Winter Hawk

said:

'Priabin. Yes?'

Her voice was breathy, excited. Priabin was sharply disappointed. He wanted the call to be about Rodin, but knew that Katya must be calling about Kedrov.

'— found him!' the woman almost shouted. 'I've found Kedrov in the marshes. Colonel, he's here!'

He glanced up at the lights in his office. Security pressed down on him like a constricting weight; survival, too.

'Katya — hang on, I'm in the parking lot. Wait until I can listen on the office scrambler—'

'Sir!' Her frustration amounted to outrage.

'Katya,' he snapped in reply. 'The car isn't secure.' Kedrov, Rodin, the GRU, the military, Viktor dead — anything to do with Kedrov was important, might be dangerous. 'Just give me a minute, Katya, then we can use the secure channel.'

'Yes,' Katya replied automatically.

Priabin dropped the mike and flung open the door of the car. Now Rodin was distanced in importance. Katya had found Kedrov. Hie pieces of the broken ornament that was his future were miraculously coming back together. He hurried across the frosty concrete. The wind flung itself into his face. He ran up the steps and thrust open the twin glass doors into the building, surprising the foyer guard, who instantly relaxed and saluted as he recognized Priabin.

He fumed at the doors of the elevator until they opened. Fumed as it ground its slow way upward. Ran along the thinly carpeted corridor, and unlocked his door.

Locked it once more behind him.

'Katya?' he said breathlessly into the radio, switching on the scrambler unit as he did so. 'Katya — tell me everything.'

Kedrov — Viktor… they were linked, too. Like Viktor was bound to Rodin and Lightning. It was all of a piece; his future was restored. Dear God, the girl had done well.

He flicked on the desk lamp. In its pool of light, he saw the map of the salt marshes. As he dragged a notepad and pencil toward him, she said: 'I knew he'd be here.'

'Well done, well done, you clever girl,' he replied lightly. It was infectious. The drowsiness induced by lack of sleep and the car's heater had — well, simply vanished. He felt reinvigorated. He was denied access to Rodin, but now he had Kedrov, who knew something about Lightning. He had the answer in the palm of his hand.

Katya's story spilled out excitedly. He listened, enthralled; asked her to repeat details merely in order to savor them; scribbled on his pad, marked the position of the houseboat on the map that lay like an untidy tablecloth across his desk. When she had finished, he said, chuckling:

'Well done — oh, sweet girl, well done.' He heard her moment of hesitation almost as if she audibly demurred from his praise, sensing patronage. Then he heard her laughing, and added, more soberly: 'Do nothing — no, don't argue, don't do anything. This is too important — no, it's too dangerous, too. You wait there. I'll call Du- din at once. I'll come out with him and his men, and we'll all take him together — no, no bullshit, no heroics. We'll make certain we take him.'

His free hand was clenching and unclenching near the pencil and the notepad. He was racked with impatience like a child.

'Yes, sir,' Katya replied, reconciled to good, sensible precautions. 'But please hurry.'

'Look, don't worry. Just sit in your car and play that Paul Simon tape I know you bought last week from one of the back-street dealers in town, and we'll be right with you. All right?'

'Yes, Colonel,' she replied in a sobered, careful voice.

'You know Paul Simon's not only an American, but also a Jew— and very subversive,' Priabin added. He joined her laughter, then said: 'Well done, Katya, really well done. Hang on — we'll be right With you.'

He switched off the radio. He would make certain that Katya s part in this was recognized by the committees, just as he would use the capture of Kedrov as his return ticket to Moscow Center. He had begun to dial Dudin's number, but his hand, as if understanding his mood, had replaced the receiver. He found himself staring at the dark square of the window as if at some screen upon which long-anticipated images would shortly be projected. It was only gradually that the haze of light from the distant launch complex made itself apparent against the glass. He rubbed his chin, then watched his fingers drumming with growing impatience on his desk. But the moment was good, and he deliberately held on to it for as long as he could. His fingers were pale in the lamp's pool of white light. Slowly, almost luxuriously, he made those impatient fingers reach toward the dial — Dudin, and the capture of Kedrov.

The telephone began to ring.

Katya s danger was the first reaction that began to surge in him, until he realized it was not the same telephone. It was the one he had been going to use to call Tyuratam's KGB chief.

His mood vanished. He grabbed the receiver and almost shouted into it: 'Priabin. Yes?'

'Sir?' It was Mikhail.

'Mikhail — look, I'm busy, urgently busy. Clear the line, will you? I'll take any report later on.'

'Sir, this is important,' Mikhail announced heavily. Priabin could clearly hear restrained anger in his breathing.

'Oh, very well, Mikhail,' he sighed. 'What is it?'

'Two things, sir. We've been trying to get hold of you—'

'Yes, yes,' he snapped. 'What two things?'

His body twitched with impatience. Katya was out there in the icy night, close to Kedrov. In an hour they could have him. He closed his free hand into a tight fist, clutching his image of Kedrov.

'His father rang him almost an hour ago — to confirm the poof's leaving first thing in the morning. The early flight out.'

'Why?'

'When the old man was here, sir, he — he beat his son up. Screaming. Knocked him about. We couldn't hear, but we saw a lot of it. Old Rodin was shouting his head off. Now we know what he was saying. It's tomorrow.'

'Damn,' Priabin said softly, but the news was strangely without impact; a small pity for the son, an abstract dislike of the father and his behavior. But the disappointment, the sense of being cheated that Mikhail implied he should feel, were both absent. 'That's it, then,' he added with a sigh.

'Sir — the other piece of news.' Mikhail's exasperation was insubordinate.

'What?'

'He — he's asked to talk to you, sir — the poof, not the father.'

'Asked?'

'He must have checked, found the phone was bugged. Little creep just picked up the receiver and spoke to us. Demanded to speak to you — said he had something to tell you.'

'Something to tell?' Priabin began. It was as if a drug injected minutes before only now began its stimulating effect. His mind seemed to become urgently intent. He leaned forward in his chair, his hand scrabbled for his pencil; Kedrov and Katya and the marshes retreated. He was tempted and greedy. 'What exactly did he say?'

Mikhail's tone changed, became enthusiastically relieved. 'Said he had to talk to you, sir. You want to hear the tape of what he said?'

'No, just tell me.'

'He said he had something important to tell you, something you'd be interested to hear. He said he had to talk to you tonight because, as we no doubt knew already, he was leaving for Moscow on the morning flight. Real wise guy.'

Lightning—had to be—Lightning.

He could have it all. He felt dry-mouthed with anticipation

'When was this?'

'Fifty-two minutes ago, sir.'

'He hasn't rung back?'

'He's been packing. Quite calm, by the look of it. No drugs, just one brandy. He seems to be waiting for you, sir — as if he's sure you'll come.'