“Colonel, remember your place!”
“I have not forgotten it. Nor have I forgotten that when someone troubles to murder an intelligence officer there is a good reason for it.”
“But there's nothing there! At least three intelligence services are looking. Our people in Argentina are still working—”
“Oh, yes, the Cubans?”
“Correct, that was their area of responsibility, and we can scarcely depend on their assistance now, can we?”
The Colonel closed his eyes. What had KGB come to? “I still think we should press on.”
“Your recommendation is noted. The operation is not over.”
Exactly what he could do now, Golovko thought after the man left, exactly what new avenues he should explore… he didn't know. He had a goodly percentage of his field force sniffing for leads, but as yet there was nothing. This miserable profession was so much like police work, wasn't it?
Marvin Russell went over his requirements. Certainly these were generous people. He still had almost all of the money he'd brought over. He'd even offered to make use of it, but Qati would have none of that. He had a briefcase in which were forty thousand dollars in crisp twenties and fifties, and on setting himself up in America he'd take in a direct bank transfer from an English bank. His tasks were fairly simple. First he needed new identities for himself and the others. That was child's play. Even doing the driver's licenses was not difficult, if you had the right hardware, and he'd be purchasing that for cash. He'd even be able to set the equipment up in the safe house. Now, exactly why he had to do hotel reservations in addition to setting up the safe house was another question. These characters sure liked to keep things complicated.
On the way to the airport, he'd taken a day to stop at a good tailor shop— Beirut might have been at war, but life still went on. By the time he boarded the British Airways jet for Heathrow he looked quite distinguished. Three very nice suits — two of them packed. A conservative haircut, expensive shoes that cramped his feet.
“Magazine, sir?” the stew asked.
“Thank you.” Russell smiled.
“American?”
“That's right. Going home.”
“It must be rather difficult in Lebanon.”
“Did get kind of exciting, yes.”
“Drink?”
“A beer would be very nice.” Russell grinned. He was even getting the businessman lingo down. The plane was not even a third full, and it seemed like this stewardess was going to adopt him. Maybe it was the tan, Russell thought.
“There you go, sir. Will you be staying long in London?”
“'Fraid not. Connecting to Chicago. Two-hour layover.”
“That is too bad.” She even looked disappointed for him. The Brits, Russell thought, sure were nice people. Almost as hospitable as those Arabs.
The last bundle went in just after three in the morning, local time. Fromm didn't alter his demeanor a dot. He checked this one as carefully as he had checked the first, fixing it in place only after he was fully satisfied. Then he stood straight up and stretched.
“Enough!”
“I agree, Manfred.”
“This time tomorrow we'll have the assembly finished. What remains is simple, not fourteen hours' work.”
“In that case, let's get some sleep.” On the way out of the building, Ghosn gave the Commander a wink.
Qati watched them depart, then walked over to the senior guard. “Where's Achmed?”
“Went to see the doctor, remember?”
“Hmmm. When's he back?”
“Tomorrow, maybe the day after, I'm not sure.”
“Very well. We will have a special job for you soon.”
The guard watched the men walking away from the building and nodded dispassionately. “Where do you want us to excavate the hole?”
28
CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS
Jet lag could be a real bitch, Marvin thought. Russell had left O'Hare in a rented Mercury and driven west to a motel just east of Des Moines. He surprised the clerk by paying cash for his room, explaining that his wallet and credit cards had been stolen. He had an obviously brand-new wallet to support that statement, besides which the clerk honored cash as readily as any businessman. Sleep came easily that night. He awoke just after five, after a good ten hours of slumber, had himself a big American breakfast — as hospitable as people were in Lebanon, they didn't know how to eat; he wondered how they managed to live without bacon — and set off for Colorado. By lunch, he was halfway across Nebraska, and going over his plans and requirements again. Dinner found him in the town of Roggen, an hour northeast of Denver, which was close enough. Stiff from travel, he found yet another motel and crashed for the night. This time he was able to watch and enjoy some American TV, including a recap of the NFL season on ESPN. It was surprising how much he'd missed football. Almost as surprising as how much he'd missed having a drink whenever he wanted. That craving was fixed with a bottle of Jack Daniel's he'd gotten along the way. By midnight, he was feeling pretty mellow, looking around at his surroundings, glad to be back in America, and also glad for the reason he was back. It was time for some payback. Russell had not forgotten who had once owned Colorado, and hadn't forgotten the massacre at Sand Creek.
It should have been expected. Things had gone too smoothly, and reality does not often allow perfection. A small mistake in one of the fittings for the Primary had been detected, and that fitting had to be removed and remachined, a process that set them back by thirty hours, of which forty minutes had been required for the machining, and the rest for disassembly and reassembly of the weapon. Fromm, who should have been philosophical, had been livid during the whole procedure, and insisted on doing the fix himself. Then had come the laborious replacement of the explosive blocks, all the more onerous for having already been done once.
“Only three millimeters,” Ghosn noted. Just a mistaken setting on one of the controls. Since it had been a manual job, the computers hadn't caught it. One of Fromm's figures had been misread, and the first visual inspection of the assembly hadn't caught it. “And we had that extra day.”
Fromm merely grumbled behind his protective mask, as he and Ghosn lifted the plutonium assembly and gently set it in place. Five minutes later, it was clear that they had it correctly located. The bars of tungsten- rhenium next fit into their own places, then the beryllium segments, and finally, the heavy depleted-uranium hemisphere that separated the Primary from the Secondary. Fifty more explosive blocks, and they were done. Fromm ordered a pause — what they had just accomplished was heavy work, and he wanted a short rest. The machinists were already gone, their services no longer required.
“We should have been done by now,” the German said quietly.
“It is unreasonable to expect perfection, Manfred.”
“The ignorant bastard couldn't read!”
“The number on the plans was smudged.” And that was your fault, Ghosn did not have to say.
“Then he should have asked!”
“As you say, Manfred. You pick a poor time to be impatient. We are on schedule.”
The young Arab just didn't understand, Fromm knew. The culmination of his life's ambitions, and it should have been done by now! “Come on.”
