Jake thought about it. “It’s so damn neat that you try to con- vince yourself that you need it. All the bells and whistles and doohickeys and thingamajigs. And the day you have to bet your ass on these gadgets, they don’t work,”
“Shapes and absorbers work.”
“I suppose. But how is Sam Dodgers’ superconductive computer with multiple CPUs going to work after five hundred catapult shots and five hundred arrested landings when some kid racks the plane through a six-G pull to evade an optically aimed missile? How are all these MFDs and IR sensors and ring-laser gyros going to hold up? Is this techno-junk gonna work then?”
9
Terry Franklin stood with his back against a pillar and tried to keep his face pointed at Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address. The pillar was the second one on the right after you came through the main entrance. The man on the phone had been very precise about that. Second pillar on the right, on the side toward the Inaugural Address.
His eyes kept moving. He was nervous, so nervous. He had vom- ited up his breakfast an hour ago… Not that person, a teenage girl. Not that old fat woman with the cane and the two kids. Maybe that man in the suit over there… he could be FBI. Was he looking this way? Why was he turning? That long-haired guy in jeans…
He had been here ten minutes and had already spotted five men who could be FBI. Maybe they all were. What if they had him staked out, like a goat? Maybe he should just leave, walk away and forget all of this. He had plenty of money. Enough. He had enough. If they weren’t on to him he could live carefully and com- fortably for years with no one the wiser. But what if they knew?
“It’s one of the world’s great speeches, isn’t it?”
He turned and stared. A man, in his fifties with a tan face, stocky, wearing a short jacket, looking at the speech carved in the marble. On his head a brimmed hat. What’s the response? Holy… think! “Yeah. — uh, but I think the Gettysburg Address is better.”
“Stay twenty feet or so behind me.” The man turned and walked for the entrance, not fast, not slow, just walking. After he had gone three paces Terry Franklin could wait no longer and followed.
The man was only ten feet ahead going down the wide, broad steps in front of the Memorial. Franklin forced himself to slow down and lag behind. The distance had increased to fifteen feet by the time they reached the sidewalk, but it narrowed again as Franklin strode along. He stood right behind the man as he waited for a tour bus to roll by.
On the other side of the street the man said, “Walk beside me.” He led Terry along the north side of the Reflecting Pool until he found an empty bench. “Here,” he said.
“Can’t we go somewhere private?” Franklin asked, still on his feet and looking around in all directions.
“This is private. Sit!” The petty officer obeyed. “Look at me. ‘ Stop looking around. You’re as nervous as a schoolboy smoking his first cigarette.”
“Something went wrong. Really wrong. Why in hell did you people have a drop in a black ghetto? Some nigger doper could have torn my head off over there.”
“The drops were selected in Moscow, from a list. That drop was originally chosen for another agent.” The man shrugged, resigned, “Bureaucrats. These things happen.”
“So who got the message? Answer me that! Who saw me there? The cops? The FBI? NIS?” The pitch of his voice started rising. “What am I supposed to do now? Wait until—“
“No one saw you. Some child or derelict probably removed the cigarette pack, or it was blown out of the hole by the wind. If you had been observed they would be tailing you now.”
Franklin couldn’t help himself He turned his head quickly, scanning.
“Sit still! You only call attention to yourself by doing that, and believe me, there is nothing to see. You are clean. I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t.”
Franklin stared at his feet. He was so miserable. “I called in sick today.”
“And you rode the subways just as we instructed, and we checked you all the way. No one followed. No one pulled up to Metro stations to see if you got off. No one made phone calls or ran for a car after you passed by. You are clean. You are not being watched.”
“So who are you?”
“You don’t need—” He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “My name is Yuri.” The man extracted a pack of cigarettes from an inside jacket pocket and lit one. Mariboro Gold 100s, Franklin noticed. The fingers that held the cigarette were thick, the nails short. No rings.
“So what do you want me to do?”
“I’m here to evaluate you, to see if you are capable of going on, of continuing to serve.”
Franklin thought about it. Lucy hadn’t spoken to him for four days now. God only knows what that bitch will do. Still, ten thou- sand bucks a disk was damn good money. And if …
“If you wish to continue, you must calm down. You must get a grip on yourself.” Yuri’s voice was low and steady. “Your greatest asset is that no one suspects you, and if you become nervous, irra- tional, irritable, not your usual self, then you call attention to your- self and make yourself suspect. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” He glanced at the man, who was looking at him carefully with inquisitive, knowing eyes. Franklin averted his gaze.
“We’ll give you a rest,” Yuri said. “We’ll wait a few months before we give you another assignment. Will that help?”
Terry Franklin was torn. He wanted the money, quickly, but as he sat here on this bench knowing they could be watching he knew Just how close he was to the end of his emotional rope. For the first time in his life he realized how little real courage he had. But for this kind of money maybe he could screw up enough stuff to keep going, for a while at least. If he had some time. He rubbed his eyes, trying to quell the tic in his left eyelid- “Yes,” he said slowly, “perhaps it would be better to let things cool off, settle down.”
“Okay- So tomorrow you go back to work as usual. Do all the usual things, all the things you normally do. Keep to your routine. Do nothing out of the ordinary. Be pleasant to your colleagues. Can you manage that?”
He considered it, visions of the office and the chief flashing be- fore his eyes, fear welling up.
“Yes?”
“Yes.” He got it out.
“Do you want to talk about anything else?”
He shook his head no.
“You are doing important work. You have made a great contri- bution. Your work is known in Moscow.”
Terry Franklin said nothing. Of course his work was known in Moscow. Just as long as no one here found out about it, everything would be fine. Ensuring that that didn’t happen was the whole problem.
“To show you how valuable your work is, we are raising your pay. To eleven thousand a disk.”
Franklin just nodded. The enormity of the risks he was running to earn that money had finally sunk in the last four days- He no longer thought of it as easy money. He was earning every goddamn dime.
“You may leave now. Walk up Twenty-third Street to the Foggy Bottom Metro station and board there. Goodbye.”
Terry Franklin rose and walked away without a backward glance.
“How long you guys gonna be in town?” the driver of the rental car shuttle bus asked George Wilson as they circled Terminal C at Dallas-Fort Worth to pick up more people.
“Oh, a day or so.”
“Going home then?”
“No. We’ve got a couple more cities to visit.” Inquisitive devil, Jake thought, sitting beside George and watching people board.
“Did you come here from home?” Maybe the driver was work- ing for a tip. Or maybe he was just bored. He got the bus in motion again as the people who had just boarded tried to store their bags in the bin and hold on too.
