Andrei said nothing and after a moment Rykov mused, “The Japanese proverb has it that great villainy is often called loyalty. Of course any war is proper and just if you win it and get to write the history books.” He lit one of his Pamirs and held it nervously, lifting it to his lips every few seconds with a jagged motion. “If Belsky fails, it will destroy me and there is nothing I can do about it.”

“Belsky has never failed,” Andrei said politely.

“The fate of us all has never rested on Belsky’s shoulders before,” Rykov replied.

Ticking silence, and then Rykov continued, “I spoke again with Yashin tonight.”

Andrei started. “And?”

“The same. He accuses me of desiring a Wagnerian glory, a Pyrrhic victory. Once again I showed him our evidence and once again he shrugged it off—he has the audacity to quote Stalin to me: ‘Paper will put up with anything printed on it.’ To him either the Chineseare too cleven to risk war with us or they are stupid enough to be bluffing.”

“That’s only rhetoric,” Andrei said. “It fails to take the facts into account.”

“Exactly what I said to Yashin. But as always it is Grigo-renko who has Yashin’s ear and the GRU is persuaded it is all a Chinese bluff to make us give ground.”

Andrei drew breath; he made his voice reluctant: “The GRU could be right.”

“Right?” Rykov spat the word out as if it were an insect that had flown into his mouth. He stabbed his cigarette into the tray on the corner of the desk and immediately lit another. Andrei could not recall having seen him so angry; it was a bleak chill that came off Rykov like death and Andrei, who had been ready to speak, held his tongue.

“What does it matter if the are right or wrong? China has thrown down the gauntlet, bluff or not. We must accept the challenge or back away from it. The troika means to back away and we cannot have that. Khrushehev’s regime was toppled in the end because Khrashchev backed away when Kennedy rattled a saber. And Cuba was far away across the world. What must happen if we give ground before the Chinese on our own borders? Is there any question? Another debacle on our part and there will be nothing left of Russian resolve, Russian will, Russian courage. Stalin sought to appease Hitler and we know what came off that, and still the troika carries on. To preserve the illusion of peace they will give away our Far Eastern lands and they will give away Russian dignity. ‘We must hold up our heads among the civilized nations of the world,’ Yashin says. As if the opinion of the rest of the world mattered more than Russia’s opinion of herself.”

Andrei spoke carefully. “Naturally I agree that peace is not the sole objective—not at the expense of Soviet territory or as you say Soviet dignity. But possibly war is not the only available alternative.”

Rykov’s thick lips rolled around the cigarette. “Strategy is not your strong point, Andrei. It is China, not the Soviet Union, which has offered the ultimatum. N’est-ce pas?”

“Yes, I think we all agree on that.”

“And Yashin insists it is a bluff, and you are not certain but that Yashin is right.”

“Intending no disloyalty, I must concede the truth of that.”

Rykov continued the dialectic: “Whether it is a bluff or not China is shaking the mailed fist at us. What are the options? Only two. Accept the challenge and fight back—by hitting them before they hit us. It’s elementary but the troika remains stubbornly blind to it and that is why we have had to take these extraordinary clandestine measures.”

“It is a logic with a weakness,” Andrei replied, willing to say it now because Rykov had calmed down. “The weakness is that yours are not the only alternatives.”

“I see no others.”

“But of course there is another,” Andrei said mildly. “We simply ignore the challenge. Act as if we know nothing of their war preparations. Continue as before, giving no ground yet starting no hostilities. After a while the Chinese will have to recognize the foolishness of their fruitless threat and they’ll dismantle it.”

“An assumption of dubious validity, Andrei, unless we are prepared to admit at the outset that under no circumstances is China willing to risk war—that the entire structure is pure bluff.”

“The GRU assumes it is.”

“The GRU does not have our resources,” Rykov said patiently.

“But with all our resources we have not received incontestable evidence that China actually intends to attack us. Clues, hints, possibilities yes. But no Chinese official is known to have stated unequivocally that they intend to make war on us.”

“The bulk of the evidence is far too substantial to ignore.”

“But it is not conclusive.”

Rykov said, “It is to me.”

Andrei dipped his head. “Your judgment has always been correct.”

It was the proper thing to say. It earned Rykov’s fatherly smile.

When Rykov left the office and went into his own, Andrei went downstairs two flights and entered one of the subsection Control offices. The sentry nodded and drew himself up because a visit from the Second Secretary was rare. Andrei closed the door behind him and made use of one of the safe-line phones. It took a little while to get through and when Yashin came on the line his first words were, “Wasn’t that you before?”

“Yes. Viktor came in just as you picked up.”

“I see.” On the telephone Yashin’s voice seemed particularly scratchy with age. “What has happened, then?”

“Yevtenko arrived from Peking and I spoke with him.”

“Does his report coincide with those Viktor has been receiving from his people?”

“More or less. There were no remarkable differences—no one is lying to us. It’s a question of emphasis. They might make the same moves either way; you can see that—if a bluff is to be convincing it must look like the real thing. But Yevtenko has been on the scene a long time and I should be inclined to rely rather heavily on his aptitude for scenting the difference between a real effort and a sham. That was why I wanted to meet with him personally instead of having him report by the usual channels—I wanted to gauge his feelings as well as his knowledge of the facts.”

“And?”

“He believes they are bluffing.”

“Why?”

“As I say, it’s mostly intuition. He assumes the Chinese expect us to be spying on them—otherwise it couldn’t be a bluff, you see. They must intend for us to know what they’re doing. With that in mind a few lucky coincidences become less coincidental. For example, when Yuan Tung sought an agent to obtain up-to-date defense charts of Vladivostok he just happened to single out one of our own double agents for the assignment. Several things like that. One of Yevtenko’s sub-agents had been in deep cover for three years until Yevtenko activated him on my orders a few days ago—the subagent has spent a year as a domestic on the staff of the Maoist elite retreat in the mountains of central China, the underground bunkers where the Maoist leadership will presumably safeguard itself during a war. Viktor has had extensive reports of increased shipments into that retreat—indications that they are preparing the subterranean caverns for a long siege. But our subagent reports that the preparations inside the underground bunkers have not been nearly as comprehensive as those outside. For example bedding has been received but has not been unpacked. Many of the foodstuff shipments are of a perishable nature and they do not have sufficient freezer capacity to store them for any length of time. That sort of thing. What I’m getting at is that it looks as though they are making war preparations only in the places where they have reason to expect us to see the preparations.”

Yashin said, “That sounds fairly conclusive to me.”

“No. Not necessarily. It could all be explained—perhaps they expect to set up the bedding later; perhaps they still have freezers scheduled to arrive within the next forty-eight hours. It’s all conjectural. But Yevtenko has a very keen nose and no matter how hard I pressed him he still insisted he smells a bluff, though it is not cut and dried by any means.”