he had suggested. "I think you should leave it to me. There's a man in Washington who spent his fire in Southeast Asia, a general named Blackburn. Anthony Blackburn." Vasili had returned to Riga and sent out word through his network in London. Washington got the information within hours: whatever exploitation American intelligence cared to make out of Vienna would be matched by equally devastating exposure-and photographs-of one of the most respected men in the American military establishment.
No one from Helsinki ever bothered Lodzia Kronescha again. And she and Taleniekov became lovers.
As Vasili climbed the dark staircase to the second floor, memories came back to him. Theirs had been an affair of mutual need, without any feverish emotional attachment. They had been two insular people, dedicated to their professions almost to the exclusion of everything else; they had both required the release of mind and body. Neither had demanded more than that release from the other, and when he had been transferred to Sevastopol, their goodbyes were the painless parting of good friends who liked each other a great deal but who felt no dependency, grateful in fact for its absence~ He wondered what she would say when she saw him, what she would feel... what he would feel.
He looked at his watch: ten minutes to one. If her schedule had not been altered, she would have been relieved from duty at eight in the morning, arrived home by nine, read the papers for a half-hour and fallen asleep.
Then a thought struck him. Suppose she had a lover? If so, he would not put her in danger; he would leave quickly before any identification was made.
But he hoped it was not the case; he needed Lodzia. The man he had to reach in Leningrad could not be approached directly; she could help him-if she would.
He knocked on her door. Within seconds he heard the footsteps beyond, the sound of leather heels against hard wood. Oddly, she had not been in bed.
The door opened halfway and Lodzia Kronescha stood there fully clothed -strangely clothed-in a bright-colored cotton dress, a summer dress, her light-brown hair falling over her shoulders, her sharp aquiline face set in a rigid expression, her hazel-green eyes staring at him-staring at him-as if his sudden appearance after so long were not so much unexpected as it was an intrusion.
"How nice of you to drop by, old friend," she said without a trace of an inflection.
She was telling him something. There was someone inside with her. Someone waiting for him.
"It's good to see you again, old friend," said Taleniekov, nodding in acknowledgment, studying the crack between the door and the frame. He could see the cloth of a jacket, the brown fabric of a pair of trousers. There was only one man, she was telling him that, too. He pulled out his Graz-Burya, holding up his left hand, three fingers extended, gesturing to his left. On the third nod of his head, she was to drive to her right; her eyes told him she understood. "It's been many months," he continued casually. "I was in the district, so I thought I would..." He gave the third nod; she lunged to her right. Vasili crashed his shoulder into the door-into the left panel, so the arc would be clean, the impact total-Ahen battered it again, crushing the figure behind it into the wall.
He plunged inside, pivoting to the right, his shoulder smashing the door again. He ripped a gun out of the
man's hand peeling the body away from the wall, hammering his knee into the exposed neck, propelling his would-be assailant off his feet into a nearby armchair where he collapsed on the floor.
"You understood," cried Lodzia, crouching against the wall. "I was so worried that you wouldn't!" Taleniekov shut the door. "It's not yet one o'clock," he said, reaching for her hand. "I thought you'd be asIeep." "I was hoping you'd realize that." "Also it's freezing outside, hardly the season for a summer dress." "I knew you'd notice that. Most men don't, but you would." He held her shoulders, speaking rapidly. "I've brought you terrible trouble. I'm sorry. I'll leave immediately. Tear your clothes, say you tried to stop me. I'll break into a flat upstairs and-" "Vasili, listen to mel That man's not one of us. He's not KGB." Taleniekov turned toward the man on the floor. He was regaining consciousness slowly, trying to rise and orient himself at the same time.