“How many people live here?” Vadim asked, crossing to the window and looking out. They were high above the street now, in a different world.
“Just me,” Eugene said, sounding confused. Vadim had expected the answer, but it still managed to surprise him.
“And the State pays for all this?” Farm Boy asked, awe and disgust warring in his voice. Vadim could understand how the big Georgian felt: awe and disgust were pretty much all he’d felt since arriving in America.
“Where’s all your furniture?” Gulag asked.
“It’s called minimalism, man,” Eugene told him and went to slap Gulag on the shoulder.
“Don’t touch me,” Gulag said and Eugene froze, arm still raised. “If this was my place, I would fill it with a lot of things.”
“You’ve got to have style, you get me?” Eugene asked. Vadim was looking at a large, roughly square building, arched windows, a pillared frontage. It looked like a train station built by the decadent gods of Greek mythology. There was a broad skyscraper behind it, an ugly concrete block that ruined his appreciation of the station by reminding him of the brutal state architecture of the USSR.
He turned back to see the Fräulein organising the rest of the squad to thoroughly check through their gear. Mongol was kneeling over one of the bulky suitcases, shaking his head.
“No med kit,” he said. Gulag glanced over at his friend, and then turned to look at Vadim. It was clear to the captain that if the squad decided they’d had enough, there wasn’t a lot he could do about it over here. It would be very easy for them to defect right now.
“What’s the mission?” Vadim asked Eugene. The spy looked around at the rest of the squad.
“Em... I think it’s best that we speak alone.” He’d actually lowered his voice to answer. Princess was closest to him.
“Princess,” Vadim said quietly. Eugene screamed as she seized him, put him in a painful hold and showed him her knife. Most of the squad had stopped working, though New Boy had drawn his pistol and moved to the door. Vadim liked that.
“I have a number of misgivings, comrade Eugene,” Vadim said as he started to pace. “The first is you don’t seem very bright...” Eugene opened his mouth to protest. Princess hissed, almost sensuously, but the threat was apparent. He closed his mouth again. “For example, what possible reason could I have for hiding information from my people, and why would I risk losing something in translation? My second misgiving is that you seem to enjoy being American just a little too much...”
“I’m a loyal –” he started, giving a frightened yelp as Princess drew blood.
“...which makes me wonder if you’ve been compromised,” Vadim continued. “And thirdly, you’re annoying, and we’re not renowned for our patience. So when any of us asks a question, I would like an answer. Do we have an understanding?”
Eugene opened his mouth to say something.
“Think about what you’re going to say,” the Fräulein warned him. In the end, he just nodded. He was pale and covered in sweat. Princess let him go.
“What is the mission?” Vadim asked again.
“I think you guys are here for the duration,” Eugene said, shakily lighting a cigarette. Vadim wondered how this man had the nerve to be a spy. “I’m awaiting further orders, but initially it’s very simple. They want you to pick up something from a locker in Grand Central Station.”
Vadim pointed at the building far below.
“That station?” he asked. Eugene nodded, nervously sucking on the cigarette.
“Why can’t you do it?” Gulag growled before standing up and taking Eugene’s cigarette from him.
“That’s what I asked,” Eugene said fumbling for another cigarette. “Apparently there’s a threat to the package, so they want you guys there and loaded for bear.”
“Loaded for bear?” Farm Boy asked, frowning.
“Heavily armed,” Vadim said. A building a little distance away had caught his attention: a silver, needle-like tower. It looked like something from a pre-war German Expressionist film he had seen at an illegal screening as a teenager. A city peopled by robots.
“Why weren’t we given our body armour?” the Fräulein demanded.
“Or a medical kit?” Mongol added. Eugene stared at them.
“How would I possibly know that?”
“Why do they want us so heavily armed?” Skull asked quietly.
“I told you: a threat,” Eugene protested. “Look, I think there will be more instructions with the package. You may be going straight on, catching a train to go and blow up Washington, or something. How would I know? This is what compartmentalisation is all about, comprende?”
Vadim stared at the spy, who look terrified. Gulag reached over, took Eugene’s packet of cigarettes from his pocket and the second lit one from his unresisting hand. He offered it to Farm Boy, who shook his head. Gulag shrugged and started smoking both cigarettes.
Vadim didn’t like any of this: the weapons, the missing equipment, the sparse brief, the trail of dead KGB they had left in Afghanistan. This stank of a setup.
“I’m sorry Eugene, but I don’t believe you,” Vadim said. “We’re going to have to torture you until you tell us what the real plan is.”
Mongol and Farm Boy shifted uncomfortably, but held their peace. New Boy didn’t look terribly happy either. Skull and the Fräulein remained impassive, but Princess and Gulag smiled. Gulag wandered into the kitchen and started going through the drawers, pulling out knives and other utensils.
Eugene didn’t try to run, and he certainly didn’t go for a weapon. He was pale, shaking, tears rolling down his cheek, a growing wet patch on the front of his oversized trousers, piss running down his leg.
“Please...” he managed.
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Gulag muttered.
“Tell me the truth, Eugene,” Vadim said quietly.
“I am!” he howled. “They don’t tell me anything! I’m not good at this! I’m scared all the time! I don’t know who’s watching me! I live in fear constantly!” He sank to his knees in the puddle of his own piss. Princess looked disgusted, and Gulag shook his head. “I just want this to be over!” he sobbed. If it was an act, it was a damn good one; but it was the piss that convinced Vadim. He couldn’t conceive of any man willingly pissing himself.
“Do you have equipment for detecting electronic surveillance?” Vadim asked, and Eugene nodded. Vadim pointed at Farm Boy. “You’re going to show this man where it is and then you’re going to show him where you believe all the listening devices are hidden.” Eugene nodded again, utterly miserable.
THEY HAD EUGENE point out the listening devices and put the television on, before tying and gagging him and putting him in the bath. Then Farm Boy conducted another sweep with the bug detecting tools and found more listening devices.
“We have a decision to make,” Vadim told them. They were all crouched, close together, speaking in a low voice in case Farm Boy had missed any of the bugs. “Do we do their bidding or not?”
The Fräulein frowned. Vadim suspected that she did not approve of the breakdown in military protocol.
“What are our alternatives?” New Boy asked carefully.
“We defect,” Vadim said. They were all staring at him now, even Skull and Gulag.
“Even I’m not a traitor,” Gulag spat.
“I believe we have been betrayed,” Vadim said. “This feels like we’re being set up, somehow.”
“With all due respect,” the Fräulein said, “are you sure you don’t just have misgivings about the end result of the mission?”
Farm Boy was frowning. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“We have to be picking up an NBC weapon,” Skull pointed out. Mongol drew back a little, and Gulag laughed humourlessly.
“He’s right,” Vadim said. “I suspect our job will be to pick such a weapon up, perhaps a suitcase bomb of some kind, and deliver it to a target. I think we’re so heavily armed because we’ll have to fight ou
r way to the objective.”
“Then why no body armour? No med kit?” Mongol asked.
It was a good question, and Vadim didn’t have a good answer.
“Perhaps we’ll be moving too fast for a med kit?” Farm Boy suggested, though he didn’t sound like he really believed it.
“Too fast for body armour?” New Boy asked.
“It’s the Red Army,” Gulag said. “It’s probably a logistics mistake.” Except Vadim was pretty sure that the KGB had packed their gear. These weren’t the kind of mistakes they made.
“So?” Vadim asked.
“What do you want to do, boss?” the Fräulein asked.
“I will act on whatever you decide.”
“I have family back home,” Mongol said. “I can’t defect if there’s even the slightest chance I can get home.” Vadim could tell Mongol didn’t like his chances of getting back.
“I owe the USSR nothing, I say we defect,” Skull said. Suddenly everyone was staring at the sniper.
“I’m no traitor,” New Boy managed. Princess glared at him.
“I say we do the job,” she said. Then it went quiet.
“Fräulein?” Vadim asked.
“I am with you, whatever is chosen.”
“This is your decision,” Vadim told her.
“And I have made it,” she told him evenly. Vadim turned to look at Farm Boy. The big Georgian was deep in thought. Gulag was watching his friend.
“I think...” Farm Boy finally said, “that it is not a good thing to turn your back on your loyalties” – he glanced over at Skull – “however they are imposed.” Skull nodded. “I think we should follow our orders.” All of them turned to look at Gulag, who in turn was staring at Vadim.
“You know we’re all dead anyway, right? Smoking, radioactive corpses?” he asked. Vadim nodded. Gulag glanced over at Farm Boy. “Fuck it, I’m in.”
“You can go your own way,” Vadim told Skull. The sniper just narrowed his eyes, offended at the suggestion he would leave the squad in the lurch.
CHAPTER FIVE
1500 Eastern Standard Time (EST), 16th November 1987
Grand Central Station, New York City
VADIM PUSHED HIS way through the door and into the cavernous edifice of Grand Central Station, New Boy beside him. Gulag and Farm Boy were a little way behind, far enough that the four didn’t look as though they were together. At the other side of the concourse, the Fräulein and Princess, Mongol and Skull would be doing the same thing.
Looking around surreptitiously, he made his way down the grimy marble stairs into the main concourse, hefting his luggage, which carried much of his weaponry. There was no doubt it was a grand building, but it had seen better days; it reminded him a little of Leningrad in that respect. The domed ceiling high overhead was encrusted with soot. The dirty marble floor was covered in rubbish, which haggard-looking janitors pushed around with a brush. Ticket booths ran down one wall. A display board above them showed arrivals from places that Vadim had only heard of during intelligence briefings. A dirty, once-grand four-faced clock sat atop an information booth. Tawdry adverts covered the walls, offering a technicolor capitalist utopia for just the right amount of money. All of which seemed at odds with the hundreds of Americans crowding into the huge edifice, their heads down, moving with purpose as though performing some complex dance.
A raised walkway ran around the main concourse: Vadim caught a glimpse of the Fräulein pulling her wheeled suitcase around the long walkway, but he couldn’t see the others. The idea was that the snipers and machine-gunners would act as fire support from an elevated position if things went wrong, while Vadim’s team retrieved the package.
Vadim reached the bottom of the stairs, put his own wheeled suitcase down onto the grimy marble floor and looked around. New Boy joined him.
“Anything wrong?” New Boy asked quietly. Vadim was aware of Gulag and Farm Boy surreptitiously moving into covering positions on the stairs behind him. There wasn’t anything wrong – not that Vadim could see – but something didn’t seem right. He looked around at the commuters scurrying back and forth, on their way to and from work, going home, on their way to visit friends and relatives, families with children. It was hard to think of them as enemies, but he couldn’t see the American authorities wanting to start a gunfight in the midst of them. Vadim shook his head and headed down the chandelier-lit slope between the stairs into the lower concourse.
WHERE THE MAIN concourse had been cavernous, the lower concourse seemed cave-like, perhaps thanks to the lack of natural light. Or perhaps he just felt trapped because this was a poor place for a fight. The sloping ceiling felt much lower than it actually was, and people buffeted him as they ran for the platforms on either side of the concourse; the air smelled of fried food, overflowing garbage bins and too many people, and it felt like every single transit cop was watching them as they passed.
The luggage storage area was in an alcove set back from the lower concourse. There were ten long rows of lockers. Vadim checked the key that Eugene had given him. They had discussed killing the spy, but decided to let him live in case he proved useful later on.
The locker they were looking for was in the fifth row. Gulag and Farm Boy took up position further back in the lower concourse, though still within view of the alcove. With a final look around them, Vadim and New Boy plunged into the luggage area.
They found the locker. Vadim took the key out, New Boy stood off a little. Vadim turned the key and opened the locker, revealing a brass cylinder filling the space inside. Vadim’s heart sank. It was a biological or chemical weapon. He had been hoping for something conventional; even a tactical nuclear suitcase bomb would have felt cleaner somehow. Then he heard a click. He looked on in horror as the top and bottom of the cylinder unscrewed itself. There was a distinct hissing noise. It made no sense to Vadim. Why send them all this way, just to kill them as part of a chemical weapons attack? He did something he hadn’t even done as a child amongst the ruins of Stalingrad: he froze.
Then he heard movement coming from amongst the rows of lockers. The clink of weapons against webbing, the pad of booted feet trying to move stealthily. Instinct took over. The Stechkin APB was in one hand, a spare magazine in the other. Movement in his periphery. He turned to the left, made out the armoured, helmeted figure of a SWAT team member coming around the corner, triggered a three-round burst. The gun bucked in his hand, and the figure disappeared behind the lockers again. Vadim had no idea if he had hit him or not. New Boy was kneeling and opening the cases, rooting through their weapons. Vadim checked right and saw movement at the other end of the row. He fired a burst that way, then another. Then back to the left, firing again, alternating suppressing fire at each end of the row of lockers. It didn’t matter who you were, you didn’t walk into automatic weapons fire. He had no idea why they hadn’t used a grenade yet, or used snipers on the way in. Perhaps it was some American sense of fair play. The twenty-round magazine in his pistol ran dry, and he ejected it, slid the fresh mag home and continued firing. The Stechkin was far from accurate on full automatic, but in an enclosed space like this it was good for making people keep their heads down.
“Grenade!” New Boy shouted in Russian and threw the grenade to Vadim’s left into the next row of lockers. Another grenade was thrown to the right, also behind the lockers. Vadim was kneeling, head down, as he holstered his pistol and dropped the empty magazine down the front of his shirt. New Boy slid the captain’s AK-74 along the floor, and Vadim grabbed the weapon; the safety was off. The first grenade exploded. Lockers toppled and bodies were flung into the air. There was another explosion, bright light and thunder. Presumably one of the SWAT members had been about to throw a stun grenade. New Boy’s second grenade exploded. Over-pressure buffeted them, shrapnel tore at their clothes and Vadim only narrowly missed being decapitated by a spinning locker door. Blinking away spots of light, Vadim tried to shout at New Boy to clear right while he cleared left, but nothing came out. That
was when he realised he’d gone deaf. He glanced behind him to see the younger man already stalking through the wreckage, rifle tucked into his shoulder. Vadim shouldered his AK-74 and did the same in the opposite direction.
There were two broken bodies at the end of the row, blackened from the explosion, red from shrapnel. One more was staggering around, probably as much from the effects of the stun grenade as anything else. It didn’t look as though he could see. A fourth was curled up on the floor, hands over his ears, mouth open in a silent scream. The one on his feet was aware of Vadim somehow, he was grabbing for his sidearm. The captain squeezed the trigger, twice. The rifle kicked back into his shoulder and he leaned into it. The goggles the agent was wearing under his helmet filled with red and he collapsed to the ground. Vadim put two rounds into each of them. They couldn’t leave anyone behind them.
Quickly Vadim checked the rest of the locker area. The SWAT team’s members had the letters FBI painted on their body armour: American state security. They were not just police officers; they had been waiting for Vadim and his people.
The captain made his way back to where they had left their luggage. New Boy was already there. There were another four dead FBI agents amongst the wreckage at the other end of the row. New Boy had done his job. He was shaking his head as though trying to clear it; Vadim couldn’t hear anything either, except a high-pitched whine. He signalled New Boy to cover him whilst he shrugged off his coat and grabbed his webbing from the suitcase, pulling it on and securing it tightly in place. He strapped on the back sheath holding his KS-23 shotgun, then straightened up and readied his rifle as New Boy put his webbing on. He was starting to hear muted sounds now: a voice shouting through a loudhailer in English and screaming, a lot of screaming and distant gunfire. The chatter of a light machine gun, Mongol’s or the Fräulein’s RPKS-74. Skull’s .303 firing sounded like a cannon, and Vadim knew that up in the main concourse someone had just died.
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