Winter Hawk

the inner office. Serov entered the room, his face bright.

'General, Kedrov is spilling everything he knows,' he began, crossing the thick carpet. Rodin was standing near the window, looking out across the square. 'The Americans obviously know, but they have no proof, none at—' He paused, measuring his reaction as carefully as some dangerous chemical, then said: 'General, what is the matter? You — don't look well. Please—' He indicated a chair. Rodin's face was ashen, as if he, too, had newly adopted a mask, one of pain and grief. He'd seen his son's body. 'What is it, General? What is it?'

Rodin held his wrist tightly, perhaps for more than mere support.

'Valery,' was all he said.

'Your son, General. Yes, what is the matter?'

'My son is dead.'

Rodin would not let go of Serov's arm, thus he could not move that dramatic half-step away from the old man. His features were in closeup; Rodin was inspecting them searchingly. Yet there was something blank about his eyes, like those of the drugged Kedrov.

'Dead? I don't understand.'

Rodin's eyes studied him as carefully as the fingers of a blind person identifying braille. Serov produced shock, concern, sympathy. Then Rodin let go of his wrist and turned back to the window.

'Suicide,' he whispered. Serov's frame relaxed. He was surprised at his own tension.

'Suicide? How can you—

'I saw him!' Rodin wailed. 'I found him, earlier.' He turned back to Serov. 'Who? Why?' Careful, careful, Serov thought, this is the moment. 'What made him do it? Who is responsible?' There had been nothing, no trace of honest expression for Rodin to witness. He turned away once more. Sunlight haloed his form. 'Was it you, Serov?' 'I?'

'Hounding that actor, getting rid of him? Or that KGB colonel? Who was it?'

'Your son was being questioned, perhaps pressured—'

'This man Priabin.' Rodin growled. 'What does he want? Why is he — was he interested in Valery? This — drugs business?'

'Perhaps. Perhaps something else.'

Rodin turned quickly. 'Lightning? I can't believe—'

'Who knows what he suspects, General?'

'Then find out.'

'Arrest him?'

'If necessary. If he, if he…' His voice cracked and he turned to the window. There was no color, not even anger, in his features. 'Find out, Serov. Find out if he was responsible.'

'Of course, General.'

'I want — my son will be flown back to Moscow, and he will receive a full military funeral. Is that understood? You will make the necessary arrangements. There will be no breath of any — irregularities. He died — in the course of duty. Duty. Do you understand?'

'Completely, General.'

'I want to know, Serov, whether that man was responsible for my son's suicide.'

'You will, General.'

There was silence, then, for a long time. Serov quietly moved to his desk. Rodin continued to stare out of the window. There was a new kind of frailty about the slope of his shoulders, about the way in which his head seemed cocked to one side. Serov glanced through the reports on his desk.

Afghanistan? He read the sheet quickly. That's how… he couldn't have made it. They'd shot down his tanker helicopter, evidently, which fitted with Adamov's ridiculous story of filling the tanks of the Hind at a gas station near the Amu Darya. Serov smiled. The American had come on, hadn't given up. How desperate the Americans must be for proof, how desperate.

He looked up. Rodin was staring at him.

'Now,' he said. 'I want to see this American—the American.' His voice was younger now, his face reaffirmed in habitual lines and planes.

'Of course.'

'What condition is he in?'

'Tired and beaten. Defeated, General, not assaulted.'

'Psychological assessment?'

'Tough. He will take — time.'

'And he was entirely alone?'

'Their last, desperate throw of the dice, General. I'm certain of it. They know, but they are impotent without proof. That's why they had to have Kedrov instead of just leaving him to stew.'

'Your search for other Americans has not been abandoned?'

'No, it's continuing. But I'm sure—

'Very well.' Rodin sighed, but choked off the sound, as if it threatened to remind him of unrelated things. 'Then Lightning is safe. But this man, this KGB colonel — he might talk?'

'To whom, General? Code Green is initiated. He's cut off — inside the fortress, so to speak. He can't communicate with anyone outside. '

'Arrest him anyway,' Rodin snapped. 'Arrest Priabin at once.'

* * *

President John Calvin paused at the top of the passenger steps of Air Force One and waved once more to the television cameras and the rows and clumps of dazzling flashbulbs. He quashed all sense of the masquerade that had assailed him during the drive from the White House to Andrews AFB. Even as he had prepared himself for this interrogation — this challenge — by camera, he had been as unfamiliar with his role as an actor bereft of his script. But adrenaline was flowing now, he could play the part expected of him. He could smile, and wave, and brush at his gray hair as it was lifted and distressed by the breeze. His pale cheeks would be the result of the chill, nothing more. His tired eyes would, on TV and in the newspapers, seem concerned, filled with the gravity of the occasion rather than its awful emptiness.

He waved, suitably serious. The sharp tip of his raincoat collar tapped stingingly against his cheek as the wind blew it. As if trying to wake him from the dreamlike role-playing. Flashbulbs burst out afresh, and he wanted to shout that they had enough pictures to last a lifetime and… He smiled at the cameras. The First Lady was already aboard. Remsburg, the secretary of state, was aboard, Dick Gunther, too; his advisers, his press secretary. Everyone — the whole pack of liars and actors.

He had made his speech without a stumble or uncalculated pause; but it had wearied him. My fellow Americans, on Thursday, we shall make history… Mockery. Calvin nodded toward the bottom of the passenger steps, at Miles Coltrane, his vice-president, who grinned and suddenly raised his hands, clasped together, in a signal of triumph, like a champion boxer might have given. Like shaking dice, Calvin thought. Miles, you re maybe a better actor than I am. Then Coltrane saluted him and backed away as the ground crew approached the ladder. Calvin looked out over the cameras toward the roped-back crowd, already being shunted farther from the runway. A sea of featureless blobs — black and brown and white faces… My fellow Americans, I leave you to engage upon the greatest betrayal of my country any American citizen has ever contemplated or achieved… He waved once more and stepped back off the passenger steps, ducking his tall frame to pass into the interior of Air Force One.

Uniforms, civilian clothes, salutes, and acknowledgments. His wife's pale, relieved features. He patted her shoulder, then passed her seat, toward Remsburg and Gunther.

He understood their expressions, as clearly as if they were miming for his benefit.

'Nothing — nothing at all?' he snapped, waving his hand at the huge map table in the center of the aircraft's main section. He did not even look down at its surface. Both men seemed surprised at the persistence of optimism.

'It's twelve hours now, Mr. President,' Gunther began. The CIA director had joined them like a man uncertain of his reception. His face was drawn, his eyelids heavy with lack of sleep. Calvin looked at him with the distaste he suspected he might show toward a mirror at that moment.

'Twelve hours. And you know nothing more than you did then? What the hell is happening over there?'