little lie, a little lozh to cover your weak point-but always remember it. It was clear to him that he had been singled out because he did not look the part of a vagrant ship hand. There was little he could do about that for the moment, so he tried to simply pass it off.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Orlov said with a grin. “Does your Captain Maud want to dance with me as well?”
Loban smiled. “Oh I wouldn’t want to run afoul of Wee Mac. You’ve seen the man, built like this rock we’re under. Get cheeky with Mac and he rap you with that walking stick of his, and make it sting.”
“I can handle myself,” said Orlov, his eyes narrowed, arms folded over his broad chest.
“I don’t doubt it,” said Loban. “But in point of fact, I would say you were not an Able Seaman at all, Mister Orlov. Your jacket there has shoulder buttons. Our officer’s coats have the same.” He looked at Orlov, his point obvious. “So I would think only an officer would have such a fine jacket, yes? Or are you going to say you stole this one from someone else? I think not. Your name is plain to see on the breast pocket.”
Orlov knew he was in a bit of a corner now, and a lie would just not do, so he told the truth. “Officers get demoted,” he said sullenly. He was quick to find some sure footing in that response, for it wasn’t a lie, and he didn’t have to make anything up on the fly that he might forget about and get caught in a contradiction later.
“Demoted? Then you were an officer?”
“They called me the Chief,” said Orlov matter of factly. “I got things done on the ship-kept the men in line- that sort of thing.”
“Why were you demoted?”
“I have a bad temper,” said Orlov quickly. “Somebody bothered me and I busted his face open. The Captain didn’t like it so he made me an Able Seaman and said I could learn what it was like to work my way up the ranks again and learn to treat the men properly. Bullshit to that! The Germans did me a favor when they sank that damn ship. So I gave myself a promotion and slipped away. Good riddance.” He had the bit between his teeth now, and was enjoying his tale, half true, half fabricated, and easy to remember.
“Very good…” Loban made another note, then turned to a different matter. “This pistol you were carrying, was it government issued?” He held up the weapon, eying it in the wan overhead lighting then setting it down on the plain wooden table in front of him. It wouldn’t be normal procedure to interrogate a detainee with a weapon in the room, but the clip had been removed, and there were men on the other side of the mirror watching the whole scene very closely, and transcribing the conversation.
“Of course not,” said Orlov, smart enough to realize that it was the damn pistol that had landed him in this mess in the first place. ‘Comrade Glock’ had raised the eyebrows of every man who laid eyes on it, and he knew he had to come up with a convincing story about it. “It was custom made for me in Moscow by a dealer.”
“Custom made? By who?”
“A man named Glock, his name is right there on the gun, can you see it?” It was a safe play, as Gaston Glock, the Austrian engineer who designed the weapon would be a boy of 12 years now, and would not found his company until the 1980s.
“This bit here? I see…And this Mister Glock makes guns for a living in Moscow?” Another note. “What about this peculiar scope that was attached? Mister Glock made that for you as well?”
“Of course. I told him, I needed a light so I could target things in the dark. He said he knew just what to do.”
“So you’re saying this is nothing more than a flashlight?”
Orlov nodded.
“It’s a very odd light. Doesn’t give off any illumination at all.”
“It’s only for targeting,” said Orlov. “You see the light, and then you know what you are likely to hit, eh? What’s so mysterious about a stupid flash light?”
“Well it’s like no other torch I’ve ever seen. Such a narrow beam. And green? Does it shine through some kind of tinted glass?” The first working laser would not be developed for another eighteen years, in 1960, an intense and very narrow beam of concentrated light on a single wavelength.
Orlov simply shrugged. He knew there was nothing his grandfather had ever told him about it, and it was one of the dangling shoe laces that was likely to trip him up and tear his whole story apart if he got into it. The laser range finder, the earbuds, and the jacket, how would he explain those away if these men got too curious? They were going to be real problems if he couldn’t talk his way out of this mess soon. Thus far they had fished out the earbuds in his jacket pocket, but he told them they were merely for sleep, simple earplugs, and said nothing more. It would never occur to any of them that they were actually wirelessly in communication with the Polyflex- fabric computer in his jacket lining, powered by solar sensitive fibers that constantly charged a wafer thin battery. They had never heard of computers, so how could they look for something they knew nothing about?
He was wrong. This man had the earbuds out again, and the jacket was hung on a wall peg across the empty room, too close this time, and well in range of the computer. The man was toying with the earbuds, which made Orlov somewhat edgy and nervous, though he tried to appear unconcerned.
“These ear plugs of yours…Somewhat solid, eh? Not very comfortable for sleeping I would imagine.”
Again, Orlov simply shrugged. The man was rolling the earbuds between his fingers, then peering at the thin metal screen attached to one side, and Orlov knew his story might come cascading down in a heartbeat.
“Also custom made? By this Mister Glock, I suppose?” The lieutenant fixed him with a sure eye now, knowing that they had to be ear pieces for a communications device of some sort. But it was most unusual. A wireless unit this small? He wondered how it could possibly function. The chaps in the technical group wanted to pry the damn things open to have a look, but he persuaded them to wait until they went over the matter with the detainee. He could now see that the ear plugs were a sensitive spot for this man. He noted how Orlov shifted uneasily, looked away when he brought the matter up, a sure sign that he was uncomfortable about the plugs.
Orlov’s silence was as damning as anything he might have said at that moment. It told Loban that these were, in fact, very special devices. They had a peculiar raised area on one side that seemed to give slightly when he squeezed the ear plug…
And then it happened, one of those moments of pure happenstance that would change the whole tenor of the interrogation. The quaint, tinny voice of a woman sounded from the ear plug in his hand, speaking in Russian! Loban’s eyes widened, and he looked at the plug. It had come from there, from the little metallic screen on one side.
“My, my…” he said, raising one plug to his ear and pressing on the raised area again. The voice was much louder now, clear and sweet in his ear. “Please speak clearly, and ask your question.”
He took the plug from his ear, his mind racing now. This man was obviously wired to receive communications from another accomplice, but for the signal to reach way down here beneath the Rock meant that the other party would have to be very close. It suddenly occurred to him that Orlov may have had every intention of infiltrating this place, in just the manner he had been brought in!
Loban cradled the ear plugs in the palm of his hand now as he looked the red-faced Orlov squarely in the eye with another question.
“Who is she?” he said slowly. “Is she your control or just a local contact? Suppose you tell me who you are really working for, Mister Orlov.”
Part II
“May He who holds in his hands the destinies of nations make you worthy of the favors He has bestowed, enabling you with pure hearts and hands and sleepless vigilance, to guard and defend to the end of time, the great charge
He has committed to your keeping.”
