by David Wind
“Here.” Blacky pointed to the makeshift hospital.
Chapin looked at the building. It was one of the newer buildings, constructed within the last five or so years. A State Department store. The entrance was open, no soldiers guarded it; rather, a steady stream of people came and went through the open doors.
To the side was a huge power generator mounted on the back of a flatbed truck. Thick electrical cables ran from it to the building, entering through a basement window. The generator rumbled steadily.
“There are two more generators in the rear of the building,” Blacky informed him, and motioned them forward.
The instant they stepped inside, the smell of disinfectant crawled up his nostrils.
Blacky led him to a desk and to a woman in her late fifties. a Red Cross arm band was secured over the brown jacket of her Army uniform. Her hair was gray and her eyes blue. When she looked up at Blacky, Chapin read the weariness etched on her face. “Yes?”
“We are here to interview Dr. Basilova. She is in the doctors’ quarters now, yes?” Blacky asked in Russian.
The woman looked from Blacky to the press identification hanging on Chapin’s chest. Chapin pretended not to notice or to understand.
“We have people dying. Don’t they realize this?”
Blacky shrugged, saying, “Commissar Taminova sent us. But if you—”
“No,” the woman said, reacting swiftly to the name. “If they want him to talk with the doctor, who am I to argue.”
She picked up a clipboard and flipped through the pages. When she found Titania Basilova’s name, she said, “The doctor is off duty. The doctors are using the business offices as sleeping quarters. Go to the seventh floor. Ask for her. Someone will point her out.”
“Thank you,” Blacky said.
Chapin remained silent, but smiled and nodded to the woman, his features intent on showing he hadn’t understood a word.
They took the elevator to the seventh floor. When they got out, they found a group of doctors standing in the hallway near the elevators. Blacky asked one of them where they would find Titania Basilova.
One doctor pointed down the hallway. “The third door.”
They went to the door. Chapin knocked sharply. A woman’s voice replied. “A moment.”
A few more seconds passed, and the door opened. Titania Basilova stared out from the door. She looked at Blacky with recognition. But when she looked at Chapin, it took her a moment. Then her eyes widened and her hand flew to her mouth.
Without a word she opened the door and motioned them in. “What are you doing here?” she asked Chapin in a fierce whisper. “Are you insane, coming here?”
“No. I’m finishing what your husband started,” Chapin replied in Russian.
Her eyes went sad and moist. Her lips were compressed. “He told me he found something you must be told of. He...”
“It’s all right,” Chapin said, putting his hands on her shoulders and squeezing gently. “I wanted you to know I was here.”
“But it is so dangerous for you. If they find you...”
“I had no choice. They murdered your husband before he could give me enough information. I have to find out exactly what he discovered. I must go to the site in the Pamirs he told me of.”
Titania Basilova nodded. “I understand. I wish I knew more so I could help. But he did not tell me anything about this.”
“I know. There wasn’t time. Titania, he thought what he tried to tell me about was important enough to die for, and I must follow it through. When I’m finished, I’ll be back for you.”
She smiled, but said nothing. Chapin sensed Titania Basilova had heard many promises before, but believed only the results of promises fulfilled.
“When they questioned you, did they say anything about me or about a person called Sokova?”
Titania shook her head quickly. “They were hard and cruel. They used drugs. However, Anitol called me and told me he thought himself compromised. I took precautions by keeping certain medications with me. I know what they use to interrogate, and had several things that would counter, or slow down the effects. I took them just before I was arrested, and was able to withstand the questioning.”
Chapin gazed at her for a moment, thinking how brave a woman she was. “Be ready when I come back from the Pamirs.”
“For what?”
He stared at her for a moment. “Just be ready.”
<><><>
She shuddered beneath him, joining with him as he reached the peak of their lovemaking. Then they lay still, holding each other as if they would never let go.
A cassette player was on the dresser. Music, American, played from its speaker.
When their breathing eased, Chapin shifted to his back, drawing Abby onto her side. She snuggled into his chest, on the opposite side of the bandage, and he kissed the top of her head. Her hair tickled his nose, and he smiled.
He was lucky. The last person he had expected to find in Tashkent had been Abby. But, had he been using his head, he would have realized that Abby, as a French/Russian/English translator, had to end up somewhere in the Soviet Union during this emergency.
“I’ve missed you.”
She changed position so that she could look at him. “I wanted to leave word somehow, that I was being sent here, but I didn’t know how; I only knew you would try to call me.”
“How long will you be here?”
“A week, perhaps longer.” Abby drew away and sat up. “I feel so guilty,” she said. “People are dead and dying, and we’ve just made love.”
“Would you rather be dead?” Chapin asked seriously.
“No, of course not, but—”
Chapin sealed her mouth with a finger. “Then, stop talking about it. We’re alive.”
She nodded, lying down next to him again.
“I’m leaving in the morning.”
She stiffened. “Where?”
“On an inspection tour of the area,” he said, but while he spoke, he motioned to the walls, and then to his ear.
Abby nodded, and said, “But it’s so…dangerous.”
“It’s my job,” he said aloud. He drew her closer. When he spoke, his voice was so low that with the music playing, no microphone would be able pick it up.
“Abby, I won’t be able to stop running until I find out what Sokova’s plan is. Without that knowledge, I’m as good as dead, and Sokova wins. He almost won in Chicago,” Chapin added, lightly touching the bandage.
She shifted to look at him. Her eyes turned desperate. Her hands cupped his face. He felt the heat of her flesh, and the tremors passing through her fingers. “We can go away, just you and me. I have money put away. Kevin,” she whispered, her eyes moist and pleading. “We can go away. We can leave in the morning. I can get us out of here. We’ll find someplace where we can start a new life.”
He covered her hands, then brought her left hand to his mouth and kissed her palm. He spoke in the same low whisper, his words clear and to the point. “No matter where I go, they’ll find me. It will either be The Company, or the Soviets, but they’ll find me and kill me.”
“We can try. Dear God, Kevin, we can at least try.”
He saw the tears streaking down her face. His throat closed with emotion. “I love you, Abby, which is another reason why we can’t run. I won’t have you hurt or killed because of me.”
“Don’t I have a say in this?”
“No,” he whispered. “Not in this.”
She buried her face on his chest. His arm went around her and held her tightly. The warm wetness of her tears fell on his skin.
Moments later, while she still cried, they made love again. This time Chapin felt as though it might be their last.
<><><>
Having entered the inhospitable mountains an hour before, and seeing the way they stretched ahead, forced Chapin to admire Sokova’s selection of this particular section of the Pamirs. The area was desolate, the terrain harsh, and the road in disrepair.
After seven hour of driving, they were only forty miles into the Pamir Mountains. The mountains were rugged, tall, and foreboding, but Chapin looked on them as the answer, not the question.
Blacky wasn’t happy about driving in the mountains: Although the main quake was over, and one long series of aftershocks had already passed, causing even more damage, additional aftershocks were always a possibility, and the weather was turning colder the higher they went. Chapin didn’t care about the aftershocks, the cold, or the terrain. All he wanted was to reach the installation site.
Hidden beneath the vehicle’s front seat were two Kalashnikov machine rifles. Somehow, Blacky had not only gotten a vehicle, but the weapons as well.
In the back of the old Zil were four ten-gallon gasoline cans. Enough, they hoped, to get back to Tashkent, or at least to a gas pump.
The Pamirs were impressive. He remembered reading Ann Tanaka’s information, that the Pamirs were among the most rugged mountains in this part of the world, and contained some of the highest peaks. The climate was similar to Idaho and Montana; and, Chapin was already feeling the increased coldness in the air since entering the mountains.
The deeper they drove into the mountains, the more Chapin understood the connection between Tanaka’s report about the military unfitness of the Pamirs and Sokova’s choice of the location.
Tanaka’s report stated the Pamirs were, essentially, inaccessible. There had never been a true military installation and, because of the lack of military bases, the Soviets knew our agencies monitored the mountains less than other areas. Tanaka had ventured it was most probably the reason why they chose the Pamirs.
Driving through the reality of the mountains, Chapin concurred with Tanaka’s assessment.
His breath clouding in front of him in spite of the Zil’s heater, Chapin opened the map again. “There will be a junction in nine kilometers. We pass the junction, go five kilometers, and there will be a side road, which we take to the valley. Perhaps twelve or so kilometers after the turn.”
Blacky drove through the thinning oaks and spruce as the Zil rose higher on the mountain road. “We may make it before dark.” They drove quietly, each wrapped within his own silence. Finally, they reached the junction and, after that, the dirt road Chapin had pointed out on the map.
Blacky turned onto the road, and stopped the car. Chapin looked at him. “What?”
“This installation, it will be heavily guarded?”
“I don’t know. We won’t take any undue chances, though,” Chapin promised.
Blacky snorted. “What could be more of a chance than this?” he asked, pointing to a sign on the side of the rode. The Russian words, the top line painted red, read, HET BXOGA. The two words translated for Keep Out. Below it in smaller black letters was a warning that they were entering a military reservation. Beneath the first line was a message that all unauthorized people would be subject to arrest.
“It’s old,” Chapin said, taking in the peeling faded paint showing more layers of washed out paint beneath the peeling top coat. “Very old.”
“But it’s here, which means there will be soldiers there.”
Chapin nodded. “I understand. Wait here. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Blacky stared at him with a strange expression. “No, Chapin, you mistake me, greatly. I am going with you. I was just advising caution.”
Chapin smiled. “Thank you. We’ll take the car as far as we can, and then go by foot the rest of the way. If anyone stops us...”
“Yes, they must not report us,” Blacky said as he started the Zil.
They drove another half hour, the road worsening with every meter they went forward. Finally, Blacky said that they could not go any farther in the Zil. “We need an off-road vehicle.”
“A Jeep, yeah,” Chapin agreed. “Let’s find a place to hide the Zil.”
They spotted a rocky overhang a hundred yards down the road. Chapin pointed to it, and Blacky pulled off the road. There was just enough space behind the rocks to hide the Zil.
They took the Kalashnikovs and two heavy-duty flashlights, and started walking.
Soon, the road began to dip downward signaling the start of the valley. Opening the map, Chapin looked closely at it.
Then he looked at the valley. “This is it.”
“No soldiers. Why not?” Blacky asked, concern mirrored on his features. “Where are they?”
Chapin understood the Soviet’s anxiety. To know where the enemy was, was an advantage. To be out in the open and blind to anyone nearby was the most unnerving of experiences.
The closer they came to the valley, the thicker the vegetation. Thankfully, by the time they were within a half mile of the valley, the thick growth of trees that was the starting point of a mountain forest, concealed them.
He looked up. The sun was descending rapidly. He wanted to reach the installation before darkness, so he could reconnoiter.
Chapin stopped and, with Blacky looking over his shoulder, opened the map. Using his finger, he traced the road toward the valley, the point at which they had left the Zil, and then continued onward. His fingertip reached the forest where they stood.
“There’s a glacial river, here. The installation is next to the river. This way,” he added, standing and motioning to his left.
They walked for another twenty minutes. Suddenly and without warning, they broke through the forest. Chapin froze, stopping Blacky with an outstretched arm.
Below them was the structure from the spy satellite photographs at Langley. What he hadn’t been able to see in the pictures was the part of the building hidden by the outcropping mountain, which would have told him of its purpose. Now, he knew. The structure was a small hydroelectric plant.
“Jesus,” Chapin said, knowing something was very wrong with this picture. It hit him seconds later. No sound came from the electric plant. The plant was not operating.
Looking farther downriver, he spotted part of a building. “There!”
“I see it,” Blacky said. “It looks deserted.”
“Let’s not take the chance it isn’t deserted.”
Moving cautiously, they made their way to the river and toward the plant. There wasn’t a person in sight. The continuing stillness added proof it was non-operational.
They found a ten-foot-high chain link fence topped with razor wire, a hundred feet from the plant. The deadly blades, machined into the looped wire, glinted in the fading light. The same razor wire loops wove through the base of the fence.
A chill ran through him as they bypassed the hydro plant and moved toward the installation. They were careful as they walked, making no noise and watching the plant to see if there was anyone left.
Everything appeared deserted. It was eerily quiet. “Could the quake have done this?” Chapin wondered aloud.
“I see no damage,” Blacky said, echoing Chapin’s own thoughts.
Five hundred feet downriver from the mini-hydroelectric plant was the first outcropping of the secret installation. Chapin’s heart increased. Three and a half weeks, thousands of miles, and too many deaths had marked the road to this place. He could only pray that what lay behind the walls of Sokova’s installation was worth what he and the others had sacrificed.
There was still no sound, not even birds or animals. What is it? Chapin asked himself.
The walls of the installation were green-painted cement block. The roof was a green multi-shaded metal. From above, the building would blend into the mountain forest and be invisible. He looked for an entrance and saw nothing. With Blacky sticking close to him, Chapin skirted the installation.
The Kalashnikov was ready, the safety off and a round primed. His muscles were tense. Most of the installation was built into the mountain. There were only two outcroppings, and those he’d seen on the satellite photos. There were no windows or doors.
After making a half circle around the building, keeping to the woods for cover, Chapin turned to Blacky, who said, “How do
we get in?”
“The plant,” Chapin replied. The reason there was no fencing was that there was no entrance at all. It had to be through the plant.
They backtracked carefully, and still saw no one. Soon, a new feeling grew inside of Chapin. The inner sensation translated to a certainty that the installation, as well as the power plant, was deserted.
They clung to the woods, circling the plant until they reached a side road leading to the plant’s gate. Chapin studied the layout carefully. There was a small guard building near the gate, and twenty feet behind it was a large garage, intended no doubt for a supply truck.
Behind the garage was the power plant. The building butted against the face of the mountain in the same way the installation downriver did.
Once Chapin digested the layout of the plant, he put his hand on Blacky’s shoulder. “I’m going to walk to the gate,” he said, handing Blacky his machine rifle. “I’m a lost reporter. But, Blacky, I don’t think there’s anyone there.”
“And if there is?” the Soviet double agent asked.
“Then, they’ll take me and you get away. Just let your contact know what happened.”
Blacky stared at Chapin and reluctantly nodded.
Chapin stood and, walking slowly along the road, went to the gate. He was more vulnerable than he ever wanted to be, but had no choice. He had to get inside the installation. When he reached the gate, he called out in English for help.
When no one answered, he shook the gate. Again, no one answered. Chapin’s nerves screamed. He looked at the lock and saw two red pinpoints of light flickering. It was a computer-controlled lock, impossible to pick.
Chapin stepped back, found a rock, and hefted it. Without waiting, he threw the rock over the fence, and it landed on the small guard building’s roof.
Still, no one came out.
“Shit!” he snapped in a half-whispered curse. “Blacky, come out.”