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Inclining his head. “I saw you looking over at the sign.”
    “It’s a fallout shelter.” She always felt a little stupid in his presence, even though she knew she could run intellectual rings around him, and had the grades to prove it: her grades were the reason she had been invited to join the study group in the first place.
    “Door locked?”
    “Yes.”
    He tried it anyway. He had broad shoulders and powerful hands, was a star of the school’s lacrosse and hockey teams.
    “Mmmm. Too bad, Margie.” He knew she hated that name. “Tell you what. If you really want to see the inside of a shelter, my frat has one in the basement. Did you know that?”
    “No, Phil.”
    He leaned close, towering over her, one strong arm braced against the cinder blocks as if to prevent her escape. He breathed beer into her face.
    “Why don’t we walk over now? I’ll give you the tour.”
    “No, thank you.”
    “Come on, Margie. It’s interesting. It’s got barrels of water, crackers, that cheese crap, you name it. Also blankets and mattresses. Lots of mattresses. You know, to propagate the race after the next war? I was thinking you and I could inspect the mattresses together. See how comfortable they are.”
    She colored. “I don’t find that amusing.”
    “You think I’m joking?”
    “I hope you are. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
    Still smiling, he dropped his arm. She headed back toward the crowd. Then she stopped. The same alumnus who had snapped her photograph three days ago was standing on the stairs, camera pointed her way, still wearing his funny hat. He took a couple of quick shots, then backed into the crowd and disappeared.

TWO
First Contact
I
    The freighter
Poltava
plowed through the squall. Dark, angry waves broke over the bow. As usual, the weather forecasts were wrong. On an ordinary voyage, the crew would have ignored the reports on the official Soviet channel and used the engineer’s clandestine radio to listen to the capitalist frequency.
    But this was no ordinary voyage.
    In addition to cargo and crew, the ship carried a political officer and a contingent of military police. To be caught using an illegal receiver would likely mean prison. And so the
Poltava
risked the unpredicted mid-Atlantic storms, rarely varying course or speed, because the mission had been assigned the strictest of time lines. They were required to make port in Mariel, Cuba, by September 15, and be unloaded and ready for the return trip by the second day following.
    No excuses permitted.
    In the high pilothouse, set just past midships, the helmsman struggled to hold course. The storm lashed the windows. Visibility was nil. In every direction was the same grim rain. Gray water sloshed over the decks, where, between the folded heavy cranes, trucks and farm equipment were tightly lashed, along with ranks of containers and crates stenciled REFACCIONES clearly enough for the American spy satellites to read at a distance.
    The helmsman cursed as the freighter rolled. He fought the wheel. He fought the instinct of a lifetime that screamed at him to change headingbefore they foundered. This was no squall; this was a full-blown tropical storm.
    They rolled back the other way, and a cup of foul coffee slid off the navigation table to the floor.
    He cursed again, and felt a reassuring hand on his shoulder. The officer of the deck sat beside him, watching the instrument panel. Even in the stormy darkness, the bridge gleamed. The
Poltava
was a new ship, first of a planned series of heavier cargo vessels laid down at the Black Sea Shipyard in Nikolayev. The freighter had been designed to ferry lumber. But earlier this year, it had been returned to drydock and fitted with more powerful cranes and longer deck hatches. The crew had been vetted afresh, and several sent packing. All in preparation for this mission: their small part in the operation known as Anadyr.
    The captain had been banished to his cabin after quarreling with