smile. What's there to be tense about? Even if he were identified for what he was, after the fact, there would be no international repercussions; that was how the game was played, by us and by them. So his superiors assured him.
Right.
Good God, what did I do to deserve being caught up in this lunatic scheme? He wasn't sure who was crazier, this collection of poor twisted men and bloodthirsty political naifs or his own bosses.
It was the opportunity of the decade, they'd told him. Al-Muezzin was in the vest pocket of the Big K. If we spring him, he'll fall into our hands out of gratitude. Work for us instead. He might even bring the Light of Allah along.
Was it worth the risk? he'd demanded. Was it worth blowing the underground contacts they'd been building in the Federal Republic for ten years? Was it worth risking the Big War, the war neither side was going to win no matter what their fancy paper war plans said? Reagan was president; he was a cowboy, a madman.
But there was only so far you could push, even if you were an ace and a hero, the first man into the Bala Hissar in Kabul on Christmas Day of '79. The gates had closed in his face. He had his orders. He needed no more.
It wasn't that he disagreed with the goals. Their archrivals, the Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti-the State Security Committee-were arrogant, overpraised, and undercompetent. No good GRU man could ever object to taking those assholes down a peg. As a patriot he knew that Military Intelligence could make far better use of an asset as valuable as Daoud Hassani than their better-known counterparts the KGB.
But the method ...
It wasn't for himself he worried. It was for his wife and daughter. And for the rest of the world too; the risk was enormous, should anything go wrong.
He reached into a pocket for cigarettes and a lighter. "A filthy habit," Ulrich said in that lumbering way of his. Molniya just looked at him.
After a moment Wolf produced a laugh that almost didn't sound forced. "The kids these days, they have different standards. In the old days-ah, Rikibaby, Comrade Meinhof, she was a smoker. Always had a cigarette going."
Molniya said nothing, just kept staring at Ulrich. His eyes bore a trace of epicanthic fold, legacy of the Mongol Yoke. After a moment the blond youth found somewhere else to look.
The Russian lit up, ashamed of his cheap victory. But he had to keep these murderous young animals under control. What an irony it was that he, who had resigned from the Spetsnaz commandos and transferred to the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the Soviet General Staff because he could no longer stomach violence, should find himself compelled to work with these creatures for whom the shedding of blood had become addiction.
Oh, Milya, Mashes, will I ever see you again?
"Herr Doktor."
Tach scratched the side of his nose. He was getting restive. He'd been cooped up here two hours, unsure of what he might be contributing. Outside ... well, there was nothing to be done. But he might be with his people on the tour, comforting them, reassuring them.
"Herr Neumann," he acknowledged.
The man from the Federal Criminal Office sat down next to him. He had a cigarette in his fingers, unlit despite the layer of tobacco that hung like a fogbank in the thick air. He kept turning it over and over.
"I wanted to ask your opinion."
Tachyon raised a magenta eyebrow. He had long since realized the Germans wanted him here solely because he was the tour's leader in Hartmann's absence. Otherwise they would hardly have cared to have a medical doctor, and a foreigner at that, underfoot. As it was, most of the civil and police officials circulating through the crisis center treated him with the deference due his position of authority and otherwise ignored him.
"Ask away," Tachyon said with a hand wave that was only faintly sardonic. Neumann seemed honestly interested, and he had shown signs of at least nascent intelligence, which in Tach's compass was rare for the breed.
"Were you aware that for the past hour and a half several members of your tour have been trying to raise a sum of money to offer Senator Hartmann's kidnappers as ransom?"
"No."
Neumann nodded, slowly, as if thinking something through. His yellow eyes were hooded. "They are experiencing considerable difficulty. It is the position of your government-"
"Not my government."
Neumann inclined his head. "--of the United States government, that