"We did. You, you and you. The old army game," Hennessey said wearily.
"Mr. Kuran, we're in the clutch. We can lose, forever--right now.
Right in the next month or so. Consider yourself a soldier being
thrown into the most important engagement the world has ever
seen--combating the growth of the Soviets. We can't afford such
luxuries as asking for volunteers. Now do you get it?"
Hank Kuran could feel impotent anger rising inside him. He was off
balance. "I get it, but I don't like it."
"None of us do," Sheridan Hennessey said sourly. "Do you think any of
us do?" He must have pressed a button.
From behind them the major's voice said briskly, "Will you come this
way, Mr. Kuran?"
* * * * *
In the limousine, on the way out to the airport, the bright,
impossibly cleanly shaven C.I.A. man said, "You've never been behind
the Iron Curtain before, have you Kuran?"
"No," Hank said. "I thought that term was passe. Look, aren't we even
going to my hotel for my things?"
The second C.I.A. man, the older one, said, "All your gear will be
waiting for you in London. They'll be sure there's nothing in it to
tip off the KGB if they go through your bags."
The younger one said, "We're not sure, things are moving fast, but we
suspect that that term, Iron Curtain, applies again."
"Then how am I going to get in?" Hank said irritably. "I've had no
background for this cloak and dagger stuff."
The older C.I.A. man said, "We understand the KGB has increased
security measures but they haven't cut out all travel on the part of
non-Communists."
The other one said, "Probably because the Russkies don't want to tip
off the spacemen that they're being isolated from the western
countries. It would be too conspicuous if suddenly all western
travelers disappeared."
They were passing over the Potomac, to the right and below them Hank
Kuran could make out the twin Pentagons, symbols of a military that
had at long last by its very efficiency eliminated itself. War had
finally progressed to the point where even a minor nation, such as
Cuba or Portugal, could completely destroy the whole planet.
Eliminated wasn't quite the word. In spite of their sterility, the
military machines still claimed their million masses of men, still
drained a third of the products of the world's industry.
One of the C.I.A. men was saying urgently, "So we're going to send you
in as a tourist. As inconspicuous a tourist as we can make you. For
fifteen years the Russkies have boomed their tourist trade--all for
propaganda, of course. Now they're in no position to turn this tourist
flood off. If the aliens got wind of it, they'd smell a rat."
Hank Kuran brought his attention back to them. "All right. So you get
me to Moscow as a tourist. What do I do then? I keep telling you
jokers that I don't know a thing about espionage. I don't know a
secret code from judo."
"That's one reason the chief picked you. Not only do the Russkies have
nothing on you in their files--neither do our own people. You're safe
from betrayal. There are exactly six people who know your mission and
only one of them is in Moscow."
"Who's he?"
The C.I.A. man shook his head. "You'll never meet him. But he's making
the arrangements for you to contact the underground."