Pappy Johnson switched on his throat mike. “This time you misters will get those bombs on target or I’ll personally throw you out of these airplanes with no parachutes.”

They made five passes. The last three were good enough to make Felix beam at Pappy Johnson: on the third go they stopped three out of four motorcars in their tracks with bombs that penetrated clear through to the ground. On the fourth go they hit two out of three. On the fifth the ground echelon sent five cars onto the field and Felix’s flight hit four of them.

“The last drop looked pretty good,” Johnson admitted into the radio.

“We’re out of bombs,” Felix announced. “Close up those holes and keep it tight-let’s go home for a coffee break.”

He put the nose up into the clouds and they swam into the sunlight. “Now all I’ve got to do is find a place to put this thing down.”

“They’ll bring you in.”

“Jigsaw Tower-this is Jigsaw One. Can you give me a radar fix?”

The answer was a moment coming and he felt his jaw tighten but then the radio spoke cheerfully:

“Roger, Jigsaw One. Turn to zero-four-five and fly for eight minutes. Then turn to one-six-zero. We’ll keep a fix on you.”

Johnson was charging the flare pistol, inserting it in the fuselage tube above his head in case they made a forced landing: a flare would pinpoint them for rescuers.

Down to 1,000 feet now and about six miles to go. Pappy Johnson said drily, “You want the gear down by any chance, Your Highness?”

“What? Oh-yes. Yes.”

“Thought you might.”

He peered into the soup. There were bangs and rattles in the airframe as the wheels locked down.

“Tower to Jigsaw One. Fly one-five-five.”

“Roger. I have the runway in sight.” He glanced at Johnson: “Flaps twenty.”

“Yeah. Just remember this airplane does not have reversible props.”

The ground came up grey and wet. He came in fast-100 knots-and he had to stop the airplane before he ran out of runway so he fishtailed gently and rode his brakes and brought her in fifty yards short of the limit. He pulled off to the side to give the others room to land and when they were down he taxied her over to the hardstands and sliced an index finger across his Adam’s apple-the signal to Johnson to cut his engines.

Calhoun was walking over with the chocks when they dropped out of the hatch. “Give us a dollar’s worth,” Pappy Johnson said, “and a manicure and a good rubdown, Calhoun.”

Then Johnson turned and walked Felix toward the Ready Room. “You’ve got four weeks left to hit the targets every time. Not three out of four, not four out of five. Every time.”

“I hope we can.”

“You can do it,” Johnson said. “You’re a good outfit. Better than you think you are.”

“Are we?”

“You know you are. You just needed to have someone tell you.”

18

At the dying end of October the three Russian noblemen boarded a trimotor at Barcelona and flew to Lisbon, A hard Atlantic sun burned in the cloudless Portuguese sky but the wind that came off the ocean was cold and whipping; there were whitecaps in the Tagus estuary.

The Peugeot that transported them through Lisbon had hard springs and stank of imbedded fumes of Gauloise tobacco; the driver was a chain-smoking Frenchman badly in need of a shave. The three Russians-Prince Leon Kirov; Count Anatol Markov; Baron Oleg Zimovoi-wore Homburgs and topcoats and their luggage consisted only of overnight cases.

The narrow streets of Lisbon thronged with human flotsam-the refugee overflow of the European war-and here and there a man could be seen walking purposefully, topcoat flying in the sinister wind; these were the ones who had somewhere to go, the black-marketeers and salesmen of information who had descended upon Lisbon in the past year like hungry ants on a dying carcass. Lisbon was the Occident’s Macao: the capital of intrigue, a living museum of every phylum and species of human vice and avarice. The crowded architecture was stone and stucco in bleak grey hues; cobblestones glistening with river spray; crumbling buildings five hundred years old that bespoke suspicion, evil, torture, Inquisition. In the passages dark automobiles crowded horse carts aside and darted homicidally among the pedestrian fugitives.

Their host’s driver slid the Peugeot through the crowds with stolid contempt and presently they were out of Lisbon along the right bank of the estuary; now the speed went up and they were wheeling along the coast road with a rubbery whine, speeding through the fishing villages-Belem, Oeiras, Estoril-finally Cascais.

Count Anatol said, “It is just up to the right now if I recall.”

Oleg was instantly suspicious: “You have been here before?”

“It was not always American Embassy property. At one time it was a villa belonging to the Graf von Schnee. One of the finest private baccarat tables in Europe. Players came from as far away as South America.”

“When men have nothing better to do with money than gamble it away…”

Prince Leon cut across him smoothly: “I think we’re here.”

The villa was on a height in a pastel cluster of genteel residences each of which had its two or three acre garden of semi-tropical vegetation: rubbery greenery, bougainvillaea, palms, grape trees, Bermuda lawns, flowers carefully tended and vividly displayed. A high wall sealed off the property and a man in an olive drab uniform and a white Sam Browne belt came to attention at the gate. The driveway was crushed seashells; it gritted under the tires.

The portico was an arched stucco affair; the villa was high and massive with walls of North African tile, predominantly pink-very bright in the sun. Their heels rang on the mosaic floor.

They had proceeded along half the length of the lofty corridor when the wide doors opened at the far end and their host revealed himself. “Welcome, gentlemen. I’m Colonel Buckner.”

“It’s good of you to come on such short notice.” Buckner arranged the seating and saw to their drinks. Then he took a place in the circle of chairs.

It had been the Graf von Schnee’s game room and the silent deep carpet remained but the room had been redesigned by its American tenants as a conference chamber; there was a long table beneath the windows but he hadn’t wanted the formality of that.

He began with casual inquiries; it was the first time he’d met any of them and he didn’t want to reveal the extent of his knowledge about them.

After a decent interval he cleared his throat and leaned forward in his seat with his forearms across his knees. “Very well then. Suppose we start by having me lay out the situation and then we’ll discuss it from there. Are there any questions you’d like to ask me before I start?”

There were none; he hadn’t expected any. They were smart enough to sound him out first.

He said, “I’m here as the informal representative of the President. I stress the word ‘informal.’ Nothing I say can be construed to be a binding commitment by my government. We’re involved in a clandestine operation-if there’s ever a public question about it we’re all bound to deny it. Even if your operation succeeds it’ll be many years before Washington will be able to admit having had any part in it.”

“That’s fully understood,” said Baron Oleg Zimovoi. “There won’t be any embarrassing exposures on our part.”

“I’m just trying to explain to you why we’d have to deny it.”

Baron Oleg produced a pipe and a pouch.

Buckner said, “Here’s where we stand. You’re trying to overthrow the Stalin government. You’ve got tacit approval and a certain amount of secret materiel support from the governments of the United States and Great Britain.

“This thing was pretty chancy from the start. There’ve always been a lot of ifs in it. I don’t know if you realize this but we very nearly lost Russia to the Nazis ten days ago-there was an attempt on Stalin’s life.”