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"I might add, sir," said the officer, "that we had networked the entire
American continent to locate the source."
"It failed?"
"No, sir. We located the source, at great risk of manpower. I think the
Americans must have caught about fifteen of our people. The priority was not
safety but success."
"Yes. Good."
"We had cars alerted. Actually, people driving with dishes on their vehicles
once the device was fired."
"That would attract attention."
"That is why we lost so many operatives. But it also enabled us to establish
that the beam was generated just north of the American city of Boston, in an
area of high military and industrial technology."
Zemyatin knew the area. It was a secondary atomic target in the Russian order
of battle, war nuclear. The primaries were the missiles and then came the
bases that created them. The armies, of course, could be ignored, considering
the leadership.
But far from rejoicing, Zemyatin had warned the Russian generals not to
rejoice in American incompetence. If one remembered the Second World War, the
Americans had also been considered incompetent then, and they had won a war on
two seas defeating armies that had had years of preparations.
In the Russian order of battle, American ground forces had been designated as
a low priority. Now, with what he was seeing out of America, they were
suddenly becoming a major priority if there was no great Russian armor to
oppose them.
The test had consisted of fifty new cars, expensive cars, finer than the
Russians could build.
"Within five seconds, Comrade Field Marshal, every one of those cars was
inoperative. Not even the paint was damaged."
"How inoperative?"
"All the electronics had failed."
"Not another mark on them?"
"Not a scratch. But more important, the agent who got this information was
picked up by the Americans. And they questioned him as to what he knew about
it, as though he were the cause."
"Correct deception."
"But that is not all. As you know, America is a commercial country. We
discovered who owned that land, who had bought the cars, and who had paid for
people to attempt to start them."
"Yes."
"Not the military."
"Of course not," said Zemyatin.
"Dummy corporations. We have estimated that it cost them at least three times
as much to disguise who ran the experiment as it did to conduct it."
"CIA." said Zemyatin.
"Of course," said the officer. "Dummy corporations, money without end. Our old
friends."
Zemyatin let out a grunt as though he'd been punched. And then, with a sense
of helplessness he had not felt since he was a boy, said to the young
officer:
"See? I have said it a thousand times. Here it is. You are laughing again at
the American officer corps. You thought their invasion of Grenada was a sloppy
operation. You were so confident. Look at this. Look at what they have done."
"We still have our missiles, Field Marshal," said the young officer.
"Yes. Of course we still have them," Zemyatin said, dismissing him as the
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Premier left the table on the other side of the soundproof one-way mirror. If
the young officer should find out about that missile battery made useless, he
would probably have to be killed along with any of those who had told him.
The Premier entered.
"The officers say the American diagrams are genuine. Absolutely genuine. I
guess we should share with them now what we know about this weapon. After all,
Field Marshal, what is the point of any of us living in a world where we
cannot live? It is a good point that the American millionaire made."
"If he came to you with a bow and arrow, would you take down your pants, bend
over, and spread your cheeks, Premier?" said Zemyatin.
"I am still your Premier."
"They give you their defense arrangements because they don't need them. They
will not matter in the next war. The only thing between us and an American
tank outside these walls is their lack of knowledge of what they can do to our
missiles. That's all."
And then he explained what the Americans had done with the cars.
"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
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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
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