He was offering Yashin a simple trade and making it clear he was not asking for support, only indifference.

Yashin lit his pipe. He had not conceded yet. “We’ll see,” he said again. “You may proceed.”

Rykov sat back. “Andrei?”

Andrei clasped his hands behind him and assumed a gentle ex cathedra manner. “The first group of trainees is to matriculate in three weeks’ time. They’ll be seeded in at discreet intervals over a period of eighteen or twenty months. These agents may not be called on to act for many years, and in the meantime their whole concern will be to behave like Americans. That’s why their training here has to be exhaustive, and incidentally expensive. Once in place they will have no contact with active Soviet field agents. Their instructions will come from Moscow—directly, without the use of established rezidentsii or safe-houses.

“When and if a Moscow Control is sent out to activate them, he’ll have to make contact without the use of any ritualistic devices like codes and countersigns—they can’t be expected to remember obscure passwords over a span of ten or twenty years.

“When contact is made the procedure will be simple. Control will address the agent by his real name, his Russian name, and he’ll supply the names of both the agent’s parents. In turn the agent will give him the full names of all four of his grandparents. Any enemy agent who gets deep enough into things to learn those names and their proper use will know so much about us that nothing would add to the damage already done.

“No agent is to take into his confidence anyone outside his own immediate cell, even if it’s someone he thinks he met here at Amergrad. If he’s not a member of the same cell he’s to be treated as if he’s a real American. The only communication between cells will be between cell leaders and of course agents and leaders will know only what they need to know for the execution of their own missions.”

Andrei shifted his stance and his voice changed slightly. “They’re going to be seeded into a place called Tucson, in the Southwestern desert. Population around fifty thousand. Industries, at the moment, cattle, copper mining, tourism. The town provides services and transport for the surrounding agricultural and mineral districts.”

“Cowboy country,” Grigorenko said. “Why?”

“Our analyses indicate Tucson will become an important defense center within a few years. It’s in the same part of the country as the aircraft and missile plants in California and Utah, it’s not far from the Alamogordo test range, the nuclear laboratories at Los Alamos, and the Nevada nuclear testing sites. It’s four hundred miles inland from the nearest coastline, which makes it invulnerable to naval air attack, and the weather and topography encourage year-round aircraft and missile operations. The Army has a sophisticated artillery and electronics testing facility nearby at Fort Huachuca and in Tucson itself there are two Air Force bases—Davis Monthan, part of the Strategic Air Command, and Marana, a pilot-training field. We feel Tucson will become a vitally important base for intercontinental bombers and long-range rockets armed with nuclear warheads, as well as a center for research and weapons factories.”

Yashin said, “Of course that’s an opinion. You can’t be absolutely certain it will develop that way.”

He was talking to Rykov, and Rykov answered him: “We deal with probabilities, indications, suggestions.”

“Circumstantial evidence.”

“Yes. When you’ve got enough of it and it all points in the same direction, you can be fairly sure you’re on the right track. But absolute certainty? No. That’s beyond our power.”

“Then you’re committing the Soviet government to a course of action based on guesswork.” Yashin’s face shifted toward Andrei. “You may proceed.”

Color flooded Andrei’s face. “As I said, our Illegals will be seeded into Tucson on a steady basis. The infiltration will continue into 1956, by which time we expect to have seeded nearly three hundred highly trained Amergrad agents into the city.”

Grigorenko sat up. “Three hundred agents to spy on one town?”

“Spy on it? No. We’re not concerned with cloak-and-dagger charades. Our people are under orders to do nothing which could jeopardize their cover. Even if they see a chance to obtain secret information—even if they think it’s vitally important—they’re not to touch it. In fact if they discover a Soviet agent spying on secret activities they have orders to do their patriotic duty as Americans by turning the spy in to the American authorities.”

“Absurd,” Grigorenko said. “Madness.” He turned his face toward Yashin.

Yashin said only, “Go on.”

Flexor muscles contracted Andrei’s hands but he went on gamely, his smile fixed and meaningless, and Rykov let him handle it by himself because Andrei would never learn how if someone was always there supporting him.

“We’ve projected a heavy multiplication of military installations in Tucson over the next twelve years. The purpose of the Rykov plan is to have our agents in place before the installations are even built—the Americans won’t suspect people who are already entrenched important members of the community.”

“Important members?” Grigorenko lifted his hand and turned it over. “Overnight?”

“People come from everywhere to the Southwest. For their health, retirement, a lazy bourgeois life. Our Illegals will be part of the stream.”

“You said ‘entrenched.’ You can’t just walk in and overthrow the power structure.”

Andrei twitched but he did not look at Rykov. “It’s a transient city. There’s no traditional hierarchy—very few old families, no settled political structures taken for granted. We expect the population of Tucson to double in six years and that will give us an immigration of new voters who weren’t there before and therefore can’t be counted on to support old-time politicians. In American municipal politics the party labels have no meaning, all the candidates spout the same capitalist rubbish, but individual faces come and go constantly and our people will have no difficulty insinuating themselves into both major parties in five or six years.”

Yashin stirred. “You talk as if you intend to take over the entire city.”

“Yes, quite. Not only the city, but the Air Force bases, the aircraft plants, and the guided-missile installations—as they are built. They’ll all be looking for personnel, particularly administrators and engineers with military experience. That’s why we’ve recruited quite a few of our people from the Red Air Forces. We’ll be in control of the entire war machine in that sector of the United States—our people will be established in every echelon from military officers and plant executives all the way down to flight-line mechanics and factory janitors. When the final stage of the Rykov plan takes effect we’ll own the Tucson military complex as if it were a Russian air base on the outskirts of Moscow.”

Chapter One

March 197-

The red scrambler operational telephone was always in the corner of his vision. Smith turned the page of the specifications manual and shifted his buttocks on the hard seat of his chair and checked his watch again to remind himself that boredom was finite: his shift in the subterranean doomsday room would end and presently he would return to sunshine above ground. Smith had an earnest young face and an AFBSD patch on his Air Force uniform. Smith, Arthur, NMI, First Lieutenant USAF, 036754991.

The windowless room was sealed like an orbital capsule and the sterile console panel glittered with screens, toggles, dials, buttons—all the self-conscious set-decoration of computer technology. Antiseptic air whispered from ducts in the thick walls and there was a subliminal rumble of life-support machinery; the recirculation systems were designed to keep Smith alive long enough to do his job after the atmosphere above ground had been rendered poisonous by CBW or nuclear attack.