English was the language of the Crypto Center, but Nicholai’s sense of euphony recoiled at the swallowed mushiness or effete whine of upper class British speech, and the metallic clatter and bow-string twang of American, so he developed an accent of his own, one that took a middle course between the American and the British noises. The effect of this artifice was to cause his Anglophonic associates, throughout his life, to assume he was a native English speaker, but from “somewhere else.”
Occasionally, his co-workers would seek to include Nicholai in their plans for parties or outings, never dreaming that what they intended as benevolent condescension toward the foreigner was regarded by Nicholai as presumptuous egalitarianism.
It was not their irritating assumption of equality that annoyed Nicholai so much as their cultural confusions. The Americans seemed to confuse standard of living with quality of life, equal opportunity with institutionalized mediocrity, bravery with courage, machismo with manhood, liberty with freedom, wordiness with articulation, fun with pleasure—in short, all of the misconceptions common to those who assume that justice implies equality for all, rather than equality for equals.
In his most benevolent moods, he thought of Americans as children—energetic, curious, naïve, good-hearted, badly brought up children—in which respect he could detect very little difference between Americans and Russians. Both were hale, vigorous, physical peoples, both excelling in things material, both baffled by beauty, both swaggeringly confident that theirs was the ultimate ideology, both infantile and contentious, and both terribly dangerous. Dangerous because their toys were cosmic weapons that threatened the existence of civilization. The danger lay less in their malice than in their blundering. It was ironic to realize that the destruction of the world would not be the work of Machiavelli, but of Sancho Panza.
He never felt comfortable, having his source of survival dependent on these people, but there was no alternative, and he lived with his discomfort by ignoring it. It was not until the damp and blustery March of his second year that he was forced to learn that, when one dines with wolves, it is moot if one is guest or entrée.
Despite the melancholy weather, the eternal resilience of the Japanese spirit was expressed by the light, optimistic song “Ringo no Uta,” which was sweeping the nation and could be heard sung at half voice or hummed under the breath by thousands of people rebuilding from the physical and emotional rubble of the war. The cruel winters of famine were past; the springs of flood and poor harvest were behind; and there was a feeling abroad that the world was on the mend. Even beneath the damp winds of March, trees had begun to collect the faint greenish haze of early spring, the ghost of plenty.
When he arrived at his office that morning, his mood was so benevolent that he even found comic charm in the precious military obscurantism of the sign on his door: SCAP/COMCEN/SPHINX-FE (N-CODE/D-CODE).
His mind ranging elsewhere, he set himself to cleaning up a machine breakout of intercepted messages from the Soviet Occupation Forces of Manchuria, routine communications framed in low-grade code. As he had no interest in the military and political games of the Russians and Americans, he normally worked messages without attending to their content, much as a good stenographer types without reading. It was for this reason that he had already begun on another problem when the import of what he had just read blossomed in his mind. He pulled the sheet from his out box and read it again.
General Kishikawa Takashi was being flown to Tokyo by the Russians to face trial as a Class A War Criminal.
Washington
Conducted by Miss Swivven, the four men entered the elevator and stood in silence as she slipped her magnetically coded card into the slot marked “Floor 16.” The Arab trainee-in-terror whose code name was Mr. Haman lost his balance when, contrary to expectation, the elevator dropped rapidly into the bowels of the building. He bumped into Miss Swivven, who made a slight squeak as his shoulder brushed hers.
“I am so sorry, Madame. I had the assumption that the direction from the first floor to the sixteenth was upward. It should be so, mathematically speaking, but—”
A frown from his OPEC superior stemmed the falsetto babble, so he turned his attention to the taut nape of Miss Swivven’s neck.
The OPEC troubleshooter (codetermed Mr. Able, because he was top man in an able-baker-charlie-dog sequence) was embarrassed by his fellow Arab’s twittering voice and blundering ways. A third-generation Oxford man whose family had long enjoyed the cultural advantages of participating with the British in the exploitation of their people, Mr. Able scorned this parvenu son of a goatherd who had probably struck oil while overzealously driving a tent peg.
He was further annoyed at being called away from an intimate social affair to deal with some unexplained problem resulting, no doubt, from the incompetence of his compatriot and these CIA ruffians. Indeed, had the summons not borne the authority of the Chairman of the Mother Company, he would have ignored it, for at the moment of interruption he had been enjoying a most charming and titillating chat with a lovely young man whose father was an American senator.
Reacting to the OPEC man’s frigid disdain, the man stood well back in the elevator, attempting to appear occupied with more important worries than this little matter.
Darryl Starr, for his part, sought to maintain an image of cool indifference by jingling the coins in his pocket while he whistled between his teeth.
With palpable G-press, the elevator stopped, and Miss Swivven inserted a second magnetic card into the slot to open the doors. The goatherd took this opportunity to pat her ass. She flinched and drew away.
Ah, he thought. A woman of modesty. Probably a virgin. So much the better. Virginity is important to Arabs, who dread comparison, and with good reason.
Darryl Starr quite openly, and the Deputy more guardedly, examined their surroundings, for neither had ever before been admitted to the “Sixteenth Floor” of their building. But Mr. Able shook hands with Diamond curtly and demanded, “What is this all about? I am not pleased to be called here summarily, particularly on an evening when I had something else in hand.”
“You’ll be even less pleased when I explain,” Diamond said. He turned to Starr. “Sit down. I want you to learn the magnitude of your screw-up in Rome.”
Starr shrugged with pretended indifference and slid into a white plastic molded chair at the conference table with its etched glass surface for rear projection of computer data. The goatherd was lost in admiring the view beyond the picture window.
“Mr. Haman?” Diamond said.
The Arab’s nose touched the glass as he watched with delight the patterns of headlights making slow progress past the Washington Monument—the same cars that always crawled down that avenue at precisely this time of night.
“Mr. Haman?” Diamond repeated.
“What? Oh, yes! I always forget this code name I have been assigned. How humorous of me!”
“Sit,” Diamond said dully.
“Pardon me?”
“Sit!”
Grinning awkwardly, the Arab joined Starr at the table as Diamond gestured the OPEC representative to the head of the table, and he himself occupied his orthopedically designed swivel chair on its raised dais.
“Tell me, Mr. Able, what do you know about the spoiling raid at Rome International this morning?”
“Almost nothing. I do not burden myself with tactical details. Economic strategy is my concern.” He flicked an imaginary speck of dust from the sharp crease of his trousers.