James Huston - Fallout

She glanced down quickly, maintaining her flat expression as she looked at a photo of herself serving the Air Force pilots their meals.

“Do you deny that is you?”

“Yes.”

He reached behind him, and a man put a small case in his hand. He tossed it onto the table. “Do you know what this is?”

She looked at it, trying not to show any reaction. “No.”

“It is a set of contact lenses.”

“So?”

“They are yours.”

“I don’t wear glasses or contacts.”

He smiled and lit another cigarette with the burning end of the one about to go out. He inhaled deeply and blew the smoke her way again. “You don’t need to wear glasses or contacts. That is a true statement. You don’t need them to see well. But these are brown in color. Can you imagine? Brown contacts? Why would anyone have those? Perhaps if you need them to disguise the blue eyes that you got from your American father so you can look more Pakistani.”

“You’re out of your mind,” she said quickly.

“Can you explain to me why these contacts have no prescription to them? Why would anyone have contacts without any correction?”

“I have no idea. Ask whoever owns them,” she said, looking directly at him.

“But we got them from your other apartment. You have no idea how they got there?”

“I don’t have any other apartment. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Really,” he said.

The first man handed him another sheet. It was a series of photos of her going into the apartment wearing Western dress and coming out in Pakistani garb. “You still deny it?”

“That’s not me,” she said, dodging. She knew they had her, but she would never tell them anything voluntarily.

He sat back and assumed a gentle tone. “You don’t seem to understand what we’re doing. We are on the same side of this, you and I. We are trying to find the man who did this to us. The one who has made us look like murderers in front of the whole world. Your country doesn’t trust us now and refuses to give us any help in finding the pilot who did this. We have begged for your help, but you refuse to give it to us. We must find this man. We have no idea what he has in mind, but if he is here, we must stop him. Do you understand?”

“Yes. I understand what you’ve said.”

“Then tell me what you know. If you have identified this man, tell me now. Who is it?”

“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“We must know!”

Renee looked at him with contempt. “You must know? Why didn’t you know that there was someone in your Air Force who had international murder in mind? And theft of bombs or whatever else was stolen from your armory? And what about the attempted smuggling of warhead-grade plutonium over the border? Where were you guys then? So you’re left trying to intimidate an employee of the American State Department instead of doing your own good intelligence work?” She shook her head in disgust. “Can I go now?”

“You will tell us what you know!” he screamed as he stood up and leaned on the table.

“I don’t know anything,” she said.

The man turned in fury to those behind her. “Put her in the dark cell,” he ordered. “If anyone asks us about her, we’ve never heard of her.”

“Colonel,” Vlad said into the telephone in his native Russian.

“Vladimir!” Stoyanovich exclaimed, thrilled to hear the voice of his friend. “Where are you?”

“In America.”

“Are you near the radioactivity?”

“Not very. It is several hundred miles away.”

“Were you involved in that air battle? What happened?”

“Yes, we tried to stop them, but got there too late.”

“Your MAPS job has you in that Nevada school where this lunatic Pakistani started all that. Am I right? You are there with MAPS taking care of the MiGs?”

“Exactly. It is the best job you could imagine. It is the dream of a lifetime. And they were letting me fly, Colonel. They made me their MiG-29 instructor, and I fly in the hops with the American pilots who are all former TOPGUN instructors!”

“That is too wonderful, Vladimir. Then you must have your drinking under control. As you said you would. I should never have doubted you. You are so strong. I should tell you, just so you know, that I only intended to keep you away from flying for six months. I told you it was for the rest of your career so you would take it seriously this time. I think it was bad judgment on my part to tell you this. I think you believed me.”

Vlad held his head in his hand as he rested his elbow on the counter. If only he had known. But it was too late now. He looked at the open bottle of vodka that sat on a table. “Colonel, I am in some trouble.”

“Ah,” Stoyanovich said. The enthusiasm in his voice was suddenly tempered. “What is it, Vladimir?”

“I suppose you know how I got here.”

“Yes. You were threatened by the Mafia, those thugs, those scum.”

“They promised to get me out of the country and gave me this job. There were no strings attached. I just wanted to get out of Russia, and the chance to fly again…”

“It is perfectly understandable. But what is your problem?”

“They knew about the attack before it happened.”

“The attack on the nuclear plant?” Stoyanovich asked. “How would they know that?”

“That’s what I wanted to know. I still don’t know. But before it happened, Gorgov—”

“That traitor…”

“He told me something would happen, and I was to make sure it came off. He wanted me to make sure this Khan succeeded.”

“They were behind that attack?”

“I don’t think so. I just think they’re involved. They’ve given Khan something. I don’t know how or what, I don’t know what their role is, but they’re involved.”

“What did you do?”

“I tried like hell to stop Khan. The air battle.”

“I heard.”

“We caught them too late. We shot them all down, except for Khan himself, and he got me with a Sidewinder—”

“Vladimir, how could you—”

“I know. But I got out, and I’m okay.”

“What is it you need?”

“This isn’t over.”

“What isn’t?”

“Whatever Gorgov and the Pakistanis are doing. They’re not finished. He called me.”

“He called you again?”

“Yes. Just last night.”

“What did he say?”

“He said that there would be another opportunity for me to help. To intervene. To let Luke be—”

“Luke?”

“He’s the head of the school. American pilot, former TOPGUN instructor.”

“Go on.”

“He said Luke would try to be the hero. And when he did, I was to do the right thing.”

“What does that mean?”

“We will get a chance to intervene, to save the world. When Luke tries, I am to stop him.”

“You couldn’t do that.”

Vlad choked on his words. “Except Gorgov threatened to kill my sister and her children, and he knows where my mother is.”

“They always talk like that,” Stoyanovich said, trying to reassure Vlad.

“They mean it. You know that.”

“Too often.”

“This Khan is at an air base near Karachi. I’m convinced he is planning on attacking the Kakrapar Indian nuclear power plant. They want to start a war between Pakistan and India.”

“How can you know this? How can this be? He is still alive?”

“Yes. I can’t go into it all, but I’m sure that’s what’s happening.”

“What can I do?”

“You still remember that Indian intelligence man we met when we were in India?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Perhaps you can get one of our people to convince them that what they really need is two highly trained MiG-29 pilots to come to India to help them defend this plant from a guy we know better than anyone else. If India starts moving their Air Force to defend against an attack, it will be seen as provocation, and Pakistan will feel compelled to attack anyway. They’ve got to stay put.”