The quiet of Sarda’s and of Providenya itself was broken. A grinding nightmare could be heard moving closer to the building. The building itself quivered a little as Khromov and Dora merely waited for their third shot of anesthesia.
“What is that sound?” I quizzed everyone.
Marlys was frozen in place, I saw. Only Dutch and Don, up at the bar, seemed unconcerned.
“T-33,” Don answered, finally.
At hearing his words, I got up from the table. I went through the door. When I saw nothing, I went around to the southern corner of the building. A tank sat idling next to a wall. Its long gun barrel pointed directly at the ship, but the crew was scrambling out of it, one after another. They were nearly running as they went right by me. It was as if I wasn’t there.
They burst into Sarda’s.
I looked at the tank and then at the Lindy, then made my way back to the bar. I didn’t like the implied threat of the tank positioned there, yet I understood fully that the word was out about Sarda’s opening.
The tankers’ rush opened floodgates. People appeared from everywhere. In minutes, the bar was shoulder-to-shoulder. Dutch and Dan poured ceaselessly. Several tankers congregated around Marlys, by far the most voluptuous woman in all of Providenya, where beauty was seemingly illegal. She had an aura that did not draw men inside a certain radius. It was like a circle was painted on the floor five feet from her. She had uncrossed her legs, I noted. When I sat down, Marlys leaned very close to me.
“Do you want me to sleep with Günter?” she asked. Her eyes were limitless pools.
I could get nothing back from them. Our eyes remain locked, until I shook my head.
“Okay, then, I won’t. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
I didn’t understand her question, not at first. Does she want me to want her to sleep with Günter or not, I debated. My head began to hurt, as if I had actually been drinking the Johnny Walker Red myself. I engaged Khromov.
“What’s the child’s name and how old is he?” I asked, bringing the mission back to center stage.
“It’s Ivan,” Dora answered. “He’s eighteen.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. Minor relief. At least he was not a real child, for legal purposes. There would not be the difficulties, which would otherwise ensue if the child were a minor. Eighteen was an adult almost anywhere, even in Russia.
“I’ll have him come to the bar in the morning?”
My expression and shrug back toward the woman answered her question.
“What’s one more?” I persuaded myself.
I noted that passengers were beginning to fill the place. Sarda’s had become the single most popular spot in Provideniya and in only a matter of hours. I finally leaned back to Marlys.
“What’s the booze supply like aboard the Lindy?” I inquired.
She was all business in her response.
“It’s a hundred and fifty dollars a case, which will be charged to your account. We have seventy-one cases of everything aboard, not counting open bottles behind the bar.”
I whistled at her answer. The Lindy was well stocked. We wouldn’t be running out of booze in Provideniya, or anywhere else, anytime soon. Khromov had three shot glasses, all empty, in front of him, I tallied. He waved Don over again.
“Commissar Kasinski’s dangerous,” he warned, his voice not slurred in the slightest by his heavy drinking. “He knows something’s up. And he’s a devious bastard. Heartless. He tortures those people out there.”
Khromov waved toward the south, where the gulag was located.
“He’s got that hot shot activist from Moscow there. He’s got to show everyone that he’s broken him.”
I didn’t like hearing this news. The situation at the Gulag was becoming murkier by the moment. A common problem with the Agency’s analysis side is human intelligence. Seldom does an agent go operational with an accurate description of the true situation. I was painfully aware that I had a .32 automatic in my pocket, while not twenty feet away was a hundred and twenty-five-millimeter tank gun. I had minimal intelligence, questionable assistance, and was massively out-gunned with what could only be generously described as an impossible goal.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE:
Third and Long
The afternoon wore on. Dora, whom I had reckoned to be Khromov’s assistant, after many swallows of Johnny Walker Red, proved to be his sister, as well. So, the slight mystery of their resemblance was resolved. Maryls had tired of the drinking on the part of both the bottomless Khromovs and Dutch. Don assumed the entire serving load, but he was not over-worked because everyone drank whatever was available.
The popular Walker was supplemented with shots of Bacardi Light. There were no complaints. Marlys finally relieved Don to the approval of the wobbly males present. The men, one and all, leaned closer to the pallets in order to see a bit better. Marlys ignored them. Don joined me at the table, across from the Russians.
“Save the batteries,” I instructed him.
We would not be needing the radios until the next morning. I had already turned mine off.
“I have to go aboard anyway,” he shot back.
He would inform the Basque, that I knew for sure.
“I should get the snuff boxes and take them with me,” he offered to Khromov, who agreed enthusiastically.
“They’re on my desk, wrapped in nose tissue,” he said.”
I estimated that the professor had knocked down at least fifteen shots, with no stopping in sight. Don had instituted a payment plan whereby everyone threw paper bills and coins into a large bowl on the bar for the drinks. The Russians had not moved, so I presumed that their drinks were on the house, which would eventually mean on me.
“You left the boxes on your desk?” I mentioned, casually, to Khromov. “Can you lend Don the key?”
The Russian began chortling. He drank down another shot. Without Don pouring the booze, I realized, the man and his sister were going to have to belly up to the bar for more drinks.
“Key? I don’t have a key. The office’s never locked. We don’t have any theft here. Starvation, yes. Injuries and sickness, certainly. But no theft. There’s no place to take anything if somebody did steal it.”
I rejoiced that the doctor was still aboard the Lindy.
“Mouseketeers, again, tonight,” I reminded a departing Don.
The day was not moving the way I had hoped. It was going too slowly, like everything was mired in booze and molasses. It meant, of course, that the following day was going to proceed in overdrive.
A small group of youths entered the building. Nobody seemed to notice them. I watched them case the place, doubting that Marlys would serve them. Then they shuffled in my direction, stopping at our table. All four boys wore black pleather jackets, which were poor imitations of leather. They had that look of most adolescents all over the world. Theirs was the attitude Marlon Brando first captured in his 1950’s motorcycle movie, even if he had been anything but an adolescent when it was filmed.
I elbowed Khromov. He peered at the teenagers, who all looked younger than eighteen.
“Is this him?” the obvious leader of the pack said.
Khromov nodded, then stared into his empty glass.
“Can I talk to you outside?” the kid asked me.
“Why not,” I answered.
I stepped out into the cold Provideniya sun. I discovered that Sarda’s already gave off the stench of a well-used bar. The clear air outside smelled good. I walked down to the north end of the building and then stopped. Ivan was right behind me with his wolf pack. He gestured at the tank sitting nearby, its big gun aimed over the top of the distant Lindy down at the dock.
“Is the tank going to be a problem?” the kid asked.
I looked at the tank, then back at the boy.
“My friend says it’s a T
-33,” I tried to be conversational. “And yes, it’s a very serious concern.
“Your friend isn’t too smart,” Ivan stated, his voice showing no trace of the Russian accent I had first expected to hear. “It’s a T-72. There aren’t any T-33s. No such tank was ever made in Russia.”
The boy was not absolutely correct, I knew, as the T-33 had indeed existed at one time in Russia. It was the Russian attempt, before WWII, to come up with an amphibious armored vehicle. It hadn’t made it into full production. I let it go and I didn’t say more, trying to divine, instead, why we were out here together.
“My uncle said that it might be dangerous to take me with you,” Ivan remarked.
I considered. He had a point. It was probably a much more difficult thing to get him into the U.S. than any danger I might expose him to in Russia, but I remained silent.
“We can fix that thing,” he pointed at the tank, “in about ten minutes so it won’t fire. Not for a while, anyway.”
I looked at the huge forty-ton behemoth, doubting the boy’s word. Youthful bravado, I mused.
“The gun is just part of it. It has two thirty-caliber machine guns and the twelve-point-six up on top. They would be as damaging as the main gun. I mean, if it came to that.”
The tank was a war-fighting system, I well knew. The kid did not seem fazed.
“They’re all drunk in there,” he snapped his fingers back toward the entrance to Sarda’s, “so, when they finally come back, I don’t think they’ll check to see if they have any ammunition.”
“I’ll be damned. You’re right,” I congratulated the boy, with a smile. “Take the tank out. Yes, take it out.”
I left immediately, not wanting to be a part of the disaster that would ensue if the anti-tank plan went awry. I headed back into the bar.
I spotted Borman and then motioned with my head toward the door. I next tapped Dutch, who was almost lying atop his small part of the bar, as I went by. He quickened to my passing touch and then moved to follow me. Outside in the air, I waited for the two huge men who exited together.
“I want you two back on the ship. Take a nap before this evening. Sober up. If you have to have something tonight, then drink beer or wine.”
They both grunted before looking at one another. I thought they might argue about who was drunker, but they didn’t. Instead, they obediently started for the ship, Borman adjusting his white hat atop his damaged bullet head. I would have to remove his stitches soon, I thought, or they’d grow to the skin. It had been easier to think carelessly about the man’s health before his induction into the Mouseketeers.
I headed back inside Sarda’s. Some figures, far down the alley, were pulling what appeared to be old plastic coolers. Ivan walked toward me. I waited, thankful to be outside the door, dreading my return inside. I winked at the big Russian kid. He grinned back, then stood before me, his hands thrust deep into his faux leather pockets. I motioned toward the departing figures as they disappeared from view.
“The ammo?” I asked, already knowing and impressed.
He just played the part of Joe Cool. I didn’t ask him how he’d disabled the tank’s main gun, but I didn’t have any doubts that it’d been done either. The boy might just do, I concluded.
“Where do we meet in the morning?” he asked.
“The cemetery. We’ll be staging there once we get back from the gulag. I don’t know what time. Just be there. You got a passport?”
He shook his head. I was disappointed to hear that.
“Jesus Christ,” I swore, but bit the words off at the last second. He was just a kid. Then I smiled. “No theft in Provideniya, huh?” I said, thinking about the ammo and what the professor had said, but the kid looked puzzled. I began to make for the bar’s entrance.
“You going to rescue that guy?” Ivan inquired.
I stopped, nodding my head as I looked over at him. There was something more in his voice, so I waited.
“That’s good. He’s a fine person. Alexi Demetrius,” he said.
I almost asked “Who?” but I didn’t. He had to be talking about the activist, I figured. I wanted nothing whatever to do with Russian politics. And since there was nothing to be gained by revealing anything, I merely turned away. The boy ran off toward his distant, ammunition-thieving friends.
The bar was at full strength when I returned. The American version of happy hour had struck. I checked the money jar, but it’d been emptied already. I had a hunch where the money had gone, but I let the thought drift away. I really didn’t care.
I sat down with Khromov, who was finally showing signs that his blood alcohol was around twenty-five percent. He leaned forward heavily on his elbows. Dora, sitting next to him, looked like a larger female clone of him.
“What’s the deal with Alexi?” I asked him, certain that nobody was listening. Nobody cared. In Russia, everyone just drank hard. The passengers had gotten right into the cultural exchange, and were tossing down shots like there was no tomorrow, or if there was, it was going to be an awful painful one. Khmorov brought his head up slowly.
“Alexi? Ah yes, Alexi. He is in bad trouble. Maybe you ought to take him too.”
His head slumped down.
“I can’t just pull dissidents out of your prisons!” I hissed at his crumpled figure. “Talk about international incidents—” but I got no farther.
Dora chimed in, “They don’t want him anymore. They say he’s too well-known to kill and they won’t have him back in Moscow. They wouldn’t care if you took him.”
Speechless, I looked from one drunken Russian to the other. Both would make perfect crewmen aboard the M/S World Discoverer. They were just as crazy as the other people I had been with for the last week.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR:
Night Moves
The tarmac, laid across the concrete surface area of the dock, was empty. The walk from Sarda’s was short. It still took me awhile, though, as I was carrying an automatic pistol and I wanted to be certain that I would not be interdicted. But there was no one.
The gangplank rested at a steep angle. The harbor was not completely calm, diminished wave activity was making itself felt all the way in from the Bering Sea. A lower, shorter gangplank extended straight out from the portal everyone normally used to climb aboard the Zodiacs. Nobody stood guard at all, neither on shore nor on ship. I wondered where Kessler was. It was too quiet. How long would that lull last?
I went to my cabin so I could shed the suppressor, the Krugerrands, and the remainder of the gold nuggets. Gold was heavy. I realized that I could not have treaded water for more than five minutes without dumping the load. I placed the treasure trove atop my bunk. The weight was something to think about. It would surely limit my mobility. My agency training, along with most of my experience on missions, had never placed me in such a lonely position before. There was no ingress team, egress team, surveillance party, or operations assault platoon. There was just me.
I had imagined that the mission would be simple. I also had presumed that my Control Officer had thought the same thing. Now I had doubts. Most people thought CIA training was entirely physical. A bit of it was. But the majority of the New Jersey School training was mental. Thinking. Observing. Recognizing. Confirming all those things. Believing in nothing, but taking in everything, as if it was fact.
I was well trained and long experienced, but I was still way out of my element in Provideniya. Worse, I had not one soul with whom I could commiserate. I looked about the cabin and found a new micro-recorder inserted into the player’s small battery space. If someone had come for the old one, the one I’d tossed out the porthole, then why had they not simply taken the player back when they found the recorder missing? I shook my head in frustration. Then I pushed the button to see what the sixth song was, if there was one.
It played, “... Red, red wine … Go to my head, make me forget that
I still need her so…”
I almost pushed the small lever to off, but I didn’t. I played the song through, thinking wistfully of Marlys. What a hopeless quest I was on. And I didn’t even want to be on it. I had celebrated my freedom from cloying relationships in every port around the world and quite a few inland cities as well. But I was smitten now and I knew it.
If I had believed in God, the real God of my innocent youth, then I would have gotten on my knees in the cabin. I would not pray for winning Marlys over, but that somehow God would take her away from me without me feeling that I had lost both arms and legs in the process.
I sat for a long moment on the edge of my bunk, my face in my hands. Days earlier, I had believed I had some power, that I’d had balance. I’d had an understanding of life and my fellow man. Now, however, I was a mess. I could not see how even a part of the mission could succeed. I was worse off than Don Quixote. At least he had his Sancho Panza. I looked up at the ceiling of my cabin.
“Where is my Sancho Panza, Lord?” I begged, half-seriously.
I got up, turned the player off, wondering, absently, whether song number seven was as accurate as the rest had been. Whoever was behind the placement of the machine and the selection of its contents was an emotional fiend and a mental vampire.
The lido was near empty. Don, Dutch, and Borman sat at the bar, drinking some more. I was not shocked. All of them had changed clothes. Don and Dutch were dressed for the required dinner with passengers, while Borman wore casual attire. Across the lido deck, Günter’s head bobbed in then disappeared.
I cursed. Borman should not be there. He was acting like one of the Three Musketeers instead of as a Mouseketeer. Marlys was at Sarda’s, of course, so my version of the A-Team was pouring its own. I leaned into the bar next to Herr Borman.
“Get lost. Go get a nap. You shouldn’t be seen here. That was Günter who stuck his head in a second ago. He’s probably in Kessler’s cabin right now.”
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