A Cold Flight To Nowhereville

by Steve Fletcher

  “I was on the Valley Forge during Korea,” Holveck mused as Hardin fell silent. “Always got an odd feeling back then, and I haven’t had it since. As long as you are lucky, you will have many friends; if cloudy times appear, you will be alone.”

  “Who said that?” Hardin asked. “Patton?”

  “Ovid,” the other replied. “He lived around Julius Caesar’s time. It’s from a poem called The Sorrows of Exile. I suppose war has to be a kind of exile. Even a cold war. A little worry is probably healthy, shipmate.”

  But it wasn’t worry. Not exactly.

  Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan

  Pavel Sergeivich Ushakov stamped angrily up the road leading from the plant, heading back towards the MIK-2-1 building. The wind was bitter cold, tugging at his overcoat, but he did not feel it. He was shaking with reaction and rage. Fool! You allowed him to provoke you! You let him get the better of you! What was wrong with him? He knew better than to let a subject goad him into losing his temper. True, they infrequently tried, but he was more professional than his recent behavior would indicate. His morning conversations with the suspect Yaroslav were sufficient to let him know he was suspected of committing crimes, but by his outburst of bad temper he had revealed that he was very actively searching for evidence of wrongdoing!

  He knew what his supervisor, comrade Kalyugin, would say should he find out he’d been shadowing Loginov. He would not approve. Why did you not leave him be and wait for him to grow overconfident? Why do you reveal your purposes to him and put him on his guard? He had no answers to those questions. He was behaving like a raw amateur. Investigation wasn’t his job. And he had shown that he was woefully unprepared to conduct such an investigation against a criminal of Yaroslav’s sophistication. He had stepped out of his field and was over his depth.

  Yet those conclusions tormented him. He could not, he would not, accept that there was a common Russian he could not break. The thought tore the fabric of his self-identity, so carefully constructed and reinforced over his years of service. An unblemished record during the Great Patriotic War, one successful interrogation following another in an unbroken string. And after the War as well. His abilities had gained him stature within the ranks of the KGB, even earning him a small dacha. He knew what he was capable of and yet this man, the criminal Loginov, threatened to turn all that upside down.

  It was so obvious! Loginov’s guilt seemed so clear—why could Kalyugin not see it? Was he completely blind? Had the times changed so much since the death of comrade Stalin that the KGB now had to watch their steps? They had sent thousands to the gulag simply to fill quotas under the old system. Guilt was not even a prerequisite. Interrogations had been easy, confessions simple to extract. Had he gotten so soft during those years? Had he lost so much of the psychological edge he’d had during the War? He pushed the thoughts away, refusing to consider them.

  And yet his actions placed him on uncertain ground, and not only with Kalyugin. The Comrade Chief Designer wielded enormous power within the Party apparatus. He could have him recalled to Moscow, that at the very least, if he learned of his harassment of one of his scientists. Without more meaningful evidence, Ushakov had to order his steps with exceeding care. If only, if only, Kalyugin was a stronger man and could stand up to the Chief Designer! But he was not. Ushakov knew he did not dare have another confrontation with the criminal Loginov of this morning’s magnitude. This morning he had gone too far.

  As he made his way up the road, he could almost hear the man’s mocking laughter ringing over the cold steppe.

  Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan

  The morning was cold and overcast, and it looked as if a weather front was moving into the area. Normally the skies over Baikonur were clear three hundred days out of the year, but the bitter chill in the air and the cold north wind suggested an early snow. And should it snow, it wouldn’t melt until spring. Ushakov was awake early, as he always was these days, and had gone to his austere office to work on some quarterly reports. He would drink coffee, smoke a few cigarettes, and see what the day would bring.

  He had difficulty concentrating on the reports. His mind kept drifting to his abortive investigation, virtually halted since his last confrontation with the scientist Loginov. Ushakov had become too committed to his suspicions and had been forced to realize that he had become sloppy. He was letting his emotions out when he should have been controlling them, and this was unusual for him. To continue to harass the scientist would have been to risk confrontation with Kalyugin, and without any evidence his actions would be extremely difficult to defend. So he had backed off. He no longer sought the scientist out in the mornings, and that grated at him, for he had permitted Loginov to gain the upper hand. Ushakov was still deeply convinced that the scientist was involved in espionage of some kind, but this was not his department to run as he pleased. Nor was his superior, Kalyugin, given to cross the Chief Designer on Ushakov’s suspicions alone. For the moment Kalyugin wielded the KGB’s power at Baikonur, and if he gave the appearance of disloyalty he risked humiliation, possibly even the Lubyanka. He had to admit, however unwillingly, he had been fortunate that his harassment of Loginov had not been found out.

  Ushakov heard a knock at the door of his office and looked up from a batch of reports he was trying to review. “Well hello, Aleksei. You’re up early. Come in.”

  Now what was Aleksei doing here? He hadn’t seen much of the young scientist since the interrogation. People weren’t ordinarily given to visiting the KGB of their own free will. But the young scientist looked troubled as he entered the office and sat in a chair facing the chekist’s desk. “What’s on your mind, Aleksei? I’ve seen happier faces on the kolkhozniks.”

  “I will confess to a little discomfort at being here, comrade Ushakov,” Aleksei murmured after a pause.

  Ushakov felt a quick rush of adrenaline and clamped down hard on his emotions. Aleksei now had his full and undivided attention, but he did not want his curiosity to show. “Why feel uncomfortable, Aleksei? We are all on the same team here. We have the same goal, to serve the Party to the best of our abilities. My goal is the same as yours, and the fact that I am an officer in the KGB means little here. So put it out of your mind and tell me what’s troubling you!”

  Aleksei sighed, obviously ill at ease. “I…have some suspicions, comrade. I feel I should inform you of them.”

  He slid a pack of cigarettes across the desk to the young scientist, who took one and lit it. “I’m glad you felt that you could come to me, Aleksei. I am a worker for the Party, but my job is also the security of this great facility. If you have suspicions this is the place you should bring them. So what’s going on?”

  “Perhaps nothing…but a comrade has been behaving in a different manner of late.”

  He lit a cigarette for himself and leaned back in his chair, affecting an attitude of ease. “Oh? Who is it?”

  Aleksei did not look up. “I…feel as if I am betraying a friend, comrade.”

  Ushakov shrugged. “I understand. I know it can be difficult sometimes. But it isn’t as if we’re going to run right out and throw a comrade in the Lubyanka, unless you’re sitting on some crime which I doubt you are. And even if you are, it’s better than going to the Lubyanka yourself, isn’t it?” What bullshit! If I have my way I’ll have you in the same cell as comrade Yaroslav, you little prick! He assumed a lecturing, no-nonsense tone. “We serve a greater good, Aleksei, the good of the Party and all the peoples of the Soviet Union. If you were to know of something suspicious and not divulge your knowledge, you make yourself a part of it. You assume the guilt of the other. Do you see? You place yourself in the same boat with the guilty one.”

  “I know that is the case, comrade. I…I have little desire to see the inside of the Lubyanka.”

  “Nor should you.Those who have seen it long for the gulag to improve their lot. The Lubyanka is a dreadful place. But it’s intended to be so, that men should not commit acts worthy of being sent there. You fear
the Lubyanka and Lefortovo, eh?”

  “Yes, comrade.”

  “So you ensure your nose is clean. Just so.” By now Aleksei should be ready to turn his own mother in. “Who is it that rouses your suspicions?”

  Aleksei paused. “Comrade Loginov.”

  Ushakov’s heart leapt, but he forced himself to remain calm and feign casual curiosity. “Yaroslav Ivanovitch, the scientist? Why are you suspicious of him?”

  “It’s not suspicion. Not exactly. But he hasn’t been himself lately.”

  “How so?”

  “It is a little difficult to describe. He is more cheerful lately. I’ve known him for a year and he’s never cheerful. Ever. He doesn’t have much to be cheerful about. His wife left him for another man and he used to speak often of this, but now the subject never comes up.”

  “Your own wife left you also, did she not?”

  The younger man nodded. “She did, but we parted on good terms. I couldn’t blame her much since I was never around. But I never carried such a load as Yarik does about it.”

  “Perhaps he’s simply adjusted to it and feels better.”

  “No, it’s not that.” Aleksei was decompressing, letting all his thoughts out. Ushakov hardly needed to coax him now. “I know him too well. He doesn’t adjust. He hates his life, his work and his family, but now he’s in the best spirits. Usually he’s moody and he sometimes jokes, but this is not like him.”

  “Have you asked him about it? Does he give a reason?”

  “I have, but he gives no reason. He just says he’s in a good mood. I know this may sound silly, comrade, but it concerns me. I’ve never known him to behave so, not ever. When he drinks his mood becomes even worse, but now I don’t think he’s even getting drunk the way he used to.”

  Ushakov flicked his cigarette ash into the ashtray and stared out the window at the gray Kazakhstan skies. “Maybe he found religion,” he mused.

  “Then when we were walking a day or so ago he wanted to go back by the place we found comrade Nikolai’s body.”

  Ushakov’s heart beat faster. “Is that a place you usually walk, Aleksei?”

  “No, it isn’t. Since that morning we don’t go that way. But he wanted to go there, so we went.”

  “What did he do there?”

  “Nothing. We just looked around a little and proceeded on.”

  “Do you suspect him of complicity, then?”

  “Of course not, comrade Ushakov,” Aleksei replied carefully. “I merely tell this because it was unusual. I cannot fathom a reason he would want to return there, and I found it distressing.”

  You would understand if you had ever interrogated a killer, Aleksei, one of the bad ones who kill again and again. One who kills not out of the moment, but because he enjoys it. Some of our old interrogators were killers like that. Such a man returns to the scene of his crime, to remember it fondly. Nobody knows why they do that. And to take you there means Loginov is baiting me! The son of a bitch is daring me to find him out. He knows Aleksei is such a mama’s boy that he’ll talk, so he gives him something to talk about! Why else would he take him back to the scene of Nikolai’s death? He knew an action as suspicious as that would be reported, especially by Aleksei. But he feels himself safe. He wouldn’t take such a chance unless he were certain of his own safety—or stupidly overconfident. You are speaking to me through this man, Loginov you bastard, and I hear you. You are sure of yourself, so you give me some clues to egg me on. Are you thinking that by the time I figure out what you’re up to, it will be too late?

  And with the care he must execute in his work, such might indeed be the case.

  Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan

  Kalyugin was perspiring, his normally florid face pallid with anxiety. The office of the Director of Security seemed unusually cold and the radiator was not putting out much heat. The clouds outside the window were dark, and it seemed that an early snow would fall soon. The Director sat at his desk, pushing papers around absently. “Look, Pasha, I hear what you say. Almost I can believe it, enough so that I am uncomfortable with this information. But bear in mind that you still have no proof of anything untoward yet…”

  “As if any spy with the common sense of a zek is going to leave evidence lying around for us to pick up!”

  “I will grant that. But given that all this is based on an investigation that produced no compelling conclusions or suspects, I hesitate to put us on such uncertain footing as to arrest this man. And what will we say if we can still find no proof after we arrest him?”

  “My God,” Ushakov exclaimed inappropriately. “Have times changed so much that we must cover our asses like the bureaucrats? It wasn’t so long ago that we would have thrown Loginov in the Lubyanka just for the hell of it!”

  “I know!” Kalyugin shouted. “Damn it, don’t you think I remember those days? Do you think this is so easy for me? Times have changed whether you like it or not, comrade Ushakov! We can’t simply arrest men because we feel like it anymore! The criminal codes are being upheld now, by all that’s sacred! Nobody ever looked at them before but now our comrades are drawing tenners in the gulag for excesses! You beat a suspect too much, you take his woman or his possessions, and you may be prosecuted! Those are the times we live in! You’re used to applying Article 58 for anything you pleased—well, now we can’t do that! We have to have something that resembles evidence of wrongdoing before we can proceed!”

  “You know,” Ushakov replied more calmly, “you throw a bunch of prisoners in a cell with a stoolie. Within a day they all know which one is our informer, every last one of them. How is that? How do they know? The stoolie isn’t informing them that he’s listening to their conversations. He isn’t introducing himself as KGB. So how do they know?”

  “You tell me,” Kalyugin grumbled. “I never dealt directly with prisoners.”

  “We don’t know! We’ve never been able to find out how they know. All they say is they just know who’s straight and who isn’t. And that’s with virgins to the Lubyanka, repeaters are even better at it!”

  “I fail to see your point, Pasha.”

  “My point is that a man develops a sense for who his true comrades are and who they aren’t. Just like the prisoner who knows who the stoolie is, I know this man is a spy. I can’t explain it any more than they can. But there it is. Not only is he a spy, he is supremely confident. He feels he has freedom to operate here! And he feels so confident that he gives us clues, daring us to catch him out!”

  Kalyugin mopped his forehead with a damp handkerchief. “Suppose you’re right. Who is his handler? What does he plan? Maybe he’s going to contact one of Donovan’s Ghosts, do you think?”

  It took Ushakov a moment to sort the Director’s reference. Donovan’s Ghosts was an odd legend that had circulated the KGB in the late 40’s and early 50’s. It seemed that when the old American intelligence agency, the OSS, had been summarily disbanded after the war a number of its agents in Russia had been stranded. OSS records disappeared in the shuffle, and supposedly the lost agents never resurfaced. It had rumored in certain departments of the Second Chief Directorate that the old OSS agents were still in Russia, gone to ground, fantastically wealthy now, incredibly powerful. And when an interrogator needed a phantom to blame for something gone wrong, he might mutter ‘Donovan’s Ghosts.’ Ushakov had never known for certain who Donovan was. “I don’t know. I don’t have the resources or the license to find out. But whatever his plan is, I believe it to be well advanced. Otherwise he wouldn’t be baiting me this way.”

  “Assuming he is at all,” Kalyugin snapped. “This is all still speculation, Pasha! What if Aleksei is a hysterical old woman and Loginov meant nothing by what he did?”

  “Have you ever heard of a murderer returning to the scene of the crime? The one-time killers don’t. But the bad ones, the ones that kill over and over again, they do. They go back to the scene of the crime to relive it, to re-experience the feelings there. I handled the interrogation pipeline
on a few of them. Tough customers, every last one of them, but each one returned to the site where he had killed once to re-experience the feelings he had there. Sometimes they look around for trinkets, some piece of evidence they may have left behind. Sometimes it’s the site of a certain killing they did, one they remember especially fondly. We even had some interrogators who were like that, did you know? Dangerous bastards and hard to control, but at times it was a useful trait. Sometimes I would see them standing around in the interrogation chamber where they’d killed a man, just standing there for no discernable reason.”

  “You seem to have become quite the expert in crime in the past few weeks, Pasha.”

  “It takes no expert to know that. Any interrogator builds knowledge of those who commit crimes, if he does it long enough. I’ve been at it for fifteen years. I should know a little bit about my job by now. That’s why you should trust my judgment, Piotr Vasilevich.”

  “Stop right there. It’s not that I don’t and you don’t accuse me of distrusting you. But you absolutely have to be right about this.” He pushed away from his desk and stood by the window, staring out at the dark skies. “The Chief Designer has gone to Moscow to discuss the project with the Central Committee. You can bet they’re not happy about the lack of progress. Now you want me to arrest a man and frighten the hell out of everybody else and slow progress down even more. You would have me standing before the Central Committee instead of the damned Comrade Chief Designer, Pasha.”

  “How much greater is your risk if I’m right?” Ushakov said quietly, his voice hard. “Do you think I’m going to tell an interrogator that I knew nothing, that I was just sitting around when espionage was happening?”

  Kalyugin turned quickly. His voice was cold. “What does that mean, comrade Ushakov?”

  “You take a great risk by inactivity,” he replied. His calculated statement put him on dangerous footing; the threat to Kalyugin could not be misinterpreted. It was an extreme measure, but he knew Kalyugin was talking himself into more inactivity. And if his theory about Loginov proved wrong he would have made an enemy of the Director, which could land him in the Lubyanka. But his every instinct tormented him, and he knew he was not wrong. He assumed a calming tone. “A much greater risk than by taking action, Piotr Vasilevich. If you take action and I am wrong, then you have just acted with appropriate prudence and most of the blame is mine. I’ll even go kiss the Comrade Chief Designer’s ass. But if I am right then we are both going to the Lubyanka.”