The Chief had wanted to know who Minna was, and I explained that she was just a child who had gotten in the way and whom I had taken along for the ride. I would take care of her, I assured him, and he needn’t worry about her overhearing anything, as she didn’t speak English.

Then he fussed with the fire some, and we talked about trivia and we finished that first pair of drinks and he poured out a second round. Now it was time to Discuss Things.

“A favor for a friend,” he said again. “I’ve learned to expect great things from you, Tanner, but this almost exceeds believability. The entire Latvian Women’s Gymnastic Team fleeing Russia to seek political freedom in the West. Most extraordinary propaganda coup in ages. We’re happy enough with the occasional ballet dancer or violinist, and they’ve been rare enough lately. But they can always be explained away as isolated malcontents, neurotics.” He sighed heavily. “When you have an even dozen beautiful girls, though, then you have really got something.”

There was no argument there.

“One of them was the sweetheart of a friend, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“So that gave you an opening, and then you were able to convince the rest to come along. Rather an astonishing bit of persuasion, I’d say.”

I remember walking into that flat in Riga and learning that ten extra girls were sardined in the little bedroom, ready to join us. Astonishing was the operative term, all right.

“And Milan Butec,” he went on. “Of course he was the prime reason for your trip. That was instantly obvious. When a resistance hero and leading minister of a communist country is anxious to defect, that’s the time to pull out all the stops and go in there and get him.”

“Of course.”

“But your sources of intelligence are extraordinary, Tanner. We thought we knew pretty well what was going on in Yugoslavia. The country’s in a constant state of ferment, needless to say, but our own intelligence posts within that country are rather good. At least I thought they were good.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to know everything that’s going on,” I said helpfully.

“Not a word about Butec. Not a single word.”

“Well-”

“And yet you knew well enough in advance to plan a careful trip in there and get him out. The Foggy Bottom boys will be having the time of their life with him right now, you’d better believe it. Understand he’s going to be writing a book?”

“That’s right.”

“Probably want to publish it under USIA auspices. They’ll want to make sure the thing has just the right slant. The ideal tone, that is.”

Zirgs-prens, I thought. But what I said was, “Butec seemed a bit worried about that, you know. Wants to make sure the book is just the way he wants it.”

“They often take that line.”

“Yes. But what I suggested was that I might do the translation, you see. That way it would come out just right, and of course there would be no question of State Department manipulation.”

“And he agreed?”

“He’s all in favor of it, yes.”

He beamed at me. “Couldn’t ask for better than that. He’ll be happy, the public will be sold, and we’ll be sure of getting just the right sort of, uh, translation.”

They’d get just the right sort of, uh, translation, all right. They’d get an exact and faithful rendering of Butec’s book, word for lovely word. Whether they liked it or not.

“But what I can’t understand,” he went on, “is how on earth you got that plane out in the bargain. Only one of its kind in the world, you know. I understand Air Force Intelligence has been trying to smuggle a man into the Tallinn base for months just to get a look at the damned thing, maybe a stray bit of blueprint or something. Instead we wind up with the whole plane. And the one man who’s been flying it. Understand he’s a little bit of a madman. Is that right?”

“He’s a bit odd,” I admitted.

“Which of course gave you your opening. It must have taken weeks of preparation to con him into defecting. You’re quite the expert at getting people to do what you want them to do, aren’t you, Tanner?”

“Well, he wants to play trombone in an American jazz band, actually.”

“And you hooked onto that and turned him from a malcontent into a defector. Good piece of work.”

I paid attention to my drink.

“Something I heard, Tanner. You were pursued by the sister plane of the MIXK-One, is that right? The MIXK-Two, the fighter, that would be.”

“Yes.”

“Our military intelligence must be wrong, then. According to what we have, the fighter’s the faster of the two and a bit more maneuverable.”

“It’s faster,” I said. “Igor, uh, the pilot, shot down the pursuit plane.”

“Shot down the MIXK-Two?”

“With rockets. It, uh, disintegrated.”

“So we stole one plane from them and blew the other one to hell and gone. And their pilot with it, of course.”

Alexei, I thought. That cogstocker.

“Stole one plane and blew up the other one,” he said. He got to his feet, glass in hand, and walked over to where a window might have been had the little building been equipped with windows. He tapped his glass idly against the wood paneling that was hiding the fact that we were in a sort of above-the-ground bomb shelter. He sipped his drink, shook his head, and went on speaking to the wood-paneled wall.

“Stole one plane, blew up another plane. Helped a top Yugoslav to defect, got translation rights to his book. Slipped an even dozen Latvian gymnasts into the States.” He turned to me. “You wouldn’t have any extra surprises for me, would you, Tanner?”

I lowered my eyes. I looked at my shoes, their heels fitted with rolls of microfilm from Kracow. I thought of the various packets taped to my skin, Milan’s book, the Chinese documents that Lajos had smuggled to me from Budapest. I looked at one of the other plush leather chairs and smiled at the sleeping form of Minna, direct descendant of Mindaugas, first and last reigning monarch of a free and independent Lithuania.

“Nothing else, I’m afraid,” I said.

“Well, I’m glad of that. Any more, and I’d have trouble believing it myself,” He laughed. “Another drink?”

“Please.”

“Just Butec alone would have been ample justification for your trip,” he said, pouring. “The rest are delightful dividends. And they reinforce my conviction that the best thing to do with a good agent is to give him his head and stay out of his way. I was desperate to send you to Colombia, but thank the Lord I had the good sense to leave you alone when you turned the job down. I felt you must know what you were doing, and you damn well did.”

“Oh,” I said, remembering. “Colombia.”

“Would have liked to see you have a shot at it, Tanner, but I doubt that you could have done much to change the outcome. The Colombian Agrarian Revolutionary Movement evidently had a much broader base of support than anyone suspected. You might have given them a run for their money, but I think they’d have come out on top at the end.”

“They won, then?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Yes, they did.” He dropped into his chair again and put his feet up onto the table. “When you opted out, I didn’t have anyone else I wanted to send. Passed the ball back to the quarterback, and it wound up going to the CIA. I was fairly certain the Agency would wind up with it and I wasn’t very happy at the thought. They can make a mess of things, you know.”

“I know.”

“You wouldn’t believe what a job they did of this, though. Seems CIA security isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. I always had the feeling that any broadly based organization like that one had to have a few big leaks in it. Well, this time they leaked all over the floor and then stepped in it. The CARM people had advance word that the Agency was taking over. You may not know it, but the CIA hasn’t got the best possible public image in South America.”

“Is that so?”