could climb the rocks with the young bucks, he was resolved never to do so again. Besides, there was something else on his mind.
What's happening with Misha? he asked himself. When the man had disappeared from the Ministry, he'd naturally assumed that the older man was ill. When the absence had lasted several days, he took it to be serious and asked the Minister if Colonel Filitov had been hospitalized. The reply at the time had been reassuring-but now he wondered. Minister Yazov had been a little too glib-then Bondarenko had gotten orders to return to Bright Star for an extended evaluation of the site. The Colonel felt that he was being shuffled out of the way-but why? Something about the way Yazov had reacted to his innocent inquiry? Then there was the matter of the surveillance he'd spotted. Could the two things be connected? The connection was so obvious that Bondarenko ignored it without conscious consideration. It was simply impossible that Misha could have been the target of a security investigation, and even less possible that the investigation should develop substantive evidence of misdeeds. The most likely thing, he concluded, was that Misha was off on a top-secret job for Yazov. Surely he did a lot of that. Bondarenko looked down at the massive earthwork of the Nurek power dam. The second string of power lines was almost done, he noted, as the airliner dropped flaps and wheels for a landing at Dushanbe-East. He was the first man to leave the aircraft after landing.
'Gennady Iosifovich!'
'Good morning, Comrade General,' Bondarenko said in some surprise.
'Come with me,' Pokryshkin said, after returning the Colonel's salute. 'You don't want to ride that damned bus.' He waved to his sergeant, who wrested away Bondarenko's bag.
'You didn't need to come yourself.'
'Rubbish.' Pokryshkin led the parade to his personal helicopter, whose rotor was already turning. 'One day I must read that report you drafted. I just had three ministers here yesterday. Now everyone understands how important we are. Our funding is being increased twenty-five percent-I wish I could write that kind of report!'
'But I-'
'Colonel, I don't want to hear it. You have seen the truth and communicated it to others. You are now part of the Bright Star family. I want you to think about coming to us full time after your Moscow tour is finished. According to your file, you have excellent engineering and administrative credentials, and I need a good second-in-command.' He turned with a conspiratorial look. 'I don't suppose I could talk you into an air-force uniform?'
'Comrade General, I-'
'I know, once a soldier of the Red Army, always a soldier of the Red Army. We will not hold it against you. Besides, you can help me with those KGB boneheads on perimeter guard. They can bluster their expertise at a broken-down fighter pilot, but not against a man with the Red Banner for close combat.' The General waved for the pilot to take off. Bondarenko was surprised that the commander wasn't flying the aircraft himself. 'I tell you, Gennady, in a few years this will be a whole new service branch. 'Cosmic Defense Troops,' perhaps. There will be room for you to create a whole new career, and plenty of room for advancement. I want you to give that some serious thought. You will probably be a general in three or four years anyway, but I can guarantee you more stars than the Army can.'
'For the moment, however??' He'd think about that, but not in a helicopter.
'We're looking at the mirror and computer plans the Americans are using. The chief of our mirror group thinks he can adapt their designs to our hardware. It will take about a year to come up with the plans, he says, but he doesn't know about the actual engineering. Meanwhile we're assembling some reserve lasers and trying to simplify the design to make maintenance easier.'
'That's another two years' work,' Bondarenko observed. 'At least,' General Pokryshkin agreed. 'This program will not come to fruition before I leave. That's inevitable. If we have one more major test success, I will be recalled to Moscow to head the Ministry office, and at best the system will not be deployed before I retire.' He shook his head sadly. 'It's a hard thing to accept, how long these projects take now. That's why I want you here. I need a young man who will carry this project all the way through. I've looked at a score of officers. You're the best of them, Gennady Iosifovich. I want you here to take over from me when the time comes.'
Bondarenko was stunned. Pokryshkin had selected him, doubtless in preference to men from his own service branch. 'But you hardly know me-'
'I did not get to be a general officer by being ignorant of people. You have the qualities that I look for, and you are at just the right part of your career-ready for an independent command. Your uniform is less important than the type of man you are. I've already telexed the Minister to this effect.'
Well. Bondarenko was still too surprised to be pleased. And all because Old Misha decided that I was the best man to make an inspection tour. I hope he's not too ill.
'He's been going over nine hours now,' one of the officers said almost accusingly to Vatutin. The Colonel bent to look in the fiber-optic tube and watched the man for several minutes. He was lying down at first, tossing and turning fitfully as he tried willing himself to sleep, but that effort was doomed to failure. After that came the nausea and diarrhea from the caffeine that denied him sleep. Next he rose and resumed the pacing he'd been doing for hours, trying to tire himself into the sleep that part of his body demanded while the remainder objected.
'Get him up here in twenty minutes.' The KGB Colonel looked at his subordinate with amusement. He'd slept only seven hours and spent the last two making sure that the orders he'd given before turning in had been carried out in full. Then he'd showered and shaved. A messenger had fetched a fresh uniform from his apartment while an orderly had polished his boots to a mirrorlike luster. Vatutin finished off his own breakfast and treated himself to an extra cup of coffee brought down from the senior-officers' mess. He ignored the looks he was getting from the other members of his interrogation team, not even giving them a cryptic smile to indicate that he knew what he was doing. If they didn't know that by now, then the hell with them. Finished, he wiped his mouth with the napkin and walked to the interrogation room.
Like most such rooms, the bare table it held was more than it appeared to be. Under the lip where the tabletop overlapped the supporting frame were several buttons that he could press without anyone's noticing. Several microphones were set in the apparently blank walls, and the single adornment on them, a mirror, was actually two-way, so that the subject could be observed and photographed from the next room.
Vatutin sat down and got out the folder that he'd be putting away when Filitov arrived. His mind went over what he'd do. He already had it fully planned, of course, including the wording of his verbal report to Chairman Gerasimov. He checked his watch, nodded to the mirror, and spent the next several minutes composing himself for what was to come. Filitov arrived right on time.
He looked strong, Vatutin saw. Strong but haggard. That was the caffeine with which his last meal had been laced. The facade he projected was hard, but brittle and thin. Filitov showed irritation now. Before, he'd shown only resolve.
'Good morning, Filitov,' Vatutin said, hardly looking up.
'Colonel Filitov to you. Tell me, when will this charade be over?'
He probably believes that, too, Vatutin told himself. The subject had so often repeated the story of how Vatutin had placed the film cassette in his hand that he might have halfway believed it now. That was not unusual. He took his chair without asking permission, and Vatutin waved the turnkey out of the room. 'When did you decide to betray the Motherland?' Vatutin asked. 'When did you decide to stop buggering little boys?' the old man replied angrily.
'Filitov-excuse me, Colonel Filitov-you know that you were arrested with a microfilm cassette in your hand, only two meters from an American intelligence officer. On that microfilm cassette was information about a highly secret State defense-research installation, which information you have been giving for years to the Americans. There is no question of this, in case you have forgotten,' Vatutin explained patiently. 'What I am asking is, how long you have been doing this?'
'Go bugger yourself,' Misha suggested. Vatutin noticed a slight tremor in his hands. 'I am three times Hero of the Soviet Union. I was killing the enemies of this country while you were an ache in your father's crotch, and you have the balls to call me traitor?'
'You know, when I was in grammar school, I read books about you. Misha, driving the fascisti back from the gates of Moscow. Misha, the demon tankist. Misha, the Hero of Stalingrad. Misha, killer of Germans. Misha, leading the counterattack at the Kursk Bulge. Misha,' Vatutin said finally, 'traitor to the Motherland.'
Misha waved his hand, looking in annoyance at the way it shook. 'I have never had much respect for the chekisti. When I was leading my men, they were there-behind us. They were very efficient at shooting prisoners-
