"If they can make useless the advanced technology of Porsche, Cadillac, Citron, and all the glossy Japanese junk, do you really think they will have problems with the crude electronics of a Russian tank? Is that what you think?"
"They lied to us," said the Premier.
"Did you think they were honest? Our tanks will be useless. Our infantry will be useless. They will only provide a bloody road on which the American armies can march to Moscow and take it. And Leningrad. And Siberia. This time there is no retreat. There is only one thing we want, and that is for them to give us that weapon. Admit they have it, and hand it over."
"They are liars. They are the biggest liars in the world."
"The other side of the one-way mirror, Premier," said Zemyatin, nodding to where the American was waiting. Both American and Russian staffs were still exhanging information in the friendliest manner engineers could manage, the neutrality of scientific fact. "That they gave us this information about their defenses is the final proof for me that they have the better one, the one that opens the skies and makes our missiles and tanks useless."
Zemyatin watched the Premier return to the American and tell him he was a liar. He saw that the American was outraged. It was the sort of act he would have believed, if he did not have proof that the Americans were lying.
Later, on the way back to America, Mr. McDonald Pease was told that the coin of cooperation was to be paid in the weapon he was still insisting America wanted help in tracking down.
He was told, in case America did not know, that it was north of Boston. Pease wired this information directly back to America.
America knew that, he was informed. They were still looking for the weapon.
Harold W. Smith heard from his President again and this time the trust was tinged with doubt.
"The weapon is not in Hanoi. It's here. Somewhere north of Boston," came the President's voice. "I have given the search for it over to our public agencies."
"Good," said Smith. He did not have the sort of ego that demanded that he stay in charge of a project to which he had been assigned. That was one of the requirements of his having gotten this job in the first place.
"Do you know what misleading damage might have been done if we had based everything on the belief that the weapon was in Hanoi? They don't believe us, and dammit, I wouldn't either, Smith. Now, get your people into the Boston area and we'll close in with them when and if or if and when we find it."
"Can't do that."
"Why not?"
"One's on the way to Hanoi."
"And the other?"
"I don't think he is speaking to us, sir."
"I want you to remember, Smith, that when the human race depended on you, you let it down."
"I know, sir."
"Get back to me as soon as you reach either of them. I can't believe it. You, America's last and best hope."
"Yessir," said Smith. When Remo checked in again, he was going to have him give more information on that woman. Was Remo somehow falling in love?
Harold W. Smith didn't know. He used to think it was Chiun he didn't understand.
In Moscow, the Russians were beginning to understand many things. The young colonel in charge of the assassination squads was getting the reports on the whereabouts of the lone American agent and the red-haired woman. They checked out in San Gauta. They checked out at the airport. He was headed for Hanoi.
"I think, sir, that Hanoi would be the right place to put him down," said Colonel Ivan Ivanovich. He had been trained in Russian schools. His father before him was KGB and had served with Zemyatin in the great patriotic war. Therefore, the young colonel had been precisely taught not to pray. It was at this time, speaking to the man who terrified him, that he was discovering ways to ask the Almighty for help.
"Yes," said Zemyatin. "But I will plan the details of the putting down."
"Sir, yes sir," said Colonel Ivan Ivanovich to the brute who had so shocked his senses within Dzerzhinsky Square itself. The old wretch had purposely killed an innocent officer.
Without the terror in the young colonel's heart, there would have been a thousand reasons not to take certain actions and a thousand more memos.
But the strangest fact of all was that Zemyatin was not a cruel man. He had never been a cruel man. He had never killed another person without a reason. He was ruthless, but then he never really had much choice. Events had made him what he was. All Alexei Zemyatin had ever really wanted was to be a good butler.
And because Field Marshal Alexei Zemyatin, the Great One of the Russian Revolution, had once been a butler, nothing an American or anyone, even his superiors, could ever hope to say would stop his planned attack. He had been taught too bitterly and too well that there was no one in the universe who could be trusted.
Chapter 13
"Alexei, Alexei," his mother called. "The count wants you now."
Alexei Zemyatin heard the calls while he was in the pantry supervising the silver, which had to be polished in the French manner. No matter that it lacked the sheen of fine Russian silver. The count, like so many Russians, wanted everything French. That was why he had taken young Alexei to France with him before the war. There was enough silver in the daily service to feed two hundred serfs for a year. At the time, young Alexei Zemyatin did not give this much thought.
The silver belonged to the count, and the most important thing about two hundred hungry serfs, thought Alexei, was that he was not one of them. And he would devote his life to keeping it that way.
In his youth, Alexei had had fine sharp features, not unlike the count himself, giving life to rumors that in his veins flowed noble blood. This he did nothing to discourage, although his mother told him his father was really a merchant who had passed a night on the estate, paid her a compliment, and left her with Alexei, whom she felt was the true joy of her life.
Alexei did not rush from the pantry when the count called. He made sure the silver tally was correct when he handed it to the older butler. He had discovered early that just because it was logical that people should be honest, it did not necessarily make them that way.
Alexei trusted none of them. The only person he trusted besides his mother was the count. He was the perfect man. Count Gorbatov was the big father of the manor that stretched for over a hundred miles and contained forty to eighty thousand souls. No one knew the exact number. At that time, no one counted the tillers of the field, or those who were born and died in the cold darkness that was the peasant's hovel.
The peasants believed Count Gorbatov was above lying. In some way, like many of the peasants, Alexei had come to believe that if there were no master for the estate, the fields would no longer provide sustenance. It was the count and God who gave them life, many felt.
"Alexei, hurry," said his mother. She was a maid on one of the floors, and this was a very important thing. To be a maid in the manor house instead of a serf meant ten to twenty more years of life. It was that simple and that valuable.
"Hurry, hurry, he calls," said his mother. She was always afraid that Alexei would not respond quickly enough and be sent to the fields.
He smiled at her and knew that she was proud of him in his gilt uniform and powdered wig, looking ever so much like a royal servant from some ancient French royal court. Even his shoes cost the equivalent amount of a peasant's income for a year.
Alexei walked crisply to the morning sitting room where the count sat in a silk-covered chair so plush that it threatened to envelop his frail old body.
"Your Excellency," said Alexei as he formally entered the vast well-carpeted room. He stood, his legs symmetrical, shoes touching at the heel, his hands rigid at the side, for a crisp bow. He could smell the sweet seasonings of the master's morning drink. Like every servant, he had learned early to control his hunger, among other things. These controls would prove to be of enormous value in his survival, and later the survival of an entire nation. For hunger, like panic, was only an emotion. If one could ignore the one, one could ignore the other. Young Aiexei stood waiting for the old man to speak.
"Alexei, I am going to take you into my confidence, young man."
"Thank you, Your Excellency," said Alexei.
"There is a great war going on. Very great. We will not win it."
Alexei bowed, showing he had heard.
"You probably cannot understand military strategy. That is for people of different blood. But that is not your fault, nor is it your duty. Very soon many soldiers will be coming here."
"You wish us to make ready for the Germans, Your Excellency?"