“You’re threatening to.” There would be a glass by the phone, he knew.

  “What time?”

  He hesitated, remembering the decision not to hurry the encounter with Paul.

  “Seven,” he said.

  “The reception is at seven-thirty.”

  “I said we’d talk about it later.”

  “And I said I wanted to go.” There was just the slighest blur in her voice.

  “I love you,” he tried desperately.

  She laughed at him, disbelievingly. “How would I know that?” she demanded. “When was the last time.…”

  “Stop it!” he demanded. He wondered if the maid was in hearing.

  She laughed again. “Embarrassed, James?”

  “I must go.”

  “Of course. The World to protect.”

  “I’m very busy.” Why did the truth sound so much like an excuse? he wondered. He had said the same words so often that they were practically meaningless.

  “It was kind of you to call,” she said formally.

  He started to speak and then stopped himself. The time for arguing was long past.

  “Don’t …” he started, halting immediately. “Let’s have a pleasant evening,” he added lamely.

  “Don’t what?” she challenged.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “Don’t what?” she insisted.

  “You were disgusting last night,” he blurted. He hadn’t meant to say it, but now that it was out he was glad; perhaps his distaste would shock her and make her realize what was happening.

  “So it’s not embarrassment. It’s disgust?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you ever thought how much you disappoint me?”

  “Yes, I have,” he admitted, honestly. “And I’m deeply sorry.”

  The answer momentarily silenced her. “Isn’t it too late for that?” she demanded.

  “I hope not.”

  There was no response from the other end of the line.

  “Lucille!” he said, anxiously.

  “What?”

  It went quiet. She was crying, he knew.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, thickly.

  “It’s not too late. Honestly it isn’t.”

  “I don’t really want to go to the reception.”

  Peterson felt the hope flare through him: it was stupid, he knew, as stupid as his premature anxiety in the car that morning.

  “I’d like to stay in,” he repeated.

  “You won’t be late?”

  “I promise.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Sorry?”

  “For last night. And all the other nights. I know it’s not your fault.”

  His meeting with Paul would be something for them to talk about that night; would the boy actually come home with him? That would be rushing things, decided Peterson. Better to effect a gradual reconciliation.

  “Have a quiet day,” he said, finding the euphemism at last.

  “I will,” she promised.

  “I love you,” he said.

  She didn’t laugh this time. “I love you too,” she said.

  Had it not been for the war, which changed so many careers, it was unlikely that Dimitri Petrov would have entered his country’s intelligence service. When he was scarcely in his teens he was playing chess at near Grand Master level and even now, to relax, he sometimes went to the Academy and challenged the world champions. His winning average was very high. At a chessboard he regarded himself as a pragmatist and it was a philosophy he carried with him to his desk within Lubyanka.

  The accepted treatment of operatives who were discovered to be double agents was liquidation. But Petrov rarely did anything in the accepted way, which was why he had survived for so long. A man anxious to impress Washington as much as Moscow could be a useful conduit for the dissemination of false information and Petrov’s tendency was to maintain the agents and use them when the need arose.

  He had alerted every embassy, not just throughout Africa but in Europe and Asia as well, for any intelligence concerning the Chad installation, so the inquiry from Paris would have come to his attention anyway. Petrov was immediately curious because Michel Levebre, who worked at the Elysée Palace, was a known informant of Washington. Within four hours, a message had come from London, this time reporting the interest of a junior official in the Canadian trade mission in Britain who was also an accepted double. Petrov smiled the smile of a chess player who recognizes his opponent’s gambit and has a defense prepared to nullify it.

  The expression did not last for long. It was comforting to know that the Americans’ desperation was such as to make them take the risk of making inquiries, but it did little to overcome the immediate problem. He stared down at the photographs of his mutilated agents, remembering the meeting with Litvinov and his inability to present any acceptable proposition for discovering what was happening in Africa. The idea was slow to formulate and even when he had accepted it, Petrov remained still at his desk, considering first the dangers and then the moves and counter-moves that the proposal might precipitate. The possibility of disaster would be appalling, he realized, particularly with the opposition he was encountering from Litvinov. But properly explored, the advantages would make it worthwhile.

  4

  Peterson tried to clear his mind of the forthcoming meeting with his estranged son. During the afternoon, working with Jones, he initiated cables to all their stations throughout the world making the Chad installation a matter of urgent priority. Although there were parts he almost knew verbatim, he once again went right through the file that had so far been assembled, seeking anything that he had missed and becoming increasingly depressed at the absence of any proper, workable intelligence.

  Shadows were already patterning out over the Virginia countryside when he left Langley for the journey back into Washington. He had given himself plenty of time, determined not to keep Paul waiting. Because of some quirk in the traffic flow, they completed the journey faster than usual and he arrived at the Hay Adams fifteen minutes early. He lingered momentarily in the panelled lobby, then walked on through into the bar. Like many people associated with a drinking problem, Peterson severely curtailed his own alcohol intake. He ordered a beer and after it was served took only a token sip.

  Paul was early; he appeared disappointed at not arriving first. He smiled hesitantly and halted, leaving some distance between them, seeming unsure how to greet his father.

  “Thank you for coming.”

  “You said it was important.”

  The boy hadn’t worn jeans after all, Peterson noticed. The trousers and jacket were smartly pressed and the hair, which had been shoulder-length when they last met, was much shorter now. Had it not been for the drooping moustache, he would have looked like the young executive he had left college to become. When the waiter returned, Paul ordered a coke.

  “How’s mother?”

  “No better.”

  “She should have treatment.”

  “She won’t accept the problem. I’ve taken advice: they’ve got to want a cure. It can’t be forced on them.”

  “Perhaps I should drop by.”

  “She might like that. Better to give her a warning, though.”

  “I’ve heard from Beth,” Paul announced suddenly.

  Peterson had reached forward for his glass, but now he stopped, looking to his son.

  “When?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Arizona. Near a place called Tonalea.”

  “A letter.”

  “Yes.”

  “How is she?”

  “Hard to tell.”

  “Did you bring the letter with you?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “It wasn’t particularly coherent. You wouldn’t have learned anything from it.”

  “So she’s not all right.”

  “I think she wants out,” said Paul.

  “Did she say so?”

  “She said she’d call me, soon. Wanted to speak to me again.”

  “I thought the commune she had joined severed all family ties … a new family in place of the old.”

  “They do,” agreed Paul. “That’s why I think she wants to come home.”

  Would Lucille stop drinking, if they were a family again? It would be too much to expect the girl to settle at home, but there would be an apartment in Washington at least. She would be close enough for them to look after her. Would she be ill, undernourished by whatever crazy diet was supposed to bring them closer to the full understanding of life? Or mentally disorientated by the quasi-religious crap she had been fed?

  “Do you know what I think?”

  Peterson looked up at his son’s question. “What?”

  “That she’d guess I’d contact you.”

  “So?”

  “She’s asking for help, Dad.”

  “But of course.…”

  “If you went to Tonalea, I think she’d come home with you.”

  Maybe two thousand miles, Peterson estimated; probably way out in the boondocks, taking at least a day, perhaps even longer to find. Four days at least.

  “I could send people …” he started, but again Paul cut him short, leaning across the table and seizing his arm for emphasis.

  “Dad! We’re talking about Beth, your daughter … my sister. Not some mission for airborne cavalry or a Green Beret squad.”

  “I can’t get away from Washington, not at the moment.”

  Paul sat back, his face fixed. “I’d forgotten,” he said. “You’re busy.”

  “It’s not possible, not at the moment,” insisted Peterson. He wouldn’t fight with the boy; he’d control his temper, whatever the provocation, and keep the encounter as amicable as possible.

  “Jesus!” said Paul.

  “It’s something very important,” said Peterson.

  “It always is.”

  “I mean it.”

  “I would have thought Beth was pretty important.”

  “That’s trite, and you know it. Why can’t you go?”

  “Because it’s not me from whom she’s asking forgiveness.”

  “Did she say that in the letter?”

  “She hinted it.”

  “She knows I’d forgive her.”

  Paul thrust himself back into the chair, as if his exasperation made it difficult to form the words. “How the hell can we guess what she knows, after the sort of life she’s been living?” he demanded. “You know the psychological damage these cults can cause. She’s made the effort, Dad. She’s made the first approach. Now we’ve got to go to her.”

  “I told you I can’t. Not at the moment.”

  “Bastard.”

  How far had they moved apart, for Paul to call him that? And for him not even to be moved to any hurt or anger?

  “I’ll send some people,” he repeated.

  “Do that,” said Paul. “And you’ll drive her so far into the bullshit society in which she’s involved herself that we’ll never see her again. Why do you think she quit in the first place?”

  Peterson looked at his son, wanting the answer.

  Paul saw his father’s need and shook his head in astonishment. “Because it was always people being sent,” he said. “It was always an anonymous driver or a polite assistant or a maid. It was never you. Don’t you know why she split for these stupid communes? Because ridiculous though they are, she was noticed. She was treated as a person, not a possession which had to be protected and occasionally dusted but not bothered about too much.”

  The waiter returned, hopefully, but Peterson shook his head.

  “Maybe in a week or two,” he said, doubtfully.

  “Maybe I could get away then.”

  “And maybe in a week or two she will be pregnant or tripping on mescalin or drinking cyanide, because some half-assed messiah has convinced her the world is coming to an end.”

  “Don’t you think I care!” erupted Peterson, angry at last. “Don’t you think I know any one of those things is possible and that it frightens the hell out of me.”

  Paul smiled at the outburst, unconvinced. “Then do something about it,” he said. “Forget about being the button-down Superman, for as long as it takes.”

  They were talking in circles, decided Peterson. “Will you let me know when she calls?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’d like to know.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Tell her that I love her … that I want her back.…”

  “Tell her yourself.”

  “Please!”

  “You make me sick.”

  “I want …” Peterson stopped, bewildered by the appearance in the bar entrance of Walter Jones. The Deputy Director saw him and approached smiling. “Sorry to intrude,” he said.

  Paul looked at the two men. “Was he on schedule?” he demanded cynically of his father, looking at his watch. “I’d no idea my time was up.”

  “I don’t understand …” frowned Jones.

  “Forget it,” said Peterson irritably. “What is it?”

  “Something I thought you would want to handle personally,” said Jones, glancing around the open bar with the awareness of how easily they might be overheard.

  “Right now?”

  “I think so.”

  “It’s quite an act you’ve perfected,” sneered Paul. “Is there a dance as well?”

  “This is my son,” Peterson said, in belated introduction. “Walter Jones, my deputy.”

  Jones extended his hand. Paul stared at it before taking it, briefly.

  “I really am sorry to intrude,” repeated Jones.

  “We’d finished anyway, hadn’t we Dad?” said Paul.

  Peterson stood, but didn’t immediately move away from the table.

  “Tell me when she calls?” he asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “I meant what I said … about wanting her back.…” He stopped, looking with embarrassment towards Jones. “… about loving her,” he finished.

  “Shouldn’t you get along?” said Paul. “The bad guys might be winning.”

  Peterson walked out without any farewell, Jones trailing behind him. They both got into Peterson’s car, the vehicle in which Jones had arrived following empty behind.

  “I was lucky the motor-pool managed to locate your driver so quickly,” said Jones.

  “There’s been contact from Williams?” anticipated Peterson.

  “No.”

  “What then?”

  Jones glanced towards the glass shield, ensuring it was fully raised. “The Russians,” he said.

  Peterson turned fully towards the man sitting beside him. “It worked!” he said.

  “I’m not sure.”

  Peterson frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “From Dimitri Petrov himself.”

  “I don’t believe it!”

  “Neither did I. But coming to get you I checked it, fully. It seems genuine.”

  “How?”

  “Through the embassy in Vienna.”

  “Who knows?”

  “Our resident in Vienna, obviously. Cipher clerks. And us.”

  “Nobody else?”

  “No.”

  “We’ll keep it that way.”

  “Of course.”

  Through the windscreen, Peterson saw the direction sign to Langley briefly illuminated in the car headlights. As the vehicle turned off the highway towards the complex, he remembered his promise to Lucille: seven, he’d said. From the dashboard clock he could see it was seven-thirty.

  “Shit,” he said, to himself.

  “What is it?” asked Jones.

  “Nothing,” said Peterson.

  Four thousand miles away, near an African water-hole, the patient hyena rose at last. The leopard, who had attacked first, followed by the lioness and her two cubs, had not left a great deal, but there was still sufficient to have made the vigil worthwhile.

  5

  From the window of his office David Levy could gaze out over the olive grove from which legend had it the cross had been fashioned for Christ to carry to Calvary. Far to the right, but still identifiable from the disordered thatch of trees on the hillside above it, was Yad Vashem, the memorial to the six million who had perished in the holocaust. He could also just pick out the roof, designed after the cover of the reed basket in which they had been discovered, of the museum housing the Dead Sea scrolls, with their still readable account of Jewish guerilla opposition to Roman occupation. Why was it, wondered Levy, that all monuments in Israel were to tragedy?

  The Mossad chief was an almost unnaturally short man, but very broad and barrel-bellied from an inherited appetite for Polish dumplings and flour-thickened stews. He was fiercely proud of being a sabra but sometimes regretted that his Israeli birth had denied him the era of his father, who had escaped the Nazi destruction of Warsaw to become a leader in the Irgun Zvai Leumi movement which had fought against the British in 1948. The Zvai Leumi had been the genesis of the Mossad; Levy’s career had seemed predestined. His pride in his birth was matched by his pride in the service he had created with such painstaking care. Without greater financial resources, the Mossad did not have the scope of the CIA or the KGB, but Levy believed that what they lacked in material they compensated for in the quality of their operatives. He meant it when he said he would match any one of his people against three from either the American or Russian services. His critics accused him of arrogance, but then his critics accused him of many things — to his complete disinterest. One of the strongest accusations against him was that he was refusing to adjust to the times, a man too accustomed to conflict to be able to accept the possibility of peace. It was an unfair charge; Levy appreciated the advantage of a secure border with Egypt but was too objective to overlook the remaining problem of a million dispossesed Palestinians, or a Jerusalem which was as much a holy place to Muslims and Christians as to Jews, or the fact that none of the Arab States had supported the Sadat initiative. He’d let the politicians toast the celebration in champagne and Moslem orange juice and keep his service as vigilant as ever.

  It was a vigilance which had paid dividends in Africa. Neither America nor Russia had known about it, despite all their spies in the sky and their aerial monitoring.