already.
“At least we have the gold,” Semelov pointed out.
Kuznetsov snorted. “Leningrad Center isn’t expecting gold. It is expecting
a computer. May I remind you, comrades, computers such as this you cannot
buy at a hard currency store?”
“I don’t suppose there is any chance they will believe us?” Volkov asked
tentatively.
Kuznetsov snorted again. “Would you? Besides, it makes no difference. The
computer was in our care. We lost it. We are responsible.”
Volkov licked his lips. “What do you think they will do to us?”
For a moment there was only the roar and vibration of the engines. “I
doubt they will shoot us,” he said at last. “Not when we give them the
gold. But we will undoubtedly be interrogated-rigorously.” He paused,
remembering the courses he had had on interrogation techniques. Then he
tried to shove those images out of his mind.
“They will doubtless conclude we sold the computer for gold. Nothing we
could say or do will convince them otherwise. Then they will want to know
who we sold it to. Eventually we will tell them.”
“But we haven’t sold the computer!” Volkov protested.
Kuznetsov grinned mirthlessly. “My friend, you do not appreciate
scientific socialist interrogation. By the time they get done with us we
will have confessed anyway-over and over again. Eventually we will come up
with a confession they will choose to believe.”
“And then?”
“Then we will spend the rest of our lives at hard labor in a prison camp.
I understand that under Perestroika conditions in even the severe regimen
camps have improved greatly. Now the average prisoner lives as long as
seven years.”
No one said anything.
“I have a wife . . .” the co-pilot began.
“She is disgraced,” Kuznetsov cut him off. “She will doubtless be arrested
and interrogated as well, probably sentenced to prison.” He thought of his
own Yelena and tried not to.
“Comrade Major . . .” Vasily began.
“Yes?”
“Sir, I . . .” He stopped, licked his lips and took a deep breath. Then
the words came with a rush. “Sir, they do not imprison the families of
defectors do they?”
All five men froze, not even breathing. Then their eyes darted around to
the faces of the others, seeking some sign of their thoughts. Finally the
other four looked straight at Kuznetsov.
“No,” the GRU man said slowly. “They are disgraced and interrogated, but
not rigorously. They are not imprisoned.”
“And,” Volkov added eagerly, “if we landed someplace in the West, they
would assume the Americans had reclaimed their computer and were lying
about it not being aboard.”
Kuznetsov said nothing at all.
“There are even,” Volkov went on carefully, “places in, say, Sweden, where
you can land an aircraft like this and not be discovered for, oh, long
enough to hide something in the woods before anyone arrived.”
Kuznetsov hefted the gold bar thoughtfully.
“Comrades,” he said finally, “I understand Sweden is lovely at this time
of the year.”
Volkov looked at Kuznetsov, Vasily looked at Semelov and the co-pilot
looked at his charts. Then they all looked at the bar of gold in
Kuznetsov’s hand.
Without another word, Volkov reached up and flipped off the radar
transponder. Then he pushed the wheel hard forward and shoved on the
rudder pedal, sending the plane diving for the deck and, as soon as they
were below radar, turning north toward Sweden.
Twenty-two: INSTALLATION
“Hey Moira,” Jerry called. “Can you come in here and help me for a
minute?”
“Of course,” Moira said. “But what are you doing?”
Because the room had no windows the only light came from a torch on the
wall. Jerry was on his hands and knees with a string and a piece of chalk.
With exaggerated care he marked a tiny dot on the concrete.
“Did Wiz ever explain to you about 220-volt single-phase 60-cycle AC?”
“No.”
“Then I’m drawing on the floor. Anyway, I need to mark out a pentagram.
Can you stand in the center and hold the line exactly on this dot while I
swing a circle?”
“Of course,” Moira said as she took the string and stooped to hold it on
the point Jerry had marked, “but why do you need to be so precise?”