Free Deep Lie by Stuart Woods

you. Believe it.”
     
    “I don’t know why.” she said, “but I do believe you.
     
    Is this possible? Can you make it happen?”
     
    “Majorov has promised me that when this assignment is over. anything will be possible. I believe him.”
     
    She turned her head and put it on his shoulder.
     
    “Majorov can make it happen, there’s no doubt about that.”
     
    “I’m going to give Majorov what he wants.” Helder said.
     
    “I’m going to make it my business to amaze him with what I can do. And when it’s over. he’ll give me what I want.”
     
    “Yes.” she said dully.
     
    “We must both give Majorov what he wants.”
     
    They stood for a long time in the dark. holding each other. RULE sat down and inserted her key in the computer terminal that rested on the typewriter shelf of her desk. When the monitor had warmed up, the date and time appeared in the upper right hand corner of the screen, and a single sentence was centered.
     
    TELL OLD COSMO WHO YOU ARE, PLEASE.
     
    She tapped a ten-digit number into the keypad. There was a brief pause while the computer, which was called Cosmo for no other reason than that the name had popped into the mind of whoever did the original programming, checked the number against its files and started to record.
     
    Rule knew that, at any time, somebody in the computer center could check the record of her computer usage and learn immediately what programs she had run and when.
     
    GOOD MORNING, MRS. RULE. YOU’RE UP EARLY.
     
    WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU?
     
    Rule had long stopped being irritated that the programmers had a sense of humor; anyway, she had begun to think of Cosmo as practically a person. She typed in
     
    ID MUG
     
    FILE DESIGNATION?
     
    REVIEW, she typed. She didn’t have a file number, but no one would think it odd that she was reviewing photographs.
     
    She did it a couple of times a week.
     
    NATIONALITY? Cosmo asked.
     
    SOVIET, she typed back.
     
    LOCALE?
     
    Wl
     
    D.C.
     
    SEX?
     
    M.
     
    DESCRIPTION?
     
    N/A.
     
    LEGAL?
     
    YES.
     
    INTERVAL?
     
    She typed a one.
     
    TYPE P FOR PAUSE. C FOR CONTINUE. ESC TO
     
    LEAVE PROGRAM.
     
    Mug shots of all male Soviet embassy personnel began to appear on the screen at one-second intervals. Rule was so accustomed to this drill that she didn’t need a longer look. She watched the faces closely as they went by. pausing now and then for a closer examination when the subject was the right age and shape. Nothing. She ran methodically through the legals in every Eastern Bloc embassy in Washington. Still nothing.
     
    ANYTHING ELSE. MRS. RULE?
     
    NO, she typed.
     
    LISTEN. WHY DON’T WE HAVE A DRINK AFTER
     
    WORK?
     
    Cosmo said this to all the girls. She wondered if the director of the computer center knew it. Probably, she decided.
     
    GET LOST. she typed, and switched off the terminal.
     
    One thing about Cosmo, you couldn’t hurt his feelings.
     
    Sometimes she wished you could. The newly approved computer expansion would bring in voice activation, and Rule wasn’t sure she was looking forward to it.
     
    As usual, even before she had come to a rational conclusion about her problem, she knew how she felt about it: she was depressed. When she thought about it rationally, it didn’t help. Nothing added up. First of all. the face didn’t register. The face should have been there in the computer.
     
    Every visa photograph of every opposition legal was in the computer; it was updated daily. Surveillance wasn’t the sort of work illegals did. ever: they were too expensive and too valuable to risk. so the guys had to be legals. And yet. the one whose face she’d seen just wasn’t there. It wasn’t Will they were tailing, either; they had been with her coming and going. And there were only two of them-that was inexcusably substandard work. Still, maybe they had expected her to be at Will’s all night, maybe the other two were cooping somewhere, waiting for daylight.