Loose Cannon: The Tom Kelly Novels Read Free Page B

a lie? Why would a man like that want to defect? Did somebody catch his son in Dzerzhinsky Square with a firebomb? Have we turned up photos of him with the Premier’s wife? Because there’s not a whole lot else that would make somebody like that decide to fly the coop, is there?”
    One of Follett’s subordinates cleared his throat nervously. There was an answer to that question, but it was an answer they had hoped to be able to finesse giving. They had even considered concocting a lie, but there were no lies they could think of which fit Vlasov’s background and were significantly more reasonable than the story their agent had told them for true. “Well, Mr. Secretary,” the general said, “it appears that Professor Vlasov has been experiencing difficulties of a, ah”—Follett locked his hands behind his back to stop himself from twiddling his fingers in front of the others—“problems of a psychiatric nature.”
    The Secretary of State blinked. Follett bulled onward, saying, “Ah, the Professor believes he is being persecuted by, well, aliens . . . And he appears to believe that we in the West will be better able to protect him from them.”
    The civilian hooted and slapped his thigh. “Say, that’s great !”he roared. “And I suppose you want me to set up a Little Green Man Patrol in State? Jesus, that’s great! Chuckie”—he prodded his embarrassed aide in the ribs—“how’d you like to head up the National Space Patrol?”
    “I assure you, Mr. Secretary,” the DIA chief said stiffly, “that we would not have developed this mission—even to the present extent—were we not. . . . Well, our agent assures us that Professor Vlasov was entirely lucid during lengthy discussions of nuclear physics. He may well have cracked under the strain of his work or of life within a police state—but he has not become stupid as a result; nor has he lost his expertise.”
    The uniformed men stiffened when the Secretary stood up, but the politician was walking toward the duplicate nose cone rather than the door. “All right,” the civilian said, “I can see that. Does he speak English?”
    “Ah—” Follett said.
    Rear Admiral Wayne cleared his throat and replied, “No Sir, he does not, though we gather he may be able to parse his own way through technical material. His French is fluent—his mother was a Breton—and it was in French that our agent contacted the Professor.”
    That was more than Follett had wanted the Joint Chiefs—or the State Department, for that matter—to know about their agent, a Vietnamese physicist named Hoang Tanh. The Secretary, at least, ignored the slip. “Well, if he can’t talk to them directly,” the civilian said, “we can make sure the story we give the media is our story and not his own. All right.” The Secretary’s fingers traced the sharp edges of the blocks which simulated the plutonium core. His nails left a hint of a line across the lead oxide. With the unhurried certainty of a record changer cocking, he turned to the general again. “All right,” he repeated, “what do you want from State, Follett?”
    Brigadier General Redstone took over as planned. “Sir,” he said, a mental heel click though his feet remained splayed on the concrete floor. “Mr. Secretary, you’ll appreciate that however bad Professor, ah . . . the Professor may want to get out of Russia, it’s flat out impossible for a scientist like that to do it. Some Jew doctor, sure, if he’s willing to sweat for a couple years. But, ah, Vlasov, they know he’s worth more to us than he is to them. They’ve got his math already. Any hint that he plans a bunk and zip! He gets it where the chicken got the axe.”
    General Redstone had the intense glare of a preacher warming to his subject. He cocked his upper body forward, bringing his face a few inches closer to that of the Secretary of State. The civilian edged backward reflexively. “Now, the Professor will be getting out from behind the