13

General Pytyour Voukelitch, KGB, studied the Afghan in hospital whites who sat handcuffed to a bed.

"A high fever was the only symptom he showed and it passed of its own accord within days," Dr. Golodkin, head of the technical staff, reported in Russian to his superior. "This man is now perfectly healthy."

The figure in the bed looked fearfully from one Russian towering over him to the other, unable to understand their language but somehow sensing his own existence was at stake.

"Were the others exposed at the same time as this one?" Voukelitch demanded.

"Dead, comrade General, but if the implementation of the, er, program hinges only on determining the intervals at which the solution should be spread, I would conservatively estimate the period of effectiveness at six weeks, based on these experiments. Is that what you need to know?"

The KGB commander stalked toward the door of the sterile room.

"It is. You have done well, comrade Doctor. Your services will be amply rewarded."

"Discreetly, I trust. Uh, what about this one?"

Voukelitch did not pause. He stepped from the room. "Kill him, of course." Voukelitch closed the door behind him and returned to his office at this outpost fifteen kilometers from Parachinar, accompanied as always by a uniformed bodyguard.

Major Ghazi, commandant of this Afghan garrison, waited for Voukelitch as the general had instructed him to in the office that had belonged to Ghazi before the KGB man arrived with orders placing Ghazi and his command at Voukelitch's disposal.

At his superior's entrance, Ghazi rose abruptly from the chair that faced the office desk.

Voukelitch strode to the liquor cabinet camouflaged behind a fake bookcase and spoke as he poured them each a shot of vodka.

"It is done, Major." Voukelitch handed the Afghan a shot glass and hoisted his own. "Operation Devil's Rain will commence with the first light of dawn."

They clinked glasses and downed the shots.

The Afghan chuckled without humor. A sound from the grave. "You have outdone yourself, General Voukelitch. I had heard of your ingenious strategies in the Panjir Valley during last winter's offensive. If I may say so, sir, this surpasses even that. It has been my privilege to be associated with a man of your vision."

Fawning pig, thought Voukelitch, though his pride basked in the compliment. He poured himself another shot without offering one to the Afghan officer, then replaced the bottle and glasses in their hiding place and returned to the desk.

The counterinsurgent operation that Ghazi spoke of concerned — for it was still being used — the air drop from helicopters of camouflaged antipersonnel mines and booby-trapped toys, usually small red trucks, designed not to kill but to injure, blowing off hands.

In this way guerrilla fighters would be demobilized while they transported and attended the victims — in the case of the "toy" bombs, almost always children — who would most likely die anyway from gangrene after days or weeks of atrocious suffering. The objective was to further depress and demoralize those who must watch the victims die.

Voukelitch, who at forty-seven had the physical condition of a man twenty years younger, held the opinion that all is indeed fair in war; to attain the goal, to win, was all that mattered.

To General Voukelitch, morality was but an invention of the weak to defend themselves.

He placed a Turkish cigarette into his onyx holder. "What word from Kabul?" he asked Ghazi.

"Things are coming in piece by piece," the army major reported. "I have beefed up security. Early last night a convoy was massacred near Charikar."

"That area is secured."

"Uh, so Kabul thought. As you know, comrade General..."

"Yes, yes, of course, the situation is still far too fluid. Kabul believes this to be an orchestrated offensive then, is that it?"

"So it would appear."

"And yet it troubles me in particular, coming so close as it does to the implementation of Operation Devil's Rain." Voukelitch thought aloud through a blue-gray cloud of exhaled smoke. "The man Lansdale, the CIA agent, could well have been on to us and what we have been up to here these past four months."

"The man is dead, sir."

"True, but you had better triple your security measures, Major, and not only in preparation for possible attack from those savages. Whoever helped Lansdale to escape from the base at Kabul. If Lansdale knew about us, it is most likely his allies now possess the information as well. All too likely..."

"And you suspect someone other than the mujahedeen?"

"It could very well be."

"But who?"

"That is my concern, Major. Yours is to see that this installation is impenetrable to attack. Operation Devil's Rain will not be delayed or sabotaged."

"Perhaps we should request reinforcements."

"That is a very bad idea, Major. Have I not repeatedly stressed the sensitivity of this project? There are members of the Central Committee and the General Staff who are not aware of the work that has gone on in the laboratory facility constructed here."

"Of course, comrade General, of course. A very bad idea."

"A far better one, Major, would be for you to personally see to increasing security measures immediately."

Ghazi again got abruptly to his feet to deliver a crisp salute. "But of course, comrade General. I will see to it."

Voukelitch did not bother returning the salute.

"See that you do, Major. That will be all." Ghazi turned and exited the office.

Voukelitch waited five minutes in silence, doing nothing but thinking, to insure that Ghazi would not return with some follow-up question. The KGB man smoked another cigarette in the interim. When he felt certain he would not be disturbed, most of the base asleep at this hour in any event, he leaned forward and depressed a hidden buzzer he had installed on the underside of the desk since taking over this office.

A side door opened and Voukelitch's bodyguard entered, armed with a holstered pistol and a shoulder-strapped submachine gun. "Yes, my General?"

"What have you learned, Corporal Fet?"

"I, uh, socialized with the CQ staff in the orderly room while you spoke alone with Major Ghazi," the Soviet soldier reported promptly. "Major Ghazi has done an admirable job in increasing security measures."

"Corporal" Fet was in fact a KGB agent, transferred to Ghazi's command as one of the regular Soviet liaison months before Voukelitch's arrival and the Devil's Rain project. Fet had seemed a random choice by Voukelitch as his bodyguard from the ranks, the perfect spy, a means by which Voukelitch could double-check on the camp CO's activities.

"Very good. Please lock the hallway door, Corporal."

The two men played out their roles in Fet's deception even in private.

"Yes, sir." Fet locked the door and returned to stand before Voukelitch's desk.

"And our... other business?" Voukelitch inquired in a lower voice. He had the office searched daily by Fet for hidden microphones, but one could never be too sure.

"Your pilot returned with a passenger less than thirty minutes ago," Fet replied in the same lowered voice. "The man awaits you now at the appointed spot."

Voukelitch pocketed his cigarette holder, stood from his desk chair and started toward the door by which Fet had entered. "Excellent. We will leave as discreetly as possible, though no one will attempt to stop us."

Fet moved to the door.

"It is good that we hurry, sir. The pilot told me that in addition to the goods... the jukiabkr has something vital to tell you."

Voukelitch paused before the door. He unholstered his own pistol, checked it, reholstered it and nodded for Fet to open the door. "Very well, Corporal. We are on our way. It is a busy night and far from over."