'Now, if you will excuse me. You may let yourself out. Good day, Lieutenant.'
Once outside, Marganin made his way around the rear of Prevlov's apartment building. The door to the garage was locked, so he glanced furtively up and down the alley and then tapped a side window with his fist until it splintered. Carefully, he picked out the pieces until his hand could grope inside and unlatch the lock. One more look down the alley and he pushed up the window, climbed the sill, and entered the garage.
A black American Ford sedan was parked next to Prevlov's orange Lancia. Quickly, Marganin searched both cars and memorized the numbers on the Ford's embassy license plate. To make it look like the work of a burglar, he removed the windshield wipers-the theft of which was a national pastime in the Soviet Union-and then unlocked the garage door from the inside and walked out.
He hurried back to the front of the building and he had only to wait three minutes for the next electric bus. He paid the driver and eased into a seat and stared out the window. Then he began to smile. It had been a most profitable morning.
The Sicilian Project was the furthest thing from his mind.
THE COLORADANS
August 1987
9
Mel Donner routinely checked the room for electronic eavesdropping equipment and set up the tape recorder. 'This is a test for voice level.' He spoke into the microphone without inflection. 'One, two, three.' He adjusted the controls for tone and volume, then nodded to Seagram.
'We're ready, Sid,' Seagram said gently. 'If it becomes tiring, just say so and we'll break off until tomorrow.'
The hospital bed had been adjusted so that Sid Koplin sat nearly upright. The mineralogist appeared much improved since their last meeting. His color had returned and his eyes seemed bright. Only the bandage around his balding head showed any sign of injury. 'I'll go until midnight,' he said. 'Anything to relieve the boredom. I hate hospitals. The nurses all have icy hands and the color on the goddamned TV is always changing.'
Seagram grinned and laid the microphone in Koplin's lap. 'Why don't you begin with your departure from Norway.'
'Very uneventful,' Koplin said. 'The Norwegian fishing trawler Godhawn towed my sloop to within two hundred miles of Novaya Zemlya as planned. Then the captain fed the condemned man a hearty meal of roast reindeer with goat-cheese sauce, generously provided six quarts of aquavit, cast off the tow-hawser, and sent yours truly merrily on his way across the Barents Sea.'
'Any weather problems?'
'None-your meteorological forecast held perfect. It was colder than a polar bear's left testicle, but I had fine sailing weather all the way.' Koplin paused to scratch his nose. 'That was a sweet little sloop your Norwegian friends fixed me up with. Was she saved?'
Seagram shook his head. 'I'd have to check, but I'm certain it had to be destroyed. There was no way to take it on board the NUMA research vessel, and it couldn't be left to drift into the path of a Soviet ship. You understand.'
Koplin nodded sadly. 'Too bad. I became rather attached to her.'
'Please continue,' Seagram said.
'I raised the north island of Novaya Zemlya late in the afternoon of the second day. I had been at the helm for over forty hours, dozing off and on, and I began to find it impossible to keep my eyes open. Thank God for the aquavit. After a few swigs, my stomach was burning like an out-of-control forest fire and suddenly I was wide awake.'
'You sighted no other boats?'
'None ever showed on the horizon,' Koplin answered. Then he went on, 'The coast proved to be a seemingly unending stretch of rocky cliffs. I saw no point in attempting a landing-it was beginning to get dark. So I turned out to sea, hove to, and sneaked a few hours sleep. In the morning I skirted the cliffs until I picked out a small sheltered cover and then went in on the auxiliary diesel.'
'Did you use your boat for a base camp?'
'For the next twelve days. I made two, sometimes three field trips a day on cross-country skis, prospecting before returning for a hot meal and a good night's rest in a warm-'
'Up to now, you had seen no one?'
'I kept well clear of the Kelva missile station and the Kama security post. I saw no sign of the Russians until the final day of the mission.'
'How were you discovered?'
'A Russian soldier on patrol his dog must have crossed my trail and picked up my scent. Small wonder. I hadn't bathed in almost three weeks.'
Seagram dropped a smile. Donner picked up the questioning more coldly, aggressively 'Let's get back to your field trips. What did you find?'
'I couldn't cover the whole island on cross-country skis, so I concentrated on the promising areas that had been pinpointed by the satellite computer printouts.' He stared at the ceiling. 'The north island; the outer continuation of the Ural and Yugorski mountain chains, a few rolling plains, plateaus, and mountains-most of which are under a permanent ice sheet. Violent winds much of the time. The chill factor is murderous. I found no vegetation other than some rock lichen. If there were any warm-blooded animals, they kept to themselves.'
'Let's stick to the prospecting,' Donner said, 'and save the travel lecture for another time.'
'Just laying the groundwork.' Koplin shot Donner a disapproving stare, his tone icy. 'If I may continue without interruption-'
'Of course,' Seagram said. He pulled his chair strategically between the bed and Donner. 'It's your game, Sid. We'll play by your rules.'
'Thank you.' Koplin shifted his body. 'Geographically, the island is quite interesting. A description of the faulting and uplifting of rocks that were once sediments formed under an ancient sea could fill several textbooks. Mineralogically, the magmatic paragenesis is barren.'
'Would you mind translating that?'
Koplin grinned. 'The origin and geological occurrence of a mineral is called its paragenesis. Magma, on the other hand, is the source of all matter; a liquid rock heated under pressure which turns solid to form igneous rock, perhaps better known as basalt or granite.'
'Fascinating,' Donner said dryly. 'Then what you're stating is that Novaya Zemlya is void of minerals.'
'You are singularly perceptive, Mr. Donner,' Koplin said.
'But how did you find traces of byzanium?' Seagram asked.
'On the thirteenth day, I was poking around the north slope of Bednaya Mountain and ran onto a waste dump.''
'Waste dump?'
'A pile of rocks that had been removed during the excavation of a mine shaft. This particular dump happened to have minute traces of byzanium ore.'
The expressions on his interrogators' faces suddenly went sober.
'The shaft entrance was cunningly obscured,' Koplin continued. 'It took me the better part of the afternoon to figure which slope it was on.'
'One minute, Sid.' Seagram touched Koplin's arm. 'Are you saying the entrance to this mine was purposely concealed?'
'An old Spanish trick. The opening was filled until it was even with the natural slope of the hill.'
'Wouldn't the waste dump have been on a direct line from the entrance?' Donner asked.
'Under normal circumstances, yes. But in this case they were spaced over a hundred yards apart, separated by a gradual arc that ran around the mountain's slope to the west.'
'But you did discover the entrance?' Donner went on.
'The rails and ties for the ore cars had been removed and the track bed covered over, but I managed to trace its outline by moving off about fifteen hundred yards and studying the mountain's slope through binoculars. What you couldn't see when you were standing on top of it became quite clear from that distance. The exact location of the mine was then easy to determine.'
