'Misha Filitov, Yazov's aide?'
'The same, Comrade Chairman. I reviewed his file this morning.'
'And?' This question came from Vatutin's boss.
'Nothing at all that I can point to. I hadn't known of his involvement in the Penkovskiy case?' Vatutin stopped, and for once his face showed something.
'Something is troubling you, Colonel,' Gerasimov observed. 'What is it?'
'Filitov's involvement in the Penkovskiy matter came soon after the death of his second son and his wife.' Vatutin shrugged after a moment. 'An odd coincidence.'
'Wasn't Filitov the first witness against him?' asked the head of the Second Directorate. He'd actually worked on the fringes of the case.
Vatutin nodded. 'That's right, but it was after we already had the spy under surveillance.' He stopped for another moment. 'As I said, an odd coincidence. We are now after a suspected courier who was running defense data. I saw him standing next to a senior Defense Ministry official, who was involved in another similar case almost thirty years ago. On the other hand, Filitov was the man who first reported Penkovskiy, and he is a distinguished war hero? who lost his family under unfortunate circumstances?' It was the first time he had strung all his thoughts together.
'Has there ever been a hint of suspicion against Filitov?' the Chairman asked.
'No. His career could scarcely be more impressive. Filitov was the only aide who stayed with the late Minister Ustinov throughout his career, and he's hung on there ever since. He functions as a personal inspector-general for the Minister.'
'I know,' Gerasimov said. 'I have here a request over Yazov's signature for our file on American SDI efforts. When I called about it, the Minister told me that colonels Filitov and Bondarenko are assembling data for a full report to the Politburo. The code word on that photographic frame you recovered was Bright Star, was it not?'
'Yes, Comrade Chairman.'
'Vatutin, we now have three coincidences,' Gerasimov observed. 'Your recommendation?'
That was simple enough: 'We should place Filitov under surveillance. Probably this Bondarenko fellow also.'
'Very carefully, but with the utmost thoroughness.' Gerasimov closed the file. 'This is a fine report, and it would seem that your investigative instincts are as sharp as ever, Colonel. You will keep me posted on this case. I expect to see you three times a week from now until its conclusion. General,' he said to the head of 'Two,' 'this man will get all the support he needs. You may requisition resources from any part of the Committee. If you run into objections, please refer them to me. We may be certain that there is a leak at the highest level of the Defense Ministry. Next: this case is classified to my eyes and yours. No one-I repeat, no one will know of this. Who can say where the Americans have managed to place their agents? Vatutin, run this one to earth and you will have general's stars by summer. But'-he held up a finger-'I think you should cease drinking until you are finished with this one. We need your head clear.'
'Yes, Comrade Chairman.'
The corridor was nearly empty outside the Chairman's office when Vatutin and his boss left. 'What about Vaneyeva?' the Colonel asked sotto voce.
'It's her father, of course. General Secretary Narmonov will announce his election to the Politburo next week,' the General replied in a neutral, quiet voice.
And it won't hurt to have another friend of the KGB at court, Vatutin thought to himself. Might Gerasimov be making some sort of move?
'Remember what he said about drinking,' the General said next. 'I've heard that you're hitting the bottle very hard of late. That's one area of agreement between the Chairman and the General Secretary, in case no one ever told you.'
'Yes, Comrade General,' Vatutin replied. Of course, it's probably the only area of agreement. Like any good Russian, Vatutin thought that vodka was as much a part of life as air. It occurred to him to note that his hangover had encouraged him to take steam that morning and notice the crucial coincidence, but he refrained from pointing out the irony involved. Back at his desk a few minutes later, Vatutin took out a pad and began planning the surveillance on two colonels of the Soviet Army.
Gregory took usual commercial flights home, changing planes at Kansas City after a two-hour layover. He slept through most of the transit and walked straight into the terminal without having to chase after any baggage. His fiancee was waiting for him.
'How was Washington?' she asked after the usual welcome-home kiss.
'Never changes. They ran me all over the place. I guess they figure scientific types don't ever sleep.' He took her hand for the walk out to the car.
'So what happened?' she asked when they were outside.
'The Russians ran a big test.' He stopped to look around. This was a technical violation of security-but Candi was part of the team, wasn't she? 'They slagged down a satellite with the ground-based lasers at Dushanbe. What's left looks like a plastic model that got put in the oven.'
'That's bad,' Dr. Long observed.
'Sure is,' Dr. Gregory agreed. 'But they have optical problems. Blooming and jitter both. It's for sure they don't have anybody like you over there to build mirrors. They must have some good folks on the laser end, though.'
'How good?'
'Good enough that they're doing something we haven't figured out yet,' Al grumped as they reached his Chevy.
'You drive, I'm still a little dopey.'
'Will we figure it out?' Candi asked as she unlocked the door.
'Sooner or later.' He couldn't go any further than that, fiancee or not.
Candi got in and reached to unlock the right-side door. As soon as Al was seated and strapped in, he opened the glove compartment and extracted a Twinkie. He always had a stash. It was a little stale, but he didn't mind. Sometimes Candi wondered if his love for her resulted from the fact that her nickname reminded him of junk food.
'How's work on the new mirror going?' he asked after snapping down half of the Twinkie.
'Marv has a new idea that we're modeling out. He thinks we should thin out the coating instead of thickening it. We're going to try it next week.'
'Marv's pretty original for an old guy,' Al observed. Dr. Marv Greene was forty-two.
Candi laughed. 'His secretary thinks he's pretty original, too.'
'He should know better than to fool around with somebody at work,' Gregory said seriously. He winced a moment later.
'Yeah, honey.' She turned to look at him, and they both laughed. 'How tired are you?'
'I slept on the flight.'
'Good.'
Just before reaching around her, Gregory crumbled the Twinkie wrapper and tossed it on the floor, where it joined about thirty others. He flew around quite a bit, but Candi had a sure cure for jet lag.
'Well, Jack?' Admiral Greer asked.
'I'm worried,' Ryan admitted. 'It was pure dumb luck that we saw the test. The timing was cute. All of our recon birds were well below the optical horizon. We weren't supposed to notice-which is hardly surprising, since it's a technical violation of the ABM treaty. Well, probably.' Jack shrugged. 'Depends on how you read the treaty. Now you get into the 'strict' or 'loose' interpretation argument. If we pulled something like this, the Senate would go nuts.'
'They wouldn't like the test that you saw.' Very few people knew how far along Tea Clipper was. The program was 'black.' More classified than top secret, 'black' programs simply did not exist.
'Maybe. But we were testing the aiming system, not an actual weapon.'
'And the Soviets were testing a system to see if it was-' Greer chuckled and shook his head. 'It's like talking metaphysics, isn't it? How many lasers can dance on the head of a pin?'
'I'm sure Ernie Alien could give us an opinion on that.' Jack smiled. He didn't agree with Alien, but he had to
