Summit (40 page)

There was silence on the tape, then a beep and the next message. Sullivan closed his eyes and thought of his own mother. Maybe he wasn't the world's greatest son, but he was certainly better than this guy. Eccentric artists were apparently jerks, in addition to being slobs.

Still, he had to find Fulton, jerk or not, because Fulton was the only person who might lead him to Valentina Borisova. And he had to reach her today. He left the house and quickly drove back to the city.

* * *

Sullivan's ID got him past the haughty doorman of the apartment building on Central Park, and he took the elevator to Khorashev's floor. It was the kind of fancy place that had perfume in the elevators and paintings in the hallways. He knocked on Khorashev's door. He thought he could hear a piano being played inside. He knocked louder; the music stopped. After a moment he could feel himself being surveyed through the peephole, so he held his ID up in front of it. "I'm from the Central Intelligence Agency, sir. I was wondering if I might ask you a few questions."

The door opened slowly. The man who opened it was in his sixties, Sullivan guessed, obviously Russian, and obviously terrified. Why was he terrified?

"May I come in, sir?"

The man nodded, and Sullivan stepped past him into the apartment. The decor was very different from that of the hallway. An Elvis Presley paperweight? A poster of Marilyn Monroe with her skirt swirling around her thighs? An old red Coca-Cola sign, The Pause That Refreshes? It looked like a room in a college dorm.

The man had not yet closed the door. He didn't appear capable of doing anything. Sullivan was not particularly surprised. The letters "CIA" often did that to people. But you couldn't ignore the possibility that there was something more going on. "Are you Dmitri Khorashev?" Sullivan asked.

"Yes," the man whispered.

"Would you feel more comfortable if we spoke Russian?" Sullivan said, switching languages.

Khorashev shook his head emphatically. "I am American. I do not speak Russian anymore."

"All right. I'm trying to locate a friend of yours named Daniel Fulton. Would you happen to know where he is?"

Khorashev shut the door. "No. I saw him once when he got back from Moscow. Not since."

"Has he called?"

"No. Daniel doesn't like to use the phone." Khorashev's fear seemed to have turned into agitation. "Is he in deep water somehow? You must tell me."

Deep water? "Would you have any suggestions where he might be, if he isn't at home?"

"Perhaps Daniel's manager. His name is—"

"Yes, sir. I've spoken with Mr. Hershohn. Well, thank you for your time."

"Please, you must tell me what is happening with Daniel."

"I'm sorry, sir. I'm sure you can understand the need for secrecy in these matters."

Sullivan moved toward the door. Khorashev's hand was on the knob, but he didn't turn it. The man was behaving very strangely. "You must forgive me," he said. "I have had bad experiences with the secret police in my life. I do not act well in their presence."

"There's nothing to be afraid of, sir," Sullivan replied. "This isn't the Soviet Union."

"I understand that, of course. Is purely instinctive. America is a wonderful country."

"It certainly is."

Khorashev opened the door. "Good-bye, then."

"Have a nice day."

* * *

So what was he supposed to do next? It hadn't been a very productive day. Fulton was gone; that probably meant the Russians had him and were using him as a hostage to ensure that Borisova did what she was told. All right. Where would they be, then?

Sullivan knew that the Soviets had compounds in Riverdale and in Glen Cove out on Long Island, but he doubted they would be there. Borisova apparently had to be close to the person she was targeting, which meant that she would be at the Soviet UN Mission on Sixty-seventh Street, unless they had a safe house someplace where they were keeping her. Would Fulton be with her? Why not?

So what was Sullivan supposed to do? Break into the Soviet Mission? The Soviets were trying to kill him. They would certainly appreciate it if he showed up on their doorstep.

He picked up a
Times.
"Grigoriev Arrives in NY; Summit Starts Tomorrow," its headline informed him. Grigoriev was staying in Riverdale. Security was tight. Expectations were high. Sullivan threw the paper away.

Maybe he should tell his story to the
Times.
Yes, they were sure to believe him. Or maybe he should strap a bomb to his waist and fling himself in front of Grigoriev's limousine. Probably throw himself in front of the wrong limousine. Fear wasn't his problem now, but the limits of what one rogue operative could do in a situation like this.

He sighed. The world was going to hell, and he needed a drink very badly.

Well, he couldn't think of anything better to do. He went off in search of a bar.

Chapter 37

Abigail was not her real name, but her real name didn't matter anymore, not since the KGB plucked her out of the university and sent her to another, quite different school.

It was a school to make her American, and Chuck Dennison had been one of her teachers. She was the perfect candidate for this very select school. Her looks were sufficiently un-Slavic; her progress in English at the university suggested she could eliminate every last trace of an accent; and politically she was reliable. But even so, the training had been so difficult and exhausting that she had almost given up. She was immersed day and night in American language, American culture, American history. She was given a new background and identity, and she had to live that identity. In effect, she gave up herself for her nation. There were times when it seemed as if her nation was asking too much.

But she had persevered, and she had graduated, joining an anonymous but elite group of KGB officers. The great fear of the KGB was that students in this school would become too immersed in their new culture and new identity—that they would identify so strongly with America that they would forget why they had received their training. They need not have worried about Abigail. The more she learned about America, the more she despised it. In fact, so violent was her dislike of America that they began to have the opposite worry about her: that this hatred would make it impossible for her to do her job. She was still trying to prove to them that their worry was groundless.

Sometimes it was difficult. Take Daniel Fulton, for example. He was beneath contempt. So many people in the Soviet Union admired him, praised his support of world peace. But she had known all along it was a sham; and she had been proved right. He changed his tune as soon as a pretty girl was thrown his way. He was rich and famous and could get away with anything. It was all a game to him.

It was not a game to Abigail. So it was much easier for her to obey the order to break his finger than to obey the order to stop. And she positively enjoyed it when he tried to escape.

It happened when Viktor, one of the two KGB men sent down from the UN mission, left his post by the door for a minute to answer the phone. Fulton made a run for it then, but he couldn't figure out the lock on the inner door, and he was still fumbling with it by the time she arrived from the kitchen. She rammed him up against the wall and kneed him in the groin, then watched with satisfaction as he writhed in agony on the floor.

She did not like Daniel Fulton.

But she recognized the danger her feelings presented, and she strove to avoid it, because only in that way could she best serve the motherland.

Even if, in the depths of her soul, she hoped that Fulton would try to escape again.

* * *

Daniel Fulton stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. The soulful eyes, the strong chin. He raised his left hand in front of his face and stared at it. The elegance, the power, the sensitivity.

He was beneath contempt.

He closed his eyes, and that fiend Abigail was on top of him, her eyes alive with hatred, her hands clutching his, eager to destroy the elegance, the power... and he was more afraid than he had ever been in his life. He had felt a flood of relief when Valentina had stopped her, had agreed to submit to a far worse torture in order to save his damn fingers. Apparently he loved his fingers more than he loved her. The world was in danger, and he was worried about being able to play the final movement of the
Hammerklavier.
Artists were supposed to be narcissistic, but maybe that was a good reason not to be an artist.

So he had gathered up his nerve and tried to escape. What a joke that had been. Was it better to be narcissistic or incompetent? He couldn't even work the lock on the door. He couldn't even beat a woman in a fair fight. Perhaps he should have tried to seduce her—at least he had been good at
that
in his time. But Abigail was clearly not the kind of woman who would succumb to his charms. And besides, there was Valentina now.

He returned to his bedroom. Valentina. The Russians had been listening to a radio downstairs, and he had heard an announcer talking about the summit. Grigoriev and Winn were both in town, and their first meeting would occur tomorrow. And when that happened, Valentina would do what she had to do to save him, and it would kill her or drive her insane.

He couldn't stand it. It was a cosmic joke being played on the both of them—to find each other, to have a chance to dream about happiness, and then to have it end abruptly in terror and death. Fulton stared at the bars on his window. He did not feel like laughing.

"Excuse, please."

Fulton whirled. It was one of the Russians—the guy who had been guarding the door before his ridiculous escape attempt. He was a big man, with a wide, pleasant face and a nose that had been broken more than once. "Yes?" Fulton said.

"We wondered—Yevgeny and I—because we must be here together with you, if you like to play piano for us please. It will be great delight for us."

It sounded like a speech the man had put together with an English grammar book by his side. Fulton didn't want to play, especially for Russians; he didn't want to look at a piano.

He wanted to cry.

"Go fly a kite," he said to the Russian, who of course looked puzzled. Let him figure it out; Fulton didn't care. He went back to studying the bars of his cell.

Chapter 38

The KGB
rezident's
voice was tinny and slightly distorted over the scrambler phone. It had to be very important for him to risk calling Volnikov directly—and at this hour. "Our friend hasn't come back from that job we sent him on," he said.

Volnikov didn't mind the hour; he wasn't going to be sleeping much for the next few days. But he did mind the
rezident's
news. Poole had been succeeding all his life. How could he fail now? "Any information on his target?"

"No. We tried to visit the target's house, but it's being watched, so we couldn't risk it. Our friend's car was parked two blocks away."

Volnikov tried to think. Was Poole dead inside, and the CIA officer on the loose? Very bad. The CIA would go into the house eventually, and who could tell what conclusions they would draw? There had to be a way to control the situation. "How many are watching?"