“He’s no Commie now,” Curt said.

“Do tigers change their stripes?” Steve asked. “He’s been saying some weird things lately, like wanting the Soviet Union to get back together.”

“That’s just to be sure the nukes are safe,” Curt said.

“I’m not so sure,” Steve said. “What about that comment he made about Stalin not being as bad as people think? I mean, that’s crazy. Stalin killed thirty million of his own people.”

“That was weird,” Curt admitted. He bit his lower lip. There were some loose screws in Yuri’s brain, like Yuri not being content just to knock out the Jacob Javits Federal Building. He wanted to do a simultaneous laydown in Central Park so that the second agent would blow over the entire Upper East Side. His supposed rationale was to get as many Jewish bankers as possible. Curt thought that doing the fed building was more than enough, but Yuri had been adamant.

“We’ve made a lot of effort on his behalf,” Steve continued. “We’ve had our boys steal those fermenters from the micro-brewery over in New Jersey. We’ve been supplying him with all sorts of stuff. We got the Klan to send up those crazy boxes of dirt from Oklahoma which Yuri said would have the bacteria he needed in it. Those guys down in Dixie must think we’ve gone crazy asking for dirt from a cattleyard.”

“Yuri said he could isolate the bacteria from it,” Curt said. “I read the same thing on the Internet, so it’s legitimate.”

“Okay,” Steve said. “So it’s true that botulinum bacteria and anthrax bugs are in dirt, particularly in livestock areas in the South, but what do we have to show for it. Nothing! Yuri’s not shown us anything. We’ve not seen any bacteria. We’ve not even seen this lab he’s supposed to have built in his basement.”

“You think he could be taking us for a ride?” Curt asked. The idea passed through his mind that Yuri might do his Central Park laydown and leave them high and dry.

“Anything’s possible when you’re dealing with a foreigner,” Steve said. “Especially a Russian. They’ve hated our guts for seventy years.”

“Ah, I think you’re being paranoid,” Curt said with a wave of his free hand. “Yuri is not mad at us. And I know he wants to hit this fed building. He’s pissed at our government just like we are. They’ve refused to acknowledge his education. After all the years of schooling he’s had, he’s still driving a cab. Hell, I’d be pissed, too.”

“But we don’t know he’s had all the schooling he says he’s had,” Steve said.

“That’s true,” Curt said. There had been no way to check.

“Maybe this isn’t the time to be talking about all this,” Steve said. “But now that we’re on the brink of putting ourselves at risk going into this building when we are not supposed to, I wish we had more to go on to prove Yuri’s doing his part.”