They were welcome to each other, in spades. Chase had cried few tears. If not Chambers it would have been some other specimen in the television menagerie. A cameraman or a sound recordist or the prop boy.
He heaved himself up and answered the phone. A features editor wanting to know how much he knew about viruses from outer space. He promised to stop by her office the day after tomorrow. His fingers were hardly off the receiver when it rang again: Could he sit in on a discussion on energy conservation followed by a phone-in for Capital Radio a week from Thursday? He said yes, he could, and it was only when he'd put the phone down that it occurred to him that very soon --by the end of the week--he'd have to refuse all further offers of work. Three weeks from today he'd be on his way to America, and there was a vast amount to sort out in the meantime--not only Dan and who'd look after him, but also planning and fixing up his itinerary for the seven-week trip.
New York, New Jersey, Boston, Washington, Denver, the West Coast ... a lot of ground to cover . . . MIT, Cornell, Smithsonian, NOAA, Scripps . . . the list began to run out of control and he told himself to put it aside until tomorrow when the computer modeling article would be out of the way.
Shortly after five o'clock Dan appeared, escorted to the door by the conscientious Sarah, taking her role as surrogate mother very seriously.
"Daniel has been a naughty boy," she informed Chase primly, standing there in pinafore and pigtails, arms folded. "He won't do as he's told!"
"I'm sorry to hear that. What's the matter?"
"He would
Father and son silently regarded each other with identical blue-gray eyes. Like Chase's, the boy's hair was dead straight and hung over his eyes in a sweeping curve, though it was fair and fine, not thick and black.
"Oh. Well. Never mind," Chase said. "Perhaps he didn't want to go. Thanks for looking after him."
Sarah nodded, duty discharged, and trotted off along the corridor.
"I did want to," Dan confided as Chase closed the door, and in a burst of scandalized six-year-old indignation, "But her, Bossy Boots, wanted to come with me and pull my pants down!"
"Pity. That's probably the best offer you'll get for at least ten years," Chase said.
The odd-colored eyes of Yuri Malankov, officer, third grade, were fixed coldly and disconcertingly on the dead-center of Boris Stanovnik's forehead.
It was a trait Boris remembered well from the days when the young Malankov had worked as his lab assistant: his inability, or refusal, to look anyone directly in the eye. Malankov was shut away in the barred and bolted fortress of his narrow, dogmatist head.
They were sitting facing each other across a plain table in one of the hundreds of anonymous rooms of the seven-story building at 2 Dzerzhinsky Square. In prerevolutionary days it had housed the All-Russian Insurance Company; now it was the headquarters of the Committee for State Security, the official nomenclature of the KGB.
This was typical KGB psychology, Boris knew, to disorient the interviewee by making the surroundings bleakly impersonal. Yet knowing this didn't make the effect any the less intimidating.
"You say the letter was to a friend, yet it was addressed to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography." Malankov didn't relax his remorseless empty gaze.
"Dr. Detrick is a marine biologist at Scripps. I write to her there, just as she writes to me at the Hydro-Meteorological Service. I don't see anything strange in that."
"The letter contained more than personal news and friendly salutations. It made specific reference to a project that is of vital importance to the people of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."
"Why, yes, but of course," Boris said easily. He blinked in surprise. "We exchange gossip about the work we're engaged in. All scientists do. But you know that already, Yuri, from the time you spent with the service." He smiled. "There was nothing in the letter of a confidential nature. Certainly nothing that's classified."
Malankov's eyes went down to the typewritten sheet in front of him, which Boris guessed was a transcript of the letter. Where was the original? After interception had it been sent on? Unlikely. But Malankov had said "letter"--in the singular--which filled Boris with hope.
"You must be aware how sensitive this project is," said Malankov. "Particularly at the present time."
Statement or question? Boris chose not to respond. Let the KGB weasel take the lead; that was his job.
Malankov kept his eyes lowered, his sallow face expressionless. "Any information, no matter how innocuous it might seem, could add to the overall intelligence picture compiled by our imperialist enemies," he said, as if quoting verbatim from the official handbook. "A hint here, a clue there, a careless phrase. We must be eternally vigilant, Professor, about matters that concern national security."
