Read Someone Else's War: A Novel of Russia and America Page 39

CHAPTER THIRTEEN, MOSCOW, EARLY WINTER 1995: TRIMENKO

  “Silicon-germanium, Doctor.”

  Olivia cocked her head, chin in her hand, and looked at Borodkin and the chips he held in his hand. “What do you think?”

  “I think they may be for us the greatest thing since samovars. Your instincts paid off.”

  She smiled at him. “My instincts did not get us those chips. Your work did, and it was very good. Now, why don’t we see if we can design some circuits that make use of these chips?”

  We again, even though, with the growth of her lab, Borodkin’s duties had expanded so that he no longer had time to do dual duty as both an administrator and the engineer she kept reminding him he was and encouraging him to be. He preferred to administer.

  Careful not to jar herself against the desk, she rose from her chair, now well-padded with sheepskins. “I have a dinner engagement so I need to prepare.”

  “With who?”

  She looked sidelong at him. “General Anatoly Petrovich Trimenko, the new Chief of Airborne. Also with Colonel Suslov, the commander of our test-bed brigade.”

  Borodkin blushed a little. “That’s right, they’re on your schedule.”

  “Yes.” She paused. “Be prepared to come down to with me to Chechnya at the end of January. It’s time you saw how we really do business.”

  “You mean that, don’t you?”

  “Yes. The rest of the lab is also starting to deploy in and out, so…”

  “I understand.”

  “If I am killed…you will know what to do when you’re there.”

  Later, Borodkin watched her settle her wolfskin coat about her shoulders. After the cold of her first winter in Grozny, Olivia had decided she would not be cold when not deployed. So boot-length fur it was. Olivia was wearing her mother’s pearls and the peacock plume earrings from Tiffany’s, rescued from the safe deposit box that was now only hers. She wore plain black wool trousers, and the sweater she had knit from the rich purple handspun she had purchased back in New York. No makeup. She no longer wore any, except for a little lipstick, this time a deep plum, striking against her tanned skin and pale hair.

  After she had left the lab, her pistol in the pocket of her coat, to walk out into the Moscow night, Borodkin still smelled her perfume: dry leather and stone, spices and rose, weirdly evocative of beautiful ruins. He started to like it, then changed his mind. Disliking it was easier than understanding why he liked it. In any event, he had decided, once again, that he was spending far too much time thinking about Doctor Tolchinskaya and it was doing him no good. She was doing him no good. And he resented it.