"We don't support it, and we don't oppose it," Hoffman said. "That's your concern. Our concern at this table is with our peaceful coexistence. Nothing more."

Yazykov rose quickly and nodded at Hoffman. They crossed the cafeteria and exited through the rear door.

"What do you make of that?" Hoffman asked Gerhardt. The general shook his head ruefully and grinned.

"Mirsky's stolen their main man," he said. "Looks like he anticipated them and made the first move."

"What's your opinion of Mirsky?"

"Hard-line Soviet military or not, I'd rather deal with him than with Yazykov or Belozersky."

"So do we help him?"

"Help Mirsky? Hell, no. First instincts are best. We stay out of it and let them settle it themselves. Besides, Mirsky won't ask for help. We just have to hope it doesn't come to a fight. We might not be able to stay out of that."

Mirsky and Pogodin removed Vielgorsky from the third chamber city in the truck, following a tortuous series of service roads until they found a main artery that crossed the remaining twenty kilometers in a straight line. The artery emerged through a number of open half-moon gates onto the ninety tunnel leading to the second chamber.

Mirsky examined several buildings along the second chamber thoroughfares before picking one that suited him. It was hidden between one of the giant chandelier-skyscrapers the Americans called megas, and a long row of hundred-meter-high asteroid-rock towers of no apparent utility.

The building was only four stories tall and seemed to have once been a kind of school. Long rows of connected seats filled the three rooms on each floor, facing slate-black walls rimmed with silvery glass.

In the easternmost room of the top floor, they spread their supplies, and Mirsky sat down with a much quieter and even more somber Vielgorsky. Pogodin went to hide the truck.

"I don't thank you," Vielgorsky said. He lay back on a bench and stared at the gold stars on the dark blue ceiling. "My father died in Afghanistan. I was told nothing about his death. . . state secret. I still don't know. But that it was all a military exercise. . . to battle-test the army. . .” He shook his head wonderingly. "A ten-year exercise! To find—" he coughed into his fist, "to find that all one has believed has been an orchestrated lie—"

"Not all," Mirsky said. "Much, but not all."

"Having one's eyes opened doesn't make one grateful."

"We've always known bits and pieces, haven't we?" Mirsky asked. "About the corruption, the inefficient and incompetent and venal superiors. . . The State preserving itself at the expense of revolutionary ideals."

"Every man must work with such things, if not accept them. But using our finest athletes and dancers as concubines—"

"Hypocrisy mixed with stupidity."

"How much worse for a government that says it is above scandal, and cannot do wrong! At least the Americans wallow in their scandal."