by Tigner, Tim
The driver kicked the box and shouted “undisciplined fools” loud enough to be heard above the rumbling engine. Alex strained his neck to see his host but could only see his feet. The man wore spit-shined shoes, and his sharply creased pants had an officer’s stripe. Alex slipped a leather belt around the filthy front axel and then wrapped one end around each wrist as the officer opened the door. Forgive me if I don’t salute.
As the jeep lurched forward, the picture of two bloody stumps clutching a belt flashed through his mind. Did he really know what he was doing? Whether he did or not, he was now committed.
The officer seemed to listen to Alex’s telepathic command, and slowed but did not stop while passing the gate. Excellent. From this side of the gauntlet all Alex had to hope for was that they weren’t headed for covered parking. He did not relish the idea of being dragged over bare asphalt. Regardless, he could not let go for fear of being spotted in the rear-view mirror.
The jeep neither stopped nor drove over bare asphalt. This puzzled Alex and it wasn’t helping his back either. The main entrance to the KGB headquarters was just fifty meters or so from the guardhouse. Surely a general would have priority parking, especially at this hour. What was happening? Anybody got an aspirin?
Alex felt the road beneath the snow turn from asphalt to gravel. Should he release—there were no lights around now so he wouldn’t be seen—or should he hold on to see what it was that pried a KGB officer out of bed at five thirty in the morning? Alex decided to give it two more minutes. After that, the hike back would be too long, and he would be in trouble with his dentist.
It took five minutes, but as soon as they stopped Alex knew he had chosen wisely. That was two gambles that had paid off today and the sun wasn’t even up yet. He wished he were in Vegas.
Alex looked up at the mammoth chimney silhouetted against the starry Siberian sky and enjoyed one of those deep smiles that warms you from the inside out. The officer had parked before the abandoned nuclear power plant. This virtually confirmed a suspicion he had been harboring ever since Anna told him the story of her brother’s death. Another piece of the puzzle slid smoothly into place.
He waited motionlessly while the officer entered the building. Unarmed and under a jeep was no way to engage the enemy. That line wasn’t from Sun Tzu, but he was sure The Master would agree. Besides, if his hunch were right there was no great hurry.
Alex watched the red second hand on his compass-watch make one full sweep and then he rolled out from under the jeep. It took just twenty seconds for him to stash the remnants of his cardboard sleigh in a snow bank and hide himself behind an evergreen that yielded good views of both the entranceway and the approaching road. In the distance to his left, Alex saw the moonlight reflecting off the lake that had guided him to this place, and he felt a rekindling of something that might actually be pride. He had come a long way.
Reflecting on the current situation, Alex figured there were three likely scenarios: one, the officer had come to the complex this early to retrieve something; two, he had come in to meet someone who, given the absence of any other vehicles, had not yet arrived; or three, he had come in early to work. If it were either of the first two, it would be a mistake to move now. So Alex decided to wait for ten minutes and see what happened. Where could he get a cup of coffee?
As it turned out, he was still warm from the under-jeep-adrenaline-rush when the officer emerged. He had been inside just four minutes. As the officer walked briskly to the jeep, Alex caught sight of the star on his shoulder board. Thank you, General.
Seconds later the jeep’s taillights were fading fast down the gravelly road and Alex found himself with only the ghosts of the past to keep him company. Time to rock and roll.
This was one of those moments in life when you know the adrenaline can’t get much higher. He was single-handedly staging a pre-dawn break-in to a restricted, potentially irradiated, top-secret KGB facility fourteen time zones from a friendly face. All-in-a-day’s-work didn’t quite cut it.
Alex caught himself holding his breath as he swiped Yarik’s card-key through the reader. He had moved from craps to roulette, and now he was betting big on green. What would he do if an alarm sounded? His only option would be to run across the surrounding field of virgin snow. Yes, he was betting big indeed. But his color came up, there was a click, and he was in. Too easy? He wasn’t home yet. Let it ride.
As the door swung open, the stench of stale air greeted his nose while nothing but the blackness beyond met his eyes. Had there been a doormat, Alex would have expected it to give way at this point, dropping him into a pit or a moat, but all remained still and silent as the crypt everyone was supposed to think it was. Alex stepped in decisively and closed the door behind him. As the latch clicked, dim emergency-level lighting switched on to reveal a corridor with a dozen doors each on the left and right. Which way to go? The dilemma reminded Alex of the Dungeons & Dragons games he had enjoyed as a child. Fortunately, Detective Ferris did not have to guess.
He followed the general’s trail along the dusty floor to a door at the left end of the corridor. There was another card reader there. Once again, he bet his only chip on green—and won. As this door opened, the scent of chlorine assaulted his nose and a concrete stairway greeted his eyes. It led down into darkness with no end in sight. He had already gone from Schwarzenegger to Nancy Drew on this trip. Alex hoped Stephen King wasn’t next on the list. “Cujo?” Nothing but silence. “Good doggy.” Nothing. He hardened his resolve and stepped down into the void.
As he descended through the dark, a dozen horror films, mystery novels, and detective shows assailed his imagination and ripped at his resolve. None of them had happy endings. This was not the eccentric neighbor lady’s basement that had frightened him as a kid. This was the KGB, and the fright was man style.
Thirty-eight steps later, his sweaty hand came into contact with a door. This was it. He had gone one-on-one with Yarik to learn what was on the other side of that door. Andrey had given his life to get Alex here. He found the handle, gave it a firm twist, and walked into wonderland.
In sharp contrast to the dusty abandon above, the subterranean suite surrounding him was reminiscent of the White House Situation Room. It was not a large setup, but it was an extremely well equipped one. He would have liked to take the tour, but could not risk the time. For all he knew, Yarik had a twin too.
Alex crossed the common area to what appeared to be the executive offices of the clandestine organization whose headquarters he had infiltrated. There were no names or titles on the doors, but the suite was obviously equipped to service a triumvirate. He assumed Yarik was one of those three, and wanted to find his office. The odds were best that no one would discover him there or notice if he disturbed anything. That might be splitting hairs, but his victories on this case had all been razor thin, so split he would.
He had three doors from which to choose. Once again, he was living a logic puzzle. Despite the giant’s intelligence, Alex was intuitively certain that Yarik was not the top dog, so the central of the three offices was out. That gave him a fifty-fifty choice between the two flanking suites. What else could he infer? Yarik exhibited an underdeveloped sense of right and wrong, and displayed an unabashed disregard for society’s rules. He was a man of passion, of instinct. That indicated right-brain thinking. Right brain people prefer the right side of the room. Conclusive? No. But Alex played it conservative nonetheless, and went right.
He went straight to the computer and began the boot sequence. If he could not hack his way in, his backup plan was to take the hard-drive with him. He hoped it would not come to that. Actually, “hack” was not the right word. Alex hoped to walk right in the front door; he was betting on human nature.
Passwords and human nature go together like ice cream and tuna fish. The discord arises from the fact that passwords are supposed to be as long, complicated and illogical as possible, when of course what you want to use is something that is short and easy to re
member. Now, since even computer nerds know enough about human nature to understand that want will inevitably get the best of supposed, they usually take preemptive measures to ensure that the company store isn’t guarded by Foofy or Fido. They do this by requiring a specific length and format, and then tagging on an expiration date. Well, as a P.I. and student of human nature, Alex knew that you couldn’t beat lazy that easily. As though following some secret genetically programmed instruction, people the world over tended to respond identically to their network-administrator’s challenges by writing their passwords down. Alex was hoping that this was one area of human nature where Yarik was not an exception.
It took fifty-two seconds for him to find the cheat-sheet taped to the bottom of the pencil holder. LuV2KiL confirmed that he had selected the correct office. And Lazy wins the game while Ferris takes the set.
Although there is nothing so frustrating as being denied critical information by an unresponsive computer, the opposite is also true. Alex was feeling good. Once inside the system, he ran a search for the fourteen-digit sequence that was “his number.” Nothing! Alex let out a long, slow sigh of relief and then performed a second search. This time he used “Kimberly Evans” and he got a hit. Three minutes later Alex had two hard copies of a network file listing names and numbers. The file was titled “Peitho.” The name meant nothing to him, but the contents were everything. He would have to look up Peitho later.
The Peitho list was a long one, but it was not outrageous. Relieved as he was to learn that there was not an army of forced combatants out there, Alex was nonetheless overcome by a wave of pity for the hundred or so souls laid raw before him. Then a second wave struck, only this time it was inspiration.
It took two minutes for Alex to change a random digit in each of the one-hundred-sixteen Peitho codes. It was one of the simplest things he had ever done, and yet undoubtedly the most significant single event of his life. One small mouse-click for man… For kicks, he destroyed Yarik’s cheat-sheet and changed his network password to “Ferris1” before logging off.
Now Alex had a new priority in life: getting the list of Peitho victims out of Russia. He spent ten minutes packing the list of names into his brain as a type of insurance, hoping it would be sufficient for passive recall if disaster struck. What else could he do? Within a few feet of where he was sitting there was probably equipment that could compress the data onto a microdot he could swallow or implant beneath the skin of his forearm, but there was no time for that. A swift retreat was clearly the winning wager at this point.
Alex had one more thing to do before leaving. He needed to find a uniform. His own clothes were a wreck after riding beneath the general’s jeep. He would be a fool to attempt marching out the front door looking like a chimney sweep, and marching out was exactly what he planned to do.
A quick search of Yarik’s office was unproductive, but he struck pay dirt in the office to the left of center. Three minutes later Alex Ferris, IPI, was a general in the KGB. The rank of general was much too conspicuous for his tastes, but there was nothing he could do about that, so he pressed on. It was time to get the hell out of Dodgenik. I’d like to cash in my chips, please.
Chapter 59
Academic City, Siberia
Anna was in the midst of a lovely dream when she awoke to a nightmare. Someone was pounding on her door. Talk about déjà vu.
Owing to her dream, her first thought was an optimistic one: could it be Alex? She looked at her watch. It was only six o’clock. Alex had left three hours earlier. Was he done already? It was possible, but he wouldn’t be pounding on her door … unless it was urgent. Maybe she had slept through the soft knocks. Perhaps he needed help.
The pounding resumed. Surely it wasn’t Vasily again … but it really didn’t sound like Alex either. Both of them were more subtle than that. Vasily was nothing if not tactful, and the Alex she knew would have thrown pebbles at her window or climbed up the fire escape. Anna felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. What if they had caught Alex and tortured him into giving up her name? What if the KGB had come to take her away? No, no, there hadn’t been enough time for that. What then? The rapists from the roadblock! Perhaps they had finally tracked her down and had come to finish the job … one way or the other.
The pounding came again. Anna could not ignore it. If it was bad news, it would remain there waiting for her, but if Alex needed help, he needed it immediately.
Anna put on her bathrobe and went to the door.
“Where is he?” Vasily asked the moment she opened the door.
How did he know about Alex? Was this personal, or professional? Why was he holding up that big black pen? “What are you talking about, Vasily?”
“Do not play games with me, Anna. Either produce the American, or step aside.” A KGB Major stepped into the doorway beside Vasily, making it clear that this was not a misguided courtship game.
“Get on with your foolishness,” Anna said, and moved aside. She had no idea how Vasily had learned of Alex, but she was thrilled that Alex had outwitted Vasily by leaving so early.
The Major went to the kitchen and then the bathroom. He said nothing but gave Vasily a single negative nod. Vasily walked over to stand by the folded cot and the box of medical supplies that rested in the corner of the room. Then he shifted his gaze to her bed. Was it obvious two people had been sleeping there? Yes, she feared, it probably was.
When he turned back toward her, Vasily wore a twisted smile on his angry face. “I’ll ask you for the last time, here, where … is … he?”
The emphasis on the word here hit Anna like a slap in the face. No doubt that was Vasily’s intent. She willed herself to remain calm and composed. Vasily could certainly do whatever he wanted to do, but she did not have to give him any satisfaction. “Whoever he was, he’s gone now. Where he went, I have no idea.”
Vasily merely nodded. She expected him to shout at her, perhaps shake or slap her, but he did none of these. Instead, his eyes flared and he walked over to the shelf that displayed her beloved collection of glass figurines. He picked up the unicorn and locked her gaze. When Anna didn’t flinch, he flicked it to the floor where it shattered at her feet. Without breaking eye contact he slowly reached for another figurine, arching his eyebrows and tilting his head as he did so.
Anna felt her lower lip begin to quiver, but she did not break eye contact. If Vasily was looking for weakness or remorse he had failed, all he was getting was rage. He seemed to sense this.
“I,” smash, “am,” smash, “very,” smash, “disappointed,” smash, “in,” smash, “you,” smash, “Anna,” smash. Then he turned his back to her and moved toward the door.
“Take her away, Major.”
Chapter 60
Academic City, Siberia
“Take her away, Major. Confine her at The Complex and wait for my arrival.”
“The Complex. Yes, Sir,”
Maximov’s tone was obedient for Anna’s benefit, but Vasily caught a questioning look in his eyes. All Vasily said was, “I’ll be there in a couple of hours.” He had shown weakness once before. He would not show it again.
“Very well, Sir.”
Vasily shut the door and sat somberly on Anna’s bed. It was obvious that two people had slept there. Two people. Huh. That sounded so innocuous. The woman he loved was sleeping with the man he hated. Hated? Yes, hated. Alex had made it to Novosibirsk. A week ago. That meant Yarik had not. One week—to bag Yarik and bed Anna. Hated.
Vasily looked at the bits of crystal on the floor, the smashed figurines, and thought of his fallen friends. He had pushed Igor too hard, and it had killed him. What was he thinking, trying to Peitho the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? He had gotten cocky. Now he had pushed Yarik too far, and had killed him too. Bring him in unblemished, he had ordered. He had gotten greedy. And then there were two.
But they were so close, so close. And he still had Victor. Vasily felt his blood pressure rising unexpectedly as he thought of his son
. A moment later he understood why. Victor’s incompetence had brought about this mess. If Anna didn’t cooperate, if she didn’t give him Alex, he would summon Victor. Let the boy clean up his own mess.
Despite this morning’s setback, the Knyaz were still on course. His overall strategy of using Alex as a lever to pry Anna into the Kremlin was still sound and salvageable. In fact, he could still win Anna’s heart and have Alex in jail by nightfall if he played the interrogation just right. That was why he instructed Major Maximov to take Anna to The Complex.
Maximov would not take Anna there by way of the gravelly road Vasily had used an hour earlier when he went to retrieve Medusa. Maximov would walk Anna through the main lobby of the KGB building, giving her a false hope he could later snatch away. He would walk her past the lobby elevators and down the long hallway that ran the length of the first floor and continued along the back. Once they reached its far end they would board a service elevator which, according to its buttons, would take them either two levels higher or two levels lower. Major Maximov would push and hold both the -1 and the -2 buttons long enough for the computer to identify his thumbprints. Then the doors would close, a special light would illuminate, and the elevator would descend to a secret level. When the doors opened, Anna would find herself looking into the mouth of a long stone tunnel. This was the back entrance to the Knyaz headquarters, the one they almost always used, and it virtually cried out, “All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”
Vasily was proud not just of the tunnel and the headquarters at the other end, but of the clever means by which he had acquired them. Like most everything else of note he owned, they were the spoils of a strategic campaign.
If there is one constant that applies to leaders and governments throughout the world and across time, it is this: whatever they do well for their people, they do even better for themselves. When the government of Russia built the peoples’ bomb shelters in preparation for the nuclear war their strategists thought inevitable, they created metros, deeply buried metros, in all of Russia’s first-strike cities. When they built the Party leaders’ bomb shelters, they found the hardest location within fifty kilometers of the city center, and then built themselves an escape tunnel to reach it.