"You're not going to believe this," Stantington said.
"Probably not."
"But you know more about Project Omega than we do."
"You're right, Admiral. I'm not going to believe that."
"I'm serious. I cancelled Project Omega yesterday because nobody knew what it was."
"Then you better find out quickly what it is," Karbenko said. "I think it goes without saying that my government responds a little more actively to this kind of provocation than yours does."
"Now don't get upset, Vassily," Stantington said.
"Don't get upset? One of our most important diplomats is murdered by one of your agents and you tell me not to get upset. This is, I take it, the new morality you have all brought to Washington."
"Please."
"My government will likely respond .in kind," Karbenko said.
"Show some faith in us."
45
"Oh, yes. Faith. As in the Bible you are all so fond of quoting these days. Well, some of us can quote your Bible too."
"I hope you're going to say 'love thy neighbor.'"
"I was about to say 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.'"
Stantington stood up. "Vassily," he said, "there's only one way I can convince you I'm telling the truth. I want you to come with me."
Karbenko grabbed his cowboy hat and followed Stantington out of the room. They took an elevator to the basement of the building, transferred to another elevator which took them to a sub-basement and then into another elevator which took them even further into the ground.
"America is a marvelous country," Karbenko said.
"How so?" asked Stantington. "You people can never leave well enough alone. For years it was sufficient for an elevator to go up and down, from the bottom to the top. Not any longer. I have been in hotels in this country and if you want to ride from one floor to the next floor, you have to ride elevators up and down for fifty floors. Do you know, in the World Trade Center in New York you have to ride four elevators to get from the top to the lobby? I suppose this is taught in your engineering schools. Creative and Imaginative Elevator Design."
Stantington saw nothing funny about this. He led Karbenko out into a hallway.
"You are the first Russian ever to be here," the CIA director said.
46
"That you know of," the Russian agent said drily.
"Yes. That's quite true."
Stantington led Russia's top agent in the United States down a long maze of corridors, lined regularly and with steel reinforced doors. There were no names on the doors, only numbers.
Behind door 136, they found a balding man sitting behind a desk, his head buried in his hands. He looked up as Admiral Stantington came in. His face wrinkled in disgust and he put his head back into his hands.
"I'm Admiral Stantington," the director said.
"I know," said the man, without looking up.
"You're Norton, the head librarian?"
"Yes."
"I'm looking for a file."
"Good luck," Norton said. He waved toward another door on the far side of the office.
Stantington looked at the man whose eyes were still cast down toward the desk top, then he looked at Karbenko and shrugged.
They walked to the far door. Stantington pulled it open. It led into a room almost a city-block square and twelve feet high. All the walls were lined, floor to ceiling, with file cabinets and there was an island of cabinets in the center of the room.
But this room looked as if a gang of particularly mischievous elves had been at work in it for a hundred years. All the file drawers were open. Papers were strewn about, in some places piled into five-foot-high mounds. Manila folders were
47
tossed everywhere. Papers had been crumpled, others ripped and torn.
Stantington stepped into the room. He kicked aside papers that stacked up around his feet and ankles like autumn leaves after a windstorm.
"Norton," he bellowed.
The thin bald man came up behind him.
"Yes, sir?" he said.
"What's going on here?"
"Maybe you'll tell me," Norton said bitterly.
"That will be just about enough of your surliness," Stantington said. "What happened in here?"
"Don't you recognize it, Admiral? It's part of your new open door policy. Remember? You were going to show how open and aboveboard the new CIA was operating so you announced you were going to honor the new freedom of information law. The public was invited. They came at me like locusts. They all had your statement in their hands. They tore everything apart."
"Didn't you try to stop them?"
"I tried to," Norton said. "I called the legal department but they said we'd need a court order to stop them."
"Why didn't you get it?"
"I asked the lawyers to. They drew straws to see who would go to court."