cles and trailed by three more, on its way to a place where the warheads
could be disarmed preparatory to complete disassembly. America was buy-
ing the plutonium. The tritium in the warheads would stay in Russia, proba-
bly to be sold eventually on the open market to end up on watch and
instrument faces. Tritium had a market value of about $50,000 per gram, and
the sale of it would turn a tidy profit for the Russians. Perhaps, the American
thought, that was the reason that his Russian colleagues were moving so ex-
peditiously.
This was the first 88-19 silo to be deactivated for the 53rd Strategic
Rocket Regiment. It was both like and unlike the American silos being deac-
tivated under Russian inspection. The same mass of reinforced concrete for
both, though this one was sited in woods, and the American silos were all on
open ground, reflecting different ideas about site security. The climate
wasn’t all that different. Windier in North Dakota, because of the open
11).)
TOM ( I A N( Y
spaces. The base temperature was marginally colder in Russia, which bal-
anced out the wind-chill factor on the prairie. In due course the valve wheel
on the pipe was turned, the hose removed, and the truck started up.
“Mind if I look?” the USAF colonel asked.
“Please.” The Russian colonel of Strategic Rocket Forces waved to the
open hole. He even handed over a large flashlight. Then it was his turn to
laugh.
You son of a bitch, Colonel Andrew Malcolm wanted to exclaim. There
was a pool of icy water at the bottom of the puskatel. The intelligence esti-
mate had been wrong again. Who would have believed it?
“Backup?” Ding asked.
“You might end up just doing sightseeing,” Mrs. Foley told them, almost
believing it.
“Fill us in on the mission?” John Clark asked, getting down to business.
It was his own fault, after all, since he and Ding had turned into one of the
Agency’s best field teams. He looked over at Chavez. The kid had come a
long way in five years. He had his college degree, and was close to his mas-
ter’s, in international relations no less. Ding’s job would probably have put
his instructors into cardiac arrest, since their idea of transnational inter-
course didn’t involve fucking other nations-a joke Domingo Chavez him-
self had coined on the dusty plains of Africa while reading a history book for
one of his seminar groups. He still needed to learn about concealing his emo-
tions. Chavez still retained some of the fiery nature of his background,
though Clark wondered how much of it was for show around the Farm and
elsewhere. In every organization the individual practitioners had to have a
“service reputation.” John had his. People spoke about him in whispers,
thinking, stupidly, that the nicknames and rumors would never get back to
him. And Ding wanted one, too. Well, that was normal.
“Photos?” Chavez asked calmly, then took them from Mrs. Foley’s hand.
There were six of them. Ding examined each, handing them over one by one
to his senior. The junior officer kept his voice even but allowed his face to
show his distaste.
“So if Nomuri turns up a face and a location, then what?” Ding asked.
“You two make contact with her and ask if she would like a free plane
ticket home,” the DDO replied without adding that there would be an exten-
sive debriefing process. The CIA didn’t give out free anythings, really.
“Cover?” John asked.
‘ ‘We haven’t decided yet. Before you head over, we need to work on your
language skills.”
“Monterey?” Chavez smiled. It was about the most pleasant piece of
country in America, especially this time of year.
‘ ‘Two weeks, total immersion. You fly out this evening. Your teacher will
l)i:HT 01 HONOR
K’S
be a guy named Lyalin, Oleg Yurievich. KGB major who came over a while
back. He actually ran a network over there, called THISTLE. He’s the guy
who turned the information that you and Ding used to bug the airliner-”
“Whoa!” Chavez observed. “Without him …”
Mrs. Foley nodded, pleased that Ding had made the complete connection
that rapidly. “That’s right. He’s got a very nice house overlooking the water.
It turns out he’s one hell of a good language teacher, I guess because he had
to learn it himself.” It had turned into a fine bargain for CIA. After the de-
briefing process, he’d taken a productive job at the Armed Forces Language
School, where his salary was paid by DOD. “Anyway, by the time you’re
able to order lunch and find the bathroom in the native tongue, we’ll have
your cover IDs figured out.”
Clark smiled and rose, taking the signal that it was time to leave.’ ‘Back to
work, then.”
“Defending America,” Ding observed with a smile, leaving the photos
on Mrs. Foley’s desk and sure that actually having to defend his country was
a thing of the past. Clark heard the remark and thought it a joke too, until
memories came back that erased the look from his face.
It wasn’t their fault. It was just a matter of objective conditions. With four
times the population of the United States, and only one third the living space,
they had to do something, The people needed jobs, products, a chance to
have what everyone else in the world wanted. They could see it on the televi-
sion sets that seemed to exist even in places where there were no jobs, and,
seeing it, demanded a chance to have it. It was that simple. You couldn’t say
“no” to nine hundred million people.
Certainly not if you were one of them. Vice Admiral V. K. Chandraskatta
sat on his leather chair on the flag bridge of the carrier Viraat. His obliga-
tion, as expressed in his oath of office, was to carry out the orders of his
government, but more than that, his duty was to his people. He had to look
no further than his own flag bridge to see that: staff officers and ratings,
especially the latter, the best his country could produce. They were mainly
signalmen and yeomen who’d left whatever life they’d had on the subconti-
nent to take on this new one, and tried hard to be good at it, because as mea-
ger as the pay was, it was preferable to the economic chances they took in a
country whose unemployment rate hovered between 20 and 25 percent. Just
for his country to be self-sufficient in food had taken-how long? Twenty-
five years. And that had come only as charity of sorts, the result of Western
agroscience whose success still grated on many minds, as though his coun-
try, ancient and learned, couldn’t make its own destiny. Even successful
charity could be a burden on the national soul.
And now what? His country’s economy was bouncing back, finally, but it
was also hitting limits. India needed additional resources, but most of all
needed space, of which there was little to he had. To his country’s north was
the world’s most forbidding mountain range. East was Bangladesh, which
had even more problems than India did. West was Pakistan, also over-
crowded, and an ancient religious enemy, war with whom could well have
the unwanted effect of cutting off his country’s oil supply to the Muslim
states of the Persian Gulf.
Such bad luck, the Admiral thought, picking up his glasses and surveying
his fleet because he had nothing else to do at the moment. If they did noth-
ing, the best his country might hope for was something little better than stag-
nation. If they turned outward, actively seeking room . . . But the “new
world order” said that his country could not. India was denied entry into the
race to greatness by those very nations that had run the race and then shut it
down lest others catch up.
The proof was right here. His navy was one of the world’s most powerful,
built and manned and trained at ruinous expense, sailing on one of the
world’s seven oceans, the only one named for a country, and even here it
was second-best, subordinate to a fraction of the United States Navy. That
grated even more. America was the one telling his country what it could and
could not do. America, with a history of-what?-scarcely two hundred
years. Upstarts. Had they fought Alexander of Macedon or the great Khan?
The European “discovery” voyages had been aimed at reaching his coun-
try, and that land mass discovered by accident was now denying greatness
and power and justice to the Admiral’s ancient land. It was, all in all, a lot to
hide behind a face of professional detachment while the rest of his flag staff
bustled about.
“Radar contact, bearing one-three-five, range two hundred kilometers,”
a talker announced. “Inbound course, speed five hundred knots.”
The Admiral turned to his fleet-operations officer and nodded. Captain