Rift Zone

by Raelynn Hillhouse

  Faith rolled the knob back across the table to Summer. “Give or take a few minutes?”

  “The variation depends on the temp. If it’s colder it’ll take closer to thirty, warmer fifteen. You see, when you pull the pin, you release the striker, the spring-loaded firing pin. It presses against this steel wire, which eats through a lead strip. It takes a while to cut through it. When it does, the mine’s armed and any pressure on the rubber plate on top will release the actuating plunger. Then the striker—”

  “We understand. It blows up,” Zara said, tapping her fingers on the table.

  “There are a couple of steps before then, but you could sum it up like that.”

  “Then we do have the ability to set off the blast with adequate delay,” Zara said.

  “And I could cut the time in half by filing down the lead strip so the wire cuts through faster, say in seven to fifteen. Why don’t I do that on a couple, just in case we decide to go that route?” Summer opened a blade on his Leatherman and whittled at the thin lead strip. “To finalize our inventory, the gun I took from your guard has a full magazine with eight rounds. What I wouldn’t give for some night-vision equipment.”

  “I have at least fifty rounds of ammunition in the car and a second magazine. The magazine on the Makarov can be a bit tricky to remove. I suggest you practice, so you can reload quickly. I do have a small night-vision monocular and a small pair of regular binoculars in the glove compartment.”

  “That’s convenient,” Faith said.

  “I keep them for night birding—owls.”

  “What kind of power are we talking about?” Summer said.

  “I got them from a guy in the KGB Spetsnaz unit. They’re not as good as what I have at home in Berlin, but they’re our latest night-vision technology.” Zara glanced at her watch. “We have to pick up our pace. The meeting is scheduled to begin in three hours. Unless someone knows of any additional resources, I propose we move on to the discussion of the target. The dacha’s located on a stream in a birch forest about a half-hour north of the Moscow ring road. It takes another half-hour to get to the city limits from here, and that’s without traffic.”

  “Any neighbors?” Summer said.

  “They probably wouldn’t be there this early in the season, not on a Sunday night. One is rather close, perhaps a hundred meters.”

  “What I wouldn’t also give for some good overheads. We should get there as soon as we can and see if we can’t borrow a dacha as a base. I’d like some time for recon.”

  “That was going to be my suggestion, but we’re discussing the target now, not the plan,” Zara said.

  “You don’t have to run this thing like it’s some goddamn Communist Party meeting. We have to get a move on here,” Summer said.

  “But we do need structure to this operation, and I do believe you delegated that task to me after you took control.”

  “I don’t know how you do it here in Russia, but when planning a mission, we Americans like the input of ideas.”

  “Give me a break, you two,” Faith said. “This isn’t the time for Soviet-American rivalry. Let’s move on and tolerate each other’s style differences.” Faith understood the competition had far less to do with international than interpersonal politics.

  “As I said, it’s a two-story wooden dacha, no more than two hundred twenty-five square meters.”

  “So if my rough conversion is right, that’s a bit over two thousand square feet. I take it we’re not talking sixteen-inch support beams, but regular housing construction?”

  “Standard Soviet housing construction, maybe fifty years old. Things were built much better under Stalin, but it’s weathered, which says a lot with our winters.”

  “We have enough C-4 to give anyone inside a really bad day. We’re going to need fifteen to twenty pounds of something to weigh down the mine. Do you know if there are any loose bricks around the house?”

  “I’ve been at Stukoi’s dacha perhaps three times in ten years, each time for mushroom hunts. There was always a lot of clutter, so I don’t know what it’s like now, but I’m certain you’ll find something adequate.” Zara forced a smile.

  “We know anything about the meeting we’re crashing?” Summer said.

  “Not much, but it’s going to be important for me to show up and get some kind of proof of the coup attempt. Without that, who’s to believe why we blew up the place? I have a miniaturized camera and microphone I brought from Berlin that I can use to document it. We also need to find out how they’re planning to get Gorbachev, since they didn’t receive the C-4 delivery. We have to make sure that taking them out not only stops them from seizing power, but also saves the General Secretary.”

  “How many people? What kind of security?”

  “With all due respect,” Faith said, “we’re going into the woods with a bunch of explosives, breaking into a cabin, spying on the neighbors and then winging it. I know you’re both highly trained professionals used to teams with all kinds of high-tech gadgets, but you have to accept that you don’t have your colleagues or your toys and, no matter how hard we try, we don’t know jack about what we’re really getting into until we get there.” Faith stood and walked over to the crate of landmines. She reached inside and picked one up, surprised it was so light. “We’ve now entered the phase where my specialty pays off, and it’s my turn to play leader. We’re going to fan out and scavenge from these crates and that mess upstairs for anything we think might be remotely useful. We’ll take turns on the shower. I thought I saw some gray coveralls in that pile of old clothes. Commander Summer, I suggest you turn your charms on my mother and see if you can get us some flashlights. A backpack would be really nice. You also better get her phone number and memorize it, just in case you make it out and we don’t. I know your mission specs call for only a couple mines, but as the lead scavenger, I’m going to take a bunch, just in case. We might only need a couple, but you never know. Let’s get a move on. The longer we’ve got on-site, the better the chance our half-assed plan might actually work.”

  A few minutes later, Faith scaled the ladder. The secret panel to the orphanage’s basement lifted up just before Faith could push it open. She and her mother paused face-to-face and studied the changes in each other that the years of separation had carved. Faith caught a glimpse of something she hadn’t seen or hadn’t let herself see since she was a child. For a moment the woman before her wasn’t a fundamentalist bigot, but a concerned mother, a mother worried about her child.

  Faith looked away and slid back down the ladder to the hidden room. “Summer, I think you’d better go up first. You deal with her.”

  “You’re a grown woman. Act like one. Get on up there.”

  Faith sighed. She climbed back up.

  Mama Whitney held a plate of overstuffed sandwiches. “I don’t know why on earth I was so tickled when you showed up. I nearly had to pinch myself to see if I was dreaming or if after all these years Jesus had finally forgiven me and brought my little girl back to me.”

  “Those two brought me here.” Faith nodded down the trapdoor toward Summer and Zara. “If I’d known where they were taking me, we wouldn’t be having this touching reunion.”

  “Child, I don’t know whatever happened for the devil to cram so much hatred into you.”

  “My childhood pretty much covers it.”

  “Honey, I did the best I could in difficult times. Lord knows I’ve made mistakes. It sure wasn’t easy raising a child alone back in those days, particularly with my Calling. When are you ever going to find it in your heart to forgive your mama?”

  “That’s a new angle. I didn’t think your God had anything to do with forgiveness.”

  “I’ll let that pass. I’ve been worried sick about you. A few weeks ago, a young lady who was the spitting image of you—not in looks, but in how she went around in the world—that dear soul was killed right in front of me and it started me rethinking a lot of things. Now I don’t know what you’re up to, but—�
��

  “You dragged me all over creation acting like I was a ball and chain Jesus had strapped to your ankle to punish you for some unforgivable sin.”

  “I know you’re caught up in something with with Yurij Kosyk. I don’t know the whithers and wherefores, but I do know if he’s involved, Lucifer himself isn’t far behind. Either your life or your soul is in danger.”

  Faith stared agape. “How the hell do you know about Kosyk or Schmidt or whatever the SOB calls himself?”

  Mama Whitney opened her mouth, then closed it. She moved her lips as if talking to herself, all the while shaking her head.

  Zara climbed up the ladder behind Faith. “I’d love to let you two play this out in your own time, but we’re on a tight schedule. Your mother met with General Kosyk in Berlin last week. And it was a rather protracted, personal meeting.”

  “With Kosyk? How personal?” Faith flashed a startled glance at Zara, then glared at her mother.

  Mama Whitney looked away, but Faith saw the tears well up in her eyes.

  “Mama, how could you—with him?”

  “Honey, try to understand.”

  “You swore you’d never be with another man again after Daddy died.”

  Tears washed down her mother’s face. “Lord, don’t make me do this.”

  “Unless it’s about Daddy, I don’t want to know. I can’t take any more of this today.” Faith turned and rummaged through a box of clothes and held up a pair of coveralls. “Summer, I think these will fit you.”

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-EIGHT

  EMBASSY OF THE GDR, MOSCOW

  7:43 P.M.

  Kosyk watched the second hand of his watch circle the dial. In a couple of hours, he would get even with Bogdanov. No one sets up Gregor Y. Kosyk. The bitch Bogdanov had manipulated events for him to take the fall for losing the Americans. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed she had known they were going to escape. She had probably even helped them. He would take care of Bogdanov soon enough.

  Within twelve hours, the putsch would be in progress and the socialist world would be saved—only Kosyk didn’t want the entire old order to be restored. The moribund GDR leadership had squelched his ambitions too many times, but not again, not this time. With a precisely timed phone call, he would set their plans in motion—a few hours prematurely. He picked up the heavy gray receiver and dialed the secure line to the head of the Ministry for State Security in Berlin.

  “Mielke,” the MfS chief answered.

  “Your shopping list is complete, but your favorite shop closed earlier than expected. It reopens in the morning with new stock.”

  “You’re absolutely certain it’s closed?”

  “Positively.”

  Mielke hung up on Gregor Kosyk for the last time.

  Kosyk knew that Mielke was now relaying the news of Gorbachev’s death to Honecker. Within hours, Honecker would order the air corridors to West Berlin sealed off. After the last West Berlin U-Bahn car crept under GDR territory around one the next morning, soldiers would open the long-sealed stations along the two routes crossing beneath their capital and soon afterward their soldiers would pour from West Berlin U-Bahn stations like rats fleeing the sewer. Kosyk wished he could witness the collapse of the Anti-Fascist Protection Wall as the GDR’s military pushed into West Berlin. But even more than that, Kosyk wanted to see Honecker’s and Mielke’s faces when they realized they had no diversion of chaos in Moscow and no hope of Soviet backing. He wondered how long it would take for them to figure out they had unilaterally begun a war with the Americans.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-NINE

  Whether you like it or not, history is on our side.

  We will bury you.

  —KHRUSHCHEV

  NORTH OF MOSCOW

  8:59 P.M.

  On a dirt road a few kilometers from Stukoi’s dacha, Faith steadied the flashlight while Zara and Summer reached into access panels in the Zil’s trunk. Faith’s thoughts were still with her mother. She knew it was childish to want her mother to be with no one but her father—even though he’d been gone for thirty years. She’d hardly admit it to herself and definitely not to Summer, but somewhere deep inside she believed that finding her father would make everything right with her family again. If only he’d been there when she was growing up to temper her mother’s zeal. Now, when she was so close to finding him, her mother ruined everything by having an affair with another man—and not just any man: Kosyk, the Stasi general, the terrorist, the man who threatened to kill her. With a shudder of guilt, she hated her mother even more.

  And then she wondered if Kosyk had forced her to sleep with him in exchange for information about her father.

  Summer dropped a bulb into her hand. “Good thinking, Faith. We don’t need brake lights to give us away.” He gave her a single pat on the back, but she didn’t like being one of the guys—not to Summer, not now.

  Zara drove back onto the main dirt road and continued onward. In a few minutes, she slowed and turned off the headlights. Lights from the dacha flickered through the trees. They crept past it and into the neighboring driveway. The nearly full moon illuminated the rutted drive between the towering birches. Zara stopped the car in front of a collapsing shell of a burnt-out dacha.

  “Great intel on our base camp,” Summer said as he looked at the rubble. “Now I wish we would’ve gotten an earlier start.”

  Zara backed the car to conceal it as best as possible behind the cottage’s remains. “I told you I haven’t been here for a couple of years.”

  Summer smeared shoe polish on his face. “I don’t like the moon phase one bit. It’s far too bright for something like this. At least we found these dark coveralls.”

  Zara turned off the motor. “I’ll go survey Stukoi’s dacha and determine who’s there.”

  “We agreed earlier that I’m in command of the op. I’ll take the night scope and recon the area. You two wait here and be quiet. Comrade, you make sure Faith understands the importance of following orders.”

  Faith noticed Summer checking the Makarov magazine even though he had inspected it during the ride from the city. He had eight bullets and she hoped that was eight bullets too many and not too few.

  The moonlight was too bright to risk dashing from tree to tree, so Summer crawled along the damp forest floor, picking up an unintended camouflage coating of mud, sticks and leaves. No one was walking patrol; security for the meeting didn’t seem to be a priority. The closer he got to the dacha, the stronger the smell of burning wood. He paused to scan the area with the night scope. Expecting to see everything in shades of green, he was surprised to see tones of dark gray. Compared to the third-generation night-vision equipment he was accustomed to from the American military, the Red Army monocular was like looking through cheap sunglasses. What he wouldn’t give for an infrared view of the target. At least the bright moonlight had an upside: It augmented the dated technology enough to help him make out three drivers leaning against one of a half-dozen parked cars. He’d have to get closer to be sure, but none seemed to be carrying visible firearms, though one clutched a bottle.

  Drink up, buddy.

  Summer moved close enough to see without the scope. Just then a car pulled into the drive and parked. He froze as he watched a short man with a goatee strut to the cabin. The man ignored the guards’ greetings.

  A woodpile was near an outbuilding some fifty feet behind the dacha and smoke curled above the wooden shack. No one seemed to be inside. The only voices in the still night air came from the dacha and the drivers. He sketched a precise mental map of the area and returned to the car.

  Suddenly the car door opened, but before Faith could choke back an instinctive gasp, Zara’s soft hand was across her mouth and Summer was scooting into the roomy backseat with them.

  “Your comrades started a while ago without you. I heard a lot of laughing and some pretty bad singing, so I’d say they’re a bit liquored up. They have to be nuts the eve of a coup, si
tting in a cabin in the woods, drinking and singing about the Motherland.”

  “Welcome to Russia. Stalin used to hold all-night Politburo meetings at his dacha and made his greatest decisions inebriated. Do not underestimate us: We Russians are highly functional drunks.”

  “There was a building sort of like a smokehouse, but the smoke didn’t smell like hickory,” Summer said.

  “The banya could be a problem,” Zara said. “Someone might be getting ready to use it.”

  Summer knit his brow and made eye contact with Faith.

  Faith whispered, “A Russian sauna where they steam themselves, beat each other with birch branches, then roll in the snow.”

  “Now that’s a pretty picture.”

  “How many are we up against?” Zara said.

  “I counted three guards. A stocky man marched in while I was—”

  Faith interrupted. “What did he look like?”

  “Stout, late-fifties, goatee—”

  “Kosyk,” the two women said simultaneously.

  Faith continued, “Great. We’re about to blow up the one person who knows about my father.”

  “I know the man well and we’re doing the world a favor. There are other ways to find out what you need,” Zara said.

  “I thought all the documents are sealed,” Faith said.

  “Don’t you think your mother knows?” Zara said.

  Silence.

  “Faith, hand me that paper and pencil so I can rough out a diagram of what we’re looking at.” Summer crawled under the blanket with a flashlight like a child reading under the bedcovers. A minute later he stuck his head out from under the blanket and whispered, “Okay, you two are going to have to join me under here for the briefing. I want you to see my map and I don’t want any light leaking out and giving us away.”

  They gathered under the musty blanket and Summer spoke. “Three guys in some kind of military uniforms are standing here drinking. No visible weapons.” He ran his finger along the crumpled paper, leaving a dusting of dried mud. “Two cars had antenna arrays. This last one blocked everybody in and this one here, too.”