The Russians and Jerry got off the airliner in a group. Nobody draped leis around their necks or shouted “Aloha!” at them. Jack Porter, the security boss on the Glomar Explorer, stood near the entry gate with a sign: SOVIET DELEGATION. Four or five other guys in casual clothes almost as outdated as the Russians’ waited behind him. They’d be shepherds, watchdogs, minders, whatever you wanted to call them.

Nikolai Kalyakin seemed to be the seniormost Russian. He was in his fifties, an astronomer by training, and by interests a man who would have got on well with Steve Dole. He was short and stocky, and had lost the last two fingers on his left hand. He wasn’t the only visibly injured man in the group; the USSR had had a rugged World War II.

Kalyakin pushed his way forward now. He introduced himself to Jack Porter. “Very glad to meet you,” he said in good English.

“And you,” Porter answered. He took a piece of paper from a pants pocket. “I have a list of the men in your party, sir. Before we head for baggage claim, I’m going to read it out so I can see who’s who.” And he did. Each Soviet scientist nodded or raised his hand like a schoolboy when his name was called. When the CIA man got to “Stieglitz, Jerome,” he took a good look at Jerry and said, “I didn’t recognize you for a second.”

“Everybody tells me that.” Jerry was thinking about letting his whiskers grow when he got to the Glomar Explorer. His hair would take longer, but he figured he might grow it out again, too.

After the Russians had their suitcases, Porter and his comrades led them to the area where cargo planes landed and took off. No one examined the Russians’ luggage; after a moment’s puzzlement, Jerry realized that would have been done in New York City or L.A. or wherever they landed in the United States. His suitcase would have got the once-over, too.

They filed aboard a military transport. It was a jet, not a Warning Star; the prop job wouldn’t have carried all of them. The seats were military issue: no more roomy or comfortable than they had to be. Next to what the Hawaiian Air airliner had had, they were pathetic. The Soviet scientists took them in stride. Jerry wondered what flying on Aeroflot was like.

It was still dark when they landed on Midway. Counting the dogleg to Hawaii, Jerry’d come more than 3,500 miles, and the Russians, of course, much farther than that. But they’d almost kept up with the sun’s motion instead of going against it as they would have heading east.