Page 189 of Cry Havoc
“To get our POWs back.”
“You got the crew of thePueblo.”
Tom indicated that Dvornikov could take off his coat.
“Slowly,” he cautioned.
The GRU man hung the coat on a rack to the right of the door.
“May I sit?” he asked.
“Please.”
Dvornikov pulled a chair from a small round kitchen table and positioned it facing his adversary.
“That’s close enough,” Tom said. “Keep your hands in your lap.”
Dvornikov sat and did as he was told.
“I got here early enough to look around. I’d have to imagine your flat in Paris was a little more to your liking.”
“It was. Here my view is of a neighbor’s brick wall.”
“Better than the gulag.”
“Quite. I feel like this conversation will go better if I can smoke.”
“By all means.”
Dvornikov reached slowly into his coat pocket and removed a pack of cigarettes and a small book of matches.
“KAROs. I prefer the Cabinets, but these damn lung torpedoes were all the pub had available tonight.”
Dvornikov struck a match and lit his cigarette.
He offered Tom one from the white and black pack.
Tom shook his head.
“Thomas, may I call you Thomas?” Without waiting for an answer, he continued, “These poor Berliners; they survived Allied bombing raids,the Battle of Berlin, the Berlin Airlift, and the Wall in ’61, to say nothing of the winter weather. I don’t blame them for being perpetually depressed. Do you find it ironic that the central standoff of the Cold War was built on the ashes of a hot one?”
“I haven’t thought about it.”
“It’s folly personified. Berlin is the front line of our ideological battle for supremacy, where the two great powers meet.”
“I bet your potential recruits eat that up.”
“Your German is very good.”
“I get by.”
“Are you here to kill me?”
“I’m here to give you options.”
“Oh? Let me hear them.”
“You can work for us.”
