“I’ve slept with women out of far less.” McCracken winked.
“Your sense of humor is well known to us and not appropriate at this time.”
“‘Us’?” Blaine raised. “I thought you were speaking for yourself.”
“In the Soviet Union, the singular does not exist,” she said, without bothering to hide a note of bitterness.
“An uncharacteristic tone for a top KGB agent. Yup, it’s all coming back to me now. You retired. Then came out again.”
“I had my reasons.”
Blaine looked at her. “What have they got on you, Natalya?”
The remark stung her. She seemed about to speak, but then changed her mind.
“Relax,” McCracken told her. “My government isn’t exactly my biggest fan either.”
“You would perhaps choose to blame them for your own foolish mistakes?” she shot back.
“Such as?”
“A hotel clerk with a big mouth and an empty wallet. My Russian friends bought your room number from him for twenty American dollars.”
“Damn, I thought I was worth more than that….”
“I paid forty for a key to your room two hours earlier,” Natalya Tomachenko said, opening the single closet door to reveal Blaine’s suitcases. “I knew you would be in no position to return to your room after tonight, so I took the liberty of removing your possessions.”
“How considerate.” Blaine found Natalya more than a little attractive. There was no denying her beauty. The dark Slavic features and wide, deep brown eyes made that impossible well before the shoulder-length black hair was even taken into consideration. Still, the implacable set of her jaw and her ice-cold stare kept her from being as ravishing as she might have been. Blaine wanted to call this nameless feature something almost masculine, but even that didn’t suffice. Her coldness, an almost mechanical resolve, transcended gender. She was like a machine awaiting orders. But this machine was hiding something as well. Blaine was as certain of that as he was of her beauty.
“Your head and shoulder are still bleeding,” she said in her most tender voice yet, as if reading his mind. “I have bandages and antiseptic.”
“Did you anticipate my wounds as well?”
“Obtaining a few seemed unavoidable. You were vastly outnumbered.”
“Only until you came along. You timed your entrance to perfection.”
“That too was necessary. I couldn’t enter the cemetery or follow you up to the Acropolis. My face was too well known to your would-be killers.”
“Then you were following me.”
“No. Them. I knew you were in Athens, yes, but not where exactly, and your security precautions worked for a while.”
“Okay, how did you know that much?”
Natalya started toward the doorless bathroom which consisted of a single sink and toilet. “First your wounds must be taken care of. Detail them for me.”
“It would take all night.”
“Just the worst ones.”
“My shoulder’s felt better,” he said, grimacing as he pulled off his jacket to reveal the bloody tear caused by the bullet that grazed him. “And my head, of course.”
“Anything else?”
“Give me a few hours and I’m sure a few other spots will turn up.”
Ten minutes later, Blaine’s shoulder was swabbed and wrapped tightly with gauze stripping. The head wound, more bloody than serious, was handled with a simple strip bandage. It was already starting to clot. He sat down uneasily on the bed, with Natalya Tomachenko seated stiffly across from him on a wooden chair.
“When we left off,” Blaine started, “you were about to explain how you knew I was in Athens.”
“When word reached us—”
“Who’s us?”
“One question at a time. When we learned you had been retained by—”
“Not retained by anyone. I’m operating on my own here.”
“A poor choice of words. I’m sorry. When we learned of your involvement, agents were dispatched to various airports.”
“Plural?”
“Your sense of security is well known to us. The one stationed at Kennedy learned you were flying to Paris.”
“But the ticket I bought was for London.”
“He, too, was made aware of your methods. We had agents stationed all over Europe; virtually every major international terminal was covered.”
“Quite an operation. I didn’t realize I was being tailed because technically I wasn’t. I must be very important to you.”
“More than you realize,” Natalya told him. “Your importance to us began in New York. The men in the diamond district were Soviets.”
“Yours?” Blaine was confused.
“Not at all. The force controlling them was behind the attack tonight as well, along with the murders of those government men in New York. And the woman.”
Blaine fought to control his feelings. “A Soviet force?”
Natalya nodded reluctantly. “The force knew where Earnst had obtained the crystals and thus where you would be going next. Stadipopolis was allowed to live this long only to trap you.”
“I sense a polarity here….”
“I’m coming to the explanation now.” She rose and moved to the dirt-encased window, gazing half out it and half at McCracken as she spoke. “Five days ago, a town in your state of Oregon was obliterated by what your scientists have accurately termed a carbon-decimating death ray. It was developed in the Soviet Union several years ago but abandoned when General Secretary Chernopolov realized the mad track it would place us on. The operation was known as the Alpha project.”
“Alpha as in the Greek letter?”
Natalya nodded. “Because the research was to mark the beginning of a new kind of weapon.”
“Well, I guess the world won’t be safe until the Greek alphabet’s been expended….”
“Even as the project neared its successful completion, General Secretary Chernopolov determined the only conceivable upshot of such a weapon would be war. He knew there was a strong faction in Moscow that would have insisted on the weapon’s utilization had it been allowed to become operational. His only way of averting war, then, was to cancel the Alpha project before its completion. The decision was tremendously unpopular, causing a rift through the Kremlin.”
“And thanks to this rift the Alpha project managed to continue.”
“Through General Secretary Chernopolov’s greatest rival and the man who headed up Alpha: General Vladimir Raskowski.”
“I’ve heard of him,” McCracken said. “Sees himself as the second coming of Alexander the Great.”
“Worse now that he is in possession of the means to fulfil that destiny. Raskowski was—is—an outcast, a madman. He pushed forth the ethic that it was Soviet destiny to overrun Europe and crush whatever meager resistance NATO forces could muster. There was a time when his ideas had considerable support in the Kremlin. But the new leadership under Chernopolov shunned Raskowski and his insane schemes that would have certainly landed us in the midst of global nuclear war. The Alpha project was canceled. Raskowski’s career was ended. He was exiled, all his KGB titles and military rank officially stripped.”
“Rather extreme for you people.”
“Not extreme enough. A little more than a year ago, Raskowski vanished.”
“Along with all the records of the Alpha project, I assume.”
“Of course. The general had never gotten over the fact that when we were able to destroy America we chose not to do it. There were some in Moscow who supported his views. Several of them disappeared at the same time as the general. Others continued to work, gathering intelligence for Raskowski’s plans before they, too, vanished.”
“Traitors in the Kremlin? Pinch me, I must be dreaming.”