After a bit Yocke asked, “So how bad is it?”
“Bad?” Grafton looked perplexed.
“Compared to Chernobyl.”
Grafton shrugged. “A hundred times worse? Two hundred times? ‘Bad’ is a ridiculous understatement. The stuff that went into the air is really filthy…” He groped for words, then gave up. “Really filthy,” he repeated. “Serdobsk is way the hell and gone away from everything, so no cities were poisoned immediately, but by the time all that fallout hits the rivers and streams and lakes…” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this incident ultimately kills a million people.”
Jack Yocke just stared.
“Another million,” Jake Grafton roared savagely. “God in heaven, when will it ever stop?”
Yocke got out his laptop and pecked aimlessly until Jake suggested he do that in the bedroom, so he went in and closed the door. The muffled crack of a rifle penetrated the room and Jake half-rose off the couch before he thought better of it.
He needed time to think. One of the most trying things about a military career, he thought, was that so many decisions had to be made immediately with the best information available, which used to be precious little and fragmentary at best. Then came computers and the highly touted information age; the trickle of information became a raging torrent of facts and numbers endlessly pouring from laser printers that no one had time to look at. Who could drink from a fire hose?
Jake Grafton knew that if he merely picked up a telephone and asked, he could have more information in an hour than he could read in a year. Better to go with what he had. He leaned his head back onto the couch, closed his eyes and tried to assess his meager collection of facts and impressions.
The most important fact…impression maybe…was one he wasn’t sure he had right. Most people automatically assume that people everywhere are all alike—“they think like we do!” Jake knew better. But he thought he could see the viewpoint of the professional soldiers like Yakolev who saw their place in Russian society slipping out from under them. Without the American enemy to stimulate the allocation of damn scarce resources and keep the ranks filled and people motivated, the military was crumbling. They had tried to fashion a new mission to protect ethnic Russian minorities wherever they might be and had been outmaneuvered by Yeltsin and his allies. The nukes were being taken away while the Americans and Europeans kept their conventional forces, there was no money, not even to feed the troops, the industrial establishment necessary to support a modern military was disintegrating, all at a time when the values the leaders had devoted their lives to were belittled or rendered politically meaningless. The Soviet Union was gone. Mother Russia was collapsing from within, there were no more secrets to guard, there was no place for men of integrity and honor. So the generals were going to save Russia in spite of politicians.
How far would these men go?
How far had they already gone?
Yakolev: “I serve Russia!” A uniform for a patriot or a bloody rag to hide a tyrant’s nakedness?
Someone was shaking him. He opened his eyes with a start. It was Tarkington, holding a finger to his lips for silence. He seized Jake’s arm and nodded toward the hall door, which was partially open. His lips moved, a silent word: “Come.”
When they were in the hallway Toad eased the door shut behind them until it clicked, then led Jake down the hall. He passed Jake his pistol, which was sheathed in its shoulder holster. The gun had been under the pillow in Jake’s bedroom, and Toad had retrieved it before he woke the boss.
“Yocke has an outside call,” he whispered. “The senior chief stalled and told her he’s trying to find him. When we get back to the switchboard he’ll ring the phone. Yocke’s in there, isn’t he?”
“Uh-huh.” Jake glanced at his watch. Almost two in the morning.
Toad broke into a trot.
“Is it her?” Jake wanted to know.
“I didn’t hear her voice. But I got this feeling.” After all, Toad thought, how many women could there be in Moscow who want to talk to Jack Yocke?
When the two officers came through the door, Senior Chief Dan Holley flipped a switch on the switchboard. “Still there, ma’am?” he asked. Then he said, “He’s staying with some folks. I’ll ring now.” Then he toggled the switch again and handed the headset to Jake Grafton.
“The mike won’t work, but you’ll hear everything.”
Jake donned the headset and listened to the ringing. The telephone in the apartment was in the small living room and Yocke was probably asleep, so this was probably going to take a moment.
The phone rang and rang.
Oh, damn. Two nights ago when Yocke arrived at the embassy, he had told him not to answer the phone. What if he doesn’t?
Toad and the senior chief were watching. More ringing.
C’mon, Jack. You’re supposed to be a curious reporter!
“It’s ringing,” Jake told his audience. And then the door opened and Spiro Dalworth slipped into the room. Jake had had Spiro, Toad and the senior chief alternating shifts on this switchboard since Captain Collins gave his approval. The regular operator supervised and gave them directions, but the navy men listened to the voice of every caller and waited for someone to ask for Jack Yocke.
Now it had happened.
Ten rings. Eleven. Dammit, Jack! Answer the phone!
“Hello.” Yocke was still half asleep.
“Jack?” A woman’s voice. An American woman. Was it her?
“I think so.” He sounded almost petulant.
“This is Shirley Ross. I’m glad I reached you. I tried half the hotels in town and was about to give up when I thought of the embassy.”
“Hmm. What time is it?”
“It’s late I know, but I just had to talk to you.”
“Glad you called.” Yocke’s voice was crisp and alert. He was wide awake now. “How are you weathering the riot?”
“I heard about your story,” she gushed. “I’m so thrilled! It’s so important that people know the truth.” She was laying it on too thick, Jake Grafton thought, and he bit his lip. “I never thought you would get it,” she finished.
“Luck.”
“And… I don’t know just how to say this, but… I didn’t think you had the courage to write it.”
“Balls like a bull. What’s on your mind tonight, Shirley?”
“There’s more. A lot more. They’re counting on the fact that no one will ask the right people the right questions.”
Yocke merely grunted.
“They’re playing for keeps, and they don’t really care who gets hurt.”
“Shirley, I’ll never get inside that place, even if anyone inside would talk to me, which they won’t. Oh, I could do some follow-up on the guys who followed orders and got arrested — when they get out of the can — if they ever get out — but the story has hit the wall. These things happen.”
“It’s something else.”
Silence as Yocke digested it.
When the silence had gone on too long, she said, “Something really important…”
“I’m listening.”
“The Rizhsky subway station.”
“Gimme a fact, Shirley. One little fact and the promise that you know more.”
“Have I lied to you?”
“Jesus! How many times have I heard that line! Yeah, baby, I love you no shit.” Yocke sighed audibly. “A subway station. Are the subways still running?”
Jake Grafton’s eyes widened in surprise. He hadn’t thought she could pull it off.