gravely. 'The message is for Borodin alone.'
'You had better tell me something,' Kosov warned. 'Or I may see fit to
let Misha persuade you. He's most eager to do so.'
Harry gave a sardonic smile. 'That's about what I'd expect from an old
Second Directorate thug.'
Kosov came up out of his chair. He moved very fast for a big man.
For a moment Harry thought he had carried things too far, but the
Russian sat down again, albeit slowly.
Harry didn't want to push Kosov over the edge@nly up to it.
'I'm waiting,' Kosov rasped.
Here goes, Harry thought. In the past two minutes he had pieced
together the most plausible story he could from the meager facts he
possessed about the Spandau case. Play out the bait, wait for the
strike . . . 'I can tell you this much, Colonel,' he said, 'U.S.
Military Intelligence is fully aware of the content of the papers found
at Spandau Prison. While your moronic thugs were kidnapping me, our
State Department was considering a request from the British government
to turn over an abstract of those papers to mI-5. My message for
Borodin concerns those papers, and if you don't appreciate the
sensitivity of that issue, it's your misfortune. So, why don't you get
off your fat ass and verify my story before you sabotage what remains of
your less-than-illustrious career.'
It was a shot in the dark, but it struck home.
Kosov stood up and studied Harry. 'An interesting story, Major.
Tell me, how is our one-eyed friend these. days?'
Harry felt a jolt of confusion. Kosov had blind sighted him.
One-eyed friend? Did Kosov mean Yuri Borodin? As far as Harry knew,
Borodin had two perfectly good eyes. Harry racked his memory for a
one-eyed man, but all he could come up with was a black kid from
Baltimore who'd lost both his eyes to shrapnel in the DMZ. Jesus- 'I
don't quite get you, Colonel,' he said lamely.
Kosov smiled. 'Well, then, Major, how about the Spandau papers?
Did they mention any names?'
'Several. Hess, for one.'
'Naturally. Any others?'
'None I'd care to mention,' Harry said tersely, feeling the noose
closing around him.
'I'll mention a few, then.' The Russian grinned. 'Tell me if you
recognize any. Chernov? Frolov?' Kosov waited.
'No? How about Zinoviev?'
Just the house wine, thanks, Harry thought crazily. He felt cold sweat
heading on the back of his neck. Russian names?
What the hell could they have to do with Spandau?
'Well, Major?'
'Zinoviev,' Harry whispered.
Kosov blanched. 'Rykov!'
The three agents rushed back into the room like hungry Dobermans.
Kosov seized his overcoat from a rack by the door and issued orders
while he pulled it on.
'Hold the major here until I,return from headquarters. I need to call
Moscow and I want a line the Stasi can't tap.'
'But Herr Oberst!' Axel Goltz objected, venting his anxiety at last.
'We can't keep an American here! If Rose finds out, the reaction could
be very severe. Why@' 'Stop whining!' Kosov snapped.
'Act like a German, for God's sake! You can manage without me for an
hour.
Misha?'
The black-clad killer whipped open the door. Kosov hurried through and
crunched down the snowy drive, his silent footpad on his heels. The
door banged shut.
Harry sat completely still. He couldn't quite believe that his
desperate ploy had worked. One brief glance through the open door had
told him what he wanted to know-that the room they now occupied stood at
ground level, not on the tenth floor of some human warehouse in Pankow-
Quickly he mapped the room in his mind: Andrei and Goltz by the deal
table; a sofa with a broken spine against the far wall; a large
curtained window at right angles to the sofa; Kosov's empty chair,
facing him; one door leading to the room where he had been held earlier,
and another-guarded by Rykovleading outside.
The three agents glowered at each other as if they had been arguing in
the other room.
'You fellows find a lot to talk about back there?' Harry asked in
Russian, his tone insulting.
Andrei scowled, but Rykov only smiled and leaned against the outside
door, resting his injured leg.
Suddenly Axel Goltz spoke up. 'What is Kosov doing, Comrades?'
When the Russians didn't respond, Goltz scratched thoughtfully behind
his right ear. 'What did the major tell him that weakened his resolve?'
'Relax,' said Rykov. 'We have everything under control.'
Goltz's nostrils flared. 'Under control? You don't even know what's
going on! I know this man Richardson, he's a skilled agent. I can't
believe Kosov fell for his tricks.'
'The colonel knows what he's doing,' Rykov said evenly.
He curled his lip in distaste. 'Stop scratching your head, Goltz.
You look like a mangy old hound.'
The East German flushed. 'It's a wound,' he said. He cocked his head
to the side, exposing a small white bandage behind his ear. 'A skinhead
threw a brick in a riot. Four stitches to close it.'
Rykov snorted with contempt. 'Probably a Jew! They'll revenge
themselves on you Germans yet!'
Goltz ground his teeth furiously.
'What tricks of mine were you referring,to?' Harry cut in.
'Perhaps you, like Kosov, are unaware of certain important facts.'
'Find another fool, Major,' Goltz snapped. 'Be glad I'm not in charge
of you.'
Harry kept smiling, but inside he shivered. He had always believed the
Stasi far superior to the KGB in all areas of intelligence work, and he
was glad to see Goltz in the minority tonight. Rykov tacitly admined
this with his next question.
