Levashev was looking at the man’s broad back. “Revenge, Aleksei Vassilievich? Revenge is a pointless emotion.”
Krylov whirled from the window; his jaws were working as if they were grinding nuts. “That is easy for you to say! You did not love her. You did not know her. To kill such beauty! And in such a horrible way. They strangled her, General. A gold cord around her neck.” He made two fists. “For that they will pay. I swear it on the Christ my mother used to worship in secret.”
“Sit down, Aleksei,” Levashev said gently.
“I am sick when I think of it!”
“Time, Aleksei. Time will cure the sickness.”
Krylov came back and sank into the armchair.
Brook had been listening with perfunctory attention. He had doubted that either Russian would say much of value in this first meeting. He had been instructed not to push them, on the ground that they could be expected to hold back until they got over the unavoidable awkwardness of the confrontation. So Brook stood by the table watching the slow spinning of the recorder, only half interested in what was going on.
They kept conversing; they were still taking each other’s measure.
And the alarm bonged in Brook’s head.
It had happened to him once before, when as a totally unimportant lower-echelon fledgling he had first laid eyes on Harold Adrian Russell Philby at a party in Washington. He had been looking forward to meeting the fabulous “Kim” Philby of M.I.6, whose work at that time was liaison with American security agencies; and they had actually shaken hands. It was the touch of Philby’s hand that set off the alarm. Brook had never been able to explain it; he had never told anyone about it. Low men on the security pole did not go about telling their superiors that a respected agent of a friendly power was a traitor without the customary hard facts; they certainly did not do so on the basis of a handshake. Yet something had flashed from Philby’s grip to Brook’s, an unintended message that was better than a lie detector. Years later, when Philby disappeared from Beirut and subsequently turned up in Moscow and the whole story of his lifelong service for the Soviets came out, Brook could only mourn his timidity in not laying his ESP on the line after that Washington party.
Brook casually glanced at Krylov, who had jumped to his feet again and was striding up and down talking his head off. But this time it was more bookkeeping than ESP. Little file cards began to flutter into slots. The explanation for his vague feelings of disturbance throughout the game stood bold against daylight. All the little puzzles, the ones that had scarcely seemed worth solving, were solved.
At this moment he caught Krylov’s eye, or perhaps it was the Russian’s eye that caught his.
Their meeting of the eyes broke up in no more than three blinks. Then Krylov glanced away, still pacing and talking to Levashev.
Brook said to himself: He knows I know.
What happened after that happened fast. Brook turned back to the tape recorder to cover his movement toward his shoulder holster. As he was reaching he heard a slight scuffle behind him. This time he turned not his body but his head only and it was just as well that he did. Holloway’s training usually proved out.
Krylov was behind the desk beside General Levashev’s chair, and the pistol the General had dropped into the drawer was in Krylov’s hand, pointed at Brook.
Brook’s hand remained under his coat.
“No, Peter,” Krylov said. “Remove your hand slowly.”
Brook removed his hand slowly.
Krylov stepped back.
Levashev looked up; there was something oriental in his absolute lack of expression. “So,” he said to Krylov.
“So,” Krylov said; but he kept his eyes on Brook. “Peter, you will open your jacket so that we can see, and you will take out your weapon with two fingers only. You will move as if you were under water. We understand each other?”
Brook nodded.
“Now.”
Brook’s hand inched into view. It was holding the butt of his pistol by two fingers.
“Drop it to the floor.”
Brook dropped it to the floor.
“Too close. Kick it into the middle of the room.”
Brook kicked it into the middle of the room.
“Thank you,” Krylov said. “I must say this is all very quick, Peter. I had not expected you to see through it so soon.” He shrugged, smiling. “So are important events decided. You should have shot me when our eyes met.”
“You’re right, of course,” Brook said. “Will I ever get the chance to be fired by my boss, Aleksei? Or do you have other plans for me?”
“You will enable me, Peter, to leave this place.”
General Levashev said calmly, “Are you both mad, or is this what I suspect it is?”
“Shall I tell him, Peter, or shall you?” asked Krylov.
“It’s brutally simple, General,” Brook said. “The KGB sent him to kill you. His cover was the defection.”
“How else, General,” Krylov asked, smiling, “could I have got close to you here?”
Levashev was silent. Then he said, “I knew, of course. It had to be.”
Krylov said something in Russian that did not go with the smile, and Levashev said something back that made Krylov’s smile vanish. They spoke too rapidly for Brook, with his smattering of the tongue, to get any of it.
The Soviet agent made an effort to regain his composure; at no time, as Brook professionally noted, did Krylov allow him the slightest chance for a move. “But we are being rude to Mr. Brook, General. I have made a mistake, for which no doubt I shall be made to pay when — perhaps I should say if — I return to Moscow. I realized my lapse as soon as it left my lips. One plays these parts too thoroughly sometimes.”
The General said nothing. Since their interchange in Russian he seemed to have dwindled, like Alice. The pipe lay in his old man’s hand, forgotten.
“Tell him, Peter,” Krylov said.
“The gold cord Krylov just mentioned, General,” Brook said with a shrug. “I took it off Kimiko’s neck when I found her strangled and dropped it into my pocket. The Japanese police never saw it; it was never reported in their newspapers. Only someone who had seen Kimiko’s body before I came on the scene would have known what was used to strangle her. That someone would almost certainly have to have been her strangler. I’m curious, Alex. Why did you kill Kimiko? Of course, all this grand-passion put-on of yours was an act, but even so, she couldn’t have known anything. Why kill her?”
Krylov sighed. “She would have complicated matters for me here, in view of my assignment. I had no wish, believe me, to liquidate her. But I was under orders. It was a pity.”
Brook nodded. That was the way it worked, all right.
“She was indeed beautiful. We selected her after examining a number of young women. There had to be a girl, you see, and it had to seem that I had fallen in love with her. This is a complication that Americans are ready to understand, with your sex-ridden culture. I do not have to tell you, Peter — as one professional to another — that few persons defect from their homelands on ideological grounds alone; there is almost always a corollary factor — money, fear for one’s life, public exposure and, especially in the West, love. By involving myself with Kimiko I presented your people with a motive for defecting that you would instantly accept.”
“So,” General Levashev said again.
“Oh, Alex is a cutie-pie, General,” Brook said. It was necessary to keep this going. Only a miracle would serve. He wondered if he would live long enough to hear Holloway’s snort. “They considered Alex’s mission so important that they surrounded the operation with more than the usual hocuspocus. Alex told us that his people were watching him closely. They actually were. But that was for our benefit, not theirs. I’m sure the watchdog they put on Alex never realized that his man was supposed to defect. They knew we expected a tough run, so they gave us a tough run, knowing that if it looked too easy we’d get suspicious. I’m ashamed to admit I fell for it. We actually helped them get Alex in here to do his job.”