Alternities (32 page)

The Minister of Defense rallied to the defense of the Navy commander. “There was damage to the sail from the collision. Enough, perhaps, to conceal evidence to support Captain Avilov’s account.”

“I trust that our shipwrights in Dakar are competent enough to detect bullet holes even in crushed metal,” Kondratyev said dismissively. “There is no evidence.”

“True,” Voenushkin agreed. ”And yet, I, too, believe Captain Avilov has told the truth. And Avilov’s officers are unwavering in their support for him—”

“A conspiracy of the guilty.”

“I do not think so, Secretary.”

“What explanation have you, then?” Kondratyev demanded “That those who wielded the weapons were incompetent?”

“No. I believe that they were most competent.”

“Explain.”

The Intelligence director sat back in his chair and steepled his hands in his lap. “I have been contemplating the notion that this incident was staged, carefully scripted by the Americans. A fishing boat leaves port and does not return. Who is to say that it is the same boat which faced down the Nachodka? Six sailors go out, one comes back, and a town mourns its dead. But there are no bodies, only the tales of one man. Who is to say that they are truly dead?”

“A deception, Geidar?”

“Perhaps. I have examined the photographs released by the Americans. They show only the ocean and our submarine, and a few feet of gunwale that could belong to any boat. No hardworking fishermen. We should watch these ‘grieving’ families closely. Perhaps, ‘heartbroken’ or ‘destitute,’ they will one by one leave their hardworking little town in the next months. With new names in new cities, who will know that this father, that husband, is returned from the dead?”

Kondratyev clapped his hands together and brought them to his lips. “And the crew of this
Marjorie
—”

“Soldiers, CIA agents, guided toward our submarine by the American Navy. Their purpose from the start to draw an unwary Soviet officer into a foolish act. To create an incident which would fire the American blood fever and provide the context for Secretary Rollins’ impassioned performance in Vienna.”

The Minister of Defense was nodding, his face wearing a look of wonder. “Yes. Yes,” said Medvedev. “No bullets struck because none were fired. Only blank cartridges, empty noise to panic Captain Avilov.”

“Who did not panic,” Koldunov said quickly.

Voenushkin nodded in agreement. “He submerged, as instructed, as he reported. There was a collision, yes. But Captain Avilov did not ram an American fishing boat. I greatly doubt whether a submarine of
Nachodka
’s class is nimble enough to accomplish the feat unless undetected until the moment of impact. I believe the
Marjorie
sailed deliberately into the submarine’s path.”

“Brave men. Loyal men,” Kondratyev mused.

“No doubt. Even if an air-sea rescue helicopter was waiting just over the horizon, they risked death. Some may have lost the risk.”

“How confident are you of this analysis, Geidar?”

“I am always confident of American duplicity.”

Kondratyev turned toward the Admiral. “Nikolai,” he said “How real is the American threat to our submarines? And do not try to impress me with the skill of your crews and the superiority of your vessels. Impress me with the truth.”

“American detection methods are much improved,” the Admiral conceded gruffly. “Their attack submarines are still largely blueprints. Their destroyers and corvettes are a minimal threat. Should they choose to employ their patrol aircraft and missile batteries, the threat would be greater.”

“Do you have any reason to think that they will choose not to employ them?”

“The Javelins are untested against live targets. Perhaps they will fear betraying a weak hand.”

The Minister of Defense spoke up. “I believe the Americans will use all their weapons, or none.”

“As do I,” said Kondratyev. “How much greater a threat, Nikolai?”

The Admiral huffed and squinted. “The continental shelf is broad, especially on their Atlantic coast. There is limited room to maneuver, few usable submarine canyons. True security may be found only off the shelf, where our boats can enjoy a generous canopy of water.”

“You will not guarantee their safety.”

“They may be able to find us. I do not think they can reach us, not unless a boat should be caught on the shelf.”

“Which is where they are designed to operate. Where they must go in order to accomplish their mission.”

“Yes.”

Kondratyev turned to the GRU director. “The intelligence these submarines gather—how valuable is it?”

“The value of what we have learned in the past is modest,” Voenushkin said. “The value of what we might learn in the future is immeasurable.”

“And how much would be lost if these vessels were withdrawn past the twelve-mile limit the Americans claim, if they respected, let us say, a fifteen-mile line?”

“Much. Most.”

“And are there no other assets by which we may gather the same intelligence?”

“There are other assets, each with its strengths and weaknesses. There is some overlap.”

Kondratyev made a chinrest of his folded hands. “It seems to me that we could survive the withdrawal of these vessels from American waters for a time, until the Americans have cooled their fever and relaxed their vigilance.”

“That would be a dangerous—” the Minister of Defense began.

“To keep the submarines on station is dangerous,” Kondratyev snapped. “The danger of lost vessels, and dead sailors, and renewing the flame of America’s war passion. The danger of escalation and miscalculation. We must weigh one against the other.”

“And so we dance to Robinson’s tune?” asked the First Minister, who alone among them could risk such a question.

Sighing, Kondratyev looked away, out the frost-glazed window. “Sometimes a child must be allowed to have its way.”

“And sometimes it must be put in its place.”

“It is not the time for that, Pyotr,” the General Secretary said. “Nikolai, I wish the submarines withdrawn. Please see to it immediately, before events overtake us.”

The Admiral of the Fleet rose, bowed dutifully, and hastened from the room.

“Now, my friends,” said Kondratyev softly to the two who remained. “I have need of seers, not soldiers. Let me hear your thoughts on the thornier question—to what is this prologue?”

Five Friends. Wallace drove past slowly, peering at the handpainted blue sign above the recessed entrance to the little store. He saw that lights were on inside, and the sidewalk was freshly swept of the fat-flaked snow which had been falling since midafternoon. They have a little store, Mary Scott had said. Almost there.

The odd and the offbeat owned that stretch of Morton Street, one block toward seediness from the town’s main business square. Next door to Five Friends was The Second Sex, which billed itself as “A Women’s Resource Center” and hid behind windows boarded up with unpainted rough-cut cedar. Across the street in an old freight terminal was The Nine Lives Furniture Reincarnation Co., its huge sign depicting an oak and porcelain Hoosier hutch like the one which had stood in his grandmother’s kitchen.

Most improbably, on the corner nearest to where Wallace parked stood something calling itself The Traveler’s Club Restaurant and International Tuba Museum. The name tempted Wallace inside, where he found an old-fashioned fountain counter, a menu offering Ethiopian and Turkish dishes as the day’s specials, and walls hung with tarnished, placarded bombardons, euphonia, and double-bass saxhorns. He laughed with childlike delight at the sight, and, defying the weather, bought an ice cream cone to take with him.

The cone gave him something to do as he stood in front of Five Friends, summoning the courage to go inside. Behind the many-paned display windows, arrayed on tiers of pale-blue stairlike shelves, was a polyglot of offerings as eclectic as the store’s neighbors—album jackets and French-language books, queer kinetic sculptures in metal and fat pillows in the shape of sleeping cats, hammered silver jewelry and earth-toned macrame, raw crystals and polished marble eggs.

Crumpling the sticky napkin and pushing it deep into a pocket, Wallace mounted the single step to the entrance and pushed open the door. A bell jingled, but, contrary to his experience, no clerk came running to pounce on him.

The inside of the store was much like the face it showed to the street—hundreds of items which seemed to have little in common except for the space they shared. But the floorplan was more appropriate to a house than a retail store, with arched doorways leading from the large front room to what appeared to be a maze of smaller rooms in the back.

All in all, Five Friends felt more like a place to visit than a hard-boiled retail establishment. There was even a rocking chair and wicker footstool by one of the bookcases, with a small handlettered sign offering browsers a “simulated hearthside reading environment.”

Wallace’s eye was caught by a many-hued butterfly hanging from the ceiling, its kite-sized wings made of a luminescent film which shimmered in the backlighting. He was still staring at it when she appeared in one of the archways.

“Hi,” she said in a friendly voice, slightly breathless. “I’m Shan. It’s been kind of quiet this afternoon, so I’ve been doing some work out back. If I can help you with anything, just come find me.”

Then she was gone, almost before he could realize she had been there, mercifully before the shock could show on his face. Her clothes were like nothing he had ever seen her in—mannish slacks that ended at midcalf, a kimono-sleeved white blouse with contrasting black shoulder lacing that suggested epaulets. The honey-caramel hair was longer, gathered at the back of the neck with a wide wood-and-leather barrette instead of flowing free to frame her face.

But the eyes. The voice. The electricity that surged through him when she was in the room, and drained from him when she vanished. Those were exactly the same. Exactly. And then he heard music from somewhere in the back, a song softly sung in a warm and gentle voice, and followed it without thinking.

He found her two rooms away, sitting crosslegged in the middle of a huge circular rag rug, a book lying open in front of her. A gray-black cat patrolling the perimeter of the room fled at his approach, but Shan seemed not to notice him until he spoke.

“Pretty song,” he said.

“One of my favorites,” she said, looking up. “Did you find something?”

“Still looking. I’ve never been in here before,” he said. “It seems like a place you need to take some time in.”

She smiled. “I’ll tell the others. They’ll like that.”

He crouched down near the doorway. “Then the name does mean something. Five Friends.”

“We share the expenses, we share the work. Everything out there is something that one of us loves, that one of us thinks is beautiful or important or special. Some of it we make ourselves. Mark makes the sculptures—he’s got a little studio here, in the basement. Diana does the macrame.”

“What’s your contribution?”

“The books, mostly. Did you look at them?”

“Not really.”

“I don’t put anything on the shelf that I haven’t read. About half the albums are ones I picked. And Patrick is teaching me about crystal and stone.”

“Mark—Diana—Patrick—you—and…?”

“Christine. We were all in school together here. All except Mark. This place is a ‘someday-we-ought—to’ that became real.”

“You’re lucky. But how did you ever get a license?” he asked, shaking his head.

She gave him a questioning look, and he realized he had slipped. Here there was no need for the Essential Business Permit, the blue certificate with the federal seal that hung above so many cash registers back home.

“Zoning is the owner’s problem,” she said. “We just paid the first month’s rent and opened the doors.”

“I like the idea,” he said. “Is it working?”

“I don’t think anyone thought we’d get rich,” she said cheerfully. “And we haven’t.”

“Isn’t it hard, everything being so personal? What about the people who come in, look around, and leave without buying anything? Doesn’t that make you feel rejected?”

“Is that what you’re going to do?” she asked, eyes laughing. “No, actually that makes it harder to let them go. Especially the things that are one of a kind. We don’t sell very hard, I’m afraid. As you saw.”

He pointed toward the book. “Am I keeping you from something?”

“Madama Blavatsky’s
Isis Unveiled
, ” she said, glancing downward. “I’m studying theosophy.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

She laid a silver bookmark in the center of the book and closed it. “Most days I don’t feel like I do, either. I can only read it in small doses. A little reading, a lot of thinking.”

“Then can I ask you to show me some of the music you recommend? That song you were singing, if you have it.”

She cocked her head, surprise parting her lips. “You don’t know what it was?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Then you do need my help,” she said, uncoiling her legs and rising gracefully to her feet. “I don’t think Judy Collins ever recorded a more beautiful song.”

“Judy Collins,” he repeated.
Here, too. Common World.
“She’s a favorite of yours?”

“For years. Oh, I know her kind of music doesn’t get much time on satellite radio,” she said. “But there’s more to life than a Hot List stamp of approval. That’s what this store is all about. I wanted to call it Pleasures and Treasures, but I got voted down.”

She led him from the room, then paused in midstep and turned to look back at him. “I just realized—you have the advantage of me, sir.”

“Hmm?”

“What’s
your
name?”

He held her eyes for a moment, weighing the look in them. “Rayne,” he said, answering in more than words. “Rayne Wallace. I was named after my great-grandfather.”

Her face lit up. “Really? I was named for my mother’s older sister—grandmom’s first. She was killed by a runaway truck when she was eight.”

I know
, he thought. “I like your name.”

She smiled at him uncertainly, uncomfortably, and turned away. He followed, remembering.