by Greg Cox
But the youth's reflexes were almost superhumanly fast. Laughing insolently, he leapt out of the way of the fiery salvo, onto one of the lower tiers of the pyramid. Raising his right arm with remarkable speed, he expertly spun a silver hoop around his raised index finger, then sent it whizzing through the air at Komananov, who flinched involuntarily only seconds before the razor-sharp quoit sliced through the blue-steel muzzle of her Makarov, halting its destructive flight only centimeters from her own gloved knuckles. Shaken and frustrated, she hurled the now-useless pistol away from her. Surely he couldn't have done that on purpose! she hoped breathlessly, horrified by the uncanny accuracy of the terrorist's aim. Could he?
She recognized the flying ring now, her memory sparked by the youth's Indian appearance and attire. It was a chakram , the traditional weapon of India's famed Sikh warriors. But what was a teenage Sikh doing in the heart of Moscow, attempting to rescue a captured American spy? The possibility of a multinational intelligence operation, mobilized solely to counter the conspiracy against Gorbachev, sent shivers down her spine. How did these strangers find out about the operation? Our security was foolproof!
“Shoot him!” she ordered the surviving guards, who needed little encouragement to open fire on the cursed foreigner who had already struck down two of their comrades. Assault rifles unleashed their 5.45mm fury against the assassin's perch atop the pyramid, raising a deafening clamor and sending chips of red and black granite flying. Komananov winced at the damage done to the historic mausoleum, but monuments could be repaired; the safety and security of Russia's future took priority. She would have sacrificed almost anything to keep the devious American and his Indian accomplice from sabotaging the operation. Russia had to be rid of Gorbachev!
Driven backward by the ferocious hail of gunfire from the unleashed AK-74s, the murdering Sikh retreated into the shadows at the rear of the pyramid, ducking behind the massive granite blocks.
“Did you get him?” Komananov called out harshly, inwardly cursing the darkness that hid the assassin from her view. Her fingers held on tightly to the handle of her attaché case; she was determined not to part with it again. “Is he dead?” She signaled the soldiers to spread out around the bullet-scarred mausoleum, while keeping one eye on the American prisoner, who remained under guard by a single, acnescarred, adolescent soldier, who gulped nervously as he clutched his rifle and looked about warily, no doubt fearing that spinning death would come winging out of the night at any moment, claiming him just as it had the first two victims of the Sikh's lethal chakram s.
Komananov dropped to her knees upon the pavement and attempted to wrestle a rifle of her own out from beneath the lifeless body of the dead commander. Unwilling to let go of the all-important attaché case, she awkwardly and one-handedly tugged on the barrel of the AK-74. Moonlight glinted off the chakram protruding between the man's shoulders, mocking her efforts even as the blood upon the cobblestones stained her hands, coat, and trousers. The beefy corpse was literally dead weight, and a struggle to move.
Gunfire sounded from behind the Tomb, and the colonel looked up hopefully, praying fervently to no one in particular that one of the soldiers had finally managed to put a bullet in the maddeningly elusive young Sikh. “What's happening?” she shouted. “Did you get him? For hell's sake, someone tell me he's dead!”
A defiant war cry, in what sounded like Hindi or Punjabi, greeted the colonel's strident outcry. Her eyes tracked the sound to the very summit of the Tomb, where, after getting a running start across the crowning cube, the Indian youth leaped off the peak of the pyramid, landing on the Square below halfway between Komananov and the captured American. A flung chakram caught the soldier guarding the American in the throat, before he could fire a single shot, and the stricken guard dropped to the pavement, shredding his fingertips as he tugged uselessly at the sharpened steel ring wedged beneath his chin.
A muffled cry came from the gagged American, almost as if he was objecting to the ruthlessness of the Sikh's methods. To the colonel's amazement, the false Lenin suddenly snapped the chain linking his cuffs and dropped to check the slaughtered soldier's pulse before rising again and yanking off his gag with an angry gesture. “That's enough, Noon!” he shouted in English at the Indian youth. “No more deaths!”
Things were happening so quickly Komananov could barely keep up with events. Where had the defeated American found the strength to snap his shackles in two, and why was he railing against his determined rescuer? She watched in alarm as the older man armed himself with the butchered soldier's rifle.
“Over here! In the Square!” Komananov hollered hoarsely to the guards she had dispatched to circle the Tomb. Her knuckles whitened beneath her gloves as she tightened her grip on the attaché case and its incriminating contents. “Don't let them escape!”
Frustrated to the point of madness, she kept tugging on the rifle beneath the dead commander, but the inert corpse refused to budge. Responding to her cries, the three remaining guards came running from opposite sides of the Tomb, yet the American pinned down the soldier coming around the right corner of the mausoleum by laying down a relentless stream of automatic gunfire that forced the besieged guard to retreat back behind the bottom tier of the pyramid. That left only two more soldiers to converge on the Indian youth, who simultaneously charged toward Komananov, a savage glee shining in his eyes.
Looking directly into the face of the running Sikh, she was astonished to see that this “Noon” was every bit as young as she had first supposed, his scruffy black beard looking less than a year old. He's just a boy, she marveled. A boy who had already killed three trained Russian soldiers. Looking beyond his shockingly adolescent countenance, she noted unhappily that the young Sikh still had three more chakram s threaded upon his upper arm, plus a curved silver dagger thrust into his belt. He's better armed than I am, she realized. Damn him!
But instead of resorting to his fearsome quoits once more, Noon unstrapped another device from his back: what looked like a wagon wheel with heavy weights radiating out from the center of the wooden wheel. As the last two guards chased after the youth, unable to fire at him immediately for fear of hitting the colonel by mistake, the brawny Sikh lifted the ungainly contraption above his head and, grasping the spokes around the central hub, began spinning the wheel at enormous speed. The outer weights orbited the youth, providing a defensive cordon around him, as he charged toward one of the two guardsmen, who was trying to circle around to get between the terrorist and the colonel. The unlucky guard, perhaps transfixed by the bizarre spectacle presented by Noon, did not get out of the way fast enough, and the spinning weights clipped him in the head, sending him flying. Clobbered, the soldier hit the cobblestones hard and did not get up.
Unlike the fatally perplexed guardsman, Komananov recognized the exotic implement being employed by the Indian teenager, although she had never actually seen it used in combat before. It was a chakar, another traditional Sikh weapon. Intelligence briefings on arcane martial-arts techniques, however, hardly prepared her for the sight of a veteran soldier being laid low by a spinning wheel. Who is this boy? she wondered, aghast. And for whom is he working?
As the remaining guard slowed his pursuit, wary of being walloped in the head like his comrade, the Sikh turned to face him, taking care to keep both himself and the colonel in the soldier's line of fire. Muscular arms rippled as he arched his back and flung the entire chakar at the last guardsman. The massive wheel spun through the air like a flying saucer, or a chakram, its menacing weights whipping around the rotating hub. Under attack, the guard fired into the air, trying futilely to bring down the chakar in flight, only to dive hurriedly out of the way as the whirling missile crashed to earth exactly where he had been standing only seconds before.
Grinning wolfishly, the Indian youth paused for a heartbeat to savor the havoc he had wrought, then lunged again at Komananov with inhuman velocity. Abandoning her tussle with the recalcitrant cadaver and its infuriatingly inaccessible rifl
e, the distraught colonel reached hastily for the silver pen tucked into her boot. Perhaps there was still time to figure out its firing mechanism . . . !
She barely had time to get to her feet, however, before Noon was behind her, with his knife to her throat. “I'll take that,” he stated with casual authority, snatching the disguised weapon from her fumbling fingers. “Stay back!” he commanded the surviving guard, who was only just scrambling back onto his feet after dodging the hurled chakar. “Drop your weapon or she dies!”
“No!” Komananov cried desperately. Her life didn't matter, not so long as the operation survived. The Sikh and the American could not be allowed to endanger the master plan any longer. She dropped the attaché case gently onto the pavement, hoping that Noon would leave it behind should he take her hostage as he fled. “Shoot him! Shoot him now!” she shrieked.
The soldier hesitated, no doubt reluctant to take responsibility for the death of a high-ranking KGB officer. The Sikh took advantage of his indecision to throw Komananov over his shoulder, as effortlessly as though she were a child, and dash for the unguarded entrance of the Tomb. “Seven!” he called out in English to the American, who was still providing cover for Noon by firing his stolen assault rifle at the soldier trapped behind the right-hand corner of the pyramid. “Follow me!”
His vibrant voice had a peremptory tone, leading the confused colonel to wonder just who was in charge, the Indian teen or the older American? She had little time to ponder such enigmas, though, as the racing Sikh took the stairs up the front of the Tomb several steps at time, his headlong pace unhindered, so it seemed, by the weight of the full-grown KGB agent draped over his shoulder. Komananov flailed madly, struggling to free herself, but could not break free of the Sikh's iron grip. Every lunging stride left her jarred and breathless, and she clenched her teeth to keep from accidentally biting down on her tongue.
“Leave be,” he ordered curtly in Komananov's own tongue, “or I'll snap your spine!” Reaching the top of the steps, he turned beneath the square entrance of the Tomb. “Hurry!” he shouted to his American ally, once again switching to English. “We must leave this place at once!”
But Lenin's sacrilegious imposter, whose code number was apparently “Seven,” was not ready to leave Red Square just yet. In a startling display of speed and marksmanship, he shot the rifle out of the hands of the soldier peeking out from around the corner of the Tomb, then spun around quickly and did the same to the guard who had dodged the chakar. Blue sparks flared along the grooved stock of the latter soldier's AK-74 as the American's bullets blasted the rifle out of the guard's grip. Suddenly finding himself empty-handed, the soldier ran for safety, leaving Number Seven momentarily in control of the Square. Komananov's desperate hopes were dashed as the American snatched up the attaché case she had already reclaimed from him once before . No! Not again! she raged silently, while the impatient Sikh urged his fellow terrorist to greater speed. “Faster!” Noon called out from the entry to the Tomb. “Hurry! Before reinforcements arrive!”
By now, in fact, the commotion in the Square had caught the attention of the sentries posted along the Kremlin walls. Searchlights beamed down on the chaotic scene from the towers along the northeast wall of the centuries-old fortress, revealing an appalling display of bloodshed and bodies. Snipers fired from the towers at the American as he sprinted for the nearby mausoleum. Clouds of dust and powdered rock, raised by the thunderous impact of bullets colliding with cobblestones, trailed in Number Seven's wake, nipping at his heels, yet the brazen American successfully gained the shelter of the tomb, rushing past Noon, who stepped aside just in time to let the older man dive over the threshold of the violated mausoleum.
The Indian teenager dropped Komananov unceremoniously onto her feet, then waved his curved silver dagger beneath her chin. “Watch her,” he curtly instructed Number Seven. The kidnapped colonel could not help noticing that, horrifyingly enough, Noon did not seem at all short of breath, despite his strenuous exertions during the battle and afterward. He slammed the Tomb's heavy iron door shut with a single easy shove, then bolted the gate from the inside. For extra assurance, he took two chakrams off his arm and used them to jam the door closed, wedging them between the door and its frame, then folding the metal rings over the edge of the jamb with his bare hands.
Such strength! Komananov observed, impressed even amidst such dire circumstances. Our Olympic coaches and trainers would give much to know what sort of diet and regimen produced such exceptional might and stamina!
“There!” Noon pronounced confidently as he stepped back from the door. A single chakram remained threaded upon his brawny biceps. “That will do for now.” Keeping his dagger at the ready, he approached his American partner. Komananov noted with some relief that Number Seven, at least, showed signs of fatigue. Beneath the last greasy remnants of his disguise, the American's bruised face was slick with perspiration, and his chest rose and fell heavily as he struggled to catch his breath. Good to know, the colonel thought bitterly, that at least one of my captors is mortal.
“Thank you, Noon,” the older man stated in English, standing guard over the colonel with his borrowed rifle, the purloined attaché case resting at his feet. The blinding effect of the flashbomb had long passed, so that the American's vision had been restored. “I am grateful, if admittedly surprised, by your intervention.” He arched his eyebrow quizzically. “I wasn't aware you were in Moscow.”
“The name is Khan,” the Indian corrected him brusquely. It seemed there was little love lost between the two foreigners. “I rescued you just as you once rescued me.” A scowl marred the young man's otherwise handsome features as he recalled some prior encounter with the American. His body language was stiff and aggressively formal. “Now we are even.”
Number Seven nodded grimly, acknowledging the other's cool assessment of the nullified debt. Then he gestured at Komananov. “Be careful of her earring. It may contain an explosive charge or some other mechanism.” He gingerly rubbed his split lip and purpled jaw, wincing as he probed his broken teeth with a cautious finger. “Trust me, I know whereof I speak.”
Komananov smirked, drawing some comfort and satisfaction from the injuries she had inflicted on the American. She stared coldly at the youth who called himself Khan as he reached out his hand and demanded her sole remaining earring. “Carefully,” he added ominously, pressing the flat of his blade against her cheek. The captive officer grudgingly removed the camouflaged flashbomb from her ear and surrendered it to Khan. Fine, she resolved. She would have to find another way to achieve her liberty—and foil her foes.
Multiple footsteps pounded up the stairs on the other side of the jammed door. “Open up!” demanded a loud, angry voice that Komananov recognized as belonging to Colonel Rublev of the Kremlin's security forces. Rifle butts hammered the iron door from without, but the sabotaged door held fast against the barrage, at least for the moment. “Open up in the name of the State!”
“That door won't hold forever,” Number Seven predicted. Slinging the strap of his rifle over his shoulder, he extended an open hand toward Khan. “Give me back my servo, and I'll get us out of here.”
Servo? Komananov guessed that the American was referring to his ingenious pen-shaped device. She was not surprised that he wanted it back, perhaps even as much as she yearned to recover the attaché case upon the floor.
Frowning, Khan shook his head. “No,” he stated unequivocally. “I will not be placed in your debt again.” Shoving Komananov ahead of him, he pointed with his knife at the hallway leading to the Tomb's inner chamber. “This way,” he insisted.
Apparently, the older man knew better than to argue with the insolent young Sikh, especially when there was a squadron of Russian soldiers pounding at the door. “Very well,” he agreed, picking up the leather case before following Khan and the colonel down the murky corridor. “I confess, I'm curious to see how you plan to extricate yourself from this situation.”
“I assure you, Seven,
that I came prepared for every eventuality,” Khan shot back, “including your own feeble attempt to find out exactly what the colonel and her co-conspirators are planning for tonight.”
Does everyone know about our operation? Komananov thought, clenching her fists in fury and frustration. “You cannot stop us!” she spat defiantly. “Russia's true patriots will see to that. Gorbachev's hours are numbered!”
“Never mind your celebrated leader,” Khan warned her, menace in his tone. He addressed her in fluent Russian, as opposed to the English he used when speaking to Number Seven. “It is your own future you should be worrying about now.”
They reached the heart of the crypt, with its empty bier and raised glass sarcophagus. Komananov spotted her fur hat lying on the floor of the tomb, just where she had dropped it less than half an hour ago. The heavy blows and angry shouts of Colonel Rublev and his men barely penetrated the hush of the Tomb, sounding muffled and much too far away. Given the mausoleum's monumental solidity, it would not be easy to break into, Komananov knew, but where else could the fleeing terrorists go, now that they had arrived at the desecrated crypt? We have reached a dead end, she realized. There is no escape .
Instructing Number Seven to keep an eye on their captive, Khan strode toward the vacant bier and took hold of one of the decorative spears adorning the crypt. He twisted the sickle-headed lance clockwise, then pushed it forward about forty-five degrees. To her surprise, Komananov heard the sudden thrum of hidden machinery coming to life. Long-dormant gears screeched in protest as the heavy iron catafalque slid backward into the shadows, revealing a set of wide concrete steps leading down to another level below the burial chamber. The colonel's sky-blue eyes widened; in all her years of service to the State and its secrets, she had never heard a whisper about any hidden passageway beneath Lenin's Tomb. Judging from the bemused expression on Number Seven's face, she guessed that this revelation came as a surprise to the American as well.