Rodin, capless, got out of the car and hurried toward the wreck. His fine, thin hair was immediately disarrayed about his head. He pushed blindly past Dudin, then his eyes met Priabin's with a wild look. He seemed unnerved by the stare of the KGB colonel. Carefully, as if pointing, Priabin lowered his gaze, drawing Rodin's anxious, frightened eyes after it.
To the bald spot, the lank strips of hair like drying leather thonging the stained, soaked yellow sweater. Rodin sobbed chokingly, just once. He did not look up, though he appeared to wish not to look at the dead actor. Did not wish to touch, kneel beside, stare into the dead eyes of—
— wanted not to be there, Priabin concluded. Yet aware of what he would find even before he saw it. He had not dared to hope for anything better than this. Priabin felt himself embarrassed, as if he had intruded upon a scene of private mourning. Eventually, Rodin looked up, still kneeling.
They understood each other entirely as their eyes met. Priabin's gaze waited for the young man like a statement of arrest. The KGB officer even nodded, half-consciously, confirming what he had learned, what had been confirmed for him. Rodin looked aside, his cheeks blanched, his eyes wet and shameful.
He called you, Priabin recited silently. He sensed Rodin gathering his story together like wisps of material to be woven. But you panicked, too, you told others. It was dangerous, but then you had no choice. You knew what you'd done, what you'd find here. He called you, and you set the dogs on him and Viktor, my friend.
Because of Lightning.
Slowly, now…
Rodin's face was bleak as he turned once more to Priabin, his hps primed with their cover story. Seeing the young man's obvious fear chilled Priabin. Ahead of him, something like — he glanced involuntarily at Zhikin's dead face — something like that, unless he was careful, so careful. They'd killed now, the barriers had come down, the cage had been left open.
And their panic was evident, too.
Care, care… Priabin stared over Rodin's blowing hair, even as the young man began his halting, unconvincing story. The low, surrounding hills were closer in the gathering twilight. Sleet blew spasmodically. He was cold. Tracks down to the river, a mud-stained car. He was alone, even though Dudin's bulky frame was close behind Rodin. He must keep his head down, he told himself; attract no suspicion.
Viktor-
Begin an act, then. Begin to dissemble even while you're listening to this nasty, murderous little creep. Act a part. Tell them nothing about Kedrov, just find him before they do. He knows about Lightning. When I know, Viktor, I'll have them.
He couldn't tell anyone, not yet, not until he had Kedrov. Then, oh, then, he could present Moscow Center with Zhikin's murderers — the fucking army! He'd screw them into the bloody floor before he'd finished with them, present them on a plate to the Politburo, to the Chairman.
I promise you, Viktor, I promise.
So play-act.
He sketched on his features a dim attentiveness that was without the least suspicion, as Rodin's story tumbled out. He shivered. Hodin, recovered for the moment, was explaining how he had heard, wondered if the accident had anything to do with… Sacha had been arrested, he'd been told…
Zhikin's body was being lifted gently upright in the driver's seat, being fed slowly back through the broken windshield by one of the Forensic officers. The man handled the body carefully, almost reverently. But the head flopped grotesquely on its broken neck, filling Priabin's throat with bile.
4: Dropping Zone
General Lieutenant Pyotr Rodin of the Strategic Rocket Forces, deputy commandant of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, lay awake and stared at the ceiling of his bedroom. The shadows up there, in the corner, were warm and brown, not dark; they mirrored both his satisfaction and his concern. Lightning—and his son; the defense minister s pleasure and congratulations at progress, and his son's appearance at the scene of the accident that had killed that— actor.
The shadows darkened and lightened, as if catching his mood as it varied.
The television broadcast had been amusing — for the most part. The old buffoon Nikitin had appeared against a backdrop of the Kremlin and a frozen river Moskva, Calvin the American President against a snowbound Washington projected behind him. They had danced their mincing, polite dance, the deceived and the deceiver; a farce. Calvin, as predicted, had had to pledge himself to appear in Geneva more than a week earlier than he had expected — all that had been satisfactory, most pleasing. Rodin had been able to laugh at both statesmen equally. Nikitin, doing only what the army wished, though he did not know it, thought he was in the driver s seat. Calvin would not risk the opprobrium of world opinion by being seen to hesitate now. The final touch to the canvas of the launch of the shuttle on Thursday and its rendezvous with the American craft in orbit was pure comedy. Nikitin thought that a good idea, too, the idiot.
The broadcast had ended with a flurry of despicable images. Satellites being deployed, SS-20s and cruise missiles being withdrawn, silos being emptied of ICBMs, barbed wire being rolled up, tanks going into mothballs — the music of Beethoven accompanying the lurid betrayals. That last couple of minutes had distressed and angered him. Even Zaitsev's call from Moscow had not sufficed to restore his confidence and good humor. Zaitsev, the defense minister and leader of the pro-army faction on the Politburo, had dismissed Rodin's anger as futile. The withdrawals voorit be happening, will they? he had assured. Why be angry, then, with the fiction?
Nevertheless, it was easier for Zaitsev to be dismissive, at Stavka — general staff — headquarters or the ministry, than it was to feel lighthearted at such rubbish here in Baikonur. The images of, of — surrender had ruffled his good humor. After a few large whiskeys he had retreated to his bed. And slowly, his confident mood had returned.
Only the thought of his son, Valery, disturbed his calm now. He studied the darker shadows on the ceiling. An old cobweb hung there, drifting back and forth in the heat rising from the lamp. Rodin distracted himself from his son by allowing the images of the broadcast to return. And Nikitin's voice and other voices seeped into his mind, to be met with a frozen, confident contempt.
We cant afford your toys any longer! That had been one of Nikitin's outbursts at a Politburo meeting, so Zaitsev assured the general staff. We must have this treaty with the Americans before we are bankrupted by you and your games! The army must pay the grocery bill!
My God.
They had laughed, he and his cronies. It had taken almost a year to persuade the Politburo to keep Linchpin, the laser weapon project. And to keep it secret and outside the terms of the damn treaty. A small victory in the middle of the army's defeat by the politicians.
Rodin felt his temperature rising, but did not quell his emotions. They visited him now like the familiar twinges of old age; known and tolerable. And they strengthened his resolve. Lightning would change everything. By Friday, the world would be different. The Nikitin faction on the Politburo would be subservient once more. The treaty would be — worthless to the Americans.
Peasant women bewailing another bad harvest… corruption throughout the civil service… always the same wailing cries of the inefficient and incompetent—we cant afford you. We want to sell you out, sell our country out.