“Then why,” Beria asked, “did you authorize our operative to tell the nationalists where the Jews were hiding their bomb?”

Before answering, Molotov weighed the startled expression on Zhukov’s face and the stony one on Gromyko’s. Gromyko looked that stony only when concealing what he really thought. Here he was probably concealing horror. Molotov did not look toward Beria. Maybe the NKVD chief would prove smug, maybe he would manage to hold in what he was thinking. But, just as Molotov stirred up dissension among his advisors, so Beria was trying to rouse dissension against the General Secretary. Yes, Lavrenti Pavlovich wanted to follow Himmler to the top.

“Why?” Molotov said, letting none of that show in his face or his voice. “Because I expected the reactionaries to fail and be discredited: a bomb like this early German model weighs a good many tonnes, and is not easy to move. And even if the nationalists did succeed in stealing it, they are likelier to use it against the Lizards or the Jews or the Nazis than against us. A small risk, I thought-and I was right.”

Zhukov relaxed. Gromyko went right on showing the world nothing. And Beria-Beria fumed. Like so many from down in the Caucasus, he had trouble holding on to his temper. Stalin had been the same way. Stalin, though, had been even more frightening. Molotov used Zhukov and Gromyko to check Beria. No one had been able to check Stalin, not in anything that really mattered.

Perhaps realizing he was checked now, Beria changed the subject: “Comrade General Secretary, I am pleased to report that we have successfully delivered a sizable shipment of arms to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.”

“That is good news,” Molotov agreed. “I am given to understand, however, that Mao’s emissary to the United States still attracts a good deal of favorable notice in the American press, and that it is likely President Warren will try to get weapons through to the People’s Liberation Army.”

“If you want her assassinated, I will see what I can do,” Beria said. “Blaming it on the Lizards should not be too difficult.”

“Assassinations have dangerous and unpredictable consequences,” Gromyko said. “They are a strategy of last resort, not one of first instance. The risks here outweigh the benefits.”

“How so?” Beria said defiantly.

“America can never have the influence in China we do,” the foreign commissar replied. “Never, with geography as it is and politics as they are now. U.S. access to the mainland of Asia is too limited. The Japanese Empire and the Pacific Ocean prevent it from being anything else-especially when Japan has her own ambitions in China, which she does. We, on the other hand, can penetrate the Chinese frontier at any point of our choosing along thousands of kilometers. Let the Americans do the Lizards in China a little harm. It is all they can do.”

“A reasonable answer, I think, Lavrenti Pavlovich,” Molotov said. “Your comments? Counterarguments?”

“Never mind.” Beria turned his head to glare at Gromyko. The chandeliers overhead made the lenses of his spectacles look like opaque golden ellipses to Molotov. Yes, a barn owl, Molotov thought. That’s what he reminds me of. Gromyko looked back at Beria, imperturbable as always.

Molotov dismissed the meeting a few minutes later. He had a better sense now of what the Soviet Union should and should not try to do. He’d also kept his subordinates divided. As he lit a cigarette, he wondered which was more important.

13

“No, I’m sorry, Karen,” Major Sam Yeager said into the telephone, “but I can tell you right now that Jonathan isn’t going to be around tomorrow night. There’s a reception scheduled downtown, and he’s got to be there with Barbara and me.”

“Oh,” Karen said in a dull voice, and then, “Is it another reception for these Chinese women? I’d thought they’d have gone home by now.”

“Not for a while yet,” Yeager answered, which, he realized too late, was probably more than he should have said.

“The one my age-” Karen began. After a moment, she sighed and said, “I’d better go. I’ve got studying to do. Goodbye, Mr. Yeager.”

“Goodbye,” Sam said, but he was talking into a dead telephone. With a sigh of his own, he hung up. Sitting on the bed beside him, Barbara gave him a quizzical look. He shook his head. “Karen’s jealous of Liu Mei, that’s what it is.”

“Oh, dear.” Barbara raised an eyebrow. “Does she have reason to be jealous, do you think?”

“Why are you asking me? The one you need to ask is Jonathan.” Yeager held up a hasty hand. “I know, I know-he’ll say, ‘None of your business.’ I probably would have said the same thing when I was his age-but when I was nineteen, I was out on the road playing ball, making my own living.”

“Not so easy to do that nowadays,” Barbara said.

“No, especially if you can’t hit a curveball,” Sam said, a little sadly. Jonathan wasn’t a terrible sandlot player, but he’d never make a pro, not in a million years.

Barbara said, “Maybe he is sweet on Liu Mei. You used to have to drag him to these receptions. Now he goes without any fuss, and the two of them do spend a lot of time together.”

“I know. Wouldn’t that be something, though?” Yeager shook his head in slow wonder. “Bobby Fiore’s kid…”

“Who is half Chinese,” Barbara said with brisk feminine practicality. “Who was raised in China-except when she was raised by the Lizards-who doesn’t speak much English, and who’s going back to China some time in the not too indefinite future.”

“You know all that,” Sam said. “I know all that. Jonathan knows all that, too. Question is, does he care?”

He got another chance to find out the next evening, when he and Barbara and Jonathan piled into the Buick to go up to the reception at City Hall. The building dominated the Los Angeles skyline, being the only one permitted to exceed the twelve-story limit enforced from fear of earthquakes.

People still turned out to meet and be seen with Liu Han and Liu Mei: the local Chinese community, politicians, military men, and the kind of people Sam had come to think of as prominent gawkers. He’d been astonished to meet John Wayne at one of these bashes. Barbara’s only comment was, “Why couldn’t it have been Cary Grant?”

Here and now, Sam got a drink, made a run at the buffet, and dutifully circulated through the crowd. If he ended up in a knot of men in uniform, that was no great surprise. The officers’ wives formed a similar knot a few feet away.

After a while, Liu Han gave a little speech about how much China in general and the People’s Liberation Army in particular needed American help. Her English was better than it had been when she got to the USA the summer before. When she sat down, the mayor of Los Angeles got up and made a much longer speech covering the same points.

Actually, Sam only thought it covered the same points, for he soon stopped listening. Turning to the colonel next to him, he murmured, “Sir, isn’t there something against this in the Geneva Convention?”

The colonel snorted. “We’re not prisoners of war,” he said, and then paused. “It does seem that way, though, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, sir,” Yeager answered. “And to think: I could be at the dentist’s office now.”

That won him another snort from the colonel, a big, bluff fellow with pilot’s wings and the rocket that showed he’d flown in space. “You’re a dangerous man-though not half as dangerous as the windbag up there.”

“He’ll shut up sooner or later,” Sam said. “He has to… doesn’t he?”

Eventually, the mayor did descend from the podium. He got a heartfelt round of applause, and looked delighted. Sam shook his head. The damn fool couldn’t tell the audience was cheering not because of anything he’d said but because he’d finally stopped saying it.