Free Brainfire by Campbell Armstrong Page A

entirely trusted the other was a fact both accepted; even between allies there had to be a certain caution, a certain circumspection.
    Koprow, struggling with a nicotine habit, took a pack of imported English mints, Polos, from his pocket and broke open the green wrapper. He watched Maksymovich rise from behind his ornate desk and cross the rug—an elaborate fringed thing, the gift of some obscure sheik who had recently been assassinated in a bloody uprising supported by Soviet guns. He stood at the window, his back to Koprow, and for a moment he was silent.
    â€œI’m too old to believe in fairy tales,” he said after a time. “This Blum woman—she sounds almost too good to be true.”
    Koprow caught himself in the act of pushing the tip of his tongue through the hole in his white mint. It irritated him. He longed for a cigarette. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “The woman’s an aberration. A freak of nature. Those are facts. I admit it sounds farfetched but the point is—the only point is that she exists.”
    Maksymovich turned around. His little half-moon glasses slipped and he pushed them, rather delicately, back up his nose. “She exists. A natural Soviet resource. Like Siberian oil?”
    â€œAs you say.”
    Maksymovich returned to his desk and opened a folder that was marked PRIORITY CONFIDENTIAL . He had read it; he had read it so many times he knew it by heart. He didn’t particularly want to believe it. But there it was. He closed the folder, laying the palm of his hand flat against it.
    â€œShe must never be allowed to leave for Israel,” he said.
    â€œObviously,” said Koprow.
    â€œNaturally, too, I would like to see some further evidence of her abilities—”
    â€œShe has already been told that further cooperation will be needed.” Koprow cracked the mint at the back of his mouth.
    Maksymovich glanced at Koprow a moment. Then he sat down, gazing at the folder. He was thinking of Lindholm: there was no fool like an old fool. Mallory—well, Mallory was a different proposition. He sighed, trying to put the contents of the folder from his mind. Even from normally impeccable sources some things were not entirely believable.
    â€œWhat about the people around her?” he asked.
    â€œAndreyev is a coward,” Koprow said, in a manner that suggested he had probed Andreyev’s soul only to find, in its darkest recesses, a fatal structural weakness. “And his assistant—you don’t need to have any worries over her.” He inscribed a circle in the air with his hands, a circle of containment, of control.
    Maksymovich nodded. He was beset by a sudden restlessness, a need for action: sitting behind a desk, signing letters, looking over projects—all this was a bog of paper work and he loathed it. He removed his glasses and held them away from his face at arm’s length—distastefully, as if they reminded him of infirmity and thus of his own mortality.
    â€œIn the matter of control—” he began to say.
    But Koprow interrupted him. “I don’t think that should concern us. She believes her son and his family might be in danger if she fails to cooperate.”
    â€œYou’re sure she believes that? You’re positive?”
    Koprow stood up, nodding his head, smiling a little. “I’m sure. She wants to believe it. That’s the important thing.”
    Maksymovich looked doubtful a moment. “You’re sure that nobody around her knows the truth?”
    Koprow looked toward the window, mentally contrasting the size of this office with his own. He did not like the comparison at all. “I’ve taken every precaution. The letters are forged and mailed by an operative in Tel Aviv. A Jew, curiously. The most recent photographs were taken in a studio here in Moscow, using models. Naturally, they’re not very distinct pictures, but they’ll pass. How can I let