reason than lightning for imposing normal launch security a whole day early; there could be no other reason. He tried to think, to consider rationally, but the effort of it made him more fearful. His body seemed to fill with it; mercury mounting in a thermometer.

He found himself at the bedroom door. His hand flicked on the lights. Soft pink warmth from the bedside lamp shades, Rodin's face still and aristocratic in profile, his limbs easy on the rumpled bed. There was no proof — that had been eradicated.

… remember. It was difficult. He concentrated on the corpse. Remember what? Kedrov and Gant were a huge, blank wall between himself and the recent past. What was there, on the other side, when he had talked to — to this here, on the bed, when it had still lived? What?

… proof, proof, proof…

The tape! He had been wired for sound, it was all on tape! Mikhail had the tape, he had intended taking it to Moscow, they could identify Rodin's voice, surely? It was some kind of proof, it would force them to begin to act.

Mikhail. Priabin glanced at his watch. He'd be at home now, keeping his head down as ordered. Tape—

— flight canceled. No trains, no radio, no telephone. Roads— perhaps the roads. He had only to get as far as the nearest KGB office outside the complex, in — in Aral'sk, two hours, a little more, by car. Six-eighteen, hurry.

The fear would not go away, not even diminish amid the exhibition of imminent action. He left the bedroom door ajar as he had found it, switching off the lights. Rodin's body retreated into shadow, but the corpse was not so distant now, not so removed — he W the boy's voice on tape, he still had Lightning. He hurried into the hallway, carefully opening the front door. The corridor outside w*s empty.

He took the stairs quickly, but not in panic. He did not wish to be remembered, timed, and logged by the janitor, who might be working for Serov.

Outside, the leaking daylight was bleak, and a wind flew into his face. Hurry.

* * *

Gennadi Serov regretted leaving Kedrov and the American, even for this journey, this call. They had become the center of the game; the essence of success. Proof that the Americans had no proof, that the whole business was still secure, intact. And Kedrov, with his hanging, victims face, pleased Serov and tempted him. He would gut Kedrov the technician, the spy, like a fish; fillet him with drugs or violence — the method did not matter, only the execution of the thing.

He stepped out of his staff car. The wind tugged a few isolated clouds across the lightening sky. The block of flats appeared shabby, crouched at the side of the highway. Behind him, the road narrowed across the flat country toward the distant gantries and launch towers and radio masts scribbled on the horizon. Smoke hung over Tyuratam to the southeast, other factory complexes smeared the sky with fumes as separate and identifiable as fingerprints left on glass. He studied the flats. A car started up and pulled away from the garages at the rear. It headed west along the highway, its exhaust signaling in the chilly morning air. It passed the low restaurant, the shops, the other blocks of flats.

One of the members of Priabin's surveillance team, who had watched the little bitch Rodin, lived in this block. Serov rubbed his hands together, as if in anticipation of a welcome. He walked rapidly away from the car, motioning his driver and his team in the second car to remain where they were. He waved the walkie-talkie at them to signify his confidence. He pushed open the glass doors of the block, entered its carpeted lobby. Thin nylon carpet, but carpet. Security people, some technicians, factory managers lived there. They qualified for lobby carpet, for two bedrooms each in some cases, and for proximity to a beriozhka shop, where they could buy 'luxuries,' and a restaurant. And cars — quite a number of them parked in front of the flats, more in the garages behind. There was also a janitor, who indicated Serov's presence by tactfully ignoring it, having identified the uniform and the rank.

The elevator door opened. Graffiti on the walls like a challenge to him, harmless though it was. Some driveling, misspelled protestation of love, another of sex; some comment on a soccer team, 00 the army. He ascended to the third floor.

A woman in the corridor, coming out of the door he wanted, saying good-bye to her friend. A drab, frightened, worn woman, & if recently bereaved, two children with lost faces, the small boy still eating a slice of toast. Jam on his cheek. He let the woman and her children pass, studied the door the woman opened, read the name of the occupants — Zhikin — smiled.

He realized the other woman was watching him. Hardly alarmed, more curious. He touched the peak of his cap with the glove he held in his hand.

'Your husband — Officer Mikhail Shubin — is. he at home?' he asked with brisk authority.

'Comrade Colonel, I—' the woman began. His tone had not been intended to disarm, and it had not done so. Her eyes were alert, shadowed with the expectation of concern.

'You must know,' Serov insisted. 'My name is Serov. GRU commandant here,' he added carelessly. 'I wish to speak with your husband.'

He had already moved close to her. He could smell bedclothes still, and cooking. Cigarette smoke, too. He was allowed to all but pass her before she squeezed against him and they walked almost comically down the linoleumed corridor toward the flat's kitchen, close together, as if he held her in the crook of one arm. Serov was amused as she seemed to wish to scamper ahead, warn—

— Shubin, it had to be him, was sitting tousle-haired at the foldaway table erected against one wall of the cramped kitchen. Coffee steamed in front of him, the stove steamed with something boiling — eggs perhaps? Serov recorded the details with the eye of a painter. Cracked and discolored linoleum on the floor, a child seated on Shubin's lap, rolling a small toy car across the morning's copy of Pravda open on the tablecloth. Cloth — clean, too, and not oilcloth or newspaper. Precisely, Serov noted the fine gradations that would have told him, had he not already known, the rank, income, privileges of the man at the table. Condensation from the boiling water covered the window. The woman moved to the saucepan — yes, Serov could hear eggs bumping softly against its metal — and turned down the gas.

'Mikhail,' she began in a remonstrative tone, then continued, Colonel Serov.'

Shubin placed the child on the table. One of his large hands held the toy car, the other rubbed his head. His eyes, however, were furtive and quick. Serov felt pleasure rise as tangibly as the steam in the kitchen.

'Comrade Colonel,' Mikhail acknowledged, nodding his head almost in what might have been a bow. 'What can I—?'

Serov held up his hand, sitting immediately at the table. Shubin collected his child in his arms, and he, too, sat down. The eggs stopped tapping against each other and the sides of the saucepan. The woman tended them with concentration; placed slices of bread on the grill pan, slid it noisily under the gas, which she lit with a plop—

— which made Shubin's hand jump. Serov thought of Viktor Zhikin's widow two doors away, and her children, and considered the eventual, inevitable absence of this man from this scene.

'Shubin, I won't beat about the bush, I'll come straight to the point,' he announced, clearing his throat, laying his gloves on the table, near the now ignored toy car.

'Coffee, Colonel?' the woman asked from her position at the stove.

'Thank you. Black.'

Shubin lit a cigarette. Puffed at it nervously. Serov felt Priabin must have confided in the man, or there was a record of what was said — and there'd been a warning, too. The strain of appearing calm was creasing Mikhail's face into hard, tight lines. He smoothed his hair again where the boy's hands had disturbed it; as if waiting for an interview. He needed to feel tidy. Serov glanced very obviously at the man's felt slippers, at the bottoms of his pajama trousers, at the robe. All weaknesses, disadvantages. Serov all but sighed aloud, anticipating the ease with which he would obtain what he wanted.

A kettle boiled, further clouding the window. The woman brought his coffee, in a cup, unpatterned but china, not in a mug like her husband was using.

'Sugar?'

He raised one hand to refuse. Shubin swallowed coffee quickly. Then Serov said: 'You and one of your fellow officers maintained surveillance on a certain apartment in the old town until the early hours of this morning — that is correct?'

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