They were met in Kabul by an armored personnel carrier. Sergei exchanged meaningful looks with the members of his team; his own military experience was limited to the paramilitary organization of the KGB, and the rest of his team, all even younger than he, had come into the KGB after only eighteen months or so of military experience. Evidently the gaps in their respective educations were about to be filled in.
As they rumbled through the streets of the Afghan capital, "What's that sound?" asked Volodya, just twenty-one and fresh from Novosibirsk.
The driver of the armored personnel carrier didn't even turn around. "Rocks," he said.
That was succinct, thought Sergei, and repeated the word.
"These people are so happy to see us," explained the driver, "that they greet us with a shower of rocks. Sort of their version of rose petals at a wedding. You know, the marriage of Afghanistan and the Motherland?" He smiled happily, pleased with his feeble joke.
"Pull this thing over," said Sergei icily.
"Can't, Sir. The people would swarm all over us and tear us limb from limb."
In a flash, Sergei had his identification in his hand and was at the driver's side, thrusting the red card under his nose.
"Listen, you half-wit," he growled, "keep your big ears open and your bigger mouth shut. And you can thank whatever luckless patron saint of soldiers watches over you, that I'm not a bloody colonel carrying this thing, because any colonel in his right mind would ship you out to Siberia so fast your feet would still be here!"
"Look, Comrade Senior Lieutenant," said the driver quietly, "I don't mean any disrespect to you or your rank or the KGB, but I've been here since before Brezhnev ordered this 'police action'. There are ten left from my regiment. The lucky ones got a metal overcoat, and if their wives and parents had seen the remains they'd have taken up permanent residence in the Serbsky Clinic. Not because they were dissidents but because they would truly have gone right out of their minds
"And those were the lucky ones. There were the rest, missing legs and arms, even brains..." He swallowed. "It's pretty gruesome, Sir," he ended, almost apologetically.
Throughout this recital, his voice had not risen one half tone in pitch, his facial muscles had not lost their air of befuddled indifference, he had not once taken his eyes from the road before him. Nor had the steady thunk of rock against metal ceased.
"What's your name?"
"Kavalenko, Yuri Alexandrovich. Corporal, Army of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Serial Number 52538818."
"How old are you?"
"Nineteen, Sir."
Sergei nodded. There seemed nothing else to say.
After what seemed like an eternity, the thunking stopped. "Now we're in the Embassy compound," said Kavalenko. "Okay, end of the line on the Simpleton Orient Express, Istanbul, Thessaloniki, Sofia, Bucharest, Odessa, Rostov, Tehran, Tbilisi, Kabul, allll out!"
As his men stumbled and scrambled towards sanity, Sergei asked, "What'd you used to do for a living?"
Kavalenko grinned. "Can't you guess, Sir? Streetcar conductor in Kiev. Boy, that was the life. I grew up on a collective about twenty miles outside of the city. Left home as soon as I finished school. Ever been to Kiev?"
"My mother is from Kiev."
"Lucky lady. You, Sir? Kiev, as well?"
"You mean my accent didn't give me away?" Sergei had to smile. "Moscow."
He had at last succeeded in impressing the unflappable Kavalenko, who now stared at him round-eyed.
"Moscow! 'Everything flows downhill to Moscow,'" he quoted the proverb.
"Good," said Sergei dryly. "Maybe if enough of us Muscovites show up, we can all flow downhill a little faster and get out of this godforsaken climate."
Kavalenko's snort told him what his chances of that were.
The interior of the Soviet Embassy looked, on the surface, like an extension of any Soviet government office. Clacking typewriters, harried secretaries and smoke-wreathed bureaucrats were everywhere. It was only when you tried to look at their eyes that you realized this was a fortress under siege. After that, you were alert for the other tell-tale signs: the way people jumped when a telephone rang; the way they stabbed out half-smoked cigarettes and instantly lit another with trembling fingers; the way the entire office staff ground to a screeching halt, wide-eyed with apprehension, whenever a door opened, until they saw it was just another Soviet officer, not very senior in rank, with a contingent of soldiers behind him.
"I'm looking for," Sergei pulled a piece of paper from the breast pocket of his fatigues, "Tamara Borisovna Zagorka. She here?"
Now that she had determined that he was neither an Afghan mujahid nor a general, the secretary was disinclined to exert herself. "Never heard of her," she snapped and riffled papers impatiently. Sergei raised his eyebrows, pursed his lips, sighed and produced the magic red card.
"Are you sure of that?" he asked gently.
The effect was extraordinary. The girl dropped her papers, turned as white as her blouse, then as red as the card. My God, the KGB, was written on every line that had suddenly appeared in her face. She raised frightened blue eyes to Sergei.
"I-I-I'm sorry, Sir, I-I'm n-n-new here," she managed to stammer out. Sergei knew that she had been in her posting for over a year, and he let her know that he knew with a raised eyebrow.
"I'd like to see Comrade Zagorka, please," he requested in that same gentle tone.
The secretary licked her lips. "Wh-who shall I say..."
"Makarov, Sergei Ilyich, Senior Lieutenant, Committee for State Security."
"Yes, Sir."
It was almost pathetic, the way she walked from her desk towards the rear of the room by supporting herself on the desks of the other secretaries in the pool. What a shame it took that little red piece of plastic to get any worthwhile work accomplished. How will we ever build True Socialism like that? he asked himself.
She beckoned to him from the far side of the room, apparently not trusting herself to re-negotiate the maze of desks on legs as steady as noodles. When he reached her side, "Comrade Zagorka," she croaked into the room behind her, "a Senior Lieutenant Makarov to see you, and—and—his men. From—KGB," she added, and fled.
Tamara Borisovna Zagorka got to her feet.
Sweet Cyril, thought Sergei.
Warm brown eyes set in a narrow olive face, above a thin nose that swept in a perfect slash from her eyes to flare into nostrils that looked too delicate for anything so functional as breathing, above a dusky rosebud of a mouth that looked permanently berry-stained. Hair as black as a Mediterranean olive, as crisp and curling as the heads of imported lettuce he had left behind at the KGB Stores on Dzerzhinsky Square. As tall as he, far leaner, far browner, and when she smiled, her teeth flashed as brightly as the summer sun on the Moskva.
"My goodness," she said, "what did you do to my poor little Natasha?"
Her official title was Secretary to the Ambassador to Afghanistan from the Soviet Union.
Her other official title was known only to certain people at the Lubyanka. She was the KGB Rezident at the Embassy. Not the same Rezident who was recognized as such by most KGB personnel. That individual was a man with the rank of KGB colonel, who directed security and kept an eye out for possible defectors, who received and acted upon all messages relayed to the chief cipher clerk from the Center, who amassed information on the movements of the mujahidin and coordinated KGB operations in Kabul and environs. No, Zagorka's job, as a captain in the Inspectorate, was to keep an eye on the official Rezident, to make sure he performed his tasks diligently and as assigned to him. She had also been assigned the job of recording the number and kind of weapons, foreign and Russian, that were taken from captured or dead Afghans. It was she who had confirmed the report from Military Intelligence concerning the alarming increase in the number of Kalashnikovs, Makarovs and Graz-Buryas to reach enemy hands, she who held the ultimate responsibility for Soviet state security in the Kabul district. Above and beyond that political appointee who spent his time throwing his weight around.
Sergei shook his head.
"How do you handle this job and run the Ambassador's office, too?" he said.
She smiled. As from a great distance, he heard her reply.
"There's nothing at all to it. They're essentially the same job. Watch, listen, act only when necessary. It's no different from herding sheep in the mountains outside Sofia." Her tone suggested that the Ambassador and his staff were also no different from sheep.
Gone, suddenly, were the memories of the lonely flight from Moscow, the hair-raising ride into Kabul, the sobering conversation with Yuri Kavalenko that had ended in unexpected banter. For Sergei, the world consisted suddenly of citron and olives, clear water splashing over sun-baked stones and throwing droplets of pure light caught in a prism from the rays of the hot Thracian sun, and warmth, warmth to dry the drenching Moscow spring, warmth to uncoil fragile flower petals and tense muscles.
"What's the situation?" someone asked. A second later, he realized that the question had been posed in his own voice. The situation, my friend, he said to himself, is critical, on tenterhooks, ready to snap.
"It's like this—Comrade Senior Lieutenant?"
There was a long pause.
"Oh, make it Sergei," he said at last, "takes less time to say."
"Thank you, Sergei. It's like this. In the past six months, the mujahidin we've picked up here in town have had in their possession an alarmingly high percentage of Soviet weapons, and a disturbing variety of weaponry, as well. M-16s we expected, Browning automatics, fine, a few Kalashnikovs, fine—we do lose men out here, Comrade Senior—Sergei. But not in proportion to the number of Kalashnikovs."
"This—what shall we call it, problem?—first was reported by you a week ago. By GRU, three weeks ago, already. Why the discrepancy?"
She shrugged her elegant shoulders. What lovely collarbones she had. Just like Anne's, he thought, glad that Kabul did not exist in his wife's world, but missing her terribly all the same.
"You tell me, Sergei," said Tamara. "I only heard about it from GRU last week." She raised her sable eyebrows. Sergei had to remind himself that she was making a preliminary statement, not seducing him. He nodded.
"You mentioned M-16s and Brownings as well as Kalashnikovs. What percentage of each are you seeing?"
"We expected to see fifteen to thirty percent Kalashnikovs. It's more like fifty percent. Brownings and M-16s, another thirty percent. That leaves twenty percent Other. Such as Graz-Buryas."
Sergei slammed his feet on the marble floor. "Exactly. How, in your opinion, are KGB service revolvers reaching the hands of Afghan rebels?"
Tamara shrugged.
He thought rapidly, and was about to outline a possible conduit and a plan for plugging it when a voice echoed in his ear.
The only person you can trust absolutely is an absolutely dead one.
Popov.
Instead, "Well, that certainly makes it obvious that something hinky is going on," he said. "Do you have any idea where my men and I are billeted?"
She smiled. "As it happens, I made the billeting arrangements." She took a map of the Embassy compound from her desk drawer and sketched a route with her finger. "Straight ahead, then left, count five buildings, another left, then a right. It's a sort of VIP hotel. Loaded with colonels and generals."
"And one Senior Lieutenant with his five troops." He grinned. "Can you picture their reaction to us lowlifes?"
At that she began to giggle uncontrollably. After a moment, he found himself unable to resist that infectious laughter, and within seconds they were wiping their eyes and gasping for breath.
"I don't suppose, Comrade Secretary," he got out at last.
"Call me Tamara. Yes?" She was still grinning from ear to ear.
"Don't do that to me anymore!" He was still chuckling. "Back to business now, Comrade. I don't suppose this highbrow VIP place serves food as well?"
"Do call me Tamara, Sergei. Yes, of course it does. The best Kabul has to offer." The black-olive eyes laughed at him. He returned her look and knew that his own eyes danced.
"Heaven help us," he said dryly.
To his surprise, Yuri Kavalenko was outside the building when he and his men left, ostensibly inspecting his APC for dents from the rocks, but he straightened when they emerged.
"You staying at the Ritz Metropole, Sir?"
"The where?! Oh, you mean the bigwig hotel?"
Yuri's face maintained its air of befuddled indifference as he nodded. Sergei smiled.
"Does it have a real name?"
"I think so, Sir." Yuri's face took on a look of befuddled concentration. "But nobody knows what it is. Take your bags, Sir?" He appeared to brighten at the prospect.
"I don't think so, thanks anyway, Corporal. Don't you have business somewhere else?"
"I'm sorry, Sir?"
Sergei tried a different tack, but kept his voice casual.
"What's your MOS, Corporal?"
"Oh." Yuri patted the APC, then looked over at a low, squat building. "Admin., Sir. Umm...Colonel Bloshchup, Sir. I...sort of keep things going for him, Sir. And the taxi service." He patted the APC again. "And I take care of newcomers, too, Sir. Take your bags, Sir?" he asked again.
Sergei wondered if the boy were all there. If so...yes, Yuri might have some uses. He smiled kindly.
"Sure. You can take this one," he said, and handed Yuri his clothes satchel. "I'll keep the other."
Sergei made sure that all his men were thoroughly settled before he headed back to the Embassy.
"Sure you don't want us to do anything, Sir?" asked the oldest, and the sharpest, of his subordinates. Sergei considered a moment before replying. It was so obvious to him that to Arkady, this whole trip was nothing more than an opportunity to polish his own star by showing up the boss.
"Yes, Arkasha." He grinned. "Yuri showed me where the mess hall is. You and the others take a wander over there, and keep your eyes and open. Don't be obvious. Be new men, taking in the place. And don't show your IDs, under any circumstances. If you're challenged, just leave, and write it down and tell me. And for the love of Lenin, get some food. I doubt any of you had any breakfast."
Four grins answered his. Arkady frowned.
Some minutes later, Sergei re-entered the Embassy. No trace now of superciliousness in that smart-alecky secretary. She nearly fell over herself in her efforts to please him.
"Tamara Borisovna is in the Ambassador's office just now, Comrade Senior Lieutenant, Sir," she stammered. "Would you like some tea? a piece of cake? perhaps some whisky or vodka?"
Whisky, indeed. Every moron in government service knew about the crackdown on government employees' drinking. He smiled and took a seat. "Thanks, I'll just go over some things while I'm waiting. Oh, but please tell Comrade Zagorka that I'm here."
"Yes, Sir. Of course, Sir." The secretary fled. Sergei shook his head as he searched his briefcase for a pen and some notepaper. The power those three little letters "KGB" possessed was unreal. But if that girl thought her obsequiousness would save her from trouble with him, she was mistaken. It might have worked with almost anybody else, but not with him.
Only a minute or so later, he was shown into Tamara's office.
"That was quick," he observed. "I thought you were occupied with the Ambassador."
"I was in dictation," replied Tamara. "But Natasha said you wanted to see me."
"It could have waited. I need at least an hour of your time. You should never have interrupted the dictation session. Not for me."
Her eyes widened. "Who's Rezident here, Sergei?" she said with unmistakable steel in her voice. Sergei refused to be cowed.
"I was thinking," he replied quietly, "of how difficult it is to assemble one's thoughts, and when one has at last done so and is into the spirit of a dictation session, and must then interrupt the flow of thought, it can be extremely difficult to get back on track. When I dictate, I dislike being interrupted," he finished and stared straight at her.
To his surprise, she blushed a dusky rose and lowered her eyes. But she said nothing, and a moment later she looked up and said, "Well, the damage is done. What can I do for you?"
"Kavalenko, Yuri Alex—"
She burst out laughing. "Little Yukie! All right, what about him? No, let me guess, you want to know if he's all there?"
Sergei shrugged. "Is he?"
"Oh-ho, yes he is, my good Comrade Sergei, very much so indeed." She stopped smiling. "Yukie holds this whole godforsaken place together.
"Look, the Ambassador is just that, an ambassador. A public-relations man. He gets the Party line from Moscow and passes it along to that idiot at Party Headquarters in Kabul, whatever his name is—I've lost track by now. General Sokolovsky and his crowd just show up to put the fear of God, so to speak, into the troops. The general staff don't do any real work. Colonel Bloshchup is all right, but he doesn't know his ass from his elbow. His papa was a big noise in GRU, that's how he made it past Captain.
"However, Yukie is Bloshchup's secretary. He knows everything there is to know about how this place is run, and he makes Bloshchup and Sokolovsky look like the Hope for the Future at the Kremlin. I don't know why. He just does."
"What about you? After all, it was my impression that the Rezidenty were being promoted into responsible positions within embassies, not..."
"Second-rate secretarial/administrative positions? 'Gopher' types of jobs?" she said coolly. "I don't happen to think that this is a second-rate job. Especially since I'm not being paid a secretary's wage, and I got to be Rezident at age twenty-nine. And no, the Center didn't rob the cradle," she added. Sergei had the impression that she had explained this whole thing too many times before. "They wanted a Rezident in this job, and the Ambassador has a known weakness for Balkan girls. It was that simple."
"All right. I apologize. But if Yuri Alexandrovich runs this whole place, as you say, why haven't you recruited him for the Cheka?" He made the question sharper than it needed to be, because he had suddenly become aware of her dusky Mediterranean beauty. He could picture her on a grassy mountainside, the sun playing through her hair, leaves dappling her face... This would never do.
"It's not for lack of trying, I can assure you," she responded. "He's such a weird little duckling, I thought sure I'd get him through blackmail. But he never goes into town, he's not homosexual, he doesn't owe money..."
"Hashish?"
"No. Not that I've been able to find out. Although he does look permanently shell-shocked." She gasped and sat up. "You don't suppose—"
"That he's our man? That he puts on that space-cadet attitude so that we think he's some kind of imbecile?" Sergei considered. "Only one way to find out. Meanwhile, is there anyone else you suspect?"
"Well...yes. A GRU captain." Before she could elaborate, her buzzer sounded. She clicked her tongue and picked up the telephone. "Zagorka speaking," she snapped, and gazed impatiently at the ceiling.
When she leaned back in her chair, her breasts pointed straight out. Although Sergei was not especially interested in breasts as a focal point of sexuality—like most Russian men, he was most attracted by a shapely, plump bottom—just now, he found himself wondering what a handful of breast felt like. His diminutive, vivacious Anne had very small breasts, only a little more swollen than a child's. Thinking of her, he felt himself stirring, and got up to look for a bathroom. Behind him, the telephone was replaced in its cradle.
"What'd you do to my poor little Natasha?" Tamara repeated her earlier question in the same amused tone.
"Showed her my ID. Look, tell her to get her act together, will you? If the atmosphere around here is so besieged that she can only pull herself together for red cards, then she should go home."
He didn't think it was that at all. "Poor little Natasha" needed to be taught some manners. He could foresee that because Mama and Papa hadn't bothered, it would be up to the KGB to do the teaching. As usual, he thought, and moved restlessly.
"I need to use a toilet," he said. Tamara eyed him.
"It's to your left as you go out the door. Sergei," she stopped him, "there's more to be said, but I'm sure you're tired from your trip. Why don't you get some rest and come back around seven or so? I can get some food together that resembles a civilized meal, and we can speak privately."
Suddenly rest sounded like the best idea since clearing out of this godforsaken place altogether. "Seven," he muttered, and yawned. "Sounds good. See you then, Comrade."
"Tamara," she corrected, as she stood to show him out. "Until seven, Comrade Senior Lieutenant Sergei."
But he did not, after all, get the rest he had promised himself.
He never did figure out where he had made a wrong turn, but in no time at all, it seemed, he found himself wandering among a maze of Quonset huts and other makeshift shelters, and was soon reduced to peeking into windows for some sign of life. Was it significant that when he finally found someone, that someone was Yuri Kavalenko?
"Oh, hi, Sir. Come on in. I found a new one." With a befuddled grin, he held up an M-16 rifle.
"A new—M-16?" hazarded Sergei, as he perched himself on a corner of the briefing room table.
"Yes, Sir. They're not so easy to come by, 'cause Supply and Materiel locks them up as soon as they find them. But this one I found under a mujahid, so I...well, I..." He had the grace to look abashed.
"You appropriated it, instead of turning it in," finished Sergei, and cocked him an exasperated look. "Why, may I ask?"
"'Cause it's the only way I'm ever going to learn about American guns."
"Why not just stick to Russian guns, if you must learn about guns in the first place?"
"Oh, I already know all our guns. See?" Without so much as a downward glance, he picked up a Graz-Burya on the table, field-stripped it and reassembled it in minutes. Sergei could only stare. "And Kalashnikovs and Makarov pistols are even easier," said Yuri as he returned his attention to the gun before him. "It's the foreign weaponry I want to learn next. M-16s. Uzis. Stuff like that."
"Why?" There was no need to pretend curiosity. Guns, to Sergei, were a means to achieve an end, and a poor means at that. A gun would always be his last weapon of choice. "I mean, why bother? It's so...crude. It's so Western."
"Exactly, Sir. If you want to get to know an enemy, get to know his weapons."
Sergei felt a distinct chill down his spine at the ordinary conversational tone of voice this individual used in discussing weapons of destruction. Was it possible that Yuri was the one he was looking for? He was clearly a genius at weaponry. The Graz-Burya wasn't the easiest gun on earth to field-strip. He had exactly the right cold-blooded attitude and love of armature to have conceived of just the kind of gun-running set-up Sergei and his team were investigating.
But did he have the intelligence? And what about motive? Zagorka had ruled out money as a recruitment tool, so presumably, that wouldn't have been his motive in setting up a gun-running operation. On the other hand, there were plenty of other kinds of motives. Did he resent being on support staff? Did he long for the kind of notoriety that this form of piracy might bring him?
Maybe I'm overestimating his intelligence, thought Sergei wearily, and gestured towards the reassembled M-16.
"Will it shoot?"
In answer, Yuri aimed the gun at a tin can full of rubber bands and fired. Rubber bands flew all over the Quonset hut.
"I guess so, Sir."
Sergei nodded absently. He had just thought of a way to find out exactly what Yuri's involvement in this whole matter might be. A long shot, at best. But then, in the past two or so years, he had become rather expert at long shots.
"Yuri, I've got to talk to you."
"Sir?"
Was there a sudden reserve?
"I've got a problem, and I need your help."
"My help? But Sir, I thought all those other men who came in with us were your support staff?"
"They are, yes, but you see, I need someone who's been here longer than we have. There's just one thing..."
"Sir?"
"To use you, to use your knowledge of the way things work around here, I'm going to have to recruit you."
"Into the KGB?"
"Yes."
"Me? A Gebezhnik?"
"It's the only way."
Yuri shook his head. "Sorry, Sir. That I won't do. I don't want to be labelled an informer the rest of my life."
Sergei shrugged. "I understand your feelings about that. I grew up in the shadow of the Cheka—my father's with them, too—and it's not easy, when your associates think you're listening in on all their conversations for the sake of informing on them. But much as I hate to have to be the one to remind you, you are under an oath to serve our country. I can conscript you under that oath. I'd just rather not. I'd rather have your cooperation. If it helps you to feel any better about things, once this operation's over I can talk to people back in Moscow about finding you permanent work among us. You'll have job security, all kinds of benefits you've never even dreamed of, and as for a social life, there'll be plenty of young fellows like yourself. Besides," he added with a grin, "girls love the uniform."
He might as well have saved his breath. None of the usual advantages would work with a person like Yuri, and he ought to have realized that. He could only watch while Yuri's face screwed up in concentration, as he weighed the benefits of a career in the KGB against whatever his peculiar ideas of advantages were. At last he looked up with clouded eyes, and Sergei blinked, startled: What color were they, anyway? He had never in his life seen such nondescript eyes. They weren't grey. They weren't blue. They weren't brown or green. They weren't anything at all.
"Sir? Can I, um, ask a favor?"
"Well... You can ask." Sergei smiled a deprecating little smile that was meant to suggest that he really wasn't in a position to grant favors. That, too, was lost on Yuri.
"I just don't want Captain Zagorka to know that I agreed to work for you."
"Why not? Because she already tried to recruit you?"
"Not just that, Sir. She's..."
Sergei waited.
"She's not like you, Sir."
"You have no idea at all what I'm like."
"Yes I do, Sir." Those odd flat eyes fixed on him without blinking, and Sergei shivered: At this moment, he would have sworn on his KGB oath that Yuri could see into the dimmest recesses of his soul. Probably, he thought, shaken, probably he's just glad because I didn't tease him about his preoccupation with guns.
"All right, Yuri. I promise. I won't say anything to her."
Yuri frowned. "She's not very nice, Sir." While Sergei was still recovering from the idea that anyone in the KGB could be described in terms of niceness, Yuri added suddenly, "Sir, watch out for her, Sir. I don't like her. She's like an apple, Sir, round and red, with a worm in the middle."
Sergei said nothing as he studied the odd little Ukrainian. The trouble with Yuri, he decided, was that he was so eccentric that his contacts with other human beings were too limited to have allowed him to evaluate them with any degree of sophistication. He wondered whether to caution the boy about keeping his mouth shut. I did that once before, he remembered, and he put me in my place fast enough, and properly so. He took a deep breath.
"This is the situation." Rapidly he outlined the problem of the missing weapons and ammunition. "I don't know for sure that the whole operation is based in Kabul. But I need to make sure it isn't before I broaden my investigation. Do you think you can pick up any loose talk?" He held his breath. If Yuri were in any way involved in this affair, now would be the time that he would slip. The same wistful need for companionship that had made him hesitate to join the KGB, would lead him to expand further on Sergei's knowledge, betraying his own role in the arms case.
But nothing happened. Literally, nothing. He watched in dismay as Yuri's face slackened into one of the most vacant expressions he had ever seen. While he was still wondering whether the little Ukrainian was in the grip of some kind of seizure, a slow, sweet smile spread its way across the blank face.
"That's no problem, Sir," he said comfortably. "I hear a lotta things. Like, um—there's this captain works in Ciphers, short, kind of chubby-looking, but boy can he lift weights. He can bench-press a hundred and fifty kilos before breakfast!" Sergei smiled, assuming that this was some kind of exaggeration.
"What about him?"
"His name's Kuznetsov, and the scuttlebutt is that he's with the KGB."
Sergei suddenly knew exactly whom Yuri meant, and, Now how does he know that? he thought in exasperation. The idiot must have done something to blow his cover. "There are a lot of Kuznetsovs in the Cheka," he said carefully. "What makes you think this particular one is—"
"He works late at night after a full day, he's all over the compound and he just doesn't look like the average Embassy attaché. Also, he knows all kinds of codes." As Sergei smiled, prepared to deny any knowledge of the man in question, Yuri's face took on that peculiar wooden look again. "The rest of the scuttlebutt is that he's thinking of defecting to the West."
"What?!"
"Colonel Bloshchup and General Sokolovsky were talking about it a couple of days ago in the office. I had a fire going 'cause it was real wet out, so that they could dry their coats and shoes, and I heard them talking about it when I was stoking up the fire."
Sergei felt that odd frisson that always told him when he had hit pay dirt. Yuri was indeed a genius. Not necessarily the kind of genius who could put together a gun-running operation, but the kind of intelligence operative that men like himself could only dream of becoming. His chief asset was looking like part of the furniture. No matter where he went, or what he did, no one paid any attention to him. It explained so much. The desperate need for human companionship that had led him initially to turn down any involvement in this case. His love affair with guns and, Sergei now realized, thinking back to the tender loving care he had lavished on the APC, all kinds of machinery. His lack of enthusiasm when Sergei had joked about girls falling in love with the uniform: Things didn't reject. Girls did.
Yuri, he realized, was going to be the most valuable player in this high-stakes crap game. He smiled and put a hand on his shoulder.
"That's great," he said, and meant it. "That's exactly what I want you to pick up for me. Good, loose talk. But don't act differently from the way you already do, don't try to get people to talk to you. That's what gets informers into trouble, they're so incredibly obvious about looking for dirt. No, you keep on just as you are doing. Just be around, stoking fires and tuning up engines and cleaning guns, and listen. Listen with everything, not just your ears. Then tell me what you hear."
"Everything I hear, Sir?"
"Everything."
"Okay. Um, Sir?"
"Yes?"
"Should I try to find out who's selling guns to the Afghans?"
"That's my job, Yuri. Naturally, if you pick up anything by accident, tell me. But I want you to concentrate on finding the weapons cache. Once I know where that is, I can arrange a stake-out, and eventually I'll trace the operation to its source."
Yuri nodded, stupidly. Sergei could have kissed him. He looked so much less intelligent than he was.
And keep that in mind, Seryozha, he reminded himself. He has his uses, but he isn't off the list of suspects quite yet.
"Okay," he said, "let's get back to the M-16, and in a few minutes we'll walk out of here, still talking about the M-16. Do you understand me?"
"Oh, sure, Sir."
They grinned at each other in happy conspiracy for a few minutes. Then Yuri said, "Sir, um, you won't tell Captain Zagorka that I'm working for you, will you?"
Sergei raised his eyebrows. "I said I wouldn't. I won't."
He noticed that before they left the room, Yuri looked all around to make sure that they had left nothing of themselves. He was a born intelligence officer. I've got to get this kid into the Cheka, he thought. As soon as this op is over—
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