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  Finally the Secretary General of the United Nations flew to Moscow and held direct talks with the leaders of the Soviet government. After much lying and haranguing, it was finally agreed to exchange the “Moscow Six,” as they came to be called, for Soviet KGB agents languishing in various prisons throughout the world.

  At one o’clock on a Wednesday morning, the Moscow Six boarded a bus in the back of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. It was the first time they’d seen each other since their daring escape across Red Square. They greeted each other politely but didn’t say much of consequence because they knew the bus must be wired for sound. They were driven from the embassy to Moscow International Airport, where they boarded a U.S. Air Force jet transport plane bound for Washington D.C.

  Butler sat with Sonia, Streptakovich sat with Lizaveta, and Doctor Kahlovka sat with the chauffeur. Butler, Sonia, and Doctor Kahlovka had been given American-style clothes to wear, and Butler had shaved the night before, splashing on a little Aqua Velva on afterwards. The six buckled themselves into their seats, while various CIA and embassy people occupied other seats. The plane raced down the runway and leapt into the sky.

  They were out of the Soviet Union and bound for the United States at last.

  Butler leaned toward Sonia and whispered, “They treat you all right?”

  “Very well, thank you,” she said with a smile.

  “You’re happy?”

  “Very happy, and I owe it all to you.”

  “You also owe me a hundred rubles. Remember our bet?”

  “f remember. You know, you’re not bad-looking at all, now that I can see your face.”

  “Do I look as good as Delphine Seyrig?”

  “You never could look that good. And you’re not going to win that other hundred rubles either.”

  “Oh yes I am.”

  “Oh no you’re not.”

  The plane landed at Heathrow Airport outside London for refueling and then continued across the Atlantic Ocean to Washington D.C. It landed at ten o’clock in the evening at Dulles International Airport and a huge crowd was waiting to catch a glimpse of the celebrities. A battalion of police was on hand to keep the people back, and photographers began to take pictures as soon as the doors of the airplane opened.

  The Moscow Six walked down the steps to the runway, where microphones were set up. The Vice-President of the United States greeted them along with various State Department officials and congresspersons trying to get into the act. Several of them made speeches in which they spoke of such subjects as freedom and justice, and then the members of the Moscow Six were invited to say something to the crowds.

  The microphones were hooked up to loudspeakers as well as radio stations in America and throughout the world. They also were being used by various television stations who had camera crews doing on-the-spot coverage.

  Streptakovich was the first to use the microphones. “It is wonderful for me to be in this great country,” he said happily. “Thank you very much.”

  Sonia was next and she said she was overjoyed to be in America.

  Lizaveta wrung her hands and cried and said thank you in Russian which nobody understood.

  The chauffeur asked if anybody knew where he could get a job, but he said it in Russian and nobody understood him either.

  Doctor Kahlovka said that he was looking forward to enjoying the freedom that Americans are supposed to have.

  Butler said it was good to be home.

  Amid cheering crowds and flashbulbs popping all around them, they were escorted to a waiting bus that drove them to the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Now see here, Butler, just what the hell is going on here!” said F.J. Shankham, director of the Office of Current Intelligence of the CIA. A lean, sallow man, Shankham once had been Butler’s superior in the New York counterintelligence station —

  “I already told the other people, Shankham. How many times do I have to go through it?”

  “Till I’m satisfied you’re telling the truth.” Shankham looked down his long thin nose at Butler. They were sitting in Shankham’s office in CIA headquarters. “You don’t expect me to believe you really were in Moscow just to rent office space, do you?”

  “That’s what I was doing there. Call my boss at the Bancroft Institute if you don’t believe me.”

  “Already spoke to him. He confirmed your story, but I still think there’s something fishy. The Russians insist you and the Barsovina woman were spying on them, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were right. The question is: who are you spying for? I know it’s not the Bancroft Institute—they’re a completely above-board scientific organization as far as we know, but I think you’re just using them as the cover for something else. Who are you working for on the side, Butler? The Army? The Navy? The Air Force? A foreign power?”

  “Your imagination is running away with you as usual, Shankham. I’m just an ordinary working stiff these days. Just trying to make an honest living. Unlike you.”

  Shankham widened his eyes. “What do you mean, unlike me? Are you taking another of your cheap potshots at the CIA, Butler?”

  “Who me?”

  “Yes, you. You always were bad-mouthing us even when you worked for us. I used to wonder why you joined us in the first place.”

  “I was young and idealistic. I didn’t realize that the CIA spends most of its time and budget subverting the governments of countries it doesn’t like. How much of the taxpayers’ money did you spend to bring down Allende? Twenty million dollars?”

  Shankham looked at the ceiling. “There you go, yapping about Allende again. You never change, Butler. You’re like a broken record.”

  “But I did change. I got out of the CIA. You’re the one who’s still here.”

  “You’re damn right I’m still here. And I’m going to be here until I drop.”

  “You’re the broken record, not me. All I was trying to do was fix the broken record, and the CIA fired me.”

  Shankham frowned. “But it was so depressing having you around, Butler. You were always complaining. Your problem is that you were soft on Communism.”

  “Your problem is that you’re soft in the head.”

  “Now hold on there, Butler. Let’s not make this personal.”

  Butler leaned forward in his chair. “I want to get out of here, Shankham. I’m an American citizen and you’ve got no right to hold me. I’m going to get a lawyer and sue you bastards if you don’t turn me loose.”

  “Why don’t you tell us what you were really doing in the Soviet Union, Butler? Why must you be so difficult?”

  “I’m not being difficult. I already told you what I was doing there.”

  “I mean the truth.”

  “That’s the truth.”

  Shankham held out the palms of his hands. “Why don’t you cooperate with your government?” he pleaded. “Is it so hard for you to cooperate with your government?”

  “In the first place, I have cooperated, and in the second place, the government belongs to the billionaire industrial multinational class, not me. I’m just another poor working stiff.”

  Shankham closed his eyes and shook his head. “Oh, Butler, you’re so tiresome.”

  “Then why don’t you let me go?”

  “I will. You’re dismissed. Get the fuck out of here before I take my gun out of my desk and shoot you.”

  “Now, now,” Butler cooed, standing up. “Let’s not let our temper get the best of us.”

  “You make me mad, Butler. You’re so full of shit.”

  Butler headed toward the door. “See you around, Shankham. Take it easy.”

  “You’re the one who’d better take it easy,” Shankham growled.

  Chapter Sixteen

  A CIA chauffeur drove Butler to the office of the Bancroft Research Institute in Georgetown, a three-story brownstone on a quiet tree-shaded street. Butler entered the building and approached the receptionist at the front desk, but before he co
uld say anything she looked at him and exclaimed, “You’re Butler, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “We’ve been expecting you. Mr. Sheffield is here. Just wait a second and I’ll buzz him.”

  She pressed a button on her desk and mumbled into her telephone. Then she hung it up and looked at Butler again. “He’s in room 316—know where it is?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Butler climbed the winding spiral staircase to the third floor and knocked on the door marked 316.

  “Come in,” said the familiar voice of Mr. Sheffield.

  Butler entered the room and closed the door. It was dark and Sheffield sat behind a desk, spotlights illuminating the papers before him.

  “Good to see you again, Butler,” Sheffield said. “I understand things got a little tight in the Soviet Union.”

  “They sure did.”

  “Well, have a seat and tell me about it.”

  Butler sat in a chair before the desk, and a spotlight in the ceiling came on to bathe him in golden light.

  “To begin with,” Butler said, “that Natalia girl was a KGB agent.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “I do say. She nearly got me and everybody else killed. Somehow she beat your lie-detector machines.”

  “That’s certainly not good news. Let me make a note of it.” Sheffield wrote something on a piece of paper. “Whatever became of her?” Sheffield said, looking up.

  “I killed her.”

  “I see.”

  “It was necessary.”

  “I should hope so, Did you find out anything about the Doom Machine?”

  “Yes, I spoke to Doctor Kahlovka briefly before we went to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. He told me that the Russians are having the Doom Machine built at the Abdul Faheem Munitions Plant in Damascus. The plan is that the Syrians will attack Israel and demolish her. The Americans will enter the war to save the pieces, then Russia will send their troops in with more Doom Machines. The Third World War will then take place with the Middle East as the locale, and the Russians will win because they have the Doom Machine. The Americans will surrender at one point, and the Russians will rule the world. They will occupy America, which will be intact, and plunder it. The end.”

  “Hmmm,” said Sheffield. “They want to fight the war on a battlefield where nothing of strategic importance can be damaged.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But they’re forgetting one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That the Israelis have the atomic bomb.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “You know it now. If the Israelis ever are hard-pressed, you can be sure they’ll use it, and you probably can guess what their first target will be.”

  “Damascus?”

  “You’re close, but guess again.”

  “Moscow?”

  “They never could deliver a warhead to Moscow. No, they’d drop it right on the oil fields of Saudi Arabia and make the biggest bonfire the world has ever seen.”

  “It’ll probably burn up the whole Middle East and everything in it.”

  “It might even be worse than that. That oil, don’t forget, is deep in the ground. If it’s ignited with an atomic weapon, the explosion might very well split this entire planet right down the middle.”

  “What!”

  “It’s true. That much of an explosion deep in the ground could destroy our planet.”

  “We’ve got to tell the Russians!”

  “Their own scientists probably have told them, but they won’t listen. Military fanatics can’t see anything except their dream of victory. No, we’ve got to handle this ourselves, and we don’t have much time. I know you’ve just been on two difficult operations in a row, and you deserve a rest, but I wonder if we could count on you to stay on this with us. We’ll need someone to go into action right away, and I don’t think we’ll have much time to brief someone new.”

  “Of course you can count on me, sir.”

  “Good man.” Sheffield looked at his watch. “It’s three o’clock in the afternoon. I’ll have to meet with the Executive Council on this, so why don’t you report back to my office here at nine o’clock in the morning? That’ll give you a few hours to unwind. By the way, where are you staying?”

  “I’m not staying anywhere yet.”

  “Then why don’t you stay at the Albemarle Hotel? We maintain a suite of rooms there for our travelling personnel, and it’s a most distinguished residence. I’m sure you’ll like it.”

  “I’m sure I will too, since you recommend it so highly.”

  Mister Sheffield chortled. “Why, thank you, Butler. And by the way, we have a number of vehicles assigned to our office here. You can take one of them if you like.”

  “I think it would be easier to take cabs.” Butler stood up.

  “Is that all, sir?”

  “Yes, until tomorrow morning at nine.”

  “See you then,” Butler said with a wave, turning toward the door.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Butler went down to the basement, where the wardrobe room was located, and selected a brown tweed suit of conservative cut to replace the suit the Embassy had given him. He changed into the suit and matching accessories, then left the Institute office and wandered through the streets of Georgetown for fifteen minutes until he found a cab to take him to the Albemarle Hotel.

  The hotel was in downtown Washington D.C., so Butler leaned back in the seat of the cab and tried to relax. The problem was that it usually took him three or four days to unwind, and he only had around sixteen hours until he had to work again. That meant he’d be tense all that time and probably not sleep much tonight. It’d be better if he could begin his next operation immediately, but Sheffield needed time to put together a plan.

  The cab pulled up in front of the Albemarle Hotel, a sedate old brick building not far from Warren G. Harding Square. Butler paid the cabdriver, got out of the cab, and walked into the hotel’s lobby, a vast wood-paneled area with paintings on the walls, a maroon rug on the floor, and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Gentlemen and ladies sat around on antique furniture chatting with each other or reading The Wall Street Journal. Butler walked to the check-in desk, identified himself, and asked for a key to one of the suites rented by the Institute. The clerk called the Institute to verify Butler’s identity, then gave him the key and a big smile, for the clerk was gay. Butler took the key, turned, and walked toward the elevator.

  “Is that you, Butler?”

  Butler turned in the direction of the familiar female voice and found himself staring into the beautiful face of Brenda Day, his first wife.

  “Well,” Butler said, his heart faltering, “if it isn’t my dearly beloved wife number one.”

  “It is you, isn’t it Butler?” She peered into his eyes, and hers were blue as a Magritte sky. Her hair was golden and if you saw her you might think she was the young woman who had won the Miss America contest several years ago. She wore a black mouton coat and a matching black mouton hat cocked to the side of her head.

  “It is I, my dear,” he said.

  Her blue eyes roved over his face. “Still as handsome and dashing as ever, I see.”

  “What a kind thing to say to the catastrophe I have become.”

  She patted her palm on his chest. “Oh, stop being so modest.”

  “You look fabulous, my dear. Are you married to anyone these days?”

  “No, but I’m getting married.”

  “To whom?”

  “Douglas Worthington.”

  “Who’s he?”

  Her eyes widened. “You mean you don’t know who Douglas Worthington is? Where do you live, in a closet? Don’t you read newspapers?”

  “Who is he?”

  “He’s just been appointed Ambassador to the Court of Saint James.”

  Butler smiled. “Gee, you’re really going first class these days, huh Brenda?”

  “I’ve been going f
irst class ever since I terminated my so-called marriage to you, Butler.”

  “I believe you have it wrong, my dear. I’m the one who terminated the marriage to you.”

  “Your memory has grown fuzzy,” she said huffily.

  “Then let me go over the facts with you, if you don’t mind. The place was Argentina and the year was 1972. I was a case officer in the CIA station in Buenos Aires, and I caught you in bed with...”

  “Don’t be cruel,” she interrupted. “Let’s not dredge up depressing memories that no longer have any vital significance. What’s done is done and what’s over is over. I bear you no malice and you should bear me none. After all, we’re civilized people, aren’t we?”

  “We most certainly are.” Her perfume was making him dizzy, and he wanted to bury his face in her bosom, those two milky-white soft things that once belonged to him and him alone, or so he thought until he learned otherwise.

  She was still studying his face. “You know,” she said in a faraway voice, “you were by far the most interesting of my husbands. Now I didn’t say the most intelligent and I didn’t say the best-looking, nor did I say the most charming or witty, but I did say the most interesting by far.”

  “In what way?”

  She glanced around them, and they were in the middle of a stream of bellboys carrying the luggage of well-dressed people. Returning her gaze to Butler, she smiled alluringly and said, “Let’s have a drink together, and I’ll explain.”

  Butler felt trapped and scared. He was worried that if he spent more than a few minutes with her he’d fall in love with her all over again. She was still that stunning.

  “I don’t think we should,” he replied in a halting voice.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Well, what’s over is over, I suppose.”

  “You’re not afraid of me, are you?”