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plan.” She tried to contain her loathing for all he was: a hairy, stinking, evil-natured animal. “It will have the highest priority, supported with all our resources. There can be no delay—”
    He muttered a word she didn’t catch.
    “Those printout—” Another driver honked and drove fast around her. “They reveal that the Americans are very near success with a genetic weapon. More dangerous, our own experts believe, than anything nuclear.”
    “So?” He shrugged. “Experts have been wrong.”
    “The errors of experts are not your problem.” She let her voice ring cold. “You are to follow the research here, reporting every detail as soon as you discover it. If any weapon is developed, you are to obtain technical data on its nature and its means of production. You are then to sabotage the weapon and the laboratory. If possible, you are to neutralize every person who has been entrusted with any genetic secret.”
    “Hah?” He mouthed a contemptuous-sounding word in some tongue she didn’t know. “Can you send me a batallion of the KGB?”
    “The growing American alertness has forced the Center to rely on agents in place.” She enjoyed her authority and the angry way he reddened at her words. “I am to keep in closer touch with you. We now have a confidential source of abundant American funds from the Roman estate. Further instructions will be coming, as Moscow analyzes our reports.”
    “Moscow!” He glared at her. “Moscow expects miracles.”
    “The Center expects results.” They were in the outskirts of the town. In her tension, she had pushed the car too near the speed limit. She slowed, turning into an empty residential street. “I understand that we are working on genetic weapons of our own. Our own mission is to buy time for our own genetic engineers.”
    “You speak as if we were generals,” he muttered, “given armored divisions—”
    “Our mission would justify generals.” She raised her voice to cut him off. “Divisions, if we could deploy divisions around Enfield. We cannot. Comrade, the task is no smaller because it has fallen to us. We have been promised full support. If we need weapons, we can obtain them. Weapons better than tanks—”
    His sardonic grunt checked her.
    “Listen, comrade!” She hated to call him that. “I am speaking of military biologicals. None of our own are yet fit for deployment, but the Center has hinted of some powerful new instrument that might be made available for use in emergency. Only as a last resort, however. And only if we are confident that the Americans can be deceived into believing the deaths were due to an accidental mishap with their own experiments.”
    “Kill ourselves?” He scowled at her sullenly. “With some synthetic plague? I know knives and poisons and bullets. I am not a laboratory rat.”
    “You are a soldier.” She let her voice sharpen. “We are fighting a war. Fighting for the future of all the people’s democracies. Perhaps even for human survival—”
    “You quote Pravda?”
    “Here in Enfield, we fight at the front.” She ignored his sarcasm. “Not because we volunteered. Just because we happen to be the agents in place. Believe me, our failure here at EnGene could cost Mother Russia more than the loss of an army. The Center made that very clear.
    “The American weapon—it must be obliterated!”
    Herman Doerr was late for work that night. He had spent four unwilling hours in the rented car with Anya Ostrov, most of the time parked at malls and supermarkets, outlining a series of contingency plans, discussing resources he might require, planning ways of getting quick reports to her. She left Enfield the next morning, flying back to Florida to begin her own legal battles with Julia Roman and the Roman-World-Mart attorneys for control of the dead capitalist’s estate.
    Enfield had not yet died.

5
    Task Force
    Watchdog
     
     
    D riving back in the humid gloom, away from the cop and whatever had struck