Thomas Hoover: Project Daedalus

The voice was speaking English, he finally realized. Maybe he did look American!

It was an accident, he kept telling himself. The truck couldn't have-Relax. Novosty made the arrangement with the American, didn't he? You saw him hand over the letter. Now the trail will just vanish. KGB will never be able to stop it.

He turned, casually flashed an empty smile for the small, gray-haired waiter standing behind him, tray in hand, white towel over the sleeve of his tailored but frayed brown suit.

"Sure, thanks."

You're better every day, he told himself. You're even starting to get the accent right now. Keep working on it. The twang. And learn to saunter. The shoulders. Americans walk looser, swing their arms, seem not to have a care in the world. Learn to slouch. Act like you own the world, even if you no longer do.

He'd been secretly practicing for weeks, getting ready to disappear after his part was over. Of course, he'd originally planned to go back home afterward. But that was before he had a taste of this. The good life, the freedom. For that matter, maybe he'd go to America. Why not? He'd heard how it worked. Defection, so the stories went, could be very rewarding. They'd open the golden gates for him at Langley.

The tiny cup of murky black coffee appeared in front of him, together with the usual glass of tepid water. He reached for the water eagerly and drank it down. Something, anything, to moisten the cotton in his mouth.

There, that was better. Now the hard part: something to quiet his mind.

The cup rattled against the saucer as he gingerly picked it up. He could still see the cab of the truck coming out of nowhere, hurtling down on them, still feel the horror. Odd, but he couldn't remember anyone at the wheel. He wanted a face, but none was there.

His own driver, the Afghanistan veteran Grigor Yanovich, had tried to swerve, but he hadn't been quick enough. He'd caught the first impact, the grind of metal that whipped the tan Audi around, flung open the door…

Grigor, thirty years old, must have died without ever knowing what happened, if not from the impact, then from the wall of flaming gasoline that swept over the seat.

He marveled at his own luck, the hand of chance that flung him from the car only a second ahead of the explosion. He remembered skidding across the pavement on his back, then tumbling into the grassy ditch that separated Amalias Avenue from the tiny side road of Thrassilou. Some of the raw gasoline had drenched his sleeve, but he'd been safely out of the way, his face down, when the explosion came.

It could have been an accident. He swiped at his brow and told himself that anything was possible.

Don't be a fool. They're closing in. How much do they know?

He sipped at the gritty coffee and scanned the street.

Just get through the next few days, he told himself. Once the transfer's complete, your part's over.

He was reaching for his small white cup when he noticed the woman, striding directly toward his table, smiling, catching his eye. The way she was swinging her brown leather purse, the jaunty thrust of hips beneath the suede skirt, the carefully groomed auburn hair-all marked her as American. Rich American. Probably headed into American Express to cash a thousand or so in traveler's checks. America…

He lounged back in his chair with a rakish air. He was, he knew, an attractive man. He had deep blue eyes, sandy hair, a practiced smile, a trim figure far younger than his fifty-six years. He'd divorced his wife Natasha three years ago, after she discovered his lunchtime liaisons with one of the girls in the State Committee typing pool. He had experience handling women.

Three weeks in Athens, he thought, and maybe my luck is about to change. If you can get her, the nightmare could be over for a while. You can't go back to the hotel now; they may be watching. But if she's got a room somewhere? What better way to hide out till the transfer is complete?

He was still trying to make his ragged mind function. Now was the time for a "pick-up" routine. The lonely traveler… Kak grussno mnye, tak zhalostno mnye… no, damn, not the sentimental Russian, think American.

But where? He'd heard of New York, San Francisco, Miami, even Chicago. But what if she was from one of those places?

All the careful preparation and he still didn't dare put himself to the test. So what would he say? Canada? Australia?

Her eyes held his, interest growing as she continued to approach. They were darkened with kohl, sensual, inviting. And she was still smiling, even as she placed her hand on the chair across from him.

Was this how the women…? America was the Promised Land.

"Etot stolnik osvobodetsya, Viktor Fedorovich?"

It took a second for the language to register. She was speaking Russian, calmly inquiring if the table was free, but his mind was rejecting it, refusing to accept the implications.

"Perhaps you'd like to buy me a kofye, Comrade. I prefer it very sweet." Now she was settling her purse on the table, adjusting her tight skirt in preparation to sit. "Or would you rather take me shopping. I could help you spend some of the money."

He'd never seen her before in his life.

Your part will be routine. Somewhere in the back of his mind echoed the voice of the president's personal aide, the brisk young Muscovite who had come to his dacha that snowy evening last October. We will take care of any risks.

It had all been a lie. Every word. They must have known where he was every minute.

Then he spotted the two men approaching from opposite sides of the square. The suits that didn't quite fit, the trudging gait. Why must they always look like the stupid, brutal party hacks they are, he thought bitterly. The incompetent bastards.

Who betrayed me? Was it Novosty? Did he do this, to get them off his trail?

So be it. First I'll kill her, and then I kill him.

Seething, he pulled his body erect while his right hand plunged for the snap on the holster at his belt. Simple. He'd just shoot her on the spot, then make a run for it. Through the cafe, out the back. They wouldn't dare start anything here, in the middle of Athens, that would cause an international "incident." The snap was open. He thumbed up the leather flap and realized the holster was empty.

The crash. It must have jarred loose. His new Walther automatic had been incinerated, along with the Audi. His life began to flash before his eyes. Make a run for it, he heard his mind saying, commandeer the first taxi, any taxi. He shoved back from the table, sending his chair clattering across the patched sidewalk.

She reached into her leather purse, now lying atop the table, next to his coffee. He heard the click of a safety sliding off. "Don't be impetuous, Viktor Fedorovich. You've been such a good boy this last week, showing us the sights. The perfect tour guide. But now your little vacation is over. We must talk."

"About what?"

She smiled. "Whatever you think we need to hear."

"I don't know anything." He could feel the cold sweat on his palms.

"Viktor Fedorovich." She brushed at her auburn hair as she continued in Russian. "You have the most valuable commodity in the world, knowledge. That makes you even richer than you think you are now."

They didn't try to kill me this morning, he suddenly realized. It was Alex they were- Is he planning to double- cross everybody? No, that's insane. He'd never get away with it. He has to deliver the payment.

KGB wants me alive, he thought with a wave of relief. They think I'm the one who knows where it is.

His pulse raced. "What do you want?"

"We need you to answer certain questions. But not here. At a place where it's quieter."

The two men were loitering closer now, only a few feet away, one on each side of the table. The first was overweight, with bushy eyebrows and pockmarked cheeks. He could be Ukrainian. The other was medium height, wearing a cheap polyester suit, balding and sallow. Neither looked as though he had smiled in the last decade.