Pavel Meer gave a sigh for his yesteryears. “A beautiful romp, Rocks. I can only envy you. Well, let’s get down to cases. The papers will cost you ten grand.”
“Ten! Holy smog, Meer, I can buy an authentic Swiss passport, absolutely authentic, for two hundred dollars.”
“You need more than a passport to get into Island One as a space colonist or contract worker. I know Island One better than you do, scammer. The whole ten thou doesn’t go to me. Not by a damn sight. The grease job goes all the way from New Albuquerque to Island One. I wind up with less than half of it.”
“How sure is it?”
“Sure. That project is being milked every way from the middle. This is just one of the smaller rackets, a sideline so to speak, but there are no glitches.” The artist got the tequila bottle and replenished their glasses.
“Okay,” Rick said, shrugging acceptance. “Let’s start it going. The sooner I get completely out of sight, the better. Interpol must have half their force on my trail.” He took up his refilled glass.
The older man opened a drawer beneath one of the bookshelves and brought forth a pad and pencil. He said, “How good’s this Rick Venner moniker?”
“A-l. My Dossier Complete, in the American National Data Banks, is absolutely McCoy. I’ve been working on this cover for ten years, just in case.”
The other began making notes. “Great. Got any education?”
“I took a degree in engineering when I was a kid. It’s all in the data banks. Electrical engineer.”
“Well, hell, Rocks, that’s perfect. This’ll be a cinch. Ever do any work?”
“No. In this day of computers and automation? Nine people out of ten up in the States are on Negative Income Tax.”
“I can fake some experience. Could your training be applied to electrical engineering in construction work?”
“I suppose so.”
They spent approximately an hour while Pavel Meer got the information he needed.
Toward the end of that time he said, “You’re not going to be able to take that shooter with you, you know.”
Rick sighed and brought the 7.65 mm Gyrojet from its rig beneath his left shoulder. “I didn’t expect to,” he said. “You want it?”
“Hell, no. Ditch it somewhere. I’m clean here in Mexico. This is the best cover a penman ever had. I can buy engraving equipment. I can buy any kind of ink or paper. Nobody blinks an eye. I’m an engraver and a lithographer, as well as a painter. But I don’t want a shooter in the house. You never know.”
Rick returned the gun to its holster. “All right, I’ll ditch it. What else?”
“Do you have an American Universal Credit Card?”
“No. That’s why I have to stay in countries that still use currency. Like Mexico.”
“Okay. I’ll do you up one, but it’ll be for identification only. When you go up to New Albuquerque, you’ll buy your passage here with pesos. You won’t be able to make a single dollar purchase with your credit card in the States. If you tried, they’d be on you before the hour was out.”
“I know that,” Rick said impatiently. “How do I get from the New Albuquerque airport to the space shuttle base? I suppose that’s where I have to go.”
“That’s right,” the artist told him. “You’ll have to hitchhike or something. Once there, your papers will read that you were hired in New York. You’ll have your health examinations and all. You don’t have any disease, do you? Especially syph or clap?”
“Hell no. Do I look stupid?”
“You’ll be having various physical examinations at the base. They’ll keep you there for about a month in a training course before you’re shipped out. Keep a low profile. Avoid getting into conversations with electrical construction engineers, or any field-related people. Among other things, they’ll teach you Esperanto in a crash course.”
“Esperanto?”
“That’s right. The International language. One of the eggheads who first dreamed up the Lagrange Five Project realized that there’d be a multitude of different nationalities in space, so he suggested that all colonists be given courses in basic French, basic German, even basic Japanese. He didn’t have the imagination to come up with the obvious answer. Train everybody in one international language.”
Rick said, “Look, if I have to stay at the space shuttle port for a whole month, how am I going to do without an American Universal Credit Card? I couldn’t buy a beer or a stick of gum without one.”
“As soon as you’re on the base, you go on the Lagrange Five Corporation payroll. They issue you a special credit card of their own. No problem.”
“Wizard. Another question. As soon as I get up there to Island One, they’ll spot me as a phony. It was nearly fifteen years ago I took that engineer’s degree. That’s a long time the way technology goes these days. I wouldn’t know a fuse from a power pack. They’d grab me by the scruff of the neck and ship me back.”
The other shook his head and chuckled. He scratched his thinning beard with a thumbnail and said, “That’s where we’ll fox them. Your papers will read that your field is construction—deep-water rigs, bridges, skyscrapers, that sort of thing. In short, the kind of work they’d put you on at Island One would be construction out in space. But the first day they suit you up to go outside the Island, you take one of the pills I’ll give you. As soon as you get out into space you’ll get deathly sick. You’ll vomit, you’ll shit in your pants, you’ll stream cold sweat. So they’ll haul you back in. It’s not too uncommon a reaction on first being exposed to deep space. So, great; after a couple of days of rest, they’ll suit you up again for another try. But you’ll have taken another pill. They’ll try three or four times before they give up. But you’ll simply turn out to be allergic to space, so to speak.”
“Sounds great,” Rick said sarcastically. “Especially that part about loading my pants. But then they’ll ship me back to Earth.”
Meer shook his head again. “No, they won’t. They’re too short-handed up there, and they’ll have paid your freight. Hardly anyone ever comes back from Lagrange Five.” He scowled, his moist eyes puzzled. “It’s kind of strange. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of an ordinary construction colonist coming back. Some of the big mucky mucks, yes. The project directors, the security men, the big scientists and so forth, but not the rank and file. They all sign up for a five-year contract or more, but since the very early days, when they were building the moon base and getting the construction shack out to Lagrange Five, typically the workers don’t come back.”
“They must like it up there.”
“Perhaps. Besides, they don’t get their king-size bonus unless they stick out at least a full five years. At any rate, that’s where you’ll have to start finagling. You’ll have to get yourself some job, preferably nothing to do with electrical engineering. You’ll have to play it by ear. Wind up working in the community kitchens, or something.”
“Holy Ultimate,” Rick said. “I’ve never worked in my life. I’m a grifter born.”
The other fixed his eyes on him. “Believe me, for the next five years, you work, chum-pal. You’ve picked the best thing in the way of going to ground in the solar system, but you’ll work up there, like everybody else, or your cover is blown.”
Rick Venner gestured with both hands in resignation.
Meer said, “Where’s your luggage?”
“At the bus station.”
“You’d better get it and move in here with me. I’ve got a spare room. It’s just as well you not be seen on the streets in San Miguel. Somebody might make you. There are a lot of gringos here in this art colony, and a lot of tourists going through.”
“There are damn few people who know me…anywhere.”
“You never know, Rocks. Let’s play it safe. It’ll take me three or four days to do everything I’ve got to do. You’d best lie low. Now, the ten thousand. Your taw is in pesos, I assume.”
“Yeah.” Rick shrugged out of his jacket, pulled out his s
hirttail, and unzipped the money belt. He opened one of its compartments and began counting out five-thousand-peso notes.
“Ten thousand dollars,” he muttered. “What’s that in pesos?”
The artist figured it out with his pencil on his notepad and told him.
Rick said, “How about double or nothing? We’ll toss for it.”
The other favored him with a look more negative than any headshake.
Rick shrugged and handed over the high-denomination notes, returned the money belt to its place about his waist, and rearranged his clothes.
He came to his feet saying, “I’ll go get my bag.”
* * * *
It was about a month later that Octoviana answered the door and returned to the library where Pavel Meer was seated, peering through granny glasses at a volume of sketches by Leonardo da Vinci. Two strangers followed her.
They were well dressed in conservative fashion, approximately forty years of age, and absolutely empty of expression.
The artist looked up above the glasses. Pavel Meer was not a young man and he was old in his profession. He knew the type.
The first of the two made a minute gesture with his head.
Meer said in Spanish, “That will be all, Octoviana.”
The cute little criada disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.
Without invitation, the two strangers seated themselves.
The first one said, very evenly, his voice that of an Ivy League graduate, save for the use of one term, “You were warned. No more lammisters sent to Lagrange Five, Penman.”
There was trepidation in the old eyes. The artist said, “I know, but…well, it was Rocks Weil. He’s talent.”
“Shit,” the other said. “Rocks Weil got it in a shootout with the French flics six months ago in Nice. He was trying to heist some countess’s emeralds.”
“That’s what the flics said. It wasn’t Rocks.”
“It doesn’t make any difference. We don’t care if it was Jimmy Valentine or Jesse James. We don’t want any more grifters on the run in Island One or on Luna or anywhere else in space.”
The artist said quickly, “Look, boys, I’m an old man. I’ve been building up my taw for years. I’ve got a little over a hundred thou. You know, for my retirement. It’s all yours. I’ve got it stashed right here in the house.”
The second of the two looked at him with amusement.
The first said, “What do we look like, a couple of cheap punks? You’ve been messing around on the sidelines of a really big operation, Penman. Way out of your league. Your operation irritates some of the biggies. Now, what’s the name of the stupid bastard on the Island end of your penny-ante game?”
“I don’t know,” Meer said. An old man he was. A small-time operator in most eyes he might be. But Pavel Meer was no fink. However, he added, in a hopeless defense, “It wasn’t necessary that I know.”
“Who was handling it at the shuttleport in New Albuquerque?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“Then I’ll tell you. It was Monk Ravelle, the silly cunt. It seems as though Monk is no longer with us.”
The second of the two brought a small-caliber Beretta from an inner pocket, brought forth from a jacket pocket a device that looked like a small muffler. He screwed it onto the end of the pistol’s barrel, his face holding no more expression than it had held when they had first entered.
Pavel Meer licked his lips. He was no coward, but on the other hand, he was an aged man and no longer brave to the point of not fearing death.
The first one said, “Nothing personal, Penman, but you were warned. Do you have somebody you’d like us to write to? Any last business, a will, or anything like that?”
“I have a son I haven’t seen for fifteen years,” the artist said, a tremor in his feminine voice.
The spokesman of the two motioned with his head in the direction of the desk.
Pavel Meer got up wearily and went to it. He took up a pen and brought a sheet of paper from a desk drawer. He thought for a moment and slowly began to write.
The second of the two, gun in hand, came up behind him and shot him twice in the back of the skull. The silenced weapon made no more sound than spat.
The other stood as well and made a motion with his head in the direction of the kitchen.
The gunman went through the dining room and disappeared through the door that led to the right.
There was the beginning of a scream, in the midst of three more spats, and then silence. The second of the two returned, unscrewing the silencer from his weapon. It was only a .22.
The first one said, “Let’s get going. It’s a long drive back to Mexico City.”
Chapter Two
“…the end of the 1970s will see the beginning of Russia’s manned Moon program. Cosmonauts will explore the lunar surface and set up their own bases. Would Americans concede the Moon to the Soviets? Neil Armstrong planted the American flag there. Would the country accept the fact that the only men on the Moon speak Russian? Science and engineering follow, not lead, political considerations. And the space politics of 1980 will compel our return to the Moon.”
—Captain James E. Oberg, USAF,
specialist in Astronautics.
*
Leonard Suvorov, Leon to his few intimates, was a compulsive eater. Not a glutton, since sheer tonnage did not interest him; nor a gourmet, since he had neither the time nor patience to devote to becoming a real connoisseur of the art of haute cuisine. Perhaps gourmand would be the term. Whatever, a lover of good food Leonard Suvorov most certainly was. If nothing else, his stocky figure gave credence to that, not to speak of the shine that came to his blue Slavic eyes upon being presented with a superlative dish. He was perhaps fifty, and the endless hours spent in the sedentary occupation of the scholar had led already to middle-aged spread, thinning of his reddish hair, and weakening of eyes to the point of his affecting anachronistic pince-nez glasses.
Right now, Leonard Suvorov was playing hooky. On his way to an international conference on bionomics to be held in Vienna, he had sidetracked for a few hours to put down in Prague. His motivation? The black beer and hot Slovakian sausages that were available nowhere else in the world save the U Fleka, at 11183 Kremencova, in the capital of Czechoslovakia. Given the caramel-dark brew, which had been made on the premises of the ex-monastery since 1499, and the unique spicy hot sausage of the establishment, paradise could wait, so far as Suvorov was concerned.
His order placed, he sat in anticipation in the spacious garden, admiring the medieval motif, including murals of peasant scenes, and the exuberant efforts of a troupe of Bohemian folk dancers and musicians. He sat alone at one of the smaller, heavy wooden tables, the evening still young. In an hour or so, he knew, the place would be crowded, the community tables jammed with beer-swigging revelers. The thirteen-percent brew came in heavy mugs, none smaller than one liter. A bibber could actually, if he wished, order steins as large as three liters, the better part of a gallon.
The plump, blonde, peasant-dressed girl came, beamed hospitably at the foreigner, and placed before him a plate with one huge sausage, a jar of mustard, a plate of toasted garlic bread, and his stein, creamy head slightly overflowing.
He sighed and set to, Vienna far from his mind.
A stranger slipped into the chair opposite him. There was no call for being annoyed; all vacant seats at the U Fleka were fair game. Leonard Suvorov didn’t even bother to look up.
The stranger took a leather folder from his inner coat pocket, opened it, and politely pushed it across the table for inspection.
He said, once again politely, “Colonel Vladimir Dzhurayev, Comrade Academician.”
Leonard Suvorov took in the identification less than happily. Not that he had anything to fear, save his sausage cooling.
He said emptily, “Of the Chrezvychaitiaya Komissiya—in short, the Cheka. I was of the opinion, Colonel, that the Cheka had been dissolved some decades ago, even befor
e that unspeakable monster Yezhov superintended the great purges. My memories of the Cheka are not fond ones, Comrade. Ai, ai, but they are not.”
The other looked rather young to be a colonel in the Soviet ultra-secret police. Efficient looking, yes, with perhaps a touch of ruthlessness. The scar he affected on his left cheek, running down to the side of his mouth, could easily have been removed by cosmetic surgery in this day and age; evidently, he valued it.
He said now, with all due respect in his voice, “The Komissiya was never truly dissolved, Comrade Academician. You might say that it went underground in the face of popular disgust at that period some named Yezhovshchina, the same period in which your illustrious grandfather, Alexei Suvorov, the right arm of Lenin, uh, disappeared into Stalin’s Lefortovo Prison.”
Suvorov said harshly, “He was rehabilitated under Khrushchev and his remains are now in the Kremlin wall with the rest of the Old Bolsheviks.”
“Of course, Comrade,” the counterespionage officer said hurriedly. “Nor has there ever been any question about the loyalty of your esteemed father, nor of yourself, so far as the Party is concerned. You are a third-generation Party member and without doubt might even be a candidate member of the Central Committee, were your efforts not so appreciated elsewhere.”
Suvorov grunted at that. He took a bite of the sausage, a bite of the garlic bread, rolled his eyes upward in appreciation, and washed the food down with a lusty swig of the black beer.
“What do you wish, Colonel?” he said grudgingly. “I must admit I am somewhat surprised to be accosted here by a high-ranking officer of your evidently phoenix-like organization.”
The colonel said, “I had intended to meet you in Vienna, Comrade, and was surprised to find you had interrupted your trip with this stopover in Prague.”
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