Jake accepted the glass and tried to grin.
“I know,” Toad said.
Around them the Fourth of July reception at Spaso House, the United States’ ambassador’s residence, was in full swing. Jake Grafton estimated the crowd at four or five hundred people. They were everywhere, in every room, in every hall, bumping into one another, nibbling delicacies from the trays of passing waiters, and drinking champagne by the gallon. In one corner a combo played light music by American composers. The light from the chandeliers cast a warm, soft glow over everything.
Ambassador Owen Lancaster was mixing and mingling. Agatha Hempstead hovered discreetly, ready to whisper a name into the ambassador’s ear yet far enough away that she was not a party to his conversations. It was a delicate balancing act but she seemed to pull it off without effort.
A few minutes ago Jake had seen Herb Tenney talking to the British Army officer, Colonel Jocko West. In rumpled civilian clothes that somehow didn’t quite fit, West looked like the caterer’s husband dragged away from the television to help with the snack tray.
On the other hand Colonel Reynaud, the French officer, looked like a millionaire standing in the casino at Monte Carlo waiting for the baccarat tables to open. He was impeccably turned out in full dress uniform with medals. Just now he seemed to be discussing a wine with one of the embassy staffers — he was holding the glass up to the light, now sniffing it, paying close attention to what the State Department employee had to say.
Colonel Galvano, the Italian, was in a corner with a Russian diplomat. They were deep in conversation but weren’t grinning.
“Jack Yocke here yet?” Jake asked Toad.
“Not yet, sir. Dalworth is waiting for him at the door.”
Toad reached out and flicked a piece of lint off the left shoulderboard of Jake’s white dress uniform. With medals and sword. Toad was similarly decked out. He squared his shoulders and adjusted his sword.
“We look sorta spiffy, don’t we, sir? What say you go stand over next to that South American general or policeman or postal inspector and let me get a photo for posterity.”
“Dalworth know what to do?”
“Yessir. I briefed him. Stick like glue all evening.”
“Even in the head.”
“All evening,” Toad repeated. Jake wanted Herb Tenney and his CIA colleagues to see Yocke and learn who he was, but he didn’t want them moving in on him. So Spiro Dalworth had been carefully briefed.
“Okay,” the admiral said. Toad wandered off.
Dalworth seemed like a bright, capable junior officer. Just how the navy managed to keep attracting quality young people was one of the modern mysteries. It wasn’t the pay or career opportunities, not in this era of red tape, budget cuts, politically correct witch hunts and reductions in force.
Jake was sipping his drink and musing about the hundreds of men like Dalworth he had known through the years when the ambassador rendezvoused on his right elbow. “Good evening, Admiral.”
“Good evening, sir. Are all the Fourth of July whing-dings like this?”
“Well, this is my first, and the staff said I was going to be surprised. I think for a lot of the Russians the invitations were a welcome relief from the ordinary. I don’t think we’ll have many leftovers, if you know what I mean.”
Jake knew. He had already glimpsed several Russians by the hors d’oeuvre table surreptitiously wrapping food items in napkins and pocketing them. He had pretended not to notice.
“Haven’t had a chance to chat with you the last day or two. Everything going okay?”
Jake Grafton nodded thoughtfully. “So far.”
“Anything I or my staff can do… What do you think of General Yakolev?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“He’s as Russian as Rasputin. When you figure him out, I’d be interested to hear what you think.”
“Yessir. If I may ask, who are these four or five Americans that arrived this afternoon?”
“Eight of them, I think,” Lancaster said. “They’re investigators who are going to go through the files of the KGB, the Apparat…” Lancaster waved vaguely. “When Yeltsin invited the Americans over to look at the files, we took him up on it. They’re FBI, CIA, some military investigators, one each from the House and Senate Foreign Relations Committees.”
“Will there be anything left in the files to find?” Jake asked, musing aloud.
“Depends on how hard they look,” Lancaster said sourly. “I doubt that shredder technology has arrived here yet but the Russians have matches and garbage dumps. Still, one never knows. A lot of these people thought they were in the vanguard of the march of history and wanted to preserve their place in it with written records. Then there’s the bureaucratic imperative, what I believe you military types crudely refer to as CYA.”
CYA — Cover Your Ass. Jake Grafton knew about that!
“Is Yeltsin here yet?” he asked the ambassador.
“No. He didn’t come last year either, which is a diplomatic faux pas that no European prime minister or president would ever commit. But this is Russia.”
Agatha Hempstead brushed against the ambassador’s elbow, and he raised one eyebrow at Jake. Then he was on his way to the next group. Jake smiled at Agatha as she passed and got an expressionless nod in return.
He looked at his watch. What was the time in Washington? About ten in the morning. If it were not a holiday Callie would be at the university holding office hours. She had an eleven o’clock class this semester. Amy was on summer vacation, going swimming and flirting with the Jackson boy, who had long hair and pimples and a learner’s permit. Since it was a holiday, they had probably gone to the beach. Jake wished he were there with them.
General Yakolev was here tonight with his boss, Marshal Dimitri Mikhailov. The head of the Russian military looked every inch a curmudgeon used to getting his own way. He was playing with a champagne glass and listening to an interpreter explain what the British ambassador was saying.
Apparently not that enthused with diplomacy, Yakolev wandered to the buffet table and helped himself. Soon Ambassador Lancaster had him cornered, but the Russian was eyeing Ms. Goodbody Hempstead as he munched Swedish meatballs. Hempstead favored him with a demure smile. And there was Herb Tenney, handing them champagne from a tray. Herb Tenney, champagne waiter… Those CIA guys had all the social graces.
Jake looked at the drink in his hand. What if Tenney slipped his damned stuff into the embassy’s water purification system? Spaso House’s system? Moscow tap water was heavily polluted and the Americans ran it through a purifier before they made it available for human consumption. Perhaps the kitchen staff uses tap water to cook with. People brush their teeth with it. Ice cubes are made from it.
He had had what? — one or two sips?
Hell, Jake! Quit sweating it. This stuff is safe as holy water until Herb slips you the second half of the cocktail.
But it was no use. Even if he were dying of thirst he wouldn’t touch it. He put the glass with its two ice cubes on the table behind him, on a magazine so it wouldn’t leave a ring, and stuffed his hands into his pockets.
There was Yocke now, escorted by Spiro Dalworth. He came wandering over to where Grafton was parked and waggled his eyebrows in greeting. “How’s the booze?”
“Free.”
“Jack Daniel’s and water, a double,” the reporter told Dalworth. “And anything you want for yourself.”
After a glance at Grafton, Dalworth turned and headed for the bar.
“So what’s new on the Soviet Square murders?”
“Damn if I know,” the reporter replied. “They had me chasing human interest today. Tommy Townsend, our senior guy, took over the assassination since it’s so hot, but the poor bastard is probably hanging out at the Kremlin waiting for a press release. The cops over here won’t tell you diddley squat. I’m going to try to milk them tomorrow.”