Braun was leaping about, gesticulating, summoning help with great arm sweeps.
Hurry! Hurry!
He had to hold them. All of them. If he failed …
Blaise was struggling again. It was like being kicked over and over again in the gut. One thread snapped. To Claude Bonnell. With a cry Tachyon dropped the control, ran for the gate. Behind him there was the vicious snarl of an Uzi. Apparently one of his captives had tried to run and been cut down by the French security forces. Perhaps it had been Andrieux. More gunfire, punctuating screams. A torrent of people swept past, almost knocking him from his feet. He tightened his grip on the Beretta, pumped harder. Slid around the corner just as the dazed driver reached for the key. A blow from Tachyon’s mind, and he collapsed onto the steering wheel, and the blare of the horn was added to the pandemonium.
Bonnell struggled from the car, gripping Blaise by the wrist. He went lurching and stumbling for a narrow, deserted side street.
Tach flew after them, caught Blaise by his free hand, and wrenched him free.
“LET ME GO! LET ME GO!”
Sharp teeth bit deep into his wrist. Tachyon silenced the boy with a crushing imperative. Supported the sleeping child with one arm. He and Bonnell regarded one another over the limp figure.
“Bravo, Doctor. You outfoxed me. But what a media event my trial will be.”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Eh?”
“I require a body. One infected with the wild card. Then the Sûreté will have their mysterious mentat ace and will look no further.”
“You can’t be serious! You can’t mean to kill me in cold blood.” He read the answer in Tachyon’s implacable lilac gaze. Bonnell tottered back, came up short against a wall, moistened his lips. “I treated you fairly, kindly. You took no hurt from me.”
“But others have not fared so well. You shouldn’t have sent Blaise to me. He was quick to tell me of your other triumphs. An innocent banker, controlled by Blaise, sent into his bank carrying his own death. That bomb blast killed seventeen. Clearly a triumph.”
Bonnell’s face shifted, took on the aspect of Thomas Tudbury, the Great and Powerful Turtle. “Please, I beg you. At least grant me the opportunity for a trial.”
“No,” The features shifted again—Mark Meadows, Captain Trips blinked confusedly at the gun. “I think the outcome is fairly predictable.” Danelle, but as she had been all those long years ago. “I merely hasten your execution.”
A final transformation. Shoulder-length sable hair cascading over the shoulders, long sooty lashes brushing at her cheeks, lifting to reveal eyes of a profound midnight blue. Blythe.
“Tachy, please.”
“I’m sorry, but you’re dead.”
And Tach shot him.
“Ah, Doctor Tachyon.” Franchot de Valmy rose from his desk, hand outstretched. “France owes you a great debt of gratitude. How can we ever repay you?”
“By issuing me a passport and visa.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand. You of course—”
“Not for me. For Blaise Jeannot Andrieux.”
De Valmy fiddled with a pen. “Why not merely apply?”
“Because François Andrieux is currently in custody. Checks will be run, and I can’t allow that.”
“Aren’t you being a bit forthright with me?”
“Not at all. I know what an expert you are on falsified documents.” The Frenchman froze, then shifted slowly to the back of his chair. “I know you’re not an ace, Monsieur de Valmy. I wonder, how would the French public react to news of such a cheat? It would cost you the election.”
De Valmy forced past stiff lips, “I am a very capable public servant. I can make a difference for France.”
“Yes, but none of that is half so alluring as a wild card.”
“What you’re asking is impossible. What if it’s traced to me? What if—” Tachyon reached for the phone. “What are you doing?”
“Calling the press. I too can arrange press conferences at a moment’s notice. One of the privileges of fame.”
“You’ll get your documents.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll find out why you’re doing this.”
Tachyon paused at the door, glanced back. “Then we’ll each have a secret on the other, won’t we?”
The big plane was darkened for the late-night hop to London. The first-class section was deserted save for Tach, Jack, and Blaise, sleeping soundly in his grandfather’s arms. There was something about the little tableau that warned everyone to stay well away.
“How long are you gonna keep him under?” The single reading light pulled fire from the twin red heads.
“Until we reach London.”
“Will he ever forgive you?”
“He won’t know.”
“About Bonnell maybe, but the rest he’ll remember. You betrayed him.”
“Yes.” It was scarcely audible over the rumble of the engines. “Jack?”
“Yeah?”
“I forgive you.”
Their eyes met.
The human reached down, softly pushed back a lock of silky hair from the child’s forehead. “Then I guess maybe there’s hope for you too.”
Legends
by Michael Cassutt
THE MONTH OF APRIL brought little in the way of relief to Muscovites staggered by an unusually cold winter. Following a brief flurry of southern breezes, which sent boys into the newly green football fields and encouraged pretty girls to discard their overcoats, the skies had darkened again, and a dreary, uninspired rain had begun to fall. To Polyakov the scene was autumnal and therefore entirely appropriate. His masters, bending in the new breeze from the Kremlin, had decreed that this would be Polyakov’s last Moscow spring. The younger, less-tainted Yurchenko would move up, and Polyakov would retire to a dacha far from Moscow.
Just as well, Polyakov thought, since scientists were saying that weather patterns had changed because of the Siberian airbursts. There might never be a decent Moscow spring again.
Nevertheless, even in its autumn clothes Moscow had the ability to inspire him. From this window he could see the cluster of trees where the Moscow River skirted Gorky Park, and beyond that, looking appropriately medieval in the mist, were the domes of St. Basil’s and the Kremlin. In Polyakov’s mind age equalled power, but then he was old.
“You wanted to see me?” The voice interrupted his musings. A young major in the uniform of the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff—uncommonly known as the GRU—had entered. He was perhaps thirty-five, a bit old to still hold the rank of major, Polyakov thought, especially with the Hero of the Soviet Union medal. With his classic White Russian features and sandy hair, the man looked like one of those unlikely officers whose pictures appeared on the cover of Red Star every day.
“Mólniya.” Polyakov elected to use the young officer’s code name rather than Christian name and patronymic. Initial formality was one of the interrogator’s tricks. He held out his hand. The major hesitated, then shook it. Polyakov was pleased to note that Mólniya wore black rubber gloves. So far his information was correct. “Let’s sit down.”
They faced each other across the polished wood of the conference table. Someone had thoughtfully provided water, which Polyakov indicated. “You have a very pleasant conference room here.”
“I’m sure it hardly compares with those at Dzerzhinsky Square,” Mólniya shot back with just the proper amount of insolence. Dzerzhinsky Square was the location of KGB headquarters.
Polyakov laughed. “As a matter of fact it’s identical, thanks to central planning. Gorbachev is doing away with that, I understand.”
“We’ve been known to read the Politburo’s mail too.”
“Good. Then you know exactly why I’m here and who sent me.”
Mólniya and the GRU had been ordered to cooperate with the KGB, and the orders came from the very highest places. That was the slim advantage Polyakov brought to this meeting
… an advantage that, as the saying went, had all the weight of words written on water … since he was an old man and Mólniya was the great Soviet ace.
“Do you know the name Huntington Sheldon?”
Mólniya knew he was being tested and said tiredly, “He was CIA director from 1966 to 1972.”
“Yes, a thoroughly dangerous man … and last week’s issue of Time magazine has a picture of him standing right in front of the Lubiyanka—pointing up at the statue of Dzerzhinsky!”
“Maybe there’s a lesson in that … cousin.” Worry about your own security and leave our operations alone!
“I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t had such a spectacular failure.”
“Unlike the KGB’s perfect record.” Mólniya didn’t try to hide his contempt.
“Oh, we’ve had our failures, cousin. What’s different about our operations is that they’ve been approved by the Intelligence Council. Now, you’re a Party member. You couldn’t have graduated from the Kharkov Higher Engineering School without being at least slightly familiar with the principles of collective thought. Successes are shared. So are failures. This operation you and Dolgov cooked up—what were you doing, taking lessons from Oliver North?”
Mólniya flinched at the mention of Dolgov’s name, a state secret and, more importantly, a GRU secret. Polyakov continued, “Are you worried about what we say, Major? Don’t be. This is the cleanest room in the Soviet Union.” He smiled. “My housekeepers swept it. What we say here is between us.
“So, now, tell me,” Polyakov said, “what the hell went wrong in Berlin?”
The aftermath of the Hartmann kidnapping had been horrible. Though only a few right-wing German and American newspapers mentioned possible Soviet involvement, the CIA and other Western agencies made the connections. Finding the bodies, even mutilated as they were, of those Red Army Fraction punks had allowed the CIA to backtrack through their residences, cover names, bank accounts, and contacts, destroying in a matter of days a network that had been in place for twenty years. Two military attachés, in Vienna and Berlin, had been expelled, and more were to follow.
The involvement of the lawyer Prahler in such a brutal and inept affair would make it impossible for other deep-cover agents of his stature to act … and make it difficult to recruit new ones.
And who knew what else the American senator was telling.
“You know, Mólniya, for years my service ran moles at the very heart of the British intelligence service … we even had one who acted as liaison with the CIA.”
“Philby, Burgess, Maclean, and Blount. And old man Churchill, too, if you believe the Western spy novels. Is there a point to this anecdote?”
“I’m just trying to give you some idea of the damage you’ve done. Those moles paralyzed the British for over twenty years. That’s what could happen to us … to both of us. Your GRU bosses will never admit it; if they do, they certainly won’t discuss it with you. But that’s the mess I’ve got to clean up.
“Now … if you know anything at all about me”—Polyakov was certain that Mólniya knew as much about him as the KGB, which meant that Mólniya did not know one very important thing—“you know that I’m fair. I’m old, I’m fat, I’m faceless … but I’m objective. I’m retiring in four months. I have nothing to gain from causing a new war between our two services.”
Mólniya merely returned his gaze. Well, Polyakov expected as much. The rivalry between the GRU and KGB had been bloody. At various times in the past each service had managed to have the leaders of its rival shot. There is nothing longer than institutional memory.
“I see.” Polyakov stood up. “Sorry to have troubled you, Major. Obviously the General Secretary was mistaken … you have nothing to say to me—”
“Ask your questions!”
Forty minutes later Polyakov sighed and sat back in his chair. Turning slightly, he could see out the window. GRU headquarters was called the Aquarium because of its glass walls. It fit. Polyakov had noticed, as he was driven by another GRU officer past the Institute of Space Biology, which, together with the little-used Frunze Central Airport, surrounded the Aquarium, that this building—perhaps the most inaccessible, indeed even invisible place in the city of Moscow—appeared to be almost transparent. A fifteen-story building with nothing but floor-to-ceiling windows!
To find it inviting was a mistake. Polyakov pitied the theoretical casual visitor. Before even reaching the inner circle, one had to penetrate an outer one consisting of three secret aircraft design bureaus, the even more secret Chelomei spacecraft design bureau, or the Red Banner Air Force Academy.
At the far end of the courtyard below, nestled against the impenetrable concrete wall that surrounded the Aquarium, was a crematorium. The story was that, in the final interview before acceptance into the GRU, every candidate was shown this squat green building and a special film.
The film was of the 1959 execution of GRU Colonel Popov, who had been caught spying for the CIA. Popov was strapped to a stretcher with unbreakable wire and simply fed—alive—into the flames. The process was interrupted so that the coffin of another, substantially more honored GRU employee could be consigned first.
The message was clear: You leave the GRU only through the crematorium. We are more important than family, than country. A man such as Mólniya, trained by such an organization, was not vulnerable to any of Polyakov’s interrogator’s tricks. In almost an hour all Polyakov had pried out of him were operational details … names, dates, places, events. Material that Polyakov already possessed. There was something more to be learned—a secret of some kind—Polyakov was sure of it. A secret no one else had been able to get out of Mólniya. A secret that, perhaps, no one but Polyakov knew existed. How could he get Mólniya to talk?
What could be more important to this man than that crematorium?
“It must be difficult being a Soviet ace.”
If Mólniya was surprised by Polyakov’s sudden statement, he didn’t show it. “My power is just another tool to be used against the imperialists.”
“I’m sure that’s what your superiors would like to think. God forbid you should use it for yourself.” Polyakov sat down again. This time he poured himself a glass of water. He held out the bottle to Mólniya, who shook his head. “You must be tired of the jokes by now. Water and electricity.”
“Yes,” Mólniya said tiredly. “I have to be careful when it rains. I can’t take baths. The only water I like is snow.… Given the number of people who know about me, it’s amazing how many jokes I’ve heard.”
“They have your family, don’t they? Don’t answer. It’s not something I know. It’s just … the only way to control you.”
The wild card virus was relatively dissipated by the time it reached the Soviet Union, but it was still strong enough to create jokers and aces, and to cause the creation of a secret state commission to deal with the problem. In typical Stalinist fashion aces were segregated from the population and “educated” in special camps. Jokers simply disappeared. In many ways it was worse than the Purge, which Polyakov had seen as a teenager. In the Thirties the knock on the door came for Party members … those with incorrect ambitions. But everyone was at risk during the Wild Card Purge.
Even those in the Kremlin. Even those at the very highest levels.
“I knew someone like you, Mólniya. I used to work for him, not far from here as a matter of fact.”
For the first time Mólniya dropped his guard. He was genuinely curious. “Is the legend true?”
“Which legend? That Comrade Stalin was a joker and died with a stake driven through his heart? Or that it was Lysenko who had been affected?” Polyakov could tell that Mólniya knew them all. “I must say I’m shocked to think that such fabrications are circulated by officers of military intelligence!”
“I was thinking of the legend that there was nothing left of Stalin to bury … that the corpse displayed at the funeral was made up by the same geniuses who maintain Lenin’s.”
&nbs
p; Very close, Polyakov thought. What did Mólniya know? “You’re a war hero, Mólniya. Yet you ran from that building in Berlin like a raw recruit. Why?”
This was another one of the old tricks, the sudden segue back to more immediate business.
As Mólniya replied that he didn’t honestly remember running, Polyakov went around the table and, sliding a chair closer, sat down right next to him. They were so close that Polyakov could smell the soap and, under that, the sweat … and something that might have been ozone. “Can you tell when someone is an ace?”
Finally Mólniya was getting nervous. “Not without some demonstration … no.”
Polyakov lowered his voice and jabbed a finger at the Hero’s medal on Mólniya’s chest. “What do you think now?”
Mólniya’s face flushed and tears formed in his eyes. One gloved hand slapped Polyakov’s away. It only lasted an instant.
“I was burning up!”
“Within seconds, yes. Burnt meat.”
“You’re the one.” There was as much fascination—after all, they had a lot in common—as fear in Mólniya’s face. “That was another one of the legends, that there was a second ace. But you were supposed to be in the Party hierarchy, one of Brezhnev’s people.”
Polyakov shrugged. “The second ace belongs to no one. He’s very careful about that. His loyalty is to the Soviet Union. To Soviet ideals and potential, not the pitiful reality.” He remained close to Mólniya. “And now you know my secret. One ace to another … what do you have to tell me?”
It was good to leave the Aquarium. Years of institutional hatred had imbued the place with an almost physical barrier—like an electrical charge—that repelled all enemies, especially the KGB.
Polyakov should have been feeling elated: he had gotten some very important information out of Mólniya. Even Mólniya himself did not know how important. No one knew why the Hartmann kidnapping had fallen apart, but what had happened to Mólniya could best be explained by the presence of a secret ace, one with the power to control men’s actions. Mólniya could not know, of course, that something much like this had happened in Syria. But Polyakov had seen that report. Polyakov was afraid he knew the answer.
Wild Cards IV Page 59
