Summit (23 page)

"Yes, the curse of public service," Winn said, without suggesting that Poole give up the vice. He puffed on his pipe. "Have you been following the Peace Festival?"

"Yes, sir. Of course."

"The bastard Grigoriev agreed to our demand for a reduction in Warsaw Pact forces."

"So I noticed."

"The
Times
and the
Post
both ran editorials today saying that the last remaining obstacle to an arms-reduction treaty had been removed."

"Not quite true, sir. The major obstacle still remains—the fact that we can't trust the Soviets. And no amount of speeches and concessions by Grigoriev is going to change that fact."

Winn stared at him in that appraising way of his, judging the merits of Poole's argument and, more important, of Poole himself. The president liked to think he was a good judge of character, Poole knew. If you were sure of a man's character, it was easier to judge his arguments. "Do you really think Grigoriev is lying?" Winn asked.

"I don't know. But if Grigoriev thinks the treaty is to
his
advantage, we better look damned hard at it to make sure it's to
our
advantage. I think the areas of mutual benefit are narrower than the editorial writers like to believe." Poole was continually surprised at how shallow Winn's convictions were. It seemed at times as if Winn believed mostly in competence—which was admirable, but only if the competence was in pursuit of an admirable goal. So the task of an adviser was to help Winn correctly define his goals.

"But if we don't agree to a treaty," Winn remarked, "the editorial writers—and Congress—will have our scalps. Expectations are getting pretty high for this summit."

"That's because we're losing the PR war. Grigoriev has all the media over in Moscow covering his festival, while we just sit back and do nothing but look like imperialist warmongers."

"It's difficult to come out against peace."

"But it's not difficult to come out against Soviet aggression and lies, sir."

Winn smiled. "You're a tough guy, Colonel."

"I'm just being realistic, sir. It's a tough world."

The music had stopped, and Winn's pipe had gone out. He tapped the ashes into the ashtray next to his recliner. "It certainly is," Winn said. "Go home to your family, Colonel, and relax a little."

"Yes, sir." Poole stood up. "By the way, Mr. President, I should keep you up-to-date about an operation that the CIA has started in relation to the Peace Festival."

Winn waved him silent. "Go home, Tom. I'll catch up on that stuff some other time."

"Yes, sir."

Poole's moments at the center of power were over for the day. He left the Oval Office and, disobeying his commander in chief, went back to work at the Executive Office Building. There was simply too much to be done. After a couple of hours of poring over the CIA material, he changed into his jogging clothes, put his digital pulse-taking watch on his left wrist, and headed out to run the worries of the day into oblivion.

Jogging through the nighttime capital was not perhaps the safest form of exercise Poole could have chosen, but he didn't worry; he was completely capable of taking care of any muggers. It was only as he raced through the dark streets that he allowed himself to think about himself, about his past and his future and the choices he had made for himself. This seemed like a weakness, because the choices, having been made, were irrevocable, and therefore the thinking was wasted. But somehow he knew that he needed to do this, or else there might be consequences that he refused to think about at all.

And when his thinking was done, he ended up in Lafayette Square, where he stopped his running and did his stretches while he stared at the floodlit White House across Pennsylvania Avenue. It was a short walk from there to his car, and then a short ride to his suburban home; he didn't bother to change.

His home, as always, was quiet and safe. His family, as usual, was asleep. The twins were both scrunched up in strange positions, caught in the furious dreams of childhood. He kissed them each on the forehead. In the next room, his wife lay on her side, breathing softly. He kissed her too, and she responded, mumbling something unintelligible and reaching out to him. He pulled himself gently away and went into the bathroom, where he took his sweaty clothes off, stepped into the shower, and washed away all his thoughts.

Chapter 21

Fulton slept fitfully and dreamed of music, surrounding him, drowning him. He was bathed in Beethoven, showered with Chopin. And through it all he saw Valentina Borisova coming toward him out of the darkness, a single rose in her hands, her gray eyes wide with hope. But she couldn't get past the music. "Come to America with me!" he shouted, but the music was too loud. He saw her hope turn to despair, and when she started to disappear, they both screamed.

And he awoke to Russian sunshine.

* * *

Irina was waiting for him in the lobby.

"I won't need you today," he said.

"Oh, but Mr. Fulton, we have a full schedule planned, and you will need an interpreter."

"I'm not doing what you've scheduled, and I don't need an interpreter. Even Grigoriev said it was okay to skip your events. Sorry."

Irina looked worried. She blinked several times behind her thick glasses, then glanced quickly around the small lobby, as if to check if anyone was there grading her performance. "But these are very wonderful events, Mr. Fulton. Meeting our young pianists at the conservatory, visiting Tchaikovsky's house in Klin—"

Fulton shook his head. "Please tell your bosses I'm exhausted and can't go. Now if you'll—"

"But Mr. Fulton, I must insist on accompanying you in any case."

She was desperate now. Fulton was unmoved. "Try it, and I'll tell the KGB you were pestering me to help you defect." Her despair turned to horror. Fulton didn't care. He glanced at his watch; it was a few minutes after eleven. He walked out of the hotel into a gaggle of waiting fans, who cheered when they saw him. He stopped to sign a few autographs, then looked past the fans to the entrance of the Marx Prospekt metro station.

Valentina was standing there, alone. He made his way through the crowd to her. She was wearing faded Calvin Klein jeans and a powder blue jersey. Her arms were folded tight on her chest. No rose this time. She looked smaller and more real than she had the night before. "Thank you for coming," he said.

"I wasn't sure you had said it, afterward," she replied. "I thought perhaps, perhaps—"

"Perhaps you had dreamed it?"

She nodded.

"It was real," he said. "This is real." He noticed a couple of fans approaching. "Let's get away from here."

"I have a car parked over on Gorky Street. I thought we might—we might go to my dacha. Unless, that is..." She closed her eyes. "I don't know what you want," she said finally.

"I want to go to your dacha, Valentina." He took her by the arm and led her away from the hotel. They walked in silence for a couple of minutes until she stopped by a little red car and unlocked it. "You've come up in the world," he remarked as they got in. "How did you manage to afford an automobile and a dacha?"

"I have a position. With the government."

"Congratulations. How far away is your dacha?"

"About an hour's drive."

"Then you're planning to take the day off. You must have an understanding boss."

Valentina started the car and pulled out into traffic. "Very understanding," she murmured.

"Ah." He wondered if they would be followed. It seemed likely, but he supposed there was nothing they could do about it. He wondered why he was acting this way toward her. Because he was nervous, he supposed—as nervous as she certainly appeared to be. He was nervous not only, and not even mostly, because of his secret mission.

He and Valentina had met before. He was certain that no one knew this. He had been worried in that meeting at CIA headquarters that somehow they had found out, that they knew everything; but they had given no hint of it, and he convinced himself later that they couldn't know. He hadn't told anyone, and he was sure that Valentina would have kept it a secret too. And back then, no one was likely to have been following either of them. The CIA simply knew about Valentina's attraction to him; they didn't have any idea about his feelings toward her.

It had been a strange meeting—as strange, in its own way, as this one. Strange enough to stay in his memory for three long years. Powerful enough to draw him back to Moscow, for a chance to finish what had been begun.

He gazed at her. Wisps of blond hair on her neck waved in the breeze as she made her way through the city streets. Her arms were tanned, her knuckles white as she gripped the wheel. She was an impatient, quick-tempered driver, and that only added to his nervousness. "Why do you drive so fast?" he asked.

She shrugged. "We all drive too last here. It's one way of being lawless in the midst of all the laws."

"You have never fit in well with all the laws, have you?"

Valentina shook her head. "Never," she whispered.

He continued to gaze at her. "But music has no laws, right?"

She looked over at him, and smiled.

* * *

Three long years.
It had been the greatest triumph in a triumphant career. The greatest, because
he
had felt it as well as the audience. Unlike the performance last night, everything had flowed perfectly from the moment he had stepped onto the stage of the Great Hall. He was at one with the audience, with the music, with the universe. The audience had been a little reserved at the beginning, withholding judgment on the flashy American pianist. But the Mozart sonata removed all doubts about his musicianship, and the
Appassionata
swept away all doubts about his soul. And by the end of the recital they were in a frenzy that might have been frightening if he hadn't been in a frenzy himself. Where had this power come from? Why didn't playing the piano always feel this good? He wanted to play all night, but he knew enough to end it after four encores, before the power disappeared.

Afterward, he threw up as usual in the dressing room, then ate his salad and drank his milk. Then he made his way through the fans to the limousine for the short ride back to the National Hotel. The ruby stars on the Kremlin towers seemed almost magically beautiful in the clear night air. Life could not have been any better.

But life goes on. There were more fans outside the hotel. He signed a few autographs, and then went inside. The lobby was deserted; no one stayed out this late. He took the elevator upstairs, got his key from the floor-lady, and went to his empty, silent room. It didn't take him long to realize that he wasn't going to sleep that night. Other nights there were parties and women to make the excitement last; tonight there were only his memories. He paced for an hour or so, then gave it up and left the room.

The floor-lady was not happy that he was going out. She scolded him in Russian until he finally just walked away from her. The sleepy doorman was also unwilling to let him leave, but a few rubles changed his attitude. Fulton stepped out into the Moscow night.

It was absurdly quiet—the huge square outside the hotel was almost deserted, the traffic sounds were at most a distant hiss. He thought about what it would be like in New York at the same hour; this was a different world.

And then someone stepped toward him out of the darkness, out of this different world. She had been standing by the metro entrance, so motionless that he hadn't noticed her in the darkness. She was wearing a cloth coat and a kerchief. Her features were thinner and more delicate than the average Russian he had seen; her eyes were wide and gray. Her face was pretty, but she was wearing too much makeup. His first thought was that she was a prostitute, but he had a vague idea that there was no prostitution in Russia—or at least, that's what the Soviets claimed. More important, she didn't look like a prostitute. She looked—well, lost.

And she was holding a rose.

But then almost instantaneously the lost expression disappeared, replaced by a knowing smile that seemed out of place on her face. "Mr. Fulton," she said in English. "I was hoping you might come out of your hotel."

She offered him the rose. He took it silently.