Project Daedalus Read online

PARTY OFFICIAL SOUGHT IN DISAPPEARANCE OF FUNDS

  MOSCOW, Mar. 18-The Central Committee today lodged formal charges against a CPSU official, Viktor Fedorovich Volodin, First Secretary of the oblast of Sakhalin, in connection with his alleged embezzlement of government funds and subsequent disappearance.

  The island of Sakhalin, together with the Kuril Islands, is an administrative district in the far eastern region of the Soviet Federated Socialist Republics. Since being taken from Japan in 1945, the southern Sakhalin oblast has been closed to all Western visitors. The island is said to have a major military airfield at Dolinsk and a naval base at Korsakov facing La Perouse Strait, the only year-round passage between Soviet warm-water ports in Asia and the North Pacific. It is an economically and strategically vital part of the Soviet Far East, with the only oil fields in the eastern regions.

  The amount embezzled is reported at twenty million rubles, which would make Party Secretary Volodin responsible for the largest outright theft of state monies in the history of the Soviet Union . . .

  Vance looked up. "The home team at play. Some ministry shell game, probably. Little budget scam. What's it got to do with you?"

  "My friend, this thing is no game." Novosty crumpled his cup. In his other hand, the cigarette remained unlit. "I was . . . involved. Of course, I didn't know then. But if Dzerzhinsky Square finds out I stupidly let myself be-" He flicked his black Italian lighter, then inhaled. "KGB will post me to Yakutsk piece by piece. In very small boxes."

  Vance stared into his dark eyes, trying to gauge the truth. None of it added up. "Alex, you're one of the sharpest guys in the business. So, assuming this is straight, why in hell would you let yourself even get close to it? The thing had to be some internal play."

  For a moment the bearded man said nothing, merely smoked quietly on his cigarette. The sun was beginning to illuminate the cloud bank in the east, harbinger of the midday Athens shower. "Perhaps I . . . yes, it was an unknown, but what is life without unknowns? The job looked simple, Michael. I just had to launder it. Easy enough. Of course, if I had realized . . ." Again his voice trailed into the morning haze.

  "So what's the inside story?"

  Novosty drew once more on his cigarette. Finally he spoke. "All right. The number of twenty million rubles? Of course it's 'disinformation.' Typical. The real amount, naturally, is classified. There is even a formal directive, signed by Chief, First Directorate Gribanov."

  "Guess KGB still has enough clout to write the rules."

  "The old ways die hard. They, and the military, are fighting a rearguard action to protect their turf-just as your CIA and the U.S. Department of Defense are doing now. Which is why they are so concerned about this. If they don't get to the bottom of it, they will once again be proved incompetent . . . as well as over-funded." He scratched at his beard. "More to the point, this operation went around them. That's a very bad precedent, if you understand what I'm saying. And the money, Michael, was almost three times what they admitted. In dollars it was over a hundred million."

  "Nice chunk of change." Vance whistled quietly.

  "Even now, though, I have to admit it was brilliant. Flawless. Viktor Fedorovich Volodin, first secretary of the State Committee for Sakhalin, Far Eastern District, got authority signed off, got his passport stamped vyezdnye, or suitable for travel, and then wired the sixty million rubles not to the district, but to the state bank of Poland, with instructions for conversion. A lot of money, yes, but it was not unprecedented. And he did it late Friday, around two in the afternoon, after all the nomenklatura had left for their weekend dachas. By Monday morning he was in Warsaw, to clarify the 'mistake.' Next the money was sent to my old bank connection in Sophia . . . by then, of course, it's zlotis . . . I just assumed it was something KGB wanted laundered." He paused. "They claim sometimes things have to be handled outside the nomenklatura, to avoid the paperwork bottleneck."

  "So how much did you end up cleaning?"

  "All of it," he sighed. "I converted it to deutsche marks, then bought pounds sterling and used those to acquire British gilts, the long-term government bonds. They're currently parked in a dummy account at Moscow Narodny Bank, in London." The momentary lilt drained from his voice. "But now, now what can I do? The funds are just sitting there, waiting. But if I show up and try to wire them out, I'm probably as good as dead."

  "'The man who's tired of London is tired of life.'"

  "Michael, the moment I'm seen in London, I may not have a life. I think KGB already suspects I was somehow connected. If they find me, they will turn me into sausages. I'm trapped. You've got to help me move it again, make the trail just disappear." He tossed away his cigarette and immediately reached into his overcoat for another.

  "Seems to me the first thing you ought to do is try and locate Comrade Volodin. Maybe let a couple of your boys have a small heart-to-heart with him. Little socialist realism. Give him some incentive to straighten it out himself."

  "Michael, first directorate is already combing the toilets of the world for him. He's vanished. The ministry of defense, and the GRU-"

  "The military secret service."

  "Exactly. The minute either of them finds him, the man's a corpse." He shrugged, eyes narrowing. "If I don't find him first."

  Vance listened, wondering. "That's a very touching story. You could almost set it to music. Only trouble is, the punch line's missing. There's got to be more-too much money's involved. So who else is in on this? South Africa? Israel? Angola?"

  "What do you mean? I've told you everything I know. Volodin, the bastard, used me as part of his swindle. But now he's lost his nerve and run, disappeared, and left me to face-"

  "Sure, that's all there is to it." He cut in, laughing. "Incidentally, you take your standard cut up front? Back at the beginning?"

  "Michael, please, I am a businessman. Of course. The usual percentage. But now-"

  "Like you say, it's a problem."

  He turned to stub out his cigarette. "A nightmare. Think about it. A hundred million dollars U.S. That's starting to be real money, even for the USSR. Not even the czars ever managed to steal so much."

  Vance looked him over. Novosty was telling the story backward, inside out. "Look, whenever somebody gives me only half a setup, I just-"

  "Michael, no one knows better than you all the ways money can be moved in this world. Those funds must be made to just vanish from London, then reappear another place with no trail. I have already arranged for a bank, far away. After that the money can be returned, anonymously. What other solution is there?" He hesitated painfully. "You know, I have no friends I have not bought-the definition of a tragic life. But I remember you always were a man who kept his word. I can trust you. Besides, where else can I turn?"

  "Alex, forget it. I've already got all the fun I can handle." Vance sipped his coffee, now down to the black grounds and undissolved sugar. It was both bitter and sweet, contradictory sensations against his tongue.

  Just like Novosty's tale, part truth and part lie. Alex had no intention of returning the money, for chrisake. He was probably in the scam with Volodin. And now the hounds were baying. The main problem was, who were the hounds?

  "Michael, do us both a favor. Help me move it." He pressed. "I'll take care of the rest. And I'll even give you half the two million that was my commission. Just take it. Gold. Tax free. It's yours. You'll be set for life. All you have to do is arrange to transfer the money to another bank I will tell you. I have an account already waiting, everything, but I can't do it myself. They're too close to me."

  A million dollars, he thought. Christ, with that you could pay off the four hundred thousand mortgage on the boats, free and clear. You'd also be helping Alex out of a jam, and the man looked like he could use all the help he could get. He stared out toward the encircling mountains, now swathed in fleecy clouds. . . .

  No. The deal had too many unknowns. The whole point of working for yourself was you could pick and choose your jobs. If you ever started going
with the highest bidder, you were a fool. Guys who did that didn't last in this business.

  "Afraid I'll have to pass. There're plenty of other . . ."

  That was when he absently glanced down at the early sun glinting off the windows of Athens. In the parking lot below, a tan, late-model Audi had just pulled in. He watched as it idled. "Incidentally," he said as he thumbed at the car, "friends of yours? More art lovers?"

  Novosty took one look and stopped cold.

  "Michael, I'm sorry, I really must be going. But . . . perhaps you might wish to stay here for a few more minutes. Enjoy the women. . . . Though I hear you like them better in the flesh. . . ." He reached into his breast pocket. "Think about what I've said. And in the meantime, you should have this." He handed over a gray envelope. "It's the original authorization I received from Volodin . . . when he transferred the funds to the bank in Sophia."

  "Look, I'm not-"

  "Please, just take it. Incidentally, it probably means nothing, but there's a corporate name there. I originally assumed it was KGB's cover. Who knows. . . ." He continued to urge the envelope into Vance's hand. "I've written the London information you will need on the back. The account at Narodny, everything." He was turning. "Be reasonable, my friend. We can help each other, maybe more than you realize."

  "Hold on." Vance was opening the envelope. Then he lifted out a folded page, blue. "Good name for a dummy front. Nice mythic ring."

  "What . . .?" Novosty glanced back. "Ah, yes. From the old story."

  "Daedalus."

  "Yes, everything about this is a fiction. I realize that now. Of course The Daedalus Corporation does not exist." He paused. "Like you say, it's just a myth."

  Vance was examining the sheet, an ice blue reflecting the early light. Almost luminous. Something about it was very strange. Then he massaged it with his fingertips.

  It wasn't paper. Instead it was some sort of synthetic composition, smooth like silicon.

  Saying nothing, he turned away and extracted a booklet of hotel matches. He struck one, cupped it against the light wind, and with a quick motion touched the flame to the lower corner of the sheet.

  The fire made no mark. So his hunch was right. The "paper" was heat resistant.

  When he held it up, to examine it against the early sun, he noticed there was a "watermark," ever so faint, an opaque symbol that covered the entire page. It was so large he hadn't seen it at first; it could have been reflections in the paper. He stared a second before he recognized-

  "Talk to me." He whirled around. "The truth, for a change. Do you know where I'm headed this afternoon?"

  "I confess my people did obtain your itinerary, Michael. But only in order to-"

  "When?"

  "Only yesterday."

  "That was after you got your hands on this, right?"

  "Of course. I just told you. That was the original authorization."

  "The Daedalus Corporation?"

  "That name is only a myth. Nothing but paper." He began walking briskly down the steps next to the Temple of Athena Nike, the Sacred Way, toward his black limousine in the parking lot. "We will finish this later. The final arrangements. I will be in touch."

  Vance watched as the black limo backed around and quickly headed toward the avenue. After a few moments, the tan Audi slowly pulled out of the parking lot to follow.

  He turned back to look at the temples, sorting through the story. Somebody in this world, this Daedalus Corporation or whomever it represented, had a hundred million dollars coming, dollars now all nicely laundered and ready to go. What did it add up to?

  In years past Alex Novosty had moved money with total impunity. So why would he turn up in Athens, bearing an elaborate and patently bogus story, begging for help? It couldn't be for the boys back at Dzerzhinsky Square in Moscow. They never went outside with their own problems. Besides, they cleaned money all the time.

  Somebody, somewhere, was pulling a fast one.

  Don't touch it, he told himself. For once in your life just walk away. It's got to be hot. Bad news all around. Just forget it and go on to Crete.

  He could hardly wait. Eva Borodin was meeting him there; a decade-late reunion after all the stormy water under the bridge. Or was it going to be a rematch? Whichever, that was going to be a scene. He had vague hopes they might put together a rerun of years past, only this time with a happy ending.

  Still mulling over the pieces of Novosty's puzzle, he turned and headed for the northwest edge of the Acropolis. In the distance stood the ring of mountains that once served as Athens's natural fortress: Parnes, mantled in dark forests of fir; the marble face of Pentelikon; Hymettus, legendary haunt of the honeybee; Aigaleos, its noble twin crests rising up to greet the early sun. And directly below lay the excavated ruins of the ancient Agora, the city center where Socrates once misled the youth of Greece, teaching them to think.

  Now Vance needed to think. . . .

  Remembering it all later, he realized he'd been in precisely the wrong place to actually witness the accident. He just heard it-the screech of rubber, the sickening crunch of metal. He'd raced to look, but the intersection below was already a carpet of flame.

  What had happened? There was a gasoline truck, short and bulky, wheels spinning in the air, its hood crumpled against the remains of an automobile.

  He strained to see. Which was it? Alex's limo? The tan Audi?

  Then came the explosion, blotting out everything, an immense orange ball that seemed to roll upward into the morning sky like an emerging sun.

  Wednesday 8:23 a.m.

  Viktor Fedorovich Volodin was amazed he'd managed to make his way this far, from the fiery intersection at the base of the Acropolis all the way down Leoforos Amalias, without his frayed facade of calm completely disintegrating. He bit his lip, using the pain to hold back the panic. Traffic on the avenue was backed up as far as he could see, and firemen were still trying to reach the charred remains of the truck. On his right, the new Zapio conference center and its geometric gardens were shrouded in smoke.

  He scarcely noticed. Breathing was impossible anyway, since the diesel fumes of the bus settled in through its broken windows and drove out all oxygen.

  How had it come to this? He'd spent his entire life in the party apparatus of Sakhalin, rubber-stamping idiotic economic plans concocted in Moscow, trying to survive the infighting and intrigue of the oblast's State Committee. Then one day a personal aide of none other than the president, Mikhail Sergeevich himself, had secretly made an offer that sounded too good to be true. Help transfer some funds, do it for the Motherland. . . .

  It would be simple. KGB would never know.

  Nobody told him he'd be stepping into a nightmare. And now his worst fears had come true. To see your driver crushed alive, only inches away, then watch him incinerated. They were closing in.

  Fsyo kanula ve vyechnost, he thought, kak ve prizrachnoy skazke. Everything is gone now, like a fairy tale.

  He crouched down in the torn plastic seat as the ancient city bus bumped and coughed its way into the center of Syntagma Square. Around him were packed the usual morning commuters gripping briefcases and lunch bags, cursing the delays and blaming the incompetents in Parliament. The air was rank with sweat.

  Finally the vehicle shuddered to a halt. End of the line. He rose, trembling, and worked his way to the forward exit, then dropped off. As his feet touched down on the warm pavement, he quickly glanced right and left, searching the crowded midmorning street for any telltale signs that he'd been followed.

  There was nobody, he concluded with relief. The milling Greeks didn't seem to notice he was there, or care. They were too busy complaining about the traffic, the smog, the latest round of inflation. Business as usual in Athens, the timeless city. This place, he told himself, should have been the perfect location to hide, to just disappear. Novosty was supposed to handle the final delivery.

  Maybe the crash had been an accident. Fate. Sud'ba. Things happened that way.

 
He was sweating heavily now, whether from fear or the early morning sun he wasn't sure. Already it was a nascent ball of fire in the east, promising to bake the asphalt of the square by noon.

  He stepped over the curb and onto the sidewalk. The outdoor cafes were all thronged with workers and tourists having a quick coffee before taking on the city this spring day. He felt his knees tremble slightly and realized he only wanted to collapse. Any table would do. Just melt into the crowd, he told himself, then nothing can happen. Nichevo nye sluchitsya.

  He wiped at his brow and settled nervously into the first empty chair, plastic and dirty, hoping to look like just another tourist. The cafe, he noted, was Papaspyrou, in front of the American Express office. Perfect. Above all else, he wanted to pass for an American. But he was still trying to get it right. How did they look?

  "Elleniko kafe, my friend? Greek coffee?"

  He jumped at the sound of the voice over his shoulder, seizing the side of the table.

  The voice was speaking English, he finally realized. Maybe he did look American!

  It was an accident, he kept telling himself. The truck couldn't have-Relax. Novosty made the arrangement with the American, didn't he? You saw him hand over the letter. Now the trail will just vanish. KGB will never be able to stop it.

  He turned, casually flashed an empty smile for the small, gray-haired waiter standing behind him, tray in hand, white towel over the sleeve of his tailored but frayed brown suit.

  "Sure, thanks."

  You're better every day, he told himself. You're even starting to get the accent right now. Keep working on it. The twang. And learn to saunter. The shoulders. Americans walk looser, swing their arms, seem not to have a care in the world. Learn to slouch. Act like you own the world, even if you no longer do.

  He'd been secretly practicing for weeks, getting ready to disappear after his part was over. Of course, he'd originally planned to go back home afterward. But that was before he had a taste of this. The good life, the freedom. For that matter, maybe he'd go to America. Why not? He'd heard how it worked. Defection, so the stories went, could be very rewarding. They'd open the golden gates for him at Langley.

  The tiny cup of murky black coffee appeared in front of him, together with the usual glass of tepid water. He reached for the water eagerly and drank it down. Something, anything, to moisten the cotton in his mouth.

  There, that was better. Now the hard part: something to quiet his mind.

  The cup rattled against the saucer as he gingerly picked it up. He could still see the cab of the truck coming out of nowhere, hurtling down on them, still feel the horror. Odd, but he couldn't remember anyone at the wheel. He wanted a face, but none was there.

  His own driver, the Afghanistan veteran Grigor Yanovich, had tried to swerve, but he hadn't been quick enough. He'd caught the first impact, the grind of metal that whipped the tan Audi around, flung open the door . . .

  Grigor, thirty years old, must have died without ever knowing what happened, if not from the impact, then from the wall of flaming gasoline that swept over the seat.

  He marveled at his own luck, the hand of chance that flung him from the car only a second ahead of the explosion. He remembered skidding across the pavement on his back, then tumbling into the grassy ditch that separated Amalias Avenue from the tiny side road of Thrassilou. Some of the raw gasoline had drenched his sleeve, but he'd been safely out of the way, his face down, when the explosion came.

  It could have been an accident. He swiped at his brow and told himself that anything was possible.

  Don't be a fool. They're closing in. How much do they know?

  He sipped at the gritty coffee and scanned the street.

  Just get through the next few days, he told himself. Once the transfer's complete, your part's over.

  He was reaching for his small white cup when he noticed the woman, striding directly toward his table, smiling, catching his eye. The way she was swinging her brown leather purse, the jaunty thrust of hips beneath the suede skirt, the carefully groomed auburn hair-all marked her as American. Rich American. Probably headed into American Express to cash a thousand or so in traveler's checks. America . . .

  He lounged back in his chair with a rakish air. He was, he knew, an attractive man. He had deep blue eyes, sandy hair, a practiced smile, a trim figure far younger than his fifty-six years. He'd divorced his wife Natasha three years ago, after she discovered his lunchtime liaisons with one of the girls in the State Committee typing pool. He had experience handling women.

  Three weeks in Athens, he thought, and maybe my luck is about to change. If you can get her, the nightmare could be over for a while. You can't go back to the hotel now; they may be watching. But if she's got a room somewhere? What better way to hide out till the transfer is complete?

  He was still trying to make his ragged mind function. Now was the time for a "pick-up" routine. The lonely traveler . . . Kak grussno mnye, tak zhalostno mnye . . . no, damn, not the sentimental Russian, think American.

  But where? He'd heard of New York, San Francisco, Miami, even Chicago. But what if she was from one of those places?

  All the careful preparation and he still didn't dare put himself to the test. So what would he say? Canada? Australia?

  Her eyes held his, interest growing as she continued to approach. They were darkened with kohl, sensual, inviting. And she was still smiling, even as she placed her hand on the chair across from him.

  Was this how the women . . .? America was the Promised Land.

  "Etot stolnik osvobodetsya, Viktor Fedorovich?"

  It took a second for the language to register. She was speaking Russian, calmly inquiring if the table was free, but his mind was rejecting it, refusing to accept the implications.

  "Perhaps you'd like to buy me a kofye, Comrade. I prefer it very sweet." Now she was settling her purse on the table, adjusting her tight skirt in preparation to sit. "Or would you rather take me shopping. I could help you spend some of the money."

  He'd never seen her before in his life.

  Your part will be routine. Somewhere in the back of his mind echoed the voice of the president's personal aide, the brisk young Muscovite who had come to his dacha that snowy evening last October. We will take care of any risks.

  It had all been a lie. Every word. They must have known where he was every minute.

  Then he spotted the two men approaching from opposite sides of the square. The suits that didn't quite fit, the trudging gait. Why must they always look like the stupid, brutal party hacks they are, he thought bitterly. The incompetent bastards.

  Who betrayed me? Was it Novosty? Did he do this, to get them off his trail?

  So be it. First I'll kill her, and then I kill him.

  Seething, he pulled his body erect while his right hand plunged for the snap on the holster at his belt. Simple. He'd just shoot her on the spot, then make a run for it. Through the cafe, out the back. They wouldn't dare start anything here, in the middle of Athens, that would cause an international "incident." The snap was open. He thumbed up the leather flap and realized the holster was empty.

  The crash. It must have jarred loose. His new Walther automatic had been incinerated, along with the Audi. His life began to flash before his eyes. Make a run for it, he heard his mind saying, commandeer the first taxi, any taxi. He shoved back from the table, sending his chair clattering across the patched sidewalk.

  She reached into her leather purse, now lying atop the table, next to his coffee. He heard the click of a safety sliding off. "Don't be impetuous, Viktor Fedorovich. You've been such a good boy this last week, showing us the sights. The perfect tour guide. But now your little vacation is over. We must talk."

  "About what?"

  She smiled. "Whatever you think we need to hear."

  "I don't know anything." He could feel the cold sweat on his palms.

  "Viktor Fedorovich." She brushed at her auburn hair as she continued in Russian. "You have the most valuable commodit
y in the world, knowledge. That makes you even richer than you think you are now."

  They didn't try to kill me this morning, he suddenly realized. It was Alex they were- Is he planning to double- cross everybody? No, that's insane. He'd never get away with it. He has to deliver the payment.

  KGB wants me alive, he thought with a wave of relief. They think I'm the one who knows where it is.

  His pulse raced. "What do you want?"

  "We need you to answer certain questions. But not here. At a place where it's quieter."

  The two men were loitering closer now, only a few feet away, one on each side of the table. The first was overweight, with bushy eyebrows and pockmarked cheeks. He could be Ukrainian. The other was medium height, wearing a cheap polyester suit, balding and sallow. Neither looked as though he had smiled in the last decade.

  "Where do you want to go?"

  "We will take a stroll in the park." She gestured toward Amalias Avenue. On the other side was Ethnikos Kipos, the National Garden. Then she smiled again. "We thought you would like to take the morning air."

  She rose, purse in hand, and tossed a wad of drachmas onto the wooden table. The coffee drinkers around them did not look up from their newspapers and tourist maps.

  As they made their way past the Olympic Airways office on the corner and across the avenue, she said nothing. Her silence is deliberate, he told himself, part of a trick to unnerve me.

  It was working. He was learning something about himself he'd never before known. He was learning he was a coward.

  That was the reality. He wouldn't hold out. He'd tell them everything he knew, because they would hurt him badly. He couldn't bear pain; they probably knew that. And then they'd kill him anyway because he couldn't tell them the one thing they wanted to know. He didn't know it himself.

  Viktor Fedorovich Volodin realized he was about to die. All the years of pointless intrigue in the party, the fudging of production figures, the father-in-law who'd made his existence wretched, it all added up to a lifetime of nothing but misery, with the payoff a bullet. Rasstrel, a KGB execution.

  They were entering the national garden, a mirage of green in the desert of asphalt and cement that is central Athens. Its informal walkways were shady lanes of quiet and cool that seemed miles away from the smoke and glare and heat of the avenues.

  Finally she spoke. "We're running out of time, and patience, Viktor Fedorovich. Let's start with the money. Where have you deposited it? Next, we want to know the names of everyone-"

  "It-it's-I don't know where it is now."

  "You're lying." She did not break her pace. "The time for that is over."

  "But I don't have it. Someone else-" He heard himself blurting out the truth. "He's in charge of everything."

  "You are lying, again. You are the one who embezzled the funds." She was walking by his side as they entered a secluded alleyway of hedges, the other two trailed only inches behind. There was no escape. "The criminal is you, Viktor Fedorovich."

  "No, he-I-I don't know anything." How true was that? he asked himself. He knew where the money was supposed to go, but he didn't know what it was for, at least not specifically. That part had been classified. He had the small picture but not the big one.

  "If you know nothing, then telling us everything you do know should not take very long." The calm, the assurance in her voice sent chills through him. He knew he would talk and they knew it too. "However, the more you have to say, the longer we can linger."

  The early morning park, with its manicured footpaths and wandering cats, was empty except for a few gardeners trimming hedges, watering the grass, collecting loose papers. The sounds of the avenue were rapidly receding. Now the two men had moved directly alongside, one by each arm. He realized they were both taller than he was, and they smelled.

  "Wait. I don't know where it's deposited now; I wasn't supposed to know. But there's still time. I can help-"

  They were entering a long arbor, a high trellis bright with obscuring red flowers, when the first blow came into his left side, directly in his kidney. He groaned and sagged, breath gone, while the man on the right slipped an arm around and held him erect.

  "Yes, Viktor Fedorovich," the woman continued tonelessly, "you will help us, because you will want to die long before we let you. So, shall we try again? Where is the money?"

  "It's . . . I don't know, exactly. But-"

  He gasped and sagged again as another blow came. Already he wasn't sure how much more pain he could tolerate. How long before he would just blurt out everything he knew?

  A third blow, and his knees crumpled. He had never known the meaning of pain, or fear, until this moment.

  Why not just tell them? his frightened mind was pleading. Alex has already set it up with the American.

  "You are worse than a mere criminal," she went on, dark eyes filling with anger. "You are a traitor. You will tell us every detail of your involvement, from the very beginning."

  How much did they really know? he wondered. Were they bluffing?

  They were bluffing, he quickly concluded. Otherwise she wouldn't be asking him things she should already know.

  If you talk, you'll jeopardize everything. The most important thing now is to keep KGB from discovering the scenario. If they do, they still could stop it.

  Of course they were alarmed. They should be. In the New Russia being born, there was no place for them.

  But I can't endure pain. I'll talk if there's pain.

  He felt a surge of resolve. Whatever else happens, he told himself, I won't be the one responsible for making it fail. I can't let them know any more than they do now. I've-

  Another blow struck him in the side and he felt his knees turn to butter. None of the gardeners in the park seemed aware that a man was about to be beaten to death. To them the four foreigners were merely huddled together as they strolled, enjoying the dubious beauty of modern Athens.

  Another blow came and he wheezed. "Please, let me just-"

  He'd been gathering his strength for this moment. Now he lunged forward, shutting out the stab of pain in his side, and wrenched at her open purse. The two men reached for him but not before he had it in his grasp. His hand plunged in as he rolled to the ground.

  They were on top of him now, shoving his face against the loose pebbles of the walkway, but they were too late. He felt the smooth metal of the grip. It was what he wanted.

  He recalled the triumphant words Fyodor Dostoyevski had uttered upon being released from prison. "Freedom, new life, resurrection. . . . What a glorious moment!"

  Ya nye boyuc za sebya! he thought with joy. I have no more fear. . . .

  He heard the shot, faintly, as the bullet ripped through

  the back of his mouth and entered his brain. Viktor Fedorovich Volodin died with serene final knowledge. Daedalus, whatever it was, was still safe. And he was free.