XII

Later Wednesday Morning

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (AP) … Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin announced last night that he would be meeting with Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat later this morning here in Tel Aviv.

Begin refused to specify the nature of the meeting, but said it was a matter of “utmost urgency.”

Zamyatin’s apartment seemed hollow and empty without his children. It had seemed that way last night when he had finally come home from work and had flopped down on the couch, the lights out. And it seemed even more empty now at four in the morning as he lay awake still on the couch, sipping vodka.

Across the room on a low cabinet were photographs of the children that had been taken almost two years ago. He looked across at them and shook his head, smiling inwardly.

Sandra had become the mother hen of the family. She claimed that she remembered her mother, but she had been only three when Aleksei was born. It was more likely that she had formed a mental picture of her mother from the photographs she had seen and from the things Zamyatin had told her.

There was another side to his beautiful Sandra that in some ways disturbed Zamyatin, disturbed and at times frightened him. She was growing up under his nose. In the last year she had shot up in height, and lost her baby fat, her legs had lengthened and slimmed down, and she had developed breasts.

Sometimes when they were out shopping together Zamyatin would notice boys much older than his daughter looking at her in a way no boy should look at a baby.

He sighed deeply. The fact was, however, that his baby was no longer a baby. She was rapidly becoming a grown girl soon to become a woman.

It was partly because of the fact she had no mother and had to assume that role for them all, Zamyatin knew. But it was also partly because of her genes that she was maturing so rapidly. Her mother had matured early, had been a sensible girl all of her life. Back in Leningrad she had told him that as a girl her schoolmates had called her a forty-year-old teen-ager because she was so developed and was usually very serious.

In that respect Sandra was much like her mother. And at thirteen, she was already developing another of her mother’s characteristics, one of simple beauty.

Lara, at twelve, on the other hand, was apparently not even close to making that transition toward womanhood. Her tiny, but developing breasts were a source of irritation and embarrassment to her; boys were good for only one thing: playing soccer. And the dresses she had to wear as a part of her school uniform were a hindrance to good fun.

Zamyatin had watched Sandra trying to teach her young sister the proper way to sit in a dress, but it was all to no avail. In a dress or not, when Lara wanted to sit down and cross her legs—ankle on knee—she did so and damn propriety and etiquette.

Where Sandra had a certain quality of aloofness about her—she always closed the door when she was dressing, was uncertain about being touched, even by her father—Lara was a bubbling little package of joyous energy who still loved her father’s lap and who was never ashamed to hug and kiss goodnight whoever happened to be in the room.

And then there was Aleksei. Last year he had been accepted into the Young Pioneers and wore his red tie with the same pride a general wore his stars.

“Soon, Papa, very soon I will be in the Komsomol,” he said to his father almost daily. “Very soon now—you watch and see.”

Number one in his class scholastically, number one in his class in sports, and number one in his father’s heart. Where Sandra was reserved and Lara was an unabashed bundle of energy, Aleksei was a joyous boy of unbounded enthusiasm for nearly everything around him.

But he was a tender boy as well. He never forgot his sisters’ birthdays, nor did he ever go to sleep at night without first very seriously kissing everyone.

“Good night, Papa, see you in the morning,” he would say in his tiny little voice. “Sleep well, sisters,” he would hug and kiss them.

Sandra doted on him like any mother would a son, and Lara, even though she was his senior, looked up to Aleksei almost as if he were an older brother. A God. He was a Young Pioneer, after all. He wore the red scarf. Soon he would be in the Komsomol.

Zamyatin sat up and leaned forward, his face buried in his hands, his elbows on his knees. They would not let him see his children for some inexplicable reason. It made no sense.

The apartment building was quiet. Zamyatin could hear his own breathing, and near the front door the eight-day clock he had bought in Helsinki ten years ago suddenly chimed four times, and he looked up.

Several times during the afternoon and early evening he had reached for the telephone intending to call General Ganin. To plead with the man about his children. All he wanted was five minutes with them. Three minutes. Sixty seconds.

But each time he had pulled his hand back. There simply was no mechanism within the entire Komitet for such an action. Directorate administrators could and sometimes did cross directorate lines during specific operations. Ganin had done the very thing at noon yesterday. Department heads did not. So he had thrown himself into his work, repressing for those hours the fear he felt for his children.

There had been literally hundreds of individual movements in and out of the American embassy during the afternoon and early evening hours. Most of the individual surveillances, however, had uncovered no other pattern from that of an ordinary shift change. Some personnel had come from their apartments to work, while others who lived off embassy grounds had gone home.

A few had stopped at restaurants, others had shopped, two of them at GUM downtown, and one low-ranking embassy staffer had secretly—or so he thought—met a young Russian girl and they had gone back to his apartment and made love.

The American could prove sooner or later to be useful to them in a minor fashion. His wife had returned to the States for a short vacation, and the photographs Balachov’s people had taken of the liaison would be useful for blackmail should the staffer ever find himself in a position where he had access to sensitive information.

Other than that there had been nothing. At least nothing concerning the scientist Sakharov and the missing laser device.

Zamyatin had left the Center around 9:00 P.M., and took a staff car to the First Department’s headquarters, slowly cruising past the U.S. Embassy on his way.

The rain had not yet turned to snow, but it was freezing to ice on everything it struck so that Zamyatin had to roll down his window to get a clear view of the huge yellow brick building.

The American military guard at the front gate, in his guardbox, had watched the car go by and had probably taken down the license number. It would tell them nothing other than the fact the car was an official government vehicle.

Five blocks away, Zamyatin pulled up and parked in front of a building that looked like a deserted warehouse. The facade fooled no one, of course, but in diplomatic relations appearances often were more important and carried more weight than actual fact.

He entered the building by a side door, the only entrance that was ever open, showed his identification to the guards just inside, and went upstairs to the third floor where Major Balachov maintained his office.

A young, good-looking second lieutenant jumped to attention in the outer office as Zamyatin came through the door.

“Please go directly in, sir,” the lieutenant snapped. “Major Balachov is awaiting you.”

Zamyatin smiled, amused, went past the lieutenant and entered Balachov’s office.

The First Department Chief was standing behind his desk just lighting a cigarette when Zamyatin came in, and he shook out the match, threw it in an overflowing ashtray, and beamed.

“Comrade Colonel, come in, come in and sit down.”

Zamyatin crossed the large room and sat down in a chair in front of the desk. For a moment Balachov remained standing, looking down at Zamyatin, but then he, too, sat down and offered him a cigarette.

“They are American. I just bought them fresh at the exchange store.”

Zamyatin shook his head. “You are coming up in the world, Boris Balachov.”

Balachov returned the pack to his breast pocket. “I have no wife, as you well know, comrade, to spend my money on. There is no one. I do not even have the luxury of children as you do.”

The man seemed expansive to Zamyatin, and for some reason it made him slightly uncomfortable.

“To what do I owe the unexpected pleasure of your visit this evening?” Balachov asked.

His eyes were hooded, Zamyatin decided. And although in many respects the man was deficient as a Komitet officer, he still was dangerous. Beware of sinking ships lest you get taken down in the suction.

“Sakharov and the laser,” Zamyatin said softly. “What progress?”

Balachov held out his hands. “You asked for no reports, comrade.”

Zamyatin said nothing, and he was satisfied to see that Balachov fidgeted somewhat uncomfortably.

“There is no progress so far, comrade,” Balachov said.

Zamyatin looked at him. “Let me see your log.” The American Air Force had borrowed time-motion accounting procedures from General Motors in the sixties, and the Soviets had in turn borrowed the system for their own use.

Officers of Balachov’s rank and below were required by Komitet regulations to account for every moment of their time on computer punch cards. Each day the cards were sent to data processing from which time-motion and efficiency studies were distributed to all division and directorate heads.

Balachov handed over his thick plastic folder that contained his daily cards without comment. Zamyatin flipped open the folder and began going through the cards.

When he was finished he looked up, disappointed. There had been no card outlining any trip to Kutuzovsky Prospekt. Balachov had not been the one who had picked up his children. One card was, however, curious.

“Vnukovo Airport. What were you doing there?”

Balachov blinked. “An embassy staffer went there to check on preparations for the president’s arrival Thursday. I followed him.”

“And?” Zamyatin asked sharply.

Balachov shrugged. “Nothing else, comrade. The man checked with the airport security division, and then returned to the embassy.”

Blind alleys. It seemed to Zamyatin that he had spent half his life chasing down blind alleys.

If the CIA had grabbed his children they would have used them as a lever against him. As it turned out, his own people had his children. His own people were using them as a lever to make him do their bidding.

Only he was finding he was caring less and less about Sakharov and the laser, about the American president and about peace anywhere in the world. He wanted his children back, and he had come here this evening hoping blindly that somehow Balachov could help him, or would at the very least know something.

But it had been foolish.

Zamyatin stood up abruptly and handed the card folder back to Balachov with a weak smile. “Continue with what you are doing. I want Sakharov and the laser.”

“Yes, comrade,” Balachov said, getting to his feet.

Zamyatin looked at the man for several seconds longer then turned on his heel and left the way he had come.

The first snowflakes were just beginning to fall when he climbed back into the staff car, started the engine and drove slowly away.

At Smolenskaya Plaza he turned right toward the river, his thoughts as black and as bleak as the night he was driving through. A few great blocks of ice still drifted with the flow of the river, their gray masses only slightly lighter than the black of the water.

Spring was always the strangest season in Moscow. Filled with hope and promise for a respite from the terrible, long winter, spring often was the great disappointer. The rains that always fell in the spring, more often than not turned to snow like this evening. Despite this, however, the heating systems in most public buildings were shut down by mid-April, so for many, spring was a time of misery.

He crossed the Berezhkovskaya Nab bridge, made a U-turn on the deserted street and went back over the river toward his apartment.

Before his wife had died they had had friends, people they could drop in on at any time of the day or night. Sandra had insisted on it.

“I will not live my life in isolation,” she had insisted one evening shortly after they had gotten married. It had been one of their very rare arguments.

“You know my position,” he had said.

“State Security Service or not, we will have friends.”

“No one will trust us. We will be looked upon as spies.”

“Only if we act like spies.”

And she had had her way. Over the next few years they had developed many strong and, Zamyatin had supposed, lasting friends. But after Sandra had died all their friends had drifted away. Zamyatin was an officer in the Komitet. Sandra, by the sheer force of her personality, had overcome that social handicap. Zamyatin alone could not.

There was no place he could go on this evening other than back to his office, back to Balachov’s office, or to his empty apartment. None of those options seemed comforting. Nor did the thought of going to some noisy, crowded restaurant interest him. And Zamyatin needed comfort.

As he drove he let his mind wander back and forth over the activities of the past few days, ever since the weekend call-up of officers to the Center.

Nothing had been the same since then. Not his job, not his relationship with the people who worked for him, and now not even his children.

As he passed the American Embassy again he cranked his window down several inches. The marine guard was not in sight and now even fewer windows than before showed light.

They sleep like we do, he thought, and yet like us they never sleep.

There was some traffic on Tchaikovsky Street despite the weather and despite the relatively late hour for Muscovites, and Zamyatin only idly noticed that a black car a block ahead of him had slowed down and had pulled over to the curb.

Neither speeding up nor slowing down, Zamyatin drove past where the car was parked across the street from him, its lights still on and its engine idling.

He glanced that way and for several seconds his heart seemed to stop, and he nearly pulled the steering wheel off its column.

There were two men in the car. And in the brief moment that he had been able to see through the windshield he had identified both of them.

Two blocks farther down the street Zamyatin pulled up and once again parked in front of the Department One headquarters, and with shaking hands fumbled for the car door handle.

He had to be sure, he told himself, his heart racing. He had to make absolutely certain.

Just inside the doorway the guards once again checked his identification papers, and he took the stairs up as fast as he could run, and barged into Balachov’s outer office.

The same second lieutenant as before was seated behind his desk and he jumped up, obviously flustered when Zamyatin came through the door.

“Comrade Colonel…” the lieutenant stammered.

“Major Balachov,” Zamyatin snapped. “Get him out here, now!”

“I am sorry, sir, Major Balachov is not here.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

Zamyatin quickly moved past the lieutenant and before the young man could object, stormed into Balachov’s office and flipped on the lights.

The lieutenant came after him. “Comrade Colonel, please…”

“Return to your post, Lieutenant,” Zamyatin said, not bothering to turn around as he surveyed the office.

“But, sir…”

Zamyatin turned and glared at the young man. “Lieutenant,” he barked.

“Yessir,” the young man said, and he turned and went back to the outer office. Zamyatin closed the door.

In ten minutes he had made a thorough search of Balachov’s desk and of two of the three file cabinets in the room. The third cabinet was locked with a heavy combination lock and steel bar, but Zamyatin did not need to look through it. He had found what he had come looking for.

Returning to the outer office, Zamyatin stopped in front of the young lieutenant’s desk. “On your feet, soldier,” he shouted.

The lieutenant jumped up into a pose of rigid attention, his eyes straight forward.

“When Major Balachov reports back here I want you to give him a message from me,” Zamyatin snapped. “Do you understand?”

“Yessir.”

“Tell Major Balachov that I will expect a report—in full—on my desk first thing in the morning on his meeting this evening with Nikolai Gamov. Do you have the name?”

“Yes, comrade. Nikolai Gamov.”

“Very well, Lieutenant. Carry on.”

Zamyatin turned and stormed out of the office, down the stairs, past the two guards at the door and back to his car, which he had left running.

Holding himself in check just a little longer he carefully put the car in gear and headed toward his apartment, the reunion with his children now seeming very far away and perhaps even impossible.

*   *   *

Zamyatin had just looked at his wristwatch that showed it was exactly 4:45 A.M. when someone knocked softly at his door. He smiled sadly as he looked up from where he still sat on the couch.

“Come in,” he said in English. “The door is unlocked.

He could hear the door open, and then close, and almost immediately he could smell the odor of a cigar.

Mahoney came around the corner into the living room, and he stopped short. Even in the very dim light Zamyatin could see that the American was soaked.

“Take off your coat and come in and sit down,” Zamyatin said.

Without a word Mahoney took off his raincoat and hung it and his hat in the vestibule, then returned to the living room where Zamyatin indicated a chair for him to sit down.

“Vodka?” Zamyatin asked, but Mahoney shook his head. He seemed grim.

“They are doing a number on us, Yurianovich,” Mahoney said softly.

Zamyatin needed no translation of that idiom. “Who has my children?”

“We do,” Mahoney said.

Zamyatin could feel the ache in his heart as if someone had grabbed his insides and were squeezing with a powerful grip. “And now?” he heard himself asking.

“Now we talk,” Mahoney said.

7:00 A.M. Wednesday

It was still dark when Major Boris Balachov, dressed in civilian clothes, emerged from the First Department headquarters five blocks away from the American embassy.

The snow, which had fallen heavily all through the night, lay in dirty little piles against the curbs and around the corners of buildings.

He turned away from where his car was parked around the side of the building, thrust his hands in his pockets and walked purposefully down the street away from the embassy.

He was deep in thought.

With slightly more than twenty-four hours to go, Zamyatin had begun putting it together. Balachov did not worry about a confrontation with Zamyatin as much as he was deeply concerned about a confrontation with his own boss.

“Why wasn’t Zamyatin followed? Why wasn’t the man watched?”

Those were the questions Balachov feared most of all, because he could not give the truthful answer: vanity, pride, and ambition.

Simply put, there was not one man in Balachov’s department who was good enough to watch Zamyatin without being detected. If Balachov could not supply the expertise, then someone else would. And whoever that someone else was, he would end up taking over Political Services. Balachov could not allow that to happen, so he had gone out on a limb.

The basic premise Balachov had operated under could not be faulted. Only his limited vision of it could be argued.

Zamyatin was a loyal Soviet citizen, a loyal officer of the KGB and therefore could not deliberately become a traitor, and therefore did not need to be kept under surveillance.

That view was correct as far as it went. Zamyatin’s loyalty was unquestioned and unquestionable. The man had proved almost from birth where his loyalties lay, and had worked hard all of his life to maintain the highest standards of any officer within the Komitet.

Balachov’s point of view was limited by his lack of understanding of two relationships.

The first was the relationship between a father and his children. Balachov had never been married, had never sired children, and in fact seldom thought about sex. On the rare occasions he did have sexual thoughts they usually were concerned with men or finding creative ways to masturbate. For most of Balachov’s life his sexual drives had been sublimated to the State. To the Communist Party. And finally to the Komitet.

As a result, many of Balachov’s views about people around him were naive or, in the case of Zamyatin’s relationship with his children, totally ignorant.

Balachov, because he had never had the experience, could not conceive of one human being caring more about someone else’s life and safety than his own. He could understand a subjugation to the State, or even to a high principle, but not to another person. Especially not to a child, or in this case, three of them.

He knew that the Americans had picked up Zamyatin’s children, and General Ganin had made it quite clear that another mistake like that would mean the end of Balachov in more than one way.

General Ganin had repaired the mistake, convincing Zamyatin that his children were being safely held in the Center. How long that fabrication would hold was anyone’s guess. But they only had until Thursday. A little more than twenty-four hours.

The second relationship that Balachov had no understanding of was the nature of loyalty, or to be more exact, the difference between loyalty and blind obedience to rule.

Balachov was blindly obedient to the State, whereas Zamyatin was loyal. Where Balachov did as he was told—exactly as he was told with little or no finesse, with little or no initiative and with little or no imagination—Zamyatin knew at all times what he was doing and why he was doing it.

Zamyatin believed in Communism. Believed in the grandeur of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. In the world-unifying cause he fought for.

Balachov believed only in martial order. A captain was more important than a lieutenant. A major higher than a captain. And a general was near the top.

Which was why Balachov was worried at this moment that General Ganin would ask him questions that he had no answers for. Vanity, pride, and ambition were all qualities outside the realm of what he thought was correct behavior for an officer in the Komitet.

Yet all of those things indicated at least a tiny spark of humanity within the man.

And then there was Nikolai Gamov. Somehow Zamyatin had found out that he had met the man this morning. It was a stupid mistake, but one that could be side-stepped for at least twenty-four hours.

The entire setup was sloppy and was now coming apart at the seams. But Balachov felt like a man in a leaky rowboat far out to sea; he would have to do everything and anything he could to plug the holes, lest the boat sink and he drown.

It took him fully forty-five minutes to circle around the Tolstoy Museum and finally make his way into the Old Town section of Moscow where, from a back alley courtyard, he entered a ramshackle ancient wooden building, and descended down a flight of rickety stairs into a dark, dank basement.

At the bottom of the stairs he stood perfectly still in the near absolute darkness, holding his breath and listening. The only sounds he could hear, however, was the wind outside and the rain beating against the door.

Then a single light bulb hanging down from the ceiling in the middle of the large room came on and for a moment he was blinded. He held his right hand over his eyes.

“Boris Azarov,” a deep, man’s voice boomed from the shadows beyond the light. There were others in the room; Balachov could hear them shuffling around.

“Nikolai Gamov?” he said, lowering his hand.

“More accurately I should say Major Boris Azarov, chief of the special security detail, Vnukovo Official Airport.”

Someone came down the stairs, and Balachov turned as a young man with long hair, a pockmarked complexion and deep black eyes stopped short. He eyed Balachov, and then looked beyond him toward the shadows at the back of the room.

“It’s all clear, Nikki. He was not followed.”

“Search him.”

Balachov raised both of his hands as the young man moved forward and quickly searched him. When he was finished he stepped back.

“He has no weapons.”

“Welcome to Samizdat House,” the deep voice said, and several other lights hanging from the ceiling were switched on.

Balachov turned as Nikolai Gamov, a huge bear of a man, came forward and held out his hand. Behind him were half a dozen other men.

“We are sorry for the indignity we had to put you through,” Gamov said, taking Balachov’s hand and pumping it. “But we cannot be too careful.”

He half turned and indicated the others. “May I present the activist faction of the Democratic Movement,” he said with a tinge of irony in his voice. “Gentlemen, this is Major Boris Azarov. I’ve already given you his title. And now you will be able to meet and talk with the man who has made our little project possible.”

“This is the man you met last night, Nikki?” asked a middle-aged man wearing a heavy army overcoat with the insignia removed. He did not offer his hand, and did not come closer to Balachov than a few feet, almost as if he was afraid Balachov was a wild animal who might attack at any moment.

“One and the same, Vladimir,” Gamov said, and he turned again to Balachov. “I’d like you to meet our conscience. Vladimir Protopopich Simenof, artiste excellent.”

Balachov extended his hand, but Simenof ignored it, directing his comments to Gamov, who towered above his slight figure.

“Pray tell, at long last are we finally to learn what all these nocturnal wanderings and heinous acts we’ve been doing lately mean?”

Gamov laughed. “Poor Vladimir is not only an artist on canvas, he fancies himself an artist with words as well.” He laughed again. “Yes, Vladimir, this morning you will learn everything, and before this meeting is completed you will shake Major Azarov’s hand.”

Simenof grunted and turned away as the other men, some of them very young, but most middle-aged or older, seated themselves around a long table.

Gamov took Balachov’s arm and led him over to the head of the table where they both sat down.

“This place at one time housed the underground press that was operated by the Free Artists and Writers Union,” Gamov explained as a samovar and glasses were set up at one end of the table.

“Which is why you call this place Samizdat House?” Balachov asked. He took out a cigarette, lit it and inhaled deeply.

“Yes,” Gamov said. “Self publication—the only way in which the former occupants of this room could express themselves freely.”

A younger man at the far end of the table had just poured himself a glass of tea, and he looked their way. “Our government has become unresponsive to its people’s needs. It will change or crumble.”

Balachov peered down at him. “You sound like Andrei Amalrik.”

The young man swore and several of the others around the table chuckled.

“Our young friend at the end of the table is Pavl Ivanovich Gorsky. He is our resident politican. And yes, he does sound rather like that ineffectual troublemaker.”

Again there were more laughs around the table, and the man next to Balachov handed him a glass of tea.

“But the time of speaking and of merely writing has passed for us, my friends,” Gamov said, addressing himself to the group. “The time for action has come.”

Several of the men around the table rapped their knuckles against the tabletop in approval.

Gamov nodded toward Balachov. “Major Azarov came to me two months ago at a party. From that beginning I knew that he was not an establishment man. That his philosophy was very much related to ours, only with one important difference.” Gamov paused for effect. “The difference is that until this moment we have been men of talk, whereas Major Azarov has been a man of action.”

“Are you proud then, Nikki, of what you accomplished at Lubyanka II?” The question came from Simenof.

Gamov was shaking his head. “No, I am not. It was the most despicable thing I have ever done in my life. My soul grieves for what I have done.”

“We have gone along this far on your word and good honor alone. It is time now for you to tell us what you have done. To what course of action you have committed us.” Simenof had looked directly at Balachov when he said the last.

“Major Azarov, with help from friends, has managed to kidnap Professor Doctor Leonid Sakharov from his office at Moscow State University.”

There were several gasps around the table. The enormity of what Gamov was saying to them was almost too much to grasp. Balachov smiled inwardly. They had heard nothing yet.

“I have Doctor Sakharov in a safe place,” Balachov said, speaking for the first time. “And the less you know about my methods and contacts, and the less I know of yours, the more protected all of us will be.”

There were no comments from the others, and Gamov continued.

“In addition to Doctor Sakharov, Major Azarov has also managed to steal a device which emits a beam of laser light. A weapon.”

“Doctor Sakharov developed this device to be used as a hand-carried military weapon,” Balachov again spoke up. “My special security forces were involved with the initial field testing, which is how I knew of its existence.”

“It can kill a man?” one of the men at the table asked.

“Yes,” Balachov said. “And there is no effective defense against it. At least not in the standard security procedures we use. Armor plate, bulletproof glass, nothing offers any sure protection. The device has been able to penetrate up to seven inches of armor plate in less than four seconds, making it very uncomfortable for anyone so protected.”

“Is this what we are to become?” Simenof shouted, half rising out of his chair. “Are we to become common murderers? Has the taste of blood at Lubyanka tainted your soul, Nikolai?”

Gamov was holding up his hands for silence. “On the contrary, my dear Vladimir. The device that Major Azarov will supply to us will be used for peace. I repeat that word. For peace!”

“Then why the army uniform, the papers, and the weapon?” Gorsky asked.

“The plan is simple,” Balachov said. “But I must first warn you that it is at the same time dramatic and very desperate.”

“Can it be any more dramatic or desperate than what we have already done?” Simenof asked in disgust.

“Yes,” Balachov said, and his simple answer silenced the man.

“Please continue,” Gamov said. “Tell them everything we have agreed upon. Leave nothing out.”

Balachov nodded, took a deep drag on his cigarette and exhaled the smoke slowly. “At eleven o’clock tomorrow morning the president of the Unites States will arrive at Vnukovo Official Airport. It is our aim to kidnap the man.”

For a seeming eternity there was absolute silence in the room, and Balachov could hear the wind outside moaning around the building. And then pandemonium broke loose with everyone shouting at once.

Balachov sat back in his chair, stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtry in front of him and lit himself another.

For several minutes the debate raged until finally Simenof’s voice began to win out over the others.

“Is this the insane course of action you have been plotting for us, Nikolai?” Simenof shouted. “Are we to become nothing more than international terrorists?”

Gamov was calm. “On the contrary, Vladimir, we are going to do exactly what we originally set out to do. Guarantee our human rights in our own country under rule of law, and guarantee peace—worldwide peace.”

Balachov sat forward. “At this very moment the American military is on alert. Poised and ready to mount the attack. Our own Missile Defense Service is also poised and ready for the command. We are on a collision course toward nuclear holocaust.”

“And this insanity you propose will help?” Simenof asked incredulously. He was no longer shouting.

“Yes it will, my impassioned Russian comrade,” Balachov said.

Once again there was silence in the room for several moments until Gamov spoke up.

“The president will be taken back aboard his aircraft, which will be refueled and ordered into the sky. Several of us will be on board. The pilot will be ordered to fly in a holding pattern directly above Moscow from where radio communications will be set up with our own government as well as the American government. Our demands will be simple.” Gamov looked around the table. Even Simenof was hanging on his every word.

“First we want the immediate organization of a congress for human rights in the Soviet Union. This congress will be made up of members of our government as well as representatives from every walk of life.

“Secondly, we will demand an immediate meeting of the heads of state from all nations that currently have a nuclear capability. That meeting will be held in Moscow for the purpose of permanent nuclear disarmament.”

“You are a foolish man, Nikki,” Simenof said. “What guarantee do you have that once you release the American president all of us will not simply be arrested and executed?”

“Our demands will be broadcast on such frequencies that almost every man, woman, and child in the world will be able to hear us.” Gamov said. He nodded toward Balachov. “Major Azarov tells me that onboard the president’s aircraft is enough communications equipment to insure that happens.”

Simenof was shaking his head; the others around the table were staring at Gamov and Balachov in wonder.

“And how will this noble act be accomplished?” Simenof asked.

Balachov sat forward. “At ten-fifty A.M. tomorrow I will personally escort Sakharov and the laser device up into the control tower at Vnukovo. At that same moment Nikolai and as many of you who want to be present will be in the crowd waiting to see the president’s arrival. At the edge of the crowd working security control, will be one of you dressed in the Lubyanka guard’s uniform, carrying his weapon and carrying his identification papers—with the name changed.”

“You can arrange all of this?” Simenof asked.

Balachov nodded. “It has already been done,” he said. “As the president steps off the aircraft, the laser will be aimed at him and an announcement will be made over the airport’s public address system informing everyone present what will happen if we do not receive immediate and absolute cooperation.”

“And then?” Simenof said softly.

“And then your people at the edge of the crowd will be escorted by your man in uniform to the president, where you will take him back aboard his aircraft and order the pilot to circle the city.”

“Insanity,” Simenof said wonderingly.

“To peace!” Gamov suddenly shouted, jumping up.

A moment later everyone else around the table had jumped to their feet and were joining the cry. “To peace! To peace!”

Even Simenof finally joined them as Balachov sat back once again in his chair, lit himself another cigarette, and to himself said: “To the naiveté of the pure.”