were ten camouflage battle-dress uniforms, lightweight, but of better than normal quality, because these were for officers' use. Headwear was a black beret with the red star and rather antique-looking tank badge that showed them to be for an armor officer. The shoulderboards of each uniform had the three stars of a full colonel. Also included were the uniform belts and boots.
“Pistolen?” Keitel asked.
First, eyes swept the street. Then ten cardboard boxes appeared. Keitel pointed to one, and it opened to reveal a Makarov PM. That was a 9-millimeter automatic modeled on the German Walther PP. The Russians, in a gesture of magnanimity, even tossed in five boxes of 9mm-x-18 ball ammunition.
“Ausgezeichnet,” Keitel observed, reaching for his money. He counted out ninety-nine hundred-mark bills.
“Thank you,” the Russian said. “You need more, you see me, yes?”
“Yes, thank you.” Keitel shook his hand and got into the car.
“What has the world become?” the driver said as he headed off. As recently as three years before, those soldiers would have been court-martialed — perhaps even shot — for what they had done.
“We have enriched the Soviet Union to the tune of ten thousand marks.”
The driver grunted. “Doch, and that 'merchandise' must have cost at least two thousand to manufacture! What is it they call that..?”
“A 'volume discount.'” Keitel couldn't decide whether to laugh or not. “Our Russian friends learn fast. Or perhaps the muzhik cannot count past ten.”
“What we plan to do is dangerous.”
“That is true, but we are being well paid.”
“You think I do this for money?” the man asked, an edge on his voice.
“No, nor do I. But if we must risk our lives, we might as well be rewarded for it.”
“As you say, Colonel.”
It never occurred to Keitel that he really did not know what he was doing, that Bock had not told him everything. For all his professionalism, Keitel had neglected to remind himself that he was doing business with a terrorist.
The air was wonderfully still, Ghosn thought. He'd never experienced really heavy snow. The storm was lingering longer than expected, was expected to continue for another hour or so. It had dropped half a meter, which, along with the flakes still in the air, muffled sound to a degree he had never known. It was a silence you could hear, he told himself standing on the porch.
“Like it, eh?” Marvin asked.
“Yes.”
“When I was a boy, we got really big storms, not like this one, storms that dropped feet of snow — like a whole meter at once, man — and then it would really get cold, like twenty or thirty below. You go outside, and it's like you're on another planet or something, and you wonder what it was like a hundred years ago, living in a tipi with your woman and your babies and your horses outside, everything clean and pure like it's supposed to be. It must have been something, man, it must have really been something.”
The man was poetic, but foolish, Ibrahim thought. So primitive a life, most of your children died before their first year had ended, starving in winter because there was no game to hunt. What fodder was there for the horses, and how did they get to it under the snow? How many people and animals froze to death? Yet he idolized the life. That was foolish. Marvin had courage. He had tenacity, and strength, and devotion, but the fact of the matter was that he didn't understand the world, didn't know God, and lived according to a fantasy. It really was unfortunate. He could have been a valuable asset.
“When do we leave?”
“We'll give the highway boys a couple of hours to scrape the roads. You take the car — it has front-wheel drive and you won't have any problem driving. I'll take the van. There's no hurry, right? We don't want to take chances?”
“That is right.”
“Let's go inside 'ore we both freeze.”
“They really gotta clean up the air in this place,” Clark said, when he finished coughing.
“It is pretty bad,” Chavez agreed.
They'd rented a small place near the airport. Everything they needed was tucked away in closets. They'd made their contacts on the ground. The usual service team would be sick when the 747 came in. It would be a fiscal illness, of course. It turned out that getting the two CIA officers aboard wasn't all that hard. The Mexicans did not especially like the Japanese, at least not the government kind, whom they regarded as more arrogant than Americans — which, to a Mexican citizen, was remarkable. Clark checked his watch. Nine more hours until it swooped in through the pollution. Just a brief courtesy visit to see the Mexican president, supposedly, then off to Washington to see Fowler. Well, that made things easy for Clark and Chavez.
They started off for Denver just at midnight. The Colorado state-roads teams had done their usual professional job. What could not be scraped was salted and sanded, and the usual one-hour drive took merely an additional fifteen minutes. Marvin handled the check-in, paying for three nights with cash, and making a show of getting a receipt for his expense account. The desk clerk noted the ABC logo on the truck, and was disappointed that the rooms he'd given them were around back. Had they parked in front, maybe he could get more business. As soon as he left, the clerk went back to dozing in front of the TV. The Minnesota fans would be arriving the next day, and they promised to be a raucous, troublesome crowd.
The meet with Lyalin proved easier to arrange than expected. Cabot's brief get-acquainted session with the new head of the Korean CIA had gone even more smoothly than he'd dared to hope — the Koreans were quite professional — allowing him to fly off to Japan twelve hours early. The Chief of Station Tokyo had a favorite spot, a hostess house located in one of the innumerable meandering backstreets within a mile of the embassy, and also a place very easy to secure and surveil.
“Here is my latest report,” Agent M USHASHI said, handing over the envelope.
“Our President is most impressed with the quality of your information,” Cabot replied.
“As I am impressed with the salary.”
“So, what can I do for you?”
“I wanted to be sure that you are taking me seriously,” Lyalin said.
“We do that,” Marcus assured him. Does this fellow think we pay in the millions for the fun of it? he wondered. It was Cabot's first face-to-face with an agent. Though he'd been briefed to expect a conversation just like this one, it still came as a surprise.
“I plan to defect in a year, with my family. What exactly will you do for me?”
“Well, we will debrief you at length, then assist you in finding a comfortable place to live and work.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere you wish, within reason.” Cabot managed to conceal his exasperation. This was work for a junior case officer.
“What do you mean, 'within reason'?”
“We won't let you live right across the street from the Russian Embassy. What exactly do you have in mind?”
“I don't know yet.”
Then why did you bring this up? “What sort of climate do you like?”
“Warm, I think.”
“Well, there's Florida, lots of sun.”
“I will think about that.” The man paused. “You do not lie to me?”
“Mr. Lyalin, we take good care of our guests.”
“Okay. I will continue to send you information.” And with that, the man simply got up and left.
Marcus Cabot managed not to swear, but the look he gave to the station chief ignited a laugh.
