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Project Daedalus

by Thomas Hoover · English · Gutenberg #34320 · 743,992 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Project Daedalus

Author: Thomas Hoover


        
Release date: November 14, 2010 [eBook #34320]

Language: English

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PROJECT DAEDALUS

Retired agent Michael Vance is approached for help on the same day by
an old KGB adversary and a brilliant and beautiful NSA code breaker.
While their problems seem at first glance to be different, Vance soon
learns he's got a potentially lethal tiger by the tail - a Japanese
tiger. A secret agreement between a breakaway wing of the Russian
military and the Yakuza, the Japanese crime lords, bears the potential
to shift the balance or world power. The catalyst is a superplane that
skims the edge of space - the ultimate in death-dealing potential. In a
desperate union with an international force of intelligence mavericks,
with megabillions and global supremacy at stake, Vance has only a few
days to bring down a conspiracy that threatens to ignite nuclear
Armageddon.

Publisher's Weekly

_"Hoover's adept handling of convincing detail enhances this
entertaining thriller as his characters deal and double-deal their way
through settings ranging from the Acropolis to the inside of a
spacecraft. Michael Vance, formerly of the CIA, is on his way to an
archeological dig when some old friends show up. First comes KGB agent
Alex Novosty, caught laundering money that the KGB claims was embezzled
- and he wants Michael to take charge of the hot funds. Then National
Security Agency cryptographer Eva Borodin (who is Michael's ex-lover)
appears with an undecipherable but dangerous computer file: the co-
worker who gave her the file has since vanished. Heavies from a
Japanese crime syndicate attack Michael and Eva, who are rescued by
Alex, but it looks like Alex and the syndicate aren't complete
strangers. Moreover, the mysterious Daedalus Corporation seems to be a
link between Alex's money and Eva's file. As Michael is drawn into this
deadly web, he realizes there is a secret agreement between the
Russians and the Japanese - and it has nothing to do with tea-brewing
customs."

_













BOOKS BY THOMAS HOOVER



Nonfiction

Zen Culture

The Zen Experience



Fiction

The Moghul

Caribbee

Wall Street _Samurai_

     (The _Samurai_ Strategy)

Project Daedalus

Project Cyclops

Life Blood

Syndrome



All free as e-books at

www.thomashoover.info















































PROJECT DAEDALUS





Thomas Hoover

















BANTAM BOOKS NEW YORK -- TORONTO -- LONDON -- SYDNEY -- AUCKLAND

-- PROJECT DAEDALUS A Bantam Falcon Book / August 1991



All rights reserved copyright (C) 1991 by Thomas Hoover

Cover art copyright (C) 1991 by Alan Ayres



ISBN 0-553-29108-4



Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam
Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA  0987654321



Key Words:

Author: Thomas Hoover

Title: Project Daedalus

Hypersonic, Superplane, Edge of Space, thermonuclear warhead,
Supersonic, Space Plane, Crete, Minos, Palace of Minos, Greece,  Greek
Islands



Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to
reprint previously published material.

Ovid: The Metamorphoses, translated by Horace Gregory. New American
Library. Copyright (C) 1958 by The Viking Press, Inc. Reprinted by
permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA, Inc.



















_So Daedalus turned his mind to subtle craft,

An unknown art that seemed to outwit nature.



_Ovid_, The Metamorphoses





PROLOGUE



_

Thursday 8:40 A.M.



_G-load is now eight point five. Pilot must acknowledge for power-up
sequence to continue.

_The cockpit computer was speaking in a simulated female voice, Russian
with the Moscow accent heard on the evening TV newscast _Vremya_. The
Soviet technicians all called her Petra, after that program's famous
co-anchor.

Yuri Andreevich Androv didn't need to be told the force weighing down
on him had reached eight and a half times the earth's gravity. The
oxygen mask beneath his massive flight helmet was crushed against his
nose and the skin seemed to be sliding off his skull, while sweat from
his forehead poured into his eyes and his lungs were plastered against
his diaphragm.

_Auto termination will commence in five seconds unless you
acknowledge_. Petra paused for a beat, then spoke again: _Four seconds
to shutdown . . .

_He could sense the blood draining from his cerebral vascular system,
his consciousness trying to drift away. He knew that against these
forces the human heart could no longer pump enough oxygen to the brain.
Already he was seeing the telltale black dots at the edge of his
vision.

It's begun, he thought. The "event."  Don't, don't let it happen. Make
your brain work. _Make it._

_Three seconds . . .

_The liquid crystal video screens inside his flight helmet seemed to be
fading from color to black and white, even as his vision closed to a
narrow circle. The "tunnel" was shrinking to nothing. The first stage
of a G-induced blackout was approximately two and a half seconds away.

You've done this a hundred times before at the Ramenskoye Flight Test
Center, he told himself. You're Russia's best test pilot. Now just _do_
it.

He leaned back in the seat to lower his head another few millimeters,
then grasped for the pressure control on his G-suit, the inflatable
corset that squeezed critical blood paths. He ignored the pain as its
internal pressure surged, gripping his torso and lower legs like a vise
and forcing blood upward to counter the accumulation at his feet.

_Two seconds . . .

_With his right hand he rotated a black knob on the heavy sidestick
grip and turned up the oxygen feed to his mask, an old trick from
fighter training school that sometimes postponed the "event" for a few
milliseconds.

Most importantly, though, he strained as if constipated in the snow,
literally pushing his blood higher--the best maneuver of all. He liked
to brag that he had upped his tolerance three G's through years of
attempting to crap in his blue cotton undersuit.

It was working. The tunnel had begun to widen out again. He'd gained a
brief reprieve.

"Acknowledged." He spoke to Petra, then reached down with his left hand
and flicked forward the second blue switch behind the throttle
quadrant, initiating the simulated hydrogen feed to the outboard
scramjet tridents, portside and starboard. Acceleration was still in-
creasing as the flashing green number on the video screens in front of
his eyes scrolled past Mach 4.6, over four and a half times the speed
of sound, already faster than any air- breathing vehicle had ever
flown.

_Only a few seconds more.

_He had to stay conscious long enough to push his speed past Mach 4.8,
raising the fuel-injector strut temperature of the scramjets to the
3,000-degree-Fahrenheit regime and establishing full ignition. If the
scramjets failed to stabilize and initiated auto shutdown, he would
flame out--at almost twenty-five hundred miles per hour.

_You are now experiencing nine G's_, the female voice continued,
emotionless as ice. _Pilot will confirm vision periphery_.

The fucking computer doesn't believe I can still see, he thought.

Most men, of course, would have been functionally blind by then.
Prolong the experience of ten G's and you went unconscious: the event.

_Confirm_, Petra's voice insisted.

"Thirty-eight degrees." He read off the video screens inside his
helmet, temporarily quieting the computer. But now he had a demand of
his own. "Report scramjet profile."

_Inboard tridents at eighty-two percent power. Outboard tridents at
sixty-eight percent power_, the voice responded.

Get ready, Petra. Spread your legs. I'm coming home.

The velocity scrolling on the right side of his helmet screen was about
to pass through the barrier. Strut temperature was stabilizing. With
engines in the scramjet mode, the vehicle should be able to push right
on out to Mach 25, seventeen thousand miles per hour. From there it was
only a short hop to low orbit. If--

_Inboard tridents at eighty-eight percent power. _The voice came again.
_LAC compression nominal_. The liquid air cycle equipment would be
using the cryogenic hydrogen fuel to chill and liquefy the rush of
incoming air; oxygen would then be injected into the scramjets at
pressures impossible to achieve in conventional engines.

With a sigh he eased back lightly on the throttle grip in his left
hand. As he felt the weight on his chest recede, the pressure in his G-
suit automatically let up. He smiled to think that a less experienced
pilot would now be slumped in his seat, head lolling side to side, eyes
wide open and blank, his bloodless brain dreaming of a lunar landscape.
He knew; he'd been there often enough himself. In the old days.

_System monitors commencing full operation_.

Good. From here on, the fuel controls would be handled by the in-flight
computer, which would routinely monitor thrust and temperature by
sampling every two milliseconds, then adjusting. But that was the
machine stuff, the child's play. He'd just done what only a man could
do.

_Power-up complete for inboard and outboard tridents, portside and
starboard, _Petra reported finally. _Hydrogen feed now in auto
maintenance mode_.

She'd taken full charge. He was out of the loop.

But I just rode this space bird up your ice-cold _peredka_, silicon
lady.

He felt a burst of exhilaration and gave a long, basso whoop. It was a
crow of triumph, a challenge to every male ape in the forest. Yuri
Andreevich Androv lived for this, and only felt alive when he'd just
pushed his body to the limit. He needed it, lusted for it. It was all
he'd ever really cared about.

It was, he knew, his primal need to dominate his world. He knew that,
but so what? Other men merely dreamed it, played at it--in games,
business, even politics. He did it. And he fully intended to go on
doing it.

"Roll down her audio, dammit," he yelled into his helmet mike. "She's
driving me crazy."

"She's supposed to," a radio voice sounded back in his ear. "Ramenskoye
says all test pilots--you included, my friend--pay more attention to a
female voice." A laugh. "Come to _matya_, darling."

"I'd like to see her and--_Nayarevayet!_--just once." He smiled in spite
of himself as the tunnel widened more and the screens before his eyes
began to recolor, pale hues gradually darkening to primary shades. The
blood was returning to his brain. Acceleration was stabilizing now,
down to 4.7 G's.

"She'd be a cold-hearted piece, Yuri. Guaranteed."

"It's been so long, I probably wouldn't notice." That's what he really
needed now--a woman.

"You would, believe me," the radio continued. "By the way,
congratulations. Your alpha was right across the oscilloscope, as
always. Zero stress response. How do you do it, _tovarisch_? I think
Petra was more worried than you were."

"Shut off the tape, and cut the 'comrade' crap," he

barked back. "Sergei, I nearly lost it there at nine point five."

"No indication on the physio monitors." The flight technician sounded
unconvinced.

"The hell with the wavy lines. I know what was happening," he snapped
again, still wired with tension. "Can we get another fifteen percent
tilt out of this damned seat, help lower my head. There're no windows
anyway, so who cares where I'm looking?"

"We can send a memo to Engineering," the radio voice replied. "Though
there may not be time."

"Tell them they'd better make fucking time. Say I want it done." Not
enough time? What in hell was going on?

He took one last look at the high-definition video screens--one for each
eye--inside the helmet that would be the vehicle's "windscreen," then
flipped the snap and began shoving it up. He hated the damned thing,
thought it made him look like a giant high-tech moth.

"Shall we power-down the centrifuge now?" the voice continued, unfazed.

"Take it down. I'm ready for lunch. And a bottle of juice. _'Peit budu
ya!'_"

"I read you," the radio voice chuckled once more, knowing there wasn't
any vodka to be had for a hundred miles around the facility. Reports
were the project director had heard too many stories about Russian
drunkenness and somehow always forgot to include liquor in the supply
requisition. "I hear there's borscht again in the mess today. Petyr
just came in from the North Quadrant. Said it tastes like piss.
Bastards still haven't learned--"

"_Pomnyu, pomnyu_." He found himself longing for real food, seemingly
impossible to produce here. Just like a drink.

He waited a few seconds longer, till the huge white centrifuge had come
to a complete stop, then shoved down the metal hatch release and
stepped out. He looked up at the high-impact glass partition of the
instrument room, waved to the medical team, and began unzipping his
flight suit. It was only half open by the time the technicians marched
in, anxious to remove quickly the rubber

suction cups and wires he was wearing on his head and chest, the
instrumentation probes for their body monitor system. They wanted to
reclaim them before he ripped them off, something he frequently had
been known to do. Androv always said he was there to fly whatever plane
nobody else had the balls to, not take a physical, so he wanted the
goddam things off, and fast.

Air Force Major Yuri Andreevich Androv was thirty- seven, tall, with
the studied swagger all Soviet test pilots seemed to acquire after a
few years. His dark eyes and hair were set off by a high forehead and
long, lean cheeks, and behind those cynical eyes lurked a penetrating
intelligence. There was something else too, the most vital attribute a
test pilot can have: a perfect, natural integration of the two sides of
his brain.

Soviet medical studies had shown that the best pilots were artists,
because handling a plane at three times the speed of sound was
primarily a function of the intuitive right side of the brain, the side
that provides the instincts, the seat-of-the-pants judgment. The left
brain, in contrast, handled a pilot's rational functions--it was his
data management system, his computer.

Flight instructors for tactical aircraft at the Ramenskoye Flight Test
Center south of Moscow knew that a pilot lost his edge when his brain
started getting its signals mixed, when it was no longer sure which
side was in control. They called it the biology barrier. The result of
information overload in a stress situation, it could lead to a total
breakdown. The brain went haywire.

Yuri Androv was one of the few Soviet test pilots who never reached the
biology barrier. He was, in fact, the best.

He knew that his gift was one of the reasons he had been specially
selected for this project. Another was experience. Over the years, he'd
flown them all--the Tupolev Blackjack, the MiG 25 Foxbat, even the
ultra-secret new MiG 31 Foxhound. But this hydrogen-fueled, scramjet-
powered monster opened the door to another world. Above Mach 5, you
were no longer merely supersonic, you were hypersonic--where no air-
breathing vehicle had ever ventured.

Could it be done? He had to admit the technology was awesome--all the
aerodynamic design by supercomputer, the new ceramic composites for the
leading edges, the Mach 13 burst-tests in the hypersonic wind tunnel,
the scramjet static-test power-ups at the aeropropulsion facility. . .
.

This was supposedly just a space-research vehicle, for godsake. But it
had twelve engines. And whereas the MiG 25, the USSR's fastest fighter-
interceptor, topped out well under two thousand miles per hour, this
space-age creation was capable, theoretically, of speeds almost ten
times that.

The schedule agreed upon called for the certification of both the
prototypes in their lower-speed, turboramjet mode, and then the
commencement of hypersonic flight tests in the scramjet mode. That
second phase wasn't supposed to begin for three months.

But now the project director had ordered the test program accelerated,
demanding the hypersonic test flights begin immediately with the one
prototype now certified--in ten days.

Maybe, just maybe, it could be done. Of course, everybody else would be
sitting safely in Flight Control there in the East Quadrant when he
kicked in the scramjets at sixty thousand feet. His ass would be the
one in the cockpit.

This was the riskiest project of his life. Until the operational
shakedown, nobody actually knew whether or not those damned scramjets
would produce a standing shock wave in their combustion chamber,
creating a supersonic "compressor" the way the supercomputer promised
they would.

And what about somebody's brilliant idea of using the plane's liquid
hydrogen fuel as coolant for the leading edges, to dissipate the
intense heat of hypersonic flight? Had to do it, they claimed. Computer
says there's no other way. But that was about as "brilliant" as filling
your car radiator with frozen jet fuel! He'd be flying in a cocoon of
liquid hydrogen . . . and, even scarier, he'd be doing it blind, with
no windscreen. If he burned up he'd have to watch it on television.

He glanced back one last time at the white centrifuge, a fifty-foot
propeller with the simulated cockpit on one blade and a
counterbalancing weight on the other. The centrifuge itself was pure
white enamel, spotless, just like the room. A little honest Russian
dirt would actually have made him feel better. Riding in that "cockpit"
was like being strapped inside a video game, all lights and nothing
real.

Frowning, he shrugged and passed on through the door, greeted the
milling technicians, and tossed his crumpled flight suit toward two
medics from the foreign team who caught it in midair, bowed, and
hurried it into the medical lab for . . . the devil take it, he didn't
know and he didn't care.

The fluorescent-lit hall was crowded with white-shirted technicians
returning from the morning's test in Number One, the big hypersonic
wind tunnel. Everybody was smiling, which told him the final run-up of
the model must have gone without a hitch.

That was the last segment of the revised schedule. The hypersonic test
flight was on, in eighteen days.

What in hell was the sudden rush? What was everybody's real agenda?
Nobody was talking.

That was what really bothered him, had bothered him from the start.
This top-secret vehicle wasn't destined to be some kind of civilian
space-research platform, regardless of what anybody claimed. Who were
they fooling? The ultimate weapons delivery system had just been built
here, a high-tech behemoth that married advanced Soviet thruster and
guidance technology with a hypersonic airframe and scramjets created by
the world's leading manufacturer of high-temperature alloys and
supercomputers. And it was all being done here, the one place on earth
with the technology.

Here. The trouble was, this wasn't Russia.

















_So Daedalus devised his winding maze;

And as one entered it, only a wary mind

Could find an exit to the world again. . . .



_Ovid_, The Metamorphoses

_





BOOK ONE



CHAPTER ONE



Wednesday 7:33 A.M.

_

_"You're lucky I love this spot," Vance said, gazing out over the city.
"Nothing else on the planet could have got me up this early in the
morning."

"It's the one place I thought I could persuade you to meet me." The
bearded man sighed, his dark eyes grim. The accent was Russian, the
English flawless. "I have a problem, a very big problem."

"The Cold War's over, Alex, or maybe you hadn't heard." He strolled on,
tugging his trench coat tighter. "What have we got left to talk about?"

"Please. We both did what we had to."

"I still do. Life's too short for anything else." He turned back. "Now
how about telling me what's on your mind."

Vance was firm-muscled and lean, with the leathery skin of a man who
drank his tequila straight and preferred spending his days in the sun,
two habits that also had bestowed a network of threadlike smile lines
at the corners of his sea-blue eyes. Aleksei Ilyich Novosty had phoned
him at the Athenaeum Inter-Continental half an hour earlier, begging to
meet him, saying it was of the utmost importance. A cab was downstairs.
The driver had taken him to the old flea market at Monastiraki Square,
where Alex's own black limo waited. But now Novosty was playing games,
and the days for KGB games were supposed to be in the distant past.
What did the man want?

"My friend, give me a moment. . . ." Novosty wiped his brow, manicured
nails glistening, then looked up and pointed. "By the way, I've always
believed that one is the most exquisite female in the world. That one
there. What do you think?"

"Sexy, plenty of style." Vance swept his eyes over the figure, loving
how the cloth was shaped by her breast, the vague hint of thigh as one
leg brushed against the gauze of her tunic. "But the lady next to her's
a looker too. Always seemed a tough call."

Above them, the stone caryatids smiled down, their pale faces timeless
and ethereal. They were Greek statues that served as columns for the
south porch of the Erechtheum, the Ionic temple standing across from
the Doric Parthenon. Down below the steep north wall of the Acropolis,
the dark-glazed rooftops of Athens, city of Pericles, droused mutely in
the early haze.

"Yes, perhaps you're right." Novosty brushed awkwardly at his patchy
stubble, searching for an opening. He knew Vance never made the first
move, always waited for the other side to show its cards. "Michael, I
... is it true you occasionally still take an assignment? I mean,
outside the usual work for ARM. I made some inquiries in Geneva last
week. The word is--"

"Hang on. I think you're getting your team colors mixed. I work for the
other side, remember?" He stooped and picked up a handful of the grainy
red soil at their feet, massaging it in his fingers and wondering why
it had taken him so long to get back here, to Greece. This was where he
belonged. This was the place, the ancient people, he still dreamed
about. But could he fit in again after so many years away? Yes, he'd
make it work.

Michael Vance, Jr., had the sangfroid of one who moved easily among the
decision-makers of two continents. He was to the manner born--Yale--and
he'd long since concluded it was the way man was meant to live. In
years past he'd been a field archaeologist, and a good one; then he'd
had a brief consulting stint for the CIA. These days, he lived at the
Nassau Yacht Club marina, where he moored his restored forty-four-foot
Bristol racing yacht, the Ulysses, headquarters for his three-boat
charter operation. He was mortgaged to the hilt, but he didn't really
care. When things got tight, he could always take on a quick money job
for the Association of Retired Mercenaries, ARM.

"The situation is not necessarily what you're thinking," Novosty
pressed. "So perhaps you would consider--"

"Whatever it is, the answer's still no. The next three weeks are going
to be spent working on a tan."

Why tell Alex the facts? Today he was in Athens for only a few hours, a
stopover on the way to Crete. He glanced at his watch--an old Eterna
Chronomatic, the 1946 classic he loved--and calculated that the flight
for Iraklion left in less than four hours. This time tomorrow morning
he would be looking in on the crew from the University of Stuttgart's
dig for the German Historical Society, part of the restoration of a
Minoan palace near Crete's southern shore. Novosty and all he stood for
were the last thing he needed right now.

"Then at least let's have coffee," the Russian said finally, pointing.
"I brought some. There in the bag."

Vance needed it, to cut his hangover. Without a word he turned to the
marble steps, pried open the white paper, and reached in.

"Plastic." Dismay filled his voice as he lifted out one of the smooth
Styrofoam cups and examined it, like an insect. "This nails it. Game
over. Our side won all the chips. Now even Greek coffee comes American
style." He frowned as he pried the white lid from the cup. "What's
left?"

"It's everywhere. Perhaps they'll wrap these statues in cellophane
next, who knows."

"I fear the worst." He took a sip, relishing the first hit of the dawn.
It was dark and sweet, the real thing despite the container.

"Michael, please . . . at least hear me out." He reached for a
cigarette, extracting it filter-first from his trench coat.

"I have a serious personal problem, and I don't know where else to
turn."

Could it be true? Vance examined him more closely. The beard wasn't the
only change. The left side of his gray coat bulged as he searched for
his lighter. Alex had never bothered to carry his own protection. At
least never before.

He knew Alex Novosty was part of KGB's T-Directorate, Russia's special
organization for high-tech theft. In the old days he operated out of
Sophia, arranging the laundering of underground Soviet funds by
mingling them with the flight capital and drug money that made its way
between Turkey's Ziraat Bank, the Vatican's Istituto per le Opere di
Religione, and Geneva no-questions fronts with names like the Banco di
Roma per la Svizzera.

The truth was, Michael Vance, Jr., and Aleksei Ilyich Novosty had, over
the years, often traveled the same paths. They used the same
organizations and contacts--Novosty to conceal illicit monies, Vance to
expose them.

"You know, I always enjoyed our games." Novosty looked out over Athens,
his voice trailing off. "But, as you say, that was the old days. The
world's changed. Now perhaps we can just be two professionals. Do some
business."

He seated himself on a block of marble, still slightly moist with
morning dew, and withdrew a wrinkled clipping. It was from The Times of
London. "Here, read this, please."

Vance glanced down at it, then realized he had already read it on the
Reuters satellite news service. He had looked it over, stored it in his
news-update computer file, and promptly forgotten about it.



SOVIET PARTY OFFICIAL SOUGHT IN DISAPPEARANCE OF FUNDS



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

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

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



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

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

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

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

"So what's the inside story?"

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

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

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

"Nice chunk of change." Vance whistled quietly.

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

"So how much did you end up cleaning?"

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

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

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

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

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

"The military secret service."

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

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

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

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

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

"Like you say, it's a problem."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No. The deal had too many unknowns. The whole point

of working for yourself was you could pick and choose your jobs. If you
ever started going with the highest bidder, you were a fool. Guys who
did that didn't last in this business.

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

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

Novosty took one look and stopped cold.

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

"Look, I'm not--"

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

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

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

"Daedalus."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"When?"

"Only yesterday."

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

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

"The Daedalus Corporation?"

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

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

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

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

Somebody, somewhere, was pulling a fast one.

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

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

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

Now Vance needed to think. . . .

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

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

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

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



Wednesday 8:23 A.M._



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

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

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

It would be simple. KGB would never know.

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

_Fsyo kanula ve vyechnost, _he thought, _kak ve prizrachnoy skazke_.
Everything is gone now, like a fairy tale.

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

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

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

Maybe the crash had been an accident. Fate. _Sud'ba_. Things happened
that way.

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

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

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

"_Elleniko kafe_, my friend? Greek coffee?"

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

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

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

He turned, casually flashed an empty smile for the small,

gray-haired waiter standing behind him, tray in hand, white towel over
the sleeve of his tailored but frayed brown suit.

"Sure, thanks."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He sipped at the gritty coffee and scanned the street.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"_Etot stolnik osvobodetsya_, Viktor Fedorovich?"

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

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

He'd never seen her before in his life.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"About what?"

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

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

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

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

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

His pulse raced. "What do you want?"

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

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

"Where do you want to go?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



























































     CHAPTER TWO



Wednesday 3:29 P.M.



"Michael, you look marvelous. It's so good to see you again. I really
mean that. The years have treated you well." Eva Borodin leaned back
against the gray fabric of the Saab's headrest and appraised him.

"You don't look half bad yourself." Vance smiled to himself as he
returned the favor. Vintage Eva, ladling on the flattery. But she was
smashing, just as he remembered--the coal-black hair, the smoldering
eyes, the high Slavic cheekbones. Then, too, her every gesture was
spiked with the promise of Olympic sensuality; he remembered that as
well. Everything about her spoke of a time and place far away, where
there were no rules. Eva, the eternal Eva. With a Ph.D. "Everything's
just the same."

That part wasn't entirely true. There had been some changes, probably
for the better. Instead of a plunging neckline and a fortune in gold
accessories, she was wearing a blue silk blouse, form-fitting designer
jeans with an eighty-dollar scarf for a belt, and lambskin boots. Far
more demure than the old Eva. What had happened to the dangling
turquoise earrings, enough musky perfume to obscure radar, at least one
endangered fur draped somewhere?

The years had definitely mellowed her. The Slavic passion seemed curbed
today, the same way her hair had been trimmed down to a pageboy. Maybe,
he thought, this was her new look: the Russian aristocrat of the
nineties.

"No, Michael, I'm different now. Or I'm trying to be."

She laughed, flashed her come-on smile, and tried to toss her missing
hair.

Whoops, he thought. Sure, you've changed.

"Being formally promoted to director of SIGINT brings
responsibilities," she continued.

"Congratulations."

"It was two years ago."

"Well, congratulations anyway." He was beginning to wonder if she
really had mellowed. Back in the old days her Russianness was her way
of making a statement. An identity. How much could she change, want to
change? She'd always been a firebrand: throwing things was her
preferred mode of communication. Not to suggest she wasn't verbal: she
was always passionately happy to see him, passionately sad when bad
things happened, passionately angry when she didn't get her way.
Everything she said was flirtatious, carrying a sexual innuendo.
Sometimes he thought she made Jean Harlow sound like Jeane Kirkpatrick.

"Your call caught me a little off guard." He glanced over. "I never
expected to hear from you again after you disappeared into the
labyrinth of NSA." He knew she'd been with the National Security Agency
for eight years now, but he hadn't heard that she'd been promoted to
director of Soviet satellite intercepts. Of course, NSA didn't spend a
lot of money on press releases. Still it was no surprise. Eva knew her
stuff when it came to the Soviets, their satellites, their codes. "I
must say, though, this is a hell of a long way to come for a catch-up
chat."

"It's been way too many years since we've seen each other. I've missed
you."

"Hope you mean that." Did she? he wondered. Even if she did, that
wasn't the real reason she'd come. He knew her too well.

"Guess you'll have to try and find out," she said, her voice holding an
instinctive, automatic invitation.

"Guess I will." Already it felt like the old days. How did she know so
precisely where all his buttons were? The only thing I'm sure of so far
today is that this morning's little accident was no accident." He'd
told her about seeing Novosty, but not what they'd talked about. Why
drag her into it? Besides, she'd known about Alex a lot longer than he
had. Just one more piece of the past that didn't need to be stirred up.
"Somebody got taken out. The question is, Who? We both know Novosty's a
survivor, old school, but . . ."

"I probably shouldn't say this, Michael, but I assume you're aware he's
KGB, part of T-Directorate." Her voice had grown serious. "That
executive VP slot he has with Techmashimport is just his cover. We've
had a file of intercepts on him for years."

"Of course I know about him. Good old Alex and I go back a while.
You're slightly out of date concerning my most recent fun and games."

"All right. I mean, I wouldn't even bring it up, but I think you should
be warned. KGB's in a big turmoil, looking for something . . ." She
paused. "Whenever this happens, there're plenty of stray arrows sure to
be flying. Just stay out of the crossfire. A word to the wise."

"I may already be in it. Thanks to Novosty's little 'welcome aboard'
breakfast." He remembered the letter Alex had given him. "But I'm
beginning to think I'd damn well better find out."

She looked around sharply. "What happened? Did he say something?"

"If you believe him, somebody in Moscow mislaid a few million dollars.
Darndest thing."

"It's better left alone, darling."

"I'm on vacation, remember?" He winked at her. "With better things to
do."

"I should hope so." She leaned back again and studied his profile.
"Well, at long last it's happened. I finally have to admit I need you
for something." Her long, dark lashes fluttered. Warming me up, he
thought. Now we're getting down to business. "Which is why I wanted to
meet you here."

They were five minutes out of Iraklion, on an unpaved back road he
loved, headed for the palace at Knossos, and so far she'd done nothing
but hint about what was on her mind. Everything was still a puzzle. For
one thing, she never needed anybody. She was the stalwart Russian who'd
ended their affair eleven years earlier just as casually as she had
begun it. This afternoon, though, she seemed to be deliberately keeping
the lid on, holding back. Uncharacteristic.

"The truth is," she went on, "I've been thinking about us, the old
times, and the palace."

She'd called him in Nassau four days earlier, wanting to get together.
It was the old Eva, darling this and darling that. When he said he was
going to Crete, she'd grown strangely silent. Then she'd said--in a
curious, tiny, voice--"Why don't I just meet you there? In fact, that's
sort of why I rang. . . ."

"So why's the palace suddenly so important to you?" He examined her,
still trying to read her mood. "I need to go back out today. Try and
brush up a bit. But that place was part of our problem back when, not
part of the solution."

She didn't answer. Instead she shifted the conversation sideways.
"Speaking of the palace, I suppose I should congratulate you on finally
being proved right. Did the Stuttgart team really ask you to look in on
their dig?"

"Call it the ultimate capitulation," he grinned. "Remember, they were
the ones who led the critical fusillade when the book first came out.
That makes it doubly sweet."

"Right. I also remember that book of yours caused such a stink that no
serious university would consider hiring you. Which, I assume, is why
you ended up a part-time spook. Probably it was the only job you could
get."

"You're closer to the truth than you know." He laughed, wondering for
the ten-thousandth time if he should have stuck out the academic slings
and arrows. No, the secret truth was he was bored with the university
regimen. He yearned for the real world. He knew it then and he knew it
now.

"Then the next thing I heard, you were down in the Bahamas, goofing off
and renovating some old yacht." She looked him over once more, shaking
her head. "What did you end up christening it? The Fuck Everybody?"

"Crossed my mind. But then I chickened out and called her the
_Ulysses_." He leaned back and reflected momentarily on the forty-four-
foot Bristol racing sloop he'd restored, having picked it up for a song
at a customs-house sale on Bay Street. Formerly the possession of a
Colombian in the export business, it had a hull of one and three-
quarter inch planked cedar, with a trim beam, did an easy fifteen knots
in a decent breeze. He loved her. He'd installed a fortune in
electronics, including a Micrologic Commander LORAN and a Navstar
satellite navigation system. "It started out as a hobby, and three
boats and a mortgage later it ended up a business."

"And what do you do down there all day? Just sit around and drink
margaritas?"

"Sure. About once a month." He reached up and adjusted the open top of
the car. "Hate to admit it, but on a typical day I'm usually out of bed
by sunrise. Check the weather, then maybe take a short swim to get the
oxygen flowing. After that I go to work. The 'office' is up forward in
the _Ulysses_. My main discovery is that chartering is pretty much like
any other business. Mostly problems."

It was. There were always tourists who came to Nassau thinking they
wanted more than the standard hotels, topless shows, and casinos on
Paradise Island and Cable Beach. They wanted a taste of what it was
like sailing through the Family Islands, away from the glitz, a feeling
for the real Caribbean. Or so they thought. That was until they
discovered the hard way that the real thing included broiling sun,
jellyfish stings, nosy sharks, hangovers, seasickness, close-quarters
quarrels with spouses and significant others, snapped fishing lines,
generator failures, unexpected weather . . .

"And you manage to do okay, right?"

"Nobody ever got rich in the charter business, at least the kind I'm
in. If you're not running high-priced South American produce, you have
to do it for love, not money."

His real livelihood, which he didn't bother to mention, came from
elsewhere. In between managing Bahamian skippers and crews he also kept
a hand in another occupation. In years past he'd served as a financial
consultant for the CIA, helping monitor the flow of illicit drug and
terrorist money passing through the banking laundries of Geneva and the
Caribbean. When the Company finally formed its own section to handle
that work, he'd moved on and hired out his expertise to a free-lance
organization called ARM, the Association of Retired Mercenaries. They
were retired, all right, but only from the antiterrorist units of a
half dozen European nations. They still saw plenty of covert action,
squelching those terrorist activities European governments wanted dealt
with outside official channels. He was their money man and they paid
him well, which was how he kept his three vessels shipshape and lived a
yachtsman's life of "ease."

"So after all these years, you ended up doing exactly what you wanted."
She looked at him admiringly. "A lot of people would probably envy you
that."

"I like taking my own risks, if that's what you mean."

"Well, all the same I suspect you're secretly very pleased with the
fact you've been invited back to Crete. I always thought you'd return
to archaeology sooner or later. If I know you, you couldn't stay away
forever."

Was she right? Even now he didn't know. "One thing's for sure. Crete's
a world apart."

That was an understatement. As he glanced back at the road, it was now
blocked entirely by a herd of sheep, their shaggy brown fleeces
suspended above dark, spindly legs. Around them the silence of the
Cretan countryside was rent by bleats and the jangle of bells. The
flock milled and darted about their rented Saab, but failed to move on
down the road. Why bother? The shepherd, in dark hat and coat, lounged
sidesaddle on his burro, oblivious, while his black-shawled wife
trudged in his dusty wake, bringing up the rear. Strangers came, gazed
upon the wonders of his land, then departed; he, possessor of donkey,
sheep, and wife, would remain. And prevail. His weathered face
contained all the worthwhile knowledge in the world. The parched hills
and verdant valleys of Crete belonged to him alone. Now and forever.

"Okay," he went on, "you're here, I'm here. Now how about telling me
what's going on?"

"That's just it. I don't know for sure. Everybody at NSA claims I'm
starting to see things." She paused to examine a long red fingernail.
"So don't you say it too. I need some moral support."

"Maybe I'd better hear this first."

"Michael, I . . . I don't want to talk about it yet. It's just--"

"Well, give me a hint at least."

"A few days back I decoded part of a transmission . . ." She leaned
over and started to turn on the radio, then changed her mind and
straightened. "Look, I just need you to help me get my thoughts
organized."

"Is that why you came all the way here? To organize your thoughts?
You'll forgive me if I'd hoped for a little more." In spite of himself,
he felt mildly annoyed. The truth was, he'd been looking forward to a
reunion that wasn't about business. "You know, I sort of had the idea
you wanted to . . . well, maybe try and piece things back together." He
looked her over. "Being with you wasn't exactly the worst experience of
my life."

She sighed wistfully and smoothed back her hair. "Fixing Humpty Dumpty
is tough work, darling. We both know that. It's been a long time.
Life's never that simple."

"Maybe not for you. But it seems very simple to me. We just lose the
past. Pretend it never existed." He felt his pique growing. "Or then
again, screw it. What are we doing here anyway?"

Could it really work a second time around? he asked himself. Why not?
Through all those years after things fell apart, he'd never once
stopped remembering her. Her mind, her body, her excitement.

Those memories dogged him now as they drove down the road he knew so
well, had traveled so many times in his long-ago life. At times the
ancient palace here on Crete had seemed almost a second home. After the
publication of his book about it, Realm of the Spirit--to universal de-
nunciations--he even began to dream about it. He thought he'd never come
back, and now here he was with Eva. Life took strange turns sometimes.

Eleven years ago in New Haven when he'd decided to work for himself,
he'd actually been saying good-bye to this world and all it stood for.
Back then it had seemed a golden moment to give academia the bird.

Had it all come full circle now? Fortunately he'd kept up with the
journals when he had the chance, tried to stay on top of what was
happening. With any luck he'd have the pleasure of watching a lot of
academics eat crow. All he had to do was just deal with whatever was
bugging Eva and then get on down to Phaistos. He hoped the Stuttgart
crew wouldn't realize he was over a decade out of date.

"You know," she was searching in her purse, then stopped herself and
looked up, "I always remember the palace when I think of you. It sort
of tied us together."

"Best I remember, it's what finally drove us apart. It turned into our
'irreconcilable difference.' "

"Maybe you're right, and it was dumb of me. Given the lousy luck I've
had with men, you're probably the best thing that ever came along.
After that flap over your book, I let you get away."

"Hold on a second. You announced you had to live your own life, and I
was getting too emotionally involved in my work and it would be better
all around if we just shook hands and called it quits. No hard
feelings."

"It wasn't quite like that." She laughed her alluring laugh, the one he
remembered so well.

"Oh, _no_?"

"Okay, maybe it was a little like that." Out came the sunglasses. The
old Eva again. "But I was changing, Michael, more every day. It was
time to try and make it on my own."

That was definitely what she'd decided to do. He'd always thought she
broke things off because she was obsessed with finishing her own Ph.D.
Self-centered and self-indulgent, that's what he'd called her at the
time, just another pampered Russian blue blood. Only years later did he
realize how self-centered he'd been. Maybe she'd been right; maybe they
weren't ready for each other yet.

She sighed, and then her voice came as a whisper. "You know, after you
called this morning and told me about that nightmare with Alex, I just
drank some retsina and went back to bed." She put on the shades,
adjusted them, and looked his way. He thought they went well with her
new forties hairstyle. "Michael, I know things I shouldn't. And the
things I should know, I don't. The worse part of all is, none of it
makes any sense." Her eyes seemed to soften behind the tinted plastic.
"Do you remember the first time you and I talked about this place?"

"Like it was yesterday." Who could forget? It was just after Realm was
published, relating his theory that the palace, whatever it may have
been originally, had eventually become a ceremonial necropolis, an
abode of the dead. "We ended up having a terrific argument over the
book. Nobody wanted to believe me, including you."

"Come on, darling, it wasn't my opinion you cared about. It was your
father's. The revered holder of Penn's Edelstein Chair of Classical
Antiquities. Supposedly the world's living expert on Minoan Crete."

Did he really care what the old man thought? he wondered. Not in the
way she meant. He would have liked it, though, if everybody had gotten
along a little better. Michael Vance, Sr., never quite knew what to
make of Eva's Slavic intensity, since it contrasted so vividly with his
own up-tight Anglo-Saxon instincts. That was a repressive family strain
Mike had fought--successfully, he hoped--to undo all his life. Eva had
looked to be the perfect soul mate in that battle. She was born
unrepressed.

Her own father, Count Serge Borodin, was president emeritus of the
Russian Nobility Association in America, exiled aristocracy. They were
a people apart. He recalled in particular a Russian Orthodox wedding
they'd all attended once. The operative assumption that sunny afternoon
in Oyster Bay was that the czar had been a living god, the Romanovs the
world's last surviving cherubim. He still remembered the black-hatted
Orthodox prelates and the incense and the tinny balalaikas and all the
counts and countesses drunk and dancing and crying at the same time.
Growing up in the middle of that, she had to be exuberant.

"You'd gone off on your own and set the world of archaeology on its
ear," she continued. "Typical Michael. But your father refused to stick
up for you when all the shit came down. I guess I didn't support you
very well either, I admit now. I'm truly sorry, darling, looking back."

"No big deal. I could handle it."

"Sure." She reached over and patted his thigh. "You handled it just
great. You were disgusted. At me, at him, at all the 'stuffed-shirt'
academics who never went out on a dig and got their hands dirty. You
practically dragged me here to show me you were right. You were
obsessed with the palace, admit it."

"It wasn't that bad." He looked over at her. "Was it?"

"Let's not talk about it anymore, all right?" She sighed. "Christ."

"Fine with me." He was pulling off the main road, heading into the
flower-lined trail, the arcade of magenta bougainvillea that led down
toward the palace. "By the way, I brought along some ouzo." He
indicated a pint bottle in his coat. "What's a picnic without a little
rocket fuel?"

"You think of everything."

"I also think we should park up here, dodge the tour-bus mayhem. Keep
the funny hats and loudspeakers to a minimum."

"Yes, please. Besides, I could use the air." She inhaled deeply.

Around them the few lingering white sprays of almond blossoms seemed
like remnants of late spring snow, while the ground itself was
blanketed with wild orchids, lavender and pink anemones, white
narcissus. He watched as she climbed out of the car, then stopped to
pluck a waxy yellow prickly pear flower, next an orange-blue Iris
_cretica_. He loved the flowers of Crete, and the afternoon was fra-
grant with the scent of jasmine and lemon blossoms. Ahead, down the
hill, was the parking lot for the palace, with two tour busses in
attendance, one just pulling out.

"How long has it been since we were last here together?" She brushed
her dark bangs back from her brow as she squinted into the waning sun,
sniffing at her cactus flower.

"It's beginning to seem like forever. But I think it's about--what?--
almost twelve years now."

"And how old is the palace supposed to be? I've gotten a little rusty."

"The latest theory going is that it was destroyed about fourteen
hundred B.C. So we're talking roughly three and a half thousand years
since it was last used."

"Guess our little decade doesn't count for much in the grand scheme."

"Time flies." He remembered how she'd been back then, that day so long
ago when she had been in her mid-twenties, as inviting as the brazen
ladies-in-waiting of the palace frescoes, and even more voluptuous.
_Mais, ce sont des Parisiennes_, a dazzled French scholar had marveled.
She was like that. Perfect sensuality. For a while he'd forgotten all
about archaeology and just concentrated on beauty.

The place where all this occurred was the Palace of Knossos, lovingly
restored in the early part of the twentieth century by the wealthy
English archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans. There an almost modern
civilization had flowered to magnificent heights, then mysteriously
vanished. The path leading to the palace down the hill was becoming
wider as they walked, opening on the distant olive groves in the
valley. The vista was stunning, probably the reason it had been built
here.

He looked over and noticed she was digging in her purse again. This
time she drew out a pack of Dunhills. He watched while she flicked a
gold lighter, the one he'd given her as a present so long ago,
emblazoned with a lapis lazuli skull and crossbones. At the time, the
hint had worked. She'd quit.

"The return of the death wish? When did you start that again?"

"Last week." She defiantly took a puff.

"Any particular reason?"

"No, darling, I just did it." She exhaled. "I'm wound up. I'm . . . I'm
scared. Michael, for godsake, how many reasons am I supposed to need?"

"Hey, lighten up." He'd quit a month after they met, but it hadn't been
a big deal. "I've mellowed out from the old days. Life is like most
other things--a lot more fun when you don't take it too seriously."

They were moving across the empty parking lot, headed for the entrance
to the palace. It had once been a twelve-hundred-room labyrinth,
perhaps deliberately confusing. Now the upper courtyard and chambers
lay exposed to the sky, their massive red-and-ocher columns glistening
in the waning sunlight. The columns tapered downward, as though tree
trunks had been planted upside down to prevent resprouting.

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 6:12 P.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 Japanese _kosaihi_, 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 of _bushido_. In centuries gone by, a
samurai never had to ask himself 'what action to take.' He acted intu-
itively. 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 THREE



Wednesday 7:38 P.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 of _raki_ and some of Adriana's _meze_. She would never forgive
me."

They'd dropped by the hotel, then come here. Although Zeno's small
taverna was in the center of _Iraklion_, 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's
_volta_ was 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 meanest _raki_ in
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 of _ouzo_ like a native. "Ah, you know, Michael, your father
would never touch it. You, though . . ."

He beckoned them through the _kafeneion's_ doorway, leading the way
with a limp. The interior was dark, redolent of Greek cigarettes and
_retsina_ wine. 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 and
_raki_ and gossiping. The white clay walls resounded with the clacks of
_komboloi_ worry beads and _tavli_, 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 my
_raki_ and 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. His _kafeneion_
was 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 my _raki_." 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 of _kalamarakia_, 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 tepid _raki_ with 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 of
_melidzanosalata_, her baked eggplant puree flavored with garlic,
onions and herbs, not forgetting her speciality, pink _taramasalata_
made of mullet roe and olive oil.

"Incidentally, we were just out at Knossos, the palace, this
afternoon." Vance took a bite of _kalamarakia_ while 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
of _dolmadakia_. "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 of
_raki_.

"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's _meze_." 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 more _raki_ into 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 of _raki_. "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, fresh
_myzithra_ cheese blended with dark honey from the mountains near
Sfakii. Then at the end she brought forth her own _soumada_, a rich
nectar made of pressed almonds.

After more _raki_, Zeno was persuaded to get out his ancient
_bouzouki_, 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; the _volta_
had 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 11:34 P.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 of _ouzo_ in 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 every-
thing. 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 that _ouzo_. 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.

"All right." She let the words tumble out, finally. "Yes, we intercept
all the Soviet satellite photos. Just the way you thought." She
exhaled, then rose and paced the room a moment, its walls now ghostly
in the candlelight. "Well, lately for some strange reason their Soyuz
series always seems to have a temporary malfunction whenever they pass
over one certain spot on the globe. Almost as though somebody were
turning off their KFA-1000 high-resolution cameras. I kept noticing it,
but nobody else in PHOTOINT thought it was anything but a coincidence.
Still, it got me wondering. What if somebody over there is pulling a
number on the KGB, or the GRU? Keeping them from seeing something. So I
had some of our own photos of that grid sent over, from the new KH-12."

"Where was it?"

"Well, it wasn't necessarily where you'd think. It was the Japanese
island of Hokkaido. And the high-resolution grid missing was just the
northern tip."

"So?"

"I went back and checked a series of KH-12 recon photos, taken over the
last two years. There's something new there now, Michael. Just this
last year or so. It's been partly camouflaged, but I think it's a new
runway. Or launch facility. Or something. And the radar maps show some
funny surface irregularities. At least I think they do. Nobody else at
NSA . . ." She looked away. "But put it together. Maybe that's part of
the treaty somehow, their secret protocol. Some joint--"

"A launch facility? Eva, that's impossible. The Japanese space program
is all down on Tanegeshima Island, south of Tokyo. The island of
Hokkaido is way up north. There's nothing up there but Holsteins and
hay fields."

But, he thought suddenly, it's also just across from Sakhalin. The
Soviet Far East. The place the party secretary who embezzled . . .

"This isn't hay fields, darling, believe me." Her voice seemed to drift
out and blend with the rain. "Something you said this afternoon, that's
what made it click. About the first man to leave the earth and soar
into space . . ."

"You mean--"

"I didn't ask for this. Oh, Christ, how did I . . ." She paused again,
uncertain. "You know, I finally think I've figured out what's
happening, why it's so secret--the treaty, the protocol, cutting out
their own intelligence. It's partly about space, all right. Has to be.
Something's cooking, something they're eventually going to spring on
the world like the first Sputnik."

"You still haven't decoded the damned thing."

"Okay, I'm guessing. But how's this? Somebody at the top, in the USSR,
has decided to go for a giant gamble. To save their system, they've
been forced to turn to some nutcakes in Japan who can loan them
billions. And this project is part of it. The Soviets once cut a deal
with Nazi Germany to buy time, so why not? The leadership needs time
now desperately."

"And you think--?"

"Project Daedalus. That's the code name in the preamble. Think about
it. You know what I believe? To get the money and technology they
desperately need, the Russians have had to cave in and do the
unthinkable. Form a new alliance. Michael, they're about to start
rearming Japan."





























































CHAPTER FOUR



Thursday 7:28 A.M.



"_Hai, so deshoo_," Taro Ikeda, project director, bowed into the red
telephone receiver, using that breathy, clipped speech all Japanese
reserve for their superiors. _"Kore wa honto ni muzakashi desu._ It has
been difficult, but they have finally agreed on the revised schedule.
In nine days--"

He paused to listen, then continued. "_Hai, so_. There is no other way.
_Hai_. The Diet will never approve the treaty unless there is some
dramatic symbol of the advantages of the alliance."

He halted. "_Hai_, security has been maintained here. With deepest
respect, the problem would seem to be with your--" He paused again.

Now tiny beads of sweat were glistening on his brow. "_Hai_, we are
ready. The vehicle is . . . _hai_." He bowed again. "Of course, there
will be no delay. The revised schedule is firm. _Hai_, Mino-sama, we--"
He was bowing ever more rapidly into the phone. "_Hai_, we have pushed
them as hard as we can." He bowed even deeper. "_Hai_, by tomorrow's
report. Of course, Mino-sama. Thank you, _domo arigato gozaimashita_. .
. ."

The line, a high-security satellite link connecting the Hokkaido
facility to the Mino Industries Building in the Ueno section of Tokyo,
had gone dead. Tanzan Mino, CEO of Mino Industries Group, had other
matters to concern himself with.

Taro Ikeda repressed a tremble. The technical part, the project here on
Hokkaido, was going well; what was happening on the Tokyo end? First
the delay of the funds, and now a rumored breach of security. KGB had
intercepted the protocol. That was the word from his informant close to
the CEO in Tokyo.

_Shigata ga nai_, he thought; sometimes things can't be helped.

Taro Ikeda was proud he had been personally selected by the CEO to be
project director for the top secret Hokkaido operation. He was fifty-
four years of age, a graduate of Tokyo University Law School, a twenty-
five-year veteran, now retired, of MITI, the Ministry of International
Trade and Industry. He was, in short, a mover in the New Japan and he
looked it--elegantly graying temples, tailored silk suits, a small
mustache to set off his high cheeks. At one time he had been the inside
choice for MITI vice

minister, before the CEO offered him a chance to fulfill a vision no
official source in the ministry could ever admit existed.

Overall, he told himself, the CEO should be pleased. He had carried out
his own responsibilities flawlessly. And MITl was providing an
unofficial umbrella of technical support, covering any unexpected
requirements. Through this project the CEO had set into motion a plan
that would soon alter dramatically Japan's place in the equation of
world power.

Bushido, the Way of the Warrior. The element of surprise. No one
outside Mino Industries knew what was really planned, not even the
prime contractors for the project. Security every step of the way. And
now the drama was ready, the curtain poised. Only a few more days, and
a technological miracle would soar upward from the earth, symbolizing
the first step in the realization of Japan's age-old ambition. The
world would know the twenty-first century had arrived, the Japanese
century. Mino Industries had made it possible.

The CEO's sense of timing was impeccable. Only last week he had
approved Taro Ikeda's final briefing to Noburu Takahashi, executive
director of the National Space Development Agency. NASDA, through
contracts to the Space Systems Division of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries,
was in charge of the major hardware of the Japanese rocket program.
Takahashi was also an executive of the new Daedalus Corporation, an
unofficial "consultant."

Together they had traveled to the agency's space center on Tanegeshima,
the island six hundred miles south of Tokyo, to monitor the shakedown
launch of Japan's new H-2 rocket series. Although that vehicle was far
superior to both the American Titan 34D and the European Ariane 4, it
was a technological dinosaur compared to this project. This was unlike
anything the world had ever seen.

The project had begun over two years earlier, when he was still
director of MITI's Kokuki Buki-ka, the Aircraft and Ordnance Section.
An "anonymous" scenario--conceived by the CEO of Mino Industries Group,
Tanzan Mino--had arrived on his desk, detailing a revolutionary
proposal. Every director in MITI had received a copy.

The eventual "consensus"? It was too visionary, would aggravate Japan's
already delicate relationship with America. The Liberal Democratic
Party could never be seen to embrace such a project publicly.

Accordingly, MITI's parliamentary vice minister turned it down.
Officially. But that was merely _tatame_, his "public face." Afterward
the classified moves, the real moves, began. Perhaps, it was hinted, if
the idea were "explored" outside regular government channels. . . .
Top-secret feelers were sent to the Soviets.

With a green light, Tanzan Mino had immediately created the Daedalus
Corporation, hiring away Taro Ikeda and forty-seven of his MITI
aerospace engineers, the best and brightest, from Kokuki Buki-ka.
Start-up financing had been provided by the CEO personally, with some
matching contributions by the top executives of Japan's major
_zaibatsu_, industrial groups. The scenario was an easy sell, since
they all realized its payoff would be staggering. The only requirement
was that it remain top secret until the appropriate moment, when the
Diet would be formally notified. By that time, however, there would be
no turning back. Everything would have to go forward as a package.

Under the CEO's direction, Taro Ikeda and his forty- seven MITI
engineers had relocated here on Hokkaido to oversee a secret, fast-
track project. Forty-seven. Perhaps, he sometimes mused, that number
was no coincidence. Perhaps it was an unconscious act of historical
resonance. Forty-seven brilliant young technicians, just like the
forty-seven ronin, the samurai of the famous legend. Those ronin had
bided their time for many years, living in obscurity and ignominy until
the moment when they rose up in triumph.

_Bushido_. You must always make your opponent do battle on your own
terms. And today money and technology were Japan's most powerful
weapons. Why not use them strategically, the CEO had argued. The time
had come to engage other unsuspecting nations with concentrated
strength, in a forcible move to achieve Japan's long-term objectives.
The Way of the Warrior.

Taro Ikeda surveyed his office, his personal command center. The space
was appointed like the headquarters of a field marshall: a deep
metallic gray with video screens along one wall permitting him
continuously to monitor activities in every sector of the facility. And
across the top of his black slate desk was marshalled a line of gray
telephones with scramblers, each a secure direct line to the offices of
one of the project's prime contractors.

The first was to Nagoya, to the head office of Mitsubishi Heavy
Industries. Theirs was the initial contract let by the CEO after the
project financing was in place. Indeed, Mitsubishi's Nagoya Aircraft
Works was the ideal choice to manufacture the air-breathing
turboramjets-scramjets for the vehicle. That conglomerate had produced
over fifty thousand aircraft engines during the great Pacific war, and,
more recently, their new Komaki North plant was responsible for the
powerful oxygen-hydrogen engines that composed the first stage of the
giant H-2 booster. The phone on his desk connected him directly to the
office of Yoshio Matsunami, Mitsubishi's general manager for space
systems. The massive scramjets for this project had been manufactured
in Nagoya under a veil of total secrecy, then static-tested at their
aeropropulsion test facility and individually shipped here to Hokkaido
in unmarked railcars.

Another line connected him to the head office of Nissan's aeronautical
and space division in Tokyo, already in charge of all solid rocket
boosters for the Japan Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science. The
CEO had hired their senior propulsion engineers to resolve problems
connected with air-breathing combustion of liquid hydrogen.

The third connection was to Hitachi City, sixty miles from Tokyo.
Hitachi, Limited manufactured the booster cases for the new H-2
vehicle, and their extensive experience with composite alloys at high-
temperatures made them the obvious choice to create the hypersonic air-
frame.

There were other lines as well. The vehicle's inertial- guidance system
and flight controls--both based on advanced Soviet designs--had been
produced at Japan's National Aerospace Laboratory. Preliminary wind-
tunnel tests had been assigned to the Kakuda Propulsion Center, whose
rocket-engine development facilities were already being used to support
NASDA's program in oxygen-hydrogen thruster R&D.

The last high-security line connected him directly to Tsukuba Space
Center at Tsukuba Science City, forty miles from Tokyo, the nerve
center for all Japanese manned space-flight research. Their clean-rooms
and deep-space tracking facilities were comparable to any in the world,
and their Fujitsu SX-10 supercomputer--which, with 128 processors for
parallel processing, performed nine billion calculations per second--
could provide realtime simulation of a complete hypersonic flight
profile.

Feeling impatient now to begin the day, Taro Ikeda settled back and
reached for the phones. Each contractor would give him a quick morning
update, and then he would outline any further component tests or
retrofitting as required. In truth, these exchanges had long since be-
come scarcely more than rituals, since the project was all but
completed. The major components had already been designed, delivered,
and assembled. The contractors had been paid, the reports and evidence
of their participation declared top secret and locked away from any
possible prying eyes. All traces of the project had been safely
secured.

There was, he reminded himself, only one major problem remaining. As
part of the initial scenario, the Soviets had agreed to provide a
laundered payment of one hundred million American dollars, to be used
for Tanzan Mino's "incidental expenses" in the Liberal Democratic Party
hierarchy. To avoid another Recruit-bribe fiasco like the one that
brought down the prime minister in 1989, the money had to be
scrupulously clean and totally untraceable.

But the funds had not arrived.

How the Soviets had secured the hard currency required outside of
regular government channels, he could not imagine. There were even
reports the money had been secretly "embezzled" from certain slipshod
ministries. That it was, in fact, hot money.

But if those funds didn't come through within eight days, fully
laundered, the project would have to be put on hold, as a matter of
strategy, and precaution. The treaty could not be placed before the
Diet unless passage was assured. Promises had to be kept.

What had happened to the money? Whatever it was, he thought with a
worried sigh, the CEO had better solve it and soon. If he didn't, the
whole project might have to be put on hold until next year's session of
the Diet, and their secrecy would probably be impossible to maintain
for another whole year. A disaster.

He had just completed the last call when he noticed a flashing alert on
the main computer terminal, advising him that the morning's hypersonic
test in Number One was scheduled to begin at 0800 hours. He grunted and
typed in an acknowledgment. In his view it was a waste of time,
overkill. The SX-10's simulation had already taken them further than
they needed to go. But, all right, humor the Soviet team. It would only
require a morning.

His contractor briefings now out of the way, he transferred all
communication channels to the computer modems that lined the walls,
then rose and walked back to the small alcove at the rear of his
office. He paused a moment to calm his thoughts, then slid aside the
_shoji_ screens to reveal what was, for him, the most important room in
the facility.

Here in the North Quadrant the CEO had constructed a traditional
teahouse, _tatami_-floored with walls and ceiling of soft, fresh cedar
and pine. In this refuge Taro Ikeda performed an essential morning
ritual, the brief meditation that quieted his spirit. He knew well the
famous adage of swordsmanship, that the true master lives with his mind
in a natural state.

The challenge ahead would require all the discipline of a samurai
warrior, the Way of Zen. And the first rule, the very first, was your
mind must be empty, natural, unattached, in order to succeed.

As he seated himself on the reed surface of the _tatami_,

_zazen_-style, he methodically began clearing his mind. The moment was
sacred.

But then, drifting through unasked, came an admonition of the great
Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu. "Intelligence is everything. You
must know your opponent's plan even before he knows it himself."

It was true. The security for this project had been airtight, except
for one minor breach. Someone in the Tokyo office had stupidly
transmitted the final protocol over an unsecured satellite channel. It
had been intercepted by Soviet intelligence.

Fortunately, the Russian blunderers had been unable to decipher the
encryption. But someone--either in the KGB or the GRU--had been so
desperate he had secretly enlisted the assistance of the U.S. National
Security Agency's top cryptographer. It was a brilliant move, because
NSA's supercomputers might eventually be able to break the code.

When Tanzan Mino learned of the breach, he had given orders that the
NSA expert be neutralized, quickly, and the protocol retrieved. If it
became public knowledge prematurely, the entire scenario could be
destroyed. Now, happily, the NSA individual had been identified. The
rest would be easy. An unfortunate price to pay, but a simple solution.

With that thought to comfort him, he gazed at the polished natural
woods of the teahouse and let his mind drift into perfect repose.









Thursday 1:07 A.M.



The first round went wide, nicking the edge of the dolphin fresco.
Vance listened, startled, at the explosion, at first thinking it was a
sharp crack of thunder from outside. Then he heard the bullet sing into
the dark, a high-pitched hiss. For a moment he wondered if he was
dreaming, his mind adrift in the bloody myths of the palace. Then a
second explosion flared from the direction of the archway, grazing his
neck.

"_Eva!_" He threw his body across hers, slamming her against the
alabaster portico. His free hand slapped awkwardly at the candle,
crushing out the last sputter of flame. As he swung around, the empty
ouzo bottle clattered into the dark, spinning, its revolving sound a
beacon. Get it, he thought, and stretched across the stone to grope in
the dark. Finally he felt the smoothness of the glass gliding at the
edge of his reach. Slowly, carefully, his fingers circled the neck and
he pulled it toward him.

The room was black now, its silence deep as a tomb. Then the gun flamed
once more, and again, the two rounds ricocheting off the ancient walls
somewhere around them. After that, silence returned, no sound except
for the heave of breathing, whose he wasn't sure.

As he reached to quiet her, she whispered. "Michael, they want me." She
tried to struggle up. "You've got to let--'"

"No." He forced her back, whispering. "We can't leave when the party's
just beginning."

Still grasping the neck of the bottle, he moved silently across the
floor. The stone slabs were icy, while the night music of the rain
seemed to come from another world.

He pressed against the wall, feeling for the doorway until he sensed a
shadow slip past, slowly edging into the room. The muzzle of a pistol
glinted against the flare of lightning outside, and he realized it was
no more than a couple of feet away.

_Now.

_He swung the empty bottle with all his might, aiming for the tip of
the muzzle.

The impact coursed up his arm as the bottle splintered against the
metal. The intruder's startled intake of breath was masked by the
clatter of the weapon against the stone floor.

He'll reach for it, Vance told himself. Lots of luck, pal.

He brought the fractured bottle upward with all his strength, aiming
for the face. Although the figure was still formless, he let instinct
guide his hand. The rough feel of shirt fabric brushed past his fingers
and then the softness of flesh. A scream of surprise pierced the dark.
Bingo.

Got the neck, he thought, and with a twist he drove the shattered
bottle in. A warm wetness gushed against his hand.

I hit an artery. Blind luck.

The figure stumbled backward into the dim passageway. In a flash of
lightning Vance saw hands clawing at a neck. Then came the sound of
stumbling footsteps, retreating, and again silence.

Still gripping the sticky neck of the bottle, he bent down and began to
search the floor. Near his feet he felt a hot muzzle and followed it
upward to the still-warm grip. It was, he realized, a 9mm Baretta. He
kept an identical chrome-plated model on the Ulysses.

All right, chum, now we'll have a rerun.

Grasping it with both hands, in firing position, he turned and peered
out the open archway. The glimmers of distant lightning showed nothing
but stone walls and an empty passageway. All he could discern was the
vertical shaftway connecting the many levels of the palace.

He pressed against the cold stone wall and edged into the hallway
leading toward the steps. Then he felt a sharp sensation against the
ball of his left foot and reached down. A spent cartridge shell, still
warm, lay up-ended on the icy floor.

Pasiphae, he suddenly found himself thinking. It's as though Eva had
lured the killer here, to this very room, like the white bull. And now
he, they, who knows how many? want to kill us both. Somebody realized
she knows too much.

He tried to control his breathing, straining to hear as the adrenaline
continued to pump. From the staircase up above, the crickets had
resumed their high-pitched medley. He listened as they chorused, the
sounds of centuries past, their hymn to the rain. There was nothing
else.

No, faint sounds ... far above, maybe in the central court. Men were
arguing. It was a heated exchange. He heard them grow louder, and with
that the metallic click of another automatic weapon being readied. He
waited, holding his breath, as the voices became even more animated.

What had happened? There must have been two, maybe even more.

Good time to find a new place to party.

He turned back to the silent room. It was, he suddenly realized, too
silent. He felt his way back to the alabaster portico and reached
across.

"Eva."

The quiet that followed told him he had been right; she'd panicked,
run. No, he thought, she only wants to save you. She thinks she drew
them here, and now she's trying to lure them away. Bad time to leave.
Just when things were getting interesting.

He reached down and felt for the right-hand pocket of his trousers,
still lying crumpled in a pile on the floor. Finally he slid his hand
in and searched. The keys were gone. She had taken them, slipped away,
left nothing. No trace. Only the smashed candle remained.

Annoyed, he located a box of hotel matches in his shirt and struck one.
The room was empty, totally bare, its dolphins frisking alone in their
placid sea. Across, on the other side, was the passageway leading
through the queen's "bathroom." Beyond it lay the labyrinthine twists
of the palace hallways. Perhaps by now Eva had found her way out and
escaped. From the maze of Daedalus?

He tried to think as he finished donning his wet clothes in the dark.
Eva clearly had gotten too close to somebody's plans. Where would she
go?

Cautiously he moved out and began to mount the marble staircase, his
rubber soles noiseless against the steps. The automatic was beginning
to feel comfortable, even though it had nearly taken his life only
minutes before. But he never trusted life to a chunk of metal, no
matter how efficient.

Above him the voices still quarreled, and he found himself straining to
catch the language. What was it? Greek? no, maybe Russian. Whatever it
was, a fierce argument was raging. Again he tried to guess how many
there were. He checked the metal clip and decided he had enough rounds
to take them all--if he had to.

But that was getting ahead of the game. If she had eluded them, then
why bother? The best thing would be to try to slip past the courtyard,
get through the fence, maybe join her at the car. Then they could move
the party back to the hotel, keep the momentum. . . .

He moved carefully on through the hall of the procession, edging along
the wall. Against his back he could feel the cold frescoes of the cup
bearers, locked in their sterile march through time.

Then he heard another voice, this time female.

"_Pazdolba! Delaetye vcyo, shto vam yugodno--mnye vcyo_ ..."

It was Eva yelling in rapidfire Russian. Arguing, shouting orders? He
couldn't make it out.

Now he edged through the final archway, grasping the Baretta. At that
moment an eruption of gunfire splintered the silence, a fiery burst in
the rainy night, while Eva was yelling for it to stop. It was over as
quickly as it had come, but she was still screaming, swearing actually.

Whoever was there, they were no more than thirty feet away. But she was
still safe. He could hear her curses, now half muffled in the storm.

Gingerly he edged on out through the entryway and stood at the edge of
the courtyard, Baretta cocked and ready. A lighter blossomed in the
rain, was brought upward to a cigarette, and momentarily framed a face.

Alex Novosty.

He was holding what appeared to be an Uzi, peering down at the
glistening stones. Sprawled across from him were two bodies, both in
dark raincoats. Now he was saying something to Eva in Russian, but she
was staring past him, toward the entryway where Vance stood. In a flare
of lightning their eyes locked, and he saw in hers anger and disbelief.

At that moment the flame of the lighter was cut short, but not before
Novosty whirled and followed her gaze.

Instinctively Vance threw himself against the inside wall of the
processionway. An instant later, the Uzi blazed again, drowning the
sound of Novosty's challenge. He held his own automatic, barely
breathing, while the rounds ricocheted against the stone walls. Was Eva
part of it? What in hell . . .

Then her voice rose again, through the dark, a mixture of Russian and
English. She was screaming at Novosty. Finally she called out.

"Michael." A pause, then her voice cracked. "You may as well stop the
charade."

Charade? That wasn't the game they'd been playing. He decided to wait.
The moment seemed part of a giant contest where none of the players
wore team colors.

"Michael, old man, terribly sorry about that." This time the voice was
Alex's. "It's been a trying night."

"Novosty," he yelled back. "I've got an automatic too, chum. Touch one
hair of her head and you're history. I swear to God. Now let her go,
and then we'll talk."

"My friend, my friend, I'm not keeping her." The hesitation in his
voice belied his attempt at calm. "You don't understand. We have a
problem here, very serious. And I am getting wet. Why don't you come
out and let's discuss it somewhere dry."

"No way. You and I have a little catching up to do. Let her go. She's
not part of it."

"Ah, but she is very much a part of it. Why do you think I am here
tonight, risking everything? I need you now, Michael, more than ever.
We are all in deep trouble because of her."

As Vance started to respond, he felt a glancing blow against the side
of his neck, powerful, numbing. Awkwardly he stumbled forward, cursing
his own stupidity. Of course! The man he'd wounded had merely
disappeared into the palace labyrinth. He'd been back there somewhere,
waiting. Now they'd guided him here with all the shouting.

He felt the Baretta slip from his grasp as his head slammed against the
hard plaster of the fresco. His attacker was reaching for the gun,
hands slippery with blood. There was hot breath against his face, the
gurgle of labored breathing. It was a dying man with nothing to lose.

Now Alex was shouting at Eva through the rain, telling her to run for
it.

Good, he thought, and turned to shove his fist into the face of the
figure struggling to turn the pistol on him. The weapon fired, a lethal
blast next to his ear, but the muzzle was still directed away. The
round glanced off the stone archway and ricocheted down the hallway. As
their struggle continued, he heard the sound of the Saab, its engine
coughing to life.

Too bad. I'll miss the ride back.

With that he brought his knee against the assailant's groin, shoving
him against the wall. Even then, though, he still could not see the
face; it was darkened or swathed in a black cloth, he couldn't tell
which.

Suddenly the passageway flared, and he looked up to see Novosty, rain-
soaked, holding his small Italian lighter. In his left hand. In his
right was the black metallic shape of the Uzi. Just then the attacker,
drenched in blood, finally wrenched away the Baretta and was turning,
trying to speak. Vance noticed, absently, that blood streamed from a
gash across the side of his neck.

"I am sorry, my friend." Alex was lifting his weapon, calmly and with
perfect precision. "Things have become complicated, but do not worry. I
have handled it." And the Uzi erupted.

The dying man actually managed to squeeze off a round, a shot that went
wild, as the impact of the Uzi slammed him against the wall. Then he
fired again, almost a death tremor, and pitched forward.

Vance started to stretch for the pistol as it clattered across the
floor toward him, but Novosty's voice sounded through the storm.

"Michael, do us both a favor, just leave it. I've killed enough men
tonight. Three. And I knew them all. I am very weary of it, so please .
. ." He was walking over, still holding the Uzi. "Let's have a drink
and talk. This is very unsettling to my nerves."

"You and your friends screwed up a perfectly fine evening. You'd better
have a good excuse." Vance watched him, very much wanting the pistol in
his hands. Should he make a grab for it and take his chances?

"As I tried to tell you just now, it is very complicated."

Novosty was picking up the Baretta, grasping it carefully with a piece
of wet cloth he'd ripped from the dead man's shirt. Then he looked up.
"Are your prints on this?"

"Sort of figures, doesn't it? I borrowed it from him." He pointed down
at the blood-soaked corpse between them.

"So we must clean it," he sighed. "What happened here tonight was a
terrible accident, my friend. Obviously. How else can it be explained?
There will be an international inquiry. We must now try and simplify
the work of whoever has that unpleasant duty."

"You've got some explaining of your own to do. What about Eva?"

"Ah yes, Eva. She should have known better than to come here." He
looked up. "Tonight simply need not have happened. It has always
distressed me, the imprudence of some women." He sighed again. "I do
not know if I can cover up this affair. It may well be the end for me."

"No kidding. Killing those two men out there may dampen your welcome in
these parts."

"I regret to say it was necessary. They wanted to take her. But when I
reasoned against it, they became suspicious. Which is why I had no
choice."

Was Novosty here protecting Eva, he suddenly wondered? After all, there
was age-old blood connecting them; Eva Borodin and Alex Novosty went
back centuries together, centuries of Russian history. Aristocrats
both, they shared family, pain, and glory from an age long before the
October Revolution. But would she turn to him for refuge? No, not
likely. She'd never be that desperate.

"Like you said this morning, Alex, it's unhealthy in this business to
know too much. Tends to spoil all the interesting surprises."

"Yes, I agree. Ignorance is often bliss, I think that's the expression.
But having solved one problem, I then faced another. What to do about
them? Happily our friend here was available to help. I honestly think
he would have died anyway from his neck wound." He glanced up. "Did you
do this?"

"Spur of the moment."

"You are still good, Michael." He bent over and examined the severed
artery again. "My compliments. You haven't lost it. An excellent job. I
believe this incision would have been fatal." He turned back and
smiled. "You have a surgeon's touch."

"Are you going to tell me who the hell he is, or do we play twenty
questions?"

"He was . . . a professional acquaintance. This was most regrettable.
For everyone. Mine was a distasteful task, I assure you." He sighed
once more as he laid both weapons against the wall. "I will trust you,
Michael. In turn you must trust me. And help me. We need to move this
poor unfortunate to a more plausible location."

Vance now realized what Novosty was planning. He was about to pin the
murder of the two outside on a dead man, this one. But who were they?
Whoever this one was, one of his hands only had three fingers; the
little finger had been cut away just below the knuckle.

"Forget it. I'm not going to help you do anything. I'm going to walk
out of here, try and find Eva, and get the hell away from all this.
You're a negative influence, Alex."

"My friend, be reasonable." He pointed toward the weapons. "We have
work to do. We must remove all the prints from those, yours and mine,
then create an accident."

"Look, you broke up a small party I had going here tonight. But now
that you've ruined my evening, I damned sure don't plan to help you
clean up."

"Michael, neither of us had anything to do with this unfortunate
business. You or me. I wasn't even in Greece. It must have been some
terrible misunderstanding among men of questionable livelihood. Tempers
obviously flared. Who knows? Everybody is dead, so there can be no
explanation beyond what appearances suggest." He shrugged and slipped
his arms underneath the body. "Incidentally, they told me that Volodin
was captured this morning. But he didn't talk. Instead he killed
himself. So our situation is still secure."

"You must have a hearing problem. Maybe you ought to get it checked. I
just told you it's Eva I'm going to help, not you. You can take the
money and--"

"My friend, my friend, you are impetuous. Please. Everything is going
as planned. But now we must move quickly." He smiled. "By the way, did
you leave anything down below?"

"Just a broken bottle." Vance stared out into the rain.

"Then you might wish to make it disappear." He began dragging the body
into the courtyard. "It will have prints. Glass preserves them
perfectly."

He's right for once, Vance thought. Rubbing at his neck, a glimmer of
pain intruding, he turned and retraced his steps into the dark, into
the labyrinth.

As he descended, the chill of the palace enveloped him. He was bored
with the place now, its ancient horrors and its modern ones. When the
dark became too depressing, he extracted a folder of hotel matches and
struck one. Its puny light flared and then expired, almost helpless
against the blackness engulfing him.

The sound of crickets followed as he entered the bedroom of the queen
once more. He paused a moment in the dark, then struck another match
and walked over to the stone bed. There was the neck of the splintered
bottle, covered with bloody fingerprints. Novosty was right about one
thing: It would have opened a whole new area of inquiry. Nobody at
Interpol had his prints on file, at least as far as he knew. But that
wasn't good enough. Leave nothing to chance.

Carrying the fractured bottle, he began remounting the steps. This time
he wanted the dark, needed it, to clear his mind, to mask the horrors
of the palace. The confusion of the shootout swirled in his mind. Alex
Novosty had killed three men as calmly as lighting a cigarette. Why?
Was it just for the money?

When he emerged, distant lightning glinted on the ancient stones of the
courtyard, contrasting brightly with the darkness below. For an instant
the palace seemed magical all over again.

And there, perfectly choreographed on the wet pavement, was evidence of
a lethal duel. Three bodies lay across from each other, two together
and one opposite, gripping a weapon, his neck slashed. Perhaps it
looked too pat, but who would know? Things happened that way.

The only participant missing was Aleksei Ilyich Novosty.

He gazed around, but he knew he would see nothing. Yes, Alex had gotten
out quickly and cleanly. He'd always been hit and run.

All right, Vance told himself, now it's time to answer a few questions.
Who the hell is looking for Eva, and who wants to silence her? Are they
the same people?

Carefully, methodically he began to search the pockets of the two men
Novosty had killed outside. He knew what he was looking for. The first
appeared to be in his fifties, pockmarked cheeks, looked very Russian
in spite of it all. He had a small Spanish Llama 9mm compact in a
shoulder holster.

The other man was younger, though already balding. His cheeks were
drawn, and blood was already staining around the two holes in his cheap
polyester suit. His last expression was one of disbelief frozen in
time. He's the back-up, Vance told himself, number two. That's always
how they work. He should have stayed back home, maybe digging potatoes.

The passports were Bulgarian, a forgery, stamped with a Greek entry
visa one week old. Port of entry: Athens. But they had to be KGB. No
wonder Novosty was in trouble now. He was playing both sides of the
game.

Finally he pulled around the head of the other man, the one swathed in
black, the one who had almost killed him twice. This was the one he'd
been saving till last, trying to guess.

A bloody, brutal face stared back at him, and through the torn shirt he
could see a garish tattoo covering the back and chest. At first he
couldn't believe it, so he lit a match and cupped it against the rain
while he ripped open the rest of the cloth to be sure. History swirled
around him.

_Irezumi_. The rose-colored dragon-and-phoenix tattoo was regulation
issue--insignia of a _kobun_ of the right-wing ultranationalist Mino-
gumi, the foremost Yakuza crime syndicate of Japan. He knew it well.







CHAPTER FIVE



Thursday 7:30 A.M.



Andrei Petrovich Androv, director of propulsion systems, gazed out
across the windy strait, feeling the chill of the sea air cut through
his fur-lined trench coat.

Physically, he was almost mythic, a giant from Grimms' fairy tales. He
had a heavy face nature should wish on no man, tousled gray hair, bushy
eyebrows eternally cocked in skepticism, and a powerful taste for
Beethoven's string quartets, which he played incessantly in the
instrument room. He bore, in fact, more than a passing resemblance to
that aging, half-mad genius. Now seventy-one, he, too, possessed a
monumental mind and was acknowledged worldwide as the founding
intellect behind the Soviet space program.

Yes, he was thinking, this location had been ideal. Here in remote
Hokkaido they had constructed a high-security facility surrounded by
wind-swept wilderness--virgin forests and snow-covered volcanoes. Even
for him, a man long used to the harsh winters of Baikonur, the almost
Siberian weather along this coast was intimidating. This was the most
isolated, austere, and yes, lonely spot he'd ever known.

But it was the perfect site. Mino Industries had insisted, rightly, on
this northernmost point of Japan for the facility, here in a national
park on Cape Soya, fifty kilometers west of Wakkanai. The facility
itself had been constructed entirely underground, excavated beneath
this rocky northern coast in order to be secure and invisible to
satellite reconnaisance, both Soviet and American. Such excessive
precautions, hardly a problem in the New Mexico desert when the first
atomic bomb was tested, were the order of the day in this new era of
space photography. Nowadays you even had to find ways to mask telltale
waste heat

expulsion, which always betrayed an unmistakable infrared signature.

In that respect, too, their choice of this spot was strategic, with the
freezing currents of the La Perouse Strait between northern Hokkaido
and Sakhalin providing a continuous and thermally stable 12 degrees
Celsius feed for the heat exchangers. Only the ten-thousand-meter test
runway could not be concealed full-time, but it had been carefully
camouflaged and was used only at night.

A massive breaker crashed against the rocks at the north end of the
shore, sending ice-flecked spray upward into the morning mist. As he
watched the freezing cloud and felt its ice collecting on his cheeks,
he glanced at his watch. It was seven-forty. He took one last survey of
the choppy gray sea and turned back. His daily morning walk down to the
shore had achieved its purpose: His mind was as sharp as the icy wind
whistling through the rocks. He needed to be at Number One by 0800
hours, when the final test run was scheduled to begin.

As he did every morning, he retraced the concrete steps that led down
to the stainless steel entry door leading into the West Quadrant. When
he reached it, he inserted a coded plastic card into the slot,
pronounced his name into the black microphone flush with the metal
doorframe, and signaled the TV eye. Two seconds later a simulated voice
from the computer granted him access, the door sliding aside.

He nodded to the guards, then moved on down the long neon-lit, gray
hallway. When he reached the unmarked door of Number One, he paused to
listen. The whine of the fans was still a high growl as the engineers
ran through the warm-up preparatory to bringing its six 25,000-horse-
power motors to full power. Contenting himself that vibration in the
fan housings remained at acceptable levels, he flashed his ID to the
guard, inserted his magnetic card, and shoved open the door.

Without a word, he marched to his desk by the main video panel and
slipped a scratched old Melodiya disk onto his ancient turntable.
Moments later, the first movement of Beethoven's Quartet in A Minor
boomed from the speakers.

"We are ready to switch on the laser field, Doktor Androv." A young
Soviet technician approached gingerly. "If you wish, we can direct the
holograms here to the master terminal."

"More of your pretty pictures?" He was examining the data on the video
screens. Then he nodded. "_Da. Ya gotov_. When you will."

As he stared at the screens, he again found himself growing pensive.
The project was all but finished now. His lifelong dream.

He silently counted their breakthroughs. The new material being used
for the leading edges and scramjet struts, a proprietary titanium alloy
coated with a ceramic skin, had turned out to be much lighter than
aluminum and eight times as strong. Full-scale sections of the leading
edges of the wings and the engine struts had been subjected to ten-
minute blasts of 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit air at Mach 7 in the high-
temperature tunnel with no deformation or structural failure.

Then the turboramjet-scramjets, four meters in diameter and nine meters
long, had all been given full-scale static tests at the aeropropulsion
facility in the south, where they were operated to Mach 8 at
temperatures ranging from minus 100 to over 1900 degrees Fahrenheit.
Massive refrigeration units and gas heaters had been used to achieve
the temperature range, while liquefied air was pumped into the intakes
to duplicate a complete hypersonic duty cycle.

Maybe, he thought, they were ready for a full-scale test flight. Only
one problem remained: a hint of supersonic wave drag the low-
temperature helium wind tunnel had shown could develop behind the
leading edges. He had ordered the project director to run a computer
simulation examining the performance of two new ceramic spoilers,
modified canard foreplanes, and the preliminary results indicated the
drag would be effectively damped. Still, he was determined to test that
design modification with a full run-up here in Number One, the massive
hypersonic tunnel that contained a ten-meter scale model of the
vehicle.

As he sat thinking, he neglected to acknowledge the arrival of the
project director, now advancing down the concrete steps that led from
the steel entry door.

"_Dobriy utro_, Doktor Androv." Taro Ikeda's good-morning greeting was
heavily accented. "_Kak pashaviatye_?"

"_Khoroshau_." Andrei Petrovich Androv nodded absently, still engaged
in his thoughts. "_Dobriy utro_."

"Today I have more good news," Ikeda continued as he headed for the
coffee urn. "My 0730 briefing included a report that during the night
our Tsukuba team completed a simulation of the aerodynamic performance
of your suggested modification all the way to Mach 25. Just as you
envisioned, leading-edge deformation and vortex bursts were reduced to
values well within the acceptable envelope." He looked back. "Which
makes me question whether we really need to proceed with this morning's
run."

"Your SX-10 only tells us how a fuselage performs if airflows are
ideal," Androv replied. "At hypersonic temperatures and velocities air
doesn't behave predictably, like a perfect gas. Fluid dynamics models
can only give us approximations of actual characteristics." He glanced
up from the video control panel, his face determined. "It is my son,
Yuri, who will be in the cockpit of these vehicles, and my experience
is you never put your faith in simulations. In the hypersonic regime,
computer simulations are just guesswork, a shortcut not worth a
_drozhky _driver's fart."

"As you wish," Ikeda replied evenly, taking his first sip of coffee.

In truth, Andrei Androv did not dismiss simulations out of hand. He
knew their Fujitsu supercomputer was truly a marvel, capable of
replicating the aerodynamic characteristics of a given fuselage
component, modifying it, testing it, over and over millions of times,
iterating to the optimum design in almost the twinkling of an eye.

In every respect the high technology available here was astonishing.
Take their hypersonic wind tunnel. Its laser probes shone thin slices
of coherent light through the swirling air currents, revealing
complexities otherwise hidden amid whorls of turbulence. These data
were then enhanced through holography, which used the laser light to
create colored 3-D representations of the flow around the model.
Finally those holograms were fed into the supercomputer and analyzed
from all angles.

This project would have been impossible anywhere else on earth. But
here, the foreign team had created a feather-light hypersonic airframe
that used turbo-ramjets for horizontal takeoff and then changed their
geometry into fuel-injected supersonic combustion ramjets, or
scramjets, which combusted fuel and atmospheric oxygen using an
internal shock wave instead of conventional compressors to achieve
orbital velocity, Mach 25. It was his dream come true.

"Brief me again on the simulation." Androv turned back to Ikeda. "You
say you went all the way to our maximum design objective?"

"We ran through the entire flight profile in real time," the other man
replied. "There were no stability problems whatsoever. Either during
the power-up or during the switch-over to scramjet engine geometry at
Mach 4.8."

"Encouraging, encouraging." Androv turned back to his video panel as
the fans continued to accelerate. The violins of the A Minor quartet,
his favorite of all Beethoven's late works, washed over the room. "All
the same, we must run a complete sequence here for any design
alterations."

He then fell silent, studying the screens. Mach 25. That was--yes--almost
seventeen thousand miles per hour. A velocity greater than any existing
missile. And it was air-breathing!

Their supercomputer's revolutionary aerodynamic design had made it
possible. Problem: at velocities higher than Mach 5 unprecedented
airflows were required, due to heat buildup in the fuel-injection
struts and the shortage of oxygen at rarified altitudes. Solution: the
entire underside of the vehicle had been shaped to serve as an exten-
sion of the intakes for the twelve massive scramjets. The fuselage of
the plane itself was going to act as a giant funnel, scooping in air.
And it had appeared to work, at least in the computer. Then finally the
Japanese engineers had perfected the liquid-air-cycle process,
permitting the cryogenic hydrogen fuel to be used to liquefy a portion
of the incoming air and inject it under high pressure into the engine.
The final, essential breakthrough.

Andrei Androv was both an idealist and a pragmatist. In Russia you had
to be. That education began almost half a century earlier when, as a
student, he had been on hand to assist in the first free flight of a
Russian-made liquid fuel rocket, at an army base just outside Moscow.
He had experienced the exhilaration of a new frontier, and plunging
himself into the new science of rocketry, he had become a self-taught
expert who published theoretical works read and praised by men three
times his age.

Ironically, therefore, Andrei Petrovich Androv had not enjoyed the
luxury of being ignored, as the American rocket pioneer Goddard had
been. Joseph Stalin, always paranoid, decided that the rocket
researchers' "fireworks" were "dangerous to the country." Consequently,
Andrei Petrovich Androv was arrested, interrogated at Butyrskaya Prison
in Moscow, and dispatched on the Trans-Siberian Railroad to a convict
coal mine on the Pacific coast.

Eventually the political winds shifted. As a recognized rocket expert,
he was part of the 1946 Soviet team that shipped German scientists and
V-2 launchers back to Russia. Finally, under Khrushchev, he rose to
genuine prominence, since that general secretary believed that only
rockets, not manned aircraft, had the range to drop bombs on the U.S.
Nikita S. Khrushchev put Andrei Androv in charge of all Soviet
rocketry, and Andrei Androv put Russia in space.

He'd been in charge of constructing the sprawling Baikonur Cosmodrome,
near Tyuratram in Kazakhstan, central Asia, still the world's largest
space center. From it he orbited the world's first satellite, Sputnik,
and the world's first astronaut, Yuri Gagarin. He knew the byways of
that top-secret facility almost better than he knew his own living
room--the gantry systems, the fueling apparatus, the clean rooms, the
rocket assembly areas, the sectors where satellites were readied. Most
recently, in 1987, he had been in charge of the successful first test
launch of the most powerful vehicle the world had ever seen--the
Energia, propelled by liquid hydrogen engines capable of lifting a
hundred-ton space platform into orbit.

Also during that time his only son, Yuri Andreevich, had become the
Soviet Union's leading test pilot. Yuri was rarely home, and then, nine
years ago, Andrei Androv's wife had died of pneumonia. Isolated in the
long, snowy nights at Baikonur, he'd consoled himself with string quar-
tets, his studies of classical Greek, and his designs, his dreams of
the ultimate space vehicle.

But he knew Russia would never be able to build it alone. Soviet
computer and materials technology already was slipping behind those of
the West.

He grimaced to think how his country had been brought to today's
humiliating state of affairs, reduced to bargaining with foreigners
like Arabs in a medina. Eventually, though, pragmatism had overruled
all. Underlying this bizarre new alliance was one simple reality: the
USSR needed Japanese high technology desperately. And it needed that
technology now.

It had begun two years earlier, when the president himself had paid a
surprise secret visit to the space complex at Baikonur, supposedly to
review the Energia launch schedule. That, however, was merely the
official excuse. He actually had an entirely different agenda.

Without saying why, he had invited his old friend Andrei Petrovich
Androv to join him at the secluded hunting lodge where he was staying--
to talk, one-on-one, about the future of Soviet science. As that long
snowy evening wore on, wind whistling through the log walls and pine
smoke clouding the air, their conversation had turned to hard truths
and blunt language.

In vino, Veritas. By midnight, the uniformed bodyguards outside were
stamping their heavy boots to keep warm, and Andrei Petrovich and
Mikhail Sergeevich were both drinking vodka directly from the bottle,
had flung its tinfoil cap onto the rough-hewn boards of the cabin's
floor. By then, too, the revered Andrei Petrovich Androv was boldly
speaking his mind.

"Mikhail Sergeevich, time has run out for Russia. There is nothing to
buy, almost nothing to eat, and prices are soaring. There is so much
corruption you will not leave a Russian hospital alive unless you've
bribed everyone, right down to the drunken orderlies. And those bribes
can't be money. Who wants rubles? They are worthless. These days you
have to bribe with vodka." He'd laughed sadly, then picked up an old
copy of Pravda there by the fireplace, waved it in the air, and tossed
it into the crackling flames. "When we start cooperatives, they are
immediately taken over by our new mafia, Russia's ruble millionaires.
Everything--"

"_Perestroika_ will succeed in time, Andrei Petrovich," the president
had insisted perfunctorily, still not having explained why they were
meeting. "We are moving as rapidly as circumstances will permit. The
bureaucracy--"

"_Perestroika_!" Androv had roared back. "Have you heard the latest
joke from Moscow? _Perestroika_ is like a country where everyone is
switching from driving on the left side to the right side--gradually.
Our half-measure concessions to a market economy have produced the
worst of both systems. We now have a land with socialist initiative and
capitalist conscience." He paused to laugh again, then sobered. "And
soon, very soon, we're going to find ourselves in the technological
Third World. We need a vision. Even more, we need hard currency, and
Western technology now. And we need massive amounts. Nothing less can
save us."

That was when the president had nodded silently, then lifted a top-
secret document from his black leather briefcase. He explained that it
was a proposal from a consortium of foreigners. He wanted Andrei
Androv's honest assessment.

"Read this, Andrei Petrovich," he said, passing it over, "and tell me
what you think. It may well be a terrible thing even to consider, but I
must know your view. You, my old friend, are one of the few men I know
I can trust. This proposal, can it work?"

As he squinted by the flickering light of the fire, Andrei Petrovich
Androv almost couldn't believe what he was reading. Among other things,
the dream he had dreamed so long was there, his for the taking. The
dream of a bold venture in space achieved with a whole new level of
technology.

Along with it, the Soviet Union would receive everything it needed. The
foreigners would provide billions and billions in long-term, low-
interest loans and a flood of subsidized consumer goods to erase the
pain of perestroika, providing the president with the badly needed
financing, not to mention popular support, he needed to bring it off.
But there were price tags, several of them. The first would be total
access to all Soviet space and propulsion technology. That component
would actually make sense technically, but the others were higher, much
higher. Could it be done? Should it be done?

"What do you think, Andrei Petrovich?" the president had finally
spoken, his voice a whisper above the snap of embers and the howl of
wind. "Do we dare?"

The room had fallen silent for a long moment. Was this some kind of
trap? he almost wondered, like the old days. No, he'd quickly
concluded, this time Russia was different. He would have to trust
Mikhail Sergeevich. Most of all, though, he was holding his life-long
ambition in his hand. At last he replied, hope mingled with
apprehension.

"I think we have no choice." He had looked up at the president's
troubled eyes. "You have no choice."

"Unfortunately, I think you are right." He had sighed and turned his
gaze to the blackness outside the snow- banked window. "_Ve tyomnuyu
noch, ya znayu_. Yes, Andrei Petrovich. On this dark night, I finally
know what we must do."

After one final vodka, they had set about devising the scenario that
would change the world forever. . . .

The airflow around the model continued to accelerate, while laser
holograms of its complex aerodynamics were now being converted by the
computer into multi-colored graphic art. Androv watched the wall-size
liquid crystal display screen in the control room begin generating a
vivid depiction of the streams whirling past the model, simulating the
incremental stages of hypersonic climb. It was like watching a
hallucination, he thought, as colors swirled around the fuselage of an
object seemingly composed of 3-D lines and curves.

"We are now at Mach 6, Comrade Doktor Androv." The voice of a Soviet
technician interrupted his thoughts. "The laser data show that the
supersonic wave drag peaks at Mach 3.8, then subsides. Your new canard
foreplanes appear to be working, at least for this portion of the
flight envelope."

Androv studied the screen, noncommittal. "Thus far it would appear to
be so. Perhaps the SX-10 was correct. All the same, at Mach 7, I want
to switch on the enhancer, then capture those data and analyze them to
be doubly sure."

The hypersonic enhancer permitted wind-tunnel burst tests at far higher
velocities than a conventional facility could achieve. More high tech.

"There could still be a problem," Androv continued, "when the vortex of
air currents shed from the nose of the fuselage encounters the shock
waves from the wings, particularly around Mach 11." He turned to Ikeda.
"Those vortexes have been responsible for significant damage to several
American space shuttles during reentry phase. I need to see the data."

"As you wish." The director walked to the thick glass window that
looked out onto the model suspended in the airstream. The crew of
technicians hovered over the controls, watching for any signs of
vibration. He studied the screens for a few moments, then spoke quietly
to the head of the technical team, an intense young man in spectacles.
This lieutenant turned and passed the order to his colleagues, who
nodded gravely and stationed themselves at the switches.

Above the roar, a brilliant arc of electricity suddenly exploded just
in front of the nose of the model, adding an additional burst of
pressure at Mach 6 to the velocity already passing across. It was a
blinding, microsecond pulse that momentarily boosted simulated vehicle
velocity to Mach 13. The lasers registered the data, then passed it
directly, via microwave link, into the memory banks of the powerful SX-
10 operating hundreds of miles away.

Seconds later the turbulence data appeared in visual form on the liquid
crystal screen above them. As the colored numbers flashed, a cheer went
up from the normally somber technicians.

"Still no sign of any wave drag outside the theoretical envelope, not
even at Mach 13," the young head-technician beamed.

"Just as we simulated," Ikeda noted quietly.

This time even the grave Androv smiled. "I must congratulate all of
you." He was rising from his chair, the central one facing the main
controls.

"Then I will order the modification installed," Ikeda nodded, "if you
formally authorize it."

"Authorized. I think you are right. Perhaps we are ready for a
hypersonic test flight." Androv reached to switch off his turntable. "I
would like to go down to the hangar now myself, in fact. Perhaps
celebrate this moment with a glass of tea."

"Of course." Ikeda spoke quickly to his Japanese technicians, then
followed the Russian out the door.

The hallways were a connected maze of brilliantly lighted and
scrupulously clean tunnels. They moved down the main corridor to the
central checkpoint, then turned and entered the South Quadrant, passing
the various assembly sections. Those sectors were mostly quiet now,
since the final work had been completed several weeks earlier.

Androv said nothing as they walked toward the doorways connecting the
South Quadrant with the underground hangar. He merely whistled a
portion of the third movement of the A Minor quartet, Beethoven's hymn
of thanksgiving in the Greek, Lydian mode. He recalled that the English
writer Aldous Huxley had once suggested that particular movement was
proof of God's existence.

Was there a God? He wasn't sure. The only miracles he knew of on this
earth were performed by men. He was on the verge of performing one
himself.

The history of space exploration had been played out entirely in his
lifetime. He himself had been the architect of much of that progress.
But putting a man into space remained an expensive and dangerous
proposition. Launch vehicles still exploded with alarming regularity.
Man was trapped on this planet. God was still in the heavens.

Man's hope of reaching God at will required a special creation, one
that could taxi off a runway just like a normal aircraft, then
accelerate to hypersonic speeds, reaching low-earth orbit. An air-
breathing space vehicle. Its potential for the peaceful exploration of
near-earth space defied imagination.

Peace. All his life, Andrei Petrovich Androv had worked in the shadow
of war. Now, at last, he had created the ultimate symbol of peace.

The entry to the hangar was secured, but when the guards saw Dr. Androv
and the project director approaching, they saluted and punched in the
codes on the locks. Moments later the heavy steel doors slid aside,
revealing the brilliant lights of the hangar. It was cavernous, over a
hundred feet high, with gantries now standing idle along the walls.
White-coated technicians swarmed over the two prototypes, checking the
final seals, while others were on twenty-foot-high trucks servicing the
engines.

Looming above them were what appeared to be two giant prehistoric
birds, streaks of gleaming silver over three hundred feet in length,
with pen-sharp noses that dipped rakishly downward. Androv paused to
admire them a moment, marveling in spite of himself. The long, sleek
lines swept back in a clean curve, without the interruption of a
windshield. The "cockpit," in fact, was deep inside the nose, where
shock waves would not impact the computer guidance system. From the
nose its lines burgeoned into a sharp, clean fan, and beneath the two
abbreviated wings were suspended twelve massive turboramjet-scramjets.
They had already been certified at Mach 4.5. In ten days one of these
vehicles would achieve the ultimate. Mach 25, seventeen thousand miles
per hour.

The Americans had code-named their fledgling design

for a hypersonic space plane--still at least a decade away-- the X-30.
But no such mundane designation would satisfy Andrei Petrovich Androv,
devoted disciple of the ancients. He had long believed the Americans
were high-tech vulgarians with no poetry in their soul, no sense of
history.

Across the towering tail assembly of both aircraft was an insignia that
symbolized the joining of two of the world's great superpowers, a
double ax. And along their titanium-composite fuselage was lettered a
single word, in Cyrillic characters. Andrei Androv had insisted on that
name, in celebration of the first human ever to soar above the earth,
the dream of ancient man. Now, he had declared, four thousand years
later, there was another dream, his dream, a hypersonic vehicle that
could loft man directly into space from anywhere on the planet.

He had dreamed that dream. And the Mino Industries Group had permitted
him to pick the name for the creation that would realize it, for the
miracle that would master time and space, the earth itself . . .

DAEDALUS



Thursday 9:16 A.M.



Yuri Androv stood at the far end of the flood-lit hangar, staring up at
the underbelly of _Daedalus I _and thinking. This morning's run-up in
the centrifuge had gone well. At last he was convinced there was no
physiological barrier to hypersonic flight, at least none he couldn't
handle. The scramjets had all been put through their paces at the aero-
propulsion facility. On the test stand, at least, they met their
specifications.

Yes, he was thinking, this plane just might do it. He would ease
through the Mach 4.8 barrier slowly, then convert to scramjet geometry,
switch to liquid hydrogen, and go full throttle. It was scary, sure,
but you only lived once. Fuck the danger.

The prospect was exhilarating and chilling. He looked up, again awed.
Even for someone who'd seen and flown them all, this was an inspiring
creation. Not only was it easily the most technologically advanced
flight vehicle in the world, it also was stunningly beautiful.

Right now, however, there were two simple problems: first, without a
hypersonic test flight nobody could really be sure it would do what it
was supposed to; second, as of now both prototypes still belonged to
Mino Industries and would continue to belong to Mino Industries until
the final treaty and agreement were signed.

Actually, taking the _Daedalus_ hypersonic might be the least of the
project's worries. That was the part he knew how to handle. The
unknowns lay in another direction entirely, the strategic direction.

Strategically, he still didn't trust Russia's new partner. From what
he'd heard, the conditions demanded in return for all their high
technology had been heavy, and that was just the short-term price. The
long-term cost might be even greater. Was the Soviet Union about to
become the financial and technological captive of a shadowy group of
foreigners, men whose identities remained, even now, shrouded in
secrecy? Was this a Faustian bargain?

Just then he noticed the doors at the far end of the hangar slide open
and two men in white lab coats enter. Perfect timing, he thought. Even
at that distance he knew immediately who they were: the joint venture's
two top technical officers: his father, Andrei Petrovich Androv, and
Taro Ikeda, the project director for the Japanese team. The men held
equal authority. Supposedly. But in fact all the real decisions on this
project were being made by somebody else entirely. The shots were
actually being called from a skyscraper in Tokyo, by a mysterious CEO
known as Tanzan Mino.

Now Ikeda and the elder Androv were headed his way. As he watched
Ikeda, he felt himself involuntarily stiffen. Perhaps his unease about
the man was his intuitive, right brain working, trying to tell him
something. But what? All communications with the CEO were channeled
through Ikeda. Fair enough, he told himself, he was accustomed to
secrecy. Maybe Japanese industrialists were as careful about protecting
their asses as the Soviet _nomenklatura _were. Maybe it was just part
of the landscape here too. But still . . .

"_Strastvitya_, Yuri Andreevich." Ikeda smiled, extending his pale hand
as he simultaneously bowed. "_Kak pashaviatye_?"

"_Khoroshau. Spahcebo_." He shook Ikeda's hand, then nodded toward his
father. "If this is a good time, I'd like to discuss the scramjet
power-up sequence with Dr. Androv for a few moments."

"If it's anything serious, then perhaps we should all confer with the
prime contractors," Ikeda responded smoothly. "Right now, in my office.
In fact, I was just on the phone with--"

"No need to bring them in. Just a few technical items, nothing more."

"Yuri Andreevich." Ikeda smiled and bowed again, his eyes trying to
display a warmth they clearly did not possess. "Every issue here is of
importance to us all. If--"

"Not every nut and bolt," he interrupted. "I just have some sequencing
questions, that's all."

Ikeda bowed once more, quickly. "You know we are all depending on you.
No one in Japan has the experience to take up a plane like this. At
least not at this stage of the project. So be aware that any matter
weighing upon the success of your test flight, or your safety--" he
flashed another quick, concerned smile "--is naturally of gravest
concern to me, and to the CEO."

"Then you should be glad to hear the power-up simulation in the
centrifuge this morning took me right through Mach 9.8 with no
problems. Which means the scramjet ignition sequence looks like a go."

"Congratulations." Ikeda nodded.

"One last thing. I'll be sending a memo to Engineering about a
modification of the cockpit, to permit more latitude in the seat.
Nothing major. I think we could still reduce vascular stress in the
high-G regime."

Andrei Androv noticed the look of concern on his son's face. "Yuri, you
seem troubled. This morning, did anything--?"

"Of course, send Engineering your memo by all means,"

Ikeda interjected. "I'll personally see it's taken care of. We want
nothing to go wrong. Not even the smallest--"

"Good. That's all I want." Yuri turned and wrapped his arm around his
father's aging shoulders, gently urging him in the direction of the
trucks stationed beneath the silver nose of Daedalus I. He wanted to
get rid of Ikeda so he could talk. After they moved a few feet, he
yelled back over his shoulder. "But wait on the decision till you read
my memo."

"As you wish." Ikeda nodded farewell. "I'll be in my office until 1300
hours if we need contractor input."

Which meant, Yuri knew, that no further communication with him was
permissible after that time. Technical consultations were only held
during mornings. Afternoons he seemed to have other pressing matters to
attend to.

"Yuri, the run-up in Number One went well this morning. I think we've
finally eliminated the supersonic wave drag." The elder Androv was
heading over to check the hydraulic lifts supporting the landing gear
and its heavy 22-ply retractable tires. Then he glanced back and
smiled. "I'm beginning to believe in miracles. We might just succeed."

"If those damned scramjets up there," he pointed skyward, "actually
achieve ignition when they're supposed to."

"I've studied the static-test data carefully. At the propulsion
facility they routinely achieved ignition at Mach 4.8. The numbers were
there and they looked all right. Temperature regime, pounds thrust, all
the rest."

What's really happening, Yuri thought suddenly, is they've taken our
engineering design and built it. But what if we're just being used
somehow, having our brains picked, our expertise stolen? Then what?

He said nothing, though, just listened quietly as the older man
continued.

"Also, the new ceramic composite they've come up with for the fuel
injection struts was heated to thirty-five hundred degrees Fahrenheit
and repeatedly stress-tested. Those data were particularly impressive.
You know, the struts have always been the Achilles heel for a scramjet,
since the fuel has to be injected directly through them into the
combustion chamber. They have to withstand shock waves, and thermal
stresses, far beyond anything ever encountered in a conventional
engine. Nobody else has ever come up with a material that can do it.
Not us, not the Americans, not anybody. But now, their high-temperature
materials and liquid air cycle have finally made the scramjet concept a
reality. The last roadblock is gone." He looked up, still marveling.
"All we or the Americans can do is make engineering drawings of those
engines, just pictures."

"I hope you're right. But when we switch over from JP-7 to liquid
hydrogen, nobody knows what can happen. It's never been done before."

"Are you really worried?" The old man studied him.

"Damned right I am. Who wouldn't be?" He looked around at the milling
Japanese technicians, then lowered his voice. "And I'll tell you
something else. There're other things around here worrying me too,
maybe even more. Somethin

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