by Bob Mayer
The members were anxious because this was a closed session. The doors were sealed, armed guards standing ominously just inside them, men who were loyal to Khrushchev first, the country second.
He had learned well from Stalin.
He knew some feared a purge. It was not unheard of for some to be dragged out of such a meeting and summarily shot. Khrushchev had considered that and even made a list. But he’d come up with something much better. He glanced to his right and noted that Mikoyan was also scanning the faces, perhaps looking for allies? Or enemies? Who knew with the old bastard? But Khrushchev knew he could count on one thing with Mikoyan: he would act in his own self-interests, and that made him usable.
Khrushchev began: “Comrades, in the report of the Central Committee of the Party at the Twentieth Congress, in a number of speeches by delegates to the Congress, quite a lot has been said about the cult of the individual and about its harmful consequences.”
He then proceeded to lay his base of reasoning using Lenin, quoting extensively from him. He moved to the transition point: “During Lenin’s life in the Central Committee of the Party was a real expression of collective leadership of the Party and of the Nation. Being a militant Marxist-Revolutionist, always unyielding in matters of principle, Lenin never forcefully imposed his views upon his co-workers.”
That, of course, Khrushchev knew was a lie. But it was what Lenin had spouted, and that was the point of this speech. Whose spouts should be believed?
“Lenin said: ‘Stalin is excessively rude, and this defect, which can be freely tolerated in our midst and in contacts among us Communists, becomes a defect which cannot be tolerated in one holding the position of Secretary General. Because of this, I propose that the comrades consider the method by which Stalin would be removed from this position and by which another man would be selected for it, who above all, would differ from Stalin in only one quality, namely greater tolerance, greater loyalty, greater kindness, and more considerate attitude toward the comrades, a less capricious temper, etc.’.”
As he finished that quote from one long dead man, about another only three years dead, it occurred to Khrushchev that it was a list of more than quality. Then again, Lenin had been very good at oration, not so much at math.
Khrushchev then launched full blown into his denunciation of the former Premier, and with every sentence he could feel the tremors of fear and confusion pass through the chamber. Stalin was considered a god amongst the Soviets, if they allowed gods. Using specific examples, he tore apart the myths about Stalin, exposing the raging beast he’d been.
He did not mention the execution of his own son.
Halfway through the speech, an older man, one who was a staunch Stalinist, shot to his feet, clutching his chest. He squeaked something, then collapsed.
No one moved to help him.
Khrushchev didn’t pause, hammering home his points.
The Cult of Stalin was over. The future was going to be different.
Chapter Three
The Present
“Today’s Daily Reflection,” Aaron said, expertly opening the well-worn leather book to the marked page with one hand, since one hand was all he had. His left arm was missing halfway down the humerus, the sleeve of his black pullover pinned up to the shoulder. “’Since recovery from man’s insanity is life itself to us, it is imperative that we preserve in full strength our means of survival’.”
There was a minute of silence, as there was every day, as each member of the Peacekeepers reflected on the message. A minute doesn’t sound long, until one does nothing for a minute but think. Which is the point of reflection.
They were gathered in a dimly lit room with concrete walls. Behind Aaron was an old armchair. The others in the room were seated in folding chairs. Aaron was in his eighties, his skull hairless and his skin ghostly white, as if it never saw the sun. Which it didn’t.
Aaron hadn’t been to the surface in over thirty years.
It wasn’t quiet underground. It never was. Millions of New Yorkers walked the streets above and worked in the skyscrapers, completely unaware that there was complex maze beneath their feet that kept the city functioning. They knew of the subways, of course. It was the lifeline of the city, where owning a car in Manhattan was as expensive as owning a second apartment.
It’s a three dimensional maze of sewers, subways, five different rail lines, water and sewage, power, cable, steam, access tunnels, abandoned tunnels, caverns; so much and so many, at depths from just below the sidewalk to hundreds of feet into the bedrock on which Manhattan rested, that no one knows all of it. There is no single map that details it all. And that played into the Peacekeepers’ agenda. They could remain hidden underneath one of the most crowded places on the planet. The tunnels extended in all directions, many going beyond the city boundaries. The main water line for New York goes 125 miles north into the Catskills and sinks over a thousand feet below the surface to pass underneath the Hudson River near West Point, sixty miles upriver.
There were many places and tunnels that were abandoned, their usage getting outdated, or a project never finished. The Peacekeepers occupied one of those places. But again, even here, deep under the surface, the rumble of the City That Never Sleeps penetrated, a cacophony of sounds that melded together into a muted symphony of industry and advancement.
Aaron closed the leather bound book and walked over to a glass case. He opened it and reverently placed the book inside, underneath a shelf holding another book, a first edition copy of Fail Safe by Eugene Burdick (who’d also co-written The Ugly American) and Harvey Wheeler. The cover was red with black circles coalescing into a single dot. The book was well worn, every Peacemaker having to read it once they took their oath.
Aaron closed the case and turned back to those assembled. A slight smile crossed Aaron’s face as he broke the silence. “Are there any birthdays today?”
Everyone turned to the youngest member of the group, a girl at the end of her teens and about to enter her second decade. “Six months,” she said.
“Six months a Peacekeeper,” Aaron said. “Congratulations, Zarah.”
Everyone applauded politely while Aaron held up a bronze coin. He tossed it and Zarah adroitly caught it. She tucked the coin into her pants pocket.
“You are still in probation,” Aaron said. He reached into his own pocket and pulled out a silver coin. “It will take you another four and a half years to earn the Peace Dollar a full Peacekeeper carries.” He held it up and the silver glistened.
It is one of the rarest coins ever minted. In fact, few knew that this original version had ever been struck, because the design had been changed prior to wider release of the coin most people knew at the Peace Dollar in 1922. The original design had Lady Liberty with the words Liberty across the top and In God We Trust along the lower middle and the year on the bottom. The reverse side was where this coin was unique: the original design had a bald eagle at rest clutching an olive branch and a broken sword with the words United States of America across the top, with E Pluribus Unum below that, and PEACE inscribed on the eagle’s perch. It was the broken sword that had caused a great outcry when the design for the coin was made public. Many Americans saw such a symbol as indicating defeat and demanded it be removed.
It was, but not before fifty of the original design were pressed at the Philadelphia Mint. The Philosophers took control of that limited run. The broken sword was removed and the olive branch extended to cover its spot for all the rest of the Peace Dollars. Each Peacekeeper who made it through the initial five-year probationary period received one of the original coins with the broken sword, which would be worth a fortune to any coin collector.
None had ever made their way into the hands of a coin collector.
All the Peacekeepers were dressed alike: jeans, black turtlenecks, grey jackets. Unremarkable clothing, which was the point.
They ranged in age from the girl who’d just received her coin to Aaron, who was now eighty-two. His co
in was so worn, the details were almost impossible to make out. He’d received it along with two others in the very first group that had gathered in this space underneath southern Manhattan.
“Let us bond in the circle of trust and commitment unto death,” Aaron said, extending his arm straight ahead, his coin inside his fist. The twenty-three other Peacekeepers (four were on duty; four were always on duty, and they were also recently short one) formed a circle and gripped hands, those on either side of Aaron taking his fist in their own hands. They spoke in unison, a ritual decades in the ingraining for many of them. “We keep the Peace. We accept what we can do and what we can’t. But the Peace comes before all else. Survival of man supersedes all else.”
There was a pause, then all repeated. “All else.”
The hands fell apart and they began to head to the door, but Aaron’s voice stopped three of them. “Zarah and Caleb and Baths. A word, please.”
The rest went off to do their duties. For four, it meant replacing the four on duty. Others went to train. Others had various duties related to the upkeep of the Fortress, the underground facility they called their home. And a select few would go to the surface, to continue the arduous task of finding those select few who could be recruited into the ranks of the Peacekeepers, since they needed at least one more to fill their ranks right now. Because of the need for absolute secrecy and absolute lifetime devotion to the group, their success rate made LDS recruiters look like rock stars.
They needed that number, because of the normal number of twenty-four, only three knew the truth of how they kept the peace. Which was why he had Caleb and Baths remained behind to do what needed to be done now with Zarah.
Aaron took two steps back and sat down in the armchair. It was worn and tattered. Holes were covered with duct tape. If someone stumbled across this room, they would think a squatter lived here. But one would not stumble across the Fortress without numerous motion detectors and infrared cameras picking them up well before they got close. Baths, a woman in her late seventies, with hair as white as her skin, stood by the side of the chair watching all through her thick granny glasses. Her designated name in the Peacekeepers was Bathsheba, but that was a mouthful, so by universal acceptance it had shrunk to its current form.
Aaron tilted his head and smiled as he heard the familiar rattle of the Number 6 subway rolling around the City Hall Loop close by. The station had opened in 1904 but was closed in 1945 because the station was too short to service the longer trains of that time and the Brooklyn Bridge Station picked up the slack. But the track through the station was still used as the Number 6 Train turned around on it to head back north.
“Zarah, my dear Zarah,” Aaron said with a smile. “How have you felt about your time with us?”
“It is my mission, it is my life, it is my duty to keep the Peace,” she dutifully replied.
But Aaron noted the way her eyes shifted ever so slightly up and to the right, even as Caleb silently moved to a position directly behind her. He was a large man, towering over the slight, young girl. His skull was completely shaved; even his eyebrows were gone, giving his head the appearance of a pale egg set atop a bulky body.
“Yes, but how do you really feel?” Aaron asked. “Do you have doubts about your vocation?”
“No, sir.”
“You know our rules are absolute.” It was not a question. “Did Jonah confide in you?”
She shifted her feet. “Jonah—“ she didn’t say more than the name.
“Yes?”
“Jonah just said he’d found something in the computer.”
“What?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know, sir.”
“You’re lying.”
“He said he’d found the location of the Ark.” She licked her lips nervously. “Somewhere near Mount Ararat.”
“Why didn’t you report this to me?”
“I thought he was just talking. The way he does. Rambling. You know Jonah.”
“Apparently, I didn’t,” Aaron said. “Did he explain what he meant when he said Ark?”
Zarah blinked, confused by the question. “I assumed he meant Noah’s Ark. Jonah has always been fascinated by that story.”
“You assumed wrong,” Aaron said.
Zarah scrambled, trying to find words that would sate Aaron. “He mentioned something about some sword.”
Aaron rubbed his other sleeve, where he’d lost the arm many years ago, real pain fired above where real nerves no longer were. It was something he did when agitated, a movement that Caleb took note of.
“Did he say what the sword was?”
“No, sir. Really, sir, I just thought it was Jonah being Jonah. He’s been like that since I’ve been here.” She tried to smile. “Perhaps Excalibur? Jonah is into all those myths and legends.”
“Don’t toy with me, girl.”
Zarah swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, sir. He mentioned someone named Koransky or something like that.”
“Penkovsky,” Aaron automatically corrected her.
“Yes. That was it.”
“But then he disappeared. He broke his vows.”
Zarah hung her head.
“You knew your old life was gone when you took your vows six months ago.”
Zarah couldn’t meet his eyes.
“You didn’t report your conversations with Jonah.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I thought he was just talking. It wasn’t until he disappeared that I realized there was more to it than just talk.”
“But even then you didn’t report what he’d said to you.”
“I didn’t think it was important.”
“That’s not for you to judge.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“We don’t accept ‘sorry’ in the Peacekeepers. ‘Sorry’ means a mistake has already been made.”
“I’ll do better in the future. I promise.”
Baths finally spoke. “And then you tried to call your parents.”
Zarah looked up in surprise at the sudden shift in direction and speaker. Tears began to form in her eyes. “I just wanted to say goodbye.”
“You said goodbye to them when they were informed of your tragic death with your body never recovered,” Baths said. “We went to a considerable amount of trouble to make you disappear. That phone call would have undone all of it. It would have made people ask questions. Questions that could bring attention to us. Tell me, Zarah. Do you truly believe we keep the peace?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“But you don’t know how we do that exactly, do you?” Baths asked.
Zarah’s eyes shifted over to the glass case holding the book of sayings and Fail Safe. “We keep the scale in balance.”
The answer didn’t satisfy Baths. “But you don’t know what is on the arms of the scale.”
“No, ma’am. I was told it was not for me to know. It was for me to believe. That some day, if I proved worthy, I would know. That I must have faith.”
“And that’s enough for you?” Baths asked.
Zarah met her eyes. “There has not been a nuclear weapon used since the end of the Second World War. The Peacekeepers date from the Cuban Missile Crisis when the world came closest to being destroyed. We have never been that close again. So it must work.”
Aaron spoke. “It does. That is why our rules are sacrosanct.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Zarah said. “It won’t happen again.”
“Exactly,” Aaron said.
As Aaron said that, Caleb looped a wire survival saw over her head. As he pulled it tight he twisted his body, which crossed the wire and put his back to hers. He leaned forward, lifting her entire body off the ground—it wasn’t much as she was a slender girl—and suspended by the wire cutting into her neck.
She might have been slight, but the wire was sharp and it sliced through skin, muscle and then both carotid arteries.
She bled out faster than she would have choked to death. An almost merciful death if there is such a
thing.
The downside of this effective technique was that Caleb was drenched in her blood as he went to one knee, then rolled Zarah’s body off his back. With more difficulty than it had gone in, he extracted the wire from her neck, which was half-severed. He reached into her pocket and removed the bronze coin.
He stood up, blood dripping off him. He wiped the saw off on his shirt and put it back inside a pocket.
“Any further word on Jonah?” Aaron asked.
“Negative,” Caleb said. He looked at the bronze coin, made sure there was no blood on it, before tossing it back to Aaron. “We know he made it to Iraq. I assume from there he proceeded on the ground into Turkey.”
Aaron sighed. “There is such a fine line between indoctrination and fanaticism.”
Caleb glanced down at the body. “There’s a fine line the other way, too. I would lean toward fanaticism being better than any doubt.”
“That will be a decision you’re going to be making soon,” Aaron said.
“You have many years left to serve,” Caleb said. “And Baths is next in line,” he added with a nod toward the old woman.
“She is,” Aaron said. He was still seated, having watched the execution with no reaction. Baths had shown a moment of distaste, for she disliked Caleb’s methods, but she was also a pragmatist and accepted that they worked.
“I thought Jonah’s religious focus would work well,” Baths said.
“It did for eight years,” Caleb said.
Aaron looked as though he’d aged in the last forty-eight hours. “Admiral Groves is dead. So is his replacement, O’Callaghan. Both killed by the Cincinnatians.”
Caleb stepped over the body, closer to Aaron and Baths. “We’re cut off, then. Jonah had been in contact with Groves. Could he have learned of the Admiral’s death?”
“It’s likely,” Aaron said. “Jonah wasn’t a religious fanatic like most thought. He was obsessed with Penkovsky. Maybe he thinks going to Turkey will change things.”
“Should we send someone to Washington?” Caleb asked.
Aaron considered that, then looked at Baths. “What do you think?”