Heartland

It was early evening, and Curtis Lundgren felt a smug sense of satisfaction as he rode through the west gate at the White House. The last time he had been here for anything other than a routine Cabinet meeting was shortly after the inauguration, when the President had offered him the job. Since then he had been a center-fielder in a game of very short hitters.

An aide opened the car door and helped Lundgren out. “Good evening, Mr. Secretary,” he said.

Lundgren nodded and went inside. Michael McCandless was waiting in the outer reception room with a short, very thin man who looked as though he belonged on a college campus.

McCandless introduced them. “Curt, I’d like you to meet Raymond Yankitis, the President’s special adviser on criminal justice. Ray, I think you know of Secretary Lundgren.”

“I certainly do,” Yankitis said, shaking Lundgren’s hand. “And it certainly is a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

Lundgren beamed. He liked being stroked.

“Bob LeMear will be joining us any minute now,” McCandless said.

Yankitis took them back to his small office, where he sat down behind his desk. There were three other chairs. It was one of the smallest offices Lundgren had ever been in. Gave him claustrophobia.

“You said you had something on Newman and Dybrovik,” he said when they were settled.

“Would anyone like some coffee before we get started?” Yankitis asked.

“Not for me, Ray,” McCandless said. “Curt?”

Lundgren shook his head.

“Well, we’ve certainly found out a lot about Kenneth Newman,” McCandless said. “And I’ll tell you one thing right off the bat: until now I never had the slightest conception of how involved the international grain trade is. There are virtually no controls on those people. None.”

Lundgren had to smile. McCandless was bright, but he didn’t know the half of it. A two-hundred-year-old government was trying to oversee an industry that had been developing for more than two thousand years.

“Is Newman involved with Dybrovik?” Lundgren asked.

McCandless smiled. “Up to his ears. Including the Russian’s death.”

Lundgren almost fell off his chair, he sat forward so fast. “What?” he sputtered.

“That’s right. Dybrovik was murdered four nights ago in Athens, Greece. It was a Soviet-style execution, but Kenneth Newman was seen shortly before it happened at the hotel where Dybrovik and several other Russians were staying. Greek authorities are keeping it quiet.”

Lundgren sat back. He felt more than claustrophobia now, he felt as if everything were closing in around him. He also felt that he was missing some vital link between the startling news about Dybrovik and all the other things that had been happening over the summer.

“Newman flew back here immediately,”McCandless continued. “He’s in Duluth for the moment.”

A young man with a short haircut, a button-down shirt, and a narrow tie appeared in the doorway. He was out of breath. “Sorry I’m late, Michael. That fucking Pennsylvania Avenue should be made into a mall… no cars other than official government vehicles permitted on pain of death.”

“We were just getting started,” McCandless said. “You know Raymond, of course.” The newcomer nodded, then turned to Lundgren.

“Secretary Lundgren, I believe.”

“That’s right,” Lundgren said.

“Bob LeMear, FBI.”

McCandless motioned for him to take a seat. “Bob is the special investigations coordinator for the Bureau,” he explained to Lundgren. “He and I have worked together on a number of other cases. The Agency’s charter does not allow us to work domestically. So if one of our people heads home, Bob picks it up for us.”

“Newman is at home. We’ll get a couple of our people on him as soon as possible. We got Reinke from the Sixth District to sign a wiretap order for us last night, and we just managed to get it in place before he showed up.”

“To this point, as far as I can see,” Yankitis said, “there is nothing he can come back with. You’re both clean. Well within the intent of the law.”

McCandless smiled. “We’ve got him, Curt. All we have to do is wait for him to make a move.”

“I don’t understand,” Lundgren said. “Are you saying he was involved with Dybrovik’s killing? Lord, I can’t believe that.”

“Involved, yes,” McCandless said. “We placed him at the scene at the time. But, as I said, it was a standard Moscow Center assassination. Newman definitely did not pull the trigger, but he was involved in whatever reason the KGB had him killed.”

“Could you help us with that at all?” LeMear asked.

“Newman was selling the Russians grain through Dybrovik. I think a lot more grain that he had licenses for. I’m sure if you look a little closer at the Newman Company you’ll find a string of subsidiaries that’ll stretch from Duluth to Moscow and back.”

“We’ve already-set our accountants on that. They’re not making much progress. At least not yet,” Yankitis said. “But why would Dybrovik be killed?”

“I don’t know,” Lundgren said. “But I’m sure it’s somehow tied to the other things I mentioned to Michael.”

“You mean Cargill and Louis Dreyfus?” LeMear asked.

Lundgren nodded. He felt he was missing something. Something very vital. He just couldn’t put his finger on it.

“So far we’ve found nothing.”

“Nothing,” McCandless agreed.

“Well, I think your answers are there.”

“We’ll get it out of Newman,” LeMear said. “If anyone knows what’s going on here, he does.”

26

Kenneth Newman kept seeing Dybrovik lying on the sidewalk, the blood leaking out of his body in a widening pool. The Bormett farm in Iowa was the key, he had said. The key to what?

Turalin had apparently been lying; there was not much doubt of it now. It was to be some sort of a market manipulation. Dybrovik had apparently weakened, and Turalin had had him killed for doing so.

In the aftermath of Dybrovik’s death, Newman had found himself torn between loyalties to his friends and his business and the desire to find out just what the Russians were up to. He understood that he had to arrange priorities, but he was having difficulties even trying to think about what was going on. That in itself was a new feeling for him. All his life he had been a pragmatic man; choice had consisted of weighing the facts versus his subjective judgments of personalities. Always before, he had managed to step back so that his own personality did not color the equation. Now, however he himself was a key part in the events surrounding his wife in Buenos Aires; his partner, Paul Saratt; the little KGB officer in Athens; and finally poor, hapless Dybrovik, who had trapped himself in something far bigger than his own life.

Throughout Lydia’s pampered life, she had always been in control; in the important decisions it had always been Lydia and Lydia alone who had made the choice. That is, until she married Newman. It wasn’t just that she had taken the title Mrs. Newman, thus forsaking (at least to the outside world) the Vance-Ehrhardt power, it was that she had bowed to decisions other than her own, and had acted out of concern for others, even though such acts ran contrary to her own desires. When she had taken over the Vance-Ehrhardt conglomerate, she had known her husband was in the middle of a large deal with the Russians, and that it would be to the best interests of her company, and therefore herself, to neutralize the Newman Company. She had warned her husband, though, and instantly, that there was a plot against his life. She had warned him.

Paul Saratt, on the other hand, had always been a follower, despite an expertise in the grain business that at times bordered on genius. “Whenever I have the urge to open my own operation, I begin to think of all the headaches it would bring,” he had told Newman long ago. He had been happy being an employee, even though some of his ideas and deals were better thought out than Newman’s. He had depended upon Newman to steer him in a straight line, never worrying about being let down. “Just like the frightened airline passenger,” Paul had been fond of saying, “who calms his fear by telling himself that the pilot loves his life as much as me, and wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize his.” His involvement with Newman, however, had cost him the ultimate… his life.

Then there were Turalin and Dybrovik. As much as Newman wanted to balance them off each other, he could not. The match was totally unequal. Dybrovik had been a frightened man; an expert in his field who, beyond that expertise, had little if any stamina. He was like the head sheep in the flock — able to lead his charges quite well — whereas Turalin was like the wolf.

Which brought Newman back to his own conflicts.

It was night, and he sat in his study looking down at the harbor. He was alone. He had sent Marie, the housekeeper, away before he went to Athens, and she would be visiting her sister in Oregon for another ten days. But solitude suited him just fine. He did not think he could deal with anyone now.

Lundgren had wanted to talk to him before he left for Athens. Sitting here now, Newman had the urge to pick up the phone and call the Secretary of Agriculture, and tell him everything. Lundgren was a pompous, self-serving ass, but he did know the business, and he was in the administration. He’d have access to whatever information existed.

Yet, Newman supposed he was kidding himself after all. Clutching at straws. Twice he had met with presidents who had asked him for information and advice. So Lundgren and his cronies would probably not be able to help.

He considered contacting the FBI, telling them what had happened in Athens, telling them that he might be Turalin’s next target unless he cooperated.

But what in hell would they do to protect him? Lock him up? Not an attractive proposition.

What should he do? Continue with the Russian corn contract? Simply cancel it and walk away from the entire mammoth deal? Or try to find out just what the hell they were up to?

After a while he got up and looked out the window. It was pitch black outside, although it wasn’t very late… a few minutes before ten. He had not bothered to turn any of the house lights on; the dark house fit his mood.

Back at his desk, he set his wine glass down and picked up the telephone. When he got the overseas operator, he gave her the telephone number of the Vance-Ehrhardt estate outside Buenos Aires.

“Person to person to Lydia Newman… make that Lydia Vance-Ehrhardt,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” the operator replied. He picked up his wine as the operator talked with his trunk operator in Miami and rang the Buenos Aires operator, but without answer. “One moment, sir,” the American operator said, and the line went dead.

Newman’s gut began to tighten.

The operator was back a moment later; she sounded strange. “I am sorry, sir, but all calls to Argentina have been temporarily suspended.”

“Suspended?” Newman said. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Service has been disconnected.”

“Where?” Newman shouted. “Who pulled the switch?”

“The suspension has occurred from Argentina, sir. They are not accepting outside communications.”

Newman broke the connection, then dialed Abex, Ltd., in New York. There was no one working here in Duluth, but Abex ran twenty-four hours a day.

The phone was answered on the first ring by the night supervisor. “McCarthy.”

“This is Newman. What have you got on the wire from Argentina?”

“The spot market, sir? It’s—”

“No, the news wire.”

“I haven’t seen anything all night. Let me check, sir,” McCarthy said, and he was gone.

Newman remained behind his desk, looking toward the window. A flash of light passed the side of the house outside, then was gone. Someone had pulled up into his driveway. He opened a desk drawer and withdrew his .38 Smith & Wesson snubnosed revolver, checked to make sure it was loaded, then stuffed it in his pocket.

McCarthy was back on the line. “Not a thing, Mr. Newman. But there’s something wrong with the spot-market wire out of Buenos Aires.”

“It’s dead?”

“Yes, sir. Since a few minutes after six our time this evening.”

“I tried to telephone Buenos Aires, but the operator told me all circuits to Argentina were down.”

“Jesus,” McCarthy said. “They’ve talked about a junta down there for the past year.”

“I know,” Newman said. “Start checking around. Find out what the hell is going on. You might call the Associated Press, maybe they know something.”

“I’ll get it on right away, sir.”

The doorbell rang.

“Have to go,” Newman said. “I’m at home. Telephone me as soon as you find out anything.”

“Will do, sir.”

Newman hung up. Then, taking the gun out of his pocket, he hurried out of his study and downstairs as the doorbell rang again. If Turalin had sent someone to kill him, he surely to hell wouldn’t stand out on the front step ringing the doorbell. On the other hand, that’s just what the assassin had down when Saratt was killed.

At the front door, Newman cautiously looked out one of the windows. It was Janice Wilcox, Paul’s daughter.

He pocketed the gun and quickly unlocked the door. She had a slight smile on her face when he opened the door.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“That’s a nice hello,” she said. She turned and waved toward the cab sitting in the driveway. The driver waved back and pulled away. “Didn’t know if you were home, or in bed, or what,” she said. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“Sorry,” Newman said, stepping back. She picked up her suitcase and came in. She looked good, certainly a lot better than she had at the funeral.

They stood awkwardly facing each other in the vestibule for a minute or two, until at last Janice grinned and shrugged. “Surprised to see me?”

“What are you doing here, Janice?”

“I had to get away… after the funeral, you know.”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I want my father’s murderer,” she snapped. “You know something about it, and I’m not leaving until you point me in the right direction.”

“Impossible,” Newman said. He turned and went into the living room where he switched on a light. Janice followed him.

“I don’t give up so easily, Kenneth,” she said.

“No one will ever catch your father’s killers. Not you, not I, not the police. No one.”

“Maybe you didn’t care all that much for my father.”

Newman was stung. “That’s not true.”

“Then why aren’t you going after his murderer? Why are you playing around with the Russians?”

“It’s my business. Paul would have wanted it that way.”

“Dad was working on this deal?”

Newman nodded.

Her eyes narrowed. “How did your meeting with Dybrovik go in Athens? You certainly came back fast enough.”

“It went well,” Newman said.

Janice stepped forward, an odd expression in her eyes. “You’re lying,” she said.

“Stay out of this, Janice. It’s none of your business.”

“What are you trying to hide? What is it about the Russians? Has it got something to do with my father’s murder?”

“I said, stay out of it.”

Janice looked at him for a long time. “If that’s the way you want it,” she said calmly. She turned and headed toward the vestibule. “Call me a cab, would you? I want to get downtown to a hotel.”

“You can stay here tonight,” Newman said going after her. “I’ll have you flown home in the morning.”

She turned and smiled sweetly at him. “I could’t stay here tonight, Kenneth. I’d feel like an ingrate.”

He didn’t understand.

“Don’t you see? It would be bad form for me to use your telephone to call the wire services with the story about your meeting the Russians in Athens.”

“You can’t do this.”

“Watch me,” she said viciously. They were in the vestibule, and she snatched up her suitcase. “Are you going to call a cab for me, or am I going to have to walk downtown?”

“You’re not going.”

“Are you going to kidnap me?” she laughed.

“Goddamn it, Janice, you don’t know what the hell is at stake here.”

“What could be more important than my father’s death?”

“The deaths of a lot of other people, a lot of people,” he blurted.

Janice studied his face. “What are you talking about? What other deaths? And what do they have to do with my father?”

“Christ,” Newman said. He ran his fingers through his hair. He felt completely out of control. On the one hand, he wanted her to go away, return to Atlanta and keep silent. On the other hand, she reminded him in so many ways of Paul that he found it difficult not to tell her everything.

She put her suitcase down and came closer. “What is it, Kenneth?” she asked softly. “What’s happening between you and the Russians?”

“I can’t tell you,” he said. “You can stay here or go and have your news conference. It doesn’t matter. I have a lot of work to do, and I’m going to have to get on with it.” He looked at her. “There’s a phone in the living room. You can call your own cab if you want.”

He turned and headed for the stairs.

“Who’d you hire to replace my father?” Janice called after him.

“No one,” he said heavily.

“I want the job.”

He stopped and turned back.

“That’s right,” she said, her face intent. “I want the job. I’m certainly qualified. I have my degree in business. And experience.”

“You know nothing about the grain business.”

“You’d be surprised how much I know. I’m my father’s daughter. After my mother died, there were only the two of us, and he would sit and talk with me every night when he came home from work. I grew up in the business.”

“Impossible,” Newman said, although the idea was intriguing.

“Bullshit,” she swore. “I have a feeling that at this moment I’m the only person you can trust. Are you going to pass that up?”

“In trade for what?” Newman asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You know goddamned well what I mean, Janice,” he shouted. “You don’t want a job with me. You want to pry into my business in the hopes it will lead to Paul’s killers.”

Her lower lip was beginning to quiver. “You can’t understand…”

“Oh, yes, I can!” he shouted. “But if you want your father’s murderer you’re going to have to go to Buenos Aires. You’re going to have to talk to my wife, and to a man named Perés, the chief of police down there. They’re working hand in hand.”

“Kenneth…”

Newman was hurting. He felt as if a Mack truck had run over his brain. “You want to know about the Russians? Last week in Athens, Dybrovik, the head of Exportkhleb, was murdered by the KGB. They’re probably going to be coming after me pretty soon, unless I continue to play ball with them.”

She didn’t move or say a word.

“You want murders? How about one hundred and forty killed in New Orleans when the Cargill elevator blew up? Cargill, you should know, is one of my competitors. Then we have Gérard Louis Dreyfus. I met a KGB colonel who admitted he ordered Gérard’s assassination. Louis Dreyfus was also one of my biggest competitors. How about Vance-Ehrhardt? Even being married to one of them didn’t help. Jorge and his wife were kidnapped. They found them dead in a Buenos Aires apartment.”

Still Janice said nothing. But her eyes were wide, and she was shaking.

“They were all my competitors for a corn buy the Russians have set up with me. So why was Paul killed? It was an accident, Janice. Simple as that. The Vance-Ehrhardt family wanted me dead. They figured I was behind the kidnapping. For all I know, my own wife ordered my assassination.”

“Christ,” Janice said, and she started toward him as the telephone in the living room rang.

Newman took a deep breath, then went to answer it. It was McCarthy from Abex.

“They’re in the middle of a revolution down there, Mr. Newman! Half of Buenos Aires is in flames!”

“How’d it start? Who’s behind it?”

“AP says it’s the Montoneros in combination with low-level military personnel. The UPI and Reuters say it’s a farmers’ revolution.”

Janice had come into the living room and was watching him.

“Anything on the Vance-Ehrhardt estate, or on Lydia?”

“Not a thing, sir,” McCarthy said.

“Keep trying, then, and let me know the moment you hear anything else.”

“Yes, sir,” McCarthy said.

Newman hung up the phone and turned. Janice screamed, and the table lamp next to him exploded in a million pieces, plunging the room into darkness.

27

“Get down,” Newman shouted to Janice as he lunged to the right and ducked down behind an overstuffed easy chair. Another shot was fired from the window, the sound soft and springy, like the noise an airgun might make. Newman had his pistol out, the hammer cocked back.

The house suddenly was very still. Newman peered around the side of the chair toward the window. At first he couldn’t see a thing, but then he thought he caught a movement.

“Kenneth,” Janice whimpered.

A third shot came from the window, and this time Kenneth caught the muzzle flash. He raised his own pistol and fired two shots, the noise deafening in the confines of the room. And then he waited, not at all sure whether he had hit his target.

The house was silent again for a moment, but then Newman heard a faint scratching sound. From outside. It was almost as if someone were digging outside the window.

“Janice? Are you all right?” he called softly.

“I’m all right. Did you get him?”

“I don’t know,” Newman said, relieved. He crawled over to where Janice was crouched down by the arch from the vestibule. She was trembling. “I’m going outside to have a look.”

She grabbed him. “Oh, God, don’t go out there.”

“We can’t just stay in here like this. If someone heard the shots, they may have called the police. I don’t want to have to answer any questions just now. Besides, I think it’s possible I hit whoever it was.”

It was too dark for him to make out the expression on her face. She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.

“Be careful… boss,” she said.

He looked toward the window, but could see nothing except a lighter rectangle. He felt strange.

“Stay here,” he said.

In the vestibule he got to his feet and hurried around the stairs and through the kitchen to the back door.

There was no one out there, as far as he could tell, but that didn’t mean much. The wide back yard led into a long line of thick hedges, and trees separating his property from the place up the hill. Half the Russian army could have been hiding in the shadows.

He didn’t think there was anyone else waiting, though, and after all he had been through the gamble didn’t seem to matter as much as it would have a month or two ago.

He stepped through the kitchen door and, gripping the pistol in his right hand, tiptoed down off the porch and hurried around to the side of the house, where he pulled up short.

He could see the street from here. At the bottom of his drive, across the street, a car was parked. He could not see if anyone was inside it.

He hesitated in the shadows at the corner of the house, staring at the car, wondering what would happen when he moved out to the front, into plain view. Then he decided he was being overly cautious. If there had been more than one person out here, then more than one person would have fired. Or one would have come into the house through the back door. There had been just one killer out here.

Newman took a deep breath in an effort to clear the tightness in his chest and started up the side of the house toward the front. Sweat was beginning to form on his forehead. He was a businessman, not cut out for this kind of adventure, and he wondered why he hadn’t called the police after all, and let them work it out. But what would he have told them? That he had been with a Russian in Athens who had been killed, and now he feared the KGB was after him?

The living room window was just around the corner. A dark bundle was lying in the bushes beneath it. Crouching low, Newman moved closer until he could see that it was a man. He had apparently tried to crawl away, making the noise Newman had heard in the house. But, Christ, he was dead now.

He flipped the dead man’s coat open, being careful not to get any blood on his hands, and pulled out his wallet. He fumbled in his own pockets for his lighter, and when he had it lit he opened the dead man’s wallet. Inside, he could just make out the Russian and English printing on a plastic laminated card. The name was Votrin. Sigorny something. A correspondent with Tass, the Soviet news service. There was a Washington, D.C., address.

Newman flipped the lighter off. Bullshit, he thought, looking down at the man. It was a safe bet his real employer was Colonel Turalin.

KGB here. It meant they were after him. Turalin’s people had killed Dybrovik, and now they meant to kill him. He turned and looked toward the car. This one must have come alone, expecting no trouble. After all he was a professional in this business. Newman was a grainman.

Newman stuffed the man’s wallet back in his coat, then stood up. “Janice?” he called through the broken window.

“Kenneth? Is it… are you okay?”

“I’m all right. I’m coming around to the front door. I want you to open it for me.”

Janice stood at the open door, her eyes wide, her complexion pale. Her bottom lip was quivering again. “What happened?” she asked. Newman brushed past her into the house, and hurried down the corridor and through the side door into the garage, where he hit the door opener.

“What are you doing?” Janice asked. She had followed him.

“Upstairs in my study,” he said. “First door on the right. On my desk, you’ll find my car keys. Go get them, please.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked. She was on the edge of hysteria.

“Do as I say,” Newman said firmly. “I’ll explain everything in a little while.”

Hesitantly she stepped back away from the door, and then she was gone.

He hurried out of the open garage door and along the front of the house to the Russian lying in the bushes. Grabbing the heavy man beneath his armpits, he dragged him into the garage.

Some blood had leaked out across the driveway, so Newman uncoiled the hose and quickly washed the spots away.

He was replacing the hose as Janice came back to the kitchen door with the car keys. He took them from her, drove his car out of the garage, then came back inside and closed the garage door.

“Did you find whoever it was who shot at us?” Janice asked.

“Yes.” The body could not be seen from where she stood. “We have to get out of here.”

“What?” she said.

He stood looking at her. “You’re going to have to trust me on this one, Janice. We’ve got to get the hell out of here tonight. Right now.”

She didn’t say anything. But she was obviously frightened.

“I’m going upstairs to pack a few things.”

She stepped back, and he came into the house, closing and locking the door.

“Where are we going?” she asked, following him back into the vestibule.

“Wait here. I’ll be right down,” he said, and he hurried up the stairs.

“Where the hell are we going?” she called up to him.

At the top he turned and looked back down at her. “Iowa,” he said.

It was about quarter to ten when Albert Straub pulled over to the shoulder, dimmed his headlights, and looked back the way he had come. He was less than two miles from his trailer in Dallas Center, but he just couldn’t go on. It was as if something were pulling at him, yanking him back to the Bormett farm.

Will hadn’t even seen him, although he had been standing there under the machine-shed light, as plain as day. Nor had he heard a thing. It was as if he had suddenly turned blind and deaf.

Will had been worrying around the place ever since he and Mrs. Bormett had returned from Russia. Cindy Horton had mentioned it just the other day. Said something about how Will had become snappish. It just wasn’t like him.

Straub wasn’t a bright man; he had never finished high school. But he did know farming, and he damned well knew Will Bormett. He’d been working on the Bormett farm almost as long as Joe and Cindy Horton. And he knew that something bad was eating at Will. The question was, would Will be needing some help?

In the distance, toward the east, there was a definite glow on the horizon over Des Moines. But back to the south, toward the farm and beyond it, there was nothing but the stars overhead, and darkness below.

Damned if he wasn’t getting spooked, Straub thought. He eased his pickup truck in gear, flipped on his headlights, made a U-turn, and headed back.

Will might just have been preoccupied, but on the other hand he had never ignored a fellow before. That just wasn’t the way Will did things… unless there was something really wrong.

He reached Highway 6 a few minutes later, and didn’t even slow for the stop sign as he squealed rubber around the corner. There was something wrong. Something badly wrong. The closer Straub got, the harder the feeling came down on him, almost like a crushing weight that took his breath away.

Straub pulled off the highway onto the access road that led down to the fertilizer tank farm. He’d take the east field road over the hill. It was a lot shorter.

The access road was heavily rutted, and twice his truck bottomed out on its springs. He swore out loud, but he didn’t slow down.

About half a mile along, he could pick out the tanks, all clustered at the edge of the open field. Bormett’s old pickup truck was parked there. Then Straub remembered. It was Wednesday night. Mrs. Bormett was at church. That meant Will had probably come out here to sort of look things over. Straub had always suspected the old man came out here on Wednesdays to hit the bottle, but he had never shared his suspicion with anyone else.

He parked alongside Bormett’s truck and shone his flashlight into it. Bormett’s keys were lying on the dash. That was strange.

Straub looked in the back of Will’s truck. There was nothing unusual there. A couple of shovels and pitchfork, some rope, a few Lidacain mixing jugs. Nothing else.

Around the other side of Bormett’s truck, Straub looked toward the cornrows. Had Will gone out there? He walked over, and there, just to the left, he could see where the first windbreak row had been disturbed. Will had gone out into the field. He was out there right now. Probably half drunk.

“Will!” Straub shouted. But there was no answer. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Will Bormett! It’s me, Albert! Will Bormett!”

Still there was no answer, even though Straub was shouting loud enough to wake the devil, and he started to get spooked again.

He looked over his shoulder, half-expecting to see Will coming around one of the tanks, a whiskey bottle in his hand, wanting to know what the hell was going on. But there was nothing.

“Will?” he shouted halfheartedly. Damnation. What if something had happened to him? What if he had drunk too much and fallen down or something? Farm work was dangerous. A man could get hurt pretty bad, or killed, just like that.

Straub pushed through the first windbreak rows and headed down one of the cornrows, the dark feeling rising up harder and harder inside of him.

Anything could have happened, he told himself. “Will! Will Bormett!” he shouted again. Damn, he could be lying there with a busted back or a heart attack or something. It had happened before.

About two hundred yards into the field, Straub noticed something large and dark hunched up between cornrows to the left.

He turned that way, crashing through the cornstalks, pulling up short at the last moment, the beer he had drunk earlier this evening coming up. It was Will Bormett. He was lying on his back. Half the side of his head was gone, blood and gore were everywhere on his shirt collar and shoulders. He still held a gun in his right hand.

“Oh, Jesus,” Straub said, when he had finished vomiting. “Oh, Jesus and Mary.” He turned and stumbled back up to the trucks. He’d have to call Joe and Cindy, ’cause sure as hell he couldn’t go to Mrs. Bormett.

Janice did not want to be left alone, so when they stopped around 3:00 A.M., about fifty miles south of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Newman registered them as husband and wife at the Faribault Holiday Inn. He had talked for the better part of four hours, ever since they had left Duluth, telling her everything that had occurred from the moment he had been called away from his honeymoon to meet with Dybrovik outside Geneva until tonight. He spared no details, neither physical nor emotional. And at times, speaking with her, he could almost believe that it was Paul seated next to him, and they were going over the entire project to date.

She hadn’t said much during the telling, except to ask a question or two now and then when she didn’t understand something. When he was finished they rode in silence, thinking their own thoughts.

“We’ll stop soon,” Newman had said finally. “If we get back on the road by eight, we’ll reach Des Moines about noon tomorrow.”

“Lundgren is probably going to be coming after you to stop you from dealing with the Russians, and Turalin is after you to force you to continue,” she said.

“Something like that.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Find out what the hell Dybrovik was trying to tell me about the Bormett farm.”

“Somewhere in Iowa.”

“That’s right.”

“I’m scared, Kenneth,” she said. “Don’t leave me alone tonight.”

Inside the motel room he made sure the lock was secure, he flipped the deadbolt, and hooked the chain. If someone wanted to get in, he could; but he’d make a hell of a racket in the effort.

When Newman turned around, Janice was staring at him. “Why don’t you go to bed, Janice. You look all in. Tomorrow will be a big day.”

“What if you find something on this farm? What then?”

“Depends upon what it is,” he said.

“But surely you’re through dealing with the Russians?”

“Maybe,” he said.

“Maybe? What the hell are you talking about, Kenneth? Maybe?”

“If there is starvation in the Soviet Union, I’ll supply them with corn. I’m not going to let people starve to death.”

“Dybrovik said that was a lie.”

“As far as he knew. I want to make sure.”

She hesitated. “I don’t understand you,” she said finally.

“No, I don’t expect you do. It’s the grain business.”

“Doesn’t it matter whom you sell it to?”

“Not at all, as long as it’s used ultimately to feed people. That’s why the farmers grow it, and that’s why I buy and sell it. To feed people. Simple.”

“It’s not simple, Kenneth. Not when people start getting killed.”

“Your father understood.”

“My father is dead,” she flared, and went into the bathroom and closed the door. Almost immediately Newman could hear the shower running.

The Bormett farm in Iowa is the key, Dybrovik had said. Today they would know.

28

They crossed into Iowa about 9:20 A.M., after stopping for breakfast outside Albert Lea. Last night in Duluth Newman had been running on adrenalin, but this morning it was hitting him like a ton of bricks that he had killed a man. It was incredible. Things like this just did not happen.

It was a beautiful morning, bright and warm, only a few puffy clouds scudding across from the west. Once in Des Moines, he figured, he would check with the state Department of Agriculture to find out where the Bormett farm was located. Even if it was on the far western side of the state, they would be able to reach it by late this afternoon.

Dybrovik thought it was important. So important that his last words had been about the place. But Newman could think of no way a single farm could have any significant effect on Turalin’s plans. It just didn’t make any sense.

He tried to reason it out. The Russians wanted corn. A hundred million tons of it, or more. An unprecedented amount. Turalin claimed there would be starvation in the Soviet Union without it. Dybrovik, on the other hand, claimed that Turalin was lying.

Market manipulation was the first thought that had occurred to Newman. The Russians were purchasing corn now at low prices. When the market rose enough because of the heavy buying — and corn was already up more than seventy-five cents a bushel since spring — the Russians would resell, making a huge profit at the expense of the American consumer. Logical. But Dybrovik said it was worse than that, and he had hinted at some deep, dark plot.

“I’m sorry about last night,” Janice said, breaking into his thoughts.

He glanced over at her. She had said little or nothing ever since they had left the motel this morning.

“I’m not,” Newman said. He reached over to caress her cheek, but she pulled away.

Last night, after she had gone into the bathroom, Newman had lain down on top of the bedcovers and was just about asleep when Janice, wearing nothing, came out of the shower and crawled onto the bed with him.

“I’m frightened,” she had said in a little girl’s voice. “Please hold me, Kenneth.”

They had made love, slowly, gently, as if they had been making love for years. Afterward they had fallen asleep in each other’s arms.

This morning, when Newman awoke, Janice was already up and dressed, sitting in front of the TV, smoking a cigarette.

“It’s late,” she had said. “If you want to make it to Des Moines by noon, you’d better get up now.” She stubbed out her cigarette and got up. “I’ll be outside.”

“Janice,” Newman had said.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she had said, and left the room.

It appeared now that she had changed her mind. And he was beginning to change his opinion of her.

“It’ll never happen again, I promise you,” she said, her voice far away as she stared out her window at the passing farm fields.

“Why?”

She turned to him. “You’re married, for one. I don’t love you. And I’m not in the habit of engaging in casual sex.”

“I didn’t think it was so casual last night.”

“Forget about it,” she snapped.

He shook his head. “No, Janice, I won’t forget about it.”

“Goddamn it, Kenneth…” She stopped and took a deep breath. “If you want to know the truth, I’m embarrassed. Embarrassed and frightened.”

“That’s quite a load to have to carry.”

She looked sharply at him. “Let’s just forget it. Okay?”

Newman started to say something else, but then closed his mouth firmly and concentrated on his driving.

They followed the Interstate straight south, through mile after mile of fields. They were in the heartland. Corn country. As far as they could see in any direction, the tassels atop the stalks waved in the gentle late-summer breezes. It was going to be a banner year. The weather had cooperated with just enough rain and plenty of warm, humid weather all across the Midwest. When the crops came in, they would flow outward by truck and train, by barge and ship, around the hungry world. It made Newman feel good, being a part of it.

They had been listening to the car radio all morning, and by 11:30 A.M., Janice found a Des Moines station that came in clearly. They hadn’t said much to each other in the past couple of hours, and Newman was stiff from sitting in one position. They were getting low on gas.

“How about some lunch?” he asked.

“Are we far from Des Moines?”

“Twenty-five or thirty miles.”

“Let’s wait until we get there, and find out where the farm is. Then we can stop.”

“Sure,” Newman said. They were coming to an exit, and he began to slow down. “I’ll just pull in for some gas. I want to stretch my legs.”

Janice said nothing.

Just off the ramp was a Mobil station. He pulled up to the full-service pumps and got out, telling the attendant to fill it up. Then he went around the side and into the men’s room.

He had been gone for less than three minutes when someone began honking a horn outside. He finished washing his hands and went back out. The station attendant was arguing with Janice. She was beeping the Mercedes’ horn.

Newman sprinted across to them. She stopped honking when she spotted him. “Hurry up!” she shouted.

“I don’t know what’s going on here, mister…” the attendant was saying, but Newman ignored him.

“What the hell is wrong?”

“Bormett,” Janice sputtered. “It’s Bormett. He’s dead. It was just on the radio.”

“Oh, my God,” Newman breathed. He turned back to the attendant. “That’s enough gas!”

“You said fill ’er up.”

Newman grabbed the nozzle, flipped it off, and hung it up, then put the gas cap on himself. He pulled out a twenty-dollar bill, threw it at the attendant, jumped in the car, and headed back onto the Interstate as fast as he could go.

“What happened?” he asked.

“His name is William Bormett. His farm is west of Des Moines, near the town of Adel. They said he was found dead last night.”

“Murdered?”

“He shot himself. They found him in his fields.”

“Cornfields?” Newman asked. “Was he a corn farmer?”

“One of the biggest in the state,” she said. But there was more, he could see it in her eyes.

“What is it, Janice? There’s something else.”

She nodded. “I can’t believe this is happening,” she said.

“What is it?” Newman shouted.

“Bormett and his wife… they just returned from Moscow a couple of weeks ago. He spoke about farming at a university there.”

“Turalin,” Newman said, half to himself, and suddenly he had a fair idea of what was happening, although it was so monstrous it nearly took his breath away. But it fit. It all fit.

“Turalin killed him?” Janice asked, picking up his mood.

Newman shook his head. “Unless I miss my guess, he didn’t have to.”

“What are you saying, Kenneth?”

“There’s a map in the glove compartment. Get it out and find out how to get to Adel.” His mind was racing far ahead. If Turalin had called Bormett to Moscow to set him up, and if he had done so, then the farmer’s suicide probably meant he had done whatever it was he had been ordered to do. It gave Newman a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. He hoped he was wrong. But if he was guessing right, it would already be too late to do anything about it. And then, God help them all.

There was no shortcut to Adel. The most direct route was around Des Moines on I-35, and then west on Highway 6. It was a few minutes past 12:30 P.M. when they turned onto the secondary highway. A sign said ADEL 12 MILES.

They passed through the small town of Waukee, and then a few miles beyond that the county road led up to the town of Dallas Center. They had just passed a sign that said ADEL 2 MILES when on the right, over a wide driveway, was a sign: BORMETT FARMS. Newman pulled up at the side of the road.

Cornfields stretched in every direction. The paved driveway curved around a low hill to the right, then dipped down into a hollow where there was a house and a collection of farm buildings. There were a lot of cars parked down there, and a number of people moving around.

Newman got out of the car, but he left the engine running.

“Where are you going?” Janice asked nervously. She didn’t get out of the car.

“I want to look at something. Stay there,” he said. He went around the car, walked a few yards down the driveway, then stepped off the road, over the drainage ditch, and into the cornrows. Instantly he was enveloped in a dark green, cool tunnel, which smelled faintly of rotted eggs. His heart was thumping against his ribs and his stomach kept turning over.

He stopped a few yards in, and looked at the corn stalks. They looked good. Healthy. He had seen a lot of corn in his life, and this looked as good as, or better than, anything he had ever seen.

He reached up and pulled an ear off a stalk, and immediately knew something was wrong. The ear was soft, almost liquid, to the touch.

Carefully holding the stalk away from himself, he pulled down the husk, and his stomach lurched. The ear was black and rotted. It had a very bad odor. He threw it down, and backed up a couple of paces.

He pulled another ear from a different stalk and shucked it, but it was the same.

Why in God’s name had Turalin wanted this?

After a moment or two, he turned and went back to the driveway, where he looked down toward the house.

Something had happened to Bormett in Moscow. Turalin had probably set him up somehow so that he could be blackmailed. Then, back at home, Bormett had done something to his fields, probably sprayed them with something. When it began to develop, and he could no longer stomach what he had done, he had shot himself.

Newman realized that he was guessing, but he didn’t think he was too far off. Somehow, though, he didn’t think Turalin’s plan had been merely to ruin this one farm.

Janice had gotten out of the car, and she waited as he came back. “What’d you find?”

“I don’t know yet,” he said.

They got in.

“What do you mean, you don’t know? What did you find?”

“Just exactly what I said,” he snapped. He drove the rest of the way into Adel in silence, and then turned north. After a few miles he stopped the car beside another cornfield.

“Why are we stopping here?” Janice asked. “Christ, can’t you tell me what’s going on?”

Newman looked out across the field, conscious of his beating heart, of his aching stomach, and of his shallow breath.

Janice said something else, but he didn’t hear it as he got out of the car. He stepped across the drainage ditch and entered the field.

There was no reason to suspect that whatever had gone wrong with Bormett’s corn had spread to his field. Bormett’s fields were at least five miles away from here.

The stalks and leaves all looked good, just as they had back at the Bormett farm. But there was that faint odor of rotten eggs.

Newman stopped about ten rows in. In the distance somewhere he could hear a crow cawing, and he thought he could hear the distant thunder of a jet airplane, probably taking off from the · Des Moines airport.

He wondered whether Bormett had known all along what was happening, or if he had found out about it just last night. Whatever the case, it must have been a terrible shock to him to see the devastated ears.

Newman reached out and touched one of the corn leaves. It felt good. Then, hesitantly, he reached out for an ear and pulled it off the stalk. It was bad. He didn’t have to open it to know. But he shucked it anyway, exposing the obscene rotted mass.

He threw the ear down. Five miles, he thought, backing up. Fifty miles? Five hundred miles?

“Kenneth?” Janice called from back up on the highway.

Turalin had ruined the corn crops here in this part of Iowa. The same corn he wanted to buy. Much of this crop had, in fact, already been sold to Newman Company subsidiaries through Des Moines trading houses.

That meant Dybrovik was correct. There would be no starvation in the Soviet Union. Turalin had never wanted the corn. He wanted to ruin the Newman Company.

Newman rejected the thought. That wasn’t it. That wasn’t it at all. Turalin was thinking bigger than that. He wanted Newman to go on a buying spree as a cover. If everyone was watching Newman, no one would be paying attention to what the Russians were really doing. Which was growing corn… a lot of corn. A record amount of corn. Corn that the Russians would be able to sell to whoever needed it.

“Kenneth!” Janice called from the road again.

Newman started back, but stopped again as he looked down the cornrow. Why target a few fields around Des Moines, Iowa? If Turalin had planned this entire thing, why stop at just a few fields?

“Christ,” Newman swore. He pulled an ear from a stalk, then bolted down the cornrow and out to the road.

A county sheriff’s car was parked just behind Newman’s. A uniformed officer stood with Janice.

“Here he comes,” the deputy said, smiling. “Why don’t you come on up here, Mr…. Newman?”

Newman came up onto the road, and crossed over to them. “Where’s the nearest telephone I can use?”

The cop was taken aback. “In Adel, I suppose…” he started. “Just what the hell were you doing out in that field?”

Janice was looking at him, wide-eyed, her gaze flickering from his eyes to the ear of corn he was holding and back.

“And what the hell are you doing with that?” the deputy asked, pointing at the corn.

Without a word, Newman yanked back the husk to expose the rotted mess.

“Jesus H. Christ,” the deputy swore.

“The entire field is like this,” Newman said. “So is the Bormett field.”

“Bormett?” the deputy snapped. “What do you know about the Bormetts?”

“This — whatever it is — originated on the Bormett fields, and unless I’m way off, it’s airborne and spreading all over the place.”

“Jesus H….” the deputy said, and he let it trail off. “Just who the hell are you?”

“I’m a grain dealer. I came out to talk with Mr. Bormett, but we heard on the radio he was dead. Committed suicide. Now, will you get me to a telephone?”

“Who’re you going to call, your lawyer?” the deputy asked. He couldn’t keep his eyes away from the infected ear of corn.

“The Secretary of Agriculture in Washington, D.C. And I suggest that you get hold of your state Department of Agriculture and the governor. These fields are going to have to be burned off. Right now, before this spreads across the entire state.”

The deputy’s lips were working, but no sound came out. He glanced from the ear of corn to Newman and then out to the fields on both sides of the road. “Jesus H. Christ,” he said again. Then he turned back. “You’d better follow me. We’ll go back to the office in Adel.”

“Right,” Newman said. He laid the infected ear on the floor, in the back seat of his car, and as soon as Janice had gotten in, he made a U-turn after the deputy and took off after the flashing red lights.

“What is it, Kenneth?” Janice said in a weak voice.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Some kind of disease. And unless they sprayed this field as well as Bormett’s, it’s airborne.”

“Bormett’s field was infected?”

“That’s right.”

She turned in her seat to look at him. “Bormett went to the Soviet Union a few weeks ago.”

Newman glanced at her. “That’s also right.”

“Colonel Turalin,” she said, and she looked out at the cornfields. “But why would he do something like this? He wanted to buy the corn. Why kill it?”

“I don’t know, Janice. I just don’t know.”

Curtis Lundgren was just leaving his office when his secretary called him back. LeMear from the FBI had telephoned ten minutes earlier with some wild story about a dead Russian in Duluth. McCandless was coming over from Langley, and they were all supposed to meet at LeMear’s office. It obviously had something to do with Newman, but LeMear had not been very clear. He had sounded very upset.

“What is it?” he asked his secretary, stopping in the doorway.

“It’s an urgent telephone call, sir,” the woman said.

“Tell whoever it is that I’ll get back to them. I’m out now.”

“It’s Mr. Newman, sir.”

“Newman?” Lundgren sputtered. “I’ll take it in my office.”

“Yes, sir,” the secretary said.

Lundgren hurried back into his office, slamming the door behind him.

“This is Lundgren, now what the hell is going on and where the hell are you, Newman?”

“Listen to me, and listen to me closely, Lundgren, we’ve got a disaster on our hands out here, unless you move damned quickly.”

“What the hell is going on?” Lundgren shouted.

“I’m calling from Adel, Iowa… just outside Des Moines. Does the name Bormett mean anything to you?”

“Bormett,” Lundgren said. “Why of course. We sent him to the Soviet Union just…” He stopped. “My God. The Russians.”

“That’s right,” Newman said. “Bormett’s cornfields are infected with some kind of a disease. We’re calling the university to send someone over here to try and identify it. Meanwhile the infection has spread to at least one field five miles away.”

“I’ll call the governor. You may need the National Guard to help burn off the fields. Where are you?”

“The sheriff’s office in Adel,” Newman said. “And listen, Lundgren. Last night in Duluth, a Russian tried to kill me. You’d better call the authorities. His body is in my garage.”

“Right,” Lundgren mumbled. “Meanwhile, sit tight. I’m coming out there.”

29

Lydia Vance-Ehrhardt-Newman stood at the twentieth-floor window of the company building in downtown Buenos Aires, watching the villas miserias burn. The flames leaped high into the night sky, and the dense black smoke blotted out the stars toward the east. In other parts of the city she could see the flash of sporadic firing as Federal District troops continued to battle the Montonero freedom fighters.

“Libertad!” was their battle cry. Lydia shook her head. The libertad banners had suddenly appeared yesterday from rooftops, out windows, in the parks, along the beaches. It had been the signal for the revolution to begin.

She had been caught at work, and although the fighting hadn’t gotten this far yet, it was coming close. Before too long, unless the federal troops got help, she and the others would be cut off here in the Vance-Ehrhardt Building.

Most of her chief executives had already left the city. Many of them had even left the country, taking boats across the Río de la Plata to Uruguay, and airplanes to Brazil and Boliva.

Even now there was a steady stream of aircraft leaving the airport southwest of the city. As long as the federal troops held that district, the planes would continue to leave. But the troops could not hold too much longer; the Montoneros were too well organized, and too well equipped, and had at least the tacit support of the army, whose lower ranks remained in their barracks.

When this was over, Lydia thought, lighting a cigarette as she watched the fighting, the new government would probably nationalize all the businesses, including Vance-Ehrhardt. But even if they didn’t do that, they’d surely meddle with the pampas farm system, which was, of course, the lifeblood of the Vance-Ehrhardt conglomerate.

There would be little or nothing remaining in Argentina for the Vance-Ehrhardts, or at least there’d be nothing until the government stabilized and its leaders realized that a company is not merely a collection of buildings and a few employees. It needed leadership, expertise, and international connections. They would call back the executives, offering them certain advantages, and business would get back to normal.

Such a thing had happened before in Argentina, and it would happen again. Lydia was not overly worried. She was confident she could get to the airport before it was too late, and equally confident that she would return one day to resurrect Vance-Erhardt. But before she left Buenos Aires she wanted the answer to one question. She would not leave without it.

Grainex, their New York subsidiary, had first alerted her to the probability that not only was her husband dealing with the Russians, but that there was also a connection between Captain Perés and the Soviets. Perés had been seen on at least one occasion meeting with a known Russian sympathizer.

Also, Lydia had heard that Perés had meant to kill Kenneth, but that the operation had been botched and Paul Saratt had died instead.

She had heard about the plot from one of Perés’ own people who was on the Vance-Ehrhardt payroll. But her informant did not know exactly who had ordered the assassination. Had it been Perés himself, or someone else? She was determined to find that out as well.

Someone knocked at her office door, and Lydia turned away from the window. “Come,” she called out.

Francisco Belgrano, her father’s personal secretary, came in. He was an older, distinguished-looking man who walked with a limp. Her father had trusted him implicitly, and so did she. “If I were to lose my mental capacities, Belgrano could step in and take over the entire business tomorrow,” her father had once said.

During the past weeks she had relied heavily on his abilities and judgment.

He seemed distraught now. “You are simply going to have to leave this instant, my dear,” he clucked, beginning to gather up papers from her desk.

“Has the messenger returned from police headquarters yet?” she asked. The telephone system was out; the revolutionaries had blown up the main exchange as one of their first acts. She had sent a messenger to ask Perés for a meeting.

“No,” Belgrano said without looking up.

“Then we will wait.”

“But his driver is back.”

“His driver?” Lydia asked.

Belgrano looked up from what he was doing. “Your messenger was killed.”

“The fighting has come that far?”

Belgrano shook his head. “No, madam. The driver informs me that Capitán Perés himself shot and killed poor Hernández.”

Lydia’s nostrils flared. She could feel the color coming to her cheeks. “Was there a message?”

“No, madam. None that I was told of.”

“Where is the driver now?” Lydia asked, coming over to the desk.

“In the garage, waiting to take you to the airport.”

Lydia opened a desk drawer and pulled out a .380 Beretta automatic. She checked the clip to make sure it was loaded, then levered a round into the chamber. “How about you, Francisco? Will you be coming with me?”

“No,” the man said, straightening up. “I will remain. When the fighting dies down, they will need a maintenance staff here. Just until you return.”

And if I never return, Lydia thought, you would do quite nicely as the head of Vance-Ehrhardt. But she didn’t give voice to the thought.

She stuffed the gun in her purse, came around the desk, and gave Belgrano a kiss on the cheek. “I’m sorry it ended this way, Francisco,” she said softly.

His eyes were suddenly moist. “I can understand the revolution, but I cannot fathom the murders of Sir and Madam.”

“Take care,” she said, stepping back.

He handed her the thin briefcase into which he had stuffed the papers. “You may need this,” he said.

She took it, turned on her heel, and left the office. She went down to the brightly lit subbasement parking garage. The electricity was off in much of the city, but this building had its own emergency generating system, as did many buildings. Her father had had it installed years ago.

The young driver who had been leaning against the hood of her Citroen sedan straightened up as she approached.

“Are you sure it was Capitan Perés, and no one else, who shot Hernández?”

“Si, señora,” the frightened young man said.

“But then he let you go. Why?”

“He told me to come back and tell you… and you alone… what happened. He said you would understand his answer to your question.”

The answer was loud and clear. Perés had killed Saratt, after all. But what else? How deep did his involvement with the Russians go? And would he try again to kill Kenneth? “Let’s go,” she said, climbing in the back seat. The driver jumped in behind the wheel, started the car, and headed out.

“The main highway out to the airport is still clear, señora,” he said.

“First we will stop at Police headquarters,” Lydia said.

The driver looked at her in the rearview mirror.

“I’ll only be a minute or two. Then we will go straight out to the airport.”

“But señora, Capitán Perés… he is still there.”

“I hope so,” Lydia said, smiling. “I hope so.”

It took less than five minutes to reach the police building, but already the fighting was closer. As the driver parked at the side of the building, Lydia could hear gunfire less than two blocks away. The driver was obviously frightened half out of his mind.

“If they come too close, take the car and drive like hell,” she said, getting out. “I’ll find a ride out to the airport with one of the policemen.”

“But, señora.”

“Wait only as long as you can, then get out of here,” Lydia shouted, and she strode across the sidewalk and entered the building.

Just inside were three wide, marble steps that led up to the lobby. Sandbags had been placed across the steps, and she stood at the bottom looking up into the muzzles of a dozen rifles.

“Do not fire!” someone shouted.

“I want to see Capitán Perés,” Lydia called up.

A police lieutenant with greasy hair stood and waved her up the stairs. She picked her way through the sandbags; at the top he helped her over.

“I am Lieutenant Martinez. I will escort you up to the capitan.”

“I can find my own way, thank you,” Lydia said.

“I will escort you,” the lieutenant said firmly. He took her arm and led her across the lobby to the bank of elevators. Only one, apparently, was working. There were sandbags everywhere. They were waiting for the siege to begin.

They entered the elevator, and when the lieutenant turned his back to Lydia to press the floor button, she quickly opened her purse and pulled out the Beretta.

He turned around and his eyes went wide. He started to reach for the pistol at his side.

“I will shoot you without hesitation, lieutenant,” Lydia said. The elevator doors closed and they started up.

“What do you want?”

“How many people does Perés have up there with him?” she asked.

Something flashed in the lieutenant’s eyes. “A dozen soldiers. Maybe more. Give me your gun.”

“If you are lying to me, I will kill you the moment the doors open.”

He stepped back. “There is no one there with him. He is alone.”

“No one is watching the elevator?” Lydia asked. Something was wrong. The lieutenant was hiding something. She raised the gun so that it pointed at his head. “Quickly,” she said.

“Whoever comes up must call on the elevator telephone. Otherwise the doors will never open. He has the master switch up there.”

“Call him!”

He picked up the telephone.

“Make a mistake and I will kill you,” Lydia said. “You have a message for him that must be delivered in person.”

“Capitán, it is me… I, we must talk, sir,” the lieutenant said. He was sweating. “Yes, sir, I am alone.” He looked at Lydia, then shouted, “It is Lydia Vance-Ehrhardt…”

Lydia fired, the shot hitting him just above the right eye. His head snapped back, and he dropped the phone and crumpled to the floor.

Perés’ office was on the fifteenth floor, and they were already coming to the twelfth when Lydia hit the button. The elevator lurched to a halt, and slowly the emergency doors came open onto a corridor with office doors on either side.

She jumped off the elevator; a split second later an explosion shattered the silence. The car rattled in the shaft, and then suddenly dropped out of sight, crashing to the bottom. Perés had evidently placed an explosive charge on the elevator cables.

She raced down the corridor to the stairwell, and then up three flights of stairs to the fifteenth floor, where she opened the door a crack and looked out into the wide corridor. No one was in sight. She stepped out and hurried toward Perés’ office, which was off a side corridor to the left. She came around the corner as the large man was turning away from the open elevator doors, where he had been looking down the shaft. She raised her pistol as he started to bring his submachine gun up.

“Don’t!” she shouted.

He stopped, the gun halfway up. “Your husband is not dead,” he said. He was very nervous. She could see that he was sweating.

“But you ordered him killed, didn’t you?” she snapped.

“A lot of people will die for Argentina before it is right.”

“Why do the Russians want my husband dead, Perés? He has been working with them.”

“The Russians? How would I know that…”

“You’ve been seen with them, goddamn it! Don’t lie to me or I will kill you this instant.” She raised her gun a little higher.

Perés backed up a step. “It is a lie.”

“It’s not a lie,” Lydia said, advancing.

“You have to believe me. I’m not working with them. Please,” he pleaded.

Lydia said nothing.

“Look… the Russians ordered the kidnapping of your parents so that your husband’s deal with them would go through unhindered.”

“What?” Lydia cried.

“Yes, it’s true. We caught one of them who had been left for dead at your parents’ mansion. One of the terrorists. We gave him drugs. He told us everything.”

“Then you were involved with my parents’ kidnapping too!”

“No,” Perés shouted, backing up another step. He was very close to the open elevator shaft.

“Why, you dirty bastard? Why kidnap my parents, and then try to kill my husband? Why both? What are you trying to do?”

“Ask Belgrano. He knows everything.”

“Belgrano…” Lydia started, but then it hit her in a blinding flash. Jesus. Belgrano and Perés had been working together to take over Vance-Ehrhardt when the revolution came. They had used the Russians, but then doublecrossed them. All the killing would not stop. Her parents were dead, and they meant to finish by killing Kenneth and then her.

“Bastard!” she yelled. She pulled the trigger. The hammer snapped, but the shell didn’t fire.

Perés laughed and started to bring his weapon up. Without hesitation, Lydia leaped at the man. Only in the last instant did he realize what was about to happen, and he fired wildly, the shots ricocheting off the floor, as Lydia slammed into his chest with every ounce of her strength. Perés was driven backward, through the open elevator doors. Lydia tried to jump back, but he reached out and grabbed her arm. She could feel the bottom going out from under her as she tumbled into the shaft with him.

“Kenneth,” she cried, “Kenneth,” over and over, as she and Perés fell to the bottom.

Colonel Vadim Leonid Turalin stood at the third-floor window of the Lubyanka prison looking down at the preparations in the courtyard. He wore a pair of heavy gray woolen trousers and an open-necked cotton shirt. He shivered. It looked cold outside. A thin drizzle fell from a leaden sky, and the tall lights on the walls threw long shafts of yellow that glinted off the wet slickers of the men standing around the canvas-covered truck.

Actually it was old fashioned and somewhat melodramatic, he thought, taking a deep drag of his cigarette. If they had given him a choice, he certainly would have put a pistol to his own head and accomplished the task with a lot less fuss.

He sighed deeply.

The fool Dybrovik had been the key to his own undoing. Dybrovik had known what he was doing in the grain business, and, surprisingly, he had handled himself brilliantly, in the end, with the bankers of Geneva. All the money — all the Soviet money — had been neatly transferred into a numbered account in Turalin’s name. The fool had made it look as if Turalin were stealing the money. And the Internal Affairs Directorate had believed it.

It had all come down to a matter of control, Turalin thought. He had made a tactical error with Dybrovik’s wife. Perhaps it would have been better to have controlled the nagging woman, rather than killing her. But at the time it seemed to be clear. The control of Dybrovik had been keyed to his wife, with whom he had a somewhat complex relationship of love and hate. She had been his wife as well as his domineering mother. And he had deeply resented her absolute control over him, while at the same time finding comfort in it.

Again Turalin sighed deeply. Could have beens. But it didn’t really matter. He had won after all. The American corn crop was ruined, the Soviet wheat and corn crops mammoth. It was all going to work.

He turned away from the window as a key grated in the lock. The heavy steel door opened and Brezhnev’s aide, Anatoli Andreyevich Shumayev, stooped as he came in, a sad expression on his face. He closed the door behind him, and Turalin could hear the guard turning the lock again.

“Good morning, Vadim Leonid,” the large man said. He looked around the small cell, then pulled a wooden chair away from the table and sat down. He lit himself a cigarette, taking his time about it.

“You have come to gloat, comrade?” Turalin asked. He really didn’t care. The man was an incredible fool. Fortunately, the Soviet Union would survive despite him and his kind.

Shumayev shook his head. “No, my friend, merely to pick up the pieces. We have to know where we stand, you know. Policy and all that. Brezhnev meets with the American President in a couple of weeks. And he is very angry. He thought that since you and I had an understanding, perhaps I could talk some sense into you.”

Turalin had to laugh at the pompous fool. And yet Shumayev was sitting there, and he, Turalin, was waiting here to be escorted outside in the rain, to be stood up against the wall and shot to death.

“They called you ‘the little man,’” Shumayev said.

Turalin raised his right eyebrow. “You’ve seen the intercepts, listened to the tapes.”

Shumayev nodded. “We’ve seen it all.”

“Then what do you want with me?”

Shumayev looked disdainfully around the room. “I personally don’t want a thing from you — you disgusting little man—but Comrade Secretary would like an explanation.”

They were locked in here. Turalin had heard the key. It would take the guards several long seconds to make it in, even if they were watching, or even if they were alerted immediately. A lot of damage could be done in that time.

But he held himself in check. Just for a minute or two more.

“What have you to offer me, you disgusting obese fool? My life?”

Shumayev stiffened. Turalin had heard that he was sensitive about his weight.

“Let’s just say, a more perfect aim by your executioners, to eliminate any suffering.”

Turalin laughed. “And in return, what do you want? Specifically.”

“Comrade Party Secretary tells me that there were three operational phases to your scheme. The first was a surplus of grain. Our farmers, I am told, will provide that, mostly in wheat. The second was a surplus of Western currencies. From what I have learned, you managed somehow to amass more than one billion American dollars. In itself quite a feat. And third, you wanted to manipulate the world market for vast personal gain.”

“You have an understanding of what I was trying to do,” Turalin lied.

“I submit to you, Comrade Turalin, that the facts, as we have come to know them yesterday and today, simply do not support the third phase of your scheme.”

“I see,” Turalin said noncomittally.

“What Comrade Brezhnev would like, then, is a clear explanation.”

Turalin laughed again. He moved over to the table and stubbed out his cigarette.

“Don’t be a fool,” Shumayev hissed. “In less than five minutes you will be marched out of here and executed. Have you no concern for the welfare of your country?”

“None,” Turalin snapped. His hands shot out and grabbed Shumayev by the throat. The man’s eyes bulged; almost instantly his face began to turn purple.

Actually, it didn’t matter one whit whether or not the entire world knew of the ultimate plan. One part of Turalin’s demented mind understood that. Turalin didn’t care.

Shumayev was beating on Turalin with his fists. In an effort to avoid the blows, Turalin lost his balance, and both men fell to the floor.

Bormett had done what he was supposed to do. Although Turalin had heard nothing since the initial green light, he could envision the damage being done out there. Once the BTP-12 had been sprayed on the field, on any field, there was nothing that would stop its rapid spread. Across an entire continent.

Someone was at the door, and Turalin could hear the lock turning, but Shumayev’s face was almost blue-black now and his tongue protruded grotesquely from his mouth.

The corn crop across America was composed of half a dozen hybrid varieties. BTP-12 attacked them all. A natural strain would have been immune, but not the hybrids.

Someone was shouting behind him, and then there was a thunderclap in his head, and everything began to go dark.

But that didn’t matter, either. He had won. After all, he had won.