Summit (28 page)

Eight-twenty. Would America be any better? You never knew how much of the propaganda to believe: Russia rewrote the present as well as the past. But surely in America there was crime and poverty and racism and a mindless obsession with wealth. What good is freedom if you are too poor, or too afraid, to enjoy it? What good is freedom if you use it only to oppress your fellow man?

And could there ever be freedom for someone like her, whose mind was a weapon that nations could not hope to duplicate?

It didn't matter, of course. Russia, America, Mars. All that mattered was being with Daniel. He was an American; that meant she would become an American too. She could still feel the pressure of his body, see his wondrous smile, smell his exotic mixture of American scents: deodorant, shaving cream, cologne. How could the abstractions of patriotism compare with his reality?

Eight-twenty-five. An old woman was berating a leather-jacketed teenager for pushing past her. A train roared through the station. Two little girls wearing Pioneer kerchiefs skipped by, holding hands, while a mother trailed them. She should leave; nothing was going to happen tonight.

Valentina headed for the exit. An old man was getting off the down escalator. It was not very cold out, but he was wearing a large overcoat, a fur hat, and gloves. He leaned heavily on his cane. She was about to walk past him when he stepped into her path. "Excuse me," he whispered in raspy English. "Is this the train for Carnegie Hall?"

Valentina tried desperately not to laugh, not to embrace this man with the white eyebrows and sunken cheeks and rheumy eyes. She shook her head. "You can't get to Carnegie Hall from here," she whispered.

"Yes you can," Fulton replied. "You're going to London. Will you be staying at the embassy?"

She nodded. "I think so."

"All right. While you're there, try to go for a walk—preferably after dark. It doesn't matter if you're guarded, just get out of the embassy. Understand?"

"Yes. Will you be there?"

He shook his head. "Too risky. They thought this was a risk too."

"It is. I got a strong lecture today at the institute. I am not supposed to see you again."

"When you see me again, Valentina, it'll be in America. Good luck."

"I love you, Daniel."

He smiled at her briefly, and then hobbled off toward the trains. Valentina waited a moment, wondering if she could risk a look back at him, then decided against it.
No more risks.
She would do what she was told, and she would go to London, and somehow she would get out of the embassy. That was all she had to do. And then, perhaps, her life could begin.

She got on the up escalator and left the station.

Chapter 25

Bill Sullivan read everything he could get his hands on about Daniel Fulton's trip to Moscow. His recital, according to the reviews, had been a triumph; his encounters with the press had been cordial; his Soviet hosts had been, naturally, delighted with him. It was a success for everyone—except the United States, which had to sit by while the eyes of the world were on the Soviet Union and its Peace Festival.

Of course, Fulton could have been secretly working for United States intelligence while he was in Moscow. He could have set up the defection of a vitally important Soviet citizen, following a plan developed by one William Sullivan, a nondescript career government employee currently toiling in an obscure position in the Directorate of Intelligence. In that case, the United States would have been the big winner, no matter how much of a propaganda victory the Soviet Union had scored.

But William Sullivan had no way of finding out if his plan was being used, no way of knowing if Fulton had made contact with Valentina Borisova, or if Borisova had let her infatuation with the pianist overcome her loyalty to her country. He had no need to know, and so he wasn't told. The Peace Festival ended, Fulton returned to the United States, and life went on as usual at CIA headquarters.

There was one source of information available to Sullivan, however: Vladimir Osipov, and through him, Doctor Olga Chukova. It was Sullivan's job to find out what Doctor Chukova knew, and no one stopped him from doing his job.

A few days after Fulton returned to America, a report came in from Moscow station. Preparations were complete for the operation in London. Chukova was excited—it was her first trip outside the Soviet Union—but Borisova seemed remarkably calm, almost happy. Still no information on the target.

Sullivan stared at the brief report for a long time after he read it. In this sort of job, you never have enough information, and you get used to reading a lot between the lines. Borisova would not have been in a good mood unless she had met with Fulton, he decided. The defection would take place in London.

What a stroke of luck that she was leaving the country so soon after Fulton's approach to her! Sullivan's plan had been vague on the details of the actual defection—a flaw that people had been quick to point out to him. In London, the operation still wouldn't be easy, but at least it would be possible—if the president was willing to risk an international incident on the eve of the summit. It was worth it, Sullivan thought; the chance might not come again. But no one was asking his opinion.

Eventually he put the report down and gazed at the picture of his son. He was an outsider looking in—at his job, at his son's life. Maybe this was all he deserved, but that didn't make it any easier to take.

He felt a pang of envy toward Daniel Fulton. The man was a genius. He was handsome, rich, world famous. And now he was a spy—a successful one too, apparently. Well, good for him.

This was stupid, he thought abruptly. He got up from his desk, shut off his terminal and filed his papers, and headed for the elevator. He was going home. It was only two-thirty, but what did that matter? No one would miss him. All the decisions were being made somewhere else.

* * *

In the old days it wouldn't have been this hard, Roderick Williams thought. If you had an operation, you carried it out. Maybe one went haywire occasionally, but not often enough to warrant the endless reviews and approvals needed to get things done today. Why not just let people do their jobs?

Still, the excitement of being summoned to the White House was almost worth the aggravation. This was important enough to merit the attention of the president, if only for a few moments.

Williams admired President Winn, even though Winn had passed him over for director of Central Intelligence and sent that bloodhound Poole sniffing around his operations at Langley. Winn was tough and decisive in his own way, and Williams felt confident that if he made his case well enough, Winn would go along.

He didn't like it, though, that Poole was at the meeting in the Oval Office, along with George Loud and Benjamin Follett, the national security adviser. Winn paid a bit too much attention to Poole, who after all was just an NSC staffer with some strong opinions and little experience to back them up. If Poole opposed the operation, would Winn have the guts—and the intelligence—to approve it? Williams hoped so.

"What's it all about, George?" Winn asked Loud, beginning the meeting in his usual no-nonsense way.

"A Soviet psychic," Loud whispered. "Rod here has an operation in place to get her to defect. We need you to sign the finding."

Loud handed the sheet of paper to Winn, who glanced at it and looked up at Williams. "Give me a summary, please, Rod."

Williams gritted his teeth. Now Loud had the president calling him
Rod.
He hated that name. "Yes, Mr. President." And he quickly went over the Borisova case, explaining why it was so important that they snatch her while she was in London.

The president seemed impressed enough, but then he immediately turned to Poole. "How do you view the evidence on this Borisova woman, Tom? Is she as dangerous as Rod thinks?"

"Impossible to say, sir. The evidence isn't clear."

"All the more reason to do it," Williams pointed out. "We've got to test her and find out what's going on."

"I think the major issue here is not this psychic," Benjamin Follett said, "but the fate of the summit. We'd be risking a major international incident by kidnapping this woman from the steps of the Soviet embassy, or wherever."

Williams had figured someone would use the phrase "major international incident." It hadn't taken long. "But we wouldn't be kidnapping her," he replied. "She wants to defect."

"It doesn't matter," Follett insisted. "The Soviets will obviously say she was drugged or threatened. They'll muddy the issue of the woman's intentions, and the only issue that will remain clear is whether we're serious about this summit. They'll make it look like the operation was a plot to scuttle the summit and any hope of an arms-reduction treaty. I'm not sure we can afford that kind of bad publicity, particularly when the evidence of the woman's powers is so equivocal."

"Is it possible that the woman's a plant, Rod?" Loud asked. "What if we get her to America, and suddenly she changes her story, claims she's here against her will? Is that likely?"

Had Loud turned against him too? He should have expected it. The perfect opportunity to make him look bad. "I can't say it's impossible," Williams replied, "but all our information suggests otherwise. She wants to get out of there. They're slowly killing her, and we're her only hope."

Winn glanced again at the finding. He shifted in his chair. Everyone knew that he hated long meetings. Then he asked the question that Williams dreaded. "What do you think, Tom?"

Poole paused before responding. "I think we must go ahead with Roderick's plan, sir," he said finally. "We can't take the risk that her powers are real, because then she's too dangerous to ignore. If the Soviets make a stink about the defection afterward, that's their problem. If they really want a summit, they'll still show up at the UN, no matter what we do about this woman. If they don't want a summit and they use this as an excuse to pull out,
we
can still show up, and we're the ones who get the good publicity. And if all of this puts an arms-reduction treaty in jeopardy—well, maybe the treaty isn't such a good idea in the first place."

Winn considered for a brief moment, then nodded, took out his pen, and signed the piece of paper. "Here's your finding, Roderick. Let's hope this works out."

"Yes, sir. I'm sure it will." Williams glanced over at Colonel Poole, who was already standing up, aware that the meeting was over. He could grow to like that man.

* * *

"Hello, Marcia, you're looking quite lovely today. Is that a new hairdo?"

Marcia stared at him suspiciously. "Well, um, no, Mr. Fulton. Maybe a slightly different, um,
shade
this time."

"Whatever it is, it's very attractive. Would Mr. Hershohn be in, by any chance?"

"I'll let him know you're here."

Marcia was relieved when Hershohn brought him into his office. Flattery? No disguise? What was he up to
now?

* * *

"I think you scared Marcia," Hershohn said.

"What do I have to do to please that woman?"

"I don't know, but you haven't figured it out yet. Sit down, Daniel. Sit down." Fulton sat. He looked a little tense, but nowhere near as bad as he had for most of the past three years. And the lack of a disguise suggested a normality that made Hershohn want to sing the
Ode to Joy.
"So what brings you to town, Daniel?"

"I was bored. Looking for something to do."

Hershohn smiled. "Happy to oblige." He pushed a folder across his desk to Fulton. "Name the city. Name the hall. Name the orchestra, if you want to do a concerto. We should arrange a tour and announce it as soon as possible, while you're still fresh in the public's mind."

Fulton picked up the folder and glanced through it. "I don't know," he murmured.

Hershohn stifled an urge to scream. What was it that the damn pianist didn't know? "Didn't it work out well in Moscow?" he asked.

"Sure."

"Well then, why not get back in business? Look, you know and I know that your retirement was not a success. Whatever it was you were trying to accomplish, you didn't accomplish it. You were born to play the piano, Daniel. Don't deny your gift."

Fulton squirmed a little in his chair. "I don't know," he repeated. "It's just too soon. I can't think about this now. I've got other things to think about."