Jones drove quickly, then slowly, making turns in a seemingly random pattern. Once. he stopped for a red light, then drove straight through it, checking the mirror constantly. Finally, they pulled into a tree-lined street, and a man in civilian clothes opened a wrought-iron gate for them. Jones drove past a large, handsome house and parked in back.
“Follow me,” he said, jumping from the vehicle and racing up the back stairs.
Inside, there were marble floors and a lot of heavy furniture. They took a small elevator up two floors and emerged into a dingy and badly lit hallway. Jones,stopped before a steel door and rang a bell. A small panel slid back, and a pair of eyes surveyed them both.
“What is this place?” Helder asked.
“It’s the Soviet Embassy,” Jones replied.
“I thought you knew.”
The door was open, and they were admitted by a man in shirtsleeves to a large room filled with radio receivers and teletypes- It reeked of tobacco smoke.
“Show him how to work it,” Jones said to the man.
“Over here,” the man said, motioning them to a computer terminal.
“You type?” he asked Helder.
“Yes,” Helder replied.
The man picked up a telephone, punched out a number, listened for a moment, then placed the receiver in a cradle.
A row of Xs appeared on the terminal’s screen, then the words, “I am here.”
“It’s the colonel on the other end,” Jones said.
The other man motioned Helder into a chair before the terminal.
“All you do is type,” he said.
“Come on,” Jones said to the man, and they left Helder alone in the room with the glowing computer terminal.
Helder typed, “I am here, sir.”
“Was your mission successful?” appeared on the screen.
“We successfully carried out our task, but we lost the sub to depth charges.” Helder typed.
“Give me the numbers,” the screen said.
Helder typed in the coordinates of the buoy’s location.
The screen spelled them out again.
“Are these correct?” it asked.
“Yes,” Helder typed.
“Were you injured?” the screen asked.
“No sir, I am quite fit,” Helder replied.
“Did your companion survive?” the screen asked.
“No,” Helder typed.
“Jones will drive you to an airport,” the screen spelled out, “where a plane awaits to bring you to Moscow. I will meet you there. There is aboard the plane a naval uniform for you bearing the insignia of Captain Second Grade. In addition to promotion, you will receive half your pay in a foreign currency of your choice. Congratulations and well done.”
“Thank you, sir,” Helder tapped back.
“Signing off. See you in Moscow.”
Helder stared at the screen for a moment, then he got up and opened the door. Jones and the other man were standing in the hallway outside.
“I’m finished,” he said.
“Then we’re off.” Jones said.
At the airport, a small Soviet jet aircraft with no military markings waited. He shook hands with Jones.
“See you back at Malibu,” the man smiled.
“Thanks for the lift… and for the legend,” Helder replied.
“I would never have made it without your training.”
Jones shrugged.
“It’s my job. I like it.”
Helder boarded the plane, and while it taxied to a runway, the copilot showed him a fridge with food and drink and gave him a small suitcase and a garment bag.
When they were in the air, the man came back into the cabin.
“You can move around, now, and get dressed if you wish. Captain. Do you need anything?”
Helder shook his head. and the man went back into the cockpit and closed the door behind him. Helder opened the garment bag and looked at the new insignia on his uniform.
The case held shoes, shirt, and underwear, and a toilet kit. He changed into the uniform and repacked his traveling clothes. He felt a rustle in the tunic pocket and found a folded sheet of paper.
“I have heard that you are safe. and I am glad. I sewed on your new insignia. Hope to see you soonest. T.”
He sat back in his comfortable seat and heaved a great sigh. He was alive, safe. promoted, and loved. He could not think of any way to improve the situation.
On arrival in Moscow, however, the situation improved.
When the aircraft taxied to a halt there was a Zil limousine waiting, A Zill Helder stood at the bottom of the boarding steps and stared at it. It was said that there were fewer than one hundred of the handsome, hand-built cars in the whole of the Soviet Union. Only the very highest officials were entitled to them. As he stared, the driver got out and opened the door for him. Majorov was waiting for him in the back seat. The colonel shook his hand warmly.
“I am so very pleased to see you back. Helder,” he beamed.
“I had begun to fear for you and your mission, but now you have returned to us to see it completed, and your timing is excellent.” The car moved quickly away from the plane, through gates and onto a highway.
“You have arrived just in time for me to be able to present you at a meeting of my superiors. I would also like you to assist me in a presentation—there are some charts and boxes of slides in the boot of the car,” “I am glad to be back, sir, and I would be very pleased to assist you.” Helder replied. The car was moving rapidly through the suburbs of Moscow toward the center of the city. As they crossed the Moskva River, the spires of St.
Basil’s Basilica in Red Square loomed beside the Kremlin wall.
“There is the matter of Sokolov,” Majorov said.
“Yes. sir.”
“Do I want to know the details?”
“Lieutenant Sokolov went berserk when the depth charging started, sir. She was trying… I don’t really know what she was trying to do; she was strangling me from behind. J… she was killed in the struggle. I was unconscious for a few moments; when I came to, she was dead.
I left her body in the flooded mini sub when I made my escape.”
Majorov nodded.
“I suppose I should have expected something like that. I was under considerable pressure to give her a key assignment.”
“I understand, sir. ‘ “I think it is best that she be declared killed by the depth charges. We’ll say she struck her head. The sub will never be recovered.”
“Yes, sir.”
The car made a right turn into Manezhnaya Street, and a short distance later, turned right again, and drove up a ramp. Helder suddenly realized that they were entering the Kremlin. The hairs on the back of his neck began to move around. He had been inside the walls before, but only to the area open to tourists. Now they were through the gates and driving past the hall of the Supreme Soviet. Tourists. both Soviet and foreign, swarmed the sidewalks. Then the car drove, unimpeded, through another set of wrought-iron gates. The street was suddenly empty of anyone but a few uniformed soldiers standing guard. The Zil drove nearly to the Kremlin wall bordering Red Square and stopped.
Majorov got out and Helder followed him. The driver went to the boot and removed two large cases and some boxes.
“Do you mind giving him a hand?” Majorov said. nodding toward the luggage.
The driver already had the two cases, so Helder picked up the stack of boxes and followed Majorov through an impressive entrance. Inside, they were met by a man in the uniform of a full general of the Red Army, who indicated that they should follow him. Majorov and Helder entered a small elevator with the general, while the driver with his cases took the stairs. They rose to the third floor and emerged into a broad hallway, lit by sunlight from a window at the end of the passage. They followed the general into a waiting room, then through double doors into a large, sunlit room furnished with a desk and a long conference table.
Helder thought that, the Winter Palace in Leningrad apart, it was the most elegant room he had ever been in.
The walls were covered in pale. yellow silk; there were four tall windows, with white silk curtains, looking over a handsomely gardened enclosed courtyard. There was only one picture on the walls, of Lenin. There were places set at the long table, with a crystal pencil holder and a writing pad at each place.
Majorov directed the huffing driver, who had now joined them, to place his cases at one end of the conference table.
They turned out to be slide projectors, and Majorov’s large brief case was filled with stacks of apparently identical documents. The boxes Helder carried were trays of slides.
When everything was set up Majorov dismissed the driver,” and Helder was left alone in the room with him and the general.
“Well, Viktor Sergeivich,” the general said, lighting a cigarette, “this is your big day, eh?”
Majorov gave a modest shrug.
“That remains to be seen. General. Are you with me?”
The general’s smile disappeared.
“That remains to be seen.”
A door opened at the far end of the room; the general hurriedly stubbed out his cigarette and came to attention, as did Majorov. Helder followed their example. A dozen or fifteen men filed into the room, most of them in civilian clothes, the rest in high uniform, and took their places at the conference table, leaving only the head chair vacant.
Helder recognized the faces of a number of the men from their photographs in Pravda and Izvestia, especially that of Admiral Gorshkov. for more than twenty years the head of the Soviet Navy. A moment later, a solidly built man, much younger than most at the table, came into the room and took his seat at the head of the table.
It suddenly came to Helder that he was in the presence of the General Secretary and the Politburo of the Communist Party. RULE was awakened by the persistent ringing of the phone. She had trouble seeing her watch — in the darkened room, but it seemed to be eleven o’clock. The sun was trying to fight its way past the curtains into her room. Probably the office calling. They hadn’t called while she’d’been in Rome, thank God. She grabbed the phone.
“Hello.”
The voice was clear, but the connection crackly.
“Hello, sport. What are you doing home this time of day?”
“Will? Where are you?”
“I’m in Jakobstad, also known as Pietarsaari, on the west coast of Finland, where I’m supposed to be. That’s more than I can say for you.”
“Oh, I’ve bad some kind of bug. It’s had me in bed for a couple of days. You’re the first phone call I’ve answered.”
“Hope you’re feeling better. I’m looking forward to Copenhagen.”
“Me too, but I’m still not absolutely sure I can make it.”
“Your problem continues?”
“Yes, but I’ve had a couple of breaks. I just don’t know where they’ll lead yet.” He was being circumspect, that was good. She knew all too well how phone conversations abroad got plucked out of the air by the listeners.
“How’s it going with the boat?”
“The boat’s great. She’s in the water and fitted out.
1 did the provisioning today, and I’m sailing in the morning.”
“Your crew work out okay?”
“Didn’t work out at all. His wife decided to deliver prematurely, and he couldn’t let me know until the last minute.”
“What will you do?”
“It’s going to work out okay. One of the young guys from the boatyard is coming with me for a couple of hundred miles south. I can sail night and day with him, and he’ll help me get through an island group called Aland, that’s son of in my way. I’ll drop him on Kokar, and he’ll get a ferry back to the mainland. After that, I’ll be singlehanded, but it’s open water sailing. I’ll stop to re provision in Bunge, on the big Swedish island of Got land, then go on.”
“Is this going to be safe?”
“Probably. I’ve done it before, you know. I’m looking forward to being singlehanded again. The company’s so good.”
She laughed.
“When will you make Copenhagen?”
“I’m figuring on a week from Sunday, with no problems I’ll call you from Gotland to report progress.”
“You do that. I’ll worry about you if you don’t.”
“I’m the one who’s worried. Your problems are bigger than mine. Listen, if things get really tough, if you get boxed in, call my boss. Get a pencil and write down his private numbers.”
She wrote down Senator Carr’s private office number and home number.
“He’s a good guy to have on your side in a pinch, and he’s an admirer of yours from the hearings.”
“Well, I hope it won’t come to going outside, but it’s nice to know there’s someplace to turn.”
“Listen, I’ve got to get going. I’ve got to stow all the food tonight and do some passage planning. I’ll sleep aboard tonight, and we’ll sail at the crack of dawn.”
“Okay, you be careful, and be sure to call me from Gotland.”
They hung up, and for a moment, she missed him terribly. She hoped to hell she could make Copenhagen.
But how could she get to Copenhagen, when she couldn’t even get out of bed? She had told Will that she had had a couple of breaks, and that was so; but she had not told him how little she had gotten from either one.