The Ganymede Project

by Susan Glinert Stevens

  Constantine smiled broadly. “I’m finally part of the in-group.”

  “Yup. Guess so.”

  Billy watched Whit Constantine exit toward the controlled entry point.A good man, he thought.A good mind .A pioneer .

  The buzz of an intercom interrupted his thoughts. “Dr. Stanton, there’s a Mr. Gottlieb here to see you.”

  He walked to the desk and pressed the reply button. “Send him in, please.”

  “What about your other appointment?”

  “Ask him to wait. Mr. Gottlieb has priority. He… has some medicine for me.”

  “I’ll send him in.”

  Stanton turned away from the desk and walked to the window. Below, on the parade ground, soldiers “Hup! Hup! Hupped!” in a drill. Their steps and arm movements seemed perfectly synchronized. It was like watching a single organism. He heard the leader bark the command, “By the left fla-a-nk, harch!”

  In unison, as if the thought propagated simultaneously to thirty different people, the drill team turned, executing the maneuver with flawless precision.

  4. YURI

  1 May 1980

  Annapolis, Maryland

  “What devils do you wrestle now, father? What passions stir your soul?”

  Yuri Sverdlov gazed at his father’s dead face—an older, mirror image. Rugged features, cleft like chiseled stone, gave no response to his question. He quietly tucked the dummied envelope of a return airline ticket to Moscow into the corpse’s jet black suit, completing the effect. His father embarked on another mission, righting wrongs in a world of chiaroscuro and sharp relief. There were no other colors; no shades of gray.

  Yuri wondered—If he could somehow tap his father’s brain and read it like a book, how many chapters would begin with descriptions of pain? Did the eyes, now forever-closed, retain after-images of those passages written in native Russia—images of KGB duplicity, Stalin’s gulag, grinding subservience, the heart-thumping rush of clandestine escape? Or was his father’s brain now gripped only by the last chapter and last line—”The End?”

  His father always spoke ambivalently of Russia. He was proud of the culture; insisted Yuri speak Russian at home; taught his own school on Russian poets. This passion masked Alexander Sverdlov’s flip side—bitterness. He railed against the Communists; lectured on betrayal; prayed to God for vengeance. The ambivalent vision split his actions like a laser beam caught in a half-silvered mirror. He would make his son love the culture; he would make his son fight the battle.

  Even though Yuri shared some of his father’s features—broad shoulders, jet black hair, a gaze that could shift rapidly between wildness and intense penetration—his father’s passions were not genetic. Yuri, born into a land of plenty, a land of cultural diversity, a land of freedom, could only wonder at the fires in his father’s heart. Such fires require external stoking.

  “Uh, Mister Sverdlov. Excuse me.”

  Yuri turned, refocusing on here and now.

  A solemn figure stood a respectful distance. “Oh. I see you’re... Sorry, I don’t know rank.”

  “It’s okay, Mr. Davenport. Midshipman. First Class.”

  “I thought when you arranged the viewing there’d be more—”

  “So did I.”

  “And tomorrow. Just a small group?”

  “Yeah. Not many.”

  “I have a few more papers for you to sign. Here.” He handed them to Yuri, eyeing him with a nervous smile. “You look very young. Are you twenty one?”

  “Twenty.”

  Davenport frowned. “Well, I don’t—”

  “Next week.” Yuri smiled. “I’ll turn twenty-one next week. I’ll date it the tenth.” He scribbled on the paper, then handed it back. “Besides, there’s no one else.”

  “No mother?”

  “She died.” He remembered Anna Sverdlov’s picture. A beautiful woman. A casualty of the Cold War. His father believed Stalin killed her as surely as if he squeezed the trigger himself. Like a flower plucked at the roots, she couldn’t survive outside native Russia.

  “Well. I know this is difficult for you. But if you could give me just a few words. There’s no priest, so unless you—”

  “Just say he was a man who knew right from wrong. He did right. He fought wrong. That was his passion.”It was true . It was his father’s defining trait. When he fled to America with his pregnant wife, Anna, they struggled, tried to look ahead, but Alexander fought the old battles, spending a good portion of his earnings on travel and secret communications with the old network, countering lies, revealing truth.

  “A righter of wrongs?” Davenport nodded with a certain smugness. “I see. Well. Ten o’clock, then?”

  “Yeah.” Yuri watched the mortician teeter unnervingly back and forth on the balls of his feet, saying nothing, smiling toward the corpse.

  Davenport suddenly fidgeted. “Oh—almost forgot.” He reached into his jacket, withdrew a gold, palm-sized object, and handed it to Yuri. “An eagle medallion or coin. Found it in his suit. Think of it as a gift from your father.”

  Yuri felt the raised, metallic texture with his fingers. It retained the warmth of his hand and memories. The front showed a gold eagle’s head against a navy-blue field, hovering over a rolled up Stars and Stripes, and a shield embossed with a compass rose. The words, ‘United States of America’ circled the edge.A beautiful piece , he thought, rolling it over.Wonder where he got it ? Inscribed on the back were the words:

  In Grateful Appreciation

  Alexander Sverdlov

  Around the edge was the phrase, “And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”

  Yuri pocketed the medallion, then stretched out his hand in a gesture that usually made other people go away. “Thanks for all your help,” he said, in a faltering voice.

  Davenport winked, pressed Yuri’s shoulder, then departed.

  Yuri watched him fade into the shadows of the funeral home.

  Then he snapped a black-brimmed garrison cap to his head, and with a flourish, draped dark tones of a military rain coat over the gold and blue-black of a dress uniform. The material made a quiet, shoosh-shoosh-shoosh sound as he walked to the door, opened it, and hesitated.

  Beyond the doorway, nature wept. Tears flooded from the Annapolis sky in a soft hush, pooled on the ground and rolled in gravity’s grip toward the sea. He brushed away a splash of moisture on his cheek. What else should I say? he thought.My father .Words don’t —

  Thunder clapped in the distance, like a call to battle.

  He stiffened, pivoted at attention and shot a salute toward the casket. Then, quietly, respectfully, he closed the door. Behind him, Alexander Sverdlov rested forever—a traveler now bound for another world.

  * * *

  “A good father. A good American. He did right; he fought wrong. May he rest in peace.” Davenport’s voice stopped with finality. A smile spread slowly across his thin, hawk-nosed face. He lifted his arms in a gesture of closure.

  A handful of mourners moved slowly away from the plot where the casket hovered on a bed of straps above yawning earth. Yuri’s tall, stiff, muscled figure moved among friends and distant relatives, shaking hands as they departed. “Thank you for coming. Good to see you again. Thank you.” There were a few tears, a few hugs, then the place emptied. He walked back toward the car, alone and thoughtful, preferring solitude to company.

  “Midshipman Sverdlov?”

  Two gray-suited men blocked the narrow cemetery path. Both were late-thirtyish and ordinary looking in the extreme. The taller man stepped forward.

  Yuri stopped, eyeing them both. “Yes sir?”

  The tall man extended a hand. “I’m George Nathan. This is Malcolm Geller.”

  “Thanks for coming.” He shook their hands, but the men didn’t move.

  Nathan smiled, as if suppressing a secret. “So you graduate soon?”

  “Yes Sir,” Yuri said.

  “Not long after your birthday. Twenty one, right?”

&
nbsp; Yuri tightened his lips. “You’ll have to excuse me, I’ve got to get back—”

  “To the Academy? Don’t think so,” Nathan winked. “They know you’re with us.”

  “And who are you?”

  “Friends of your father.”

  Yuri sighed. “My father was a very focused man, Mr. Nathan. He had his work. He had his passion. And he had revenge. Which Alexander Sverdlov did you know?”

  Nathan fumbled in a coat pocket, then withdrew a wallet, flipping it open in a practiced move. The ID card readCIA . It carried the Agency seal—an Eagle’s head hovering over a flag and shield.

  “I see,” Yuri said, licking his lips.

  “We’d like to talk to you—if you can spare the time.”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  Geller shook his head. “No.”

  Yuri’s stiff, military bearing relaxed when confronted with the inevitable. The two men escorted him in silence back to the parking lot. As he climbed into their car and closed the door, he could still smell damp earth from the grave site. It clung to his shoes. It crowded his brain. Its morbid stain diffused across cumulus clouds layered above the cemetery and molded itself into a dark but familiar effigy.

  In those few seconds before the other men joined him in the car, Yuri imagined his father silently mouthing the words, “Duty. Honor. Country.” He leaned back, waiting patiently for the explanation, brushing a hand through close-cropped, neatly trimmed hair.

  The two men climbed in, slammed the doors, and sealed off the outside world. Nathan smiled at Yuri, as if thinking secret thoughts.

  “After you graduate, we have career plans for you,” he said. “Like to swim?”

  5. ARCHANGELSK EVENT

  January 1981

  Moscow, Russia

  The green-and-cream train, dirty with diesel smoke and winter’s grit, decelerated into Moscow’s Leningradsky Station with deep, angry groans of steel-on-steel. A bow wave of fine soot eddied along the tracks, heralding the arrival.

  Katrina Fontanova watched a succession of watchers—faces framed in train windows, peering at the platform, gliding toward a final, shuddering stop. After a loud spit of the brakes, the train rested, wheezing. Then, passengers opened the doors and disembarked.

  Katrina bundled against the cold in mittens, an oversized fur coat and big brown “Gum” boots. A mop of auburn hair spilled from under ashapki fur hat, flopping up and down on her shoulders as she bounced excitedly on tiptoes to see above the crowd. Then she saw him. “Vladimir! Here!” She vigorously waved an arm, catching his attention.

  A lanky, dark-haired youth in a Soviet army uniform returned a grin, then closed the distance with a few long strides. He dropped a duffel bag near her feet and hugged her, towering seven inches above her five-foot, ten-inch frame.

  “It’s good to see you. Good to be back,” he said.

  “You’re not my little brother anymore—you’re all grown up.” She cocked her head and smiled quizzically. “So how does it feel to live and work up there?”

  “Cold. Bitter cold. We pee ice cubes. It’s very painful.”

  She laughed at the remark. “Did you get the present I sent for your birthday?”

  “The socks? Electric socks? You know, I had to re-wire them for Russian current. How’d you get them?”

  “Papa met an American at an embassy party. He had a catalog of tricky American inventions. He gave the socks to Papa as a gag gift.”

  “Katrina...”

  She smiled at him, but Vladimir’s face was now dead serious. “What?” she asked.

  “The Americans. They have some amazing defense technology. A lot more amazing than electric socks. I’ll tell you about it in the car.”

  “Sure,” she said, studying his face for a long moment. “Sure.” Then she shrugged, grabbed his arm and escorted him through the station. “Electric can openers. Now that’s amazing. And TV dinners, microwave ovens, and vibrating beds. Pretty decadent, huh?”

  Vladimir managed a grin.

  “I heard they even have personal computers.”

  Vladimir halted. “No!”

  “Yes,” she said, pulling his hat over his eyes. “The world is changing. Are you ready for it?” She continued walking. “Now that you are seventeen and out on your own, have you learned anything? Do you feel any smarter?”

  He looked at her quietly, face contorted into a grimace. “For one thing, I now realize the Americans are a threat. They’re unstoppable. We are in a struggle for survival. For existence.”

  They halted below a huge poster of Lenin fixed to the station’s marble wall. Lenin’s mouth curved in a gentle smile, but the eyes cut with the sharpness of a sickle’s blade.

  “You’re starting to believe the government’s own propaganda,” Katrina said, a bit too loudly.

  Vladimir looked at the poster and felt the eyes penetrate his soul. “Shhh.”

  “Don’t shush me, little brother. You’re talking crap! The army filled your brain with horse shit. How can a culture of movies, mobsters and vibrating beds be a threat?”

  “Father would slap you if he heard you say that,” Vladimir whispered, looking around.

  “He’d just say it was my Ukrainian nature,” she responded, loudly.

  A few heads turned in their direction. One head wore a gray fur cap with a red star. Vladimir recognized the uniform—GRU, military intelligence.

  Katrina saw him, too, and quieted down. Then she whispered in Vladimir’s ear. “Father is so involved with himself and his position that he confuses reality and illusion.” She latched onto Vladimir’s arm and escorted him toward the station exit. “Anyway, I like America. I want to go there. I want to meet Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra.”

  Vladimir laughed. “You and your baseball fixation.” Then he grabbed her neck with the crook of an arm and roughed her head.

  “Ahh! Let me go,” she squealed.

  “I’ll tell you. I want to go to America, too. As a spy. An attaché.”

  She halted again in mid stride, looked at him and giggled. “What?”

  “I’ve worked a deal. They’re going to send me to the university after my tour at Archangelsk is up. Then I’m going into the GRU. As an officer.”

  A wave of shock crossed her face.Her own brother .

  “Excuse me, do you speak English?” A tall man wearing black approached from the front, smiling gently. Katrina thought he looked rather like an eagle, with a beak nose and shining eyes.

  “Yes,” Katrina said, tentatively. Vladimir nodded.

  “Good.” The man gazed at the truss-reinforced ceiling. “Do you know you’re being watched?”

  Vladimir looked up, saw nothing, then glanced around the station, mobbed with people hustling and bustling along different, chaotic, often colliding paths. The only other set of eyes that seemed to stare were those of Vladimir Lenin, from the poster.

  “Who is watching?” Katrina asked.

  “He is.” The stranger popped open a briefcase stuffed with paper. He handed her English printed material. The banner readThe Watchtower .

  “Please take it,” the man said. “It explains everything. What we do and what we think has cosmic consequences. He can read our minds. Here, I’ll give you my phone number just in case.” He scribbled with a black pen, then stretched his hand toward Katrina. Another large hand intercepted, locking his wrist like a vise.

  “What are you doing?” a heavily accented voice asked, in English.

  Katrina, Vladimir and the tall stranger cranked their heads around. The gray-uniformed GRU agent stood next to them, scowling. “This is forbidden,” he said, plucking the paper with the telephone number. He handcuffed the man. Then, to Vladimir and Katrina, he said gruffly, “Get out of here or you’ll be in trouble.”

  Dumbfounded, they walked briskly out of the station, not daring to talk until they were clear of crowds.

  “What do you suppose that was all about?” Vladimir asked.

  “Jehovah’s Witnesses. They�
�ve been a problem lately at all the stations. Most of them are Americans. They arrest them and then deport them. The authorities are afraid they will infect Russia with their ideas.”

  “Hmm,” Vladimir said, quietly.

  She smiled and jabbed at his chin. “So you want to be a GRU goon?”

  “No,” he sniffed. “I’m going to be an intelligence analyst. They say I have the aptitude for it. Some people, like you, do well in school. Others, like me, have to incubate for a while before we discover what we’re really good at. They tell me I’m developing a reputation: rational, clever—”

  “That bad?”

  “Well... I have a smart sister. Maybe it’s in the genes.”

  “You know what they say, Vladimir: ‘The tallest blade of grass is the first cut by the scythe.’“

  “Yes, but they also say ‘the turtle goes nowhere without first sticking out its neck.’“

  Katrina drew a finger across her neck in a knife-like move, mimicking the sound of a cutting blade. “Shh-u-u-nck!”

  Vladimir laughed.

  They walked to a gray, rusting, but miraculously functional Moskvich automobile, where Katrina unlocked the doors. After they climbed in, she started the engine, let it idle, and waited for the defrost to work. “Well, we’re within the five-to-one window,” she said, smiling. She referred to the well-known five-to-one operating principle of the Moskvich—for every mile you drive, you push another five.

  “How are Mother and Papa getting along?” Vladimir asked.

  “Nothing’s changed. It’s getting worse. I moved out, to a dorm at the university.” She fished through pockets, found a cigarette, and lit up. “He’s so serious about saving the world for communism. You know? It’s his passion. Mother chides him for it.” She shrugged. “Then, the usual happens. He gets angry.” She blew a long puff of smoke. “She should learn to adapt.”

  “And how are you adapting?”

  “To the university or to being away from our bickering parents.”

  “Both.”

  “Well... I graduate next year. So far I have the top rank in my class.