that a pusher—I think they call them that—could walk into a bank and have his false currency changed by any teller. Why they haven’t done it, we have no idea. A pusher could go into a bank with a packet of fifty of these, and immediately have it changed into any other denomination he asked for.”
“Wow,” Larry muttered.
“Indeed.”
Larry said, “Do you want me to work with Secret Service on this, on the off chance that the Soviet Complex is doing us deliberate dirt? I thought that currently the Cold War was supposedly all warmed up.”
“So did we,” the other said sourly. “But that is exactly the idea, Lawrence. Get to work please and keep in touch with me. If you need support, I can assign Walter Foster or some of the other agents to assist you. This might have endless ramifications, and there are no limits in regard to personnel or budget.”
Larry came to his feet and snapped a snappy, “Yes, sir. I’ll get on it right this minute.”
Back in the anteroom, Woolford said to the Boss’ receptionist, “I’m on a local job, LaVerne. How about assigning me a secretary, somebody who can handle off-beat assignments?”
“Can do,” she said.
He thought about it. “And look; tell her to get hold of every available work on counterfeiting and pile it on my desk.”
“Right. Thinking of going into business, Larry?”
He grinned down at her. “That’s the idea. Keeping up with the Jones clan in this man’s town costs roughly twice my income. I’m thinking of augmenting it.”
LaVerne said sarcastically, “Then why not give up this battle to equal the Joneses? With the classification you’ve got, a single man ought to be able to save half his pay.” She added, more quietly, “Or get married and support a family.”
“Save half my pay?” Larry snorted. “And get a far out reputation, eh? No thanks. You can’t afford to be a weird these days.”
She flushed—and damned prettily, Larry Woolford decided. He took her in, all over again. She wore a minus- skirt, so that her legs could be seen all the way up to the pinkness of her inner thighs and didn’t leave much to the imagination on what dark, warm wonders lay beyond. She could be an attractive item if it wasn’t for obviously getting her kicks out of being individualistic. Minus-skirts were out in Paris, Budapest and Copenhagen, this season. The nipples, cosmetically touched up, were currently the come-on.
Larry said suddenly, “Look, promise to be a good girl and not to make us conspicuous and I’ll take you to the Swank Room for dinner tonight. After that, a few drinks in one of the latest spots and then back to my place for a friendly roll in the hay. For a long time I’ve wondered what you’ve got on the ball.”
“The Swank Room,” she said sceptically. “Is that where all the bright young men currently have to be seen once or twice a week? Get lost, Larry. Being a healthy, normal woman, I’m interested in men, but I don’t necessarily spread my legs for every walking status symbol.”
It was his turn to flush, and, he decided wryly, he probably didn’t do it as prettily as she did. He wondered about her. Did she go all-out in bed? He’d bet that she’d be a wizard at Roman fashion.
He tried to keep it light, though, and said, “You’ll be sorry. I’ve picked up some new bed techniques, imported from Sweden. Guaranteed to send you out of this world and far beyond. You’ve got to have a chandelier, even to start.”
She snorted. “I’ll bet. However, I’m an old-fashioned girl and stick to only the more normal perversions.”
“What’s a normal perversion?” Larry said. He was intrigued.
“I’ll never tell.”
On his way to his office, he wondered why the Boss kept her on. Classically, a secretary-receptionist should have every hair in place, every pore. But in her time LaVerne Polk must have caused more than one bureaucratic eyebrow to raise. Efficiency was probably the answer. The Boss couldn’t afford to let her go. The old boy probably wasn’t even laying the girl. Larry got the impression she wasn’t exactly an easy lay.
II
Ilya Simonov was an excellent driver. He drove with the same care and efficiency that he expended upon all of his activities. Now he tooled his Zil aircushion convertible along.the edge of Red Square, paralleling the giantic eyesore which was the GUM department store, and opposite the red marble tomb of Lenin. He turned right just before St. Basil’s Cathedral and took the Moskvoretski bridge over the Moscow River.
He merged into the largely automated traffic of Pyatnikskaya and at Dobryninskaya Square blended west into the traffic that led to Gorki Park. He sped along the edge of the park on Kaluga until he came to tine Czarist baroque palace which was the headquarters of the ministry of which he had been a member for almost all his adult life.
Theoretically, there was no parking before the ministry. However, he pulled up to the curb and the two guards, staring directly ahead, snapped to the saluts. Ilya Simonov flicked them a return with the swagger stick he carried. It was an anachronism.
Not since the days before the revolution had a Russian officer carried a swagger stick. It was, in a way, his trademark. A good many persons, on both sides of the Iron Curtain knew Colonel Simonov on sight, although they had never seen him before, by the swagger stick.
He was tall for a Cossack, slightly slanted of eye, due to his Siberian heritage, black of hair, and obviously iron of body. He had an air of intensity and dedication about him, and, instinctively, there were few who dared thwart him.
The building was an anachronism as well. It had once belonged to the Yusopov family, the last prince of which had earned immortality by finishing off the mad monk, Rasputin. Simonov knew it well and strode along the corridors ignoring the antiquities, the marble statues, pre-World War One paintings, and marble benches. No one had ever bothered to remove them since the days when Grand Dukes strode the halls.
There were armed guards spotted, here, there, at all crucial turnings, at all doors. They wore the uniform of the KGB, the Committee of State Security.
Ilya Simonov began to stride past a group of three of the guards, two captains and a lieutenant. Suddenly he snapped to a halt. They came to attention, a ramrod attention.
He looked them up and down, his face empty except for bleak eyes, and said to the one in the middle, “What is your name, lieutenant?”
The other clicked heels. “
“Never contradict me, sergeant,” Simonov said. “When did you shave last?”
The other paled slightly. “This morning, Comrade Colonel.”
“Never lie to me, corporal,” Simonov said, his voice as empty as his face. “What was it, vodka or a woman, that kept you from getting to your post I properly presentable?”
Nicolai Ilyichev looked at him with sick blankness.
“Comrade Colonel,” he said desperately. “I carry the Soviet Hero’s Combat Award. It is a great privilege to be assigned to the Security Guard of the Minister.”
“All members of the Minister’s Security Guard carry the Hero’s Combat Award,” Simonov snapped. “Do not try to impress me, infantryman. If you are so sloppy that you come on duty in unpresentable condition, what would happen if the emergency to which your life is dedicated manifested itself? Would you be in the physical shape to meet it? I am afraid that the Moscow climate does not agree with you, infantryman. Perhaps you are more suited to the Eastern Provinces.”
“Comrade Colonel…!”
But Ilya Simonov had strode on.
The former Captain Ilyichev bug-eyed after him. He turned to the lieutenant flanking him, desperately. “Perhaps he’ll forget.”
“Ilya Simonov never forgets,” the lieutenant said unhappily. “It’s no mistake that he’s the minister’s top hatchetman. He’s killed more people than malaria. He’s certainly a bad one to have down on you.”
“But what did I do? Why
The other captain, who was just relaxing from the rigid attention to which he had been standing during the
