The Russians contend that, as a prototype, the Perun is not yet a weapons system and does not fall under the provisions of the High Frontier Treaty.
The second clipping was also from the Times and dated May 23, 1995, more than a year later.
St. Petersburg (BNI). Refuting Austrian claims that Russia was systematically flouting the High Frontier Treaty, Minister of Communications Lamanov stated, “The Perun is being developed strictly for research purposes.”
“Research is a convenient fiction,” retorted Austrian Foreign Minister VonBraun. “Last year it was a weapons system of the future. Now it is a research tool. . . .”
The third item in the envelope was a single sheet of paper, on the topof which had been typed a single line: “This might be of interest.” It might have been except it was all in Russian. Then I looked again. A single table had been circled in red, and I didn't need to read Russian to understand it. It was a plot of frequencies, and I knew them all too well.
At that moment, I did swallow. Hard. I'd been wondering why Dietre had sought me out, but I wasn't wondering any longer. Now, I was just scared.
I almost missed the two names at the bottom of the page—also typed in manually. The one I didn't know was Yelensov.
We only had another week in St. Petersburg, and I hadn't the faintest idea of how to deal with what stared me in the face, only that I needed to do something—and still get an oil agreement signed.
“Johan . . . are you all right?”
“No. I'm not.” I handed her the items in the newspaper and watched while she read through them.
Finally, she looked up. “All this, I understand but the chart.”
I bent forward and whispered in her ear, “Ghost formation energy frequencies.”
She turned almost as pale as I felt.
“What will you do?”
“I don't know . . . yet.”
Neither of us said more for several minutes, and I felt absolutely rotten for dropping the Arctic Ocean on her after such a glorious concert, and she didn't know the worst of it.
“Do not . . .” she murmured, kissing my cheek. “It was not you.”
Maybe not, but I felt like I had been the one who'd spoiled the euphoria of her concert.
32
AFTER ALL THE excitement, despite my tiredness, I didn't sleepwell, and I had to do my best not to toss and turn. The size of the bed helped keep me from disturbing Llysette too much, but I was upwell before it even started to get light on Friday morning.
The news summaries did contain a brief mention of the concert; at the end of the summaries were two typed sheets with what were translations of what had appeared in the St. Petersburg papers. I skipped over the comments about the quartet and Thies, except for noting the quartet got polite mentions and Thies was well-received.
Many foreign sopranos have been disappointing when they have performed at the Mariinsky. Last night was no disappointment. It was a triumph for the French-born Columbian soprano Llysette duBoise. Unlike some, she understood she was in Russia, and all but one of the works on her program were by Russian composers, although she sang several in French. Even so, her Russian was close to flawless . . .
I shook my head. Llysette would agonize over the phrase “close to flawless.”
. . . and her delivery, soul, and musicianshipbeyond compare. Those at her performance left the concert wishing she were Russian. So did this listener. The great Russian soprano Arkhipova claimed that the Mariinsky would not see the equal of duBoise for decades, if not generations. From what was heard last night, she may be right.
That brought a smile. Of course, Arkhipova was right. How often was there a singer who was a diva from two generations with the soul of two great singers?
The second review was similar, except it noted that her encore performance of the Gershwin piece was also a treat.
After that, I almost didn't frown at the headline in the Times of London: austria closes persian gulf. The story was straightforward enough. Ferdinand was claiming that New France and Columbia had closed the Caribbean to international shipping to protect their energy supplies, and Austria was forced to do the same.
I sighed and looked into the darkness outside the window that was fading into gray.
As Llysette peered into the tiny kitchen, I couldn't help smiling. I stood and thrust the translated reviews at her. “They thought that it would be generations before another singer like you came to the Mariinsky.”
“Johan . . . it is early. That good, they could not be.”
I poured a cup of tea for her as she read through the reviews.
“My Russian . . . I told you . . . it was not good enough.”
“ ‘Close to flawless’ is outstanding for less than six weeks of preparation in a foreign language.”
“You are kind.” She sat down at the small table and sipped the tea. “Irina said she would come this afternoon to work on the Russian phrasing with us. I will be better tomorrow night. Terese has a small recorder, and we will record. That way, I can recall the phrasing when we return to Columbia.”
“You'll sing them again?”
“Mais oui.”
“Just remember,” I said gently, “my beautiful and talented diva, that you have conquered two national capitals.”
“Not yet,” she replied with a smile. “After Saturday . . . we shall see.”
“You are a skeptic.”
“I am hungry.”
So we cleaned up, dressed quickly, and went down and caught the last of breakfast.
After that, we went back to our quarters, but I was there only long enough to gather my overcoat and gloves. I had some more sightseeing in mind, if of a particular nature, but I needed to check a few more items. The last thing I did was make sure I had fresh batteries in the calculator that was more than a calculator, before I slipped it into my side coat pocket. The projector pens went into my shirt pocket, beside the more bulbous special pen, and a couple of spare batteries.
Then, overcoat folded on my arm, I went to find Commander Madley. He was in the conference room, reading a sheaf of papers. After alerting him, we went to Christian's office. The younger man was looking over exit visas at his desk.
“Yes, sir?” asked Christian.
“I have a request of you two. I need to see if either of you can find out anything about a man named Viktor Yelensov.”
Madley stiffened.
“I see you know of him.”
“If . . . if he's the same man, there is a Viktor Yelensov who is considered one of the . . . he's very involved in the rocketry projects.”
“The Perun work?”
“I can't say, sir.”
Madley had already said enough.
“He's a payload or warhead specialist then. Otherwise, you could have said more, because they used all the Goddard work for propulsion systems.”
“Sir . . . I really can't say.” Madley screwed uphis mouth. “His degrees are in physics, and he's written papers that have been published on electrical wave theories and ELF propagation propensities.”
I managed to keepmy reaction to a nod. “Outside my field, clearly. You can comment on that, can't you?”
“As far as I know, sir, Viktor Yelensov has nothing to do with either energy or environmental efforts.”
“That's all I need to know.” I pursed my lips. “I still have to wonder . . .” Then I shook my head. “Christian . . . could you check and see if there's anything in the past news clips or summaries about him, particularly about energy-related matters. There may not be, but I need to know that.”
Madley frowned but didn't offer anything else.
“While you're checking that out, I need a moment with Colonel Sudwerth.”
Madley didn't relax a moment with that, and I'd thought he would. All he said, almost stiffly, was, “I'll see if I can helpChristian, sir.”
“I won't be very long, I'm sure. That's if the colonel's even around.”
Colonel Sudwerth was sta
nding in the doorway of his small office.
The last thing I wanted was to be behind closed doors with the colonel at the moment. So I stopped and asked, as innocently as I could, “Colonel, you have some understanding of the situation in which I find myself, I trust? After a week, I still find very little happening.”
“Minister Eschbach, attempting to work out anything quickly in Russia is time-consuming and frustrating.”
“It also leads one into strange places,” I mused.
“The ambassador has noticed that,” said Sudwerth. “He mentioned that there was an explosion right after you left the Senate Square, where I understood you were sightseeing.”
“I'd always wanted to see the Bronze Horseman, and we had a few minutes between appointments. I understand there was a Septembrist there. I gather we were both lucky and unlucky.”
“A few minutes later, and you might have been another of the ghosts of St. Petersburg, Minister Eschbach.”
“Lucky, as I said.” I looked at Sudwerth. “Have you ever heard the name Viktor Yelensov?”
“It's not the most common of names.”
I could tell. He'd heard the name. “I'd asked Christian and Commander Madley to see if they could find out anything about him, but they couldn't find anyone like that in the environmental area. Or in dealing with energy. His name was passed to me, but I don't know why. It's certainly not a name I've run across, and it wasn't in my briefing materials. Someone suggested I even should meet the man, but I don't have any idea why.”
“That name didn't come upas any of those Darwaard asked me to check out,” mused Sudwerth. “I can look and let you know. If I find him, would you like a meeting?”
“I suppose so. I would hate to tell the Speaker that I had overlooked anything.”
“I'll see what I can do.”
“Thank you very much, Colonel.”
I hadn't retraced my route back toward Christian's office more than a half dozen steps when I saw him turn the corner and walk toward me, followed by an embassy guard with a folded sheet of paper.
“Sir, there's a gentleman here, waiting outside. He asked me to give this to you.”
I looked at the paper and read it quickly.
“Was nearby. Do you have time for tea at the café in the next block?”
There was a signature, and a “G” after it.
“Christian . . . if you'd keeplooking for Yelensov. I'll be back in an hour or so.”
“Sir?”
“An old friend. I didn't expect to see him, and this is the only time we can talk. I'll be back. Don't worry.”
I left him standing there. The story wouldn't hold uplonger than a few minutes, but that didn't matter, so long as I got out of the embassy quickly.
After trotting down the steps from the second floor, I walked out the business door of the embassy, into the wind, and fastened my coat, then pulled on my gloves. Under a gray sky that seemed to be lowering, it was colder out than it had looked. I patted my side pocket in a passing way, ensuring the calculator was still there.
I was headed toward the Nevsky Prospekt when Gorofsky walked upbeside me. He wore a plain black overcoat, although he had a uniform on beneath.
“So good to see you, Minister Eschbach. You will not be here that much longer in St. Petersburg, and I did want to have that talk about evaluating excellence. It is a problem here, but one that cannot be discussed among peers.”
“I can see that. It appears that all too many of those in the upper ranks of the imperial government have, shall we say, ties to the tzar.”
“It has been that way for four centuries, starting with the Tolstois and the Miloslavskys. One must work with it, as one can.” He pointed to a glass-fronted door and a narrow glass window. “I said it was not far.”
I entered first, with a certain trepidation. The café was small—only six or seven tables—and barely ten feet wide and twenty deep. The tables were of polished wood, without any coverings, and the chairs were the solid straight-backed armless wooden kind—battered and nicked. There were two white-bearded men in heavy gray overcoats—military greatcoats stripped of braid and insignia. They sat at one corner table, hunched over steaming cups.
Gorofsky led me to the other corner table, gestured to the man standing in front of a curtained arch, and said something in Russian. The man vanished. “I ordered tea. You do not mind?”
“Tea is fine.”
“Before he died, my father used to come here.”
“Was he a military man?”
“Many of us have been. The first General Brusilov was my great-great-uncle, and he understood men and how to use them. He told my father that the most important thing was to show strength of will, not when matters were going well, but when they were going badly.” Gorofsky took a sipof the tea. “Matters are going badly, and few will admit it. Matters are not going well in Columbia, and few there will admit it either, I hear.”
“That could be.” I laughed gently. “In a democracy, one must not alarm the people unduly, because they immediately blame those who sound the alarms. I suspect that in a tzardom, the same is true, except one must worry not about the people, but the tzar.”
“There is always someone.” Gorofsky shook his long-faced head morosely, then smiled as the waiter set two huge mugs of tea on the table. “But you are here.”
I took a sipof the tea, welcome after even one long block of walking through a chill wind. I glanced out through the window, noticing that the day had darkened and that fine white flakes of snow had begun to drift down.
“Your wife, she is magnificent.”
“She is.”
“It is a pity that she would not have come here, were not matters so . . . unsettled.” He laughed. “We understand the politics of Columbia. A man like you, who knows what must be done, he is never sent unless they see no other way.”
“Does all of St. Petersburg know that?”
He shook his head. “A few. Pyotr Romanov suspects. Colonel General Kaselov knows, but can do nothing and will say less. Director Yelensov thinks you are a politician and beneath notice.”
I wanted to ask about Yelensov, but decided to let Gorofsky tell it his way—with a little prompting. “You seemed to indicate that too much technology, especially fantastic technology, might be more of a curse than a blessing.”
“That is when it is used wrongly.” He cocked his head. “I am getting to be an old military man, and once I was a young pilot. You are a senior minister, and once you were a young pilot and a hero.” He waved off my disclaimer before I could make it. “I think we might see matters in the same way. It is an ill-kept secret that the Austrians have a device that turns soldiers into zombies. It is a slightly better kept secret that we have the basics of that technology. You know both, or we would not be having tea together. Someone got the idea of trying to developthat device in an untried way along with two other unperfected technological innovations. There is a great deal of the War Ministry's funding that will go into building something.” The marshal snorted. “If it works, it will not reach most of the Austrian troops, and it will give the Austrians the provocation to launch heavy bombers that we do not have enough interceptors to stop. If it does not work, then roubles that could have been spent on working technology will be wasted, and Russia will be weaker.”
“I assume that the director was that someone. That could be a problem. Can you do anything about it?”
Gorofsky shrugged. “If the project director were removed, discredited, almost anything, something might be possible. If anyone in the Air Corps acted first, then it would be perceived as professional jealousy and spite. The tzar discourages in-fighting, often with exile, sometimes with executions.”
“And the arguments you've just presented would be regarded as excuses? That is, if you acted first?”
“That is true.”
“Hmmm . . .” I took another small swallow of the tea, actually finding it not too bad, despite its strength and the lack of sugar. “I
can see your problem. It would also seem that, theoretically, you understand, that should anything happen to this director, not much would change. He has a team. . . .”
Gorofsky snorted again. “He has a team. They are lackeys, and he has not shared the information with anyone. They say he has not written any of it down so that no one will dare remove him.”
Perhaps occupational paranoia might actually be helpful. I took another sipof tea. “The man who introduced us . . . he told you?”
“Only what the device was. I had to find out the rest.”
I nodded. “All I can say is that I will look into the matter.” I wasn't about to promise anything in public with a man I'd never met before the previous evening.
“I will do what I can . . . but it would be better . . . if the first action were taken by others . . . second steps are also necessary.”
I understood that, as well. I just didn't know if Gorofsky happened to be mostly trustworthy, partly trustworthy, or totally untrustworthy. “I can tell it's important, and I will look into it.”
“That is all I can ask of you.” He took a long swallow and finished his tea, setting a bill on the table. “The tea is mine.” Then he stood.
“Thank you. Will I see you at the Winter Palace?” I stood.
“No.” He laughed. “I am not family. Do tell your wife that I hope she can return and sing for all of us again.”
“I will.”
Outside, he walked south and then west, and I headed back to the embassy, thinking . . . and worrying a great deal, especially about just how many players there were. So far, without digging that deeply, I'd discovered at least five.
33
WALKING BACK TO the embassy through the wind that remained gusty and chill, with the fine-falling snow that feathered away from my boots with every step, I was definitely grateful for my heavy overcoat and the lined black leather gloves. It was only a bit after eleven, which surprised me, when I walked into the rear courtyard of the embassy.
Ghost of the White Nights Page 28
