The Threat (15 page)

“I don't even know what ‘legacy components' are,” Dan said. “Maybe Dr. Sola'll bounce back by tomorrow.”

“Umberto's dying. The only reason he came is because this is more important to him than his comfort, maybe his life. I can't do it, I'm on another panel. The White House is on board with this push, isn't it?”

Dan said unwillingly, “Well, yeah. But I—”

“So you'll sit in? I have some papers you can read tonight. To get familiar with the various alternatives.”

Dan thought that over, making sure he was covering not just his own druthers but his direction from the assistant national security adviser. Gelzinis had told him the administration policy was to push hard on both threat reduction and further arms reductions. Reducing the weapons the other side held would give the president chips to keep trimming the defense budget. “If that's what you need me to do.”

“Our official stance, State favors return of all weapons still held by the successor states to the USSR. I mean, the CIS. But you don't have to say much. Just be there, and fix the little U.S. flag in front of you so it comes out clear in the pictures. Can you do that?”

“I guess so,” he told her. “On one condition.”

“Which is?”

“Find me a cup of coffee.”

She looked taken aback, then put out. But at last muttered, “I'll see what I can do.”

*   *   *

That evening he and Blair finally got away. Neither to the Hermitage nor the Naval Museum, but a reception at Petrodvorets. Peter the Great's “Great Palace” lay west of the city, on a range of low hills overlooking the sea. As their limo trailed its headlights down the coast road he could see out in the black the distant twinkle of Kronstadt, a Russian and then a Soviet and now a Russian naval base again. He thought of all the neglected, poorly guarded reactors over there and shivered.

He was going to have to look intelligent tomorrow, at a mike with some very savvy people. He'd barely had time to glance over the studies and monographs. “Legacy” systems were nuclear and missile components stranded in the various republics when the Soviet tide had receded. Those in the earliest states to go—Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia—had been pulled back in good order. Those in the “Bubbastans,” State-speak for the Muslim-populated republics, had not. Which was where the device that had devastated
Horn
had probably come from, according to the findings of the board of inquiry.

“You're quiet,” Blair said.

“So are you.” She was wrapped in a heavy coat. He put his arm around her in the backseat. “Do any good today?”

“Maybe we did.”

She told him about her committee meeting, on tactical nuclear weapons. He was about to say he'd be on display tomorrow when the heavy Chaika wheeled uphill and there was the palace, a kilometer of shimmering light: windows, arches, cornices, balustrades, cascades, fountains, statuary groups. As the car glided to a stop soldiers sprang forward to open their doors.

*   *   *

He was in uniform: the formal white gloves, blue short jacket, white shirt with studs, bow tie, gold cummerbund, and high-waisted trousers of mess dress blue. He left his cap with a bowing soldier on the way into the Chesme Hall. He patted Blair's arm and said to stay put, he'd get the drinks.

But as he'd started to notice, in Russia no one drank anything nonalcoholic. Finally he talked one of the soldier waiters into opening a bottle of
voda gazifie
. He took Blair her wine and found her deep in conversation; she accepted the glass without looking at him.

Taking the hint, he circled off on squeaky parquet, sipping the sparkling water as he inspected huge paintings of forgotten battles hung so high it pinched his neck to look up at them. Each canvas was huge enough to serve as the topsail of one of those long-vanished men-of-war.

He felt both out of place and perfectly at ease. It was like a formal dance in Memorial Hall at Annapolis. He slipped among diplomats, officers, consular personnel and their elegantly dressed ladies. A few even of what he guessed were the new
biznessmen
. Larissa was speaking rapidly with her flat expression to a man in gray. Solas, looking cadaverous, sat in a carved chair with his back to a painted door as another elder statesman gesticulated.

A group of soldiers in 1945-ish baggy uniforms and high boots took center stage, singing Red Army songs that the Russians roared out along with them. Gradually, like diffusing isotopes, the guests parted into separate groups. He found himself near a group in the dark blue naval-style uniforms of their respective countries. Englishmen, Dutch, many Russians. A Britisher was drawling out a tale of sailing the Baltic in the seventies when Dan felt a tug on his sleeve. He turned to confront an unfamiliar face, a shock of blond hair.

“I think I know you. No?”

Dan studied him. Slavic cheekbones, clear blue eyes. Buttoned-tight formal blues.

“Gaponenko. Grigory Vasileyevich. And you are … Lenson, no? Lenson. Daniel, right?” He pronounced it
Den-yell
. “Ten years ago now. No, more. I was captain lieutenant then.
Politruk,
on
Razytelny
.”

Dan remembered then. Recalling a leaky, sinking skiff bobbing in the blue clear of the Windward Passage, and a shape pushing up under the topaz haze of turbine exhaust. The reluctantly recognized silhouette of a Krivak-class destroyer.

“Den-yell. Yes? You recall me now?”

He said he did, and they pumped hands with more warmth than had been present, Dan thought, when Gaponenko's frigate had pulled him out of the water after a night of hurricane seas. He wondered if the Cuban woman and her baby had ever made it to shore.

Gaponenko was chattering away in a lubricated amalgam of languages. He told Dan he was a
polkovnik kapitan
now, captain first class. When Dan told him where he worked now, Gaponenko's eyes widened. “
T'chort vozmi!
The White House? I am much impressed. Hey, you have ‘dark eyes' with me.”

Dan had a lot of trouble convincing him he didn't want one, he didn't drink anymore. Finally the Russian desisted, though he went on marveling at how young Dan looked. “
Americanyets,
they don't age like us. Especially the women. Oh, you see that over there? Look at that fucking blonde. How fucks-able, no? How old you think she is?”

“That's my wife,” Dan said. Blair was wearing a deceptively casual silk ensemble. The blouse was black and the pants were sheer, with lace cutouts at midthigh and silver heels with starbursts of glittering gems. Her hair was up; simple but elegant turquoise earrings played off her eyes. Her skin glowed like vanilla ice cream beneath the ruddy spectrum of the chandeliers, and an admiring circle surrounded her as she laughed, almost spilling her wine.

“
Sik'in sin!
She is your wife? You are damn lucky sailor.”

“That's true,” Dan said.

A soldier held out a tray of vodkas, brandies, sliced cheese and sausage, and caviar. Gaponenko grabbed greedily. Dan rubbed his mouth, smelling the booze up close.

“You here for conference? What you think of our average Russian house?” His former captor hooted, waving his glass at the masonry and chandeliers and architecture.

“Very impressive.”

“Germans destroyed it all. What could not evacuate, they destroyed. Blew up palace. Blew up hydraulic works. Melted statues. What you see here”—he swept a paw, and Dan saw he was quite drunk—“twenty years, but we build all again. Did you
Americanyets
really think we wanted another war?”

“You were building a lot of missiles, too.”

“Ah, only defend, only defend. Russians peace-loving people. There's my boss. Let's go meet my boss.”

Grabbed around the neck, Dan was dragged willy-nilly into a ring that lurched unevenly to let him in. All as bombed as Gaponenko. The “boss” had three stars on his shoulder boards. Gaponenko called him
viz admiralya
. Dan caught his own name. Their eyes snapped to his when Gaponenko said,
“On naznatye na White House tep'yer.”
The boss—Yermakov—asked something. Gaponenko replied placatingly, but it didn't seem to work. He shook his head at Dan, looking chastened.

“So, you think you have defeated us,” the admiral said. He didn't sound happy.

“I think both sides have defeated war,” Dan said.

The other officers guffawed when this was translated. But they sounded hostile. He was beginning to think this wasn't a good idea when Yermakov snagged his sleeve. Dragged him close, and said in English better than Gaponenko's, “You think you have defeated us. That there is only one great power now. But alone, you will become everyone's target. This is the dialectic of history.”

“We'll be smart enough to tread lightly. But I don't want to argue with you, sir.”

“Don't want to argue? Then listen! De Bari thinks he can threaten Russia. Make us destroy arms. Well. You can tell your people this president will not be so for long.
Then
we will step back into the light. Regain all we lost. We will not bow. We will restore the might of our armed services. Tell that to your people, so they do not make further mistakes.”

Dan was confused until he realized that by “this president” the three-star must mean not De Bari, but Yeltsin. An aide put a restraining hand on the admiral's arm. The senior officer shook it off. Raised his voice. “He will not be there! It is us you will have to deal with. You will learn this soon.”

Gaponenko pulled him away. “The
viz admiralya
is very potted,” he said. “Too much
khanyahk o eysse
. Sorry to subject you to such no-culture behavior.”

Dan said that was all right, but the captain begged Dan not to report the conversation. He didn't want his boss to get in trouble. Dan nodded, half agreeing, and Gaponenko, looking worried, moved off.

*   *   *

He caught up to Blair and pried the hopefuls off her. It was getting late. But they were in one of the great palaces of the world. “Let's go for a walk,” he pressed her. “See the gardens.”

“It's awfully cold out there.” But at last he got her into her coat.

They walked beside a long pool, drained except for black ice at the bottom. The fountains were shrouded with canvas. The sea wind breathed of the imminence of Russian winter. He looked up and halted, watching gauzy draperies of delicate light ripple against the unwinking stars.

“The aurora,” she said, and he made out her face, upturned, just barely visible in the unearthly fire.

After a time he said, “I just had an interesting conversation.”

They walked on, the wind buffeting them as he told her about it. “That sounds like something you should report,” she said.

“I don't think so. Some disappointed admiral shooting his mouth off?”

Blair said she meant the reactions of the younger officers, the colonel types, when he'd threatened Yeltsin. “There've been rumors. Some of the bureaucrats are trying to persuade the generals to turn back the clock. Restore their privileges. That's why I'm not sure De Bari's going in the right direction, trying to downsize.”

He blinked. “That's administration policy, isn't it?”

“Just because it's policy doesn't mean I don't have my doubts. Gerry Edwards thinks maybe it'd be better to wait a few years, make sure they've really changed.”

“The veep? I hear he's kind of out of step with the rest of the party.”

“He's out on the right wing, if there is a right wing. But that doesn't necessarily mean he's wrong.”

Dan wasn't really paying attention. He slipped his hand under heavy cloth, discovered within a velvet warmth. He nuzzled her ear. “Let's go back to the hotel.”

“You feel like it?”

“Yeah.”

“Really?”

“Well, we have to try to find out.”

“I don't mean just that,” she said quietly. “I've been trying to bring this up for a while.”

“What does that mean?”

“The worse things get, the less you say. Maybe that's good at sea, but between two people, it's counterproductive.”

“Guilty.”

“It's not funny. We don't have much time together. When we do, and I try to talk about something important, you dismiss it or change the subject. As if you're embarrassed. Or don't really care.” She looked out over the darkness. “I guess I'm just losing my illusions about us. And that's not easy to deal with.”

That hurt. “What's
important
to me is you and Nan, and my duty to my country and the people I lead. Those are my priorities. If you're talking about my career again, that comes out at around item five or six. It's just not that all-fucking-important to me.”

“You think it's easy trying to close bases? Keep the machine running on less and less money, and the brass fighting me every step of the way? But since what happened on your ship … you're someplace else. I've tried to not add to your problems. But there's something going on I don't understand.”

He wanted to punch the stone wall. She didn't understand
at all
. “I'm just trying to
hold myself together,
Blair. I have to control what I think, what I say. I feel guilty. I feel angry. If I just let it all hang out—”

“I'm trying to allow for that. I know you're trying not to take the drugs, and I respect that. And I guess not being able to … get it up, can't be that great for a guy. Though obviously I have no idea. I certainly won't find out from
you
.”

“You want to dissolve the partnership, fucking tell me. Okay? I don't want to be the last one to know.”

“Yeah—you sound angry now. At least that's real.”

“It's all
real
. It's just that it's not stuff you have to chew over and over.”