He checked his watch and realized his father's propulsion team was already gathering at Number One, the final meeting. The question now was, could they really deliver? The American was the key.
"Your name Vance?" The Russian voice, with its uncertain English, was the last thing he'd expected.
"Who are you?"
"For this vehicle, I am Director Propulsion System," he replied formally, and with pride, pulling at his white lab coat. "I must talk you. Please."
Vance stepped away from the wall and looked the old man over more closely. Then it clicked. Andrei Petrovich Androv was a living legend. Ten years ago the CIA already had a tech file on him that filled three of those old-time reels of half-inch tape. These days, God knows what they had. He'd been the USSR's great space pioneer, a hero who'd gone virtually unrecognized by his own country. No Order of Lenin. Nothing. Nada. But maybe he'd preferred it that way, liked being a recluse. Nobody, least of all the CIA's Soviet specialists, could figure him.
And now he was here in the wilds of northern Hokkaido, building a spaceplane. They'd sent over no less than the Grand Old Man to handle the propulsion. This project was top priority.
A s it deserved to be. But the immediate question was, What was the dean of Soviet rocket research doing here visiting him?
"Sorry I can't offer you a cup of tea. No samovar." He looked out the open door one last time. Several Soviet staffers were glancing in as they walked by, obviously puzzled why the famous Doktor Androv himself had come around to talk with some unknown civilian.