doubt.”
“Well, you may have the opportunity to find out very soon. Unless you cooperate.”
“Yes, of course.” He frowned. “I have to think. You’ve been fairly open with me, Jacob; I’ll return the favor. My first impulse is to say the hell with it and let you deport me—while I’m still not in any serious trouble with you or the KGB. You must see the logic of that.”
I had to admit that I did. “There are a few problems with that course, though,” he continued. “Mainly Valerie. She’d have to learn Russian, the life as well as the language. Very difficult. Also, although I suppose I’m technically a Soviet citizen, I grew up an American and am used to this life. Attached to it.
“Finally, it has belatedly occurred to me that you may not be what you say. You could be a KGB agent investigating my loyalty. The only way I can really test your identity is to force you into some overt action. Like having me deported.”
“No, I can prove that I am who I claim to be.”
“Of course you can—but would that finally prove anything? By your own testimony, the fact that you work for the CIA doesn’t mean you don’t also workfor the KGB. Right? And maybe the British and Belgian and Bolivian secret services as well.” He laughed. “What a complicated world you must inhabit.”
“No, wait. You’re setting up a zero-sum game for yourself. The only way you’ll trust me is for me to perform an act that takes you out of the picture? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“On the contrary, it makes a great deal of sense, if my primary motivation is to protect my own skin. Suppose you
were
a double agent, and I agreed to turn against the KGB. Wouldn’t some assassin with a silenced Uzi come after me?”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“You’re right. They’d make it look like an accident; push me onto the subway tracks.”
“Come on.”
“Inject me with a tiny bead of radioactive thallium. From an umbrella.”
I paused at that. “You must know better.”
“They did that once, didn’t they? I should say ‘we.’ That’s what the newspapers said.”
“Not here. The Soviets haven’t killed an American since 1941, at least not on American soil.”
“Ah.” He was suddenly serious. “But I’m not an American.” He stood up abruptly. “As I say, I have to think. Perhaps I have to screw up my courage and discuss it with Valerie.”
“I could give you a day. Don’t discuss—”
“Two days. I’ll meet you here at noon on Thursday.” He turned and started to walk out, then came back and put two quarters by his cup. “See you Thursday.”
Our tail, Roberta Bender, had been nursing a beer at the counter. She walked out just in front of him. Iwaited for a few minutes to see whether there might have been another tail, a KGB one, but no one else left the diner immediately. Maybe they followed
me
out.
I remembered feeling apprehensive lest he try something suspicious. I didn’t want to lose him; he seemed like a good man, and I felt that working with him would be interesting.
It was going to be more than interesting. Terrifying.
CHAPTER FOUR:
NICK
The first time I used it to kill somebody, it was almost an accident. A mugger.
For nearly five years now, I’ve been wearing a miniaturized signal generator built into my wristwatch, which I “convinced” one of my more gifted students to cobble together for me. I used it a few times, trivially, to make sure it worked, and then more or less forgot about it. I didn’t want to get in the habit of using it for trivial things.
I try to keep my weight down, without dramatic success, by relying on a bicycle for transportation as much as possible. That was how I managed to run into a mugger.
There’d been a reception for a guest speaker at the Institute, and it was almost eleven when I got on my bike and headed home. About halfway, the thing gave a crunch and a lurch and the back wheel locked up. In the dim streetlight I could just discern what