Semipalatinsk was one of the Siberian space cities, a major gateway to the baffling outthrust of humanity nobody could quite explain that was bursting spaceward beyond Earth. The shuttles and orbital lifters stood on their pads among launch complexes, beam ground-stations, support installations, and freight-handling bays that extended for miles outside the city. Samurai contacted local control for directions on flight procedures, and was diverted to a landing pad for private flying vehicles not far from the regular airport, on the opposite side of the Irtysh River. From there, he and Rudi, who was by this time a fully recruited accomplice, took a transit tube into the city and arrived not long after noon. Ashling's launch was scheduled for 10:00 a.m. the next day. Therefore it was very likely that he was already in the city somewhere. So Samurai still had the best part of a day to track him down. And if he failed to inter-cept Ashling before the launch, he now had the wherewithal for buying a shuttle ticket himself to go after him.
After they had eaten lunch together, Samurai sent Rudi off to find them a hotel for the night, with instructions to reserve Samurai's room under the name, dreamed up on a whim, of Abraham Washington. They arranged to meet up again later at four o'clock. That would keep Rudi usefully occupied for a while and allow Samurai some free time to consider how to go about tracing Ashling. The other problem, of course, would be to avoid whoever the people were who were pursuing him. They had known where he was heading, and it wouldn't be long before somebody real-ized that the group dispatched to take care of him on the road from Novosibirsk wasn't reporting in. Knowing the way such people operated, Samurai guessed that there would be a backup group here in Semipalatinsk as well. In any case, the only prudent course would be to assume that there was.
What, he asked himself, would they expect him to do?
Since they knew the contents of the NSA intercept, they would also know the time of Ashling's flight. Also, they knew that he knew it. From that, it wouldn't be difficult for either them or him to establish which particular shuttle Ashling would be departing on. By this time, also, the authorities in Zittau would no doubt have obtained from Rostiescki the information he had given Samurai—that Ashling was traveling under the pseudonym of Oleg Kubalov—and passed it back via Berlin. Therefore the people pursuing Samurai would know that he was on the trail of somebody called Kubalov.
But they would have no reason to think that he knew where Kubalov was staying in the city—any more than they did themselves. Therefore they would be expecting him to try to find out. And the way to do that would be to get at the spaceline's records, which would almost certainly show phone numbers at which passengers could be contacted, to notify of any schedule changes, confirm bookings, and so forth. If Samurai could get access to the record for Oleg Kubalov, he would be able to trace Ashling's whereabouts.
That, Samurai decided, was what they would expect him to do. Thus they would be on the lookout for anyone showing an undue interest in the name Kubalov and the passenger list for that particular shuttle flight. And that gave Samurai the beginnings of a notion of how Rudi might begin his apprenticeship. . . .
He found some phone booths in a commercial and shopping precinct, and called up the directory listing of local Aerospaceflot branches and offices. A quick call to one of the numbers established that the only candidate was one of their own shuttles, flight LTR-7, due off the pad at 10:00 the next morning for an orbital transfer to an LLL transporter, which, he discovered, stood for Lunar Link Lines, an Offworld operation based at Copernicus.
After establishing that much, he went on, "I'm trying to contact one of the passengers on that flight. It is very urgent. His name is Oleg Kubalov. Do you have a number or something, by any chance, or some other way I can get in touch with him?"
"Sorry, sir. I can't give you the hotel's number," the clerk replied. "But I can have them get Mr. Kubalov to call you. Where can you be reached?"
"Oh, I see. Well, I haven't checked in anywhere myself yet. Why don't I give you a call again as soon as I'm fixed up?"
"Very well, sir. Thanks for calling."
"Thank you."
Which was what Samurai had expected. But it had confirmed his hope that Ashling was in a hotel, which made things a lot simpler. So, Samurai could more confidently proceed to the next stage of what he had in mind.
He browsed around a little, and after making inquiries located a theatrical supply shop that sold wigs, hairpieces, dyes, face paints, and other aids to disguise. After selecting several items there, he bought himself a change of clothes to complete the transformation. Then he found a small hotel called the Kestrel. He took a room there as George Lincoln and left the things he had purchased.
From there, he went to a travel agent and checked the booking situation for tomorrow's Aerospaceflot flight LTR 7 and connection to Luna Copernicus. There were a few places left but they were filling fast. He made a reservation in the name of Carl Zimmer and left a deposit, arranging to pay the balance and collect the ticket when he checked in the next morning. Finally he went back to meet Rudi at four as arranged, in the same restaurant where they'd had lunch.
"I got us into a place called the Hotel Marko," Rudi said. "It's small, and a bit on the bare side, but out of the way. I assumed you didn't want to be too visible. Anyhow, here's the address. You're booked in as Abraham Washington, like you said."
"It sounds fine," Samurai said, taking the hotel's card that Rudi had picked up.
"Is it true that in your country, hotels have to report their guest lists to the police?"
"You know, you really are going to have to quit this," Samurai told him.
Rudi held up his hands in apology. "Not another word, I promise."
Samurai sat forward over the table and lowered his voice. "Look, there's something I want you to do."
"If I can."
"How's your charm with women? You strike me as the kind who could probably talk acid into being sweet if you had a mind to."
Rudi grinned at the compliment. "I have my days," he agreed. "What do you want?"
"I'm being watched, and I can't move too openly. There's a person leaving tomorrow on a lunar transfer shuttle that I need to get in touch with. His name is Oleg Kubalov. He should be out at the spaceport later today. What I want you to do is go to the Aerospaceflot desk there at about six and get them to put out a call for him. If he's there, give him the Hotel Marko's number and get him to call me there. If he's not, see if you can find out from the desk where he's staying."
Rudi looked doubtful. "Will they tell me?"
"They're not supposed to. That's where the charm comes in. They won't give it over the phone, but they might if you go in person. I can't risk being seen there myself. Will you give it a try?"
Rudi thought, then turned up his hands. "It can't hurt, I guess. What happens if they won't buy it?"
"Then we'll have to think of something else."
Rudi drummed his fingers on the table and eyed Samurai obliquely. "Can I ask what this is about?"
"Sure."
Rudi waited. Samurai remained impassive. Finally Rudi asked, "Okay, what's it about?"
"It's none of your business."
Rudi sighed and nodded resignedly. "Okay, I'll give it a shot. What about you?"
"I've got some other things to do, so I have to go now. I'll see you back at the Marko at . . . oh, it should be sometime around midnight."
"I'll see you then," Rudi said.
"Let's hope you have some luck."
By 6:00 Samurai, with blond hair, mustache, glasses, and wearing the change of clothes he had bought, was inconspicuously reading a newspaper in the back row of some seats near the Aerospaceflot desk in the main spaceport terminal building. Rudi appeared on time and approached one of the clerks. She nodded after listening to him for a moment and scribbling down a note, then picked up a phone and called somebody. Shortly afterward a message came over the public-address system:
"Would Oleg Kubalov, traveling tomorrow to Luna Copernicus, contact the Aerospaceflot desk, please. Mr. Oleg Kubalov."
Obviously, before Rudi could credibly pester the clerk for information connected with a name, he would need to have tried paging the name first. And if he was supposed to be trying to trace Ashling, he would have to give, and therefore have paged, the name that Ashling was going under—as anybody looking out for such behavior would already have figured.
Nobody responded to the call. After waiting a few minutes, Rudi went back to the desk and said something to the clerk. She checked on her terminal and nodded, Samurai saw with satisfaction: yes, there was an Oleg Kubalov booked on the flight. Rudi leaned closer and started talking. Samurai also saw another man in a tan suit, who had been hanging around in the general area, draw nearer behind Rudi, apparently trying to catch the conversation.
Rudi became more earnest, coaxing, beguiling, then finally throwing up his arms and demanding. But it did no good. The clerk shook her head insistently, and when that failed to deter him, she called a man in a red blazer out from the doorway behind. The man listened as Rudi remon-strated, shook his head, and ended up thumping the countertop and making a dismissive gesture. Well, nobody could have tried harder than that. Rudi finally gave up and walked away.
So did the man in the tan suit, along with a couple of others who had been moving closer. They recognized a setup when they saw it. It meant that Samurai was here and testing the water to see who was about.
They grabbed Rudi in a corridor leading to the transit-tube terminal and bundled him outside into a waiting car. "Okay, okay, take it easy," the one in charge said in appalling Russian. "It's not you that we want. Where's the guy who put you up to this?"
Rudi looked at them fearfully. They were all lean, tough, and looked mean. He was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he'd had enough of this particular profession already.
One of them drew out a wad of FER notes and waved them provocatively in front of Rudi's face. "This could keep you comfortable for a long time. Come on, fella, you haven't done anything. You could be a thousand miles from here by midnight."
Rudi licked his lips uncertainly. "Or think of it this way," the leader suggested. "It's a bit like getting old: the alternative's a lot worse."
"Well," Rudi said, "if you put it like that . . ."
Meanwhile, Samurai had left to return to the Kestrel. They could spend their evening looking for him as Abraham Washington, while he got on with the job at hand.
Back at the hotel, he ordered a meal in his room and settled down to begin the tedious process of calling every hotel in the city in turn, asking to speak to a guest called Oleg Kubalov. Ever since Rostiescki gave him the name in Zittau, Samurai had been growing increasingly uneasy that even Pipeline, after their carelessness in using it on that occasion, wouldn't be so lax as to book Kubalov's room under that name also. But now that he had come this far, he had no choice but to press on.
He got lucky after a little under an hour, with a place called the Kosmogord.
"Yes, sir, one moment," the voice on the line said when he inquired. "Putting you through now."
Samurai hung up. So Pipeline, apparently, could indeed be that amateurish after all.
"Ashling, I've got you!" he breathed.
While in another part of town, Colonel Hautz's men were setting up their stakeout of the Hotel Marko. All the angles were covered. Samurai would be back around midnight, the Russian had said.
It was going to be a long night.