Gennadi Serov's features indicated nothing more than the recognition of General Lieutenant Rodin's seniority and the order he had issued. There was no evident response, however momentary, to the insulting ten minutes of cross-questioning, the almost manic reawakened concern with the escaped Kedrov. He was no more than a computer technician, he just
might
know a little about
Lightning.
Yet Rodin had kept him standing in this icy wind, which blew into his face so that he had to squint into it, while he pummeled him with questions. The general seemed impervious to the temperature as they stood together at the top of the short flight of steps outside the principal senior officers' mess. Rodin's breath smelled of cognac. When they encountered each other—Serov coming to report on overall security, as ordered—Rodin had not asked him inside. He had been made to report just there, like an errand boy.
"Yes, comrade General Lieutenant," Serov replied in a neutral tone. "Everything possible will be done." Of course, Rodin and the others were paranoid about the security surrounding
Lightning,
were unnerved by the idea of Kedrov running around loose; and the job of tidying up had been delegated to him. Serov seethed beneath his adopted calm.
"I don't think that Kedrov represents a danger to our—enterprise," he added deferentially. Your son does, he thought, but not Kedrov.
'That isn't for you to decide, Serov," Rodin snapped back, tugging his gloves smooth on his hands, as if before a mirror. "You maintain he isn't a danger. Anyone who knows and who can't be relied upon, accounted for, trusted, is a danger. Shut him up before the KGB find him."
"I don't think they have any idea—"
"I don't want to hear that they have. But they're looking for him. You find him first. Tonight."
"Yes, comrade General." And your son—isn't he a danger? his anger added silently. You don't realize how much of a danger. Shall 1 do something about him, too? There was a fierce, dark satisfaction in the mocking defiance of his thoughts. The superiority of
secret
power; not as grandiose as that which Rodin enjoyed, but—ah, welcome in the icy wind and in the humiliating position he found himself, one step down from the general's tall, forbidding figure.
"Good, good," Rodin murmured. "We are too close to the time, our time." He sighed. The portentousness of the words were ridiculous to Serov; it was the old man's way, making a mission, some kind of holy war, out of whatever he was doing. Then his words became precise once more. "Use extra helicopter patrols, put more men on the task."
"Yes, General."
Rodin leaned over him. His face appeared to have aged quickly. It was narrow and pale from the wind, but it seemed drained and weary, too. Serov enjoyed the old man's moment of weakness. The light above the door of the mess hollowed Rodin's cheeks and created large stains beneath his eyes.
"Listen to me, Serov," he commanded, and his gloved hand gripped Serov's arm roughly, squeezing. "My son"—Serov controlled a sudden intake of breath; it was as if the old man had read his mind—"my son is to return to Moscow today. He will there enroll at the Frunze Academy. Today. You understand me?" The hand shook his arm. It was a gesture of strength, yet it seemed at the same moment like a plea. "He will travel under surveillance, of course. He will talk to no one." He broke off for a moment, as if the tone he was using were some strange flavor on his tongue that must be carefully tested. Then he blurted out: "He is not to be harmed, Serov." His hand dropped Serov's arm.
Serov saluted formally, crisply.
"Comrade General, there was never any danger—"
"Good. I believe you, but the boy—will be better placed in Moscow." Then the moment of weakness, of something approaching ordinary humanity, passed from Rodin as quickly as the wind plucked away his smoky breath. "Meanwhile, concentrate on this man Kedrov," he added sharply.
"General, I assure you that everything—"
Rodin merely turned his back on Serov and walked through the door of the mess. Serov's face clenched, into rage. His mind was filled with images of Valery Rodin rather than the general. Something had to be done about the boy. Priabin was back there, talking to him; he had had him under surveillance since the actor was killed. Priabin was no fool.
Serov descended the steps. He rubbed his numb cheeks to life as he walked to his car. Valery Rodin certainly knew about
Lightning.
What were he and Priabin talking about? Rodin had not left his flat, there had been no opportunity to place bugs. Priabin had the advantage there, but if Priabin learned of
Lightning
, what would he do?
His driver opened the door of the Zil, but Serov remained deep in thought, one hand resting on the roof of the car, the coldness of the metal seeping through his glove. His other hand rubbed his chin repeatedly, as if to conjure something from it.
What would Priabin do? Talk to Moscow Center? Yes, he would. He'd enough brains to grasp the enormity of the whole thing, and realize he couldn't handle it without the Center s help—without the backing of Nikitin and his gang in the Politburo, come to think of it. So Priabin might try to call, or radio, even fly out.
Serov was appalled. Priabin could have everything out of that weak, queer little bitch if he were any good at all. And that, that must be prevented—at any cost.
"Get them on the radio," he snapped.
"Who, sir?" the driver asked, bemused, startled by the sudden emergence of the colonel from his abstraction.
'That damned team watching the general's son—who else, you idiot?" he roared. "And quickly!"
"What does it mean?" Priabin asked slowly, hesitantly. "I—don't understand what you mean by it."
Rodin's young, vulnerable face was angry. He was important, his secret was important—but only if Priabin understood. Knowing his father's most profound secret—
Lightning
—had helped fill some of the hollows he had found in himself since they rendered him incommunicado. He wanted to boast again now, as he must have done to Sacha and to others.
"What does it mean?" Rodin mocked him in a squeaking, schoolgirl's voice. His hand banged the television set in frustration, but the American shuttle craft remained unaffected by the blow. It continued to float above the peaceful blue ocean. "It means that
Linchpin
is only the weapon—
Lightning
is the code name for the
use
of the weapon. That's why I'm to be punished for the rest of
my
life, Priabin, and why they killed Sacha—because I let the cat out of the bag. The beautiful, expensive, marvelous American space shuttle
Atlantis
is nothing more than a target!" Rodin's mouth was wet with excitement, his body was hunched over the set. 'They are going to use the laser weapon to destroy the American shuttle in
orbit
—a test of its efficiency, that's their joke." He wiped at his forehead and leaned more heavily on the television, as if his words had caused him acute physical exertion. "Now you understand what's at stake. Why Papa can't love his little boy anymore? Do you understand?"
Priabin stared at the floating, silent shuttle.
"They can't," was all he could find to say in a weak, breathy whisper. He had no idea of the length of the silence that had preceded his words.
Valery Rodin laughed.
"Don't be a moron, Priabin," he mocked. "Of course they can do it. It will be explained as an unfortunate, tragic accident. The Americans will never suspect how it was done—or even if they suspect, they could never prove it. The shuttle will disintegrate, become dust."
"But why?" Priabin's hands floundered in front of him, as if a great, drowning wave had broken over him. His thoughts seemed loose, like unsecured ballast or a freed cargo. The shuttle floated serenely; invulnerable.
Vulnerable, he realized now. So very vulnerable.
"Why—why again?" Rodin taunted. "You're being very slow tonight, Priabin, or are you always that thick?" He left the television, as if no longer needing its support, and slumped with what might have been confidence into the beanbag. He lit a cigarette, and Priabin could see his hands were shaking. Then he said: "To show the old dodderers in the Kremlin—and the ones who are only old in their ideas—to show them once and for all who is in charge of things. Who really gives the orders—who knows. Who cares. They're going to do it. The why of it only a policeman would want to know." He shrugged. "Maybe they want to make sure things go on just as before when that treaty is signed." He was talking quietly now, intelligently, as if revealing another part of himself, one that would further win Priabin's admiration. He did seem calm, in control of himself—unlike Priabin, whose head beat with the knowledge, with its terrors and implications. Rodin continued: "Nothing will change, will it? Whatever the old women in Moscow want to do about agriculture, schools, medical research, consumer goods, cars for every family, food for every family—it just won't happen. The army will have the icing on the cake, just as always. They'll have the laser weapon, they'll have shown they can use it. The project will
never be scrapped or signed away.
The
greedy men of the Politburo will want a slice of that cake."
He studied Priabin's wild expression, seemed to find it satisfactory, then plucked a grain of tobacco from the tip of his tongue. Unfiltered American cigarettes, not hashish, Priabin noticed. His eyes catalogued the furnishings of the room, his mind unable to cope with Rodin's words. Terrible, terrible . . . but his thoughts could get no further. Green carpet, the frieze of shepherdesses and their rustic swains, vases, a couple of pieces of jade, the hi-fi, the racks upon racks of LPs and cassettes—even one of the new compact disc players. Terrible, terrible . . .
"They'll agree to all the money they need for research, they'll build them all the laser weapons they want—just like the American President would do, no doubt, if his army had
Linchpin.
Killing the shuttle will give them backbone. It will be the starch in the Politburo collars. No one will ever limit or abandon the laser weapon project if its power is demonstrated, will they? All they have to do is kill that." His fingers, and the smoking cigarette, pointed at the screen like a gun. "Bang. See?" he added in a quieter voice. "See now?"
Priabin shook his head. "Why?" was all he could utter.
Rodin's mouth made a simpering gesture of sympathy. Then he grinned. The boy had found a small, precious superiority and was clinging to it. Priabin could not cope with Rodin's information, his opinions.
"Why?" Priabin asked again, finding technique held out like an assisting hand. The boy had to go on talking now, had to be used, had to—
Priabin remembered the microphone, imagined Mikhail and Anatoly in the darkened room across the street, imagined their shock, their sense of possessing dangerous knowledge. It was all on tape, but it would make no sense without Rodin. He had to use the boy as his proof. However he did it—and he had no solution at the moment—he needed Rodin, in person, in Moscow.
Technique stilled the swirling of his own fears and imaginings. So, when he asked why yet again, he tried to sound uncomprehending, dim.
Rodin grinned comfortably.
"What is it ever about, policeman? Power." He raised his hands to acknowledge the room, the fiat, the benefits that extended beyond the windows, beyond Baikonur. "This—this is privilege,
bought
by power. The power to divert contracts, twist the arms of
suppliers,
find out and blackmail the local Party officials and the local black market—but you already know all about that. Even you can tap in to that much of the system. But it isn't power, is it? It's just playing at things. My father never plays. He likes real power, not the gimmick of privilege. You know people who like privilege— beavering away in every city of the Union, finding the lever, assessing the fulcrum, tipping the scales in their own favor. But that's just kid stuff."
Priabin clung to the analysis, to the cool mind that supplied it, the almost bored tone of Rodin's voice. He clung to it because he dared not think of the other thing. Now that he had been informed, he knew he must act—and could not even begin to contemplate action.
"And that's what the general wants—real power?"
Rodin shook his head.
"It's what the army already has. Its a question of preserving the power they have. For them, the issue's simple—the laser weapon is not an offensive system, it's to protect the army. Don't you see that?" He shook his head once more in reproof of dullness. "Papa," he announced with deep, bitter irony, "Papa told me a lot. He had to have an audience. My mother is in Moscow, and he would not have told her in any case. I served as his audience. It's all about moving the wheel when you put your shoulder to it, not being defeated by the wheel's size and weight. Moving events." He stubbed out his cigarette, murmuring, like a taunt or even a temptation: Haven't you ever wanted to be sure you could do that, if it came to it—control and change events?"
Priabin's features had come to reflect stupidity, incredulity. His mind swirled like the clouds interposed between the planet and the image of the shuttle on the screen. He realized
Lightning
would work. Yet he clung to the concretelike set of his facial muscles, drawing Rodin out, making him the superior, making him want to go on talking. Even now, as he spilled the whole of the story, he was implying that he was still his father's confidant, that they were really close. His father could relax only in his company.