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From his pocket he produced a small tape-player, borrowed from one of the women in the typing pool who was accustomed to playing her music tapes on it. Then he took a miniature tape and slipped it in.
“What’s that?” asked Fields.
“That, my friend, is the tape of the entire interview with Igor Komarov. One hour on each side.”
“But I thought the killers took the tape machine.”
“They did. They also managed to put a bullet through it. I found fragments of plastic and metal at the bottom of Jefferson’s right-hand inner breast pocket. It wasn’t the wallet they hit, it was the tape recorder. So the tape will be unplayable.”
“But …”
“But the fussy bugger must have stopped on the street, extracted his precious interview, and put a fresh tape in. This was found in a plastic bag in his trouser pocket. I think it shows why he died. Listen.”
He switched the machine on. The voice of the dead Journalist filled the room.
“Mr. President, in matters of foreign affairs, particularly those concerning relations with the other republics of the USSR, how do you intend to secure the rebirth to glory of the Russian nation?”
There was a slight pause, then Kuznetsov began translating. When he had finished, there was an even longer pause and the sound of footfalls on carpet. The machine clicked off
.
“Someone rose and left the room,” said Macdonald.
The machine switched back on and they heard Komarov’s voice give his answer. How long Jefferson had had his machine switched off they could not know. But just before the click they could hear Kuznetsov begin to say: “I am sure the President will not be …”
“I don’t follow,” said Fields.
“It’s hideously simple, Gracie. I translated that Black Manifesto myself. Through the night, back at Vauxhall Cross. It was I who translated the phrase ‘Vozrozhdenie vo slavu otechestva’ as ‘the rebirth to glory of the motherland.’ Because that’s what it means.
“Marchbanks read the translation. He must have mentioned the phrase to Jefferson’s editor, who used it in turn to Jefferson. He liked the imagery so he produced it back to Komarov last night. The bastard found himself listening to his own language. And I’ve never heard that phrase used before.”
Fields reached across and replayed the passage. When Jefferson had finished, Kuznetsov translated into Russian. For “rebirth to glory” he used the Russian words vozrozhdenie vo slavu.
“Jesus Christ,” muttered Fields. “Komarov must have thought Jefferson had seen the whole document, read it in Russian. He must have jumped to the conclusion Jefferson was one of us, come to test him out. Do you think the Black Guards did it?”
“No, I think Grishin called up a contract hit from his underworld contacts. A very quick job. If they’d had more time they’d have snatched him from the street and questioned him at leisure. They were told to silence him and get that tape back.”
“So, jock, what are you going to do now?”
“Head back to London. The gloves are off. We know and Komarov knows we know. The Chief said he wanted proof it was no forgery. Three men have now died for that satanic document. I don’t know how much more bloody proof he wants.”
San Jose, November 1988
SILICON Valley really is a valley running along a line between the Santa Cruz mountains to the west and the Hamilton range to the east. It stretches from Santa Clara to Menlo Park, which were its limits in 1988. Since then it has spread. The nickname comes from an amazing concentration of between one and two thousand industries and research foundations dedicated to the highest of high technology.
The international scientific conference of November 1988 was held in the Valley’s principal city, San Jose, once small Spanish mission town, now a sprawling conurbation of gleaming towers. The eight members of the Soviet delegation were quartered in the San Jose Fairmont. Jason Monk was in the lobby when they checked in.
The basic eight were escorted by a much larger phalanx of minders. Some were from the Soviet’s U.N. mission in New York, one from the consulate in San Francisco, and four had come in from Moscow. Monk sat over a cup of iced tea, tweed-jacketed, with a copy of New Scientist beside him, playing spot-the-hood. There were five in all, clearly protectors from the KGB.
Before coming, Monk had had a long session with a top nuclear physicist from the Lawrence Livermore Lab. The man was ecstatic at the chance of at last meeting the Soviet physicist Professor Blinov.
“You have to realize, this guy is an enigma. He really came to prominence over the past ten years,” the Livermore scientist had told him. We began to hear rumors of him on the scientific circuit about that far back. He was a star inside the USSR before then, but he wasn’t allowed to publish anything abroad.
“We do know he got the Lenin prize, along with a host of awards. He must have gotten a rack of invitations to speak abroad—hell, we sent him two—but we had to send them to the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences. They always said ‘forget it.’ He’s made major contributions and I guess he must have wanted international recognition—we’re all human—so it was probably the Academy turning down the invitations. And now he’s coming. He’ll be lecturing on advanced particle physics, and I’ll be there.”
So will I, thought Monk.
He waited until after the scientist had made his speech. It was warmly applauded. In the auditorium Monk had listened to the addresses and circulated during the coffee breaks and thought they might as well all be speaking Martian. He did not understand a word.