Serov glared at the army captain, who visibly blanched. Serov enjoyed the reaction; enjoyed, too, the captain's presence. His own efficiency, his personal stock, would emerge well from dealing with this — and from making Rodin toe the line over his son. Yes, if he could manage things with a certain deftness, then he would profit.
The captain's collar was crumpled and his tie was askew. With heavy, malicious humor, Serov thought it looked like the beginnings of an attempt to hang himself. The captain had opened a Pandora's box; Serov had to find the lid and replace it. He did not doubt that he could.
The captain had been the direct cause of the flight of the computer technician, Kedrov. The man had disappeared after overhearing this buffoon's loose talk — in a lavatory, for Christ's sake.
An evening of boozing, a big mouth, the simple inability to realize he and his pal were not alone. The man wasn't just disappointing, he was a disaster. Serov deliberately leaned one fist on his desk; the other rested on his hip. The pose suggested either might strike at any moment. The captain, gratifyingly, shook visibly.
Serov began. "You're a senior telemetry officer in the main mission control room, your security clearance is high — so high that you were placed in possession of certain most secret information in order that your computations would remain valid — you are experienced, you have been in your present post for five years — and you open your mouth in the lavatory, Captain?" The voice, the long sentence and its subordinate clauses had been orchestrated to reach a climax accompanied by the banging of his fist on the desk. The captain's tall, slim frame — apparently he was something of a wow with the women — obligingly twitched in response, jumping like Serov's paperweight carved in the form of a tortoise.
"I–I—" The captain tried to protest, his mouth and vocal chords captive in the surroundings of the office, imprisoned by his sense of Serov's boundless authority in police matters.
"Shut up!" Serov raged. "This miserable little computer operator, a civilian into the bargain, has disappeared. He is the man you saw in the club toilet?" He held up a clear, sharp color print of Kedrov's head and shoulders, thrusting it at the captain like a weapon. The captain rubbed his arms as if cold. His hands were near the shoulder flashes that denoted his membership of the Strategic Rocket Forces, the elite. Not for much longer, Serov promised. It would be the Far East, if he wasn't shot. Or perhaps military adviser somewhere in Africa, deep in the bush with the niggers, the fuzzy-wuzzies. "Is it him?" he bellowed. The captain twitched again. "Is it?"
"Yes, comrade Colonel, it is him," the captain blurted out.
It appeared, with this little turd's confession, that Kedrov had panicked, fearing he had heard too much for his own good — but he was running around somewhere with knowledge of Lightning.
"You will no doubt be dumbfounded to learn that this man is not at his work, not in his flat with influenza, with a woman or walking his dog — in fact, he is nowhere to be found!" Serov bellowed, amused by the evident terror his words inspired. Mentally, he was ruefully cynical, detached. Guilt was, of course, a hideous weapon. The captain was already, in his imagination, packing for the Siberian Military District and stitching lieutenant's shoulder boards on his uniform.
Yes, Serov thought, 111 see to everything on your behalf. Afghanistan for you, sonny. There you'll either be filling your trousers from sheer, unadulterated terror, or your stomach with booze or your head with hashish or your arm with heroin. One of them will see you off and save the price of a bullet in the nape of the neck.
"He's gone, flown, disappeared," he continued aloud. "And all because you frightened him off. He overheard you, saw the look on your face when you discovered him, and took off for the hills." He flicked his intercom switch as violently as if striking the captain, and barked into the machine. "I want some rubbish cleared out of my office — now!"
The captain's mouth opened silently. Two officers appeared at the door of the office, their smiles masked by urgency. Serov nodded, and the captain was unceremoniously snatched from his chair and bundled out of the office, the door slamming behind him and his escort. Serov gazed at the empty chair, askew but not overturned. The smell of the captain's fear was fading in the warm room. The radiator grumbled.
He suppressed a small sigh that threatened to become a yawn. He had been awake most of the night. Yet he could not regret the interruptions. He'd diminished Rodin and terrified the captain. Especially that. He could not but be pleased, as he always was, when they understood you held their very lives in your hand. He could never resist that.
Hands clasped together behind his back, he crossed to a huge map of Baikonur framed and mounted on one wall. By now, those two young men of his would be kicking the captain — literally kicking him black and blue — downstairs to the cells. It did not matter.
Now, where—?
He studied the map, his eyes ranging over it like the passage of a surveillance helicopter. Kedrov, running scared, had twenty-four hours' or more start on the search for him. But he was a civilian, he did not know the place as Serov did, as the GRU did. He must be found. He wouldn't talk unless he was caught, but the KGB — Priabin himself — was interested in him. Black-market goods. Serov tossed his head in contemptuous dismissal. Stupid, petty, but Priabin had been intrigued by the mention of Lightning—stupid little sodomite, Rodin's son. Priabin must not be allowed to learn any more, otherwise he might be just upright enough not to keep his own counsel but inform Moscow Center.
And all because of Lightning. Two people had already had to die. Not that he regretted the acts, only the loose ends they left. Then he had awakened yesterday to find Lightning lying around like a whore's telephone number. And that silly little bastard, Rodin, had been there, on the riverbank, staring all his knowledge into Priabin's face.
Would the death of Priabin's man, Zhikin, keep the KGB's heads down? he wondered, rubbing his chin, hearing the stubble rasp. It should do; Priabin wasn't a fool, and he'd never looked for trouble. He'd guess what was at stake — his own safety — and that should keep him in order.
Never mind Priabin at the moment. Kedrov was the first priority.
Serov's heavy, thick-fingered hand touched across the map's surface, sweeping in vague, narrowing circles at first, then rippling outward again into the villages, dormitory towns, forest, and countryside beyond the main cosmodrome. It was a difficult, perhaps impossible task in the time available. Leninsk-Kuznetskiy, the science city, Tyuratam, the old town — buildings, streets, acres of forest and marsh.
Where?
Where Kedrov was depended on how frightened he was of being found. Time to begin, then. Get the teams assembled. Start with the man's every known associate, every known contact.
Serov crossed with a swift, assured urgency toward the intercom, his forefinger extended to its switch even before he reached his desk.
The mission had been halted, as certainly as if the Galaxy had struck against some brick wall of air and broken up. Gant's imagination mocked him with images of the simulator tapes he had been watching, as if they represented a prize utterly out of his reach; mocked him, too, with memories of the Saudi Arabian desert over which they had flown, the endless sand stretching away like dusty concrete. Its emptiness, apart from the flares of gas burning off from rigs dotted in the landscape like isolated campfires, was a powerful analogy of his situation.