Zero. Part 48

And Lillian, knowing that she had succeeded in bringing the focus of the conversation to her level-her own turf, as it were, where she was as confident as could be-said, "But it did matter, Yvgeny. I have a great deal of pride. I want to be cared about-to be needed. Everyone does. It was terribly painful to be married to a man who was indifferent to me."

He smiled. The effort almost caused his face to crack. "But you had me. You had our affair to come home to."

"Yes. Exactly." She touched his hand again. "With you, I saw everything that I had been missing for years. Going back to my life with Philip after our times together made the substance of my life seem all the more poor."

He was clearly pleased, and he caressed her hands as he often did when they were in bed together.

"It is wonderful to be needed by a man," she said. "Like coming upon an oasis in the midst of a desert. You have saved my life, Yvgeny, quite literally."

Karsk pressed the back of her hand against his lips. "What would Paris be without you?" He smiled. "Getting back to the intelligence you stole from the BITE computer," he said. "Where is the rest of it?"

"I have it," Lillian said, "in a safe place. But don't worry. I have every intention of letting you have it. That was my promise, after all. And I am a woman of my word." She frowned. "However, there must be the proper recompense.

As I have said, this was a long and arduous a.s.signment. The element of risk was-and still is-enormous. But I willingly-one could say almost joyfully-took it on."

"And why?" Karsk said. He was quite dumbfounded. "Are you asking me to believe that you have betrayed your country solely out of a sense of revenge against the men in your life?"

"Solely? What can you possibly mean by that? That the ideals ofMarxism-Leninism are the only things that make being a traitor a worthwhile calling?"

"Very much so. Yes. One only has to remember the ideals that caused the glorious people's revolutions around the world. Remember the books I gave you."

"Oh, I do remember them," she said. "I spent more solitary, sleepless nights than you would believe thinking about them and what they meant. But what I considered was what those ideals meant to me. And my conclusion was that on a certain level there is no difference between the ideology that fuels Was.h.i.+ngton and the Kremlin. Power corrupts, Yvgeny. There was never a truer statement made in the entire history of mankind. And the pursuit of absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is so in Was.h.i.+ngton, no less so in Moscow."

"You're wrong," Karsk said. "Terribly wrong."

"Am I? Let's see. We've only to look at you to prove otherwise. You claim that you are an avid Marxist, a paragon of Russian communism. And I believe you.

Yet you are addicted to the West. Look at what you're wearing: the cream of Parisian couture."

"Because you took me to those boutiques."

"And I suppose I made you buy all the clothes you tried on today. I suppose I paid for them." She shook her head. "No, you loved every minute of it. Just as you adore every minute you are here in Paris. You would rather be here than anywhere else in the world."

"I love Russia," he said, angry at the direction the conversation was taking.

He did not enjoy being on the defensive, and he could not understand how he had been put in this position. "I love Odessa in the spring. I love-"

"Do you know what Henry James wrote about this city?" Lillian said, ignoring his protestations. " 'Paris is the greatest temple ever built to material joys.' And here is where you kneel and pray. Paris is where you wors.h.i.+p, Yvgeny."

"I don't deny that I enjoy it here."

"And what about at home? Do you live in a cramped one-bedroom Moscow apartment, sharing quarters in a building with your fellow workers?" Her eyes were piercing.

"No," he said.

"Of course not. You no doubt live in a building reserved for high party officials. It is in the best neighborhood. You live in an apartment large enough for a family of six. Perhaps you can see the river from your windows.

There is light and air and s.p.a.ce to breathe. Isn't that so?"

"It's accurate enough."

"The paragon of socialism." Her tone was caustic. "The righteous warrior of Lenin." She reached into her handbag, shoved a sheaf of folded papers across the table at him.

"What are these?" He was looking at the papers as if they were a nest of scorpions he had just uncovered.

"What is owed me," Lillian said. "What your country owes me. What you owe me."

"This is nonsense," he said curtly. "You're being willful, childish. Give me the rest of the intelligence."

"I am quite serious," Lillian said. "Do you think that you will get it by the superior force of your masculine will?"

He touched her in a spot he knew she loved.

Her expression was cynical. "Or that I love you so much I will unthinkingly do whatever you ask?"

When he spoke again, his voice had changed. "I don't believe you understand the ultimate seriousness of your actions."

"Don't threaten me, Yvgeny," she said. "I am made of sterner stuff than that.

If you even think of harming me, you'll never get your precious intelligence."

His eyes met hers for a moment, then he drew on a pair of reading gla.s.ses, opened up the papers. There were two sets of three copies each. When he had read the first set through, he raised his gaze. He began to realize that he had seriously underestimated her. "This," he said, "has nothing at all to dowith revenge."

"Revenge," Lillian said, "is the personal side of what I did. This is strictly business."

"So I see." His eyes flicked over the papers. "You want a bit more than asylum in my country."

"As I said, I can't go back to America. Ever. I have the rest of my life. I want to be happy."

He took off his gla.s.ses. "What you want," he said slowly, "is your own department within the KGB. You want, within one year of moving to Moscow, an appointment to the Politburo. This is impossible."

"Nothing," she said, "is impossible. Think of the intelligence you're getting."

"I understand that," Karsk said. "But the Politburo. My G.o.d, there are procedures, discussions that must take place, many individuals who must first give their a.s.sent. There must be a period of, er, adjustment."

"You're talking about the chance that I might be a Trojan horse sent over by the Americans." She laughed. "After everyone in the Politburo gets to read the intelligence that this operation-your operation, Yvgeny-netted, there won't be a doubt left about my authenticity. Think of the sensitivity-the extreme importance-of what I am bringing you. Every hour that you delay gives the Americans that much more time to cover their tracks."

For the first time, Karsk's face registered shock. "What are you saying? Did you bungle the operation? Do the Americans know what you've done? You a.s.sured me that you could access information from the computer without anyone knowing for at least a week."

"That's perfectly true," Lillian said. "But I left an electronic calling card.

The people at BITE don't yet know who stole the Russian intelligence out of their central files, but they sure as h.e.l.l know by now that it's gone."

"Oh my G.o.d." Karsk ran his fingers through his hair. His headache was becoming worse by the moment.

"Sign the agreement," Lillian said. "You have the authority to do so. I know it."

He looked at her.

She nodded. "Yes. I know that. I know everything about you, Yvgeny. Even that you don't have a sister named Mimi. You don't have a sister at all. You used a trained KGB agent to gull me. You weren't sure of me after you fled Tokyo years ago. Yes, it was my call that saved you from Philip and Jonas. But still, you had lost touch with me. Who could know what my ideologies were years later? So you recruited Mimi to sound me out, to lead me back to you."

Karsk was gla.s.sy-eyed. It seemed that he had been out-maneuvered at every turn. "How long have you known that I was using you?"

"From the time I got back to Was.h.i.+ngton after my first meeting with Mimi. It was then that I went into the BITE computer and found you."

He was beginning to think that what she was asking of him was not so outlandish after all. She had a brilliant mind. And she had just proved conclusively that she was eminently well suited to clandestine work.

"All right," he said. He took out a pen, signed the three sets of papers.

Lillian held out her hand. "I'll take two."

"What is the third copy for?" he asked as he handed them over.

"It goes to a numbered bank account in Liechtenstein. Not Switzerland. Lately, the Swiss are becoming sticky about absolute privacy in their banks. If you or any of your people should have second thoughts about our arrangement, there are instructions to send copies of these agreements to every major paper in the world."

He laughed. "That will mean nothing."

She nodded. "On its own, no. But coupled with the evidence I have that you murdered Harold Morten Silvers, colonel in the United States Army, head of the Central Intelligence Group's Far East division, it will have a devastating effect." She thought Karsk was going to be sick. "Yes," she said quietly. "I know. No one else even suspected. But I knew you far better than Philip orJonas could. I knew where you weren't the night Silvers was killed. I also knew where you were. If something happens to me in Moscow, everyone will know.

Then your life will be over. All the gentlemen's rules by which you spies play will be thrown out the window. The Americans will not rest until they have hunted you down and exterminated you."

"But why dwell on such melancholy thoughts?" She nodded at the second set of papers. "There's more."

Karsk slipped on his gla.s.ses again. What he read here took all the breath out of him. His hands were shaking imperceptibly when his gaze met hers again.

"This is monstrous. You can't mean it."

"But I do."

"Why?"

"Do you love her, Yvgeny? Do you love your wife?"

"Of course I do. I am devoted to her."

"That is not the kind of answer I would expect from a bold warrior such as yourself," she said. "It's something I would imagine an accountant or a bank clerk would say."

"It's just the truth, nothing more."

"So," she said, "it means that I have more to mold than merely your sense of style. Sign the doc.u.ment, Yvgeny, and you will have more than just the glory from the largest Soviet espionage coup of the century." She smiled. "You will be divorcing your wife. You will have me."

"But divorce." Karsk had never contemplated such a thing. It seemed unthinkable to uproot his domestic situation so completely. He had thought his lying about his wife would have avoided this kind of crisis. Suddenly, he got a hint of the enormous changes that must be taking place in Lillian's life.

As if reading his mind, she said, "It will be something that we can share. Our affair has been wonderful. Ecstatic, at times. I love Paris as much as you do.

In fact, I found that I loved it more being with you. It didn't matter that we were playing a game. At least, not in that way. The sub-rosa context of our meetings gave our rendezvous an added kick. It certainly provided our lovemaking with spice." Now she took his hands in hers. "The truth is I'm tired of being alone, Yvgeny. I want power, and you're going to give that to me. But will it be enough? I can't fool myself. I wUl have my own department inside the KGB, I will be a member of the Politburo. But I am still a woman, and no man inside Russia is ever likely to let me forget it. Save you. I want you, Yvgeny. You are part of the deal."

"Lillian." Karsk slumped back in his chair. He had spoken her name at last.

"Sign this," she said, "and I'll give you all of the intelligence. Believe me, it's more than worth this price. It's everything you need to utterly destroy the American intelligence community abroad. Sign, and we'll leave Paris as soon as I pick up the rest of the intelligence. We'll disappear for a while.

You'll need time to transcribe the material. It's ma.s.sive, encyclopedic, and I doubt you'll want any clerks to see it at this stage. I know a place where neither your people nor mine will ever find us. In between the work, we'll have time just for ourselves. And then you can take me anywhere you want." She laughed. "Where will it be? Odessa? I have always wanted to see Odessa in the spring."

Michael hurled himself out of the car. He stood in the driving rain, oblivious, staring out at the great cryptomeria that rose above even the roof of the s.h.i.+nto shrine.

Eliane watched him from inside the Nissan. There was no point in following him right away, she knew. He had forced her to throw too much at him in too short a time.

The dark sky opened up and Michael, seeing the pale oyster-gray rift in the charcoal thunderheads, began to cry. It was as if that contrast in colors, the ephemeral beauty that only nature-even in the most unexpected moments-can create, were the trigger. Inside him, his anger, his desperate love for his father coalesced, swirling, emotions of different colors, light and dark likethose he saw displayed before him.

Michael wished with all bis heart that his father were by his side now. There were so many questions he wanted to ask. The shock, the anger at what Philip Doss had done to Lillian was pa.s.sing. And in its place was a sadness, the lost hope that all children born into difficult family situations must feel. That if only they could turn back the clock, they would have the power to make things right between their parents. If only ... If only . . .

He turned and looked at Eliane. All he could see was an outline behind the beaded gla.s.s. The door opened, and she came out. As he watched her walking toward him, Michael felt closer to her than he had to anyone. He felt with a kind of eerie resonance her words, We are the wish and the dream, Michael. We are the future.

"Do you want to talk?" she asked.

"Not now," he said. "Not yet." This was his power spot, as hers had been the pa.s.sage of the G.o.ds in lao Valley. He felt the spirits calling to him.

"Let's get on with it," he said.

There was a set of wide stone steps up which he and Eliane climbed. Above them, a great red-lacquered torii rose, a silent sentinel amid the unquiet morning. On either side, groves of huge cryptomeria swayed and whispered in the wind and the rain. It was as if this part of the world-so near the city, yet centuries removed-were alive with their coming. Thinking of the s.h.i.+ntai in his father's death poem, Michael smiled to himself.

At the top of the steps was a small covered area. He and Eliane were obliged to huddle together in order to make use of the shelter. All about them, the rain plummeted down as if seeking revenge against some unknown sin.

In the center of the shelter was a cord on which were tied several bells.

Michael reached up and pulled the cord, sending the s.h.i.+very sounds out into the countryside.

"Waking up the spirits," Eliane said, "so that they will be sure to hear our prayers."

"This is the s.h.i.+nto shrine," Michael said, "where Tsuyo, my sensei, is buried.

It was to Tsuyo that my father sent me many years ago."

He reached into his pocket, held up the braided cord. "Does it look familiar now?"

Eliane stared at it. Then, slowly, she took it out of Michael's hand, held it up against the s.h.i.+nto bell cord. "They're identical," she said.

Michael nodded. "The priests here make them by hand; this particular braiding is their design."

A bell tolling.

"When I studied with Tsuyo, the priests taught me how to make these. My father knew that; I had given him this as a present one time when he came to visit me here. My father left it for me for a reason. He knew that I would be the only other person to recognize it. Unless you'd seen it before, you'd never know."

The echoes, picking up depth and breadth from the inner s.p.a.ces of the temple, hung in the air.

"Whatever my father stole is here."

The echoes, spreading now, like ripples in a pond.