Ken Follett - Code to Zero (2000)

He cut short the kiss and detached himself from her embrace. She frowned and looked hard at him, trying to read his expression. 'What is it?' she said. Then she sniffed, and sudden anger suffused her face.

'You son of a bitch, you smell of sex.' She pushed him away. 'You fucked Billie Josephson, you bastard!' A passing scientist looked startled to hear such language, but she took no notice. You fucked her on the goddamn train.'

He did not know what to say. Her betrayal was worse than his, but all the same he was ashamed of what he had done. Anything he said was going to sound like an excuse, and he hated excuses, they made a man pathetic. So he said nothing.

Her mood switched again, just as quickly. 'I don't have time for this,' she said. She looked up and down the corridor, seeming impatient and distracted.

Luke was suspicious. 'What do you have to do that is more important than this conversation?'

'My job!'

'Don't worry about that.'

'What the hell are you talking about? I have to go. We'll talk later.'

'I don't think so,' he said firmly.

She reacted to his tone. 'What do you mean, you don't think so?'

'When I was at the house I opened a letter addressed to you.' He took it out of his jacket pocket and gave it to her. 'It's from a doctor in Atlanta.'

The blood drained from her face. She pulled the letter out of the envelope and began to read it. 'Oh, my God,' she whispered.

'You had your tubes tied six weeks before our wedding,' he said. Even now he could hardly believe it.

Tears came to her eyes. 'I didn't want to do it,' she said. 'I had to.'

He recalled what the doctor had said about Elspeth's state - insomnia, loss of weight, sudden crying, depression - and he felt a surge of compassion. His voice fell to a whisper. 'I'm so sorry you've been unhappy,' he said.

'Don't be nice to me, I couldn't stand it'

'Let's go into your office.' He took her arm and led her into the room, closing the door. She went automatically to her desk and sat down, fumbling in her purse for a handkerchief. He got the big chair from behind the boss's desk and pulled it over so that he could sit close to her.

She blew her nose. 'I almost didn't have the operation,' she said. 'It broke my heart.'

He looked carefully at her, trying to be cool and detached. 'I guess they forced you to,' he said. He paused. Her eyes widened. 'The KGB,' he went on, and she stared at him. 'They ordered you to marry me so that you could spy on the space programme, and they made you get sterilized so that you would not have children to divide your loyalties.' He saw a terrible grief in her eyes, and he knew he was right 'Don't lie,' he said quickly. 'I won't believe you.'

'All right,' she said.

She had admitted it. He sat back. It was all over. He felt breathless and bruised, as if he had fallen out of a tree.

'I kept changing my mind,' she said, and tears rolled down her face as she spoke. 'In the morning I'd be determined to do it Then at lunch time. I'd call you on the phone, and you'd say something about a house with a big yard for children to run around in, and I'd make up my mind to defy them. Then, alone in bed at night, I'd think how badly they needed the information I could get if I was married to you, and I'd resolve all over again to do what they wanted.'

You couldn't do both?'

She shook her head. 'As it was I could hardly stand it, loving you and spying on you at the same time. If we'd had children I never could have done it.'

'What made you decide, in the end?'

She sniffed and wiped her face. 'You're not going to believe me. It was Guatemala.' She gave a queer little laugh. 'Those wretched people only wanted schools for their children and a trade union to protect diem and the chance to earn a living. But it would have put a few cents on the price of bananas, and United Fruit didn't want that, so what did the US do? We overthrew their government and put in a fascist puppet I was working for the CIA at the time, so I knew the truth. It made me so angry - that those greedy men in Washington could screw a poor country, and get away with it, and tell lies about it, and have the press tell Americans that it was a revolt by local anti-communists. You'll say it's a strange thing to get emotional about, but I can't tell you how mad I was.'

'Mad enough to do damage to your body.'

'And betray you, and ruin my marriage.' She lifted her head, and a proud look came over her face. 'But what hope is there for the world, if a nation of penniless peasants can't try to climb up out of the mud without being crushed under the jackboot of Uncle Sam? The only thing I regret is denying you children. That was wicked. The rest, I'm proud of.'

He nodded. 'I guess I understand.'

'That's something.' She sighed. 'What are you going to do? Call the FBI?'

'Should I?'

'If you do, I'll end up in the electric chair, like the Rosenbergs.'

He winced as if someone had stabbed him. 'Christ.'

'There's an alternative.'

'What?'

'Let me go. I'll catch the first plane out. I'll go to Paris, Frankfurt, Madrid, anywhere in Europe. From there I can get a flight to Moscow.'

'Is that what you want to do? Live out your days there?'

'Yes.' She gave a wry grin. 'I'm a KGB colonel, you know. I'd never be a colonel in the US.'

'You'd have to go now, immediately,' he said.

'Okay.'

'I'll escort you to the gate, and you'll have to give me your pass so you can't get back in.'

'Okay.'

He. looked at her, trying to imprint her face on his memory. 'I guess this is goodbye.'

She picked up her purse. 'Can I go to the ladies' room first?'

'Of course,' he said.

.

9.30 P. M.

The main scientific purpose of the satellite is to measure cosmic rays, in an experiment designed by Dr James Van Allen of the State University of Iowa. The most important instrument inside it is a Geiger counter.

Elspeth walked out of her office, turned left, passed the door of the ladies' room, and entered Colonel Hide's office.

It was empty.

She closed the door behind her and stood leaning against it, trembling with relief. The office swam in her sight as her eyes filled with tears. The triumph of her life was within her grasp, but she had just ended her marriage to the best man she had ever known; and she was committed to leave the country of her birth and spend the rest of her days in a land she had never seen.

She dosed her eyes and made herself breathe slowly and deeply: one, out, two, out, three, out After a moment she felt better.

She turned the key in the office door. Then she went to the cupboard behind Hide's desk and kneeled in front of the safe. Her hands were shaking. With an effort of will, she made them steady. For some reason she recalled her Latin lessons at school and the proverb Festina lente - hurry slowly.

She repeated the actions Hide had performed when she watched him opening the safe. First she spun the dial four times anticlockwise, stopping at ten. Next she turned it three times in the other direction, stopping at 29. Then she turned it twice anticlockwise, stopping at 14. She tried to turn the handle. It would not move.

She heard footsteps outside, and a woman's voice. The sounds from the corridor seemed unnaturally loud, like noises in a nightmare. But the footsteps receded and the voice faded.

She knew the first number was 10. She dialed it again. The second number could have been 29 or 28. She dialed 28 this time, then 14 again.

The handle still would not turn.

She had tried only two possibilities out of the eight. Her fingers were slippery with sweat, and she. wiped them on the hem of her dress. Next she tried 10, 29, 13, then 10, 28, 13.

She was halfway through the list.

She heard a distant hooter give a warning blast -two shorts and a long, sounded three times in succession. This meant that all personnel should clear the launch-pad area. The launch was an hour away. She glanced involuntarily at the door, then returned her attention to the dial. .