serve our country?' It came down to that, and the General knew it. He looked at the Colonel of Air Defense and his first expressed thought was the obvious one.
'You wish to risk my career along with yours? My father is not a Central Committeeman.' Icould have used this man in my battalion...
'Your father was a soldier,' Grishanov pointed out. 'And like you, a good one.' It was a skillful play and both knew it, but what really mattered was the logic and significance of what Grishanov was proposing, an intelligence coup that would stagger the professional spies of KGB and GRU. There was only one possible reaction from a real soldier with a real sense of mission.
General- Lieutenant Yuri Konstantinovich Rokossovskiy pulled a bottle of vodka from his desk. It was the Starka label, dark, not clear, the best and most expensive. He poured two small glasses.
'I can't get you more men. Certainly I cannot get you a physician, not even one in uniform, Kolya. But, yes, I will try to get you some hope.'
The third convulsion since her arrival at Sandy's house was a minor one, but still troubling. Sarah had gotten her quieted down with as mild a shot of barbiturate as she dared. The blood work was back, and Doris was a veritable collection of problems. Two kinds of venereal disease, evidence of another systemic infection, and possibly a borderline diabetic. She was already attacking the first three problems with a strong dose of antibiotics. The fourth would be handled with diet and reevaluated later. For Sarah the signs of physical abuse were like something from a nightmare about another continent and another generation, and it was the mental aftermath of that that was the most disquieting of all, even as Doris Brown closed her eyes and lapsed into sleep.
'Doctor, I -'
'Sandy, will you please call me Sarah? We're in your house, remember?'
Nurse O'Toole managed an embarrassed smile. 'Okay, Sarah. I'm worried.'
'So am I. I'm worried about her physical condition, I'm worried about her psychological condition. I'm worried about her 'friends' -'
'I'm worried about John,' Sandy said discordantly. Doris was under control. She could see that. Sarah Rosen was a gifted clinician, but something of a worrier, as many good physicians were.
Sarah headed out of the room. There was coffee downstairs. She could smell it and was heading for it. Sandy came with her. 'Yes, that, too. What a strange and interesting man.'
'I don't throw my newspapers away. Every week, same time, I bundle them together for the garbage collection - and I've been checking the back issues.'
Sarah poured two cups. She had very delicate movements. Sandy thought. 'I know what I think. Tell me what you think,' the pharmacologist said.
'I think he's killing people.' It caused her physical pain to say that.
'I think you're right.' Sarah Rosen sat down and rubbed her eyes. 'You never met Pam. Prettier than Doris, willowy, sort of, probably from an inadequate diet. It was much easier to wean her off the drugs. Not as badly abused, physically anyway, but just as much emotional hurt. We never got the whole story. Sam says that John did. But that's not the important part.' Sarah looked up, and the pain O'Toole saw there was real and deep. 'We had her saved, Sandy, and then something happened, and then something - something changed in John.'
Sandy turned to look out the window. It was quarter of seven in the morning. She could see people coming out in pajamas and bathrobes to get their morning papers and collect half-gallon bottles of milk. The early crowd was leaving for their cars, a process that in her neighborhood lasted until eight-thirty or so. She turned back. 'No, nothing changed. It was always there. Something - I don't know, released it, let it out? like opening the door of a cage. What sort of man - part of him's like Tim, but another part I just don't understand.'
'What about his family?'
'He doesn't have any. His mother and father are dead, no siblings. He was married -'
'Yes, I know about that, and then Pam.' Sarah shook her head. 'So lonely.'
'Part of me says he's a good man, but the other part...' Sandy's voice trailed off.
'My maiden name was Rabinowicz,' Sarah said, sipping her coffee. 'My family comes from Poland. Papa left when I was too young to remember; mother died when I was nine, peritonitis. I was eighteen when the war started,' she went on. For her generation 'the war' could mean only one thing. 'We had lots of relatives in Poland. I remember writing to them. Then they all just disappeared. All gone - even now it's hard to believe it really happened.'
'I'm sorry, Sarah, I didn't know.'
'It's not the sort of thing you talk a lot about.' Dr Rosen shrugged. 'People took something from me, though, and I couldn't do anything about it. My cousin Reva was a good pen pal. I suppose they killed her one way or another, but I never found out who or where. Back then I was too young to understand. I suppose I was more puzzled than anything else. Later, I got angry - but against whom? I didn't do anything. I couldn't. And there's this empty space where Reva was. I still have her picture, black-and-white of a girl with pigtails, twelve years old, I guess. She wanted to be a ballet dancer.' Sarah looked up. 'Kelly's got an empty place, too.'
'But revenge -'
'Yeah, revenge.' The doctor's expression was bleak. 'I know. We're supposed to think he's a bad person, aren't we? Call the police, even, turn him in for doing that.'
'I can't - I mean, yes, but I just -'
'Neither will I. Sandy, if he were a bad person, why did he bring Doris up here? He's risking his life two different ways.'
'But there's something very scary about him.'
'He could have just walked away from her,' Sarah went on, not really hearing. 'Maybe he's just the sort of person who thinks he has to fix everything himself. But now we have to help.'
That turned Sandy around, giving her a respite from her real thoughts. 'What are we going to do with her?'
'We're going to get her well, as far as we can, and after that it'll be up to her. What else can we do?' Sarah asked, watching Sandy's face change again, returning to her real dilemma..
'But what about John?'
Sarah looked up. 'I have never seen him do anything illegal. Have you?'
It was a weapons-training day. A solid cloud cover meant that no reconnaissance satellites, American or Soviet, could see what was happening here. Cardboard targets were set up around the compound, and the lifeless eyes of mannequins watched from the sandbox and swing set as the Marines emerged from the woods, passing through the simulated gate, firing low-powered rounds from their carbines. The targets were shredded in seconds. Two M-60 machine guns poured fire into the open door of the 'barracks' - which would already have been wrecked by the two Huey Cobra gunships - while the snatch team raced into the 'prison block.' There, twenty-five more mannequins were in individual rooms. Each was weighted to about one hundred fifty pounds - nobody thought that the Americans at sender green would weigh even that much - and every one was dragged out while the fire-support element covered the evacuation.
Kelly stood next to Captain Pete Albie, who, it had been assumed for the purpose of the exercise, was dead.
He was the only officer on the team, an aberration that was compensated for by the presence of so many senior NCOs. As they watched, the mannequins were dragged to the simulated fuselages of the rescue helicopters. These were mounted on semitrailers, and had come in at dawn. Kelly clicked his stopwatch when the last man was aboard.
'Five seconds under nominal, Captain.' Kelly held up the watch. 'These boys are pretty good.'
'Except we're not doing it in daylight, are we, Mr Clark?' Albie, like Kelly, knew the nature of the mission. The Marines as yet did not-at least not officially - though by now they had to have a fairly good idea. He turned and smiled. 'Okay, it's only the third run-through.'
Both men went into the compound. The simulated targets were in feathery pieces, and their number was exactly double the worst-case estimate for the sender green guard force. They replayed the assault in their minds, checking angles of fire. There were advantages and disadvantages to how the camp was set up. Following the rules in some nameless East Bloc manual, it didn't fit the local terrain. Most conveniently indeed, the best avenue of approach coincided with the main gate. In adhering to a standard that allowed for maximum security against a possible escape attempt of the prisoners, it also facilitated an assault from without - but they didn't expect that, did
