were stored, issued, and returned after use. Of course, the man who ran it was known as Q. Unlike the suave British civil servant of the movies, this Q was fat, waddled when he walked, and spent most of his time poring over his records. Dust rested in every corner of the place, undisturbed from year to year. Q had settled into this sinecure years ago. Like many Russian peasants, a little place to call his own was all Q wanted from life, and this was it. Today he scowled at Ilin and the two men following him as they walked between benches covered with listening devices and tape recorders to the little corner desk where Q did business. “Good morning, Q,” Janos Ilin said, pleasantly enough. “Sir.” Q was sullen. “Some information. You know of the assassination attempt on the president?”
Q looked surprised. “I had absolutely nothing to do with it, sir. You can’t seriously think—“
“We don’t think anything. We are here to ask some questions. Where are the records of equipment issues for the last six months?”
“Why, right here. In this book.” Q almost wagged his tail trying to be helpful. He displayed the book, opened it to a random page. “You see, my method of record keeping is simplicity itself. I put the item in this column— was
“Where are your keys?”
“You can’t have the keys. I suppose I could show you anything you want to see, but you can’t—“
“The keys.” Ilin held out his hand. He kept his face deadpan. The men behind him moved out to each side, where they could see Q and he could see them.
Q opened a desk drawer. It contained a handful of key rings, each with several dozen keys.
“The inventory, please.”
“What inventory?”
“Don’t play the fool with me, man,” Ilin snarled. He could really snarl when aroused. “I haven’t the time or temper for it. I’ll ask you again: Where is the inventory of the equipment you have in this department?”
“But … The inventory is old, sir. It’s not completely up-to-date. It’s—“
“Surely you have an inventory, Q, because regulations require you to have one. I checked. If you don’t, I’m afraid I shall have to place you under arrest.”
Q almost fainted. “Those black binders on the shelf.” He pointed. “I don’t let people browse through them, you understand. The equipment the service owns is a state secret.”
“I understand completely. Now, if you will go with these gentlemen. They have some questions to ask you.”
Q’s panic returned. He was really quite pathetic. “What if someone comes with a requisition while I am away?”
“This office is closed until you return. Go on.” One of the men reached out and put his hand on Q’s arm.
When they were out of the room, Ilin locked the door behind them. Ilin had, of course, been in this room from time to time over the years, but he had never really looked through the place. He didn’t know what Q had here, much less where he kept it. Ilin sat down at the desk with the inventories. As he suspected, they were worthless. They hadn’t been updated in twenty years. Still, there was a match between some of the letters and numbers in the inventory list and the numbers in Q’s logbook.
Each item in the logbook had a one- or two-word description, a letter and a number, followed by signatures, times, dates, et cetera.
Ilin studied the descriptions. He examined the keys. Ah, the keys were arranged by letter. Here was the A ring, the B ring, and so on.
Ilin began looking around. Q had most of this end of a floor for his collection, eleven rooms filled with cabinets and cases and closets — all locked. The place was almost like a museum’s basement, a place to store all the artifacts not on display upstairs.
Ilin inspected the bins and cabinets as he walked from room to room with the logbook in hand. Q had never inventoried this material because he didn’t want anyone else to know what was here. He was the indispensable man.
Weapons filled two rooms. So did listening devices. Who would have believed that so many types of bugs existed?
It took Janos Ilin an hour to find what he wanted. There were six of them in a little drawer in an antique highboy from the early Romanov era. The polished wood was three hundred years old if it was a day.
He checked the logbook. None of these items were listed. Ilin examined the half dozen. They had tags on them bearing dates. He selected the one with the latest date. It would have to do.
Back at Q’s desk, he put the logbook back on the shelf and returned all the keys to the desk drawer. He stirred them around so that none were in their original position.
Could he safely leave Q alive?
That was a serious question and he regarded it seriously. If the man talked to the wrong people … Perhaps the thing to do was just arrest him. Hundreds of people were in the cells now. One more would make no difference. When this was over Q could go back to his job none the worse for wear, as, one prays, would all the others. There was a risk, of course, but it seemed small, and Ilin would not have any more blood on his hands. The blood was becoming harder and harder to wash off.
How much blood is Kalugin worth?
Ilin left the lames Bond department, turning the lights out and locking the door behind him. He rode the elevator up to his floor, then went into a suite of offices adjacent to his. His men were there with Q. “put him in the cells. Hold for questioning.”
Q collapsed. One of the agents tossed the last inch of a glass of water into his face.
When Ilin left the room, the man was sobbing.
It was one of those rare summer evenings when the clouds boil higher and higher and yet don’t become thunderstorms. Hanging just above the western horizon, the sun fired the cloudy towers and buttes with reds, oranges, pinks, and yellows as the land below grew dark.
Bob Cassidy led his flight of four F-22’s south, up the Amur valley, toward the Japanese air base at Khabarovsk. They were low, about a thousand feet above the river, flying at just over the speed of sound. To the east and west, gloomy purple mountains crowned with clouds were just visible in the gathering darkness.
Two F-22’s carrying antiradiation missiles to shoot at any radar that came on the air were approaching Khabarovsk from the west. Farther behind were two more F-22’s. Joe Malan was leading this flight, which was charged with finding and attacking airborne enemy airplanes.
Earlier that evening Cassidy had vomited so violently he didn’t think he could fly. He had started thinking about Jiro and Sweet Sabrina again, and gotten physically ill. The doctor had given him something to settle his stomach. “I think your problem is psychological,” the doctor had remarked, which brought forth a nasty reply from Cassidy, one he instantly regretted. He apologized, put his clothes on, and went to fly.
The mission had gone like clockwork. Two tankers flying from Adak, in the Aleutians, rendezvoused with the fighters precisely on time a hundred miles north of Zeya. If all went well, they would be at the same rendezvous in sixty-four minutes, when the eight strike airplanes needed fuel to make Chita. If they weren’t, well, eight fighter pilots were going to have a long walk home.
As usual, Cassidy was keyed up. He was as ready as a man can be. The wingmen were in position, the data link from the satellite was presenting the tactical picture, and the plane was flying well, smart skin on, master armament switch on, all warning lights extinguished.
And there wasn’t a single enemy airplane in the sky. Not one. The satellite downlink must be screwed up. Again.
“Keep your eyes peeled, people,” Cassidy said over the encrypted radio circuit. Perhaps he shouldn’t have, but he needed to.
Should he use his radar? Take a peek? If the enemy still didn’t know he was coming, they would certainly get the message when his radar energy lit up their countermeasures equipment.
Twenty-five miles. The planes in his flight spread out, angling for their assigned run-in lines. The targets this evening were the enemy aircraft and their fueling facilities: the trucks, bladders, and pumping units.
Where were the Japanese?
Had they caught them on the ground?
His fighter was bumping in mild chop as Bob Cassidy came rocketing toward the air base at 650 knots, almost
