"You could be right," Chase said, not having made the connection before now. "But who? What organization?"
"My money is on one of the intelligence agencies," said Prothero. "Take your pick--ours, the Russians, the Chinese, Libya, South Africa."
"Then why choose such a distinctive method? It only draws attention to the fact that they've all been murdered by the same group. That's hardly good intelligence procedure," Chase pointed out.
"Maybe it is," Prothero countered, pushing his glasses more firmly onto the bridge of his nose. "Now just suppose you want to divert suspicion. What would you do? You'd select a cranky method of disposal and let a terrorist group take the blame. We're supposed to assume that a regular, highly trained intelligence hit squad would carry out the job cleanly, quietly, and without fuss. By the normal process of deduction we'd come to the conclusion that pyro-assassinations can't be the work of an intelligence agency, that such a bizarre method rules them out. Only it doesn't. Doublethink."
"I'm prepared to go along with that, except for one thing," Chase said. "Motive."
"That we don't know," Prothero conceded. "But with intelligence agencies screwball ideas are a dime a dozen. The screwier the better."
"So what you're saying, I take it, is that anyone known to be involved in a project like this is a prime target." "Right."
"But your views are already well known, Senator," Chase said. It occurred to him that so were his.
"I already take precautions, Dr. Chase." Prothero took off his glasses, flicked out a snowy white monogrammed handkerchief, and began to polish them. His eyes were slightly watery but no less piercing without the thick lenses. "And if I were you, I'd do the same."
"Even if I decide not to accept your proposition?"
"Even so."
"Though one can take too many precautions in this life." Ingrid Van Dorn's eyes were fixed on the ceramic sculpture, yet her remark was addressed to Chase as pointedly as if she had taken hold of his lapels. "Sometimes we have to take risks to make it worth the living. For ourselves and for our children."
18
Beaming like a child on Christmas morning, Cheryl followed Boris Stanovnik through the pine-floored hallway and into the long sunny room that was more like a cluttered study than a living room. Bookshelves lined three entire walls and there were books scattered everywhere, some sprouting markers made out of folded typing paper. Piles of magazines, scientific and technical journals, newspapers and files of different colors were stacked on every flat surface. In a recess next to the window was a massive stripped-pine chest, reaching almost to the ceiling. In place of the usual ten drawers there must have been fifty, some quite small, others the size of shoeboxes.
"This is wonderful!" Boris hugged Cheryl to him and then held her at arm's length for a long searching scrutiny. "Wonderful to see you! After all this time!" He beamed at her delightedly.
Shafts of sunlight made slanting pillars at the far end of the room, but even so a log fire blazed in the roughly hewn stone fireplace. Oregon in the fall could be decidedly chilly.
Cheryl smiled, trying to get her breath back after the bear hug. "It has been a long time. Five years. Gavin was really disappointed at not being able to see you, Boris. But he was called away on urgent business."
"As you said on the phone yesterday. I'm so glad you were able to come." Boris lifted his close-cropped gray head and called out to his wife in Russian.
Amazing how little he'd changed, thought Cheryl. Still the same broad powerful physique and vigor, the same alert-eyed intelligence, and he was well into his seventies. Nina appeared, and to Cheryl it seemed the reverse had taken place. She was small and frail and she now walked with a stick. There was the pinched, harrowed look on her face that those who live constantly with pain acquire.
Apparently she suffered badly with arthritis and had to take pain-relieving drugs. Cheryl expressed her sympathy and Boris had to translate: After ten years in America his wife's English was still limited to a few words and phrases.
They sat cozily around the log fire drinking the strong tea that Boris had made in the samovar. Cheryl explained about their trip, and after every two or three sentences Boris would dutifully translate. He shook his head when he heard that Gavin and Dan had gone to New York.
"We know what's happening there, we watch the reports on news-fax. What do they call it now?"
"The Rotten Apple."
"Very bad there," Boris grimaced. "The East Coast and the South. It's like a cancer, eating away the country bit by bit. Every day it creeps nearer."
Cheryl looked toward the sunlit window. "You seem to be all right here. The air smells good."
