The Cardinal of the Kremlin

  “The men?”

  “All hidden,” the Major answered. He spent a minute examining the place in silence. “Remember the stories about the Assassins’ stronghold in Syria?”

  “Oh.” The Archer turned sharply. That’s what it reminded him of! “And how was that fortress taken?”

  The Major smiled, keeping his eyes to the objective. “With more resources than we have, my friend ... if they ever fortify the whole hilltop, it would take a regiment with helicopter support even to get inside the perimeter. So how do you plan to do it?”

  “Two groups.”

  “Agreed.” The Major didn’t agree with any of this. His training—all of it supplied by the Russians—told him that this mission was madness for so small a force, but before he could contradict a man like the Archer he would have to show his combat skills. That meant running mad risks. In the meantime, the Major would try to nudge his tactics in the right direction.

  “The machines are on the slopes to the north. The people are on the knoll to the south.” As they watched, the headlights of buses were moving from one place to the other. It was shift-change. The Archer considered that, but he had to make his attack in darkness and leave in darkness, else they’d never get away.

  “If we can get in close without being detected ... may I make a suggestion?” the Major asked quietly.

  “Go on.”

  “Take everything in together to the high ground in the center, then attack downhill against both places.”

  “It’s dangerous,” the Archer noted at once. “There is much open ground to be covered on both sides.”

  “It’s also easier to reach the jump-off point unobserved. An approach by one group is less likely to be spotted than one by two groups. Place our heavy weapons there, and they can observe and support both assault teams ...”

  Here was the difference between an instinctive warrior and a trained soldier, the Archer admitted to himself. The Major knew better than he how to measure hazards one against the other. “I don’t know about the guard towers, though. What do you think?”

  “I’m not sure. I—” The Major pushed his commander’s head down. A moment later an airplane streaked down the valley.

  “That was a MiG-21, reconnaissance version. We are not dealing with fools.” He looked to make sure that all his men were under cover. “We may just have had our pictures taken.”

  “Did they—”

  “I don’t know. We’ll have to trust in God for that, my friend. He has not let us come this far to fail,” the Major said, wondering if that were true or not.

  “So where are we going?” Gregory asked in the parking lot.

  “Meet me at the mall, south side of the lot, okay? I just hope it’ll fit in the car.”

  “See you there.” Gregory walked to his car and drove off.

  Bea waited a few minutes before following. There was no sense in having anyone notice that they left at the same time. She was excited now. To combat this, she tried driving slowly, but it was so out of character that it merely fed her excitement, and as though by its own accord the Datsun seemed to work its way up through the gears and change lanes. She arrived in the mall parking lot twenty minutes later.

  Al was waiting. He’d parked his car two spaces away from a station wagon, well out from the nearest store. He’d even picked more or less the right place, Bea Taussig noticed as she pulled in alongside his car and got out.

  “What kept you?” he asked.

  “No real hurry.”

  “So now what?”

  Bea didn’t really know. She knew what was to happen, but not how they planned to do it—in fact, she didn’t even know for sure that it was a they doing it. Perhaps Ann was going to handle the thing all by herself. She laughed to cover her nervousness.

  “Come on,” she said, waving for him to follow.

  “This must be some birthday present,” Gregory noted. Off to his right, he noted a car backing out of its place.

  Bea noted that the lot was crowded with cars but not people. The afternoon shoppers had gone home for dinner, the new arrivals were just beginning their activity, and the movie crowd wouldn’t come for another hour or so. Even so, she was tense as her eyes scanned left and right. She was to be one lane over from the movie entrance. The time was right. If anything went wrong, she almost giggled to herself, she’d have to pick out a large, bulky present. But she didn’t have to. Ann was walking toward her. She carried nothing but a large purse.

  “Hi, Ann!” Taussig called.

  “Hello, Bea—oh, it’s Major Gregory.”

  “Hi,” Al said, while he tried to remember if he knew this woman or not. Al didn’t have much of a memory for faces, so occupied was his brain with numbers.

  “We met last summer,” Ann said, confusing him all the more.

  “What are you doing here?” Taussig asked her controller.

  “Just some quick shopping. I have a date tonight, and I needed—well, I’ll show you.”

  She reached into her purse and pulled out what to Gregory looked like a perfume dispenser—or whatever they called those little spray gadgets, he thought while he waited. He was glad Candi wasn’t like this. Ann seemed to spray some of the stuff on her wrist and held it up to Bea’s nose as a car came down the lane.

  “Candi would love it—what do you think, Al?” Bea asked as the dispenser came up toward his face.

  “Huh?” At that moment he got a face full of chemical Mace.

  Ann had timed it perfectly, spraying Gregory just as he was taking a breath, and aimed it to get under the glasses into his eyes. It seemed that his face had been set afire, and the searing pain went down into his lungs. In a moment he was on his knees, hands to his face. He couldn’t make a sound, and couldn’t see the car stop right beside him. The door opened, and the driver only had to take half a step before chopping him on the side of the neck.

  Bea watched him go limp—so perfect, she thought. The car’s rear door opened and hands came out to grab his shoulders. Bea and Ann helped with the legs as the driver got back in. Just as the rear door closed, Gregory’s car keys flew out the window to them, and the Plymouth rolled away, having hardly stopped at all.

  Instantly, Ann looked around. No one had seen them. She was sure of it as she and Bea walked back away from the stores to where the cars were.

  “What are you going to do with him?” Bea asked.

  “What do you care?” Bisyarina replied quickly.

  “You’re not going—”

  “No, we’re not going to kill him.” Ann wondered if that were true or not. She didn’t know, but suspected that a murder was not in the cards. They’d broken one inviolable rule. That was enough for one day.

  22.

  Active Measures

  LEONID, whose current cover required him to say, “Call me Bob,” headed for the far end of the parking lot. For an operation with virtually no planning, its most dangerous phase had gone smoothly enough. Lenny, in back, had the job of controlling the American officer they’d just kidnapped. A physical type, he’d once been part of the Soviet “special-purpose” forces, known by the abbreviation Spetznaz. Bill, next to him, had been assigned to the mission because he was a scientific intelligence specialist; the fact that his area of expertise was chemical engineering hadn’t mattered to Moscow. The case called for a scientific specialist, and he was the closest.

  In the back, Major Gregory started to moan and move. The chop on his neck had been enough to stun, but not enough to produce any injury more serious than a blinding headache. They hadn’t gone to all this trouble to kill the man by accident, something that had happened before. For the same reason, he hadn’t been drugged. An exercise much more dangerous than most people might think, it had once accidentally killed a Soviet defector whose mind, as a result, had never been picked by the people of the Second Chief Directorate. To Lenny he seemed much like an infant coming out of a long sleep. The smell of chemical Mace was thick enough in the car that all of the windows we
re down a few inches to keep it from overpowering the KGB officers. They wanted to use physical restraints on their prisoner, but those might be troublesome if spotted. Lenny was able to control the American, of course. It was just that caution, the distillation of experience, taught them to take nothing for granted. For all they knew, Gregory’s hobby might have been unarmed combat—stranger things had happened. When he became vaguely conscious, the first thing he saw was an automatic pistol’s silencer pressed against his nose.

  “Major Gregoriy,” Lenny said, using the Russian pronunciation for a purpose, “we know that you are a bright young man, and perhaps a courageous one also. If you resist, you will be killed,” he lied. “I am very skilled in this. You will say nothing at all, and you will be still. If you do these things, no harm will come to you. Do you understand—just nod if you do.”

  Gregory was fully conscious. He’d never quite been out, merely stunned by the blow that still made his head as taut as a swollen balloon. His eyes were shedding tears as though from a leaky faucet, and every breath seemed to light a fire in his chest. He’d commanded himself to move as they pulled him into the car, but his limbs had ignored his frantic wishes while his mind raged at them. It had come to him in an instant: That’s why I hate Bea! It wasn’t her snotty manner and her weird way of dressing at all. But he set that one far aside. There were more important things to worry about, and his mind was racing as it had never raced before. He nodded.

  “Very good,” the voice said, and strong arms lifted him off the floor and onto the rear seat. The metallic prod of the pistol was against his chest, hidden under the other man’s left arm.

  “The effect of the chemical irritant will pass in about an hour,” Bill told him. “There will be no permanent effect.”

  “Who are you?” Al asked. His voice was a mere whisper, as raspy as sandpaper.

  “Lenny told you to be still,” the driver replied. “Besides, someone as bright as you must already know who we are. Am I correct?” Bob looked in the mirror and was rewarded with a nod.

  Russians! Al told himself in a combination of amazement and certainty. Russians here, doing this ... why do they want me? Will they kill me? He knew that he could not believe a thing they said. They’d say anything to keep him under control. He felt like a fool. He was supposed to be a man, an officer, and he was as helpless as a four-year-old girl—and crying like one, he realized, hating every tear that dripped from his eyes. Never in his life had Gregory felt such a killing rage. He looked to his right and realized that he didn’t have the smallest chance. The man with the gun was almost twice his weight, and besides, he did have the gun pressed right against his chest. Gregory’s eyes were blinking now almost like the windshield wipers of a car. He couldn’t see well, but he could tell that the man with the gun was watching him with clinical interest, no emotion at all in his eyes. The man was a professional in the application of violence. Spetznaz, Gregory thought at once. Al took a deep breath, or tried to. He nearly exploded in a convulsion of coughs.

  “You don’t want to do that,” the man in the right-front seat cautioned. “Take shallow breaths. The effect will pass in time.” Wonderful stuff, this chemical Mace, Bill thought. And anyone could buy it in America. Amazing.

  Bob was now out of the enormous parking lot and driving back to the safe house. He had the route memorized, of course, though he was not entirely at ease. He hadn’t had the chance to drive it beforehand, to practice travel times and plot out alternative routes, but he had spent enough time in America that he knew how to drive lawfully and carefully. Driving habits here were better than in the Northeast—except on the interstates, where every Westerner felt the God-given right to race like a maniac. But he wasn’t on the interstate, and on this four-lane highway the late rush-hour traffic moved placidly from light to light. He realized that his time estimate had been overly optimistic, but that didn’t matter. Lenny would have no problem controlling their guest. It was quite dark, there were few streetlights, and theirs was just one more car driving home from work.

  Bisyarina was already five miles away, heading in the opposite direction. The inside of the car was worse than she’d expected. A neat person, she was appalled to see that the young man had virtually covered the floor with plastic wrappers of some sort, and she wondered why the Chevy wasn’t full of ants. The very thought made her skin crawl. She checked her mirror to make sure that Taussig was there. Ten minutes later she pulled into a working-class neighborhood. All of the houses had driveways, but even here most families had more than one car, and the extra ones were parked on the street. She found a vacant spot by a corner and pulled over to it. Taussig’s Datsun appeared beside the Chevy, and she left it there, just another car parked at the curb. When Taussig halted at the next stop sign, Bisyarina rolled down her window and tossed Gregory’s keys into a sewer. With that ended what was the most dangerous part of the mission for her. Without being told, Taussig drove back toward the shopping mall, where Bisyarina would retrieve her Volvo.

  “You’re sure you won’t kill him,” Bea said again after another minute.

  “Quite positive, Bea,” Ann replied. She wondered why Taussig had suddenly acquired a conscience. “If I guess correctly, he might even be given the chance to continue his work ... elsewhere. If he cooperates, then he will be treated very well.”

  “You’ll even assign him a girlfriend, won’t you?”

  “It’s one way of keeping men happy,” Bisyarina admitted. “Happy people work better.”

  “Good,” Taussig said, surprising her controller quite a bit. Taussig explained after a moment: “I don’t want him hurt. What he knows will help both sides make the world safer.” And I just want him out of my way! she didn’t say.

  “He’s too valuable to hurt,” Ann observed. Unless things go wrong, in which case other orders might apply ... ?

  Bob was surprised when the traffic backed up. He was right behind a mini-van. Like many American drivers, he hated the things because he couldn’t see around them. He opened the ashtray and pushed in the cigarette lighter while he frowned in frustration. Bill, next to him, fished out a smoke also. If nothing else, it helped to mask the acrid stink of the Mace which still permeated the cloth upholstery of the car. Bob decided that he’d leave all the windows open when he parked tonight, just to get rid of the smell. His own eyes were watering, now that there was no blowing air to carry the chemical vapors out of the car. It almost made him feel sorry about the straight dose they’d given their prisoner, but at least it was preferable to a drug that might kill, or a blow that could break his scrawny little neck. At least he was behaving himself. If all went according to plan, by the end of the week he’d be in Moscow. They’d wait a day or so before heading into Mexico. A different crossing point would be used, and a diversion, not yet set up, would probably be used to ensure their speedy crossing into that convenient country, where one could catch a plane to Cuba, and from there a direct flight to Moscow. After that, this team of the First Chief Directorate would have a month’s rest. It would be good, Bob told himself, to see his family again. It was always lonely abroad. So lonely that once or twice he’d been unfaithful to his wife, which was also a violation of standing orders. Though not a violation that many officers took seriously, it was something of which he wasn’t proud. Perhaps he could get a new posting at the KGB Academy. He had the seniority now, and with a mission like this under his belt ...

  Traffic started moving again. He was surprised to see the mini-van’s blinkers go on. Two minutes later he was horrified to see why. A jackknifed tractor-trailer blocked the entire road, with the remains of a small car crushed beneath its front wheels. What looked like a score of rotating ambulance lights illuminated the efforts of police officers and firemen to extricate whatever fool had been driving the small import. Bob couldn’t even tell what sort of car it had been, but like the majority of the other drivers, he stared at the wreckage with fascination for a few seconds, until he reminded himself who and where he wa
s. A black-clad police officer was replacing flares on the pavement and waving all southbound traffic onto a side road. Bob reverted to intelligence officer in a moment. He waited until there was a clear path around the cop, and shot past. That earned him an angry look, but nothing more. Most important, the policeman hadn’t gotten much of a look at the car. Bob raced up a hill before he realized that another effect of his hesitation was that he couldn’t see where the detoured traffic was heading.

  I didn’t bring the map, he thought next. He’d destroyed it because of all the markings on it. In fact, the car held no maps at all. Maps were dangerous things to have, and besides, he knew how to memorize all the information he needed for his missions. But he hadn’t been here long enough to learn the area, and knew only one route back to the safe house.

  Goddamn these “immediate-priority” operations!

  He took a left at the first crossroads, onto a curving street into a residential development. It took several minutes for him to realize that the land here was so hilly that all the roads curved back and forth upon themselves to the point where he didn’t know which direction he was heading. For the first time, he began to lose his composure, but only for an instant. One mental curse in his native language reminded him that he couldn’t even think in Russian. Bob lit another cigarette and drove slowly as he tried to orient himself. The tears in his eyes didn’t help.

  He’s lost, Gregory realized after a moment. He’d read enough spy novels to know that they were taking him to a safe house—or a clandestine airfield?—or another vehicle that would carry him ... where?—but as soon as he recognized the same car that they’d passed a few minutes before, he had to stop himself from smiling. They’d actually done something wrong. The next turn they took went downhill, and Gregory confirmed his suspicion when he again saw the rotating lights at the car wreck. He noted the curses as the driver pulled into a driveway and had to back up before they could climb the hill again.