As car headlights loomed out of the darkness, Safcek’s hands tightened on the wheel. They came up in a blinding rush, bathed the interior with a bright light, then passed swiftly away to the south. Safcek’s hands relaxed.
They tightened again, quickly when he saw a revolving ice-blue light beckoning him in the distance.
“Goddamnit, a roadblock,” he said. Luba strained forward and saw the beacon at the side of the road about two hundred yards away. She saw two cars stopped and policemen walking around them inspecting the occupants.
“What do we do, Colonel?”
“Let me think.” Slowing down in response to a policeman’s waving hand, Safcek pulled up behind the stationary vehicles. Safcek shifted into neutral and left the motor running. “Take it easy, Luba,” He was watching two security officers as they ordered the driver out of the first car. “Let’s see how they act before we do anything.”
The driver of the first car had produced some papers, and the questioner trained his flashlight on them. He apparently asked the man for further identification, and the motorist after a few moments produced more documents. With what seemed agonizing slowness, the security men looked inside the car, front and back. Next, they took the keys to the trunk from the man. They lifted the lid and poked around in it deliberately. After they had finished their fruitless search, they slammed the top down and gave the driver back his papers. He waved to them, and drove off past the patrol car with the revolving light on the roof.
Safcek was reading his watch. “Jesus, we’re losing time fast.”
The security police were at the second car, and three people were coming out of it and fumbling for their papers. Luba said, “The trunk again,” as one of the policemen moved to the rear and opened it.
“I know, I know. We can’t let them near ours.” Safcek was trying to think of a solution.
The three people ahead were now being searched by the police.
“Is the AK-47 loaded?” Safcek asked.
“Yes, but it’s in the trunk.”
“If they ask us to open it, make sure you grab the gun and use it on them. Kill them both.”
The second car was moving away. A policeman was at Safcek’s window, shining a flashlight on Safcek’s uniform. “Good evening, Colonel. Sorry to bother you, sir. Would you mind stepping out of the car for a moment and giving us your papers, please. It won’t take long.”
Safcek and Luba got out and handed over their forged identification papers and travel orders.
Safcek smiled at him. “What’s the problem, Sergeant?”
“We have a little scare around here about enemy agents.”
“Here in Tashkent?”
“All we know is Moscow got a fragment of a radio report from somewhere around here. We’re just playing it safe.”
Luba was smiling at the other sergeant, who was leaning against the hood.
“Aren’t you a little late on getting to your next assignment, sir? These orders say that you must report in by midnight.”
Safcek spoke in a low voice as the sergeant examined the papers with his flashlight. “Well, my friend over there,” he said, jerking his head toward Luba, “and I stayed a little longer than we planned in Tashkent. She wouldn’t let me out of the hotel room.” Safcek snickered, and the sergeant chuckled appreciatively.
“I understand, sir.” He moved suddenly toward the trunk and said, “May I have the keys, please?”
Joe Safcek began to shout. “Sergeant, I think you have enough proof of my identity in your hand. Your comrade has not complained of any discrepancies in the lieutenant’s papers, and you are just delaying me now.”
The sergeant kept walking to the rear. On the other side of the car, Luba casually moved down to meet him at the trunk.
“Sergeant, I’m speaking to you. If you don’t give me back my documents and let me pass, I’ll put you on report with your commanding officer.”
The security man hesitated at the rear bumper and said: “I have my orders. Please give me the keys.”
Safcek pursued him and said: “Your name and unit? I’ll have you broken.”
The sergeant looked over the top of the car at the other security man, who shrugged back. In the reflection from the blue light the sergeant’s face was a blend of resentment and doubt. He stared at Safcek, who was poised in indignation.
“Here are your papers, sir. Please forgive the inconvenience. I was merely doing my job.”
Safcek sagged as he accepted them. Without another word, he returned to the driver’s seat and waited for Luba to join him. The sergeant hurried up to the window and added, “Colonel, please accept my apologies for the delay.” Safcek slammed the car into gear and sped away. In the rear-view mirror, he saw the two security men talking animatedly. The sergeant Safcek had bullied was spreading his hands in the air in dismay.
Safcek shifted his gaze to Luba. “Close, huh?” She was pale and her hand fluttered as she asked, “Can I have a cigarette?”
He laughed in a low voice as he handed her one. “I hooked you on these, didn’t I?”
She nodded and dragged deeply. Safcek watched her out of the corner of his eye. The strain appeared to be getting to her. Luba’s eyes darted right and left as she watched the road. Her cheekbones seemed to bulge out of her face. She smoked the cigarette down to the end, and Safcek did not interrupt her attempt to compose herself. He himself was not immune to fear. Out there in the darkness, the enemy was waiting for him. His stomach was churning but his mind was operating at maximum efficiency. He had been to the mountain before and looked down at the land beyond. It no longer terrified him. He only wanted to get the job done.
“Okay now?” he asked gently. She nodded and threw the butt out the window.
They were now an hour and thirty-five minutes behind schedule.
It was not yet 1 P.M. when the IL-62 parked at the regular commercial gate for deplaning passengers at Kennedy Airport. Only six men got off the huge jet from Moscow. Because of their diplomatic passports, they passed swiftly through customs and entered a long black limousine for the ride into New York City. In the rear seat, Mikhail Darubin was reading a copy of The New York Times. He finished the story of Clifford Erskine’s sudden death at the Pentagon and poked one of his companions in the ribs. “This could not be better for our purposes.”
Darubin was in great good humor. So far, everything he and Moskanko had planned had been going right.
As the car passed over the Triborough Bridge, Darubin looked for a long moment at the sharply etched New York skyline and said: “Tonight all that will be ours! Stark will never have the nerve to unleash a big war. And then I will quietly ease poor Krylov into retirement and give him a year’s supply of his favorite hashish to dream with.”
His companions chuckled appreciatively.
“The premier lost something, I think, when the Egyptians let us down in the Six Day War. He never regained his spirit. Now all he can do is dream about the old days when he was full of ideas and guts. But at least he did what we wanted in backing the army. Now we can let him graze in a pasture until the drugs sap his brain.”
Darubin patted the newspaper against the upholstery reflectively. “Ten hours more.” His serene face gazed out the window as the limousine pulled off the FDR Drive and eased into the heavy crosstown traffic on its way to the headquarters of the Soviet Mission to the UN on East Sixty-Seventh Street.
In Washington’s sprawling black ghetto, hundreds of yellow buses moved up and down the streets picking up families and individuals waiting on street corners. Government cars roamed side streets. Drivers spoke through bullhorns urging residents to leave the danger zone.