A Matter of Honor Read online

  “Don’t you realize,” continued the General Secretary, “that we had within our grasp the opportunity to turn the very land the Americans use for their early-warning system into a base for our short-range missiles? If it had proved possible to retrieve our icon, it would also have been possible to site those same missiles along a border less than a thousand eight hundred kilometers from Seattle—two thousand eight hundred kilometers from San Francisco—a mere four thousand kilometers from Chicago. Not only could we have made the Americans’ early-warning system redundant, we could have greatly improved our ability to detect any enemy missiles while they were still thousands of kilometers from our nearest border.”

  The General Secretary paused to see if the Chairman of the KGB had any further explanation to offer, but Zaborski kept his eyes fixed on the table in front of him. When Brezhnev began again it was almost in a whisper:

  “And for such a prize we would not have had to sacrifice one life, one rocket, one tank, or even one bullet—because all this was ours by right. But if we fail to locate the Czar’s icon in the next thirty-six hours, we will never be given such a chance again. We will have lost our one opportunity to remove a star from the American flag.”

  Foreign Secretary Gromyko waited until he was certain Brezhnev had completed his statement before he inquired: “If I may ask, Comrade Chairman, why was Major Romanov allowed to continue being involved in such a sensitive operation after it was suspected he had killed”—with this he glanced down at the papers in front of him—“Researcher Petrova?”

  “Because when that situation was drawn to my attention,” replied Zaborski, at last looking up, “I had only seven days left to tomorrow’s deadline, and in my judgment there was no one who could have taken over Romanov’s place at such short notice—”

  There was a timid knock on the door. All the faces round the table showed surprise. The Minister of Defense had given specific orders that no one was to interrupt them.

  “Come,” shouted Brezhnev.

  The great door inched open, and a secretary appeared in the gap. The thin piece of paper in his hand shook, betraying his nervousness. The Minister of Defense waved him in, as Brezhnev had no intention of turning around to see who it was. The secretary walked quickly toward them. As soon as he had deposited the telex on the table he turned and almost ran from the room.

  Brezhnev slowly unfolded his tortoise-shell glasses before picking up the missive. Once he had read through the cable, he looked up at the expectant faces in front of him. “It seems an Englishman left an icon in the Louvre and picked it back up this morning.”

  The blood quickly drained from Zaborski’s face.

  The four ministers around the table all began talking together, until Brezhnev raised the vast palm of his right hand. There was immediate silence. “I intend to continue my plans on the assumption that it will still be us who gets to the Englishman first.”

  Brezhnev turned toward his foreign minister. “Alert all our Western ambassadors to be prepared to brief the foreign ministers of the country in which they reside on the full implications of honoring the amendment to the treaty. Then instruct Anatoly Dobrynin in Washington to demand an official meeting with the Secretary of State for late Monday. At the same time I want a further meeting arranged between our ambassador at the United Nations and U Thant.”

  Gromyko nodded as Brezhnev turned his attention to the Chief of the General Staff. “See that our strategic forces in all zones are put at a state of readiness to coincide with the timing of the announcement of our diplomatic initiative.” Zakharov smiled. The General Secretary finally turned to the Chairman of the KGB. “Do we still have advertising space booked in every major newspaper in the West?”

  “Yes, Comrade General Secretary,” replied Zaborski. “But I cannot be certain they will be willing to print the statement as you have prepared it.”

  “Then pay every one of them in advance,” said Brezhnev. “Few Western editors will withdraw a full-page advertisement when they already have the money in the bank.”

  “But if we then don’t find the icon …” began the Chairman of the KGB.

  “Then your last duty as Chairman of State Security will be to withdraw all the advertisements,” said the General Secretary of the Communist Party.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  ADAM WOUND DOWN the car window and immediately the warm summer air flooded in. He had decided to avoid the main road to Calais in favor of the N1 to Boulogne. He still considered it possible that Romanov would have men watching at every port on the Channel coast although he doubted if Lawrence or the Americans were aware he had escaped.

  Once he had cleared the outskirts of the French capital, he was confident that he could average seventy kilometers an hour the rest of the way. But what he hadn’t anticipated was running into a hundred or more cyclists, garbed in their various stripes of reds, greens, blues, blacks, and golds, bobbing along ahead of him. As he drifted past them Adam was able to check accurately that they were averaging forty miles an hour.

  Having followed the buildup for the forthcoming World Cup in Britain, he was also able to make out the national colors of France, Germany, Italy, and even Portugal. He honked his horn loudly as he passed a group of four men quite near the front, clad in red-white-and-blue T-shirts with the British team van just ahead of them. A few minutes later he had overtaken the leaders and was able to put the car back into fourth gear.

  He switched on the car radio and fiddled around for some time before he tuned in to the Home Service of the BBC. He settled back to listen to the news in English for the first time in days. The usual reports of long strikes, high inflation, and of bad weather holding up the second Test Match at Lord’s almost made him feel he was already back home. And then he nearly swerved off the road and into a tree.

  The news reader reported matter-of-factly that a young RAF pilot had been found dead in a field off the Auxerre/Dijon road after his plane had crashed in mysterious circumstances. No more details were available at the present time. Adam cursed and slammed his fist on the steering wheel at the thought of Alan Banks becoming another victim of Romanov. He tapped the icon and cursed again.

  “It was foolish of you to contact me, young man,” said the old banker. “You’re not exactly a hero of the Soviet Union at the present time.”

  “Listen, old man, I don’t have to be a hero any longer because I may never come back to the Soviet Union.”

  “Be warned: Mother Russia has extremely long fingernails.”

  “And because of my grandfather’s foresight, I can afford to cut them off,” the caller said, touching the gold medallion he wore beneath his shirt. “I just need to be sure you don’t let them know where I keep the scissors.”

  “Why should I remain silent?” asked Poskonov.

  “Because if I haven’t got my hands on Saint George within the next twenty-four hours, I’ll phone again with the details of how you can hope to collect a larger golden handshake than you could have expected from your present employers.” The banker offered no comment.

  The ambassador’s secretary rushed into the room without knocking. “I told you no interruptions,” shouted Romanov, covering the mouthpiece with his hand.

  “But we’ve located Scott.”

  Romanov slammed the phone down. In Moscow, the old Russian banker wound the tape back. Poskonov smiled and listened to Romanov’s words a second time and came to the conclusion that Romanov had left him with only one choice. He booked a flight to Geneva.

  “Robin?”

  “Batman. Where have you got to?”

  “I’m just outside Paris on my way back home,” Adam said. “Are you sticking to the schedule you outlined on the bus?”

  “Sure am. Why, are you still desperate to spending the night with me?”

  “Sure am,” said Adam, mimicking her. “But when do you get back home?”

  “The orchestra is taking the ferry from Dunkerque at six-thirty tonight. Can you join us?”