Firechild by Jack Williamson

eighty thousand dollars to photograph them. He has done that. He has delivered convincing copies of cover pages and a few revealing passages, but he won’t give up the entire file. Not for money. Not even for a million, unless we also meet his main demand.”
    “Which is—?”
    “Alyoshka.”
    “That traitor?” Shuvalov’s wet face reddened. “Impudent idiot! Does he think he commands the Kremlin?”
    “He expects to,” she said. “He offers what he calls a reasonable trade. Freedom for Leon Alyoshka and his wife and daughter to migrate to Israel or America, or anywhere they like, with suitable guarantees that they will never be molested. In return—and the same guarantees for his own safety—he will surrender the Belcraft file.”
    “Impossible! The Colonel couldn’t—” Shuvalov surged to his feet. “It’s blackmail! The USSR will never submit. Never! Not to some American hoodlum.”
    “Carboni is no idiot.” Feeling calmer, she wanted to smile at his agitation. “He knows well enough that his offer is hard for us to accept, but he has refused to give us any other option. He demands Alyoshka’s freedom in exchange for the files—and he knows how much we want them. He has been keen enough to work out the exchange like a seasoned professional.”
    “Don’t you employ your own professionals?”
    “Who have failed.” She shrugged. “I have discussed the problem with the agent Scorpio, who has been my contact with Carboni. Professional enough, though I despise him. He reports that Carboni no longer has the photos in his own possession. Carboni says they have been placed where they will reach the American CIA if anything happens—”
    His hostile headshake checked her.
    “Comrade—” She caught her breath and lifted her head to face him. “I’m convinced that Alyoshka must be released if we want the photos.”
    “I don’t know—” He stood scowling at her for half a minute, then retreated abruptly into an inner office. She let herself sag wearily back into the chair till he returned. “I have referred the matter to Colonel Bog-danov. He wants to question you himself.” He moved toward the door. “At once!”

9
    Marty Marks
     
     
    S tanding with that withered little woman in the stale heat of number nine, Belcraft turned with her to watch the TV. A gangling, mud-spattered youth was sliding into the chair under the newscast logo. His face was grimed and swollen, and new blood beaded a jagged scratch down one unshaven cheek. His breath rasped fast, as if from a run. He sat a moment, peering behind him, and then turned to blink into the camera through black-rimmed glasses. One lens was cracked and smeared.
    “Folks, I got—got back!” His voice came out with a nervous squeak, and he gulped to smooth it. “Back to the KBIO newsroom on the downtown tower. Here again to continue my own exclusive report on disaster in Enfield. Dunno how long—”
    He paused to get his breath and mop his face with a dirty rag that smeared the oozing blood.
    “Needed that break. On the mike since six, all by my lonesome. Stopped for a bathroom break. And something else I needed. Another good swig of Old Smuggler out of the news director’s private bottle.” He tried to grin. “Don’t think he’ll mind—”
    “Hogwash!” Mrs. Bard sniffed. “A stinking drunk.”
    The door slammed behind her. “—back on the penthouse terrace,” Marty Marks was rushing on, as if in terror of interruption. “Looking down on Central and Grand from eighteen stories up. A whole new scene since last time. Streets worse than a madhouse then. Wrecked cars and trucks and buses piled up at every intersection. Most on fire. People swarming out of houses and running everywhere, wild to get away. Except a few crazy kids smashing into a liquor store, staggering out with bottles they never had time to tap.
    “No motion now. Bodies piled on top of bodies they’d tried to crawl over, crazy to get away. Bodies everywhere, on