it sounds interesting.”

“Now, of course, I’d have to have something to take to Moscow. You know, I couldn’t just say, we want this man, we must have this man. I’d have to have something, do you know?”

You are such an idiot, young Gorshenin. A real agent-runner is smoother; he’s got that easy, cajoling charm, that endless persistence and sympathy as he guides you on your way to hell. Arbatov should know: he’d guided a few toward hell.

“A present?” he said as if he were a moron.

“Yes. Oh, you know. Something small, but just to show you were enthusiastic, do you know? Something minor but flashy.”

“Hmmm,” said Arbatov, considering gravely. “You mean something from the Americans?”

“Yes! Something from the Americans would do nicely.”

“Well, actually, it’s a fallow time. You know how it is in this business, young Comrade Gorshenin. You plant a thousand seeds and then you must wait to harvest your one or two potatoes.”

Gorshenin appeared disappointed.

“A shame. You know I’d hate to have to turn you back to Klimov with a bad report on our interrogation. He’d not see the humor in it.”

“Hmmm,” said Arbatov, gravely considering again. “KGB has the GRU code book, of course.”

The idiot Gorshenin swallowed and the greed beamed from his eyes like a television signal. The code book was the big secret; it was the treasure; if KGB could get its hands on just one code book for just one hour, it would be able to read GRU’s cable traffic for years to come. And the man who brought it in …!

“I’m sure we do,” said Gorshenin, poorly affecting nonchalance. “I mean the things are left around in installations all over the world.”

Such a terrible lie, so thin and unconvincing. The books were, of course, guarded like the computer codes that launched the SS-18s.

“Yes, well, a shame. You see, though the book is locked except when the communications officer uses it to decode or to encode high priority messages, he’s an old friend of mine, and one night he called up and realized he’d left delicate medicines there. Barbiturates, did you know the poor man was addicted? Anyway, in his despair he gave me the combination. I was able to retrieve his drugs for him. I actually committed the combination to memory.”

“Surely it has been changed,” said Gorshenin too quickly.

“Perhaps, but not the last time I had communications duty.”

The two men looked at each other.

A small object was pushed across the table at Arbatov. It was a Katrinka camera.

“Aren’t you late for your duty in the Wine Cellar, comrade?” Arbatov glanced at his watch.

“Very late,” he said. “It’s nearly midnight.”

The hole glistened open, dilating as the metal around it liquified. Jack thought of a birth: a new world would come out of this orifice. The black hole would spread and spread and spread, consuming all. A terrible sadness filled him.

“There, go on. Go on,” insisted the general. “You’re almost there, go on, go on!”

The flame ate the metal, evaporating it.

Suddenly there came the sound of the opening of the elevator door and the rush of boots. Men raced down the outside corridor. Shouts and alarms rose. For just a second Jack thought the American Army had arrived, but it was only the Russian. The language rose and yelped through the halls. Orders were hurled at men by NCOs. Jack heard ammunition crates being ripped open, the clank and click of bolts being thrown, magazines being loaded, automatic weapons being emplaced. He heard furniture being shoved into the corridor as barricades were hastily erected. The atmosphere seethed with military drama; Jack was in the middle of a movie.

The general was talking earnestly in Russian with the tough-looking officer who’d come to Jack’s house that morning. They nodded their heads together, the younger man explaining, the general listening. Then the two of them departed from the capsule to check the preparations.

Jack stood. He was alone with the guard who’d shot him. His leg had stiffened and the pain was immense. He had a throbbing headache.

“You speak English, don’t you?” he said to the boy who stared at him with opaque eyes, blue as cornflowers. He had a rough adolescent complexion and teeth that could have used braces. But he was basically a good-looking, decent kid, a jock, maybe a rangy linebacker or a strong-rebounding forward.

“Do you know what they’re going to do?” Jack said. “What have they told you? What do you guys think is going on? You guys must not know what’s going on.”

The guard looked at him.

“Back to work.”

“These guys are going to fire the rocket. That’s what’s in here, the key to shoot the missile off. Man, they’re going to blow the world away, they’re going to kill mil—”

The boy hit him savagely with the butt of his AK-47. Jack saw it coming and with his good athlete’s reflexes