Washington

Mr. Diamond glanced up from the rear-projected roll down and spoke to the First Assistant. “Okay, break off here and jump ahead on the time line. Give us a light scan of his counterterrorist activities from the time he left prison to the present.”

“Yes, sir. It will take just a minute to reset.”

With the help of Fat Boy and the sensitive manipulations of the First Assistant, Diamond had introduced his guests to the broad facts of Nicholai Hel’s life up to the middle of his term of imprisonment, occasionally providing a bit of amplification or background detail from his own memory. It had taken only twenty-two minutes to share this information with them because Fat Boy was limited to recorded incidents and facts; motives, passions, and ideals being alien to its vernacular.

Throughout the twenty-two minutes, Darryl Starr had slouched in his white plastic chair, yearning for a cigar, but not daring to light up. He assumed glumly that the details of this gook-lover’s life were being inflicted on him as a kind of punishment for screwing up the Rome hit by letting the girl get away. In an effort to save face, he had assumed an attitude of bored resignation, sucking at his teeth and occasionally relieving himself of a fluttering sigh. But something disturbed him more than being punished like a recalcitrant schoolboy. He sensed that Diamond’s interest in Nicholai Hel went beyond professionalism. There was something personal in it, and Starr’s years of experience in the trenches of CIA operations made him wary of contaminating the job at hand with personal feelings.

As became the nephew of an important man and a CIA trainee-in-terror, the PLO goatherd at first adopted an expression of strictest attention to the information rear-projected on the glass conference table, but soon his concentration strayed to the taut pink skin of Miss Swivven’s calves, at which he grinned occasionally in his version of seductive gallantry.

The Deputy had responded to each bit of information with a curt nod of his head meant to create the impression that the CIA was current with all this information, and that he was merely ticking it off mentally. In fact, CIA did not have access to Fat Boy, although the Mother Company’s biographic computer system had long ago consumed and digested everything in the tape banks of CIA and NSA.

For his part, Mr. Able had maintained a facade of thin boredom and marginal politeness, although he had been intrigued by certain episodes in Hel’s biography, particularly those that revealed mysticism and the rare gift of proximity sense, for this refined man’s tastes ran to the occult and exotic, which appetites were manifest in his sexual ambiguities.

A muted bell rang in the adjoining machine room, and Miss Swivven rose to collect the telephotos of Nicholai Hel that Mr. Diamond had requested. There was silence in the conference room for a minute, save for the hum and click of the First Assistant’s console, where he was probing Fat Boy’s international memory banks and recording certain fragments in his own short-term storage unit. Mr. Diamond lighted a cigarette (he permitted himself four a day) and turned his chair to look out on the spotlighted Washington Monument beyond the window, as he tapped his lips meditatively with his knuckle.

Mr. Able sighed aloud, straightened the crease of one trouser leg elegantly, and glanced at his watch. “I do hope this isn’t going to take much longer. I have plans for this evening.” Visions of that senator’s Ganymede son had been in and out of his mind all evening.

“Ah,” Diamond said, “here we are.” He held out his hand for the photographs Miss Swivven was bringing from the machine room and leafed through them quickly. “They’re in chronological order. This first is a blowup of his identification picture taken when he started working for Sphinx/FE Cryptography.”

He passed it on to Mr. Able, who examined the photograph, grainy with excessive enlargement. “Interesting face. Haughty. Fine. Stern.”

He pushed the picture across to the Deputy, who glanced at it briefly as though he were already familiar with it, then gave it to Darryl Starr.

“Shee-it,” Starr exclaimed. “He looks like a kid! Fifteen-sixteen years old!”

“His appearance is misleading,” Diamond said. “At the time this picture was taken he could have been as old as twenty-three. The youthfulness is a family trait. At this moment, Hel is somewhere between fifty and fifty-three, but I have been told that he looks like a man in his midthirties.”

The Palestinian goatherd reached for the photograph, but it was passed back to Mr. Able, who looked at it again and said, “What’s wrong with the eyes? They look odd. Artificial.”

Even in black and white, the eyes had an unnatural transparency, as though they were underexposed.

“Yes,” Diamond said, “his eyes are strange. They’re a peculiar bright green, like the color of antique bottles. It’s his most salient recognition feature.”

Mr. Able looked obliquely at Diamond. “Have you met this man personally?”

“I… I have been interested in him for years,” Diamond said evasively, as he passed along the second photograph.

Mr. Able winced as he looked at the picture. It would have been impossible to recognize this as the same man. The nose had been broken and was pushed to the left. There was a high ridge of scar tissue along the right cheek, and another diagonally across the forehead, bisecting the eyebrow. The lower lip had been thickened and split, and there was a puffy knob below the left cheekbone. The eyes were closed, and the face at rest.

Mr. Able pushed it over to the Deputy gingerly, as though he did not want to touch it.

The Palestinian held out his hand, but the picture was passed on to Starr. “Shit-o-dear! Looks like he went to Fistcity against a freight train!”

“What you see there,” Diamond explained, “is the effect of a vigorous interrogation by Army Intelligence. The picture was taken some three years after the beating, while the subject was anesthetized in preparation for plastic surgery. And here he is a week after the operation.” Diamond slid the next picture along the conference table.

The face was still a little puffy in result of recent surgery, but all signs of the disfigurement were erased, and a general tightening-up had even removed the faint lines and marks of age.

“And how old was he at this time?” Mr. Able asked.

“Between twenty-four and twenty-eight.”

“Amazing. He looks younger than in the first photograph.”

The Palestinian tried to turn his head upside down to see the picture as it passed by him.

“These are blowups of passport photos. The Costa Rican one dates from shortly after his plastic surgery, and the French one the year after that. We also believe he has an Albanian passport, but we have no copy of it.”

Mr. Able quickly shuffled through the passport photos which, true to their kind, were overlit and of poor quality. One feature caught his attention, and he turned back to the French picture. “Are you sure this is the same man?”

Diamond took the picture back and glanced at it. “Yes, this is Hel.”

“But the eyes—”

“I know what you mean. Because the peculiar color of his eyes would blow any disguise, he has several pairs of noncorrective contact lenses that are clear in the center but colored in the iris.”

“So he can have whatever color eyes he wants to have. Interesting.”

“Oh yes. Hel runs to the ingenious.”

The OPEC man smiled. “That’s the second time I have detected a hint of admiration in your voice.”

Diamond looked at him coldly. “You’re mistaken.”

“Am I? I see. Are these the most recent pictures you have of the ingenious—but not admired—Mr. Hel?”

Diamond took up the remaining sheaf of photographs and tossed them onto the conference table. “Sure. We have plenty. And they’re typical examples of CIA efficiency.”

The Deputy’s eyebrows arched in martyred resignation.

Mr. Able leafed through the pictures with a puzzled frown, then pushed them toward Starr.

The Palestinian leapt up and slapped his hand down on the stack, then grinned sheepishly as everyone glared at his surprisingly rude gesture. He pulled the photographs over to him and examined them carefully.

“I don’t understand,” he admitted. “What is this?”

In each of the pictures, the central figure was blurred. They had been taken in a variety of settings—caf

“This really is something I do not understand,” the goatherd confessed, as though that were remarkable. “It is something that my comprehension does not… comprehend.”

“It appears,” Diamond explained, “that Hel cannot be photographed unless he wants to be, although there’s reason to believe he’s indifferent about CIA’s efforts to keep track of him and record his actions.”

“Then why does he spoil each photograph?” Mr. Able asked.

“By accident. It has to do with this proximity sense of his. He can feel concentration being focused on him. Evidently the feeling of being tracked by a camera lens is identical with that of being sighted through the scope of a rifle, and the moment of releasing the shutter feels just like that of squeezing a trigger.”

“So he ducks at the instant the picture is being taken,” Mr. Able realized. “Amazing. Truly amazing.”

“Is that admiration I detect?” Diamond asked archly.

Mr. Able smiled and tipped his head, granting the touch. “One thing I must ask. The Major who figured in the rather brutal interrogation of Hel was named Diamond. I am aware, of course, of the penchant of your people for identifying themselves with precious stones and metals—the mercantile world is richly ornamented with Pearls and Rubys and Golds—but never-the-less the coincidence of names here makes me uncomfortable. Coincidence, after all, is Fate’s major weapon.”

Diamond tapped the edges of the photographs on his desk to align them and set them aside, saying offhandedly, “The Major Diamond in question was my brother.”

“I see,” Mr. Able said.

Darryl Starr glanced uneasily toward Diamond, his worries about personal involvement confirmed.

“Sir?” the First Assistant said. “I’m ready with the printout of Hel’s counterterrorist activities.”

“All right. Bring it up on the table. Just surface stuff. No details. I only want to give these gentlemen a feeling for what we’re facing.”

Although Diamond had requested a shallow probe of Hel’s known counterterrorist activities, the first outline to appear on the conference table was so brief that Diamond felt called upon to fill in. “Hel’s first operation was not, strictly speaking, counterterrorist. As you see, it was a hit on the leader of a Soviet Trade Commission to Peking, not long after the Chinese communists had firmed up their control over that country. The operation was so inside and covert that most of the tapes were degaussed by CIA before the Mother Company began requiring them to give dupes of everything to Fat Boy. In bold, it went like this: the American intelligence community was worried about a Soviet/Chinese coalition, despite the fact that there were many grounds for dispute between them—matters of boundaries, ideology, unequal industrial development, racial mistrust. The Think Tank boys came up with a plan to exploit their underlying differences and break up any developing union. They proposed to send an agent into Peking to kill the head of the Soviet commission and plant incriminating directives from Moscow. The Chinese would think the Russians had sacrificed one of their own to create an incident as an excuse for breaking off the negotiations. The Soviets, knowing better, would think the Chinese had made the hit for the same reason. And when the Chinese brought out the incriminating directives as evidence of Russian duplicity, the Soviets would claim that Peking had manufactured the documents to justify their cowardly attack. The Chinese, knowing perfectly well that this was not the case, would be confirmed in their belief that the whole thing was a Russian plot.

“That the plan worked is proved by the fact that Sino-Soviet relations never did take firm root and are today characterized by mistrust and hostility, and Western bloc powers are able to play one of them off against the other and prevent what would be an overwhelming alliance.

“The little stumbling block to the ingenious plot of the Think Tank boys was finding an agent who knew enough Chinese to move through that country under cover, who could pass for a Russian when the necessity arose, and who was willing to take on a job that had slight chance of success, and almost no chance for escape after the hit was made. The operative bad to be brilliant, multilingual, a trained killer, and desperate enough to accept an assignment that offered not one chance in a hundred of survival.

“CIA ran a key-way sort, and they found only one person among those under their control who fit the description…”

Japan

It was early autumn, the fourth autumn Hel had passed in his cell in Sugamo Prison. He knelt on the floor before his desk/bed, lost in an elusive problem of Basque grammar, when he felt a tingling at the roots of the hair on the nape of his neck. He lifted his head and concentrated on the projections he was intercepting. This person’s approaching aura was alien to him. There were sounds at the door, and it swung open. A smiling guard with a triangular scar on his forehead entered, one Nicholai had never seen or felt before.

The guard cleared his throat. “Come with me, please.”

Hel frowned. The Onasai form? Respect language from a guard to a prisoner? He carefully arranged his notes and closed the book before rising. He instructed himself to be calm and careful. There could be hope in this unprecedented rupture of routine… or danger. He rose and preceded the guard out of the cell.

“Mr. Hel? Delighted to make your acquaintance.” The polished young man rose to shake Hel’s hand as he entered the visitors’ room. The contrast between his close-fitting Ivy League suit and narrow tie and Hel’s crumpled gray prison uniform was no greater than that between their physiques and temperaments. The hearty CIA agent was robust and athletic, capable of the first-naming and knee-jerk congeniality that marks the American salesman. Hel, slim and wiry, was reserved and distant. The agent, who was noted for winning immediate confidences, was a creature of words and reason. Hel was a creature of meaning and undertone. It was the battering ram and the rapier.

The agent nodded permission for the guard to leave. Hel sat on the edge of his chair, having had nothing but his steel cot to sit on for three years, and having lost the facility for sitting back and relaxing. After all that time of not hearing himself addressed in social speech, he found the urbane chat of the agent not so much disturbing as irrelevant.

“I’ve asked them to bring up a little tea,” the agent said, smiling with a gruff shagginess of personality that he had always found so effective in public relations. “One thing you’ve got to hand to these Japanese, they make a good cup of tea—what my limey friends call a ‘nice cuppa.’” He laughed at his failure to produce a recognizable cockney accent.

Hel watched him without speaking, taking some pleasure in the fact that the American was caught off balance by the battered appearance of his face, at first glancing away uneasily, and subsequently forcing himself to look at it without any show of disgust.

“You’re looking pretty fit, Mr. Hel. I had expected that you would show the effects of physical inactivity. Of course, you have one advantage. You don’t overeat. Most people overeat, if you want my opinion. The old human body would do better with a lot less food than we give it. We sort of clog up the tubes with chow, don’t you agree? Ah, here we are! Here’s the tea.”

The guard entered with a tray on which there was a thick pot and two handleless Japanese cups. The agent poured clumsily, like a friendly bear, as though gracelessness were proof of virility. Hel accepted the cup, but he did not drink.

“Cheers,” the agent said, taking his first sip. He shook his head and laughed. “I guess you don’t say ‘cheers’ when you’re drinking tea. What do you say?”

Hel set his cup on the table beside him. “What do you want with me?”

Trained in courses on one-to-one persuasion and small-group management, the agent believed he could sense a cool tone in Hel’s attitude, so he followed the rules of his training and flowed with the ambience of the feedback. “I guess you’re right. It would be best to get right to the point. Look, Mr. Hel, I’ve been reviewing your case, and if you ask me, you got a raw deal. That’s my opinion anyway.”

Hel let his eyes settle on the young man’s open, frank face. Controlling impulses to reach out and break it, he lowered his eyes and said, “That is your opinion, is it?”

The agent folded up his grin and put it away. He wouldn’t beat around the bush any longer. He would tell the truth. There was an adage he had memorized during his persuasion courses: Don’t overlook the truth; properly handled, it can be an effective weapon. But bear in mind that weapons get blunted with overuse.

He leaned forward and spoke in a frank, concerned tone. “I think I can get you out of here, Mr. Hel.”

“At what cost to me?”

“Does that matter?”

Hel considered this for a moment. “Yes.”

“Okay. We need a job done. You’re capable of doing it. We’ll pay you with your freedom.”

“I have my freedom. You mean you’ll pay me with my liberty.”

“Whatever.”

“What kind of liberty are you offering?”

“What?”

“Liberty to do what?”

“I don’t think I follow you there. Liberty, man. Freedom. You can do what you want, go where you want?”

“Oh, I see. You are offering me citizenship and a considerable amount of money as well.”

“Well… no. What I mean is… Look, I’m authorized to offer you your freedom, but no one said anything about money or citizenship.”

“Let me be sure I understand you. You are offering me a chance to wander around Japan, vulnerable to arrest at any moment, a citizen of no country, and free to go anywhere and do anything that doesn’t cost money. Is that it?”

The agents discomfort pleased Hel. “Ah… I’m only saying that the matter of money and citizenship hadn’t been discussed.”

“I see.” Hel rose. “Why don’t you return when you have worked out the details of your proposal.”

“Aren’t you going to ask about the task we want you to perform?”

“No. I assume it to be maximally difficult. Very dangerous. Probably involving murder. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’d call it murder, Mr. Hel. I wouldn’t use that word. It’s more like… like a soldier fighting for his country and killing one of the enemy.”

“That’s what I said: murder.”

“Have it your own way then.”

“I shall. Good afternoon.”

The agent began to have the impression that he was being handled, while all of his persuasion training had insisted that he do the handling. He fell back upon his natural defense of playing it for the hale good fellow. “Okay, Mr. Hel. I’ll have a talk with my superiors and see what I can get for you. I’m on your side in this, you know. Hey, know what? I haven’t even introduced myself. Sorry about that.”

“Don’t bother. I am not interested in who you are.”

“All right. But take my advice, Mr. Hel. Don’t let this chance get away. Opportunity doesn’t knock twice, you know.”

“Penetrating observation. Did you make up the epigram?”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Very well. And ask the guard to knock on my cell door twice. I wouldn’t want to confuse him with opportunity.”

Back in CIA Far East Headquarters in the basement of the Dai Ichi Building, Hel’s demands were discussed. Citizenship was easy enough. Not American citizenship, of course. That high privilege was reserved for defecting Soviet dancers. But they could arrange citizenship of Panama or Nicaragua or Costa Rica—any of the CIA control areas. It would cost a bit in local baksheesh, but it could be done.

About payment they were more reluctant, not because they had any need to economize within their elastic budget, but a Protestant respect for lucre as a sign of God’s grace made them regret seeing it wasted. And wasted it would probably be, as the mathematical likelihood of Hel’s returning alive was slim. Another fiscal consideration was the expense they would be put to in transporting Hel to the United States for cosmetic surgery, as he had no chance of getting to Peking with a memorable face like that. Still, they decided at last, they really had no choice. Their key-way sort had delivered only one punch card for a man qualified to do the job.

Okay. Make it Costa Rican citizenship and 100 K.

Next problem…

But when they met the next morning in the visitor’s room, the American agent discovered that Hel had yet another request to make. He would take the assignment on only if CIA gave him the current addresses of the three men who had interrogated him: the “doctor,” the MP sergeant, and Major Diamond.

“Now, wait a minute, Mr. Hel. We can’t agree to that sort of thing. CIA takes care of its own. We can’t offer them to you on a platter like that. Be reasonable. Let bygones be bygones. What do you say?”

Hel rose and asked that the guard conduct him back to his cell.

The frank-faced young American sighed and shook his head. “All right. Let me call the office for an okay. Okay?”

Washington

“…and I assume Mr. Hel was successful in his enterprise,” Mr. Able said. “For, if he were not, we wouldn’t be sitting about here concerning ourselves with him.”

“That’s correct,” Diamond said. “We have no details, but about four months after he was introduced into China through Hong Kong, we got word that he had been picked up by a bush patrol of the Foreign Legion in French Indo-China.