Summit (17 page)

"Not the same! Not the same!" Gurenko grinned suddenly. "Hey, this is democracy, isn't it? Let's take a vote!"

Hill looked at Sullivan. Sullivan shrugged. "Maybe just for dinner. Keep him in a good mood."

Hill wasn't happy, but he let the majority rule.

They went to a nondescript steak house just down the two-lane state highway. The night was clear and cold; it had snowed recently, and the parking lot was icy. Strings of Christmas lights blinked on and off around the restaurant's pseudo-log-cabin exterior.
This is not where I want to be,
Sullivan thought.

No one else wanted to be there either; the place was almost deserted. It was closing early, and the staff rushed them through their dinner, eager to get rid of the last customers and go home. Gurenko was oblivious to the staff's wishes. He ordered a second bottle of wine and regaled Hill and Sullivan with stories of Soviet incompetence. Sullivan had a couple of glasses, although he wasn't supposed to. Hill had nothing to drink, braving Gurenko's scorn. Finally he called for the check.

"But we have just started the party, Lawrence! Surely you will let me drink to freedom?"

"You can drink back at the house, Anatoly. Everybody wants to go home now."

Gurenko sighed. "I have no home," he mourned, and he finished his glass of wine. But he let himself be led away from the table then, and the relieved busboys and waiters rushed to clean up.

Sullivan was on Gurenko's right as they walked out into the parking lot. The Christmas lights blinked on and off. He hummed "Silent Night" as he searched for the car keys. He thought of Danny opening his presents in the morning; he hoped Maureen would remember to take pictures. It wouldn't be the same, of course. He wondered how Gurenko would feel in a year, alone and useless in an alien land.

He saw a man move in a car twenty feet ahead of them; there was a glint of metal. He reached inside his overcoat for his gun; the metal moved.

And that was the moment when his life changed. All his training had prepared him to respond properly in a situation like this.
Protect Gurenko with your life, boys. My only regret is that I have but one life...
The proper response was, first and foremost, to get in front of the Russian and keep the bullets from reaching him. America wanted Gurenko; America had plenty of Bill Sullivans, just as it had plenty of Officer Daniel Sullivans, and PFC Daniel Sullivan, Jrs. America could survive only by demanding this kind of sacrifice from nobodies like them.

But when the sacrifice was finally demanded, with no time for reflection or preparation, Sullivan dived onto the ice of the parking lot, leaving the Russian—and America—to fend for themselves.

Not entirely. Lawrence Hill was still there, silent and sober, ready to do his job. Gunfire exploded in the cold night air, and bodies fell on top of Sullivan—one, two, knocking the wind out of him, pressing his face into the ice. And Sullivan knew he should do something to help, but all he could think about was the Beanpot, his moment of glory, being crushed to the ice by his delirious teammates while the crowd roared. That seemed a lifetime away now; now there were fewer bodies, but they seemed far heavier, and the ice tasted like ashes in his mouth.

Hill had saved the day. He had pushed Gurenko down onto Sullivan, drawn his gun, and killed the two Russians in the car. Not before some damage was done, however. Gurenko was shot in the leg, Hill in the arm. And Sullivan had sprained his back. He was in the hospital longer than anyone.

Culpepper learned everything, of course. Gurenko was incensed at Sullivan and insisted that he be shot. But this was America, and instead he was quietly transferred to the Directorate of Intelligence, where his cowardice would do no damage. Hill got a medal and a promotion.

The Sullivans had what they wanted, then—a quiet job, Daddy home for the holidays—and inside a year Maureen and Danny were gone, unable to live with a man who was unable to live with himself. Things hadn't gotten any better since.

Glory.
Sullivan wandered through the airport, waiting for his plane. If his father had been given a chance, would he have chosen the glory? It's easy enough to be a hero when you have no choice. Dying is easy; choosing to die—that is the stuff of heroism.

And Sullivan was no hero. He went into the lounge and had a beer. He thought about Danny flying all by himself to Florida, and he prayed that his son would arrive safely.

Chapter 14

After his meeting with Khorashev, Fulton spent a week deciding on his program. Then he began to get ready. He had prepared for so many recitals in his life that the procedure had become almost a ritual; and for this recital the ritual became all-important, a way of avoiding thoughts of sitting down in front of an audience once again, terror tearing at him as he prepared to bare his soul.

He arose at six every morning and ran three miles; a recital requires endurance as well as inspiration. Then he showered, dressed, and ate a breakfast of boiled eggs, toast, and orange juice. After breakfast he did technical exercises at the piano for a couple of hours. Hanon, Czerny, Clementi—it didn't really matter what he played; he just liked the mindless feel of fingers against keyboard, just wanted to reassure himself that all his skills were still in place.

When he wearied of that, he went over to his sofa, closed his eyes, and thought about the music. His thoughts weren't profound. At least, he didn't think they were; he didn't consider himself a brilliant analyst, or a particularly sympathetic prober of the composer's psyche. Like the technical exercises, he simply enjoyed this, enjoyed letting his mind wander through a piece—stopping to consider a measure that caught his fancy, rushing through a passage that bored him, without the effort of actually playing the notes.

Only after lunch did he do that. He didn't have to learn the pieces he was going to play, and he had long since solved the technical issues in all of them. Now he just wanted to see how they felt. Were they any different now that he was older, now that he had stopped playing for three years? Should
Les Adieux's
good-bye be slower and sadder now, the return faster and more joyous? Or the reverse? He would linger for an hour over a few measures, trying them this way and that—not exactly looking for the one right interpretation, just trying to find the limits within which the right interpretation probably existed.

It was all a waste of time, he suspected. Often when he walked on stage he ended up playing a piece in a way he had never dreamed he would play it, because this hall and this audience and this moment seemed to demand a new interpretation, for some reason that he was afraid to analyze too closely. The problem was, he couldn't be sure if this new interpretation would work if he hadn't put in all the days and weeks of labor ahead of time. Maybe the labor was wasted, but maybe it was necessary to get his psyche ready for that moment when the audience quieted and his hands descended, and inspiration had to strike.

And anyway, he enjoyed it. Or thought he did. Or, at least, had been unable to figure out a life he would enjoy more.

Perhaps he enjoyed it because it kept him from thinking about himself.

He stopped punctually at five-thirty. The evenings were for anything but his recital program. In the old days, he would perhaps have gone out with any of the numberless willing women who came his way. He would smile shyly and put on his air of mystery and inaccessibility, and they would fall all over him trying to discover the "real" Daniel Fulton, whoever that was. It was fun, and it was trivial, and he wasn't interested anymore. But he did feel the need for some companionship at the end of the long day. And so he began to look forward to Lawrence Hill's occasional visits.

The two of them had nothing in common, but that was part of what made the visits pleasant. Hill was apparently neither intimidated nor intrigued by him. Hill was the professional in this situation, and Fulton just a frightened amateur, to be stroked and coddled and kept from changing his mind. Fulton liked talking to a spy.

"Our information is that Valentina has a ticket to the reception," Hill told him one evening as they sat out by the bird feeder, swatting mosquitoes. "You should be able to talk to her for a couple of minutes there."

"That's not much time to convince a person to defect."

"No, but it may be enough time to make a date."

"Will they let us go on a date?"

"We hope so. We think so. They have to humor her, and they have no reason to be suspicious of you. They like you."

"So I do the talking about defection on the date?"

"If possible. One or both of you may be bugged, so you'll have to be careful. Try not to be too explicit. If you think there's a chance she'll come, let us know, and we'll take it from there."

"How do I let you know?"

"I'll be at the embassy. I'll arrange for a chat before you return to the States."

Fulton thought about it. "This all sounds rather nebulous," he observed. "I mean, there's nothing very specific for me to do."

"We'd give you a script if we could, but unfortunately life isn't that straightforward. This could be the easiest thing you've ever done, or it could all be a waste of time. We just don't know until we try it."

"Could it be dangerous?"

Hill shrugged. "Anytime you play for high stakes, it can be dangerous. And if we're right, these could be high stakes indeed. But I doubt that there's any danger in talking to her."

"How will you handle the defection, if she agrees to it?"

Hill smiled. "We'll think of something."

Fulton looked at him. He had a feeling that the man was enormously competent at what he did, even though he looked like he was about to fall asleep half the time. He bet Hill had won more than one battle because his enemy underestimated him. "What's it like being a spy?" Fulton asked.

Hill's smile widened. He considered, rubbing his index finger along his jaw. "It's like being a pianist, I guess," he said. "I practice for a while, and then I perform. The difference is, if I perform badly, the critics will kill me. Literally."

"Are you performing now?" Fulton asked.

"Spies are always performing," Hill said with a laugh. "Can't you tell?"

"Not really."

"Then I must be doing a good job."

"I'm sure you are. But I wouldn't have killed you, in any case."

"Then you're not one of my critics." Hill swatted a mosquito and laughed some more.

* * *

And then one day Fulton called Dmitri Khorashev.

"It must be big crisis if my friend actually uses the telephone," the Russian said.

"You got a couple of hours to spare sometime?" Fulton asked.

"Come right away. I can't wait. My breath is bated."

Fulton took the train into the city. He wore only the most minimal of disguises—the standard false mustache and dark glasses—and he gave his real name to the doorman of Khorashev's building. It wasn't exactly a big crisis, but he didn't have the time or the energy to play games today.

"This will sound nothing like real thing, I suppose," Khorashev remarked when Fulton arrived at his apartment.

"I doubt it."

"Then all my criticisms will be pointless."

"You never know. Anyway, I've got to do it."

"Come in then and let me listen."

Fulton followed Khorashev into his studio. He was absurdly nervous. Three years was a long time, and he didn't know what had been lost during it. This was one way to find out. He sat down at the Bosendorfer. "Beethoven and Chopin," he said.

"No Russians?"

"For an encore."

Khorashev nodded. "You're the boss. Whenever you're ready, my friend."

A silent air conditioner cooled the room. The piano's lid was closed; ragged scores were stacked high on it. The
matryoshka
doll stared at Fulton from the crowded bookshelf. Time to begin. Time to find out what he had inside him.

His hands descended onto the keys.

Le-be-wohl.

Les Adieux
sounded, well, all right. As expected, it was nowhere near the real thing; he never lost himself in the music, he never reached the levels to which a real audience could bring him. But it wasn't embarrassing. The interpretation was solid, and he hit only a couple of clinkers, even in the whirlwind final movement. It would do for starters.