"Wen go … wen we go?""Next week. I'll tell you when.""Good. Tomorrow I go get passport th—""No, no passport, Ginny. They'll never give it to you. Those viblyadoks'\\ stop you. They won't ever let you come with me … oh no, golubushka, those dirty police will never let you come with me.""Then wat I do, heya?""I'll smuggle you aboard in a chest!" His laugh was rich. "Or perhaps on a magic carpet. Eh?"She peered up at him, her dark eyes wide and brimming and anxious. "True you take me? True? One month on your ship, heya?""At least a month. But don't tell anyone. The police watch me all the time and if they know, you won't be able to come with me. Understand?""All gods bear witness not tell a weevil, not even my mother," Ginny swore vehemently, then hugged him again with the vastness of her happiness. "Eeeee, I get huge face as captain's lady!" Another hug and then she let her fingers stray and he jerked involuntarily. She laughed and began to undress him again. "I give you best time, best."She used her fingers and her lips expertly, probing and touching and withdrawing and moving against him, concentrating on her task until he cried out and became one with the gods in the Clouds and the Rain. Her hands and lips stayed on him, not leaving while the last tiny fraction of pleasure remained. Then she ceased and curled against him and listened to the deepness of his breathing, very contented that she had done her job well. She, herself, she had not experienced the Clouds and the Rain though she had pretended to several times, to increase his pleasure. Only twice in all the times that they had pillowed had she reached the zenith and both times she had been very drunk and not really sure if she had or if she had not. It was only with Third Nighttime Sandwich Cook Tok at the Victoria and Albert that she would zenith every time. All gods bless my joss, she thought happily. With one month holiday and the extra money Gregor will give me, and, with joss, one more year with him, we'll have enough money to open our own restaurant and I can have sons and grandsons and become one with the gods. Oh how lucky I am!She was tired now for she had had to work hard, so she curled more comfortably against him, closed her eyes, liking him, thankful to the gods that they had helped her to overcome her distaste for his size and his white, toadlike skin and his rancid body smell. Thank all gods, she thought happily as she wafted into sleep.Suslev was not sleeping. He was just drifting, his mind and his body at peace. The day had been good and a little very bad. After meeting with Crosse at the racetrack he had returned to his ship, appalled that there could be a security leak from the Ivanov. He had encoded Crosse's information about Operation Dry Run and all the other things and sent it off in the privacy of his cabin. Incoming messages told him that Voranski would not be replaced until the next visit of the Sovetsky Ivanov, that the special psychochemical expert, Koronski, was available to arrive from Bangkok at twelve hours' notice, and that he, Suslev, was to assume direction of Sevrin and liaise with Arthur directly. "Do not fail to obtain copies of the AMG files."He remembered how a chill had gone through him at that "do not fail." So few failures, so many successes, but only the failures remembered. Where was the security leak aboard? Who read the AMG file apart from me? Only Dimitri Metkin, my second-in-command. It could not be him. The leak must be from elsewhere.How far to trust Crosse?Not far, but that man's clearly the most priceless asset we have in the capitalistic camp of Asia and must be protected at all costs.The feel of Ginny against him was pleasing. She was breathing softly, a tiny jerk from time to time, her breast rising and falling. His eyes went through the doorway to the old-fashioned clock that stood in a niche of one of the untidy kitchen shelves among all the half-used bottles and tins and containers. The kitchen was in an alcove off the living room. Here in the only bedroom, the bed was huge and almost filled the room. He had bought it for her when he had begun with her two, almost three years ago. It was a good bed, clean, soft but not too soft, a welcome change from his bunk aboard.And Ginny, she was welcome too. Pliant, easygoing, no trouble. Her blue-black hair was cut short and straight across her high forehead, the way he liked it—such a contrast to Vertinskaya, his mistress in Vladivostok, her with her sloe, hazel eyes, long wavy dark brown hair and the temper of a wildcat, her mother a true Princess Zergeyev and her father an insignificant half-caste Chinese shopkeeper who had bought the mother at an auction when she was thirteen. She had been on one of the cattle trucks of children fleeing Russia after the holocaust of '17.Liberation, not holocaust, he told himself happily. Ah, but it's good to bed the daughter of a Princess Zergeyev when you're the grandson of a peasant off Zergeyev lands.Thinking of the Zergeyevs reminded him of Alexi Travkin. He smiled to himself. Poor Travkin, such a fool! Would they really release the Princess Nestorova, his wife, to Hong Kong at Christmas? I doubt it. Perhaps they will and then poor Travkin will die of shock to see that little old hag of the snows, toothless, wrinkled and arthritic. Better to spare him that agony, he thought compassionately. Travkin's Russian and not a bad man.Again he looked at the clock. Now it read 6:20. He smiled to himself. Nothing to do for a few hours but sleep and eat and think and plan. Then the oh so careful meeting with the English MP and, late tonight, seeing Arthur again. He chuckled. It amused him very much to know secrets Arthur did not know. But then Arthur holds back secrets too, he thought without anger. Perhaps he already knows about the MPs. He's smart, very smart, and doesn't trust me either.That's the great law: Never trust another—man, woman or child —if you want to stay alive and safe and out of enemy clutches.I'm safe because I know people, know how to keep a closed mouth and know how to further State policy purely as part of my own life plan.So many wonderful plans to effect. So many exciting coups to precipitate and be part of. And then there's Sevrin . . .Again he chuckled and Ginny stirred. "Go to sleep, little princess," he whispered soothingly as to a child. "Go to sleep."Obediently she did not truly awaken, just brushed her hair out of her eyes and snuggled more comfortably.Suslev let his eyes close, her body sweet against him. He let his arm rest across her loins. The rain had lessened during the afternoon. Now he noticed it had stopped. He yawned as he went into sleep, knowing the storm had not yet ended its work.476:25 P.M.:Robert Armstrong drained his beer. "Another," he called out Wearily, feigning drunkenness. He was in the Good Luck Girlfriend, a crowded, noisy Wanchai bar on the waterfront, filled with American sailors from the nuclear carrier. Chinese hostesses plied the customers with drink and accepted banter and touch and watered drinks in return at high cost. Occasionally one of them would order a real whiskey and show it to her partner to prove that this was a good bar and they were not being cheated.Above the bar were rooms but it was not wise for sailors to go to them. Not all of the girls were clean or careful, not from choice just from ignorance. And, late at night, you could be rolled though only the very drunk were robbed. After all, there was no need: sailors were ready to spend everything they had."You want jig-jig?" the overpainted child asked him.Dew neh loh moh on all your ancestors, he wanted to tell her. You should be home in bed with some schoolbooks. But he did not say it. That would do no good. In all probability her parents had gratefully arranged this job for her so that all the family could survive just a little better. "You want drink?" he said instead, hiding that he could speak Cantonese.