Summit (6 page)

"Nothing yet, Bill."

"Lemme know as soon, okay?"

"That's our job."

Sullivan sighed and sipped his coffee. He picked up one of the reports and looked at it. The letters swam in front of his eyes. There would be nothing of interest inside, he knew. Only one thing would interest him today.

It came after lunch, while he was struggling to stay awake. He read quickly through the cable, read it again, then stared at the photographs on the wall. Finally he made another call. "This is Bill Sullivan," he said. "I need ten minutes."

"Sorry, Bill. He's awfully busy this afternoon."

"I don't do this often, Celia. Ten minutes."

There was a brief pause as Celia toted up favors received and owed. He came out in the black. "Hold on," she said. He held. "Three-thirty," she said when she came back on the line. "Five minutes, max."

"Thanks, Celia. I owe you."

"Don't mention it." But he knew the transaction had been entered, his balance updated. It wouldn't be so easy next time.

As soon as he hung up, he started rehearsing. It probably wouldn't do him any good, but it made him feel a little less nervous. At 3:20 he put on his suit coat and went up to the seventh floor. He took a seat and waited. At 3:50 Celia nodded to him, and his five minutes started.

He went into a large office with a picture window that looked out over budding trees. The man who sat in front of the window was lean and craggy-faced, with hair the color of steel and eyes the color of coal. He wore a three-piece suit and a starched white shirt. Just looking at him made Sullivan start to sweat—not with fear, exactly, but with a sense of helpless inferiority that he was forever trying, and failing, to overcome. Being in Houghton's presence made him feel his belly bulging out over his belt, made him notice the dandruff on his shoulders, made him conscious of everything he wanted to be and was not. It was infuriating; it was devastating.

"Well hello, Bill, what have you got for me today?" Houghton asked in his patrician Harvard accent. Houghton's tone was exactly right: without a hint of condescension, but clearly intimating that the clock was ticking, and Sullivan had better not be wasting his time. He gestured for Sullivan to sit.

Sullivan placed the cable on the desk in front of Houghton and sat. "This came in from Moscow station a couple of hours ago."

Houghton picked it up and read it. "Give me the background here," he said.

Sullivan sighed. He had given Houghton the background before, pieced together from the reports he had received and his more informal sources in Operations. And Sullivan wondered, not for the first time, if beneath the three-piece suit and the aristocratic features Houghton was not really very bright. But it made no difference. Houghton had the picture window, and Sullivan had the wilted fern, and it didn't matter how that had happened. "Krieger has been running this guy Osipov for a couple of years," he said. "Osipov is evidently quite the ladies' man. One of his conquests is Doctor Olga Chukova. And she works at the Popov Institute, where her job is to look after Valentina Borisova. Borisova was in action again, so Osipov pumped the doctor to find out what had happened."

"Of course," Houghton said. "And?"

"There are two issues," Sullivan said, launching into what he had rehearsed. "What to do about the German, and the larger issue of what to do about Borisova. Obviously we have to tell the BND that their man may have been compromised. As for Borisova, I think she's become too dangerous. We should either get her to defect or, if we can't pull that off, we should blackmail this doctor into killing her. You may recall that I've made these proposals before. I can only emphasize that the damage Borisova is doing could be catastrophic. Delaying would only increase the danger."

There, that hadn't been too bad. Houghton pressed his hands together in front of his face and swiveled a little in his leather chair to catch a glimpse of the world outside his window. Was he deep in thought, Sullivan wondered, or was this just a pose he had mastered? "As I recall," Houghton said slowly, "our evidence that Borisova is actually doing something is rather tenuous."

"But there
is
evidence. And we have proof that the Soviets think she's doing something."

"Or that they want us to think she's doing something, and meanwhile they're up to something entirely different." Houghton sighed. "And if the doctor kills her, the Soviets will certainly find out she did it, and the doctor will certainly implicate Osipov, and we will have lost an interesting asset. That has been the line of reasoning, hasn't it?"

"I think the potential benefit is worth the risk to a minor asset like Osipov," Sullivan said. Houghton did not appear to be impressed by what he thought. "Look," Sullivan went on, "Schmidt is head of the BND's Moscow station—we can't allow the slightest chance that someone like him might be turned. And the other people we know about—there was some early evidence of success, if you recall—and there is scientific backing for the hypothesis, as I explained in one of my reports..." Sullivan petered out, realizing he had lost Houghton. There was nothing overt—Houghton was far too polite. It was just something Sullivan could sense. Maybe he was psychic. Anyway, he knew he had reached the end of his five minutes.

Houghton swiveled back to face him. He was smiling his vaguest smile. "Write it up," he said. His ultimate dismissal. "Of course we've got to do something about Schmidt right away. As for Borisova—well, we'll send the information on to Operations and see what they think."

Sullivan knew what the people in the Directorate of Operations would think. Osipov was real; Borisova on the other hand was—what? A phantom, a delusion. If only the issue could get up to Roderick Williams, Houghton's boss. Williams went for this sort of thing. But Houghton would not appreciate Sullivan going outside the chain of command, and Sullivan was on thin enough ice around here as it was.

He stood up and retrieved the cable from Houghton's desk. "I'll write it up," he said.

"Good man, Bill. And thanks for bringing this to my attention."

"Don't mention it." Sullivan had no idea if Houghton was sincere. He walked quickly out of the office.

* * *

Write it up.
He did little at work but write things up. Read an article, and write it up. Get some cables from the field, and write them up. Then wait for his proposals to get shot down by Houghton or Operations. It all seemed so futile, but what else could he do?

Sullivan hadn't really expected much when the job was offered to him, but Houghton had a way of whipping up your enthusiasm when he wanted you to do something. He had obviously studied the subject a little before making his pitch. "For all we know, this could be the most important job in the intelligence community," he had said, leaning forward in his leather chair. "But that's the key—we just don't know. We estimate that the Soviets are spending between fifty and a hundred million dollars, all sources, on psychic research. And what are they getting for their money? Some people would say—nothing, and they can't possibly get anything because ESP and all that stuff simply doesn't exist. But other people, like Roderick Williams, would say the Soviets have gotten themselves a head start in the race to control the powers of the mind. And that may be the most important race in human history. You see, Bill, if you can control the powers of the mind, all the nuclear weapons in the world aren't going to defeat you."

Houghton had paused then, hands pressed together in front of his face, studying him, and Sullivan knew the guy was laying it on thick, but he couldn't help but be intrigued.

"Your job, Bill," Houghton went on, "—the job I want you to take—is to become our expert on what the Soviets are up to in this mind race. If they've made a breakthrough, we have to know about it. If they've given up, we want to know about that too. Will you do it for us?"

Well, he hadn't had much choice, no matter how he felt about the job. Oh, he could've resigned from the Company, but he wasn't willing to do that. Not yet. So he had smiled and shaken Houghton's hand, and he vowed to become as good an expert as he could be.

It only took one conversation with his predecessor, however, to realize that his initial expectations were correct. His predecessor was a prissy little man named Popper who wore bow ties and short-sleeve shirts and chewed his fingernails. What did he have to be nervous about? Mr. Popper was transferring to Economic Research, and was more than happy to give Sullivan the lowdown over a tuna sandwich in the cafeteria.

"Houghton is full of shit, pardon my French," Popper said. "He doesn't have the slightest interest in psychic research. He just puts someone on it to keep Roderick Williams happy, but Williams doesn't have enough people sharing his enthusiasm to make things really
happen.
"

"What do you think about it all?" Sullivan asked. "Is there anything to it?"

Popper gnawed at a knuckle, as if he were worried about giving the wrong answer. "See, you look at it one way and you say, 'My God, this is amazing,'" he replied. "Then you look at it another way, and it's all a crock of you-know-what. I mean, for us it's just words on a piece of paper, right? Professor Ivan So-and-so at the Bekhterev Brain Institute has proved this, Professor Pavel Such-and-such of Novosibirsk University has disproved that. How can we tell who's right?"

"But you have to make a judgment, don't you? You're the expert."

Popper shook his head. "You make judgments, you make enemies. Push too much one way, Houghton doesn't like you; push too much the other, you're on Williams's bad side. So just aim your reports straight down the middle and forget about it."

Thanks a bunch,
Sullivan had thought. And he set to work. He wanted to do a good job, despite Popper's advice, and that was what made the job so frustrating—especially since he had found out about Borisova.
If they've made a breakthrough, we have to know about it,
Houghton said. Well, apparently not.

But was it really a breakthrough? Or had his desires clouded his judgment? Sometimes, in the long, alcohol-soaked nights, he wasn't sure which he was more afraid of. Being an expert wasn't easy.

When his report was finished, he sent it to all the right people, then walked out into the humid evening, his mind still filled with Borisova and Osipov and Dieter Schmidt and Doctor Chukova. The day had brought nothing unexpected, and the night, he knew, would be no different from all his other nights. When he started up the car, he recalled with a pang its broken air conditioning. He would have to have that fixed. But he knew he wouldn't get around to it anytime soon.

Chapter 5

Outside: murmuring and footsteps. A hand on hers.

Inside: silence.

Valentina Borisova opened her eyes.

Doctor Chukova was staring down at her. Valentina managed a weak smile, and Chukova smiled back. "How do you feel?" the doctor asked.

"I feel... empty." Her voice sounded far away, unfamiliar.

Doctor Chukova laid a hand on her forehead, and then took her pulse. "Is it worse than usual?"

She tried to think. What was "usual"? "It was bad at the end," she managed to say. "I was sure I wouldn't get out. But here I am." She closed her eyes. Doctor Chukova's hand felt warm and reassuring.

"There doesn't appear to be any permanent damage," the doctor said. "Of course, we'll run the usual tests when you're stronger. But for now, all you have to do is rest."

Rest.
Doctor Chukova tried to be maternal to her, and sometimes she responded; she had no mother, and there was a gap that needed filling. But just as often she resisted that feeling—because Chukova was not her mother. A mother would not let these things happen to her. Valentina had to be on her guard, even when the voice was soft, the hand warm and reassuring. The resting would end eventually, and she had to be ready for what would replace it.

"Is there anything I can get for you?" Doctor Chukova asked.

Nothing,
Valentina wanted to say, to maintain her independence, to be free of obligation. But she felt the silence inside her, and she knew what she needed, and right now she was willing to ask for a favor. "Music," she whispered.

"Of course, dear. Now rest." The hand patted hers, then the footsteps retreated. And after a while there was music. Schubert. It didn't make things right, but it made them tolerable, at least for now.