James was slipping away fast but still had residual instinct to resist. He turned to Maraklov. "Ken .

Maraklov was nearly mesmerized by the sound of that name, hearing for the first time an American-the American-call him by the name the KGB had assigned him three years ago.

"Yes . . . what?

"You love father, don't you9 The two enforcers were puzzled by this exchange, but Mar- aklov ignored them. They no longer existed. It was just the two . . . brothers. They wouldn't understand.

What could he say to ease things for this man . . . ? Kenneth James, Sr., was, he had learned, a stressed-out war veteran who had taken out his frustrations and failures in civilian life on his family. He had killed Matthew, the younger son, on one of his drunken sprees. How could a son forgive the man? But apparently Ken James, Jr., could. Or wanted to.

"Sure, Ken," Maraklov said quietly. "Sure I do. He was our,father, a war hero, he wasn't . . . responsible.

But Maraklov's words seemed to make things worse. Some- thing in James' face, misery and terror in his eyes "He wasn't responsible-" Maraklov repeated, and James' body actually began to tremble and he shook his head. "No . . . I did it . . . I- "

Maraklov stared at James, finally understanding what the American was saying.

"I didn't mean to do it." James was crying now. Maraklov motioned to one of the men with him to lay the boy down on the bed. "I didn't hate him, I didn't really hate him. But damn it, Matthew was making father spend all his time with him.

Not like it used to be when we were together so much. I felt all alone and it was Matthew's fault Left alone . . . Maraklov knew something about that . . .

"You shot Matthew . . . ?

M.

26 .

27.

"An accident, I was just going to scare him. I got father's gun and went and told Matthew to stop it and ... the gun "James," Maraklov said as if by rote. "The name is Ken James. "

went off ... "Whatever your damned name is, sir, get undressed and put :'Go on, Ken."

'Father saw me and he saw Matthew and he told me not to worry, just like you now" his eyelids were beginning to close . . . "he called the police and an ambulance and they took him away. I saw him just once when he got out of the hospital. He made me promise never to tell, it would be our secret . . . I hated mother for marrying Frank, I hate her, and Frank, hate myself too. But don't hate father. You under- stand ... ?"

Maraklov tried to put it together, to readjust. Ken had killed his brother. To protect his son, his father had taken the blame for the shooting. There was no drunken rampage like Ken's mother had said. His father had endured years in a mental institution to save his son. No wonder he went crazy.

And now another thought forced itself on him. He bent down to James. "Kenneth?"

The American opened his eyes.

:'Cathy. Cathy Sawyer. Where is she?"

'Gone.

Footsteps could be heard outside the hotel door. One of the KGB agents grabbed Maraklov's shoulder. "Stop this, let's get out of here."

Maraklov shrugged off the hand and bent closer to James.

"Answer me. Where? Where is she?"

"She never loved me, said she never wanted to see me again.

Even laughed at me when I said I loved her He stopped, reached up as though to touch Maraklov's face, the face so like his own, just a fraction of an inch from the freshly healed plastic-surgery scars. "Thank you . . ." The hand dropped, the haunted eyes closed for the last time.

-Took longer than it should have," mumbled one of the agents, then nudged Maraklov out of the way and began to strip off James' jewelry and clothes.

"He killed his brother . . . and his girlfriend," Maraklov said half-aloud, trying to absorb it, and understood the per- sonal impact of it. He rubbed his eyes, his temples.

"Get undressed, Maraklov .

these clothes on." In less than a minute they had tossed James'

clothes to him and were busy putting his clothes on the corpse.

Maraklov looked at James' clothes, shook his head. "I can't wear these-" Maraklov gasped.

"We don't have time for-"

"I said, I can't." Not yet, anyway. Not until he had exor- cised, or taken as his own the images that assaulted him ...

Matthew, from the only photograph acquired by the KGB weeks before his death-happy and laughing ... Kenneth hefting the big Colt .45 caliber pistol-he could almost feel the weight of it, with a grip almost too big for his fingers to wrap around, a hammer almost but not quite too tight to cock, could feel the recoil, feel the weapon hot and alive, hear the blast drowning out his younger broth er Matthew's cry of pain . . . then his father's face, the sorrow, the compassion in it-and he could see himself begging for forgiveness, for understanding. And his father had given it all to him. He had sacrificed his life for him.

Maraklov struggled for control. Only a few weeks ago it had been, he thought, a game he played with Janet Larson, some- thing that always seemed to excite her. Make up stories about Kenneth James. The juicier, the better. She wanted to know if James had a lot of women, if he masturbated, if he liked older women. Maraklov always had a new story for her. Including the one about his target Ken James killing his girlfriend Cathy Sawyer. He thought he had just made it up, embroidered what the KGB report told him. But now . h s e had thought he had an overwhelming reaso n to kill Janet Larson, and he had been right. Only it was not just the logical one-to do away with a threat to his mission in America. Somehow he had been du- plicating what Ken James had done to Cathy Sawyer. Andrei Maraklov had become more complete with his target than he could have imagined. Cathy Sawyer had died twice-once in America, and once at the Academy in the Soviet Union . . .

He tried to clear his head, looked for the two agents who had come with him.

They were gone. So was the body of Kenneth James. He went to the door, opened it, looked outside. Nothing: 28 .

And then he heard: "What a great hotel." A female voice.

"Free peep shows." He turned and saw three college-age women clustered around the elevator. Only then did he realize he was standing in the hallway wearing only a pair of briefs.

:'Prastiti ... uh, sorry ... "

'Don't be, sugar," one of them said, straining for a better look as Maraklov ducked back into his room. "It looks to me like you got nothin' to be sorry for. " '

He must get hold of himself. After all the training, the con- ditioning, the first word he uttered as Kenneth Francis James to the first Americans he saw was a Russian word. He could only hope they hadn't noticed. Probably not, but it was a warn- ing to him .

He collapsed onto the bed. On the bedspread were some pieces of gold jewelry, a large, heavy Rolex watch, a wallet, some bills in a silver money clip, the hotel key and assorted papers and receipts. The two agents had taken James' clothing, but an open suitcase sitting on a clothes valet in a corner had plenty more.

A drink. He needed one.'The room's tiny refrigerator was empty except for an icetray with half a dozen cubes. He thought about calling for room service but didn't want anyone inside the room until he had triple-checked it for any evidence of a struggle. The drink wouldn't wait.

He selected a pair of slacks and a red polyester pullover shirt from the suitcase, slipped on a pair of Nikes-they fit per- fectly-slipped on the Rolex and gold chains, pocketed the room key, money and wallet, brushed his hair. He studied him- self in the mirror. The shirt was a bit tight across his chest, and his thighs strained some against the pants legs. He could detect the faintest evidence of plastic surgery scars. Never mind. He had to get out of this room where Ken James had died . . . and been reborn?

He made his way downstairs to the hotel's Polynesian bar and seated himself in an area where he could watch all the exits and windows, just as he had been taught at the Connect- icut Academy.

"Good evening, Mr. James."

Maraklov willed himself not to show what he felt. A wait- ress in a tight sarong slit up each side nearly to her waist had 29.

come up behind him and put down a cocktail napkin. "Hi, there, Mr. James. Your usual?"

Maraklov nodded.

"I need to see your 1. D. again. Sorry."

Identification! Slowly he withdrew the wallet, opened it and held it up for the waitress.

"Not that one, silly." She reached in behind the driver's license in the front and pulled out an identical-looking lami- nated card. "Thank you, Mr. James. Back in a flash."

After she left Maraklov took a close look at the hidden card.

The birthdate had been cleverly changed. A fake I. Appar- ently the hotel staff knew the routine-even better than the "new" Ken James. A few moments later the waitress returned, placing a huge frosted champagne glass on the napkin.

Maraklov looked at her. "This is my usual?" Immediately he regretted the words. A giveaway . . .

"Not tonight, lover," the waitress said. She nodded over toward the bar. "Champagnecocktails, compliments of those ladies over there." He turned and saw the three women that had seen him in the hallway at the elevator. They raised their glasses toward him, smiling.

"Well, Romeo," the waitress said. "What are you waiting for? I I Slowly, carefully, Maraklov rose to his feet. To his surprise, he found his legs and knees quite strong. Without thinking, he reached into his wallet, extracted the first bill he touched and handed it to the waitress as he picked up his cocktail. It was a twenty dollar bill.

"Thank you, Mr. James," she said. "A real gentleman, as always." She lowered her voice, moved toward him. "If those waihilis don't do it all for you, Mr. James, why, you just leave a message for me at the front desk. Mariana knows what you want'

Still feeling shaky inside, he made his way toward the bar, smiling. Andrei Ivanschichin Maraklov was about to experi- ence his first night as an American named Kenneth James.

Now he was the real Ken James. The only one.

30 DAIE BROWN.

McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas August 1994 "Required SATCOM reports are as follows," Air Force Cap- tain Ken James said. He motioned to a hand-lettered, expertly rendered chart beside him but kept his eyes on his "audience"

and did not refer to it. "As soon as possible after launch we transmit a sortie airborne report. If we launched on an execu- tion message we transmit a strike-message confirmation re- port." He pointed to a large map on another easel. That depicted the strike routing of his B-IB Excalibur bomber as it proceeded on its nuclear-attack mission.

"After each air refueling we transmit an offload report, ad- vising SAC of our aircraft status and capability to fulfill the mission. On receipt of a valid execution message, if we weren't launched with one, we would acknowledge that message as well as any messages that terminated our sortie. After each weapons release, if possible we, transmit a strike report that gives SAC our best estimate of our success in destroying each assigned target. The message also updates SAC on our progress and advises them of any difficulties in proceeding with the mis- sion. Of course, staying on time, on course and alert has pri- ority over all SATCOM or HF message traffic. All strike messages can wait until we climb out of the low-level portion of the route and are on the way to our post-strike base. These messages can also be delivered to other SAC personnel heading stateside, to U. foreign offices, or to overseas military bases capable of secure transmissions to SAC headquarters."

He pointed further along the route. "Other messages will include launch reports from the post-strike and each recovery base: NUDET-nuclear detonation-position reports, GLASS EYE combat damage reports, severe weather reports, continental-defense-zone entry reports and sortie recovery and regeneration reports.

James lowered his pointer and stepped away from the charts.

"SIOP communications are extremely important, and the SAC aircraft involved with the execution of our Single Integrated Operations Plan are a front-line asset in keeping the Strategic Air Command, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the National Corn- mand Authority advised of the progress worldwide of any con- flict. We feel we have the' world's most up-to-date and 31.

surviva ble communications networks, but of course it's no good unless each aircrewman uses it effectively." He looked around the empty briefing room. "That concludes my annual Mission Certification briefing, Colonel Adams. Any questions, Sir?"

"Not bad, not bad-for a pilot," came a voice from the back of the room. Kenneth frowned at the man who came in now and began to pack up the briefing charts and diagrams.

"Kiss my ass, Murphy," Ken said. "It was a perfect brief- ing-even for a navigator."

Captain Brian Murphy, James' offensive-systems officer on his B-1 crew, had to admit it. "Yeah, it was, Ken. No doubt about it. But why are you spending so much time on that stuff? On an Emergency,War Order certification, briefing is done by the radar nav or the defensive-systems operator. Not by the pilots."

"I heard Adams likes to hit his mission-ready crews with little surprises," Ken said. "His favorite is mixing up the usual briefing routines to make sure each guy on the crew is familiar with the other guy's responsibilities. He likes to hit navs with pilot questions, too-how well do you know your abort-decision matrices? "

Murphy shrugged. "I'll bone up on that stuff before the brief- ing tomorrow. These briefings are bull anyway . . . Coming to the Club with us for lunch?"

"In a while, it's only eleven-thirty. I'll meet you there at noon.

"Man, you are so dedicated."

"Knock it off."

"No, really, I mean it," James' crew navigator said.

"You're always studying. You know your stuff backwards and forwards, and you know everyone else's too. If it's not EWO communications procedures it's security or avionics or corn- puters or target study. You got your hands in everything.

"That's my job, Murph.

"Well, at least you're getting some reward for it. Making commander of a B- I Excalibur in less than two years was moon- talk until you came along. They're saying you might make flight commander in a few weeks. You're really burning up the program.

James slapped his pencil down on the table, smiled. "You're 32 DALE BROVIN.

buttering me up, man. Okay, okay, I'll buy lunch. Just let me finish.

"Hey, hotshot, can't you take a compliment? I know atta- boys are rare around here, but I think you can still recognize one. "

James raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. Thanks, Murph, but I'm not doing anything special here. I do this stuff because it's my job and because it really interests me, and because my ass will be grass if I don't learn this communica- tions staff by tomorrow morning."

"Message received. I'm outta here." Murphy stood and headed for the door, then stopped. "You're an Academy grad, aren't you?"

"Right.

"Top of your class, from what I heard."

ames looked at Murphy. "Get to the point, Murph."

J. thought so, I just want to know why you chose B -Is You could have had your pick of any hot jet in the inventory, but you picked B- Is."

.'I liked them. I always did. They're big and sexy-just like your wife . . . "

"Asshole.

... and I still have a stick and afterburners and Mach-one speed like a fighter. I hated it when Carter canceled them. I think they should build another hundred of them. At least. An- swer your question?"

Murphy nodded. "But you seem a little, I don't know, out of place."

"Out of place?" His stomach tightened as he looked closely at his radar nav.

"Yeah. Like B-Is are just a jumping-off place for you I mean, you're not advertising it or anything, but somehow, Old buddy, I get the feeling you're on your way somewhere. Care to tell?

Ken James forced himself to smile. This big Irishman was hitting too close. "Just between you and me and the fence- post?

"Sure, man.