“Now you’ve got it, Benny.” His thoughts were on Krylov. It was always that way. He was in no mood for wandering.
But Benny was a natural-born nomad. “And this is the faena.” He followed the tracks of his notion like an Indian. “That’s the climax of the fight, when the matador goes out alone with his little cloth and his sword. Now we go after Krylov.”
“Your metaphor reeks, Benny. The idea is to keep Krylov’s ears on his head. And the steel out of his brain.”
“No, wait, wait,” Benny said. “Sometimes when the bull has been picked too much by the picadores and caped too much in the quites, the excitement’s all over — he’s too weak and tired for a proper faena. I think we’ve already done our hardest work with Krylov.”
“Drop it, Benny, will you?”
“You have the soul of an apparatchik,” Benny said, insulted.
Brook kept watching. The starting gun cracked, and the first of the racers crossed the line and swept ahead on their windward legs.
Then for some reason he felt like talking. He said, “Benny?”
“Yes,” Benny said.
“Why do I feel this way?”
“Which way?”
“Uneasy. Like when Toby Stark picked me up at that fireworks festival. I just happened to run into a Japanese cab driver who helped me get away from the cops. He just happened to bring me to where Toby Stark just happened to be.”
“I think,” said Benny, with the short i, “you’ve just figured out why you’re uneasy.”
“I haven’t figured it out. That’s the trouble, Benny. I mean, not this latest wrinkle.”
“The Ohara girl?”
“Yes. Why did Kimiko get killed when she did? This crap about assault during a simple housebreaking would arouse the suspicions of a Quaker. It happened right in the heart of things. I don’t buy it for a second, Benny.”
“Don’t look at me,” Benny said, grinning. “I’m not in the market, either.”
“You think it’s funny? If I didn’t know you better... and Krylov — he’s bound to know she’s dead by now. She was his main reason for defecting.” Brook stared out at 13.
“But he’s here racing, Pete.”
“He’d have to be, anyway. You know something, Benny? Maybe he won’t capsize his boat today. Maybe he’s changed his mind.” He wondered why he had been so sure before that Krylov would not.
Benny shrugged. “And if he does?”
“Then we go home to face Holloway.”
This time Benny made a face. “Amigo, you and I waste a lot of the taxpayers’ money. I wish we had more fun doing it.”
Brook kept watching the race. Even if Krylov had changed his mind and they didn’t pick him up today, the run was not a total foulup. He had neutralized Toby Stark and some of Stark’s cadre, gaining an unexpected set of points against Communist China’s Internal Security of the People’s Republic — as they called it in their Orwellian style — for Stark would now leave Katori Spa quickly and withdraw any of his agents Brook might have seen. Holloway would want a detailed report on Stark’s group; he’d be disappointed not to have been able to act fast enough to send someone to take them out permanently, but Holloway was never satisfied. There were several Class I agents on hand who specialized in that sort of thing, although such a job was occasionally given to one of the regular men. Brook had been sent hunting twice for compromised enemy agents; they were assignments he didn’t particularly relish. That, he supposed, was vestigial sentimentality. Whether you were sent out to kill or happened to find it obligatory in the natural course of events was much of a muchness. There was no such thing as murder in the spy’s vocabulary, only an occasional tactical necessity.
“What are you thinking about?” asked Benny suddenly. “I don’t like the look on what used to be your face.”
Brook did not answer.
Three racers rounded the first buoy and began to heel in the brisk wind on their reaching legs. Number 13 was one of them. Brook raised the binoculars again. Krylov was still hunched over the tiller; his skinny companion with the cast on his arm was crouched on the forward thwart. Beyond the perimeter of the course three or four motorcraft were putting along with an idle air.
Then it happened. Brook had Krylov in the binoculars as the big Russian hauled in his mainsail and deliberately shifted his weight to the lee rail. Forward, his crippled crewman sprawled in surprise, adding his weight to the lower side.
The boat went over.
Brook jammed his throttle forward. The big gas engine surged under his deck as his bow came out of the water and the stern quarters began to plane, sending a flat-plumed wake far behind. They reached the capsized sailboat very quickly. The Dutchman, Quackernack, was treading water and looking up at them with his mouth open. Krylov was near the hull of the sailboat; he pushed away and swam toward them. Brook maneuvered in a tight circle, approached Krylov upwind, and brought the boat to a stop as the Russian drifted into the bow. Benny had already thrown the ladder overside; he helped Krylov climb aboard.
Krylov looked grim. “Good morning, gentlemen. Did you think I would not?”
“Hang on.” Brook jammed the throttle forward again.
As they were speeding south from the broad mouth of Sagami Bay they felt the sea-change, even though the low silhouette of the Izu Peninsula was visible and the mound of the live volcano on the island of Oshima, almost dead ahead, humped against the hazy sky. The sea was rough. But Brook kept his engine at three-quarter throttle. The bow thumped into the oncoming waves in a cannonade.
Krylov and Benny, with tight handholds, stood in the cockpit near Brook. The Russian kept staring astern as if expecting pursuit at any moment. He had dried himself off and changed into a pair of khakis below. They were tight on him. He had to shout to be heard.
“Well, it has happened,” he said. “I find it impossible to believe.”
“We’re not home free yet,” Brook said.
“Home free. A typical American expression. I am going away from home, not toward it.”
“Alex,” said Brook, “you surprise me. None of us have homes in our business.”
Krylov kept staring back. “I had such stupid dreams. Kimiko and I... a little dacha somewhere with all those American machines of yours. We would go to concerts and she would wear fine dresses and jewels. I would buy a dinner jacket. Do you know I have never owned a dinner jacket? I always had to borrow one from the embassy.”
“I’m sorry about Kimiko,” Brook said. “I thought it might change your mind.”
“It almost did. I think that if I had not gone so far, I might very well have done so. Now I have nothing, nothing.
“I’m sorry,” Brook said again. He stepped from the wheel. “Take it, Alex. I have to check the chart. We don’t want to miss that submarine.”
He went below, opened the chart, rested his pencil and the parallel rules and divider on it. Then he went back on deck. Using the pelorus mounted on top of the cabin, he took sightings on Oshima and the tip of the peninsula. He was back below and drawing in a corrected course when he heard Krylov call.
“Peter!”
Brook ran up on deck. Krylov pointed astern. Brook squinted and saw the blob hanging in the sky above the horizon. He grabbed for the binoculars, looked again, then took the wheel and handed the binoculars to Krylov.
“It is coming this way,” said Krylov. He sounded worried. “One of your Navy helicopters?”
“I don’t know,” Brook said with a frown. “We discussed an escort, but I said flatly I didn’t want any aircraft hanging about.”