It was a poetic place to meet Eva again, he thought. And thoroughly bizarre as well. She'd gotten her Ph.D. in linguistics, specializing in ancient Aegean languages, then a few months later she'd surprised everybody by accepting a slot at the National Security Agency, that sprawling electronic beehive of eavesdropping that lies midway between Washington and Baltimore, on the thousand acres of Fort Meade. It'd seemed a startling about-face at the time, but maybe it made sense. Besides, it was that or teaching.NSA was a midsized city, producing among other things forty tons of classified paper trash a day. Its official insignia, appropriately, was a fierce eagle clasping a key—whether to unlock the secrets of others or to protect its own was unclear. Eva's particular branch, SIGINT—for signals intelligence—was an operation so secret NSA refused even to admit it existed. Employing ten acres of mainframe computers, Eva's SIGINT group monitored and analyzed every Russian transmission anywhere: their satellite downlinks, the microwave telephone networks within the Soviet Union, the chatter of civilian and military pilots, missile telemetry far above the Pacific, the split-second bursts of submarines reporting to base, even the limousine radiophone trysts between Politburo members and their mistresses. The instant an electromagnetic pulse left the earth, no matter its form or frequency, it belonged to the giant electronic ears of the NSA.So why shouldn't Eva end up as the agency's top Russian codebreaker? She was a master at deciphering obscure texts, and she'd spoken Russian all her life. Who better to make a career of cracking secret Soviet communications. Her linguistics Ph.D. was being used to real purpose."I want you to help me think some, love," she went on. "I know it may sound a little bizarre, but I'd like to talk about some of the legends surrounding this place. You know, try and sort out fact and fiction."Now they were headed side by side down the stairway leading into the central court, an expanse of sandstone and alabaster tile glinting golden in the pale sun. On their left a flight of stairs seemed to lead out, but in fact they led right back in again. The deceptions of the palace began at the very entrance."The truth is, about all we have is stories, though sometimes stories can be more true than so-called history. The standard version is that this area was where the athletes performed ritual somersaults over the sacred bulls."The restored frescoes around them showed corridors crowded with lithe Minoan priestesses, eyes rounded with green malachite, faces powdered white, lips a blood red. They all were bare-breasted, wearing only diaphanous chemises, while their jewels glistened in the sunshine as they fanned themselves with ostrich plumes.There were no frescoes, however, of the powerful, bloodthirsty King Minos."Michael," she called out, her voice echoing off the hard walls, "you know, this place has always felt a little sinister to me. None of the lightness and gaiety in those frescoes seems real.""That's part of what made me start wondering if the Minoans hadn't somehow managed to make a monkey out of every ponderous scholar on the planet." They were moving down the monumental grand staircase, three restored flights of which had originally been five, toward the rooms called the royal chambers. "Maybe the reason this place had no walls or fortifications was because you only came here when you were dead. Who the hell knows."Whatever the truth was, the eerie feeling of the palace seemed to make the ancient stories even more vivid. The legends told that King Minos's wife, Pasiphae, had a burning passion for one of the sacred white bulls he kept, so she arranged for his chief architect, Daedalus, to design a hollow wooden cow for her covered over with a hide. She concealed herself inside and, as luck would have it, lured one of the beasts. The progeny of that union was equally beastly—the Minotaur, a monster with a human body and a bull's head.Now they were rounding a final corner in the twisting maze of stairs. Directly ahead was the boudoir of the queen. The past welled up for him.The frescoes over the alabaster arches showed bold blue dolphins pirouetting in a pastel sea dotted with starfish and sea urchins. And just beneath them stood the famous bathroom of the queen, connected to the vast drainage complex of the palace, great stone channels curved in precise parabolas to control and dampen turbulence. Daedalus was an engineer-architect who had mastered the science of fluid dynamics thousands of years before the invention of wind tunnels and supercomputers."My favorite spot. The bedroom." He slipped the small bottle of ouzo from his trench coat pocket. In the dank of the palace's lower depths, he needed its warmth. "I've had unspeakably erotic thoughts about this place—now it can be told—with you no small part of them." He handed her the bottle. "Want a hit of high octane?""Glad to know I've had a place in your memory all these years, even if it was X-rated." She took the bottle with a knowing smile, then drank. "It's like licorice."He laughed. "Blended with JP-7.""Michael," she continued, looking around, "maybe this is the very room where Pasiphae gave birth to the Minotaur. What do you suppose?""That would fit the story." He moved on, his eyes still adjusting to the shadows. "The only thing the legends actually say is that King Minos ordered Daedalus, resident genius, to create a secret labyrinth in the cellar of the palace to keep the beast. But nobody's ever located it.""You know, I think the labyrinth was no myth. It was real, only it was here. All around us. We're in it now." She handed back the bottle. "It was this whole sinister palace, this realm of the dead. After all these years, I finally think maybe you were right."Vindicated at last? Had even Eva come around? But why didn't he feel any satisfaction? Instead he found himself aware of the old chill, the almost occult intuition that had first told him the palace wasn't the happy playground everybody supposed it was. Once more it felt like death.But now something else was entering his senses. Was it imagination? In the encroaching dark the lower levels of the palace seemed to be totally deserted, with only a couple of persistent German tourists arguing out near the parking lot, and yet . . .They weren't alone. He could feel it. He knew it. Was it the spirits of the dead?No, it was far more real. Someone was with them, somewhere. In the shadows. They were being watched.He looked at Eva, trying to make out her eyes in the semidarkness. Did she sense it too? That somebody was nearby, waiting, maybe listening?"Darling, let's talk some more about the myth of Daedalus. In the version I remember he—""Not much more to the tale. After a while a Greek prince called Theseus arrived, to brave the labyrinth and do battle with the man-eating Minotaur. When he showed up, King Minos's beautiful daughter, Ariadne, instantly fell in love with him, naturally.""I love myths. They're always so realistic.""Well, he dumped her later, so I guess he did turn out to be a creep. But anyway, she persuaded Daedalus to give him a ball of string. He attached it to the door of the labyrinth and unwound it as he went in. After he killed the beast, he followed the twine back out, and escaped. With Ariadne. Unfortunately, when Minos discovered what had happened, he was so mad he locked the great chief architect in a tower. But Daedalus managed to get out, hoping to escape from the island. However, it wasn't going to be easy, since Minos had clamped down on all the harbors, having the ships searched. That's when Daedalus declared, 'Minos may control the land and the sea, but he doesn't control the regions above.' And he constructed some wings, attached them to his shoulders with wax, and soared away into space. First human ever. Up till then, only the gods could just leave the earth anytime they wanted.""What?" She'd stopped dead still."Daedalus. You remember. The first person to fly, mankind's ago-old dream. In fact, a few years back some Americans duplicated the feat with a human-powered glider. They made it from here on Crete over to the island of—""No, you said 'space.' ""Did I?" He smiled. "Call it poetic license. But why not? Back in those days I guess the skies themselves could be considered outer space, if they even knew such a thing existed." Then he looked at her and sobered. "What's—?""It's—it's just something that's been in the back of my mind." She moved on.With a shrug, he took another drink of the ouzo and followed her on down the hall toward the famous Throne Room. He was bracing himself now for what was next.Its walls were decorated with frescoes of the massive Minoan body shields, shaped as a figure-eight, that signified the men's quarters of Knossos. And incised in stone above King Minos's wide alabaster throne was his fearsome emblem of authority, symbol of his domination of the ancient world.There it was. He looked around, reassuring himself that it was everywhere, just as he'd remembered. He'd also been right about something else. It was precisely the same, right down to the smooth curves of the blade, as the "watermark" that had been on the sheet of "paper" Alex had given him. Almost four thousand years old, it was the insignia of the new Daedalus Corporation.The Minoan double ax.Wednesday 6:12p.m.The dusk was settling majestically over Tokyo, after a rare smogless day. The view was particularly inspiring from the fifty-fifth-floor penthouse of the granite-clad Mino Industries building. The corner office was an earth-tone tan, carpeted in a thick wool shag the color of elm bark. The heavy doors at the far end of the office were emblazoned with a two-bladed ax, and in the center of the wide expanse between the door and the single desk, on a gleaming steel pedestal, stood a meter-long model of an airplane more advanced than any the world had yet seen.The temperature of the room was kept at a constant 59 degrees Fahrenheit, a frigid comfort-accommodation for the tawny, eight-foot snow leopard named Neko now resting on a pallet beside the window, gazing down. Remnant of an endangered species, she'd been rescued as a starving, motherless cub during an expedition in the Himalayas and raised for the past six years as a pampered pet of the penthouse's owner.Along the sound-proof walls were gilt-framed photographs of a Japanese executive jogging with Jimmy Carter in Tokyo, golfing with Ferdinand Marcos in Manila, receiving an accolade from Linus Pauling in San Francisco, dining with Henry Kissinger in Paris. He was the same man now sitting behind the massive slate desk."You believe he was an American?" Tanzan Mino, president and CEO of the Daedalus Corporation, a paper creation of the Mino Industries Group, adjusted his pale silk tie and examined the subordinate now standing before him. He had just turned seventy-three, but the energy in his youthful frame made him seem at least a decade younger, perhaps two."Hai, Mino-sama." The other man, in a dark suit, bowed. "We have reason to believe the Russian has . . . they were seen exchanging an envelope.""And your people failed to intercept either of them?"The man bowed again, more deeply. "An attempt was made, but unfortunately the Soviet escaped, and the American . . . my people were unsure what action to take. We do know the funds have not been deposited as scheduled."Tanzan Mino sighed and brushed at his silver temples. His dark eyes seemed to penetrate whatever they settled upon, and the uncomfortable vice-president now standing in front of him was receiving their full ire.Back in the old days, when he directed the Mino-gumi clan's operations at street level, finger joints were severed for this kind of incompetence. But now, now the organization had modernized; he operated in a world beholden to computers and financial printouts. It was a new age, one he secretly loathed.He'd been worried from the start that difficulties might arise. The idiocy of Japan's modern financial regulations had driven him to launder the payoffs thoroughly. In the old days, when he was Washington's man, controlling the Liberal Democratic Party, no meddling tax agency would have dared audit any of his shadow companies. But after a bastard maverick named Vance—with the CIA, no less!— had blown the whistle on his and the Company's clandestine understanding . . .He had arranged the initial financing for the project, as well as the political accommodations, with letters of credit, promissory notes, and his word. And, eventually, if need be, the full financing could be raised by partial liquidation of his massive real estate holdings in Hawaii.But the near-term expenses—and the necessary payoffs in the LDP—that was different. In Japanesekosaihi, the "money politics" of gifts and outright bribes, secrecy was everything. He remembered how he'd had to arrange for the mighty Yoshio Kodama, a powerbroker who had once shared his virtual ownership of the Japanese Diet and the Japanese press, to accept responsibility for the CIA-Lockheed bribe affair. It was a close call. That had involved a mere twelve million of American cash to Japanese politicians, but it had changed the rules forever. These days— particularly after the Recruit debacle had disgraced the LDP yet again—money had to be laundered and totally untraceable.Promises had been made, schedules signed off, the veil of total secrecy kept intact. Everything was arranged. The Soviets, incompetents that they were, had no inkling of the larger plan.Now it all came down to the funds. He needed the money at once.He turned in his chair, pressed a gray button on his desk,and watched the window blinds disappear into their frame. Neko rose from her languorous pose, stretched her spotted white fur, and gazed down. This was the panoramic view she loved almost as much as he did, for her perhaps it was the memory of a snowy Himalayan crest; for him it was the sprawl of Tokyo, the elegant peak of Mount Fuji to the west, the bustling port of Yokohama to the south. From this vantage atop the powerful financial world of Japan, Tanzan Mino wanted two final triumphs to crown his career. He wanted to see Japan become the twenty-first century's leader in space, and he wanted his country finally to realize its historic wartime objective: economic domination of the continent of Asia, from Siberia to Malaysia, with freedom forever from the specter of energy and resource dependence. The plan now in motion would achieve both.He revolved again in his chair, ignored the subordinate standing before his desk, and studied the model. It was a perfect replica, one-hundredth the actual size, of the spaceplane that would revolutionize the future, the symbol that would soon signify his country's transcendence in the high-tech age to come.Then his gaze shifted."You were 'unsure what action to take'?" He leaned back, touching his fingertips together, and sadness entered his voice. "You know, there was a time when I thought Japan might still one day recapture the spirit we have lost, the spirit ofbushido. In centuries gone by, a samurai never had to ask himself 'what action to take.' He acted intuitively. Instinctively. Do you understand?""Hai, wakarimasu." The man bowed stiffly."I am prepared to funnel trillions of yen into this project before it is over. Legitimate, clean funds. So the sum now in question is almost inconsequential. However, it is the bait we need to set the trap, and it must be handled exactly as I have specified.""Hai, Mino-sama." Again he bowed."The next time you stand before me, I want to hear that the laundered Soviet funds have been deposited in the Shokin Gaigoku Bank as agreed. You have one week." He slowly turned back to the window. "Now, must I tell you what you have to do?" The man bowed low one last time. He knew exactly.Chapter ThreeWednesday 7:38p.m."Michael! And Eva! Again, after so long.Pos iste!What a surprise!" The old Greek's sunburned face widened into a smile, his gray mustache opening above his last good teeth. "Parakalo, you must come in for a glass ofrakiand some of Adriana'smeze. She would never forgive me."They'd dropped by the hotel, then come here. Although Zeno's small taverna was in the center ofIraklion, its facade was still country style, covered with an arbor. A bare electric bulb hung incongruously in the middle of the porch, penetrating the dull glow of dusk now settling over the square called Platia Eleftherias, where the evening'svoltawas just beginning. Once the chaste promenade of eligible young women, it was now a deafening flock of motorscooters, with girls in tight jeans riding on their backs. And the watchful mothers of old were conspicuously absent. Times had indeed changed since his last time here."Zeno." Vance shook his hand, then accepted his warm embrace. As he was driving, he'd been wondering what the old Greek would think about the sudden reappearance of Eva. They hadn't been here together since that last trip, well over a decade ago. "Still pouring the meanestrakiin this town?""But of course. Never that tequila you like, Michael." He chuckled with genuine pleasure, recalling that Vance could down his high-potency version ofouzolike a native. "Ah, you know, Michael, your father would never touch it. You, though . . ."He beckoned them through thekafeneion'sdoorway, leading the way with a limp. The interior was dark, redolent of Greek cigarettes andretsinawine. Overwhelming it all were the smells of the kitchen—pungent olive oil and onions and garlic and herbs, black pepper and oregano. Although lighting was minimal, around the rickety wooden tables could be seen clusters of aging Greeks drinking coffee andrakiand gossiping. The white clay walls resounded with the clacks ofkomboloiworry beads andtavli, Greek backgammon."But then," Zeno continued, "that last trip, your birthday present to him. On his retirement. Do you remember? When we three were sitting at that very table, there in the corner. He called for a bottle of myrakiand shared a glass with me. We both knew it was our good-bye." His eyes grew misty with emotion. "Yes, coming here finally with his famous son was a kind of benediction, Michael. He was passing the torch to you, to continue his work."This last was uttered with a slightly censorious tone. But it quickly evaporated as he turned and bowed to Eva, then took her hand in a courtly gesture. The old Greeks in the room would have preferred no women save an obedient mate in their male sanctuary, but traditional hospitality conquered all. "It is so good to see you two back together." He smiled warmly as he glanced up. "Welcome once again to our humble home."She bowed back, then complimented him in turn, in flawless Greek."So beautiful, and so accomplished." He beamed. "You still are the treasure I remember. You are a goddess." He kissed her hand. "As I've told Michael before, you could well be from this island. No, even more. You could be Minoan. You bear a fine resemblance to the 'parisiennes'of the palace. Did he ever tell you?""Not often enough." She flashed him her sexiest smile. "But then he never had your eye for women.""Ah," the old man blushed, "I have more than an eye. If I were thirty years younger, you and I—""Zeno, before you drown Eva in that legendary charm, let me bring her up to date," Vance laughed. "She is now inthe presence of the man who has probably become the richest tavern owner in all of Crete."It was true. Zeno Stantopoulos had indeed become a wealthy man, in many ways. His father had once farmed the land on which now stood the unearthed palace at Knossos. The handsome sum Sir Arthur Evans paid for the site was invested in bonds, which he then passed on to Zeno just before the war. Zeno had the foresight to convert them to gold and hide it in Switzerland during the German occupation of Crete. After the war, he used it to purchase miles and miles of impoverished olive groves in the south, which he nursed back to full production. These days oil went up, oil went down, but Zeno always made a profit.His real wealth, however, was of a different kind. Zeno Stantopoulos knew everything of importance that happened on Crete. Hiskafeneionwas the island's clearinghouse for gossip and information."Don't listen to him, madam." He winked and gestured them toward the wide table in back, near the kitchen. It was known far and wide as the place of honor, the location where Zeno Stantopoulos held court. It had also been the nerve center of the Greek resistance during the Nazi occupation, when Zeno had done his share of killing and dynamiting. The limp, however, came from the fifties, when he was imprisoned and tortured by the right-wing colonels for organizing popular resistance against them."Come, let us celebrate with a glass of myraki." He turned again to Eva. "I should remind you. You once called it liquid fire."He clapped for Adriana, who squinted through the kitchen door, her black shawl wrapped tightly about her shoulders. When she finally recognized them, she hobbled forward, her stern Greek eyes softening into a smile."Neither of you has changed." Eva gave her a hug. "You both look marvelous.""Time, my friends, time. That has changed," Zeno went on. "I use a cane now, for long walks. The way Michael's father did his last time here. When I saw him I thought, old age must be God's vengeance on us sinners. And now it has happened to me." He smiled, with a light wink. "But I will tell you a secret. Ask Adriana. I do not yet need a cane for all my exercise." He nodded affectionately in her direction. "I can still make this beauty wake up in the mornings singing a song."It was true, Vance suspected. Adriana had hinted more than once that every night with him was still a honeymoon."Ah, Michael," he sighed, "I still miss seeing your beloved father on his summer trips here. Together you two inspired our soul. The ancient soul of Crete."At that point Adriana bowed and announced she must return to the kitchen, where she was putting the final touches to her proprietary version ofkalamarakia, fried squid.Her peasant face hid well her peasant thoughts. Almost. Vance had known her long enough to read her dark eyes. She didn't quite know what to make of Eva's reappearance yet. Speaking passable Greek, it was true, which counted for much, but she still wore no wedding band.Adinato!"Michael, don't let Adriana stuff you." Zeno watched her disappear, then turned. "To your health." He clicked their small glasses together. "Eis hygeian.""Eis hygeian." Vance took a sip, savoring the moment. Seeing old friends again, real friends, was one of life's most exquisite pleasures."And tell me, how long will you two be visiting with us this time?" Zeno's Cretan hospitality flowed unabated. "Perhaps longer than the last? Have you finally decided to come back to stay, maybe make us famous all over again?""Can't speak for Eva, but I've been asked to look in on the new German excavation down at Phaistos. A project to try and restore the palace there, the way Evans reconstructed Knossos." He glanced over. She was now sipping the tepidrakiwith the gusto she normally reserved for ice-cold Stolichnaya. "Tonight, though, we're just tourists. Here to see you two again."At that moment, Adriana reappeared from the kitchen bearing an enormous oak tray. With a flourish she laid before them fried squid and goat cheese and stuffed grape leaves and octopus and wooden bowls ofmelidzanosalata, her baked eggplant puree flavored with garlic, onions and herbs, not forgetting her speciality, pinktaramasalatamade of mullet roe and olive oil."Incidentally, we were just out at Knossos, the palace, this afternoon." Vance took a bite ofkalamarakiawhile she looked on approvingly."Ah, of course, the palace," Zeno smiled. "I love it still. I probably should go more myself, if only to remember the days of my childhood, during the restoration. But with all the tour buses. ..." He chewed on a sliver of octopus as he glanced out toward the music in the street. "Perhaps it should be better cared for these days. But, alas, we are not as rich now as King Minos was." He shrugged and reached for a roll ofdolmadakia. "Still, we are not forgotten. Today, perhaps, we count for little in the eyes of the world, but your book brought us fleeting fame once again. Scholars from everywhere came—""Hoping to prove me wrong." Vance laughed and took another sip ofraki."What does it matter, my friend. They came." He brightened. "Even today. Just to show you. Today, there was a man here, right here, who was carrying your famous work on the palace. He even—""Today?" Vance glanced up. Had he been right?"Yes, this very day. Outside in the arbor. He even sampled some of Adriana'smeze." He nodded at her. "I did not like him, and only our friends are welcome inside, book or no book.""Was he going out to Knossos?" Eva interjected suddenly, staring. "To the palace?""He asked about it. Why else have the book?" He shrugged again, then examined the octopus bowl, searching for a plump piece. "You know, Michael, I could never finish that volume of yours entirely. But your pictures of the frescoes—" He paused to chew his octopus, then smoothed his gray mustache and turned again to Eva, "the frescoes of the women. I love them best of all. And every now and then I see a woman here in life who looks like them. Not often, but I do. And you are one of those rarecreatures, my Eva. I swear you are Minoan." He turned back. "Look at her, Michael. Is it not true?""Zeno," Eva reached for his gnarled hand. "It's not like you to forget. My people are Russian, remember. From the Steppes.""Ah, of course. Forgive me. But you see, that only goes to prove it." He nodded conclusively. "The Minoans, we are told, came from central Asia thousands of years ago. The 'brown-haired daughter of Minos' was an oriental beauty, just as you are. I'm sure of it. Look at the frescoes.""Zeno, tell me." Vance reached to pour morerakiinto their glasses. "The man you mentioned just now. Was he Greek?""No, he was a foreigner." He chewed thoughtfully. "I've never seen anyone quite like him. He had a strange way of speaking. In truth, Michael, I did not like him at all. Not a bit.""What exactly did he say?""It wasn't that. It was something else. I don't know.""And he went? To the palace?""I saw him hire a taxi, that was all. But whether he went there or somewhere in the south, only God could know." He looked away. "Perhaps tomorrow I could find out.""Did this man have a beard?" He pressed."No, the thing I remember most was that part of one finger was missing. Curious. I focused on that. But his features, his features were almost Asian I would say." He paused, then turned and asked Adriana to fetch another bottle ofraki. "Perhaps his accent was from that part of the world." He looked back at Eva. "I suppose you would have known, my marvelous Eva, my Minoan queen."His eyes lingered on her a moment longer, then he rose. "Enough. Now we must all have something for dinner. I'm sure you do not want to spend the rest of the night trapped here with a crippled old Greek."He disappeared into the kitchen to select the pick of the day's catch. And that smoky evening they dined on the island's best—barbounia, red mullet, which Adriana grilled with the head and served with wedges of Cretan lemon. Afterward came a dessert of grapes and soft, freshmyzithracheese blended with dark honey from the mountains near Sfakii. Then at the end she brought forth her ownsoumada, a rich nectar made of pressed almonds.After moreraki, Zeno was persuaded to get out his ancientbouzouki, tune it, and play and sing some traditional songs. The music grew faster and more heated, and then— with only the slightest urging—Eva cleared away the tables and began to dance. Her Russian gypsy movements seemed almost Greek.When they finally broke away the time was nearly midnight; thevoltahad long-since disbanded; the sky above had changed from a canopy of island stars to a spring torrent. And Michael Vance and Eva Borodin were very, very drunk.Wednesday 11:34p.m."You know, there was something special about us in the old days," Vance said as they weaved down the rain-washed street toward the hotel. "How we used to be. All we did was eat, drink, and talk. And make love. Tonight it's three down and one to go.""You're pretty smashed, darling." Eva laughed and looked him over. "A girl learns to watch out for deceptive advertising."He slipped his arm around her. Eleven years, and in a way, this was like it was all happening over again."I never shirk from a challenge.""I'll drink to that." Her voice indicated the challenge would not be overly daunting. "Do we have any—?""There's still that bottle ofouzoin the car."She stopped dead still, her hair plastered against her upturned face, and ran her hands down her body. "Minoan, that's what Zeno said. What if it's true?" She turned back. "What if I have the same hot blood as the queen who vamped a bull? Imagine what that would be like.""As best I remember, you could probably handle it."She performed another Russian gypsy whirl in the glistening street. "I want to be Minoan, Michael. I want to soar through time and space. Leap over bulls, maybe even . . ." She twirled again, drunkenly."Then why not do it? The queen's bedroom." He stopped and stared at the Galaxy Hotel, ultramodern and garish, now towering upward in the rain. The pool was closed, but the disco still blared. "The hell with everything. I'm taking you back there. Tonight."Parked next to the lobby entrance was their rented Saab. He paused and looked in at the half bottle of ouzo lying on the seat, then reached and pulled her into his arms. "Come on. And get ready.""Is that a promise?" She curled around and met his lips."Time's a wastin ." He kissed her again and began searching for his keys.She was unsteadily examining the darkened interior of her purse. "I think I've got an emergency candle in here. We'll use it for light. Just enough.""I just hope I'm not too wrecked to drive in the rain.""You'd better not be. I know I am.""Who cares? Let's just go for it." He was unlocking the car and helping her in, loving the feel of her body, her scent. He'd decided he was ready for anything and anybody, including some mysterious stranger carrying his book.The night was brisk, with flares of spring lightning over the mountains. As the Saab weaved through the narrow streets leading out of town, Eva climbed up and drunkenly unlatched its sunroof to let in the rain. By the time they reached the winding country road, headlights piercing the downpour, the wind was rushing around them, wild and free.When they pulled into the parking lot of Knossos it was deserted, and they easily discovered an opening in the guard fence. The palace lay before them."Piece of cake." He took her hand and helped her through the wire. "I propose a toast right here. To the past and to the future.""If I drink much more of this, I may not be around to see the future, but I'll die happy." She reached for the slippery bottle.As they moved through the abandoned central court, eerie in the rain, he could almost hear the roars of the crowd four thousand years past, see the spotted bulls charging the nubile athletes. A heavy gust flickered her candle, adding mystery to the shadows dancing across the enigmatic women of the frescoes."Now I really do feel Minoan." She headed down the grand staircase, brandishing the light. Then she called out, her voice resounding down the maze of windy hallways, "I am the queen. I am Pasiphae. Where's my white bull?""Eva, you're drunk," he yelled after."I'm intoxicated. It's different." She laughed, low in her throat. "I'm intoxicated by the palace. The thought of my bull, the eternal male." Her voice echoed more. "Know about eternal males, darling? They're like eternal females, only harder." She grinned at him, then proceeded, tracing the wide marble steps.As she floated down, carrying the candle, the moist air was scented with jasmine, alive with the music of crickets. They rounded the last curving steps, and the ornate vista of the queen's bedroom spread before them, its blue dolphins cavorting in their pastel sea.He walked over and patted the alabaster portico. "Hard as this, your eternal male? This is a real test for the eternal female bottom."She threw herself down, then reached and ran a drunken readiness check across his wet thigh. "I'm ready for something hard inside me." Her voice was strange, detached and ethereal."When did you start talking like that?" He loved it. "Not even in the old days—""When I became Minoan, darling. When I became the blood relation of Queen Pasiphae."She wiggled out of her soaked brown dress and tossed it onto the floor. As he watched her begin to sway before the fresco of the dolphins, he had the definite feeling time was in a warp, that the flow of centuries was in reverse. Maybe Eva was none other than Pasiphae reborn. The room was perfumed and serene, perfect for a queen.Then she bent down and carefully stationed her candle on the stone. Looking up she said, "Let me have some more of thatouzo. I love being here. It's shocking and wonderful."No, this was most assuredly the modern Eva. As she moved against him, her body felt the way he remembered it. Riper now perhaps, with a voluptuousness slightly more toward Rubens than Botticelli, but the skin of her breasts, her thighs, was soft as ever. And the dark triangle was still luxuriant, redolent with her scent."Do it. Hard. Like a bull. I want to know what she felt." She drew back across the stone as he drove inside her. "Yes"While rain slammed against the courtyard above, the ancient, foreboding room began to engulf and rule their senses; the feel of her perfumed nipples against him was hard and urgent. It was an erotic moment outside of time.Now her head thrashed from side to side as quivering orgasms rippled through her, starting in her groin and welling upward as she arched and flung back her hair. Then she drew up, clinging, as though trying to consume him, herself, in a rite of pure bacchanalian frenzy. Her breath had become labored, not gasps of pleasure, but the need of one seeking air.Eva, Eva, he suddenly caught himself thinking, you're here for release, escape. I know you too well. You're not really in this room anymore. You want to be but you're not. You're somewhere in a realm of beasts and magic and the bloodthirsty Minotaur.But yet, yet . . . somehow he'd never felt closer . . .A final convulsion brought them together and then she fell back, dazed. The candlelight flickered across the alabaster, sending ghostly apparitions against the fresco of the dolphins. Still trying to catch her breath, she reached out and seized the bottle of ouzo, drank from it thirstily, then flung herself once more against the stone. After another long moment, she pulled him to her."Michael, hold me." She snuggled into his arms. "Oh, darling, just hold me."He drew her against him, and the touch of her skin was erotic beyond anything he remembered. . . .But the palace . . . it was intruding darkly, insinuating its presence. Now it surrounded them like a tomb, ominous as death. Finally he turned her face up and examined her dark eyes. They were flooded with fear."Look, you've got to tell me what's going on. I want to know the real reason you're here, and I want to know it now. I'd somehow begun to hope it was for us, but—""That's part of it, darling. Truly." She kissed him deeply on the mouth, then reached and began fishing in her purse for the battered pack of Dunhills, trying to regain her bravado. "God, that was hot. I do love being here with you.""You're stalling. Whenever you don't—""You're right." She took out a cigarette, flicked her lighter, and drew a lungful of smoke. "Now I see why Pasiphae was such a number. This room does something to you.""Not bad for starters."She looked down, then smiled. "No, darling, you're just bluffing. I remember that well enough. Plenty of time for a cigarette.""Some things improve with age." He studied her beautifully disheveled form. Now more than ever he realized she was scared. "Goddammit, enough. Talk to me.""All right." She sighed, then leaned back on the ledge of the portico. "Well, to begin at the beginning, I've been seeing somebody lately.""Make you a deal," he interrupted. "You spare me your stories and I'll spare you mine. This doesn't really seem the moment to start swapping indiscretions.""I'll bet you've got plenty to swap yourself." She looked him over."Hold on a minute." Sure, there'd been women in and out of his life. He wasn't a priest. Besides, he liked women."Darling, relax." She patted his thigh. "We're both adults. You said you wanted to hear this, so for godsake listen. His name was Jerry Ackerman and . . . it started back about nine months ago. Since he was new, he'd drop by my office now and then. You know, to learn the ropes.""What kind of ropes, exactly?""Really, Michael. Anyway, he wasn't exactly world class in the boudoir, if that makes you feel any better. Though needless to say I never told him that. Our little scene tonight would have blown his Brooklyn mind. Now does that preserve your precious male ego? He was just nice, and interesting.""Was?""I'll get to that." She was tracing small circles on the alabaster. "Week before last he dropped off a computer disk at my office. Said he couldn't figure it out. And it was old, maybe two weeks. Which was unusual, especially for satellite intercepts, which this was. Normally we get them the same day. So I ran it through my desk station, figuring it couldn't be that big a deal." She paused nervously, then went on. "Well, the first part was encoded using one of the standard Soviet encryption systems we've had cracked for years, and it had a lot of proper names. But the rest of it was just a string of numbers. No matter what I tried, I got nothing but garbage.""Really? I thought Fort Meade's football field of Cray supercomputers could crack anything.""I thought so too. But this encryption was either so clever, or so simple, nothing seemed to click. I couldn't do it. I even began to wonder, maybe it's not a cipher at all. Maybe it's just some obscure foreign language. So I matrixed it against some we have in the data base. And, love, we've got them. A zillion megabytes of memory. Serbo-Croatian, Urdu, Basque . . ." She drew on her cigarette, sending a glow into the dark. Above them the rain continued to pound. "But I still couldn't find anything that would crack it.""Doesn't sound like you." He drew her around and kissed her. "Half the time you're too smart for your own good.""Apparently not smart enough." She hugged him back automatically, then continued. "When I told Jerry I couldn't break the encryption, he suddenly got very nervous. Said okay, then he'd just take it and try again himself. So I asked him to sign it out on my log. Just routine. And that's when he started acting strange. At first he refused, but finally he did it when I said, 'It's like this, sweet buns. No tickee, no washee.' By then he'd stopped coming over to my place and things had gotten a little strained at the edges, to put it mildly. So I didn't think too much about it at the time.""Don't start telling me more about—""Michael, that was the last time anybody saw him. He just vanished. That night. There was even something in the paper. 'Mysterious disappearance.' The apartment where he lived had been dismantled. Top to bottom. Somebody must have thought he was holding out.""And?""Well, it just so happened I still had it in computer memory, though that's a blatant violation of security procedures. Anyway, the next day I called Control and said what's with a certain file? Gave them the NSCID number. And they said, 'We have no record of that number.' Quote. They'd never heard of it. So it must have been a free-lance job for somebody outside. Whoever it was must have paid Jerry, or maybe blackmailed him, into getting me to take a crack at it. Which is why it was two weeks old. It wasn't NSA material at all. Somebody else wanted it, and I'm known far and wide as Ms. Give-Her-the-Tough-Ones.""You always were the best.""Right." She laughed, then reached into her purse and retrieved a three and a half inch gray computer disk. "And here it is. A complete copy. I've also got it stored on the eighty-meg hard drive of my Zenith Turbo 486 laptop back at the hotel." She tossed it to him. "Jerry's file. That's the good news. The bad news is, it's still encrypted."He turned it in his fingers. Welcome to the new age, he thought, when thousands of pages can be packed onto a high-density disk the size of a casette tape.She took out a compact from her purse and powdered her nose in the light of the candle, then turned and searched the stone for her crumpled dress. He thought he heard a sound from the hallway outside, but then decided it was just more thunder."So now what?" She finally found the dress and drew it loosely on, managing not to secure the bustline. "I've tried and tried to crack it, but nothing seems to click. After the preamble, there's nothing on there but a long string of numbers. Whatever it is, it's not any of the standard encryption systems." She reached to take it back. "Why am I telling you all this?""Because we've agreed, no more games.""Darling, there're actually two reasons why I shouldn't. One is I hate to drag you into it, and the other . . . well, there's more.""I'm waiting.""Whatever's on here is part of something bigger. I know that because of the preamble, the section I can read." She pushed ahead, nervousness in her voice. "Anyway, that's when I decided I had to talk to you. About some of the things you used to work on."He inhaled. "What are you talking about?""There were some proper names.""I don't get—""In the preamble. One was 'Daedalus.' And another was 'Mino.' So I thought, why not talk to Michael? It sounded like something that you'd . . . I don't know . . . maybe you could help me think. Anyway, I finally decided to take a chance and ring you.""Great. Nice to finally learn exactly where I fit in." He lay silent for a moment, trying to suppress his annoyance. Finally he told himself, Be constructive."All right, tell me what you think it's all about.""Well." She paused again, as though unsure. Finally she spoke, her voice faint above the rain. "Did you know the Soviet Union and Japan never actually signed a peace treaty after World War Two?""It's because the Soviets kept some Japanese islands, right? Seem to recall they were the Kuriles, and also the southern half of Sakhalin.""Japan calls those the Northern Territories, and they've refused to sign because of them." She reached over and adjusted the candle, surveying the dark around them. The gloom was almost Stygian. "Well, hang on to your diplomatic pouch, because I think they're about to sign. Maybe as the first step toward . . . I'm still not sure what."He caught his breath. "How did you find out about this?""Intelligence. I've been handling our intercepts. But we still haven't put together a briefing package for the president, and State. It just seems so implausible nobody wants to be the one to sign off on it. Besides, nothing's settled. Among other things, the Japanese Diet would eventually have to vote to approve it, and nothing's come through diplomatic channels. It's being closely handled by somebody big and anonymous over there. Anyway, my hunch is a vote in the Diet would be a squeaker. Your average Japanese man on the street still isn't too enthusiastic about the Soviets."He leaned back to think. Given today's global realities, a deal like that had to be the tip of some gigantic iceberg. In diplomacy, there was always give and take."And you believe whatever's on this disk is somehow connected to the treaty?""That's precisely what I believe," she sighed. "The treaty has a secret protocol involved. It's hinted at in the intercepts, but never described. And I've got a feeling, somehow, that this is it.""Doesn't sound like something that would delight Washington." He pondered. "On the other hand, what could the U.S. do anyway? The American military is a hell of a lot more worried about losing its bases in Japan, not to mention NSA's Soviet and Chinese listening posts, than the Japanese are about giving up our so-called protection. There's not a damned thing the U.S. could do about it.""I'd guess whoever's behind this fully realizes that." She paused, letting a roll of thunder from above die away. "But the protocol . . . nobody has any idea what's in it, not even the KGB. I also know that from our intercepts.""This is getting more interesting by the minute.""Well, stay tuned. There's more still. As it happens, I'm also on NSA's oversight panel, the Coordinating Committee. We assemble briefing packages that bring together reports from all the departments, including PHOTOINT, photo intelligence from satellite surveillance.""The 'spy in the sky' recon? Big Bird, KH-12, radar imaging?""Well, we review all of that, sure. But think about it. The Soviets have surveillance satellites too. And p.s., their Cosmos series can now relay down digital imagery in real time." She paused. "It's classified, but put two and two together. If NSA intercepts Soviet voice and data communications . . .""Stealing pictures from their spy satellites?" He knew about it. "Why not? All's fair in love and war, I think the saying goes.""Okay, just pretend you dreamed it up." She sighed. "Now, from here on it gets a little off-the-wall. So off-the-wall everybody at NSA refuses to take it seriously. The committee keeps wanting to study everything, but I think time's running out. Something's going to happen any day now, but—""Something bad?" He tried to make out her eyes in the dark, wondering what she was still holding back."Michael, I shouldn't . . ." She reached over and took another cigarette out of her purse. "Anyway, the reason I wanted you here was to help me find some answers. Before somebody decides to try and make me disappear too. Like Jerry." She flicked at her lighter three times before it finally flared.Maybe, he thought, she had good reason to be afraid. He remembered the odd sense that afternoon that they were being watched. And then Zeno mentioning a stranger carrying his book. It was beginning to seem less and less like a coincidence."But, Jesus," she went on. "Now they've found me. And I've drawn you into it. I'm really—""Just relax." Mainly now he wanted to calm her down. "Nobody's found—""Don't you see? Alex. Just happens to call you this morning as you were on your way here to see me. Don't flatter yourself. That call was about me. Which means he knows I've got . . ." Her hand quavered as she dropped the lighter back into her purse. "There's already been one murder—""Hey, slow down. Take it easy. Novosty's never scared me, even when he's tried. Just—""It's not him I'm worried about. Michael, if even a TDirectorate sleaze like Alex knows, then who else . . ." The darkened room fell silent."You'd better tell me all of it. Everything." Again he paused, thinking he heard a sound from somewhere in the dark. But it was impossible. Nobody could have followed them here.
It was a poetic place to meet Eva again, he thought. And thoroughly bizarre as well. She'd gotten her Ph.D. in linguistics, specializing in ancient Aegean languages, then a few months later she'd surprised everybody by accepting a slot at the National Security Agency, that sprawling electronic beehive of eavesdropping that lies midway between Washington and Baltimore, on the thousand acres of Fort Meade. It'd seemed a startling about-face at the time, but maybe it made sense. Besides, it was that or teaching.
NSA was a midsized city, producing among other things forty tons of classified paper trash a day. Its official insignia, appropriately, was a fierce eagle clasping a key—whether to unlock the secrets of others or to protect its own was unclear. Eva's particular branch, SIGINT—for signals intelligence—was an operation so secret NSA refused even to admit it existed. Employing ten acres of mainframe computers, Eva's SIGINT group monitored and analyzed every Russian transmission anywhere: their satellite downlinks, the microwave telephone networks within the Soviet Union, the chatter of civilian and military pilots, missile telemetry far above the Pacific, the split-second bursts of submarines reporting to base, even the limousine radiophone trysts between Politburo members and their mistresses. The instant an electromagnetic pulse left the earth, no matter its form or frequency, it belonged to the giant electronic ears of the NSA.
So why shouldn't Eva end up as the agency's top Russian codebreaker? She was a master at deciphering obscure texts, and she'd spoken Russian all her life. Who better to make a career of cracking secret Soviet communications. Her linguistics Ph.D. was being used to real purpose.
"I want you to help me think some, love," she went on. "I know it may sound a little bizarre, but I'd like to talk about some of the legends surrounding this place. You know, try and sort out fact and fiction."
Now they were headed side by side down the stairway leading into the central court, an expanse of sandstone and alabaster tile glinting golden in the pale sun. On their left a flight of stairs seemed to lead out, but in fact they led right back in again. The deceptions of the palace began at the very entrance.
"The truth is, about all we have is stories, though sometimes stories can be more true than so-called history. The standard version is that this area was where the athletes performed ritual somersaults over the sacred bulls."
The restored frescoes around them showed corridors crowded with lithe Minoan priestesses, eyes rounded with green malachite, faces powdered white, lips a blood red. They all were bare-breasted, wearing only diaphanous chemises, while their jewels glistened in the sunshine as they fanned themselves with ostrich plumes.
There were no frescoes, however, of the powerful, bloodthirsty King Minos.
"Michael," she called out, her voice echoing off the hard walls, "you know, this place has always felt a little sinister to me. None of the lightness and gaiety in those frescoes seems real."
"That's part of what made me start wondering if the Minoans hadn't somehow managed to make a monkey out of every ponderous scholar on the planet." They were moving down the monumental grand staircase, three restored flights of which had originally been five, toward the rooms called the royal chambers. "Maybe the reason this place had no walls or fortifications was because you only came here when you were dead. Who the hell knows."
Whatever the truth was, the eerie feeling of the palace seemed to make the ancient stories even more vivid. The legends told that King Minos's wife, Pasiphae, had a burning passion for one of the sacred white bulls he kept, so she arranged for his chief architect, Daedalus, to design a hollow wooden cow for her covered over with a hide. She concealed herself inside and, as luck would have it, lured one of the beasts. The progeny of that union was equally beastly—the Minotaur, a monster with a human body and a bull's head.
Now they were rounding a final corner in the twisting maze of stairs. Directly ahead was the boudoir of the queen. The past welled up for him.
The frescoes over the alabaster arches showed bold blue dolphins pirouetting in a pastel sea dotted with starfish and sea urchins. And just beneath them stood the famous bathroom of the queen, connected to the vast drainage complex of the palace, great stone channels curved in precise parabolas to control and dampen turbulence. Daedalus was an engineer-architect who had mastered the science of fluid dynamics thousands of years before the invention of wind tunnels and supercomputers.
"My favorite spot. The bedroom." He slipped the small bottle of ouzo from his trench coat pocket. In the dank of the palace's lower depths, he needed its warmth. "I've had unspeakably erotic thoughts about this place—now it can be told—with you no small part of them." He handed her the bottle. "Want a hit of high octane?"
"Glad to know I've had a place in your memory all these years, even if it was X-rated." She took the bottle with a knowing smile, then drank. "It's like licorice."
He laughed. "Blended with JP-7."
"Michael," she continued, looking around, "maybe this is the very room where Pasiphae gave birth to the Minotaur. What do you suppose?"
"That would fit the story." He moved on, his eyes still adjusting to the shadows. "The only thing the legends actually say is that King Minos ordered Daedalus, resident genius, to create a secret labyrinth in the cellar of the palace to keep the beast. But nobody's ever located it."
"You know, I think the labyrinth was no myth. It was real, only it was here. All around us. We're in it now." She handed back the bottle. "It was this whole sinister palace, this realm of the dead. After all these years, I finally think maybe you were right."
Vindicated at last? Had even Eva come around? But why didn't he feel any satisfaction? Instead he found himself aware of the old chill, the almost occult intuition that had first told him the palace wasn't the happy playground everybody supposed it was. Once more it felt like death.
But now something else was entering his senses. Was it imagination? In the encroaching dark the lower levels of the palace seemed to be totally deserted, with only a couple of persistent German tourists arguing out near the parking lot, and yet . . .
They weren't alone. He could feel it. He knew it. Was it the spirits of the dead?
No, it was far more real. Someone was with them, somewhere. In the shadows. They were being watched.
He looked at Eva, trying to make out her eyes in the semidarkness. Did she sense it too? That somebody was nearby, waiting, maybe listening?
"Darling, let's talk some more about the myth of Daedalus. In the version I remember he—"
"Not much more to the tale. After a while a Greek prince called Theseus arrived, to brave the labyrinth and do battle with the man-eating Minotaur. When he showed up, King Minos's beautiful daughter, Ariadne, instantly fell in love with him, naturally."
"I love myths. They're always so realistic."
"Well, he dumped her later, so I guess he did turn out to be a creep. But anyway, she persuaded Daedalus to give him a ball of string. He attached it to the door of the labyrinth and unwound it as he went in. After he killed the beast, he followed the twine back out, and escaped. With Ariadne. Unfortunately, when Minos discovered what had happened, he was so mad he locked the great chief architect in a tower. But Daedalus managed to get out, hoping to escape from the island. However, it wasn't going to be easy, since Minos had clamped down on all the harbors, having the ships searched. That's when Daedalus declared, 'Minos may control the land and the sea, but he doesn't control the regions above.' And he constructed some wings, attached them to his shoulders with wax, and soared away into space. First human ever. Up till then, only the gods could just leave the earth anytime they wanted."
"What?" She'd stopped dead still.
"Daedalus. You remember. The first person to fly, mankind's ago-old dream. In fact, a few years back some Americans duplicated the feat with a human-powered glider. They made it from here on Crete over to the island of—"
"No, you said 'space.' "
"Did I?" He smiled. "Call it poetic license. But why not? Back in those days I guess the skies themselves could be considered outer space, if they even knew such a thing existed." Then he looked at her and sobered. "What's—?"
"It's—it's just something that's been in the back of my mind." She moved on.
With a shrug, he took another drink of the ouzo and followed her on down the hall toward the famous Throne Room. He was bracing himself now for what was next.
Its walls were decorated with frescoes of the massive Minoan body shields, shaped as a figure-eight, that signified the men's quarters of Knossos. And incised in stone above King Minos's wide alabaster throne was his fearsome emblem of authority, symbol of his domination of the ancient world.
There it was. He looked around, reassuring himself that it was everywhere, just as he'd remembered. He'd also been right about something else. It was precisely the same, right down to the smooth curves of the blade, as the "watermark" that had been on the sheet of "paper" Alex had given him. Almost four thousand years old, it was the insignia of the new Daedalus Corporation.
The Minoan double ax.
Wednesday 6:12p.m.
The dusk was settling majestically over Tokyo, after a rare smogless day. The view was particularly inspiring from the fifty-fifth-floor penthouse of the granite-clad Mino Industries building. The corner office was an earth-tone tan, carpeted in a thick wool shag the color of elm bark. The heavy doors at the far end of the office were emblazoned with a two-bladed ax, and in the center of the wide expanse between the door and the single desk, on a gleaming steel pedestal, stood a meter-long model of an airplane more advanced than any the world had yet seen.
The temperature of the room was kept at a constant 59 degrees Fahrenheit, a frigid comfort-accommodation for the tawny, eight-foot snow leopard named Neko now resting on a pallet beside the window, gazing down. Remnant of an endangered species, she'd been rescued as a starving, motherless cub during an expedition in the Himalayas and raised for the past six years as a pampered pet of the penthouse's owner.
Along the sound-proof walls were gilt-framed photographs of a Japanese executive jogging with Jimmy Carter in Tokyo, golfing with Ferdinand Marcos in Manila, receiving an accolade from Linus Pauling in San Francisco, dining with Henry Kissinger in Paris. He was the same man now sitting behind the massive slate desk.
"You believe he was an American?" Tanzan Mino, president and CEO of the Daedalus Corporation, a paper creation of the Mino Industries Group, adjusted his pale silk tie and examined the subordinate now standing before him. He had just turned seventy-three, but the energy in his youthful frame made him seem at least a decade younger, perhaps two.
"Hai, Mino-sama." The other man, in a dark suit, bowed. "We have reason to believe the Russian has . . . they were seen exchanging an envelope."
"And your people failed to intercept either of them?"
The man bowed again, more deeply. "An attempt was made, but unfortunately the Soviet escaped, and the American . . . my people were unsure what action to take. We do know the funds have not been deposited as scheduled."
Tanzan Mino sighed and brushed at his silver temples. His dark eyes seemed to penetrate whatever they settled upon, and the uncomfortable vice-president now standing in front of him was receiving their full ire.
Back in the old days, when he directed the Mino-gumi clan's operations at street level, finger joints were severed for this kind of incompetence. But now, now the organization had modernized; he operated in a world beholden to computers and financial printouts. It was a new age, one he secretly loathed.
He'd been worried from the start that difficulties might arise. The idiocy of Japan's modern financial regulations had driven him to launder the payoffs thoroughly. In the old days, when he was Washington's man, controlling the Liberal Democratic Party, no meddling tax agency would have dared audit any of his shadow companies. But after a bastard maverick named Vance—with the CIA, no less!— had blown the whistle on his and the Company's clandestine understanding . . .
He had arranged the initial financing for the project, as well as the political accommodations, with letters of credit, promissory notes, and his word. And, eventually, if need be, the full financing could be raised by partial liquidation of his massive real estate holdings in Hawaii.
But the near-term expenses—and the necessary payoffs in the LDP—that was different. In Japanesekosaihi, the "money politics" of gifts and outright bribes, secrecy was everything. He remembered how he'd had to arrange for the mighty Yoshio Kodama, a powerbroker who had once shared his virtual ownership of the Japanese Diet and the Japanese press, to accept responsibility for the CIA-Lockheed bribe affair. It was a close call. That had involved a mere twelve million of American cash to Japanese politicians, but it had changed the rules forever. These days— particularly after the Recruit debacle had disgraced the LDP yet again—money had to be laundered and totally untraceable.
Promises had been made, schedules signed off, the veil of total secrecy kept intact. Everything was arranged. The Soviets, incompetents that they were, had no inkling of the larger plan.
Now it all came down to the funds. He needed the money at once.
He turned in his chair, pressed a gray button on his desk,
and watched the window blinds disappear into their frame. Neko rose from her languorous pose, stretched her spotted white fur, and gazed down. This was the panoramic view she loved almost as much as he did, for her perhaps it was the memory of a snowy Himalayan crest; for him it was the sprawl of Tokyo, the elegant peak of Mount Fuji to the west, the bustling port of Yokohama to the south. From this vantage atop the powerful financial world of Japan, Tanzan Mino wanted two final triumphs to crown his career. He wanted to see Japan become the twenty-first century's leader in space, and he wanted his country finally to realize its historic wartime objective: economic domination of the continent of Asia, from Siberia to Malaysia, with freedom forever from the specter of energy and resource dependence. The plan now in motion would achieve both.
He revolved again in his chair, ignored the subordinate standing before his desk, and studied the model. It was a perfect replica, one-hundredth the actual size, of the spaceplane that would revolutionize the future, the symbol that would soon signify his country's transcendence in the high-tech age to come.
Then his gaze shifted.
"You were 'unsure what action to take'?" He leaned back, touching his fingertips together, and sadness entered his voice. "You know, there was a time when I thought Japan might still one day recapture the spirit we have lost, the spirit ofbushido. In centuries gone by, a samurai never had to ask himself 'what action to take.' He acted intuitively. Instinctively. Do you understand?"
"Hai, wakarimasu." The man bowed stiffly.
"I am prepared to funnel trillions of yen into this project before it is over. Legitimate, clean funds. So the sum now in question is almost inconsequential. However, it is the bait we need to set the trap, and it must be handled exactly as I have specified."
"Hai, Mino-sama." Again he bowed.
"The next time you stand before me, I want to hear that the laundered Soviet funds have been deposited in the Shokin Gaigoku Bank as agreed. You have one week." He slowly turned back to the window. "Now, must I tell you what you have to do?" The man bowed low one last time. He knew exactly.
Wednesday 7:38p.m.
"Michael! And Eva! Again, after so long.Pos iste!What a surprise!" The old Greek's sunburned face widened into a smile, his gray mustache opening above his last good teeth. "Parakalo, you must come in for a glass ofrakiand some of Adriana'smeze. She would never forgive me."
They'd dropped by the hotel, then come here. Although Zeno's small taverna was in the center ofIraklion, its facade was still country style, covered with an arbor. A bare electric bulb hung incongruously in the middle of the porch, penetrating the dull glow of dusk now settling over the square called Platia Eleftherias, where the evening'svoltawas just beginning. Once the chaste promenade of eligible young women, it was now a deafening flock of motorscooters, with girls in tight jeans riding on their backs. And the watchful mothers of old were conspicuously absent. Times had indeed changed since his last time here.
"Zeno." Vance shook his hand, then accepted his warm embrace. As he was driving, he'd been wondering what the old Greek would think about the sudden reappearance of Eva. They hadn't been here together since that last trip, well over a decade ago. "Still pouring the meanestrakiin this town?"
"But of course. Never that tequila you like, Michael." He chuckled with genuine pleasure, recalling that Vance could down his high-potency version ofouzolike a native. "Ah, you know, Michael, your father would never touch it. You, though . . ."
He beckoned them through thekafeneion'sdoorway, leading the way with a limp. The interior was dark, redolent of Greek cigarettes andretsinawine. Overwhelming it all were the smells of the kitchen—pungent olive oil and onions and garlic and herbs, black pepper and oregano. Although lighting was minimal, around the rickety wooden tables could be seen clusters of aging Greeks drinking coffee andrakiand gossiping. The white clay walls resounded with the clacks ofkomboloiworry beads andtavli, Greek backgammon.
"But then," Zeno continued, "that last trip, your birthday present to him. On his retirement. Do you remember? When we three were sitting at that very table, there in the corner. He called for a bottle of myrakiand shared a glass with me. We both knew it was our good-bye." His eyes grew misty with emotion. "Yes, coming here finally with his famous son was a kind of benediction, Michael. He was passing the torch to you, to continue his work."
This last was uttered with a slightly censorious tone. But it quickly evaporated as he turned and bowed to Eva, then took her hand in a courtly gesture. The old Greeks in the room would have preferred no women save an obedient mate in their male sanctuary, but traditional hospitality conquered all. "It is so good to see you two back together." He smiled warmly as he glanced up. "Welcome once again to our humble home."
She bowed back, then complimented him in turn, in flawless Greek.
"So beautiful, and so accomplished." He beamed. "You still are the treasure I remember. You are a goddess." He kissed her hand. "As I've told Michael before, you could well be from this island. No, even more. You could be Minoan. You bear a fine resemblance to the 'parisiennes'of the palace. Did he ever tell you?"
"Not often enough." She flashed him her sexiest smile. "But then he never had your eye for women."
"Ah," the old man blushed, "I have more than an eye. If I were thirty years younger, you and I—"
"Zeno, before you drown Eva in that legendary charm, let me bring her up to date," Vance laughed. "She is now in
the presence of the man who has probably become the richest tavern owner in all of Crete."
It was true. Zeno Stantopoulos had indeed become a wealthy man, in many ways. His father had once farmed the land on which now stood the unearthed palace at Knossos. The handsome sum Sir Arthur Evans paid for the site was invested in bonds, which he then passed on to Zeno just before the war. Zeno had the foresight to convert them to gold and hide it in Switzerland during the German occupation of Crete. After the war, he used it to purchase miles and miles of impoverished olive groves in the south, which he nursed back to full production. These days oil went up, oil went down, but Zeno always made a profit.
His real wealth, however, was of a different kind. Zeno Stantopoulos knew everything of importance that happened on Crete. Hiskafeneionwas the island's clearinghouse for gossip and information.
"Don't listen to him, madam." He winked and gestured them toward the wide table in back, near the kitchen. It was known far and wide as the place of honor, the location where Zeno Stantopoulos held court. It had also been the nerve center of the Greek resistance during the Nazi occupation, when Zeno had done his share of killing and dynamiting. The limp, however, came from the fifties, when he was imprisoned and tortured by the right-wing colonels for organizing popular resistance against them.
"Come, let us celebrate with a glass of myraki." He turned again to Eva. "I should remind you. You once called it liquid fire."
He clapped for Adriana, who squinted through the kitchen door, her black shawl wrapped tightly about her shoulders. When she finally recognized them, she hobbled forward, her stern Greek eyes softening into a smile.
"Neither of you has changed." Eva gave her a hug. "You both look marvelous."
"Time, my friends, time. That has changed," Zeno went on. "I use a cane now, for long walks. The way Michael's father did his last time here. When I saw him I thought, old age must be God's vengeance on us sinners. And now it has happened to me." He smiled, with a light wink. "But I will tell you a secret. Ask Adriana. I do not yet need a cane for all my exercise." He nodded affectionately in her direction. "I can still make this beauty wake up in the mornings singing a song."
It was true, Vance suspected. Adriana had hinted more than once that every night with him was still a honeymoon.
"Ah, Michael," he sighed, "I still miss seeing your beloved father on his summer trips here. Together you two inspired our soul. The ancient soul of Crete."
At that point Adriana bowed and announced she must return to the kitchen, where she was putting the final touches to her proprietary version ofkalamarakia, fried squid.
Her peasant face hid well her peasant thoughts. Almost. Vance had known her long enough to read her dark eyes. She didn't quite know what to make of Eva's reappearance yet. Speaking passable Greek, it was true, which counted for much, but she still wore no wedding band.Adinato!
"Michael, don't let Adriana stuff you." Zeno watched her disappear, then turned. "To your health." He clicked their small glasses together. "Eis hygeian."
"Eis hygeian." Vance took a sip, savoring the moment. Seeing old friends again, real friends, was one of life's most exquisite pleasures.
"And tell me, how long will you two be visiting with us this time?" Zeno's Cretan hospitality flowed unabated. "Perhaps longer than the last? Have you finally decided to come back to stay, maybe make us famous all over again?"
"Can't speak for Eva, but I've been asked to look in on the new German excavation down at Phaistos. A project to try and restore the palace there, the way Evans reconstructed Knossos." He glanced over. She was now sipping the tepidrakiwith the gusto she normally reserved for ice-cold Stolichnaya. "Tonight, though, we're just tourists. Here to see you two again."
At that moment, Adriana reappeared from the kitchen bearing an enormous oak tray. With a flourish she laid before them fried squid and goat cheese and stuffed grape leaves and octopus and wooden bowls ofmelidzanosalata, her baked eggplant puree flavored with garlic, onions and herbs, not forgetting her speciality, pinktaramasalatamade of mullet roe and olive oil.
"Incidentally, we were just out at Knossos, the palace, this afternoon." Vance took a bite ofkalamarakiawhile she looked on approvingly.
"Ah, of course, the palace," Zeno smiled. "I love it still. I probably should go more myself, if only to remember the days of my childhood, during the restoration. But with all the tour buses. ..." He chewed on a sliver of octopus as he glanced out toward the music in the street. "Perhaps it should be better cared for these days. But, alas, we are not as rich now as King Minos was." He shrugged and reached for a roll ofdolmadakia. "Still, we are not forgotten. Today, perhaps, we count for little in the eyes of the world, but your book brought us fleeting fame once again. Scholars from everywhere came—"
"Hoping to prove me wrong." Vance laughed and took another sip ofraki.
"What does it matter, my friend. They came." He brightened. "Even today. Just to show you. Today, there was a man here, right here, who was carrying your famous work on the palace. He even—"
"Today?" Vance glanced up. Had he been right?
"Yes, this very day. Outside in the arbor. He even sampled some of Adriana'smeze." He nodded at her. "I did not like him, and only our friends are welcome inside, book or no book."
"Was he going out to Knossos?" Eva interjected suddenly, staring. "To the palace?"
"He asked about it. Why else have the book?" He shrugged again, then examined the octopus bowl, searching for a plump piece. "You know, Michael, I could never finish that volume of yours entirely. But your pictures of the frescoes—" He paused to chew his octopus, then smoothed his gray mustache and turned again to Eva, "the frescoes of the women. I love them best of all. And every now and then I see a woman here in life who looks like them. Not often, but I do. And you are one of those rare
creatures, my Eva. I swear you are Minoan." He turned back. "Look at her, Michael. Is it not true?"
"Zeno," Eva reached for his gnarled hand. "It's not like you to forget. My people are Russian, remember. From the Steppes."
"Ah, of course. Forgive me. But you see, that only goes to prove it." He nodded conclusively. "The Minoans, we are told, came from central Asia thousands of years ago. The 'brown-haired daughter of Minos' was an oriental beauty, just as you are. I'm sure of it. Look at the frescoes."
"Zeno, tell me." Vance reached to pour morerakiinto their glasses. "The man you mentioned just now. Was he Greek?"
"No, he was a foreigner." He chewed thoughtfully. "I've never seen anyone quite like him. He had a strange way of speaking. In truth, Michael, I did not like him at all. Not a bit."
"What exactly did he say?"
"It wasn't that. It was something else. I don't know."
"And he went? To the palace?"
"I saw him hire a taxi, that was all. But whether he went there or somewhere in the south, only God could know." He looked away. "Perhaps tomorrow I could find out."
"Did this man have a beard?" He pressed.
"No, the thing I remember most was that part of one finger was missing. Curious. I focused on that. But his features, his features were almost Asian I would say." He paused, then turned and asked Adriana to fetch another bottle ofraki. "Perhaps his accent was from that part of the world." He looked back at Eva. "I suppose you would have known, my marvelous Eva, my Minoan queen."
His eyes lingered on her a moment longer, then he rose. "Enough. Now we must all have something for dinner. I'm sure you do not want to spend the rest of the night trapped here with a crippled old Greek."
He disappeared into the kitchen to select the pick of the day's catch. And that smoky evening they dined on the island's best—barbounia, red mullet, which Adriana grilled with the head and served with wedges of Cretan lemon. Afterward came a dessert of grapes and soft, freshmyzithracheese blended with dark honey from the mountains near Sfakii. Then at the end she brought forth her ownsoumada, a rich nectar made of pressed almonds.
After moreraki, Zeno was persuaded to get out his ancientbouzouki, tune it, and play and sing some traditional songs. The music grew faster and more heated, and then— with only the slightest urging—Eva cleared away the tables and began to dance. Her Russian gypsy movements seemed almost Greek.
When they finally broke away the time was nearly midnight; thevoltahad long-since disbanded; the sky above had changed from a canopy of island stars to a spring torrent. And Michael Vance and Eva Borodin were very, very drunk.
Wednesday 11:34p.m.
"You know, there was something special about us in the old days," Vance said as they weaved down the rain-washed street toward the hotel. "How we used to be. All we did was eat, drink, and talk. And make love. Tonight it's three down and one to go."
"You're pretty smashed, darling." Eva laughed and looked him over. "A girl learns to watch out for deceptive advertising."
He slipped his arm around her. Eleven years, and in a way, this was like it was all happening over again.
"I never shirk from a challenge."
"I'll drink to that." Her voice indicated the challenge would not be overly daunting. "Do we have any—?"
"There's still that bottle ofouzoin the car."
She stopped dead still, her hair plastered against her upturned face, and ran her hands down her body. "Minoan, that's what Zeno said. What if it's true?" She turned back. "What if I have the same hot blood as the queen who vamped a bull? Imagine what that would be like."
"As best I remember, you could probably handle it."
She performed another Russian gypsy whirl in the glistening street. "I want to be Minoan, Michael. I want to soar through time and space. Leap over bulls, maybe even . . ." She twirled again, drunkenly.
"Then why not do it? The queen's bedroom." He stopped and stared at the Galaxy Hotel, ultramodern and garish, now towering upward in the rain. The pool was closed, but the disco still blared. "The hell with everything. I'm taking you back there. Tonight."
Parked next to the lobby entrance was their rented Saab. He paused and looked in at the half bottle of ouzo lying on the seat, then reached and pulled her into his arms. "Come on. And get ready."
"Is that a promise?" She curled around and met his lips.
"Time's a wastin ." He kissed her again and began searching for his keys.
She was unsteadily examining the darkened interior of her purse. "I think I've got an emergency candle in here. We'll use it for light. Just enough."
"I just hope I'm not too wrecked to drive in the rain."
"You'd better not be. I know I am."
"Who cares? Let's just go for it." He was unlocking the car and helping her in, loving the feel of her body, her scent. He'd decided he was ready for anything and anybody, including some mysterious stranger carrying his book.
The night was brisk, with flares of spring lightning over the mountains. As the Saab weaved through the narrow streets leading out of town, Eva climbed up and drunkenly unlatched its sunroof to let in the rain. By the time they reached the winding country road, headlights piercing the downpour, the wind was rushing around them, wild and free.
When they pulled into the parking lot of Knossos it was deserted, and they easily discovered an opening in the guard fence. The palace lay before them.
"Piece of cake." He took her hand and helped her through the wire. "I propose a toast right here. To the past and to the future."
"If I drink much more of this, I may not be around to see the future, but I'll die happy." She reached for the slippery bottle.
As they moved through the abandoned central court, eerie in the rain, he could almost hear the roars of the crowd four thousand years past, see the spotted bulls charging the nubile athletes. A heavy gust flickered her candle, adding mystery to the shadows dancing across the enigmatic women of the frescoes.
"Now I really do feel Minoan." She headed down the grand staircase, brandishing the light. Then she called out, her voice resounding down the maze of windy hallways, "I am the queen. I am Pasiphae. Where's my white bull?"
"Eva, you're drunk," he yelled after.
"I'm intoxicated. It's different." She laughed, low in her throat. "I'm intoxicated by the palace. The thought of my bull, the eternal male." Her voice echoed more. "Know about eternal males, darling? They're like eternal females, only harder." She grinned at him, then proceeded, tracing the wide marble steps.
As she floated down, carrying the candle, the moist air was scented with jasmine, alive with the music of crickets. They rounded the last curving steps, and the ornate vista of the queen's bedroom spread before them, its blue dolphins cavorting in their pastel sea.
He walked over and patted the alabaster portico. "Hard as this, your eternal male? This is a real test for the eternal female bottom."
She threw herself down, then reached and ran a drunken readiness check across his wet thigh. "I'm ready for something hard inside me." Her voice was strange, detached and ethereal.
"When did you start talking like that?" He loved it. "Not even in the old days—"
"When I became Minoan, darling. When I became the blood relation of Queen Pasiphae."
She wiggled out of her soaked brown dress and tossed it onto the floor. As he watched her begin to sway before the fresco of the dolphins, he had the definite feeling time was in a warp, that the flow of centuries was in reverse. Maybe Eva was none other than Pasiphae reborn. The room was perfumed and serene, perfect for a queen.
Then she bent down and carefully stationed her candle on the stone. Looking up she said, "Let me have some more of thatouzo. I love being here. It's shocking and wonderful."
No, this was most assuredly the modern Eva. As she moved against him, her body felt the way he remembered it. Riper now perhaps, with a voluptuousness slightly more toward Rubens than Botticelli, but the skin of her breasts, her thighs, was soft as ever. And the dark triangle was still luxuriant, redolent with her scent.
"Do it. Hard. Like a bull. I want to know what she felt." She drew back across the stone as he drove inside her. "Yes"
While rain slammed against the courtyard above, the ancient, foreboding room began to engulf and rule their senses; the feel of her perfumed nipples against him was hard and urgent. It was an erotic moment outside of time.
Now her head thrashed from side to side as quivering orgasms rippled through her, starting in her groin and welling upward as she arched and flung back her hair. Then she drew up, clinging, as though trying to consume him, herself, in a rite of pure bacchanalian frenzy. Her breath had become labored, not gasps of pleasure, but the need of one seeking air.
Eva, Eva, he suddenly caught himself thinking, you're here for release, escape. I know you too well. You're not really in this room anymore. You want to be but you're not. You're somewhere in a realm of beasts and magic and the bloodthirsty Minotaur.
But yet, yet . . . somehow he'd never felt closer . . .
A final convulsion brought them together and then she fell back, dazed. The candlelight flickered across the alabaster, sending ghostly apparitions against the fresco of the dolphins. Still trying to catch her breath, she reached out and seized the bottle of ouzo, drank from it thirstily, then flung herself once more against the stone. After another long moment, she pulled him to her.
"Michael, hold me." She snuggled into his arms. "Oh, darling, just hold me."
He drew her against him, and the touch of her skin was erotic beyond anything he remembered. . . .
But the palace . . . it was intruding darkly, insinuating its presence. Now it surrounded them like a tomb, ominous as death. Finally he turned her face up and examined her dark eyes. They were flooded with fear.
"Look, you've got to tell me what's going on. I want to know the real reason you're here, and I want to know it now. I'd somehow begun to hope it was for us, but—"
"That's part of it, darling. Truly." She kissed him deeply on the mouth, then reached and began fishing in her purse for the battered pack of Dunhills, trying to regain her bravado. "God, that was hot. I do love being here with you."
"You're stalling. Whenever you don't—"
"You're right." She took out a cigarette, flicked her lighter, and drew a lungful of smoke. "Now I see why Pasiphae was such a number. This room does something to you."
"Not bad for starters."
She looked down, then smiled. "No, darling, you're just bluffing. I remember that well enough. Plenty of time for a cigarette."
"Some things improve with age." He studied her beautifully disheveled form. Now more than ever he realized she was scared. "Goddammit, enough. Talk to me."
"All right." She sighed, then leaned back on the ledge of the portico. "Well, to begin at the beginning, I've been seeing somebody lately."
"Make you a deal," he interrupted. "You spare me your stories and I'll spare you mine. This doesn't really seem the moment to start swapping indiscretions."
"I'll bet you've got plenty to swap yourself." She looked him over.
"Hold on a minute." Sure, there'd been women in and out of his life. He wasn't a priest. Besides, he liked women.
"Darling, relax." She patted his thigh. "We're both adults. You said you wanted to hear this, so for godsake listen. His name was Jerry Ackerman and . . . it started back about nine months ago. Since he was new, he'd drop by my office now and then. You know, to learn the ropes."
"What kind of ropes, exactly?"
"Really, Michael. Anyway, he wasn't exactly world class in the boudoir, if that makes you feel any better. Though needless to say I never told him that. Our little scene tonight would have blown his Brooklyn mind. Now does that preserve your precious male ego? He was just nice, and interesting."
"Was?"
"I'll get to that." She was tracing small circles on the alabaster. "Week before last he dropped off a computer disk at my office. Said he couldn't figure it out. And it was old, maybe two weeks. Which was unusual, especially for satellite intercepts, which this was. Normally we get them the same day. So I ran it through my desk station, figuring it couldn't be that big a deal." She paused nervously, then went on. "Well, the first part was encoded using one of the standard Soviet encryption systems we've had cracked for years, and it had a lot of proper names. But the rest of it was just a string of numbers. No matter what I tried, I got nothing but garbage."
"Really? I thought Fort Meade's football field of Cray supercomputers could crack anything."
"I thought so too. But this encryption was either so clever, or so simple, nothing seemed to click. I couldn't do it. I even began to wonder, maybe it's not a cipher at all. Maybe it's just some obscure foreign language. So I matrixed it against some we have in the data base. And, love, we've got them. A zillion megabytes of memory. Serbo-Croatian, Urdu, Basque . . ." She drew on her cigarette, sending a glow into the dark. Above them the rain continued to pound. "But I still couldn't find anything that would crack it."
"Doesn't sound like you." He drew her around and kissed her. "Half the time you're too smart for your own good."
"Apparently not smart enough." She hugged him back automatically, then continued. "When I told Jerry I couldn't break the encryption, he suddenly got very nervous. Said okay, then he'd just take it and try again himself. So I asked him to sign it out on my log. Just routine. And that's when he started acting strange. At first he refused, but finally he did it when I said, 'It's like this, sweet buns. No tickee, no washee.' By then he'd stopped coming over to my place and things had gotten a little strained at the edges, to put it mildly. So I didn't think too much about it at the time."
"Don't start telling me more about—"
"Michael, that was the last time anybody saw him. He just vanished. That night. There was even something in the paper. 'Mysterious disappearance.' The apartment where he lived had been dismantled. Top to bottom. Somebody must have thought he was holding out."
"And?"
"Well, it just so happened I still had it in computer memory, though that's a blatant violation of security procedures. Anyway, the next day I called Control and said what's with a certain file? Gave them the NSCID number. And they said, 'We have no record of that number.' Quote. They'd never heard of it. So it must have been a free-lance job for somebody outside. Whoever it was must have paid Jerry, or maybe blackmailed him, into getting me to take a crack at it. Which is why it was two weeks old. It wasn't NSA material at all. Somebody else wanted it, and I'm known far and wide as Ms. Give-Her-the-Tough-Ones."
"You always were the best."
"Right." She laughed, then reached into her purse and retrieved a three and a half inch gray computer disk. "And here it is. A complete copy. I've also got it stored on the eighty-meg hard drive of my Zenith Turbo 486 laptop back at the hotel." She tossed it to him. "Jerry's file. That's the good news. The bad news is, it's still encrypted."
He turned it in his fingers. Welcome to the new age, he thought, when thousands of pages can be packed onto a high-density disk the size of a casette tape.
She took out a compact from her purse and powdered her nose in the light of the candle, then turned and searched the stone for her crumpled dress. He thought he heard a sound from the hallway outside, but then decided it was just more thunder.
"So now what?" She finally found the dress and drew it loosely on, managing not to secure the bustline. "I've tried and tried to crack it, but nothing seems to click. After the preamble, there's nothing on there but a long string of numbers. Whatever it is, it's not any of the standard encryption systems." She reached to take it back. "Why am I telling you all this?"
"Because we've agreed, no more games."
"Darling, there're actually two reasons why I shouldn't. One is I hate to drag you into it, and the other . . . well, there's more."
"I'm waiting."
"Whatever's on here is part of something bigger. I know that because of the preamble, the section I can read." She pushed ahead, nervousness in her voice. "Anyway, that's when I decided I had to talk to you. About some of the things you used to work on."
He inhaled. "What are you talking about?"
"There were some proper names."
"I don't get—"
"In the preamble. One was 'Daedalus.' And another was 'Mino.' So I thought, why not talk to Michael? It sounded like something that you'd . . . I don't know . . . maybe you could help me think. Anyway, I finally decided to take a chance and ring you."
"Great. Nice to finally learn exactly where I fit in." He lay silent for a moment, trying to suppress his annoyance. Finally he told himself, Be constructive.
"All right, tell me what you think it's all about."
"Well." She paused again, as though unsure. Finally she spoke, her voice faint above the rain. "Did you know the Soviet Union and Japan never actually signed a peace treaty after World War Two?"
"It's because the Soviets kept some Japanese islands, right? Seem to recall they were the Kuriles, and also the southern half of Sakhalin."
"Japan calls those the Northern Territories, and they've refused to sign because of them." She reached over and adjusted the candle, surveying the dark around them. The gloom was almost Stygian. "Well, hang on to your diplomatic pouch, because I think they're about to sign. Maybe as the first step toward . . . I'm still not sure what."
He caught his breath. "How did you find out about this?"
"Intelligence. I've been handling our intercepts. But we still haven't put together a briefing package for the president, and State. It just seems so implausible nobody wants to be the one to sign off on it. Besides, nothing's settled. Among other things, the Japanese Diet would eventually have to vote to approve it, and nothing's come through diplomatic channels. It's being closely handled by somebody big and anonymous over there. Anyway, my hunch is a vote in the Diet would be a squeaker. Your average Japanese man on the street still isn't too enthusiastic about the Soviets."
He leaned back to think. Given today's global realities, a deal like that had to be the tip of some gigantic iceberg. In diplomacy, there was always give and take.
"And you believe whatever's on this disk is somehow connected to the treaty?"
"That's precisely what I believe," she sighed. "The treaty has a secret protocol involved. It's hinted at in the intercepts, but never described. And I've got a feeling, somehow, that this is it."
"Doesn't sound like something that would delight Washington." He pondered. "On the other hand, what could the U.S. do anyway? The American military is a hell of a lot more worried about losing its bases in Japan, not to mention NSA's Soviet and Chinese listening posts, than the Japanese are about giving up our so-called protection. There's not a damned thing the U.S. could do about it."
"I'd guess whoever's behind this fully realizes that." She paused, letting a roll of thunder from above die away. "But the protocol . . . nobody has any idea what's in it, not even the KGB. I also know that from our intercepts."
"This is getting more interesting by the minute."
"Well, stay tuned. There's more still. As it happens, I'm also on NSA's oversight panel, the Coordinating Committee. We assemble briefing packages that bring together reports from all the departments, including PHOTOINT, photo intelligence from satellite surveillance."
"The 'spy in the sky' recon? Big Bird, KH-12, radar imaging?"
"Well, we review all of that, sure. But think about it. The Soviets have surveillance satellites too. And p.s., their Cosmos series can now relay down digital imagery in real time." She paused. "It's classified, but put two and two together. If NSA intercepts Soviet voice and data communications . . ."
"Stealing pictures from their spy satellites?" He knew about it. "Why not? All's fair in love and war, I think the saying goes."
"Okay, just pretend you dreamed it up." She sighed. "Now, from here on it gets a little off-the-wall. So off-the-wall everybody at NSA refuses to take it seriously. The committee keeps wanting to study everything, but I think time's running out. Something's going to happen any day now, but—"
"Something bad?" He tried to make out her eyes in the dark, wondering what she was still holding back.
"Michael, I shouldn't . . ." She reached over and took another cigarette out of her purse. "Anyway, the reason I wanted you here was to help me find some answers. Before somebody decides to try and make me disappear too. Like Jerry." She flicked at her lighter three times before it finally flared.
Maybe, he thought, she had good reason to be afraid. He remembered the odd sense that afternoon that they were being watched. And then Zeno mentioning a stranger carrying his book. It was beginning to seem less and less like a coincidence.
"But, Jesus," she went on. "Now they've found me. And I've drawn you into it. I'm really—"
"Just relax." Mainly now he wanted to calm her down. "Nobody's found—"
"Don't you see? Alex. Just happens to call you this morning as you were on your way here to see me. Don't flatter yourself. That call was about me. Which means he knows I've got . . ." Her hand quavered as she dropped the lighter back into her purse. "There's already been one murder—"
"Hey, slow down. Take it easy. Novosty's never scared me, even when he's tried. Just—"
"It's not him I'm worried about. Michael, if even a TDirectorate sleaze like Alex knows, then who else . . ." The darkened room fell silent.
"You'd better tell me all of it. Everything." Again he paused, thinking he heard a sound from somewhere in the dark. But it was impossible. Nobody could have followed them here.