The Minotaur

Terry Franklin was a spy. This afternoon, in a small cubbyhole in the basement of the Pentagon, he was practicing his trade. It was tedious work.

He adjusted the screen brightness on his computer monitor and tapped the secret access code of the user he was pretending to be. Now the file name, also top secret. He had to be careful, since the letters and numerals he was typing did not appear on the screen. A mistake here meant the computer might lock him out and deny him the file. And he was not a good typist. He worked with just two fingers. Voilà! There it was. The A.T.A. file, the advanced tactical aircraft. He tapped some more and began examining the document list. Number 23.241, that's the first one. He slid one of his high-density. 5.25-inch floppies into the slot and tapped some more. The little red light above the disk drive came on and the drive began to whir. Franklin smiled when he saw the light.

It was quiet here in the computer-troubleshooting shop. The only noise was the whirring of the disk drive and the tiny click of the computer keys. And the sound of Terry Franklin's breathing. It was ironic, he mused, how the computer silently and effortlessly reveals the deepest secrets of its owners. Without remorse, without a twinge of emotion of any kind, the screen lay bare the insights gained from man-years of research by highly educated, gifted scientists and the cunning application of that research by extraordinarily talented engineers. Pouring onto the (continued on page 116)The Mind taur (continued from base 112) floppy diskwas a treasure more valuable than gold, more precious than diamonds, a treasure beyond the reach of most of the human race, still struggling as it was with basic survival. Only here, in America, where a significant percentage of the best brains on the planet were actively engaged in fundamental research into the secrets of creation, were these intangible jewels being created insignificant quantity, gushing forth almost too fast to steal.

Terry Franklin grinned to himself as he worked. He would do his best. He called up the document list again, then changed floppies as he listened to the silence.

These three little floppy disks would earn him $30,000. He had bargained hard; $10,000 a disk, whether full or partially full. Cash.

He had figured out a way to make computers pay. He grinned happily at this thought and stroked the keyboard again.

Terry Franklin had become a spy for the money. He had volunteered. He had made his decision after reading everything he could lay his hands on about espionage. Only then had he devised a plan to market the classified material he had access to as a Navy enlisted computer specialist. He had thought about the plan for months, looking for holes and weighing the risks. There were risks, he knew, huge ones, but that was the reason the compensation would be so high. And, he assured himself repeatedly, he enjoyed taking risks. It would add spice to his life, make a boring marriage and a boring job tolerable. So he recruited himself.

One Saturday morning five years ago, Terry Franklin had walked into the Soviet embassy in Washington. He had read that the FBI kept the embassy under constant surveillance and photographed everyone who entered. So he wore a wig, a false mustache and heavy, mirrorlike sunglasses. He told the receptionist he wanted to see an intelligence officer. After a 45-minute wait, he was shown into a small, bright, windowless room and was carefully searched by the receptionist, a muscular, trim man in his early 30s. A half hour later--he was convinced he was photographed during this period by an unseen camera--a nondescript man in his 50s wearing a baggy suit entered and occupied the only other chair. Without a word, Franklin displayed his green Navy I.D. card, then handed the man a roll of film. The man weighed it in his hand as Franklin removed the sunglasses, wig and mustache. The Russian left the room without speaking. Another half hour passed, then another. No doubt he was again photographed.

It was almost noon when baggy suit returned. He smiled as he entered and shook Franklin's hand. Could he examine the I.D. card? Where was Franklin stationed? When had he exposed the film? Why? The Russian's English was good but slightly accented.

Money, Terry Franklin had said. "I want money. I have something to sell and I brought you a free sample, hoping you might want to buy more."

Now, as Franklin worked the computer keyboard, he thought back to that day at the embassy. It had been the most momentous day of his life. Five years and two months after that day, he had $540,000 in cash in a safe-deposit box in McLean, Virginia, under an assumed name and no one was the wiser. He was going to quit spying when that figure reached a million. And when his enlistment was up, he was going to walk out on Lucy and the kids and fly to South America.

It was typical of Terry Franklin that he intended to delay his departure until he received his discharge. When he entered his new life, he would go free, clean and legal, with no arrest warrants anywhere. He could go in his fake identity. Petty Officer First Class Terry Franklin, the college kid from Bakersfield who had knocked up Lucy Southworth in the back seat of her father's station wagon at a drive-in movie, married her, then joined the Navy--that Terry Franklin would cease to exist.

Five hundred forty thousand dollars, plus $30,000 for these three disks; it was a nice bundle. A lot of money. But not enough. He wasn't greedy, but he had to have a stake big enough so that he could live on the interest.

He had been very, very careful. He had made no mistakes. He had never spent a penny of the money. The spying was going smooth as clockwork. These Russians, they were damn good. You had to take your hat off to them. They had never called or spoken to him after that last meeting in Miami almost three years ago, right after he received orders to the Pentagon.

The operation was slick, almost foolproof, he reflected as he inserted the third disk. The calls always came on an evening when his wife was out, sometimes with her bowling league, sometimes at a friend's house. The phone rang once, and if he picked it up, there was no one there, merely a dial tone. One minute later, it rang again, once. Then a minute after that it rang one, two, three or four times. The number of rings that third time was the message. He was to check dead drop one, two, three or four, and he was to do it as soon as possible. He usually left the house immediately, cruised for at least an hour in his car to ensure he wasn't being followed, then headed for the dead drop. And the instructions would be there. Spelled out in block letters on the back of an empty, torn cigarette pack would be the file name he was to photograph, the classified computer codes necessary to gain access and a telephone number to call the evening he was ready to transfer the disks, when the entire sequence would begin again. No one saw him, he saw no one, all very slick.

He chuckled. The cigarette packs on which he received his instructions were always Marlboro Gold 100s, and it had occurred to Terry Franklin that someone had a subtle sense of humor. As he worked now and thought about the money, he savored that sardonic twist.

They must be watching the house to see when he was home alone. Of course, someone was servicing the drops. But how were they getting the computer codes and file names? Oh, well, he was getting his piece of the pie and he wasn't greedy.

"Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies," Terry Franklin muttered as he removed the final disk from its slot and tucked it into its own little envelope. He grinned at the monitor screen, then tapped keys to exit the file. Now came the tricky part. Three years ago, when he had first been told by the Soviets that they wanted copies of documents from the computer system, he had written a trap-door program for the software of the main computer. The job had taken him six months; it had to be right the first time--he would get no second chance. This program accomplished several things: It allowed Franklin to access any file in central memory from this terminal here in the repair shop, thereby defeating the built-in safeguards that gave access toclassified files only from certain terminals; it erased the record of his access from the 3-W file, which was a security program that automatically recorded who, what and when; and, finally, it allowed him to access the 3-W file to see that his footprints were indeed not there.

This trap-door program was his crowning achievement. He had once seen a written promise from the software designer that unauthorized access was an impossibility. What a load! It had been (continued on page 150)The Minotaur (continued from page 116) damn tough--he would give them that--but he had figured out a way in the end. There's always a way in if you know enough. That contractor, he really sold the brass a sow's ear when he told that fib. Ah, well, the contractor had gotten his and now Terry Franklin was making his own score.

He had loaded the trap-door program into the main computer one day while 15 technicians loafed and sipped coffee and watched him work on a sticky tape drive. Not a one of them saw what he was doing. Nor, he told himself with glee, would they have understood what he was doing even if they had noticed. Most of them were as ignorant as they were trusting.

The 3-W file looked as clean as a virgin's conscience. Franklin exited the program and turned off his terminal. He stood and stretched. He felt good. Very, very good. The adrenal excitement was almost like a cocaine high but better, since there was no comedown. He was living on the edge and it felt terrific.

After straightening up the office, he turned off the coffee pot and put on his coat. With a last glance around, he snapped off the lights and locked the door behind him.

Getting past the guards at the building exits carrying the disks was a risk, though a small one. The civilian guards occasionally selected people for a spot search and sooner or later, he would be chosen. It had to happen. It hadn't happened to him yet and it didn't happen this evening, but he was clean just now, anyway. The disks were still back in the office, carefully hidden. He would take them out some evening next week at the height of the rush-hour exodus, when the probability of being searched was the smallest. Minimize the risk, maximize the gain.

As he rode the escalator up to the bus stop for Virginia suburban buses, Terry Franklin buttoned his coat tightly and turned the collar up behind his neck. From a pocket, he extracted his white sailor's cap and placed it carefully on his head, exactly one finger's width above his eyebrows.

The cold, wet wind at the top of the mechanical stairs made him cringe. He quickly climbed aboard the Annandale bus and made his way to an empty window seat. He stared through the gathering dusk at the looming building. People in uniform and civilian clothes kept pouring out of the escalator exit, trying to hide their faces from the wind, scurrying for buses. These poor schnooks. What they didn't know! Vastly content, he pursed his lips and began to whistle silently.

•

Terry Franklin was watching television when he heard the telephone ring. He listened for the second ring, but it didn't come. He sat staring at the TV screen, no longer hearing the words or seeing the picture.

His wife had taken the kids to the mall. She had left only a half hour ago. How long would she be?

He was trying to decide just how much time he had when the phone rang again. He felt his muscles tense. Only one ring.

He turned off the TV and got his coat from the closet. He felt in his pocket for the keys to the old Datsun. They were there. He snapped off the living-room lights and peered between the curtains at the street. No one out there.

Ring, pause, ring, pause, ring....

Three rings. The drop on G Street. He would have to hurry to beat Lucy and the kids home. He remembered to lock the door behind him.

•

Matilda Jackson was 67 years old and she was fed up. Five years ago, she had retired from the law firm where she had worked as a clerk-typist for 26 years. Seventeen months ago, she had made the last payment on her mortgage. The house wasn't much--a run-down row house in a rundown neighborhood--but, by God, it was hers. And it was all she could afford on her Social Security income and the $93.57 she got every month from the law firm's pension plan.

The house had been something when she and Charlie bought it in 1956, and Charlie had been a good worker inside and outside, keeping everything painted and nice and the sidewalk swept. But he had died of diabetes--had it really been 16 years ago?--after they amputated his feet and his liver got bad.

Poor Charlie; thank God he couldn't see this neighborhood now; it'd break his heart. Everything gone to wrack and ruin, trash everywhere, and those goddamn kids selling dope in the house right across the street.

Mrs. Jackson heard a car stop outside and peered through the window. Four young men dressed to kill stood on the sidewalk looking around. She reached for her camera, an ancient Brownie, but she had loaded it with some of that new film the man at the drugstore said would take pictures without a flash. When she got the camera ready and pointed through the gap in the drapes, she could see only two men. The other two must have gone inside.

Damn those cops, anyway.

She had told those detectives that Melvin's was a crack house and nothing had happened. They weren't going to pay much attention to a fat old black lady, no way. She had seen that in their hard eyes as they looked up and down the street at the boarded-up windows and the trash and that worthless, shiftless Arnold Spivey sitting on Wilson's stoop, drinking from a bottle in a paper bag.

She was going to get pictures. They would have to do something if she had pictures. And if they didn't do anything, she would send the photos to the neighborhood watch group or maybe even the newspapers. Leaving old people to watch their neighborhood rot and the dope peddlers take over--they would have to do something about pictures.

She snapped the camera at both of the men on the sidewalk, slick, loose-jointed dudes with sports coats and pimp hats with wide brims and flashy sweatbands. The license plate of that big car would be in both photos.

Someone else was coming. A white man, walking as bold as brass after dark in a neighborhood as black as printer's ink, a neighborhood where the kids would rip off your arm to get your Timex watch. She squinted. Late 50s or early 60s, chunky, wearing a full-length raincoat and a little trilby hat. Oh, yes, he'd gone by earlier this evening, just walking and looking. She hadn't paid much attention then, but here he was, back again. She pointed the camera and clicked the shutter. The two dudes on the opposite sidewalk by the big car were watching him, but he was ignoring them.

Now what did he just do? Stuffed something in that hollow iron fence post as he walked by.

Why did he do that? My God, the street is full of trash; why didn't he just throw it down, like everyone else does?

The two men who had gone into the crack house came out and they and their compatriots piled into the car and left, laughing and peeling rubber. Mrs. Jackson got more photos of them, then busied herself in the kitchen making tea, since the street seemed quiet now.

Wonder what that white man stuffed in that fence post? Something to do with that crack house, no doubt. Maybe he's a judge or police on the take. Not getting enough. Maybe it's money, a payoff for someone.

Well, we'll just see. We have some rights, too.

She pulled her sweater around her shoulders and got her cane. Her arthritis was bothering her pretty badly, but there was no help for it. She unbolted the door and lowered herself down the steps. As she approached the hollow iron post two houses down, she glanced around guiltily. Her frustration was fast evaporating into fear. No one looking. Quick! She reached into the post. Only a crushed cigarette pack. Disappointed, she felt around in the hollow cavity. There was nothing else. With the cigarette pack in her pocket, she slowly made her way back to her house, steeling herself to look straight ahead. Oh, God, why had she done this?

She locked and bolted her doors and sat at the kitchen table examining her find. Writing on the back, block letters. Numbers and such. Code of some sort. Payoffs, most likely. We'll see what the police make of all this. Not that they'd ever tell an old black woman what it was all about. No matter, if they'd just close that crack house, that'd be something. But should she go to the police? They've been told about that crack house and they've done nothing. What if they've been paid off ? What if they tell the dopers about her?

Mrs. Jackson had lived too long in the ghetto not to know the dangers associated with interfering in someone's illegal enterprise. As she stared at the cigarette pack, she realized she had crossed that invisible line between officious nuisance and enemy. And she knew exactly what happened to enemies of dope dealers. They died. Fast and bloody. Those four punks on the sidewalk in their fancy clothes would smile as they cut off her ears, nose and tongue, then her arms.

She turned off the kitchen light and sat in the darkness, trying to think. What should she do? My God, what had she done?

•

Mrs. Jackson was still sitting in the darkness of her kitchen 30 minutes later, when Terry Franklin walked past her house toward the hollow post. He had parked the car three blocks away. Normally, he was very circumspect and drove around for at least an hour to ensure he had lost any possible tails, but tonight, he was in a hurry. He had to get home before Lucy and the kids got back from the mall. So he had driven straight from Annandale to G Street.

The block appeared empty. No, there was someone sitting in a doorway, across the street. Some black guy with a brown bag. A wino. No sweat. What a shitty neighborhood! He had never understood why the Russians had picked a drop in a rundown black neighborhood, but since he hadn't talked with them after he had found the described drops, he had no opportunity to ask.

It would be just his luck to get mugged down here some night.

He walked at a regular pace toward the post, not too fast and not too slow. Just a man who knows where he's going. He would just reach in while barely breaking stride, get the cigarette pack and keep on walking, right on around the block and back to his car. Piece of cake.

He slowed his pace as he reached into the post.

It was empty!

Dumfounded, he stopped and looked in. There was just enough light coming from the streetlight on the corner and the windows of the houses to see into the hole. It was about four inches deep. Empty!

He walked on. What had happened? This had never happened before. What in hell was going on? Holy shit!

He turned and walked back to the post. He looked in again. The hole was still empty. He looked around on the sidewalk and the grass behind the fence for anything that might be an empty cigarette pack.

Nothing!

It must be here, somewhere, and he just wasn't seeing it.

He was living one of those cold-sweat, gibbering nightmares where you are stuck in quicksand and going to die and the rope is forever just inches out of reach. Finally, he realized the cigarette pack truly wasn't there.

Maybe he was being set up. Maybe the FBI was going to grab him.

Franklin looked around wildly, trying to see who was watching. Just blank windows. The wino--still there, sucking from his bottle. He reached into the hole again, trying to understand. Someone had gotten it. God, it must be the FBI. They must be on to him. Even now, they're watching from somewhere, ready to pounce. Prison--he would go to prison. The wino--an agent--watching and laughing and ready to arrest him.

Terry Franklin panicked.

He ran for the car, a staggering, hellbent gallop down the sidewalk as he tried to look in every direction for the agents closing in. To arrest him.

He careened into a garbage can and it fell over with a loud clang and the lid flew off and garbage went everywhere. He kept running. At the intersection, a car slammed on its brakes, tires screeching, barely missing him. He bounced off a parked car, but he didn't slow.

He almost broke the key getting it into the door lock. The engine ground mercilessly and refused to start.

He smacked his head against the steering wheel in rage and frustration. He tried the ignition again as he scanned the sidewalks, searching for the agents who must be coming.

The engine caught. Franklin slammed the shift lever into drive.

Bang! Into the car ahead. Holy...! Reverse. Then forward, out of the parking space.

Cranking the wheel over at the corner, he slewed around with tires squalling and stomped on the gas.

•

The bedroom lights were on in the second story of the town house when Franklin parked the car. He turned off the ignition and the headlights and sat behind the wheel, trying to think.

He had driven around for an hour and a half after his panicked departure from the drop, craning to spot the agents he felt sure were tailing him. At one point, he had pulled over and looked at the damage to the front of his car. The left-front headlight was smashed and the bumper bent from smacking into that car when he had tried to get out of that parking space too quickly.

A dozen times he thought he'd spotted a tail, but the trailing vehicle usually went its own way at the next corner or the one after. A blue Ford with Pennsylvania plates had followed along for half a mile until Franklin could stand it no longer and ran a red light. His panicky wanderings back and forth through the avenues and traffic circles of downtown Washington seemed like something from a drug-induced nightmare, a horrible descent into a paranoid hell of traffic and stop lights and police cars that refused to chase him.

Franklin sat now behind the wheel, smelling his own foul body odor. His clothes were sodden with sweat.

Lucy and the kids were home. He tried to come up with a lie for Lucy as he scanned the street for mysterious watchers and people sitting in cars.

How long could he live like this? Should he take the money he had and run? Where could he run with the FBI and the CIA looking for him? He didn't have enough money to evade them forever. Should he go to Russia? The very thought nauseated him. Freezing in the Devil's asshole of some gray worker's paradise for the rest of his days was about as far from the good life as a man could get this side of the grave.

He hadn't been feeling well and had gone to the dispensary, that was what he would tell Lucy. God knows he must look like he was in the terminal stages of AIDS. No good. No prescription. A beer. Yeah, he went out for a beer. He got out of the car wishing he had really stopped for one. After another look at the broken headlight and bent bumper, he plodded toward the front door.

Lucy came out of the kitchen when she heard the door open. "Where have you been?" She stood rigid, her face pale.

Uh-oh. He kept his voice calm. "Hey, babe. I went out for a beer. Did you all get anything at the mall?"

"I know where you've been. Cindy across the street has told me all about your little expeditions when I'm out for the evening. I know all about you, you son of a bitch."

He stared, thunderstruck. This isn't happening. No, not to me. For the love of--"What?"

"Who is she? I want to know. Who is she?"

"Who is who?"

"Who is the goddamn bitch you're tomcatting around with, you son of a fucking bitch. Who is she?"

At last, he understood. As the relief washed over him, he was suddenly too weak to stand. He sank into a chair. "Lucy, there's no other wo--"

"Don't give me that shit! I know. Cindy told me!" She was quivering, hysterically righteous. "You're cheating on me." Tears were flowing now. "Oh, God. I tried so hard...."

"Lucy, calm down. Please, for the love of--The kids will hear. Honest to God, there's no other woman." He got to his feet and approached her. "Babe, I love you. There's nobody--"

"Don't you touch me, liar. I'm getting a divorce." She spun and made for the stairs. "I'm locking the bedroom door. If you try to get in, I'll call the police. Liar. Cheat. Bastard."

He lost it. It had been that kind of evening. "You crazy cunt," he roared. "You don't know shit. I went down to the corner for a goddamn beer and when I get home, you're fucking loony crazy. I haven't cheated on you! I haven't fucked another woman since that night I knocked you up at the drive-in. You don't have any goddamn evidence at all, you crazy lunatic."

He heard the bedroom door slam and the kids sobbing. He threw himself onto the living-room couch. Some days--it's absolutely crazy how some days just go bugfuck nuts. You almost get arrested, smash up the front of the car, your wife demands a divorce because you're cheating on her when you're not. What else? What else can fucking happen before midnight?

The drop was empty. He stretched out on the couch and contemplated that fact. He closed his eyes and tried to relax. He could hear Lucy putting the kids to bed upstairs. Finally, the noises stopped.

He would have to call them. In Miami, they had given him an emergency telephone number and a verification code that he had memorized. He would call. He looked around for the evening paper. On top of the TV. He flipped to the sports section. The code was simple--the location and the opponent in the next scheduled game of the Bullets, Orioles or Redskins, whichever was in season. They had been insistent; he was never to call except in an emergency and then only from a pay phone. Well, this was sure as hell an emergency. But he wasn't going back out onto those streets tonight, no way. Even if he could work up the courage, Lucy would use a butcher knife on his crotch when he got back.

He went into the kitchen and dialed the phone. On the third ring, a man's voice answered with a recitation of the telephone number. The voice was tired, the English perfect. "Six six five, oh one oh five."

"This is Poor Richard." He had picked his code name himself. Easier for him to remember, they said. "It wasn't there. It wasn't at the dr--"

"Verify, please." The voice was hard, exasperated.

"The Bullets play the Celtics tomorrow night at Capitol Centre."

"I'll call you back. Where are you?"

"Seven two nine, seven four oh one."

"You're at home?" The voice was incredulous, outraged.

"Yeah, I--" He stopped when he realized he was talking to a dead instrument.

Shit. He would have to call again. He had to find out what the hell was going on. A pay phone. Lucy was going to come sweet-Jesus holy-hell screaming unglued. What a night! He picked up his jacket and eased the front door shut behind him.

From her seat on the top of the stairs, Lucy heard the door close. She had started to go down earlier but had stopped when she heard him enter the kitchen and pick up the phone. She had heard his side of the conversation and she sat now trying to figure it out. "Poor Richard" he had called himself. The Bullets play the Celtics? A code of some sort.

What is he into? she asked herself, her horror growing. He had looked so stunned when she said she knew. That look was the verification she needed that he was cheating on her. But how did that fit with a code and nonsense sentences? Was he placing bets with a bookie? No, he wasn't spending money she didn't know about. Something to do with his job at the Pentagon?

What else could it be? My God, what other possibilities were there?

•

Four days later, Franklin stood with his back against a pillar and tried to keep his face pointed at Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. The pillar was the second one on the right after you went through the main entrance. The man on the phone had been very precise about that. Second pillar on the right, on the side toward the Inaugural Address.

His eyes kept moving. He was nervous, so nervous. He had vomited up his breakfast an hour ago.... Not that person, a teenage girl. Not that old fat woman with the cane and the two kids. Maybe that man in the suit over there...he could be FBI. Was he looking this way? Why was he turning? That long-haired guy in jeans.

He had been here ten minutes and had already spotted five men who could be FBI. Maybe they all were. What if they had him staked out, like a goat? Maybe he should just leave, walk away and forget all of this. He had plenty of money. Enough. He had enough. If they weren't on to him, he could live carefully and comfortably for years, with no one the wiser. But what if they knew?

"It's one of the world's great speeches, isn't it?"

He turned and stared. A man, in his early 50s, with a tan face, stocky, wearing a short jacket, looking at the speech carved in the marble. On his head a brimmed hat. What's the response? Holy ... think! "Yeah...uh, but I think the Gettysburg Address is better."

"Stay twenty feet or so behind me." The man turned and walked for the entrance, not fast, not slow, just walking. After he had gone three paces, Terry Franklin could wait no longer and followed.

The man was only ten feet ahead, going down the wide, broad steps in front of the memorial. Franklin forced himself to slow down and lag behind. The distance had increased to 15 feet by the time they reached the sidewalk, but it narrowed again as Franklin strode along. He stood right behind the man as he waited for a tour bus to roll by.

On the other side of the street, the man said, "Walk beside me." He led Terry along the north side of the reflecting pool until he found an empty bench. "Here," he said.

"Can't we go somewhere private?" Franklin asked, still on his feet and looking around in all directions.

"This is private. Sit!" The petty officer obeyed. "Look at me. Stop looking around. You're as nervous as a schoolboy smoking his first cigarette."

"Something went wrong. Really wrong. Why in hell did you people have a drop in a ghetto? Some doper could have torn my head off over there."

"The drops were selected in Moscow, from a list. That drop was originally chosen for another agent." The man shrugged, resigned. "Bureaucrats. These things happen."

"So who got the message? Answer me that! Who saw me there? The cops? The FBI? NIS?" The pitch of his voice started rising. "What am I supposed to do now? Wait until--"

"No one saw you. Some child or derelict probably removed the cigarette pack, or it was blown out of the hole by the wind. If you had been observed, they would be tailing you now."

Franklin couldn't help himself. He turned his head quickly, scanning.

"Sit still! You only call attention to yourself by doing that, and believe me, there is nothing to see. You are clean. I wouldn't be here if you weren't."

Franklin stared at his feet. He was so miserable. "I called in sick today."

"And you rode the subways just as we instructed, and we checked you all the way. No one followed. No one pulled up to Metro stations to see if you got off. No one made phone calls or ran for a car after you passed by. You are clean. You are not being watched."

"So who are you?"

"You don't need--" He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "My name is Yuri." The man extracted a pack of cigarettes from an inside jacket pocket and lighted one. Marlboro Gold 100s, Franklin noticed. The fingers that held the cigarette were thick, the nails short. No rings.

"So what do you want me to do?"

"I'm here to evaluate you, to see if you are capable of going on, of continuing to serve."

Franklin thought about it. Lucy hadn't spoken to him for four days now. God only knows what that bitch would do. Still, 10,000 bucks a disk was damn good money. And if....

"If you wish to continue, you must calm down. You must get a grip on yourself." Yuri's voice was low and steady. "Your greatest asset is that no one suspects you, and if you become nervous, irrational, irritable, not your usual self, then you call attention to yourself and make yourself suspect. Do you understand?"

"Yes." He glanced at the man, who was looking at him carefully with inquisitive, knowing eyes. Franklin averted his gaze.

"We'll give you a rest," Yuri said. "We'll wait a few months before we give you another assignment. Will that help?"

Terry Franklin was torn. He wanted the money, quickly, but as he sat here on this bench, knowing they could be watching, he knew just how close he was to the end of his emotional rope. For the first time in his life, he realized how little real courage he had. But for this kind of money, maybe he could screw up enough stuff to keep going, for a while, at least. If he had some time. He rubbed his eyes, trying to quell the tic in his left eyelid. "Yes," he said slowly, "perhaps it would be better to let things cool off, settle down."

"OK. So tomorrow, you go back to work as usual. Do all the usual things, all the things you normally do. Keep your routine. Do nothing out of the ordinary. Be pleasant to your colleagues. Can you manage that?"

He considered it, visions of the office and the chief flashing before his eyes, fear welling up.

"Yes?"

"Yes." He got it out.

"Do you want to talk about anything else?"

He shook his head no.

"You are doing important work. You have made a great contribution. Your work is known in Moscow."

Terry Franklin said nothing. Of course his work was known in Moscow. Just as long as no one here found out about it, everything would be fine. Ensuring that that wouldn't happen was the whole problem.

"To show you how valuable your work is, we are raising your pay. To eleven thousand a disk."

Franklin just nodded. The enormity of the risks he was running to earn that money had finally sunk in the past four days. He no longer thought of it as easy money. He was earning every goddamn dime.

"You may leave now. Walk up Twenty-third Street to the Foggy Bottom Metro station and board there. Goodbye."

Terry Franklin rose and walked away without a backward glance.

•

"Oh, Mom," Lucy Franklin sobbed into the telephone, "I didn't want to call you, but I've got no place else to turn."

"You did the right thing, Lucy. Has he hit you?"

"Oh, no. It's nothing like that. It's...." She bit her lip. It was all so bizarre. Her neighbor Melanie hadn't believed her and neither had the minister. Her mother was her last hope. "I think Terry is a spy."

Silence on the other end of the phone. Finally, "Tell me about it."

Lucy explained. She went over the events of last Friday night in great detail.

"Well," her mother said. "Something is going on. He's probably cheating on you."

"Mother! Please! This is more serious. I'm scared stiff. I can't eat. I can't talk to him. I'm afraid of what he'll do to the kids. Mother, I'm petrified. I'm at the end of my rope." She began to sob.

"Do you want me to come out there?"

"Oh, I don't know. What good would that do?"

"He wouldn't hurt you while I was there. We could confront him." More silence. "Let me talk to your father and call you back."

"Not Daddy!" Lucy wailed. "He won't understand."

"I know you and he don't see eye to eye. He didn't think Terry was the right man for you."

"He's never let me forget it."

"Do you want to come home? Bring the kids?"

If she went home, her father would be there. She was genuinely afraid of her father. He just had never been able to cope with a daughter. "Can you come out here?"

"I'll be there day after tomorrow at one o'clock. Can you meet me?"

"The kids and I'll be there. Thanks so much, Mom. I really need you."

"I know, baby. I know. Just don't tell Terry I'm coming."

•

Terry Franklin stopped at a neighborhood bar after he got off the bus from work. On the Friday evening of the longest week of his life, he deserved a few drinks. Waiting for the ax to fall was squeezing the juice right out of him. He had been a bumbling fool all week, botching one job after another, having to ask the chief for help with several problems that were so minor he had been embarrassed. The chief was solicitous, asking if he were having problems at home.

The problem was, he couldn't think about anything else. He could no longer concentrate on his job, his wife, the kids, anything. He had to get his mind off it and he just couldn't! Sitting here at the bar, he glanced warily at the other customers, then bit his lip. A panic-stricken scream was just beneath the surface. He was losing it. It was like one of those nightmares he'd had as a kid--he was fleeing from a hideous monster and his legs went slower and slower and the monster was reaching, within inches of catching him--when he'd wake up screaming, with pee soaking his pajamas.

He was going to have to get all this crap stuffed into one sock, going to have to wire himself together so he could get from one end of the day to the other. He had all of tonight, all day Saturday, all day Sunday--three nights and two entire days--before he had to face his demons on Monday.

He ordered another CC on the rocks. Sure, he could do it. No one knew. No one was going to arrest him. No one was going to toss him into prison with a bunch of homo thieves and killers. After all, this is America, land of the gullible, home of the foolish.

He would deliver and collect on another dozen floppies or so. Then he would empty his safe-deposit box and be on his way to a new life. Perhaps Rio. He would lie on the beach all day and fuck beach bunnies at night.

He sipped his drink and thought about how it would be. The life he had always wanted was right there within his grasp, so close, within inches. But he was going to have to be realistic about the monsters, going to have to keep trotting. No urine-soaked pajamas. No screaming fits. Amen.

He paid the tab and left two quarters on the bar. Outside, he forced himself to pause and examine the headlines on the newspaper in the vending stand. Same old crap. The world was still turning, things were burning down, trains were still crashing....

He walked the two blocks home with his head up, breathing the spring air. It seemed just yesterday that it was so cold and miserable. Spring is here. And I have a fortune in the bank and no one knows but me.

His neighbor was washing his car in the driveway. "Hey, Terry, how's it going?"

"Pretty good. And you?"

"Just fine. Say, I've been meaning to ask you. How's the spy business?"

Terry Franklin froze.

The asshole tossed his sponge into a bucket and wiped his hands on his jeans. He grinned as he reached for his cigarettes. "Lucy has been telling Melanie that you're a spy. I laughed myself sick. So...."

Terry didn't hear any more. He lurched for the front door.

"Lucy!" He slammed the door behind him and charged for the kitchen. "Lucy," he bellowed, "you stupid--"

Lucy was sitting with her mother, drinking coffee at the counter. Both women stared, openmouthed.

"What--what does Jared mean--about Melanie? What did you tell Melanie?" He thought he was doing pretty well under the circumstances, staying calm and keeping the legs going. But it came out as a roar.

"Now, listen here, Terry--" Lucy's mom began.

"Lucy, I need to talk to you." He grabbed her arm and half lifted her from the stool. "Now, Lucy."

"Let go of her, Terry!"

"Mom Southworth, please! I need to talk to--"

"No!" The old lady had a voice like a drill instructor.

"Lucy, what did you tell that moron Melanie?"

"I told her that--"

"Get your hands off her, Terry. I know all about you. You stupid, greedy--" The older woman was fat, with two chins. Just now, Terry Franklin thought her the ugliest woman he had ever laid eyes on.

"Shut up, you nosy old bitch! What the hell are you doing here, anyway? Lucy, I want to talk to you." He grabbed her arm and dragged her from the stool toward the downstairs half bath. He pulled her inside and slammed the door. "What in the name of God have you been saying to Melanie?"

Lucy was scared witless. "Noth--"

"Did you tell her I was a spy?"

Terry didn't need an answer; it was written all over her face. The mother-in-law was pounding on the door and shouting. Something about calling the police.

"You--you--" he whimpered as his legs turned to wood and the monster's fetid breath engulfed him. The urge to scream and urinate was almost irresistible.

Lucy opened the door and slid out as he sagged down onto the floor and covered his face with his hands. His entire life was shattered, smashed to bits by that silly, simple twat!

•

Terry Franklin never knew how long he'd stayed in the bathroom. The flowers on the wallpaper formed a curious pattern. Each had a petal that joined to an offset flower, all of them; it was very curious how they did that. He thought about how the flowers joined and about nothing at all for a long, long time.

When he came out, the house was dark and silent. He flipped on the kitchen light and drank milk from the carton in the refrigerator. He was very, very tired. He climbed the stairs and lay down on the bed.

The sun was shining in the windows when he awoke. He was still dressed. He used the toilet, then went downstairs and found something to eat in the refrigerator. Cold pizza. He ate it cold. It was left over from a week or more ago, when he had taken the whole family to Pizza Hut. He thought about that for a while, trying to recall just when it had been, remembering the crowd and the kids with the cheese strings dangling from their mouths and hands. The memory was fresh, yet it was all wrong. The memory was from the wrong perspective, like when you remember a scene from your childhood. You remember it as you saw it as a child, with everything large and the adults tall and the other children just your size. That's the way he remembered Pizza Hut.

He set the empty plate in the sink and ran some water onto it, then went into the living room and lay down on the couch. He slept most of the day and through the night.

The next three weeks of his life were a walking dream. Lucy, the kids and her mother weren't there, but where they were he didn't know or care. He concentrated on working and sleeping as he waited for the ax to fall. It didn't.

One fine day in late May, he woke up and finally saw the sun shining and the birds singing. He felt terrific, like Rip Van Winkle after his nap. He even hummed a cheerful tune as he shaved.

He put on his uniform while the coffee brewed. The coffee he drank black, just the way he had learned to like it on his first cruise, which he had made to the Med aboard a guided-missile frigate.

The Datsun started on the first crank. He backed out of the driveway and rolled down his window as he drove toward the stop sign at the corner. He fastened his seat belt, punched up the Top 40 station on the stereo and rolled. He had only three miles to go to the Park 'n' Ride, but still, he enjoyed the private little world of his car. These few minutes in the car, with the music he liked, adjusted to the volume he liked, he cherished as the best part of the day.

He hadn't heard from the Russians. He had mixed emotions about that. In a way, it was quite pleasant not sweating drop trips or clandestine computer time or the slim chance of being searched leaving the Pentagon. Yet every day that went by without a call was another day he had to waste on his dreary, humdrum job, on this humdrum bus ride, on this humdrum, colorless suburb. Every day he spent here was a day he wasn't there, lying in the sun, fucking the beach bunnies, drinking Cuba libres and enjoying life.

His fantasy was there, waiting, and he was firmly and hopelessly planted here. What made the waiting so frustrating was the money he already had in the bank. The fact that he had committed a variety of serious crimes to obtain it troubled him not a whit. He had never given it a moment's thought. In fact, he felt exactly like all the other people who see a large sum of unearned money come their way--lottery winners, traffic-accident victims, legatees, swindlers, personal-injury lawyers, and so on--the money was his by divine right. Somehow, some way, the rulers of the universe had decreed that he deserved the good things and the good times that big money will buy because he wasn't like all those schmucks who flog it eight to five. He was different. Special. The money made him special. Those unique and wonderful emissions given off by large quantities of money made him tingle.

Perhaps because he felt so good about himself, Terry Franklin took the time this morning to smile at the bus driver as he boarded and to nod at a woman he recognized as he went down the aisle.

As the bus threaded its way through rush-hour traffic, he watched the scenery roll by without seeing a thing. He rode lost in reverie, already enjoying his fantasy.

The morning was spent cleaning and repairing a computer keyboard on which a secretary had spilled coffee. She also had a taste for doughnuts and potato chips, he noted with a sneer, as he worked with a toothbrush to rid the mechanism of soggy crumbs. He could just picture her: still young but already overweight, always dieting or talking to her fellow airheads about dieting, as she munches yet another doughnut and swills yet another cup of coffee loaded with sugar. She must have had at least three lumps in this stuff she'd spilled. Lucy's clone.

He almost decided to tell the chief to trash this keyboard, then changed his mind. The chief had cut him a lot of slack these past three weeks: He should try to prove to him that he could still carry his share of the load. He put more WD-40 on the keyboard and reattacked the sticky mess with a toothbrush.

Lunch was a hot dog with mustard, catsup and relish, a small order of fries and a medium Sprite. He ate it with another sailor from his section in the main cafeteria. They discussed the new secretary in the division office--was she really a blonde? Would she or wouldn't she? Was it worth trying to find out? and so on.

The afternoon went quickly. The chief sent him with one other man to work on a balky tape drive in the enlisted-manpower section, and the afternoon flew by. They had found the problem but had not yet repaired it when quitting time rolled around.

So he carried his tools back to the shop and exchanged guffaws with his shipmates, then walked to the bus stop outside and found a place in the usual line.

He used his time on the bus to stare out the window and think about the feel of the sun on his back and sand between his bare toes and to daydream of a hard young female body under him mingling her sweat with his. She didn't have a face, this girl in his dreams, but she had firm brown tits and a flat stomach and long brown legs with taut thighs.

When he turned the key in the car ignition, the radio boomed to life as the engine caught. "Like a bat outa hell, ba-dupe, badupey...."

He rolled the window down and fastened his seat belt and patted the steering wheel with his hands in time to the music.

The car in front of him turned right after four blocks, and the one behind turned left a block later. Terry Franklin paid no attention. He drove out onto an old boulevard now lined with small strip businesses and proceeded about a mile before he swung the car onto a side street. He liked to drive through these quiet residential streets because they had so little traffic and he thought he made better time, though he had never clocked it.

At the first stop sign he came to, a little girl was crossing the street, pushing a miniature baby carriage containing her doll. One minute was just about the time it took for him to wait until the little girl was clear, depress the accelerator and cruise down to the next cross street. He glanced both ways, no traffic, and took his foot off the brake to roll on through. "Like a bat outa hell...."

That's when the bomb underneath the vehicle, directly under the driver's seat, exploded.

Terry Franklin felt a concussive impact as his knees came up to smash into his chin, but that was the only sensation that he was conscious of in the thousandth of a second he had left to live. The floor of the car came apart and the seat springs and fabric and padding were all forced explosively upward. His skull popped like a ripe melon when this rising, accelerating column on which he sat smashed into the roof of the car and bowed it upward. The windows exploded outward as the fireball continued to expand, showering the area with glass. Fragments of springs and plastic and fabric were forced deep into Terry Franklin's now-lifeless corpse, which began to sear from the intense heat.

The car, still in gear and torn almost in two, moved like a wounded crab diagonally across the intersection and lightly impacted a parked vehicle. Then the engine quit from fuel starvation. The severed fuel line dumped its liquid into the molten mess in the center of the vehicle and the smoldering wreckage became an inferno. In ten seconds, the fuel tank exploded.

•

FBI agent Luis Comacho's telephone had a hollow, metallic sound, like it was coming through a long pipe. "Little development I thought you would want to know about, Luis. Probably nothing important. Terry Franklin just went out with a bang. His car blew up."

"You'd better alert somebody that they'll have to do a next-of-kin notification when we get a positive I.D. from the medical examiner."

"The I.D.'s gonna take a while. The corpse is still in the car, roasted like a Christmas turkey. You knew this was going to happen, didn't you?"

"I just follow orders, asshole," Comacho snarled. "Why don't you do the same?"

"There's a chopper overhead now. It's real visual with the smoke column and all. Evening news, for sure, distraught housewives and sobbing kids, the whole bit. What's the official hot poop?"

"We're investigating, cooperating with the local police. Off the record, hint at drugs."

"Roger, wilco, over and out."

"These three little floppy disks would earn him $30,000. Cash. He had bargained hard."