What would the police know? The physical description would not be a good one. He’d worn a pair of surgical gloves, and though they allowed him to bruise his hands, they hadn’t torn and he hadn’t bled. Most important of all, he had never touched the wine bottle with ungloved hands. Of that he was certain because he’d decided from the beginning to be careful about it. The police would know a street bum had killed that punk, but there were lots of street bums, and he only needed one more night. It meant that he’d have to alter his operational pattern even so, and that tonight’s mission was more dangerous than if ought to be, but his information on Billy was too good to pass up on, and the little bastard might be smart enough to change his own patterns. What if he used different houses to count his cash or only used one for a few nights? If that was true, any wait beyond a day or two might invalidate his whole reconnaissance effort, forcing him to start again with a new disguise – if he could select something equally effective, which was not immediately likely. Kelly told himself that he’d killed six people to get this far – the seventh was a mistake and didn’t count… except maybe to that lady, whoever she was. He took a deep breath. If he’d watched her get hurt worse, or killed, how would he be able to look in a mirror? He had to tell himself, that he’d made the best of a bad situation. Shit happens. It ran the risks up, but the only concern there was failure in the mission, not in danger to himself. It was time to set his thoughts aside. There were other responsibilities as well. Kelly lifted his phone and dialed.
‘Greer.’
‘Clark,’ Kelly responded. At least that was still amusing.
‘You’re late,’ the Admiral told him. The call was supposed to have been before lunch, and Kelly’s stomach churned a little at the rebuke. ‘No harm done, I just got back. We’re going to need you soon. It’s started.’
That’s fast, Kelly thought. Damn. ‘Okay, sir.’
‘I hope you’re in shape. Dutch says you are,’ James Greer said more kindly.
‘I think I can hold up, sir.’
‘Ever been to Quantico?’
‘No, Admiral.’
‘Bring your boat. There’s a marina there and it’ll give us a place to chat. Sunday morning. Ten sharp. We’ll be waiting, Mr Clark.’
‘Aye aye.’ Kelly heard the phone click off.
Sunday morning. He hadn’t expected that. It was going too fast, and it made his other mission all the more urgent. Since when had the government ever moved that quickly? Whatever the reason, it affected Kelly directly.
‘I hate it, but it’s the way we work,’ Grishanov said.
‘You really are that tied to your ground radar?’
‘Robin, there is even talk of having the missile firing done by the intercept-control officer from his booth on the ground.’ The disgust in his voice was manifest.
‘But then you’re just a driver!’ Zacharias announced. ‘You have to trust your pilots.’
I really should have this man speak to the general staff, Grishanov told himself with no small degree of disgust. They won’t listen to me. Perhaps they would listen to him. His countrymen had vast respect for the ideas and practices of Americans, even as they planned to fight and defeat them.
‘It is a combination of factors. The new fighter regiments will be deployed along the Chinese border, you see-‘
‘What do you mean?’
‘You didn’t know? We’ve fought the Chinese three times this year, at the Amur River and farther west.’
‘Oh, come on!’ This was too incredible for the American to believe. ‘You’re allies!’
Grishanov snorted. ‘Allies? Friends? From the outside, yes, perhaps it looks as though all socialists are the same. My friend, we have battled with the Chinese for centuries. Don’t you read history? We supported Chiang over ??? for a long time – we trained his army for him. ??? hates us. We foolishly gave him nuclear reactors, and now they have nuclear arms, and do you suppose their missiles can reach my country or yours? They have Tu-16 bombers – Badgers you call them, yes? Can they reach America?’
Zacharias knew that answer. ‘No, of course not.’
‘They can reach Moscow, I promise you, and they carry half-megaton nuclear bombs, and for that reason the MiG-25 regiments are on the Chinese border. Along that axis we have no strategic depth. Robin, we’ve had real battles with these yellow bastards, division-size engagements! Last winter we crushed their attempt to take an island that belongs to us. They struck first, they killed a battalion of border guards and mutilated the dead – why do that, Robin, because of their red hair or because of their freckles?’ Grishanov asked bitterly, quoting verbatim a wrathful article in Red Star. This was a very strange turn of events for the Russian. He was speaking the literal truth, and it was harder to convince Zacharias of this than any one of a number of clever lies he might have used. ‘We are not allies. We’ve even stopped shipping weapons to this country by train -the Chinese steal the consignments right off the rail carriages!’
‘To use against you?’
‘Against whom, then, the Indians? Tibet? Robin, these people are different from you and me. They don’t see the world as we do. They’re like the Hitlerites my father fought, they think they are better than other men – how you say?’
‘Master race?’ the American suggested helpfully.
‘That is the word, yes. They believe it. We’re animals to them, useful animals, yes, but they hate us, and they want what we have. They want our oil and our timber and our land.’
‘How come I’ve never been briefed on this?’ Zacharias demanded.
‘Shit,’ the Russian answered. ‘Is it any different in your country? When France pulled out of NATO, when they told your people to take your bases out, do you think any of us were told about it beforehand? I had a staff job then in Germany, and nobody troubled himself to tell me that anything was happening. Robin, the way you look to us is the same as how we look to you, a great colossus, but the internal politics in your country are as much a mystery to me as mine are to you. It can all be very confusing, but I tell you this, my friend, my new MiG regiment will be based between China and Moscow. I can bring a map and show you.’
Zacharias leaned back against the wall, wincing again with the recurring pain from his back. It was just too much to believe.
‘It hurts still, Robin?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Here, my friend.’ Grishanov handed over his flask, and this time it was accepted without resistance. He watched Zacharias take a long pull before handing it back.
‘So just how good is this new one?’
‘The MiG-25! It’s a rocket,’ Grishanov told him enthusiastically. ‘It probably turns even worse than your Thud, but for straight-line speed, you have no fighter close to it. Four missiles, no gun. The radar is the most powerful ever made for a fighter, and it cannot be jammed.’
‘Short range?’ Zacharias asked.
‘About forty kilometers.’ The Russian nodded. ‘We give away range for reliability. We tried to get both but failed.’
‘Hard for us, too,’ the American acknowledged with a grunt.
‘You know, I do not expect a war between my country and yours. Truly I do not. We have little that you might wish to take away. What we have – resources, space, land – all these things you have. But the Chinese,’ he said, ‘they need these things, and they share a border with us. And we gave them the weapons that they will use against us, and there are so many of them! Little, evil people, like these here, but so many more.’
‘So what are you going to do about it?’
Grishanov shrugged. ‘I will command my regiment. I will plan to defend the Motherland against a nuclear attack from China. I just haven’t decided how yet.’
‘It’s not easy. It helps if you have space and time to play with, and the right people to play against.’ .
‘We have bomber people, but nothing like yours. You know, even without resistance, I doubt we could place as many as twenty bombers over your country. They’re all based two thousand kilometers from where I will be. You know what that means? Nobody even to train against.’
‘You mean a red team?’
‘We would call it a blue team, Robin. I hope you understand.’ Grishanov chuckled, then turned serious again. ‘But, yes. It will all be theoretical, or some fighters will pretend to be bombers, but their endurance is too short for a proper exercise.’
‘This is all on the level?’
‘Robin, I will not ask you to trust me. That is too much. You know that and so do I. Ask yourself, do you really think your country will ever make war on my country?’