Thirty minutes later, home, showered, and dressed, he read his morning paper—for him it was Krasnaya Zvesda, “Red Star,” the Soviet military daily—while he drank a mug of tea. The radio was playing while his wife prepared the children for school. Bondarenko didn’t hear either, and his eyes merely scanned the paper while his mind churned. Who are they? Why are they watching me? Am 1 under suspicion? If so, suspicion of what?
“Good morning, Gennady Iosifovich,” Misha said on entering his office.
“Good morning, Comrade Colonel,” Bondarenko answered.
Filitov smiled. “Call me Misha. The way you’re going, you will soon outrank this old carcass. What is it?”
“I’m being watched. I had people following me this morning when I did my run.”
“Oh?” Misha turned. “Are you sure?”
“You know how it is when you know you’re being watched— I’m certain you know, Misha!” the young Colonel observed.
But he was wrong. Filitov had noticed nothing unusual, nothing to arouse his instincts until this moment. Then it hit him that the bath attendant wasn’t back yet. What if the signal was about something more than a routine security check? Filitov’s face changed for an instant before he got it back under control.
“You’ve noticed something, too, then?” Bondarenko asked.
“Ah!” A wave of the hand, and an ironic look. “Let them look; they will find this old man more boring than Alexandrov’s sex life.” The reference to the Politburo’s chief ideologue was becoming a popular one in the Defense Ministry. A sign, Misha wondered, that General Secretary Narmonov was planning to ease him out?
They ate in the Afghan way, everyone taking food barehanded from a common plate. Ortiz had a virtual banquet laid out for lunch. The Archer had the place of honor, with Ortiz at his right hand to act as translator. Four very senior CIA people were there, too. He thought they were overdoing things, but then, the place that put the light in the sky must have been important. Ortiz opened the talking with the usual ceremonial phrases.
“You do me too much honor,” the Archer replied.
“Not so,” the senior CIA visitor said through Ortiz. “Your skill and courage are. well known to us, and even among our soldiers. We are ashamed that we can give you no more than the poor help that our government allows.”
“It is our land to win back,” the Archer said with dignity. “With Allah’s help it will be ours again. It is well that Believers should strive together against the godless ones, but the task is that of my people, not yours.”
He doesn’t know, Ortiz thought. He doesn’t know that he’s being used.
“So,” the Archer went on. “Why have you traveled around the world to speak with this humble warrior?”
“We wish to talk with you about the light you saw in the sky.”
The Archer’s face changed. He was surprised at that. He’d expected to be asked about how well his missiles worked.
“It was a light—a strange light, yes. Like a meteor, but it seemed to go up instead of down.” He described what he had seen in detail, giving the time, where he’d been, the direction of the light, and the way it had sliced across the sky.
“Did you see what it hit? Did you see anything else in the sky?”
“Hit? I don’t understand. It was a light.”
Another of the visitors spoke. “I am told that you were a teacher of mathematics. Do you know what a laser is?”
His face changed at the new thought. “Yes, I read of them when I was in university. I—” The Archer sipped at a glass of juice. “I know little of lasers. They project a beam of light, and are used mainly for measuring and surveying. I have never seen one, only read of them.”
“What you saw was a test of a laser weapon.”
“What is its purpose?”
“We do not know. The test you saw used the laser system to destroy a satellite in orbit. That means—”
“I know of satellites. A laser can be used for this purpose?”
“Our country is working on similar things, but it would seem that the Russians are ahead of us.”
The Archer was surprised by that. Was not America the world’s leader in technical things? Was not the Stinger proof of that? Why had these men flown twelve thousand miles—merely because he’d seen a light in the sky?
“You are fearful of this laser?”
“We have great interest,” the senior man replied. “Some of the documents you found gave us information about the site which we did not have, and for this we are doubly in your debt.”
“I, too, have interest now. Do you have the documents?”
“Emilio?” The senior visitor gestured at Ortiz, who produced a map and a diagram.
“This site has been under construction since 1983. We were surprised that the Russians would build so important a facility so near to the borders of Afghanistan.”
“In 1983, they still thought they would win,” the Archer observed darkly. The idea that they’d felt that way was taken as an insult. He noted the position on the map, the mountaintop nearly surrounded by a sweeping loop of the Vakhsh River. He saw immediately why it was there. The power dam at Nurek was only a few kilometers away. The Archer knew more than he let on. He knew what lasers were, and a little of how they operated. He knew that their light was dangerous, that it could blind . . .
It destroyed a satellite? Hundreds of kilometers up in space, higher than airplanes could fly . . . what could it do to people on the ground . . . perhaps they’d built so close to his country for another reason . . .
“So you merely saw the light? You have heard no stories about such a place, no stories of strange lights in the sky?”
The Archer shook his head. “No, only the one time.” He saw the visitors exchange looks of disappointment.
“Well, that does not matter. I am permitted to offer you the thanks of my government. Three truckloads of weapons are coming to your band. If there is anything else you need, we will try to get it for you.”
The Archer nodded soberly. He’d expected a great reward for the delivery of the Soviet officer, then been disappointed at his death. But these men had not visited him about that. It was all about the documents and the light—was this place so important that the death of the Russian was considered trivial? Were the Americans actually afraid of it?
And if they were fearful, how should he feel?
“No, Arthur, I don’t like it,” the President said tentatively. Judge Moore pressed the attack.
“Mr. President, we are aware of Narmonov’s political difficulties. The disappearance of our agent will not have any more of an effect than his arrest by the KGB, possibly less. After all, the KGB can’t very well raise too much of a ruckus if they let him slip away,” the DCI pointed out.
“It’s still too great a risk,” Jeffrey Pelt said. “We have a historic opportunity with Narmonov. He really wants to make fundamental changes in their system—hell, your people are the ones who made the assessment.”
We had this chance before and blew it, during the Kennedy Administration, Moore thought. But Khrushchev fell, and we had twenty years of Party hacks. Now there may be another chance. You’re afraid we might never get another opportunity as good as this one. Well, that’s one way to look at it, he admitted to himself.
“Jeff, his position will not be affected any more by extracting our man than by his capture—”
“If they’re on to him, why haven’t they grabbed him already?” Pelt demanded. “What if you’re overreacting?”
“This man has been working for us over thirty years—thirty years! Do you know the risks he’s run for us, the information we’ve gotten from him? Can you appreciate the frustration he’s felt the times we ignored his advice? Can you imagine what it’s like to live with a death sentence for thirty years? If we abandon the man, what’s this country all about?” Moore said with quiet determination. The President was a man who could always be swayed by arguments based on principle.
“And if we topple Narmonov in the process?” Pelt demanded. “What if Alexandrov’s clique does take over, and it’s back to the bad old days all over again—more tension, more arms races? How do we explain to the American people that we sacrificed this opportunity for the life of one man?”
“For one thing, they’d never know unless somebody leaked it,” the DCI replied coldly. “The Russians wouldn’t make it all public, and you know that. For another, how would we explain throwing this man away like a used Kleenex?”
“They wouldn’t know that either, unless somebody leaked it,” Pelt answered in an equally cold voice.