another explanation. Could it be the Americans have engaged in economic sabotage by deliberately having assistance reach us at a trickle? That their goal is to dominate us through long-term dependency? Sooner or later we must ask ourselves…”
Vince Scull glanced at the clock on the wall above him, and turned off the television. Enough was enough. He’d had about all he could take of Pedachenko’s contrived outrage for one night. Even in Russia, a man was entitled to enjoy himself on New Year’s Eve. Or at least keep the unwanted shit outside where it belonged.
He looked at the bland round face of the clock again. It was eight P.M. Meaning it was not yet noon in California, where his wife Anna — no, strike that — where his ex-wife Anna and their two daughters would be getting ready to celebrate the big event. If his memory was accurate, they were all going to Anna’s mom’s place in Mill Valley. He wondered if he should phone the kids there; probably they would be staying up till midnight to ring in the new year, century, millennium, and maybe another cosmic turning point or two Scull wasn’t aware of.
Midnight in California, he thought. That was, what, seven A.M. tomorrow his own time? Which would make it three A.M. in New York, where Scull’s mother still lived, eighty-two years old and going strong. He guessed she’d be celebrating in her own fashion, watching the ball descend from the roof of One Times Square on television, a glass of wine on one side of her armchair, and a tray of cocktail weenies on the other.
Scull rose to get his coat. His private quarters here at the Kaliningrad installation — three rooms in a modular living and recreational building that housed over a hundred people — were boxy and claustrophobic, like something that had been made with a giant Erector set. He needed, really needed, some fresh air.
Zipping into his parka, Scull went to the door, hesitated with his hand on the knob, then turned back inside and entered the kitchenette. He stepped on the foot pedal that opened his tiny refrigerator, knelt in front of it, and eyed the bottle of Cristal on the upper shelf. He’d been planning to pop it at midnight, but what the hell, why wait? Surely midnight had already arrived somewhere in the world.
He pulled out the bottle, then reached into the shoe-box-sized freezer for a tulip glass he’d left in there to chill. It was funny when you got to thinking about time. Look up at some distant star in the sky, and what you were really seeing was the way it looked a few million years back. Turn that perspective on its head and it got even weirder — some alien skywatcher in a far-off system looking at Earth through a futuristic megatelescope would actually see dinosaurs walking through prehistoric jungles. All the human effort that had gone toward reconstructing a part of the past, the fossil digs, the scientific debate over how the monsters lived, whether T Rex was fast or slow, smart or dumb, whatever, and meanwhile Mork the Astronomer out in space would know the truth at a glance. For him, tonight was New Year’s Eve 2000 going on a million years ago.
Scull sighed. The whole thing not only got his brain in a twist, but made him feel about as deep a shade of blue as there was on the color spectrum.
He uncorked the Cristal. Then he turned his champagne glass upside down over the neck of the bottle, and carried them back to the door.
His quarters were on the ground level of the building, and when he stepped through his doorway, he was gazing out across a large, flat field toward the complex’s three spherical satellite receivers. Perched atop concrete platforms some three hundred yards distant, their angular metallic tiles gave them the appearance of huge, multifaceted gems.
For no particular reason, he started walking in their direction. The air was dry and bitterly cold, the ground frozen solid beneath a thin crust of hardpacked snow. Dense, unbroken woodland hemmed the field on three sides, with a single paved road giving egress through the forest on the eastern perimeter. The bare, ice-sheathed branches of the trees shone like delicately blown crystal in the clear winter night.
Scull stopped midway between the dwelling facility and the array of antennas, listening to the silence. Lights were on in most of the windows behind him, smudging the whitened ground with their reflections. Most of the crew would be at a party that a couple of the techies, Arthur and Elaine Steiner, were throwing in one of the rec rooms. The rest would be at smaller get-togethers in their rooms. And Anna and the kids were thousands of miles away.
He took his glass off the bottle, poured it half full of champagne, and then set the bottle down on the ground. That done, he stood there some more with the wind slashing at his cheeks, trying to think of a toast.
It was a while before anything appropriate came to him.
“May my vices die before I do,” he said at last, and raised the glass to his lips.
FOURTEEN
Gordian lifted his foot off the brake almost long enough for the tires of his Mercedes SL to make a complete rotation, then halted again and frowned impatiently. To say he was doing ten miles an hour in the bumper-to- bumper traffic would have been far too optimistic. Flanked by two huge semis in the center lane of 1-280, he felt like a minnow caught between two stalled whales.
He checked his dash clock. Almost eight P.M.
He reached into his sport coat for his flip phone and pressed in his home number.
“Yes?” his wife answered on the first ring.
“Hi, Ashley, it’s me.”
“Roger? Where are you? What’s all that racket in the background?”
“I’m on my way home,” he said. “And the noise is highway traffic.”
There was silence on the phone. As Gordian had expected. He didn’t try talking into it.
“Nice to see you’re not cutting things too close,” she said finally, her voice edged with sarcasm.
Gordian figured he’d deserved that. He looked out his windshield at the back of a Jeep Cherokee, saw a little white dog with a black bandit stripe across its eyes staring back at him through the window of the hatch.
“Listen, Ashley, I take this road all the time. If I’d known it would be this jammed tonight—”
“If not on New Year’s Eve, then when else?” she said. “And do I have to remind you we have dinner reservations for nine o’clock?”
“I’ll call the restaurant, see if they can switch our reservation to ten,” he said, knowing how stupid his offer sounded even before it left his mouth. As his wife had just pointed out, it was New Year’s Eve. Trader Vic’s would be booked solid.
Gordian waited for her answer. Nothing moved on the congested road. The dog in the Cherokee nuzzled the window and continued watching him.
“Don’t bother,” she said. Her sarcasm had curdled into anger. “I’m standing here in my good dress, ready to leave the house. Damn it, you gave me your word you’d be on time.”
Gordian felt his stomach sink. He was thinking that he had not only given her his word, but he’d also very much intended to keep it. With most of his staff having left early for the holiday, however, he’d decided to play catch-up with his paperwork in the rare absence of distractions, figuring he could leave for home at six-thirty and be there within an hour. Why hadn’t he allowed for the possibility that he’d get stuck in traffic?
“Honey, I’m sorry. I wanted to get some odds and ends done—”
“Sure. As always. To the exclusion of anything remotely connected to a personal life,” she said, and took an audible breath. “I’m not going to argue this over the phone, Roger. I won’t be reduced to the role of a nagging wife. And we’ve been through it all before, anyway.”
Gordian couldn’t think of anything to say. The silence in his earpiece had a barren, hollow sound. Ashley had been talking about a separation for the past several months. He never knew what to say to that, either. Other than to tell her he loved her, didn’t want her to leave, and was surprised she felt things were so bad between them that
