The Cardinal of the Kremlin

  To defect, then? To go from being one of the world’s most powerful men to becoming a hireling, a mendicant who traded what he knew for money and a comfortable life? Gerasimov accepted the fact that his life would become more comfortable in physical terms—but to lose his power!

  That was the issue, after all. Whether he left or stayed, to become just another man ... that would be like death, wouldn’t it?

  Well, what do you do now?

  He had to change his position, had to change the rules of the game, had to do something so dramatic ... but what?

  The choice was between disgrace and defection? To lose everything he’d worked for—within sight of his goal—and face a choice like this?

  The Soviet Union is not a nation of gamblers. Its national strategy has always been more reflective of the Russians’ national passion for chess, a series of careful, pre-planned moves, never risking much, always protecting its position by seeking small, progressive advantages wherever possible. The Politburo had almost always moved in that way. The Politburo itself was largely composed of similar men. More than half were apparatchiks who had spoken the appropriate words, filled the necessary quotas, taking what advantages they could, and who had won advancement through a stolidness whose perfection they could display around the table in the Kremlin. But the function of those men was to provide a moderating influence on those who aspired to rule, and these men were the gamblers. Narmonov was a gambler. So was Gerasimov. He’d play his own game, allying himself with Alexandrov to establish his ideological constituency, blackmailing Vaneyev and Yazov to betray their master.

  And it was too fine a game to quit so easily. He had to change the rules again, but the game did not really have any rules—except for the one: Win.

  If he won—the disgraces would not matter, would they? Gerasimov took the key from his pocket and examined it for the first time in the light of his desk lamp. It looked ordinary enough. Used in the designed manner, it would make possible the deaths of—fifty million? A hundred? More? The Directorate Three men on the submarines and in the land-based rocket regiments held that power—the zampolit, the political officer alone had the authority to activate the warheads without which the rockets were mere fireworks. Turn this key in the proper way at the proper time, he knew, and the rockets were transformed into the most frightening instruments of death yet devised by the mind of man. Once launched, nothing could stop them...

  But that rule was going to be changed, too, wasn’t it?

  What was it worth to be the man who could do that?

  “Ah.” Gerasimov smiled. It was worth more than all the other rules combined, and he remembered that the Americans had broken a rule, too, in killing their courier in the Moskvich railyard. He lifted his phone and called for a communications officer. For once the longitudinal lines worked in his favor.

  Dr. Taussig was surprised when she saw the signal. One thing about “Ann” was that she never altered her routine. Despite the fact that she’d impulsively visited her contact, heading to the shopping center was her normal Saturday routine. She parked her Datsun fairly far out, lest some klutz in a Chevy Malibu smash his door against hers. On the way in, she saw Ann’s Volvo, and the driver’s side visor was down. Taussig checked her watch and increased her pace to the entrance. On going in, she turned left.

  Peggy Jennings was working alone today. They were spread too thin to get the job done as fast as Washington wanted, but that wasn’t exactly a new story, was it? The setting was both good and bad. Following her subject to the shopping mall was fairly easy, but once inside it was damned near impossible to trail a subject properly, unless you had a real team of agents operating. She got to the door only a minute behind Taussig, already knowing that she’d lost her. Well, this was only a preliminary look at her. Routine, Jennings told herself on opening the door.

  Jennings looked up and down the mall and failed to see her subject. Frowning for a moment, she commenced a leisurely stroll from shop to shop, gazing in the windows and wondering if Taussig had gone to a movie.

  “Hello, Ann!”

  “Bea!” Bisyarina said inside Eve’s Leaves. “How are you?”

  “Keeping busy,” Dr. Taussig replied. “That looks wonderful on you.”

  “She’s so easy to fit,” the shop owner observed.

  “Easier than me,” Taussig agreed glumly. She lifted a suit from the nearest rack and walked to a mirror. Severely cut, it suited her present mood. “Can I try this one on?”

  “Surely,” the owner said at once. It was a three-hundred-dollar outfit.

  “Need a hand?” “Ann” asked.

  “Sure—you can tell me what you’re up to.” Both women walked back to the dressing rooms.

  Within the booth, both women chatted away, discussing the everyday things that differ little between women and men. Bisyarina handed over a slip of paper, which Taussig read. The latter’s conversation stuttered for a moment before she nodded agreement. Her face switched from shock to acceptance, then switched again to something that Bisyarina did not like at all—but the KGB didn’t pay her to like her job.

  The suit fitted rather nicely, the owner saw when they came out. Taussig paid the way most people did, with a credit card. Ann waved and left, turning to walk past the gun shop on her way out the mall.

  Jennings saw her subject come out of the shop a few minutes later, carrying a clear plastic garment bag. Well, that’s what it was, she told herself. Whatever was bothering her the other night, she went shopping to make herself feel better and got another one of those suits. Jennings followed her for another hour before breaking off the surveillance. Nothing there.

  “He’s one cool dude,” Ryan told Candela. “I didn’t expect him to jump into my lap and thank me for the offer, but I expected some reaction!”

  “Well, if he bites, he’ll get word to you easy enough.”

  “Yeah.”

  21.

  Knave’s Gambit

  THE Archer tried to tell himself that the weather was no man’s ally, but surely this was not true. The skies were clear, the winds cold and from the northeast, sweeping down from the frigid center of Siberia. He wanted clouds. They could move only in darkness now. That made progress slow, and the longer they were here in Soviet territory, the greater the chance that someone would notice them, and if they were noticed...

  There was little need to speculate about that. All he had to do was raise his head to watch the armored vehicles motoring along the Dangara road. There was at least a battalion stationed around here, possibly a whole regiment of motor-rifle troops who constantly patrolled the roads and tracks. His force was large and formidable by mudjaheddin standards, but against Russians in regimental force on their own land, only Allah Himself could save them. And perhaps not even Him? the Archer wondered, then chastised himself for the unspoken blasphemy.

  His son was not far away, probably less than the distance they’d traveled to be here—but where? A place he would never find. The Archer was certain of that. He’d given up hope long ago. His son would be raised in the alien, infidel ways of the Russians, and all he could do was pray that Allah would come to his son before it was too late. To steal children, surely that was the most heinous of all crimes. To rob them of their parents and their faith ... well, there was no need to dwell on that.

  Every one of his men had reason enough to hate the Russians. Families killed or scattered, homes bombed. His men did not know that this was the usual business of modern war. As “primitives,” they felt that battles were affairs for warriors alone. Their leader knew that this had stopped being true long before any of them was born. He didn’t understand why the “civilized” nations of the world had changed this sensible rule, but he only needed to know that it was. With this knowledge had come the awareness that his destiny was not the one he’d selected for himself. The Archer wondered if any man truly chose his fate, or was it not all in greater hands than those which held book or rifle? But that was another complex, useless thought
, since for the Archer and his men, the world had distilled itself to a few simple truths and a few deep hates. Perhaps that would someday change, but for the mudjaheddin the world was limited to what they could see and feel now. To search further was to lose sight of what mattered, and that meant death. The only great thought held by his men was their faith, and for the moment that was enough.

  The last vehicle in the column disappeared around the bend in the road. The Archer shook his head. He’d had enough of thinking for the present. The Russians he’d just watched had all been inside their tracked BMP infantry carriers, inside where they could be kept warm by the fighting vehicle’s heater; inside where they could not see out very well. That was what mattered. He raised his head to see his men, well camouflaged by their Russian-issue clothing and hidden behind rocks, lying in crevices, paired off, which allowed one to sleep while the other, like their leader, watched and kept guard.

  The Archer looked up to see the sun now in decline. Soon it would slide behind the mountain ridge, and his men could resume their march north. He saw the sun glint off the aluminum skin of an aircraft as it turned in the air high overhead.

  Colonel Bondarenko had a window seat and was staring down at the forbidding mountains. He remembered his brief tour of duty in Afghanistan, the endless, leg-killing mountains where one could travel in a perfect circle and seem to go uphill all the way. Bondarenko shook his head. That, at least, was behind him. He’d served his time, tasted combat, and now he could go back to applied engineering science which was, after all, his first love. Combat operations were a young man’s game, and Gennady Iosifovich was over forty now. Having once proven that he could climb the rocks with the young bucks, he was resolved never to do so again. Besides, there was something else on his mind.

  What’s happening with Misha? he asked himself. When the man had disappeared from the Ministry, he’d naturally assumed that the older man was ill. When the absence had lasted several days, he took it to be serious and asked the Minister if Colonel Filitov had been hospitalized. The reply at the time had been reassuring—but now he wondered. Minister Yazov had been a little too glib—then Bondarenko had gotten orders to return to Bright Star for an extended evaluation of the site. The Colonel felt that he was being shuffled out of the way—but why? Something about the way Yazov had reacted to his innocent inquiry? Then there was the matter of the surveillance he’d spotted. Could the two things be connected? The connection was so obvious that Bondarenko ignored it without conscious consideration. It was simply impossible that Misha could have been the target of a security investigation, and even less possible that the investigation should develop substantive evidence of misdeeds. The most likely thing, he concluded, was that Misha was off on a top-secret job for Yazov. Surely he did a lot of that. Bondarenko looked down at the massive earthwork of the Nurek power dam. The second string of power lines was almost done, he noted, as the airliner dropped flaps and wheels for a landing at Dushanbe-East. He was the first man to leave the aircraft after landing.

  “Gennady Iosifovich!”

  “Good morning, Comrade General,” Bondarenko said in some surprise.

  “Come with me,” Pokryshkin said, after returning the Colonel’s salute. “You don’t want to ride that damned bus.” He waved to his sergeant, who wrested away Bondarenko’s bag.

  “You didn’t need to come yourself.”

  “Rubbish.” Pokryshkin led the parade to his personal helicopter, whose rotor was already turning. “One day I must read that report you drafted. I just had three ministers here yesterday. Now everyone understands how important we are. Our funding is being increased twenty-five percent—I wish I could write that kind of report!”

  “But I—”

  “Colonel, I don’t want to hear it. You have seen the truth and communicated it to others. You are now part of the Bright Star family. I want you to think about coming to us full time after your Moscow tour is finished. According to your file, you have excellent engineering and administrative credentials, and I need a good second-in-command.” He turned with a conspiratorial look. “I don’t suppose I could talk you into an air-force uniform?”

  “Comrade General, I—”

  “I know, once a soldier of the Red Army, always a soldier of the Red Army. We will not hold it against you. Besides, you can help me with those KGB boneheads on perimeter guard. They can bluster their expertise at a broken-down fighter pilot, but not against a man with the Red Banner for close combat.” The General waved for the pilot to take off. Bondarenko was surprised that the commander wasn’t flying the aircraft himself. “I tell you, Gennady, in a few years this will be a whole new service branch. ‘Cosmic Defense Troops,’ perhaps. There will be room for you to create a whole new career, and plenty of room for advancement. I want you to give that some serious thought. You will probably be a general in three or four years anyway, but I can guarantee you more stars than the Army can.”

  “For the moment, however ... ?” He’d think about that, but not in a helicopter.

  “We’re looking at the mirror and computer plans the Americans are using. The chief of our mirror group thinks he can adapt their designs to our hardware. It will take about a year to come up with the plans, he says, but he doesn’t know about the actual engineering. Meanwhile we’re assembling some reserve lasers and trying to simplify the design to make maintenance easier.”

  “That’s another two years’ work,” Bondarenko observed.

  “At least,” General Pokryshkin agreed. “This program will not come to fruition before I leave. That’s inevitable. If we have one more major test success, I will be recalled to Moscow to head the Ministry office, and at best the system will not be deployed before I retire.” He shook his head sadly. “It’s a hard thing to accept, how long these projects take now. That’s why I want you here. I need a young man who will carry this project all the way through. I’ve looked at a score of officers. You’re the best of them, Gennady Iosifovich. I want you here to take over from me when the time comes.”

  Bondarenko was stunned. Pokryshkin had selected him, doubtless in preference to men from his own service branch. “But you hardly know me—”

  “I did not get to be a general officer by being ignorant of people. You have the qualities that I look for, and you are at just the right part of your career—ready for an independent command. Your uniform is less important than the type of man you are. I’ve already telexed the Minister to this effect.”

  Well. Bondarenko was still too surprised to be pleased. And all because Old Misha decided that I was the best man to make an inspection tour. I hope he’s not too ill.

  “He’s been going over nine hours now,” one of the officers said almost accusingly to Vatutin. The Colonel bent to look in the fiber-optic tube and watched the man for several minutes. He was lying down at first, tossing and turning fitfully as he tried willing himself to sleep, but that effort was doomed to failure. After that came the nausea and diarrhea from the caffeine that denied him sleep. Next he rose and resumed the pacing he’d been doing for hours, trying to tire himself into the sleep that part of his body demanded while the remainder objected.

  “Get him up here in twenty minutes.” The KGB Colonel looked at his subordinate with amusement. He’d slept only seven hours and spent the last two making sure that the orders he’d given before turning in had been carried out in full. Then he’d showered and shaved. A messenger had fetched a fresh uniform from his apartment while an orderly had polished his boots to a mirrorlike luster. Vatutin finished off his own breakfast and treated himself to an extra cup of coffee brought down from the senior-officers’ mess. He ignored the looks he was getting from the other members of his interrogation team, not even giving them a cryptic smile to indicate that he knew what he was doing. If they didn’t know that by now, then the hell with them. Finished, he wiped his mouth with the napkin and walked to the interrogation room.

  Like most such rooms, the bare table it held was more than it appeared to be. Un
der the lip where the tabletop overlapped the supporting frame were several buttons that he could press without anyone’s noticing. Several microphones were set in the apparently blank walls, and the single adornment on them, a mirror, was actually two-way, so that the subject could be observed and photographed from the next room.

  Vatutin sat down and got out the folder that he’d be putting away when Filitov arrived. His mind went over what he’d do. He already had it fully planned, of course, including the wording of his verbal report to Chairman Gerasimov. He checked his watch, nodded to the mirror, and spent the next several minutes composing himself for what was to come. Filitov arrived right on time.

  He looked strong, Vatutin saw. Strong but haggard. That was the caffeine with which his last meal had been laced. The façade he projected was hard, but brittle and thin. Filitov showed irritation now. Before, he’d shown only resolve.

  “Good morning, Filitov,” Vatutin said, hardly looking up.

  “Colonel Filitov to you. Tell me, when will this charade be over?”

  He probably believes that, too, Vatutin told himself. The subject had so often repeated the story of how Vatutin had placed the film cassette in his hand that he might have halfway believed it now. That was not unusual. He took his chair without asking permission, and Vatutin waved the turnkey out of the room.