VIII

Early Tuesday Morning

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) … President Forsythe today told leaders of the Congress at a meeting in the White House that the U.S. would continue to supply conventional arms to Israel and Egypt.

Speaking to the majority and minority leaders of both houses, the president warned that nuclear weapons would “at all costs” remain out of the Middle East situation, but that if either Israel or Egypt requested more help, the U.S. would cooperate.

Mahoney rated an office that was, because of the nature of his work, only slightly smaller than the ambassador’s. Mahoney’s sweatshop, as it was called, was stuffed floor to ceiling with shelves crammed to overflowing with books, magazines, newspapers, boxes of newspaper clippings, and maps of every size, shape, and description.

The overflow from the shelves was stacked on every available chair except the one behind Mahoney’s desk, on top of file cabinets, atop a library table, and finally on the floor.

Mahoney did his “data collection”—as he called it—in this room, but for his serious thinking he removed himself to the embassy’s English language library where, behind the last stack in a row of a dozen free-standing shelves, he had a windowbox seat that overlooked a bare, graveled courtyard beyond which was a brick wall.

Usually no one disturbed him here in his think tank, but had they this morning they would have found an uncharacteristically mean and intolerant soul.

The dawn had come, finally changing the black, starless sky into a dark gray, sunless one. The previous night the temperature had risen slightly so that the rain, now falling in earnest, had not frozen after all.

Mahoney was angry. Not so much at anyone in particular but at the circumstances that had brought him to his present state of mind. In whatever direction he looked, incongruities abounded.

He had been busy for the past six hours, first downstairs in the archives, then later in the embassy apartments, and now he had only one step left. But first he had to think it all out, sort everything into recognizable patterns so that he could deal with the raw data.

The Handbook, page 171, paragraph three: “It will be the duty of the analyst to assemble collated data itself into Patterns of Recognizable Reality (PRRs). (See appendix C-IIIa for further PRR definitions and examples.) The PRRs then become the basis upon which Real Time Actions (RTAs) will be recommended. In all events, PRRs of sufficient credibility will be required in support of any RTA.”

Mahoney had arrived at the embassy around 1:30 A.M., had signed in with the somewhat surprised marine guard at the front entrance, and had gone immediately to his office.

He had taken out a pad of paper from his desk drawer and written down all the possibilities that he could think of:

POSSIBLE PRRs

I. Assassination of President

a. A Soviet KGB plot

b. An American CIA plot

c. A plot by unknown Soviet group

II. Other operation

a. Unknown KGB operation (worldwide?)

b. Unknown CIA operation (objective?)

c. combination

d. presidential

e. unknown group

Immediately Mahoney had crossed out c. and d. under the second heading as highly unlikely. The CIA and KGB had no basis upon which to run a joint operation, nor would the president of the United States be able to run such an operation without the cooperation of everyone, or nearly everyone in the Moscow embassy.

Which left the possibilities of assassination of the U.S. president by the KGB, the CIA, or an unknown group, or some kind of an intelligence gathering operation by the CIA, KGB, or that unknown Soviet group.

Carrying that line of thinking another step further, Mahoney listed in his mind only the known happenings of the past two days.

First, the entire upper echelon of the KGB had met at Dzerzhinsky Square. That was a fact confirmed by too many people for it to be a setup. Switt, Bennet, and even Munson himself had lent their confirmation and therefore credibility to the fact.

Second, the CIA staff here at the embassy had met twice, activity here had increased, and Langley had given its go-ahead for a locally run operation coded LOOK SEE. These were solid facts witnessed by Mahoney himself.

Third, Yuri Zamyatin had contacted him in the middle of the night on the street with his startling revelations, and request for help. Zamyatin’s appearance was definitely a fact, but what the man had said was at the very least, suspect.

The weak link at this moment, then, was the information Zamyatin had passed to Mahoney.

Weak links were to be strengthened or disregarded, so the handbook read. And at that point Mahoney had nothing else to go on, so he descended into the bowels of the embassy building to the archives themselves.

In almost every other American embassy, this section was called recordkeeping, or data storage, or filing. But here at the Moscow embassy the area that took up most of the basement of the large structure was called archives.

Archives was run by a ferret of a little man named C.W. Dobbs who felt it was the embassy’s prime duty to keep records. And since Dobbs was of the firm belief that each and every scrap of paper stored here was his personal property, it followed that the embassy itself was operated for, by, and because of him.

“This is holy territory,” Dobbs had once told Congdon who had been in the habit of leaving files laying around and worse: during a cross-matching search, replacing documents in the wrong jackets.

Congdon had tried to argue the point that files were to be used, and Dobbs had immediately marched upstairs to the ambassador’s office with his complaint.

Congdon had been called on the carpet, because not even the ambassador himself crossed C.W. Dobbs, and it had provided the embassy wags with several days of delicious gossip.

Standing at the locked, steel-mesh gate that barred the way, Mahoney felt like an intruder. A single light bulb lit the small space between the elevator door and the gate, beyond which Mahoney could see the counter from which Dobbs and his four assistants serviced what he called his “customers.”

Over Dobbs’s objections, night and weekend duty officers had the key to archives for emergencies, and the man who had come down the elevator with Mahoney unlocked the gate, reached inside, and flipped on the lights that illuminated the entire vast, cavernous basement that was crammed with row after row of file cabinets, shelves, and large cases that contained maps, aerial photographs, and other larger than file-sized documents.

The whine of the air conditioners that always ran was the only noise.

“I won’t envy you in the morning Mr. Mahoney, when C.W. comes in and finds out you’ve been messing around down here,” the O.D. said, smiling.

“I’ll be sure to lock up when I’m done,” Mahoney said as he brushed past the O.D. and went immediately around the counter to the indexing files.

Mahoney never heard the O.D. leave as he began searching the files for references to Zamyatin, Political Services Division, and KGB Second Chief Directorate Activities.

The latter two headings in the index were followed by a long series of reference numbers that Mahoney copied on a blank piece of paper he found atop the file cabinets, while Zamyatin’s name was referenced with the personal dossier code and index number, and was cross-referenced to the Political Services Division file, the Second Chief Directorate personnel jacket, and two others; one dated 1945 and the other, 1956.

In three and a half hours, his coat off, tie loosened, and shirt-sleeves rolled up, Mahoney had a fairly clear and complete picture of Yuri Petrovich Zamyatin.

The man had been born on October 10, 1924 in Rzhev, a town of a little more than 50,000 people northeast of Moscow on the Volga.

His parents had been workers for the Rzhev State Riverboat Works after the Revolution, and yet Yuri had somehow managed to finish school and was sent to Lomosov University in Moscow on a State grant where he studied world political science and history.

The wartime years in his personal dossier were cross-referenced to a jacket in the GRU file, and from those records Mahoney began building a picture in his mind of a man who was ruthless not by nature, but strictly by training.

The Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye (GRU) was formed in the spring of 1920 as the chief intelligence directorate of the Soviet military general staff. And its history was inextricably tied with that of the KGB’s.

At that time Dzerzhinsky’s Cheka was the chief Soviet secret service apparatus, but for military intelligence the Cheka was almost brilliantly ineffective.

In April of 1920 the Polish army attacked the Soviet Union, getting as far as the Ukraine before being pushed back. Dzerzhinsky’s Cheka convinced Lenin—erroneously—that the Polish people were ripe for revolution, and Lenin ordered an all-out attack.

The Cheka had been terribly wrong, however, and the Red Army was annihilated. Consequently Dzerzhinsky himself assigned Yan Karlovich Berzin to head up what was called the Cheka Registry Department responsible for gathering military intelligence as a specialty.

Eventually the Registry Department became the GRU, an adjunct to the general staff, responsible for gathering strategic, tactical, and technical military intelligence.

But from the beginning the GRU’s history was one of ruthlessness, rivalry, and bloodshed.

Stalin himself encouraged much of the rivalry, so that at times the GRU extended its operations well beyond military intelligence. During the latter half of the ’20s and into the ’30s the GRU operated networks of illegal agents in foreign countries that did not diplomatically recognize the Soviet Union. In whatever country a Soviet embassy was denied, the GRU operated.

Just before World War II, a series of purges cleared the GRU of many of its ablest officers among those who happened to be at home. GRU officers in the field, however, managed to survive so that during the war the GRU did operate with some degree of efficiency and, at times, even brilliance.

It was during the latter half of World War II that Yuri Zamyatin was assigned to GRU activities in Austria as a second lieutenant. It was then, in 1945, that Mahoney had been sent on a mission with the young GRU officer.

After the war, in 1947, the GRU was submerged into the KI for a time, and Zamyatin, by then a first lieutenant, was permanently transferred out of military intelligence and into the State Security Service, so that in 1953 when the KGB became a full-fledged ministry, Zamyatin’s career was well on its way.

The 1945 cross-reference in Zamyatin’s file told Mahoney little more than he already knew about the operation that he and Zamyatin had carried out against the Obersalzburg area, although it felt strange to see his own name in a file connected with a Russian intelligence agent.

There were still other cross-references to KGB Second Chief Directorate activities in Zamyatin’s personal file, but Mahoney set those aside for the moment to look through the cross-reference for 1956, more specifically the fall and winter of that year. The time of the Hungarian Revolution.

Yuri Valdimirovich Andropov, who until recently had been the director of the KGB, in 1956 was the Soviet ambassador in Budapest. It was at that time that Imre Nagy had headed the Independent Hungarian government.

Andropov’s maneuvers that year were brilliant, and in part were among the reasons he later was chosen to head the State Secret Service.

First, Andropov convinced the Hungarians that the Soviet government was willing to negotiate withdrawal of the troops that had been there since the war.

Next, the man worked in secret with János Kádár to set up a puppet government backed by Soviet tanks.

And finally, Andropov invited Hungarian Defense Minister Pal Máleter and his staff to a banquet on November 3, at which time all of the Hungarians were arrested and many of them, Máleter included, were shot.

Mass arrests and executions swept the country, led by Lieutenant General Oleg Mikhailovich Gribanov, who was then chief of the KGB’s Second Chief Directorate. One of his principal aides was Captain Yuri Petrovich Zamyatin.

The other cross-references from Zamyatin’s personal dossier only made brief mention of his name in connection with the Second Chief Directorate, which was not surprising in view of the fact he had worked so well with that directorate’s chief in Hungary. But there were no extensive details about the man’s work since that time and only very little about his personal life.

On December 5, 1963, he had married Sandra Pogin, a girl of twenty-three from Leningrad. In 1965, a daughter named Sandra was born. In 1966, they had another daughter, Lara, and in 1967 Zamyatin’s wife died giving birth to their only son, Aleksei. Since that time Zamyatin had not remarried and had refused on four separate occasions to give up his children for State adoption.

He was a devoted father.

Mahoney took no notes other than one-word reminders of what was contained in each file, jotted after its index number.

After he had returned all the files to their respective niches, he again returned to the index cabinets and looked under the heading Sakharov, Leonid, Scientist.

There was only a one-line reference to that heading, and in the glare of the overhead lights Mahoney stared at it for a long time. The reference consisted of nothing more than three sevens and a date in 1968, which meant the file was on the active list and had been so since 1968.

Sakharov was an agent, or was at least a source of information for Western interests, and had been for more than ten years. Subsequently his file was kept in a closed section that could only be tapped under the ambassador’s authorization, or by special request of the CIA chief of station.

(It was curious, Mahoney thought, sitting at the library windowbox staring down at the courtyard, that a man whose file was on active should be the one kidnaped. Very curious indeed.)

He had finished in archives at a little after five o’clock, had locked up, returned the key to Finch, the O.D., who had made another petty, but somehow irritating remark about C.W. Dobbs’s probable wrath, and had gone upstairs to the west wing of the building and woke Congdon from a deep sleep.

Congdon, like most embassy staffers, found it easier to maintain an apartment within the embassy itself. When he had come to his door he had seemed surprised at first, then slightly irritated that his sleep was disturbed, and Mahoney thought he somehow seemed guilty. It was the same impression Mahoney had gotten at the meeting they had had with Carlisle earlier.

“I only need a couple of minutes of your time, George,” Mahoney said, entering the man’s apartment and sinking down wearily on the couch.

Congdon shut the door and sat down in an easy chair across from Mahoney. “Couldn’t this have waited for a decent hour, Wallace?”

Mahoney shook his head. “What’s the matter, George?”

“What the hell do you mean, what’s the matter,” Congdon snapped angrily. “It’s five o’clock in the goddamned morning.”

“Carlisle has gotten to you, hasn’t he.”

Congdon just stared at him, and Mahoney had the unsettling feeling that he was looking into the eyes of a stranger.

“I need an assessment out of you,” Mahoney finally said. Congdon he would have to deal with later, and yet, once made, that decision seemed wrong to Mahoney. Wrong. But he could not put his finger on why.

“At five in the morning?”

“Yes, goddammit, at five in the morning. Or two. Or midnight! I need some help!”

“Go home to bed,” Congdon said tiredly.

“What do you know about Soviet deficit spending?”

Again there was a blank look in Congdon’s eyes.

“Are you listening to me?”

“Yes,” Congdon said in a small voice.

“What is it?” Mahoney said gently. “What has Carlisle done to you?”

Congdon shook his head. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“What part are you playing in LOOK SEE, George? What has he done to you?”

“Leave it be,” Congdon said, sitting straighter in his chair and looking across at Mahoney as if he was seeing the man for the first time.

“Is it LOOK SEE, or your relationship with Carlisle?”

“What about deficit spending? What do you want to know?”

If Zamyatin had been correct in his assessment of the situation, there was not time to pick up the pieces during the operation, Mahoney thought. If Congdon was to be a casualty of the battle, then he would have to wait until the fighting was over before the medics could be called.

“Are the Soviets capable of it, and have you seen anything to indicate such a shift in policy?”

Congdon seemed to ponder the question for a moment before he answered. “I take it this is in relation to LOOK SEE. Evidently our good Dr. White didn’t give you shit to go on.”

“Right on both counts.”

“Then my answer is yes and no. Yes, they are capable of deficit budgeting. Any five-year-old child who borrows against next week’s allowance is capable of it. But no, I’ve not seen any signs of it. Their oil setup in Krasnodar is already in big trouble, and the fiscal year doesn’t end for more than two months. They’ll cut back production before they’ll deficit dip into next year’s budget.”

“Could that mean a ruble call-up for secret funding?”

Congdon was shaking his head. “Maybe a few rubles are floating around free, but, goddammit, that could only explain Moscow. For anything outside the Soviet Union they need Western currency backup. If you’ve got nothing from White, there’s nothing I can add.”

Congdon. The first incongruity besides Zamyatin’s story itself.

Bennet was next on Mahoney’s list, and it had been quarter to six before he had finally roused the man and had been reluctantly admitted to his apartment.

Unlike Congdon, Bennet’s belligerence was not tinged with guilt. It was plain and simply pure dislike, so Mahoney took off his kid gloves.

“I’m just here for a couple of bits of information, Bennet, and unless I get complete cooperation you’ll find yourself rotated back to the States within twenty-four hours.”

The man was dressed only in his shorts, but he had not been asleep. Mahoney was certain of it.

He started to protest, but Mahoney cut him off. “Your little indiscretion with Dr. White was your undoing. If you want me to go to Carlisle with it, I will.”

Bennet turned white but said nothing. They stood facing each other just inside the door of his apartment. Beyond Bennet, Mahoney could hear someone moving in the bedroom, and suddenly a number of things fell into place for him.

“When we’re finished you can tell Dr. White that I’m sorry I disturbed you two.”

Bennet looked on the verge of collapse, and for a moment Mahoney was almost sure he was going to have to hold the man up. But he recovered enough to ask what Mahoney wanted.

“What do you know about Doctor Leonid Sakharov?”

Something flashed across Bennet’s eyes but was gone in an instant. “He’s a scientist. A laser physicist, I believe. Moscow State University.”

“Who’s running him?”

Bennet had a blank look. “What do you mean?”

“He’s an agent, or at least a source. Who is running his operation? Who does he report to?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea what your talking about.”

Mahoney took a step forward, a menacing tone in his expression. “Central Intelligence Agency officer found to be a homosexual. Won’t go too good on your personnel file, Paul. And it would look even worse in the New York Times.”

Bennet’s lips curled into an animal snarl. “You think you’re so fucking great, Mr. Mahoney.”

“Paul … what is it?” Dr. White appeared naked in the doorway from the bedroom.

Bennet snapped around, and in an instant the economist realized his blunder and nearly leaped back into the bedroom.

“Who is running Sakharov?” Mahoney asked again.

Bennet turned back and looked like a cornered animal.

“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “I swear to God, I don’t know. I don’t know anything about it.”

“What do you know about Sakharov? I want everything.”

“I gave it all to you. Jesus Christ, Mahoney, you’ve got to believe me. All I know is that Sakharov is a laser scientist. He goes to Geneva once a year to a scientific congress. That’s all.”

Bennet. Another incongruity.

Darrel Switt, the resident case officer, had been Mahoney’s last stop shortly after six o’clock, and he had been up, dressed and waiting.

“I expected you’d show up here sooner or later,” Switt said as he admitted Mahoney into his impeccably furnished apartment.

Switt was a bachelor and the only hardship he ever complained about here on his Moscow assignment was the fact he could not live with a woman.

“Can’t bring any of my girlfriends from the States here with me; the old man frowns on it. And the Russians would just love for me to move in with a dyehvushkah,” he had explained once.

Mahoney liked the young man and expected no resistance from him this morning although he was somewhat surprised that Switt knew he was coming.

“Congdon called and said you were on the rampage this morning. Figured you’d come knocking on my door.”

Switt showed Mahoney into his kitchen and offered him a cup of coffee. “Real honest-to-God American coffee,” he announced proudly.

Mahoney laughed, and for the first time that morning allowed himself to relax slightly. “Why not,” he said, and he sat down at the small table as Switt poured the coffee.

“You’re working on LOOK SEE, I assume,” Switt said.

“You assume correct. What do you know about Yuri Zamyatin?”

Switt smiled as he set Mahoney’s coffee cup in front of him and then sat down across the small table.

“Colonel Yuri Petrovich? Head of the Second Chief Directorate’s Political Services Division?”

Mahoney nodded.

“Not much. Have you checked downstairs in archives?”

“This morning.”

“Then you know about as much as I do. He was a tough bird once upon a time from what I understand.” Switt sipped his coffee, a touch of curiosity in his eyes.

“If you looked in the files then you know that I was on a mission with him during the war.”

“Yup. So what has Yurianovich been up to these days that’s bothering you?”

“I was hoping you could tell me that.”

“Sorry, Mahoney, no can do. Zamyatin is a mystery man, or I should say a deskbound bureaucrat. Lives just off Kutuzovsky Prospekt with three kids. A widower.”

“Nothing more?”

Switt shook his head. “Nothing more.”

“How about his department?”

“Do you mean his entire department or just the American embassy section?”

“Us,” Mahoney said, blowing on his coffee.

Switt shrugged. “It’s common knowledge that Major Boris Balachov, alias Leonard Skyles, runs the factory a couple of blocks down the street. They watch us and we watch them.”

“But lately there has been an increase in activity.”

Switt nodded. “Not really unusual, though. Every couple of years or so they shake the tree to see how many good Soviet citizens were crawling out on a limb to visit with us. They usually come up with a few.” Switt lit a cigarette. “In a month or so there will be a spate of trials out in the suburbs. Might even be one or two big ones.”

“How closely is Zamyatin’s apartment building guarded by his own people?” Mahoney asked nonchalantly, but the question stopped Switt short.

“Come again?” the younger man said softly.

Mahoney put down his coffee and looked at him. “How many Soviet guards are assigned to Zamyatin’s building?”

“None,” Switt said. “What have you got in mind?”

Mahoney smiled tiredly and shook his head. “Not a thing. Yet. I’m just on a fishing mission this morning.” He got to his feet. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“My pleasure,” Switt said absently.

Mahoney started to leave, but Switt stopped him.

“The atmosphere has gotten a little too thick in here this morning for my liking. Would you mind thinning it out a little?”

Mahoney turned back. Switt was a good man, but like all case officers worth their salt he had the irritating habit of poking his nose into everything. “Need-to-know” as a guideline was anathema to them. “Yes, I would mind,” he said, and he turned again and let himself out.

Back in his office Mahoney had initiated a Real Time Action jacket, including in it all the information he had gathered so far that morning. Then he had removed himself and the file up to the library where he had remained for the past forty-five minutes.

He looked at his watch. It was nearly eight o’clock. By now Carlisle was in his office. And by now word had spread among those in the know: Mahoney is on the warpath.

He got up from the windowbox seat and with a last glance at the dismal day that was just beginning for most of the staff, headed upstairs.

The thought of Zamyatin’s wife dead these eleven years flashed across Mahoney’s mind as he avoided the elevators, busy at this time of the morning, and trudged slowly up the three flights of stairs.

He wondered how like Marge the woman must have been. It was something he had always wondered about every woman. How did she compare to Marge as a wife, as a bed partner, as a companion. Every woman he had ever met, or had ever heard about, came up second best to Marge.

But Zamyatin’s wife had borne him three children. Devoted, no doubt. Dutiful children who loved their father. When Zamyatin had mentioned them last night the pride was evident in his voice.

He was taking his children to the Caspian for a holiday, he had said. It was a curious coincidence that Mahoney and his wife were also planning a holiday soon with their children.

*   *   *

Carlisle’s office was a small, barren cubicle totally devoid of any personality. A double window, barred and screened, overlooked the Moscow Zoo that was around the corner from the front of the embassy, and the room was furnished only with a large wooden desk around which were set several chairs, a half-dozen file cabinets against one wall, and a combination horizontal file and sideboard along the opposite wall.

Carlisle did not seem surprised when Mahoney knocked and came in, but he rose from where he was seated behind his desk and indicated that Mahoney should sit down.

Mahoney slumped down in a chair, his legs throbbing from the climb up the stairs, and carefully laid the RTA jacket with its three diagonal red stripes on the edge of the desk.

Carlisle glanced at the file but had the good grace not to say anything until Mahoney offered his explanation.

“Early this morning, shortly after midnight, a high-ranking Soviet KGB officer contacted me on the street about a block from my apartment,” Mahoney began. For an instant he had a second thought about what he was going to do, but he pushed it aside. A job had to be done. Expediency was the cultured word. Ruthlessness was the less kind definition.

“Colonel Yuri Zamyatin,” Carlisle said. “Dobbs is raising hell all over the place this morning. The man was up here a few minutes ago with a list of every file you indexed.” He held up the sheet of paper on which Mahoney had written the index numbers. He had forgotten it downstairs.

“I’ll apologize when I’m done here,” Mahoney said.

“Don’t bother. I already took care of it.” Carlisle sat back in his chair waiting for Mahoney to continue.

“He asked for my help.”

“Really,” Carlisle said, and for an instant Mahoney had the impression that the man knew what was coming. But he continued.

“He told me that a laser scientist was kidnaped from Moscow State University late Saturday night, and that the entire KGB from the top brass on down are engaged in an all-out manhunt.”

“And he wants our help?”

“Along with the scientist, a portable laser device was also lifted from the university. It is Zamyatin’s fear that the device will be used on Thursday morning to assassinate President Forsythe.”

Carlisle snapped forward. “What?”

“Zamyatin believes the assassination is imminent. And may be the work of someone here in the embassy.”

Carlisle laughed, the sound thin and absolutely devoid of humor.

“He mentioned your name and position, Congdon’s name and rank as well as my own as senior analyst, which means there is a leak somewhere here in the embassy.”

Carlisle’s lips compressed into a thin line, but he said nothing.

“Number one,” Mahoney said. “I want a class six review of every single personnel file from the ambassador on down to the janitors. And I want it done within the next twelve hours. I want my back covered if I’m going to crawl out on a limb.”

Carlisle nodded but maintained his silence.

“Number two. I want a twixt sent this morning to the president informing him of what is happening here, and advising him that a second twixt has been prepared and will be sent to the head of the Secret Service Protective Forces Division. If nothing is settled here by 10:00 A.M. Thursday the Secret Service Presidential Protection Act will be enforced, and Air Force One will be ordered to return home.”

Carlisle offered no objections, although Mahoney could had sworn that the man had no intention of complying with the last part.

“Three,” Mahoney said and looked directly into Carlisle’s eyes. “The laser scientist, Leonid Sakharov, is on a triple sevens active file downstairs. He had been since 1968. I want that file.”

“You will have it within the hour,” Carlisle said softly, no surprise, no emotion whatsoever in his voice.

“And four,” Mahoney said, picking up the RTA jacket and handing it across to Carlisle. “All the supporting documents are there. I’m going to run an operation on Zamyatin. I want his three children picked up.”

Carlisle held the file in his fingertips, almost as if he were afraid of contaminating his hands. “This is a risky business. If this were Washington, or Lisbon, or even Berlin, I might—”

Mahoney savagely cut him off. “Do you think I like playing these fucking little games, Carlisle, you heartless sonofabitch? Do you think I like this?” Mahoney got to his feet and, placing his closed fists on the desk, leaned forward so that his face was only inches from Carlisle’s.

“I want his children picked up and brought here to the embassy. I want it done no later than six o’clock this evening, and if so much as one hair on those children’s heads is disturbed, I will personally see that you are shot as an inept cocksucker.”

Mahoney backed off, and Carlisle reached up with one hand and straightened the knot in his tie.

“Is there anything else?” he asked calmly.

Mahoney glared at him for a moment. “I hope to God, Carlisle, that I never find out this has been nothing but a setup. Because—”

Carlisle interrupted him angrily. “I don’t like this any better than you do, Mahoney. But I’ve had about all your prima donna crap I’m going to take!”

“Tell that to your pet, Bennet, and his boyfriend, Dr. White,” Mahoney snapped, and he turned and headed for the door. Halfway out the door, Mahoney stopped and turned back. “You will be covering my back, Carlisle. I’ll expect you to be there every time I turn around.”

Carlisle said nothing, and Mahoney brushed past a startled junior staffer just coming down the narrow hall and headed back downstairs to his office.

An instant scenario flashed through Mahoney’s mind that upset him even more than the kidnaping he had just asked Carlisle to carry out. It was of him and his own family years ago. Marge was much thinner then, and more stylish than now. John was twelve and Michael was six. They were on vacation. Cape Cod. The kids were playing in the surf with a small rowboat.

Mahoney could clearly see the rowboat tipping over. Marge going after the boys. Slogging through the water. The surf over her head. She could not swim.

Somehow he had managed to save them all. He had saved his family. It was a father’s natural instinct.

A picture of Zamyatin flashed through his mind.

A father’s natural instinct.