incident. A minute after that, he was on the phone to the local FBI offiot,
Jennings and Perkins were there before Officer Mendez came out of surgery. The waiting room was so crowded
policemen that it was fortunate the hospital had no surgical patients at the moment. The Captain running investigation was there, as were the state police chaplain half a dozen other officers who worked the same ward as Mendez, plus Mrs. Mendez, who was seven months pregnant. Presently the doctor came out and announced that he'll be fine. The only major blood vessel damaged had been repaired. The officer's jaw and teeth had taken most of damage, and a maxillary surgeon would start repairing damage in a day or two. The officer's wife cried a bit and was taken to see her husband before two of his fellows drove her home. Then it was time for everyone to get to work.
'He must have had the gun in the poor bastard's back.' Mendez said slowly, his words distorted by the wires holding his jaw together. He'd already refused a pain medication. He wanted to get the information out quickly, and was willing to suffer a little to do it. The state police officer was a very angry man. 'Only way he coulda got it out so fast.'
'The photo on the license, is it accurate?' Agent Jennings asked.
'Yes, ma'am.' Pete Mendez was a young officer, and managed to make Jennings feel her age with that remark. He next got out rough descriptions of the other two. Then came the victim; 'Maybe thirty, skinny, glasses. He was wearing a jacket-like a uniform jacket. I didn't see any insignia, but I didn't get much of a look. He had his hair cut like he was in the service, too. Don't know the eye color, either, but there was something funny? his eyes were shiny, like-oh, the Mace smell. Maybe that was it. Maybe they Maced him. He didn't say anything, but, like, he mouthed the words, you know? I thought that was funny, but the guy in the right-front reacted real strong to that. I was slow. I shoulda reacted faster. Too damned slow.'
'You said that one of them said something?' Perkins asked.
'The bastard who shot me. I don't know what it was. Not English, not Spanish. I just remember the last word? maht, something like that.'
'Yob' tvoyu mat'!' Jennings said at once.
'Yeah, that's it.' Mendez nodded. 'What's it mean?'
'It means 'fuck your mother.' Excuse me,' Perkins said, his Mormon face fairly glowing scarlet. Mendez went rigid on his bed. One doesn't say such things to an angry man with a Hispanic name.
'What?' the state police Captain asked.
'It's Russian, one of their favorite curses.' Perkins looked at Jennings.
'Oh, boy,' she breathed, scarcely able to believe it. 'We're calling Washington right now.'
| 'We have to identify the-wait a minute! — Gregory?' Perkins said. 'God almighty. You call Washington. I'll call the Project office.'
It turned out that the state police could move the fastest. Candi answered a knock on the door and was surprised to
(?)
for a beat. 'I'll get you out of here.'
'The American woman, she knows you by sight-'
'Obviously. I suppose you want her eliminated? After all, we've broken one rule, why not another? What fucking madman ordered this operation?'
'The orders came from very high,' Leonid replied.
'How high?' she demanded, and got only a raised eyebrow that spoke volumes. 'You're joking.'
'The nature of the order, the 'immediate action' prefix-what do you think?'
'I think all of our careers are ruined, and that assumes that we-well, we will. But I will not agree to the murder of my agent. We have as yet not killed anyone, and I do not think that our orders contemplated-'
'That is correct,' Bob said aloud, while his head shook emphatically from side to side. Bisyarina's mouth dropped open.
'This could start a war,' she said quietly, in Russian. She didn't mean a real war, but rather something almost as bad, open conflict between KGB and CIA officers, something that almost never happened, even in third-world countries, where it usually involved surrogates killing other surrogates, and for the most part never knowing why- and even that was rare enough. The business of intelligence services was to gather information. Violence, both sides tacitly agreed, got in the way of the real mission. But if both sides began killing the strategic assets of their opponents
'You should have refused the order,' she said after a moment.
'Certainly,' Bob observed. 'I understand that the Kolyma camps are lovely this time of year, all glistening white with their blanket of snow.' The odd thing-at least it would seem so to a Westerner-was that neither officer bothered considering surrendering with a request of political asylum. Though it would have ended their personal dangers, it would mean betraying their country.
'What you do here is your account, but I will not kill my agent,' 'Ann' said, ending discussion of the issue. 'I'll get you out.'
'How?'
'I don't know yet. By car, I think, but I will have to come up with something new. Perhaps not a car. Perhaps a truck,' she mused. There were lots of trucks out here, and it was not the least unusual for a woman to drive one. Take a van across the border, perhaps? A van with boxes in it? Gregory in a box, drugged or gagged? perhaps all of them? what are customs procedures like for such things? She'd never had to worry about that before. With a week's warning, as she would have had for a proper operation, she'd have had time to answer a lot of questions.
Take your time, she told herself. We've had enough of hurrying, haven't we?
'Two days, perhaps three.'
'That's a long time,' Leonid observed.
'I may need that long to evaluate the countermeasures that we are likely to face. For the moment, don't bother shaving.'
Bob nodded after a moment. 'It is your territory.'
'When you get back, you can write this up as a case study in why operations need proper preparation,' Bisyarina said. 'Anything else you need?'
'No.'
'Very well. I will see you again tomorrow afternoon.'
'No,' Beatrice Taussig told the agents. 'I saw Al this afternoon. I'-she glanced uneasily at Candi-'I wanted him to help me with-well, with picking up a birthday present for Candace tomorrow. I saw him in the parking lot, too, but that was it. You really think-I mean, the Russians??'
'That's what it looks like,' Jennings said.
'My God.'
'Does Major Gregory know enough that-' Jennings was surprised that Taussig answered instead of Dr. Long.
'Yes, he does. He's the only one who really understands the whole project. Al's a very bright guy. And a friend,' she added. That earned her a warm smile from Candi. There were real tears in Bea's eyes now. It hurt her to see her friend in pain, even though she knew that it was all for the best.
'Ryan, you're going to love this.' Jack had just gotten back from the latest round of negotiations at the Foreign Ministry building, twenty stories of Stalinesque wedding cake on Smolenskiy Bulvar. Candela handed over the dispatch.
'That son of a bitch,' Ryan breathed.
'You didn't expect him to cooperate, did you?' the officer asked sardonically, then changed his mind. 'I beg your pardon, doc. I wouldn't have expected this either,'
'I know this kid. I've driven him around Washington myself, when he came east to brief us?' It's your fault, Jack. It was your move that caused this to happen? wasn't it? He asked a few questions.
'Yeah, that's a virtual certainty,' Candela said. 'They screwed things up, looks like. That sounds like an over- nighter. Hey, the KGB officers aren't supermen either, pal, but they follow their orders, just like we do.'
'You have some ideas?'
'Not much we can do from this end but hope the local cops can straighten things out.' 'But if it goes
