Summit (35 page)

Valentina shook her head. It was as if she were suddenly seeing the past few months through a dark, sinister filter. "I don't understand—the double—"

"The double is to convince the CIA once and for all that there's nothing to this psychic business. If anyone has the slightest suspicion about Winn in the future, they'll just forget about it. How could the Soviets have done anything to him, they'll think. We have Borisova, after all, and she's a fraud."

Hill sounded quite proud of himself. He should be, she supposed. Thanks to her, he was convinced that what he was doing was right. If only she
were
a fraud, none of this would be happening. Now Daniel was part of her tragedy. And the world was part of it too, because she would break Winn if it was the only way to save Daniel, and what that would do for the Soviet Union she could only begin to imagine.

She had foolishly kept hoping for happiness and mercy in a world that provided little of either. She should have known there would be no escape.

They turned a corner, and suddenly she understood just how inevitable her tragedy had been.

The building was about a dozen stories high, with a spiked fence in front of it. It was made of white glazed brick, which gave way to black granite at the bottom. A cement canopy covered the entranceway; a faded green carpet led up to it. Over the doorway a camera blinked red, red, red, as it took photographs of everyone who approached.

It was the Soviet Mission to the United Nations, a small gold plaque on the door said. And it was the building of her dreams, a building she had invented somehow to contain all the horror of her struggles. In her dreams she had always managed to find a way out; she had always returned to reality. But how would she find a way out when the building itself had become real?

Dennison pulled up in front of a garage next door, rolled down his window, and put a card in a red slot on the wall outside. Another camera blinked at them. A voice spoke and Dennison said something back in Russian. The garage door opened, and they drove into the darkness inside.

Valentina felt as if she were entering her grave.

Chapter 32

It took some persuasion before Doctor Walpole let Bill Sullivan observe the testing of Valentina Borisova. "I really should get permission," he said when Sullivan called him.

"Oh, come on, Mark," Sullivan said. "I don't want to debrief her, I just want to watch for a while."

"Okay, but what's the big deal with getting permission?"

"I'm a spook, Mark. Spooks don't like to ask permission."

Doctor Walpole grimaced. "I've worked here six years, and I've never really gotten used to spooks."

"That's a good sign, Mark. When you start getting used to them, it's time to quit. I'll be right over."

They met outside the lab, and Walpole led him down an antiseptically white corridor. "The pressure's really on for this one," Walpole said. "Roderick Williams is calling me four times a day. It's the endorphin business, you know. He's still trying to make up for that."

Sullivan had heard some rumors about the endorphin business. "How's Doctor Coyne?"

Walpole shrugged. "No one will say, which means that there's still a problem, I guess. He just isn't here anymore. It's like he never existed. This is a tough business."

"Tell me about it."

A guard stood outside one of the doors at the end of the corridor. He silently studied their credentials for a moment, then stood aside and let them enter.

They walked into a dimly lit room; there were large observation windows in the far wall looking out into the bright lab beyond. A couple of men sat at monitoring equipment in front of the windows. In the lab, a blond woman was lying inside a glass pyramid.

Sullivan walked over to one of the windows. His heart was pounding. She was only a few feet away, but he couldn't seem to see her face clearly through the pyramid. He looked around and saw a couple of TV screens among the monitoring equipment. "Can I get a close-up of her?" he asked.

One of the men reached forward and turned a knob. The face came into focus—eyes closed, an expression of slight strain on her features. Her blond hair was splayed on the pillow beneath her head. Sullivan stared at her for a long time, and then the gray eyes opened and seemed to stare back at him.
"Nichto,"
she whispered, and he heard the word clearly through the microphones in the lab.

Nothing
.

The face looked tired and unhappy.

One of the men clicked on his own microphone. "That's okay, Valentina. Do you feel like trying again?"

She shrugged. "Whatever you want," she said in English. And she closed her eyes once more.

Sullivan turned around. "She's not doing very well, is she?" he asked Walpole.

"You
could do better," Walpole said, pushing his glasses up his nose. "I told them she was tired. It's very tricky getting positive results in tests of psychic ability. Conditions have to be just right. And then when you do get the results, you have some people saying it's just the laws of probability catching up with you."

"She looks like she's cooperating."

"She's been an angel. But that doesn't mean she's a psychic."

"Obviously." Sullivan shook his head. "Thanks for your time, Mark."

"Don't mention it. And I mean that."

* * *

"I need to see Houghton," Sullivan said to Celia over the phone.

"Sorry, Bill. He's all tied up."

"It's a national emergency."

"Everything's a national emergency. There's a summit coming up in a couple of days, or didn't you hear? The White House wants all the latest information on the entire universe."

"Look, when you see him, just say one sentence to him: 'Sullivan has evidence that Borisova's a fake.' Can you do that much for me?"

There was a pause. "Okay," Celia said finally. "But that's it, understood?"

"Understood."

Sullivan hung up and waited. He longed for a drink. The call came half an hour later.

* * *

Houghton stared at him, his hands pressed together in front of his mouth. Sullivan sat on the other side of the large desk and desperately tried not to feel inferior.
Snotty-nosed rich kid,
he thought, but it didn't seem to help. "I received a report from Moscow station," he said. "Osipov sent them an emergency message. Trofimov and Chukova are coming to New York."

Houghton nodded. "So? Work it out for me."

"They were supposed to leave Moscow immediately, but we haven't seen them on any of the incoming Aeroflot flights. Could be the plan changed. But it could be they were disguised, or we just plain missed them. Also, the Soviets are obviously shipping over a lot of stuff in the diplomatic pouch in preparation for the summit. It could contain the parts for Trofimov's machine."

"You think they're going to try for President Winn?"

"Why not? Why should they just go after spies and diplomats? Why not aim for the top?"

"Because they don't have Borisova anymore. We do."

"Maybe," Sullivan said, "we don't."

Houghton raised an eyebrow. "She's a fake, you said."

Sullivan had thought that might intrigue him. Houghton had always seen a Soviet disinformation plot lurking in the shadows. "That's my theory," Sullivan said.

"What's your evidence?"

"The evidence is that they're sending these people to New York
after
her supposed defection. Are they going to try to pull this off without her? Doesn't seem likely, since she's the only one who's been able to do it. So maybe the defector wasn't Borisova. She
looks
like Borisova, but that doesn't prove anything. Also, she's failing all the tests over at the lab. That doesn't prove anything either, but at least it's consistent with my theory."

Houghton shook his head. "What's the point of a double? If they want to break Winn, why not send their whole team over here in disguise, including Borisova, and give it a try?"

"Disinformation," Sullivan said. He was going to have to go through it step by step, apparently. "We have their one supposed star, and she turns out to be a dud. We decide there's nothing to any of this psychic stuff, my job is cut out of the next budget, and meanwhile Winn has been turned into the ultimate Soviet agent of influence."

Sullivan fell silent and waited while Houghton worked it through. He hated what was coming. "But the defection was our operation," Houghton pointed: out, as Sullivan had expected he would. "If your theory is correct, they must have penetrated it—right from the very beginning. Otherwise they wouldn't have had time to prepare a double. It doesn't make sense, unless they were in control of the operation."

Sullivan nodded. "But Lawrence Hill was in control of the operation," he murmured.

Houghton swiveled a bit in his chair. "Is that what you 're suggesting, Bill? That Hill is a Soviet agent?"

"He was in Moscow at least some of the time when Trofimov and Borisova started," Sullivan pointed out, "—and this was back before Chukova came on board, back before we started finding out who they were after. He would've been a natural target. If we assume that this psychic stuff works, he's got to be a suspect."

"But if Hill's a Soviet spy," Houghton reasoned, "then the Soviets know that Chukova works for us, because Hill sure knows it. If she's still alive, then she must be working for them too, and all the information we've gotten from her would therefore be suspect—including this report that she's coming to New York."

Sullivan couldn't argue with the reasoning. "If she is a double agent," he said, "my impression is that she's not a willing one. The tone of this report suggests to me that it's for real."

Houghton's expression was blank. Not very persuasive, Sullivan knew. But
he
was the expert. He was the one whose opinion Houghton should trust. "So what do you suggest, Bill?" Houghton asked.

"We've got to interrogate both Hill and that supposed defector in our lab. Put them on the lie detector. Find out what the truth is. And if we come up with anything, we've got to convince the president to cancel the summit."

Once again, pretty weak. But what else could they do? Houghton nodded absently as he stared into the distance. "Well, thanks for the information and analysis, Bill," he said finally. "Why don't you write it up for us as well?"

"What are you going to do?" Sullivan asked.

Houghton smiled his most condescending smile. "Need to know, Bill. Be assured that we will take the appropriate action."

"You've got to believe me!" Sullivan shouted. "This is important." He wanted his tone to be powerful and demanding, but instead it sounded thin and pleading.

Houghton's smile didn't waver. "Of course it's important. Write it up, Bill. We'll follow through on it. Now if you'll excuse me..."

Houghton picked up a paper on his desk and started to read it. Sullivan hesitated for a moment, trying to think of some last, clinching comment, then gave up and silently left Houghton's office.

* * *

Colonel Thomas Poole had an exceedingly good memory, but still it took him a moment to recall the overweight man with the florid complexion who was standing at the entrance to his office. "Mr. Sullivan," he said. "What can I do for you?"

Sullivan came into his office. He looked grateful that he didn't have to explain who he was. "Operation Cadenza," he said. "I have some new information on it."

Poole motioned to a seat. "I'm all ears," he said.

Sullivan sat down and immediately started in on a strange story of disguises and KGB doubles and a plot to take over the mind of President Winn.

When he was finished, Poole leaned back in his chair. His mind raced. "This is fascinating," he said, "but why are you going outside your chain of command to tell me?"

"Because it's too important to worry about chains of command," Sullivan responded. "I told Houghton, but I'm not sure he was persuaded. I could tell Roderick Williams, but I'm afraid he might not buy it either, because he's hoping this operation will restore his reputation, and he's not going to want to admit we were duped. You have access to the president. You've got to convince him to cancel the summit. If he doesn't, he—and all of us—will be in grave danger."