the day off.'
'Fair enough. See you tomorrow. But first-Jack? I got a call about you from the Securities and Exchange Commission.'
'Oh.' Jack bowed his head. 'I forgot all about that. They called me right before I flew to Moscow.'
'What gives?'
'One of the companies I own stock in, the officers are being investigated for insider trading. I bought some of it right when they did, and SEC wants to know how I decided to buy it just then.'
'And?' Greer asked. CIA had had enough scandals, and the Admiral didn't want one in his office.
'I got a tip that it might be an interesting company, and when I checked it out I saw that the company was buying itself back. So what got me to buy in was that I saw they were buying in. That's legal, boss. I have all the records at home. I do all this by computer-well, I don't since I came to work here-and I have hard copies of everything. I didn't break any rules, sir, and I can prove it.'
'Let's try to settle that in the next few days,' Greer suggested.
'Yes, sir.'
Jack was in his car five minutes later. The drive home to Peregrine Cliff was easier than usual, taking only fifty minutes instead of the usual seventy-five. Cathy was at work, as usual, and the kids were at school-Sally at St. Mary's and Jack at kindergarten. Ryan poured himself a glass of milk in the kitchen. Finished, he wandered upstairs, kicked off his shoes, and collapsed into bed without even bothering to take off his pants.
Colonel of Signal Troops Gennady Iosifovich Bondarenko sat across from Misha, straight of back and proud, as so young a field-grade officer should be. He did not show himself to be the least intimidated by Colonel Filitov, who was old enough to be his father, and whose background was a minor legend in the Defense Ministry. So this was the old war-horse who fought in nearly every tank battle in the first two years of the Great Patriotic War. He saw the toughness around the eyes that age and fatigue could never erase, noted the impairment to the Colonel's arm, and remembered how that had happened. It was said that Old Misha still went out to the tank factories with some of the men from his old regiment, to see for himself if quality control was up to standards, to make certain that his hard blue eyes could still hit a target from the gunner's seat. Bondarenko was somewhat in awe of this soldier's soldier. More than anything else, he was proud to wear the same uniform.
'How may I serve the Colonel?' he asked Misha. 'Your file says that you are very clever with electronic gadgets, Gennady Iosifovich.' Filitov waved at the file folder on his desk.
'That is my job, Comrade Colonel.' Bondarenko was more than just 'clever,' and both knew it. He had helped develop laser range-finders for battlefield use, and until recently had been engaged in a project to use lasers in place of radios for secure front-line communications.
'What we are about to discuss is classified Most Secret.' The young Colonel nodded gravely and Filitov went on. 'For the past several years the Ministry has been financing a very special laser project called Bright Star-the name itself is also classified, of course. Its primary mission is to make high-quality photographs of Western satellites, though when fully developed, it may be able to blind them-at a time when such action is politically necessary. The project is run by academicians and a former fighter pilot from Voyska PVO-this sort of installation comes under the authority of the air-defense forces, unfortunately. I would have preferred myself if that a real soldier was running it, but-' Misha stopped and gestured at the ceiling. Bondarenko smiled in agreement. Politics, they both communicated silently. No wonder we never get anything done.
'The Minister wants you to fly down there and evaluate the weapons potential of the site, particularly from a reliability standpoint. If we are to bring this site to operational status, it would be well to know if the damned-fool thing will work when we want it to.'
The young officer nodded thoughtfully while his mind raced. This was a choice assignment-much more than that. He would report to the Minister through his most trusted aide. If he did well, he would have the personal stamp of the Minister in his personnel jacket. That would guarantee him general's stars, a bigger apartment for his family, a good education for his children, so many of the things he'd worked all these years for.
'Comrade Colonel, I presume that they know of my coming?'
Misha laughed derisively. 'Is that the way the Red Army does it now? We tell them when they are to be inspected! No, Gennady Iosifovich, if we are to evaluate reliability, we do it by surprise. I have a letter for you here from Marshal Yazov himself. It will be sufficient to get you past security-site security comes under our KGB colleagues,' Misha said coolly. 'It will give you free access to the entire facility. If you have any difficulty at all, call me at once. I can always be reached through this number. Even if I am in the banya, my driver will come and fetch me.'
'How detailed an evaluation is required, Comrade Colonel.'
'Enough that a weary old tanker like me can understand what their witchcraft is all about,' Misha said humorlessly. 'Do you think you can understand it all?'
'If not, I will so inform you, Comrade Colonel.' It was a very good answer, Misha noted. Bondarenko would go far.
'Excellent, Gennady Iosifovich. I would much rather have an officer tell me what he does not know than try to impress ne with a truckload of mudnya.' Bondarenko got that message loud and clear. It was said that the carpet in this office was rust-red from the blood of officers who'd tried to bullshit their way past this man. 'How soon can you leave?'
'This is an extensive installation?'
'Yes. It houses four hundred academicians and engineers, and perhaps six hundred other support personnel. You can take up to a week doing your evaluation. Speed here is less important than thoroughness.'
'Then I'll have to pack another uniform. I can be on my way in two hours.'
'Excellent. Off with you.' Misha opened a new file.
As was generally the case, Misha worked a few minutes later than his Minister. He locked his personal documents in secure files and had the rest picked up by a messenger whose cart wheeled them to Central Files a few meters down the main corridor from his office. The same messenger handed over a note saying that Colonel Bondarenko had taken the 1730 Aeroflot flight to Dushanbe, and that ground transport from the civil airport to Bright Star had been arranged. Filitov made a mental note to congratulate Bondarenko for his cleverness. As a member of the Ministry's in-house General Inspectorate, he could have requisitioned special transport and flown directly to the city's military airfield, but the security office at Bright Star undoubtedly had some of its people there to report the arrival of such a flight. This way, however, a colonel from Moscow could just as easily be mistaken for what colonels in Moscow usually were-messenger boys. That fact offended Filitov. A man who had worked hard enough to attain the rank of a regimental commander-which really was the best job in any army-should not be a staff slave who fetched drinks for his general. But he was sure that this was a fact in any military headquarters. At least Bondarenko would have a chance to try out his teeth on the feather merchants down in Tadzhikistan.
Filitov rose and reached for his coat. A moment later, briefcase dangling from his right hand, he walked out of the office. His secretary-a warrant officer-automatically called downstairs for his car to be ready. It was waiting when Misha walked out the front door.
Forty minutes later, Filitov was in soft clothes. The television was on, broadcasting something mindless enough to have been imported from the West. Misha sat alone at his kitchen table. There was an open half-liter bottle of vodka beside his evening meal. Misha ate sausage, black bread, and pickled vegetables, not very different from what he'd eaten in the field with his men, two generations before. He'd found that his stomach dealt more easily with rough foods than the fancy ones, a fact that had thoroughly confused the hospital staff during his last bout of pneumonia. After every other bite, he'd take a brief sip of vodka, staring out the windows, whose blinds were adjusted just so. The city lights of Moscow burned brightly, along with the numberless yellow rectangles of apartment windows.
He could remember the smells at will. The verdant odor of good Russian earth, the fine, green smell of meadow grass, along with the stink of diesel fuel and above all the acidic reek of propellant from the tank's guns that stayed in the cloth of your coveralls no matter how many times you tried to wash it out. For a tanker, that was the smell of combat, that and the uglier smell of burning vehicles, and burning crews. Without looking, he lifted the sausage and cut off a piece, bringing it to his mouth atop the knife. He was staring out the window, but as though it were a television screen, what he saw was the vast, distant horizon at sunset, and columns of smoke rising along the perimeter of green and blue, orange and brown. Next, a bite of the rich, thickly textured black bread. And as always on the nights before he committed treason, the ghosts came back to visit.
