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be told what had happened. "So that's how the system works, eh?" McCain said.
"I see now where Maiskevik fits in."
"He's a nasty piece of work, right enough," Scanlon agreed. He looked at
McCain curiously. "Do you think you can handle him?"
"Why should I think about that?"
"Because you're going to have to, if you're to do what you're wanting to,"
Scanlon said. McCain forced a questioning frown, but Scanlon's insight was so
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close to the mark that he didn't reply. There was nobody else nearby and
Scanlon went on, "I don't know exactly what kind of mischief it is ye've in
mind, but there's something. And you're fly enough to know that there isn't a
lot that a man can do on his own. The rest o' the fellas in here are all
waiting for the right man, and the man they'll follow will be the first who
can take the Bulgarian. It might not be exactly what you'd call sensible, but
it's the way the world is, and the way that everyone from kings to scoundrels
has always had to deal with it -- as if there was any difference."
McCain reflected on the prospect. He was fairly sure he'd never take
Maiskevik in an even fight if it came to that.... But on the other hand, he
wasn't from a school that had placed too much stress on fair play and giving
the other guy an even break, either.
The next day, back in the machine shop, Scanlon told McCain to go to the
library on the upper level in the Core later that evening, and to open an
interactive file at one of the reference computer terminals under the label
ARCHITECTURE, BYZANTINE. Scanlon also conveyed the hardly illuminating, and
highly questionable observation that "Cabbages dance in Kamchatka."
"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" McCain asked him.
"Just remember it."
McCain did as instructed, and at 19:10 hours that evening was seated before
one of the reference screens in the library, when without warning the text he
had been reading vanished, and in its place there appeared the question, Where
do cabbages dance?
McCain entered in reply, Kamchatka.
The screen cleared, and then presented, Understand you are in need of certain
information. Can possibly assist. Require details.
McCain composed a brief message explaining about Paula Shelmer and asking for
news. The screen cleared once more, and the invisible correspondent stated a
price. McCain rejected it. Must appreciate market realities, the screen
advised, and repeated its offer. Again McCain refused. They haggled, and
eventually struck a deal. McCain was told he would hear more in the next day
or two, and then he was staring at his original material again, with no trace
that the conversation had ever taken place.
He calculated on the basis of the going conversion rates of points into rubles
and rubles into dollars that the exercise had cost him almost a quarter of a
day's worth of his Washington salary. He dreaded to think what the total might
be by the time he got out if much more of this went on. If UDIA's
Accounts Section didn't accept it as a legitimate, reimbursable business
expense, he reflected, he'd be in real trouble.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The road surface was loose and gravelly because of the repairs in progress,
and there was a break in the line of traffic going the other way. A
short distance behind, the black KGB Chevrolet had been stopped by a delivery
van pulling out ahead of it. And there were no police cars around.
"Watch this," Bernard Foleda said. He accelerated suddenly when the oncoming
gap was just ahead, then braked and spun the wheel to send the car slewing
round in a one-hundred-eighty-degree turn to point back the way it had come.
He throttled off for a moment to regain grip, then accelerated again and
slipped smoothly into the stream, heedless of the indignant toots and blares
from the startled drivers behind, and sending a cheerful wave at the faces
staring helplessly from the stranded Chevrolet.
"Bernard, what in God's name are you doing?" Barbara asked in amazement from
the seat next to him.
"Keeping my hand in. It's nice to know you can still do it." Foleda lifted a
hand from the wheel to make a throwingaway gesture. "Anyhow, every once in a
while I get tired of it. It can get to you -- haying those creeps behind you
everywhere you go."
"Do you do this kind of thing when Myra's with you, too?"
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"Would you believe me if I told you that she showed me how to do it?"
Barbara gave him a curious look. "You know, I would. Why, is it true?"
"Yes. Her brother used to do stunts for movies when she was a kid."
"Didn't they cover it when you took field training?"
"Oh sure, but Myra's way is better."
They left the road to cut across the parking lot of a shopping mall, and
exited into a lane at the back. "Are we still going to make it on time?"
Barbara asked, glancing at the clock in the dashboard.
"Probably sooner than we would have if we'd gone the other way, from the look
of how they had that road dug up," Foleda said. "This leads to another route
to Langley. It's worth knowing." They were en route for the CIA's
headquarters. A man by the name of Robert Litherland had called from there to
say that the CIA had picked up something that would be of interest to Foleda's
department, but didn't elect to go into further detail. However, since Gerald
Kehrn from Defense was also going to be there, Foleda guessed it had something
to do with Tereshkova.
"Anyhow," Barbara prompted, "before this sudden urge seized you to recapture
lost youth, you were saying..."
"Oh yes, about Lew McCain and the Air Force woman. The impression I got when
Uncle Phil and I talked to Volst was that State and the Soviets are playing a
cat-and-mouse game over the whole thing. It took us long enough to even come
clean and admit we're missing two people. We want communications contact, and
until the Soviets give it to us, our people will only refer to the cover
identities. But the Soviets are rejecting that as ludicrous. They want the
real names and positions, and an admission that it was all official and we
goofed."
"But they're not going public?"
"Not so far, anyway. That's something they can afford to keep in reserve.
Meanwhile, we don't know what's happening with our two people. We don't even
know for sure where they are."
Barbara sighed and stared out at the procession of well-kept, older-style
clapboard homes with screened porches, bright-painted shutters, and glimpses
of lawns sheltered in privacy behind barricades of flowering shrubbery. "Lew
can take care of himself, I don't doubt," she said distantly after a while. "I
feel more for that Air Force woman, Bryce. It's a sorry way to wind up when
all she wanted to do was be a scientist." Foleda grunted -- either
noncommittally or in sympathy; it was difficult to tell. Barbara looked across
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