never be sure since London went bankrupt which services were operating and when. He was in luck and rode through, changing at Oxford Circus to get on the District Line, to Chiswick Park. The easiest way would have been via Notting Hill Gate, but nobody used that station unless he was black or Asian.
He walked through the drizzle to his flat in Wellesley Road, passing the lines of derelict cars rusting at the curbside. At Belgrave Court he showed his ID to the armed security guard and was admitted. Every window was wreathed with barbed wire. He had a standing arrangement with a neighbor whose little girl went to the same school as Dan to collect his son and look after him till five. The little girl, Sarah, fussed around Dan like a mother hen, but at least he was safe and off the streets.
The word processor that served as his desk in the book-lined living room was inches deep in copies of
Meeting Theo Detrick in Geneva eight years ago had changed his life; getting married to Angie and then divorced had changed it even more, Chase suspected.
For it was actually her leaving him that spurred him on to pursue his new career. While still married he'd been contributing bits and pieces to the scientific press, so it wasn't a completely new departure when he terminated his ICI Research Fellowship at Durham and came to London to try his hand at free-lance science journalism. It was one hell of a gamble, though, and the first couple of years had been tough, especially with a young child to support and bring up. For a while he was even reduced to graveyard-shift lab work. Then the journalism started to pay, and when television came along he was able to provide an above-average standard of living for Dan and himself. At thirty-five he was beginning to feel established at last, though he still found it a precarious and unsettling occupation, subject to the vagaries of the media and the whims of editors.
But as John Ware had pointed out at lunch, television had made Gavin Chase's reputation as a science popularizes Much to his own surprise he'd made the transition from straight science reporting to the mass media, where the personality selling the message counted for as much, if not more, than the message itself.
The sight of the work to be finished made him restless, though it was probably pointless until two cups of strong black coffee had cleared the brandy fumes. Besides, there was the ritual of Dan's bath and bedtime story, which Chase looked forward to. He sometimes grumbled that it disrupted his schedule and derailed his train of thought, but it kept him sane and put things in their proper perspective. The end of the world would have to wait until after Dan's bedtime story.
Ironic, really, that he had the women's movement to thank. With the change in the social-sexual climate of opinion, every custody case was considered on its merits, without bias one way or the other. Angie had forfeited her rights to the child when she left the family home and, in the words of the judgment, 'cohabited with another person in a separate dwelling.' The other person was not Archie Grieve (she'd never slept with him, Chase learned) but a tall, balding BBC light-entertainment producer called Derek Chambers, whose name occasionally popped up on variety shows and quiz games for the mentally retarded.
They were welcome to each other, in spades. Chase had cried few tears. If not Chambers it would have been some other specimen in the television menagerie. A cameraman or a sound recordist or the prop boy.
He heaved himself up and answered the phone. A features editor wanting to know how much he knew about viruses from outer space. He promised to stop by her office the day after tomorrow. His fingers were hardly off the receiver when it rang again: Could he sit in on a discussion on energy conservation followed by a phone-in for Capital Radio a week from Thursday? He said yes, he could, and it was only when he'd put the phone down that it occurred to him that very soon --by the end of the week--he'd have to refuse all further offers of work. Three weeks from today he'd be on his way to America, and there was a vast amount to sort out in the meantime--not only Dan and who'd look after him, but also planning and fixing up his itinerary for the seven-week trip.
New York, New Jersey, Boston, Washington, Denver, the West Coast ... a lot of ground to cover . . . MIT, Cornell, Smithsonian, NOAA, Scripps . . . the list began to run out of control and he told himself to put it aside until tomorrow when the computer modeling article would be out of the way.
Shortly after five o'clock Dan appeared, escorted to the door by the conscientious Sarah, taking her role as surrogate mother very seriously.
'Daniel has been a naughty boy,' she informed Chase primly, standing there in pinafore and pigtails, arms folded. 'He won't do as he's told!'
'I'm sorry to hear that. What's the matter?'
'He would
Father and son silently regarded each other with identical blue-gray eyes. Like Chase's, the boy's hair was dead straight and hung over his eyes in a sweeping curve, though it was fair and fine, not thick and black.
'Oh. Well. Never mind,' Chase said. 'Perhaps he didn't want to go. Thanks for looking after him.'
Sarah nodded, duty discharged, and trotted off along the corridor.
'I did want to,' Dan confided as Chase closed the door, and in a burst of scandalized six-year-old indignation, 'But her, Bossy Boots, wanted to come with me and pull my pants down!'
'Pity. That's probably the best offer you'll get for at least ten years,' Chase said.
The odd-colored eyes of Yuri Malankov, officer, third grade, were fixed coldly and disconcertingly on the dead-center of Boris Stanovnik's forehead.
It was a trait Boris remembered well from the days when the young Malankov had worked as his lab assistant: his inability, or refusal, to look anyone directly in the eye. Malankov was shut away in the barred and bolted fortress of his narrow, dogmatist head.
They were sitting facing each other across a plain table in one of the hundreds of anonymous rooms of the seven-story building at 2 Dzerzhinsky Square. In prerevolutionary days it had housed the All-Russian Insurance Company; now it was the headquarters of the Committee for State Security, the official nomenclature of the KGB.
This was typical KGB psychology, Boris knew, to disorient the interviewee by making the surroundings bleakly impersonal. Yet knowing this didn't make the effect any the less intimidating.
'You say the letter was to a friend, yet it was addressed to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.' Malankov didn't relax his remorseless empty gaze.
'Dr. Detrick is a marine biologist at Scripps. I write to her there, just as she writes to me at the Hydro- Meteorological Service. I don't see anything strange in that.'
'The letter contained more than personal news and friendly salutations. It made specific reference to a project that is of vital importance to the people of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.'
'Why, yes, but of course,' Boris said easily. He blinked in surprise. 'We exchange gossip about the work we're engaged in. All scientists do. But you know that already, Yuri, from the time you spent with the service.' He smiled. 'There was nothing in the letter of a confidential nature. Certainly nothing that's classified.'
Malankov's eyes went down to the typewritten sheet in front of him, which Boris guessed was a transcript of the letter. Where was the original? After interception had it been sent on? Unlikely. But Malankov had said 'letter'-- in the singular--which filled Boris with hope.
'You must be aware how sensitive this project is,' said Malankov. 'Particularly at the present time.'
Statement or question? Boris chose not to respond. Let the KGB weasel take the lead; that was his job.
Malankov kept his eyes lowered, his sallow face expressionless. 'Any information, no matter how innocuous it might seem, could add to the overall intelligence picture compiled by our imperialist enemies,' he said, as if quoting verbatim from the official handbook. 'A hint here, a clue there, a careless phrase. We must be eternally vigilant, Professor, about matters that concern national security.'
Boris nodded agreement, though he was genuinely puzzled. 'I'm sorry, but I thought you were referring to Project Arrow, the Ob and Yenisei rivers diversion scheme. I don't see how that can have anything to do with national security. Its purpose is to provide much needed arable land in western Siberia. It has no military significance at all, so far as I'm aware.'
'I was using the term in its widest sense, of course,' Malankov said, a fraction too hurriedly, and for a fleeting moment actually looked into Boris's eyes, as if anxious about something. 'We must never forget that national security embraces all aspects of political and economic activity. We are defending our heritage and culture, our way of life, against Western subversion. Plentiful food for our people is a powerful weapon of war. Men cannot fight on empty bellies.'
