The driver leaned out of the window. “Get out of the way,” he ordered.
“I can’t,” I said. “It will not start.”
“Then push it out of the way,” he said.
I shrugged, and gave up with the starter. I made sure the hand brake was partly set, and climbed out. I got behind the car and pushed, but nothing happened. I saw the men in the car exchanging words, then the driver got out and came over to me.
“Come on,” he said roughly. “We have to get this junk pile out of the street. We are on government business.”
I gave him a sickly smile and gestured futilely at the car again. He muttered under his breath but put his own shoulder against it. We both pushed, but I didn’t work too hard and the car still didn’t move. We struggled for a couple of minutes and finally the driver straightened up, looked at the other car, and shrugged. There was some more conversation there, while I held my breath, then the rear door of the car opened and one of the KGB men got out. He left the door open. Inside I could see the other guard and Cooper.
The KGB man came over and scowled at me. “This time we’d better get this car out of the way or we will arrest you. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
One of them got on either side of me and put his shoulder to the car. I did the same, facing the one who had his back to me. As I pushed, I reached for my gun.
The car began to move slowly despite the brakes. I straightened up, and turned to face the man back of me. The gun barrel raked across his forehead before he even knew what was happening. Without waiting to see him fall, I whirled on the other one. He had already guessed that something had happened, and he was trying to turn and get his gun out at the same time. But he was at a disadvantage. He was off balance, and his back was toward me. Before he could make it, I brought the gun down on his head. He grunted and collapsed.
Two down, I muttered to myself, and looked at the car. The other KGB man had his gun out and was lining it up on me. I dropped to the ground behind the MVD man. The other gun went off, and I heard the bullet over my head. By then I had him in my sights. I pulled the trigger gently, and saw him slump back against the seat. His gun dropped out of the car.
I jumped to my feet and ran over. The guard wasn’t dead, or even unconscious. He was leaning against the back of the seat, one hand clutching his shoulder, the blood coming out between his fingers. He glared at me and tensed his body.
“Don’t try it,” I told him in Russian. “I can’t miss you this close.”
He struggled with himself and lost the battle. He stayed where he was, watching me closely. I turned my attention to Cooper. He was sitting there, looking as if he didn’t believe what he saw.
“What is this?” he said as though he didn’t expect an answer.
“It’s what they used to call the arrival of the US Cavalry,” I told him in English. “A modern version of an old-fashioned rescue. Come on, Cooper, let’s get out of here, fast!”
“I don’t believe it,” he said. “You read stuff like this in books, but it doesn’t happen. I’m only a sky jockey. Nobody is going to send the Cavalry to rescue me.”
“Somebody did,” I said impatiently. “Come on, we don’t have all day. This place will be swarming with cops any minute.”
He was shaking his head. “It was mighty nice of you to make the effort, but I’m not going with you!”
I had expected almost anything but this. “What?” I asked.
“I’m not going with you,” he repeated.
“Why in the hell not?” I demanded.
“My dad and two brothers are landing here tonight,” he said slowly. “What do you think would happen to them if I escaped?”
“They wouldn’t dare do anything to them,” I said.
He was shaking his head again. “I ain’t going to risk it. My lawyer says I won’t get more than seven years. I can do that and still find my family alive when I get home.”
I looked at him with speculation.
“You can’t do it,” he said, guessing what I was thinking. “If you try to knock me out and drag me, you’ll never make it….You may not anyway unless you leave at once.”
He was right. I knew it, but I hated to be cheated after everything that had been done. But I didn’t have any time. I kicked the guard’s gun under the car and looked at the other two guards. They were still out. I turned and ran.
“Give my regards to the Statue of Liberty when you see her,” Cooper called after me.
I didn’t bother to answer. I knew I was going to have my hands full for the next few minutes, at least until I could get back to the apartment and change clothes. I ran swiftly for two zigzag blocks, then slowed down to a fast walk. I threw the gun away. I wanted to keep it, but it would be too damning as evidence if it was found. Two more blocks away, I saw a small car parked with no one around it. I slipped into it, tore out the ignition wires, and put them together. Then I drove away. As I left the curb I heard a shout behind me but ignored it.
I left the car at the curb a good ten blocks away from the apartment house, and went the rest of the way on foot, keeping a sharp eye out for cops. I was about two blocks away from the apartment when I suddenly saw Natasha on the street ahead of me. At the same time she saw me, and started for me as fast as she could walk. Her face was white with tension and I knew something had happened.
“What’s wrong?”
“We can’t stand here. We must walk away from here.” She led the way along the first cross street. “They arrested Ilya and Yuri. A half hour ago.”
“Who?”
“KGB, I think. I was out and came back just in time to see them being led out into the streets.”
“Do you know why?”
“No. One never knows. We may have been on a suspicion list, or someone may have made a report about us. Anything. And there are still guards on the apartment. Did you leave your papers there?”
“No.”
“Then you can get away. That’s why I waited on the street. I hoped I would see you before they found me.”
“They won’t find you now,” I said.
“They will,” she said. “No one can live in Russia without papers, and now I have no papers I can use.”
“We’ll find a way,” I said. “But first we’ve got to hole up somewhere. There’s probably already a description of me around. Do you know of a hotel where they don’t frown on a girl visiting a man in his room?”
“The Molenka, I think. I believe I heard Yuri talking about it once.”
“All right. First, let’s go somewhere where I can buy clothes.”
We took the subway, getting off at a stop Natasha knew. She led the way to a small clothing store and I succeeded in buying a suit that wasn’t too bad. I bought a few other things and some clothes for her. There was no place for me to change there, but we went back to the subway and I changed in the men’s room. I stuffed the old clothes under some paper in a trash basket and we went on to the hotel.
She was right about the hotel. The clerk looked at my papers and I signed the register. I explained that the girl wasn’t staying long, and for a minute I thought he was going to wink at me.
“We’ll be safe here for a while,” I told her when we were in the room, “but we’d better not stay too long. The hunt for me will probably be overshadowed by the one for you, but there’s always a chance someone will want to see your papers. And in the hunt for me, they may eventually get down to checking all the guests in hotels. I’ll be all right until they make a call to Rostov. So we’d better put our minds to getting out of Moscow.”
“How can I get out?” she asked. “And where would I go if I did get out?”
“To America, with me,” I said.
“America?”
“Why not? You’re a member of the Russian underground, and you should be very w
elcome. You’ll probably get a job right away. You could be valuable.”
“You think so?” she exclaimed. Then her face fell. “It is awful to think that I might get out just when Ilya and Yuri have been caught.”
“I don’t think we can do anything about that,” I said gently. “If I hadn’t created such an uproar, I might have been able to—but not now. We’ll have to go, Natasha. I’m sure that Ilya and Yuri would agree.”
Then she came into my arms and cried until she was exhausted.
We stayed in the hotel for two days, while I thought up ways of escaping and discarded them. The search was too big for either a black market car or another stolen one. The papers were full of the story of the American agent who had tried to rescue Cooper, and it had even started Khrushchev off on another tirade of threats against America. In the meantime, everyone there had denied knowing anything about an agent.
Finally I hit on an idea I thought might work. Leaving Natasha in the hotel room, I spent two nights down at the trucking center in Moscow. Most of it was spent in little cafés, drinking vodka and listening to the truck drivers.
The third night we both went down. By this time I was familiar with which trucks were which. Standing in the shadows, we watched a big six-wheeler being loaded for Leningrad. When it was loaded, the two drivers went into the café for a last drink. We slipped out of our shadow and quickly climbed in the back. We made ourselves as comfortable as we could on the boxes, and a few minutes later we were on our way.
All through the night the big truck roared along, and well into the next day. I had been watching the time, and when it seemed we should be nearing Leningrad, I slipped to the rear and began to watch through the tarpaulin. When we finally reached Leningrad, we looked for our chance, and as the truck went around a sharp corner, we dropped off.
In Leningrad we took a trolley to the center of the city, and I found a bus terminal. I bought two tickets to Tallinn, south of Leningrad, getting them one at a time and from different windows just in case someone wanted to see papers. But nothing happened and we were soon on the bus heading south.
Tallinn was a little more of a problem. We were there two days and nights and getting a little nervous, before I found a fisherman I could bribe to take us across the narrow neck of the Baltic to Finland. It wasn’t the most ideal place to go, but I had little choice. That night the fisherman took us, and a couple of hours later we were at the American Embassy.
It took a little more doing to get them to awaken the Ambassador, but it was finally accomplished, and a handsome, gray-haired man in a fancy bathrobe was peering at us curiously.
“I’m a major in the United States Army,” I told him. “For security reasons, I can’t tell you any more than that at the moment. I want to make a phone call to General Sam Roberts, in Washington.”
He must have heard of the General, but he didn’t even blink. “That’s a most unusual request, Major. Would you mind if the call was made in my presence?”
“No, sir.”
“Then come on,” he said. He led the way to his office and indicated the phone. I picked it up and put in the call. It took a while for it to get through, but finally there was General Roberts on the other end.
“General,” I said, “this is your favorite chestnut puller. Have you been keeping up with your reading?”
“I’ll say I have,” he said. “We were worried about you, boy. I see where things didn’t go quite right. How bad is it?”
“Not too bad. The first problem went off fine; the second didn’t because the prize pupil didn’t want to play.”
He whistled. “Where are you now?”
“The American Embassy in Finland. And I’m homesick. Incidentally, you remember the three friends I was to look up?”
“Yes.”
“One of them is with me. The young lady. The other two were unable to make it.”
“I see,” he said. He was silent for a minute. “I guess maybe the best way is the simplest. Less possible complications. Tell the Ambassador to expect a call from the State Department. We’ll see you soon. Got any money left?”
“Enough to get back on.”
“Okay, boy. Goodbye.”
He hung up, and I told the Ambassador about the expected call. He had some brandy brought in, and we all sat and waited together. The call came in a half hour. I don’t know what he was told, but it seemed to cheer him up. “Well, Major,” he said, slapping me on the back when he’d finished, “why didn’t you just tell me your troubles? No problem at all. We’ll find a couple of rooms for you and the young lady, and everything will be fixed up in the morning.”
I didn’t know what he meant by that, but I kept my mouth shut. And I found out in the morning. Right after breakfast, we were handed two passports good for passage one way from Finland to America. The names on them weren’t ours, but obviously the Ambassador didn’t know that.
“Anybody can lose his passport, Major Johnson,” he said. “No need to call Washington about that.”
“I’m the cautious type,” I said, and let it go at that.
That afternoon Natasha and I boarded a regular jetliner for America. When we’d unbuckled our seatbelts and leaned back, I lit a cigarette. “Well, honey,” I said, “you’ll soon be in America.”
“I know,” she said. She sounded excited. “Will I see you again after we are there?”
“Definitely.”
“It will be wonderful. Still…I think I may miss Moscow in the spring.”
“And the red, red flowers?” I asked, quoting from the password I had used when I first met her.
“Well, there will still be flowers blooming there, and maybe one day the whole country will bloom.”
She smiled and put her head on my shoulder. A few minutes later she was asleep.
COMRADE 35
JEFFERY DEAVER
A WORLDWIDE BESTSELLER and one of the most consistently excellent suspense writers in the world, Jeffery Deaver (1950– ) was born outside Chicago and received his journalism degree from the University of Missouri, becoming a newspaperman, after which received his law degree from Fordham University, practicing for several years. A poet, he wrote his own songs and performed them across the country.
He is the author of more than two dozen novels and four short story collections. His work has been translated into twenty-five languages and is a perennial bestseller in America and elsewhere. Among his many honors are seven nominations for Edgar Allan Poe Awards (twice for Best Paperback Original, five times for Best Short Story), three Ellery Queen Reader’s Awards for Best Short Story of the Year, the 2001 W. H. Smith Thumping Good Read Award for The Empty Chair (2000), and the 2004 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award from the (British) Crime Writers’ Association for Garden of Beasts (2004); he also won a Dagger for best short story. In 2009, he was the guest editor of The Best American Mystery Stories of the Year.
He has written about a dozen stand-alone novels, but is most famous for his series about Lincoln Rhyme, the brilliant quadriplegic detective who made his debut in The Bone Collector (1997), which was released on film by Universal in 1999 and starred Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. Other Rhyme novels are The Coffin Dancer (1998), The Empty Chair (2000), The Stone Monkey (2002), The Vanished Man (2003), The Twelfth Card (2005), The Cold Moon (2006), The Steel Kiss (2016), and The Cutting Edge (2018). His nonseries novel A Maiden’s Grave (1995) was adapted for an HBO movie titled Dead Silence (1997) and starred James Garner and Marlee Matlin. His suspense novel The Devil’s Teardrop (1999) was a 2010 made-for-television movie of the same name.
“Comrade 35” was originally published in Ice Cold (New York, Grand Central, 2014).
COMRADE 35
JEFFERY DEAVER
TUESDAY
TO BE SUMMONED to the highest floor of GRU headquarters in Moscow made you immediately question your future.
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br /> Several fates might await.
One was that you had been identified as a counter-revolutionary or a lackey of the bourgeoisie imperialists. In which case your next address would likely be a gulag, which were still highly fashionable, even now, in the early 1960s, despite First Secretary and Premier Khrushchev’s enthusiastic denunciation of Comrade Stalin.
Another possibility was that you had been identified as a double agent, a mole within the GRU—not proven to be one, mind you, simply suspected of being one. Your fate in that situation was far simpler and quicker than a transcontinental train ride: a bullet in the back of the head, a means of execution the GRU had originated as a preferred form of execution, though the rival KGB had co-opted and taken credit for the technique.
With these troubling thoughts in mind and his army posture well in evidence, Major Mikhail Sergeyevich Kaverin strode toward the office to which he’d been summoned. The tall man was broad shouldered, columnar. He hulked, rather than walked. The Glavnoe Razvedyvatelnoe Upravlenie was the spy wing of the Soviet Armed Forces; nearly every senior GRU agent, including Kaverin, had fought the Nazis one meter at a time on the western front, where illness and cold and the enemy had quickly taken the weak and the indecisive. Only the most resilient had survived.
Nothing culls like war.
Kaverin walked with a slight limp, courtesy of a piece of shrapnel or a fragment of bullet in his thigh. An intentional gift from a German or an inadvertent one from a fellow soldier. He neither knew nor cared.
The trek from his present office—at the British Desk, downstairs—was taking some time. GRU headquarters was massive, as befitted the largest spy organization in Russia and, rumors were, the world.
Kaverin stepped into the ante-office of his superior, nodded at the aide-de-camp, who said the general would see him in a minute. He sat and lit a cigarette. He saw his reflection in a nearby glass-covered poster of Lenin. The Communist Party founder’s lean appearance was in marked contrast to Kaverin’s: He thought himself a bit squat of face, a bit jowly. The comrade major’s thick black hair was another difference, in sharp contrast to Lenin’s shiny pate. And while the communist revolutionary and first Premier of the Soviet Union had a goatee that gave him—with those fierce eyes—a demonic appearance, Kaverin was clean shaven, and his eyes, under drooping lids, were the essence of calm.
The Big Book of Espionage Page 142