“Any easier for me to listen to, you think?”
“Mr. President, Raskowski was no longer one of our own. He was an outcast. The Kremlin underestimated his resources and contacts … even within your own military community.”
“I suppose you will want to blame all your aggressions on Raskowski.”
“He has made every effort to create hostility between us because he knew that open communication might prove the best weapon against him.”
“Can ‘open communication’ prevent another Hope Valley?”
“It can if we refrain from thinking in the manner he expects us to. If we are to survive this crisis, if true peace is ever to be achieved, we must rise above the inclination to accept the sentiments of those with a grasp of only part of the picture. The stakes demand it.”
“I can’t disagree with you there.”
“What will you do, Mr. President?”
“You’ll be among the first to know.”
General Secretary Chernopolov held the phone to his ear for a time after the connection had broken off. His eyes fell again on the communiqué received just hours before from Bangkok.
Natalya Tomachenko had saved her country, perhaps even the world. In doing so, however, she had placed herself in a position of power no Soviet citizen could be allowed to hold. A delicate balance was at stake which the slightest weight could throw off. Her knowledge, if used properly, could be as devastating a weapon against the Soviet Union as Raskowski’s plan itself. She had been used for so long against her wishes, and now she had the means to swing that balance in her favor.
Chernopolov replaced the receiver and lifted the communiqué in his hand. He slid an ashtray over and placed the single sheet of paper in it. Then he struck a match and dropped it down. In seconds, the communiqué was gone and with it all record of this operation.
Soon Natalya Tomachenko would follow.
General Raskowski was glad when the phone was picked up after only a single ring.
“I have reached Pamosa Springs,” a familiar voice reported.
“Your assessment?”
“It’s even worse than you were led to believe. The previous leadership was ineffectual. The plan was botched from the beginning and then a single incident escalated into a major complication. There are rebels afoot here, General. I can feel it.”
“But you will flush them out, won’t you, Major?”
“That is my specialty.”
Raskowski nodded. “I’ve always liked you, Major. I’ve followed your career since we met four years ago. I helped gain you the command that was recently stripped from you.”
“I know that, sir. And if I’ve dishonored you, please—”
“You haven’t dishonored anything! Not yourself, not me, and certainly not your adopted motherland, the glorious Soviet Union. Your career was ruined by fools just as mine was. But there’s still a place for you by my side, if you can put this town back on a tight leash. You know the stakes, Major.”
“Yes, sir. I do.”
“Six days ago I pulled your career off the scrap heap because you are much too fine a soldier to be sacrificed for the errors of the inefficient lot that surrounded you in that steaming hot box you were born in.”
“And forced to return to …”
“Not by my orders. But fate has been generous with us. It has given us a chance to work together again, perhaps indefinitely.” Raskowski paused, just long enough for his words to sink in. “But that, of course, depends on your performance in Pamosa Springs. Don’t prove me a poor judge of character.”
The major’s voice stiffened. “I assume I am permitted to use any means at my disposal to return the situation to reasonable order.”
“Anything you choose, Major. Just get it done.”
And on the other end of the line, in Pamosa Springs, Guillermo Paz smiled.
The new commander had issued fresh instructions to the soldiers patrolling the streets of Pamosa Springs after dark: they were to shoot on sight any figure they could not identify. No questions asked and no accounts to be made. The new commander, Major Paz, scared them, seeming to have little more regard for his own men than for their hostages. No man wanted to face him with failure.
The soldier on patrol between the general store and the post office had no aspiration other than to finish his shift. Dark clouds had rolled in hours before, blocking out the bright moon. But there was some light. The new commander had ordered the few streetlights throughout the town to be turned back on.
Antsy as his shift reached its halfway point, the soldier switched his rifle from his left shoulder to his right. He was stretching to shake himself alert when he heard a shuffling sound. He swung quickly.
A shadow darted through the circle cast by one of the streetlights. A dark shadow. Nothing more. A trick of the wind perhaps, or of his own fatigue.
Then came another sound. A door whining stubbornly closed. The soldier ran toward where it came from and emerged at the rear of the town grill. He knew he should report this and wait for reinforcements. But if the murderer was seeking shelter within, he wanted him all for himself. He tried the latch. It hadn’t caught. The door came open with a whining sound. The same whining.
The soldier yanked his rifle from his shoulder and held it in one hand with his flashlight in the other. Before him lay a hallway leading toward the kitchen area. To the right was—
A shuffling sound found his ears from … below. The soldier moved to the door on his right. It opened onto a narrow flight of stairs, dropping down into the basement. Flashlight beam swaying before him, he began to descend. At the bottom he saw crates and boxes stacked everywhere. The shuffling could have been rats, he told himself. Then again, it couldn’t have been rats that opened the back door.
The silence was deafening now. He started walking about, flashlight beam carving holes in the dust-coated darkness. Everything seemed as it should have been. But wait. Directly before him was a … He approached cautiously. Yes, a door, finished in the same color as the walls so as to be virtually indistinguishable from them except for a single brass latch. Wasting no time, the soldier yanked the door open. A musty, rotten scent filled his nostrils, a scent of dirt and rot and death. The flashlight beam poured into the blackness.
“What the hell …”
The soldier stepped through the doorway mesmerized, flashlight sweeping about. He couldn’t have seen the figure come up from behind him, and heard only a whistling sound like a scythe whipped through the air. He was thinking he should scream to draw attention when a tingle crossed his throat and he couldn’t breathe.
For the briefest of instants after his head was severed from his body he could still see, though he felt absolutely nothing. The rest of his frame spasmed before tumbling into the gush of blood that was everywhere, and his head plunked across the floor leaving a trail of red behind it.
Chapter 21
“Do you believe him, Mr. President?” Secretary of State Edmund Mercheson asked after Lyman Scott had completed his report on his conversation with the General Secretary.
“I’m not sure. It’s all a bit too convenient, and it comes down to us believing in a mad general who’s part Napoleon and part Alexander. But Chernopolov’s point about Ulysses doing us no good when it came to the first attack is well taken. Why should we hesitate to deactivate a satellite that is useless against this threat we’re facing?”
“But how do we know this is the only threat?” challenged George Kappel from Defense. “Let’s not forget the Russian penchant for disinformation. Let’s not forget the very real possibility that everything we have witnessed was part of a plan leading precisely to this end.”