The shadow of the Bolshoy Dom—literally, “the Big House”—wasn’t just cast over the streets. Its imposing shade was infectious.
And it was worse inside.
Maggie Dubinsky sat in a single cell no more than eight feet by four feet. A narrow barred window, high up on the wall, overlooked an internal courtyard that housed a handful of black sedans and a couple of large black trucks. MGB soldiers drilled there in the morning. The afternoons were for outdoor torture and firing squads. She saw one of the executions and heard four others. Blessedly, her captors kept her cell firmly in a null zone; the emotional roller coaster of people facing death—sudden, painful, bloody death, full of terror and sorrow and rage—was too much even for her, detached as she was from her own emotional state.
Or, perhaps, detached as she once was. Four days of deprivation and torture had reacquainted Maggie with emotions she’d long thought she’d left behind. Not that she showed it, of course. She was still Maggie Dubinsky, and she wouldn’t be giving the bastards the pleasure any time soon. The cold cell, the waterboarding, the strip searches by rough, calloused hands, the electroshock, and the beatings—they’d all been taken without a word. Oh, she’d cried out. She’d screamed and tore at them when they came. She’d fought with every ounce of her being. Over the course of four days, three men had been carried out of her cell due to their injuries. She’d paid for it, of course. She figured she’d suffered at least three cracked ribs, a sprained ankle, and a dislocated shoulder that she’d slammed back into place against the concrete block wall. But she gave as good as she got, if not more, and dammit, that was a source of pride.
But there was fear. There were many more violations male guards could yet inflict upon a woman, and aside from one set of wandering hands—hands attached to quickly broken fingers—the Soviets hadn’t gone there. Yet. She had no doubt that she’d seen her last days of freedom, and that whatever life left to her would be short and painful, unless the MGB fucked up.
So far, they didn’t seem to be the fuck-up types, though. The null field was always on, the guards always at attention, weapons drawn and trained. She understood the rhythms of the prison now, the shift changes, the meal times, the questioning and torture sessions. She always looked for flaws or inconsistencies, listening for them whenever they decided to throw a bag on her head when they moved her from place to place. Even as the fists rained down on her, she looked through swollen eyes for an unsecured weapon, a briefly opened avenue of attack or escape.
Nothing.
Maggie hated being scared. She hated the weakness of it, the taste it left in her mouth. So she did everything she could to not think about it. She jogged in place, watching the torture in the courtyard. She’d even managed twenty push-ups that morning, despite having just fixed her shoulder the night before. She screamed through the second set of ten, and it felt like absolution. Purification.
If nothing else, she knew Ekaterina had escaped, because by now they would’ve thrown it in her face if she hadn’t. “We have your traveling companion, of course,” they’d told her the first night. “We will do things to her you can’t imagine.” Maggie had spat at the interrogator and told him to show her the prisoner or be called a coward. An hour later, another interrogator had asked her who she was traveling with. To think, the very least they could have done was to trade notes before heading in to see her. She felt professionally insulted, and told them so. The first of her cracked ribs was worth the look on the MGB man’s face.
She knew Katie had escaped, at least temporarily, but only due to a quirk of timing. They’d arrived outside Primorsk via a Finnish fishing boat, using the early spring darkness as cover. Like Frank, they’d been given the floating suitcases and wetsuits from Mrs. Stevens, and had managed to find easy shelter in the deep pine forests lining the water. They’d changed into filthy peasant clothes and had walked into Primorsk to catch a creaky old bus into Leningrad without issue. Katie had made some noises about wanting to storm the Bekhterev Institute—the girl was strong enough now to throw a car into the second story of the building—but they were under strict orders to avoid the Soviet Variant headquarters at all costs. So they’d made a beeline for the Moskovsky train station and had booked shit-class tickets to Moscow.
All their false papers had checked out fine, and Maggie had just been starting to relax inside the train to Moscow when she’d looked out the window to see at least four dozen MGB officers with rifles swarming the station, headed straight for the train.
There were contingencies for this, of course. “You should go to the bathroom before we depart,” Maggie had said in Russian. Katie had nodded quickly and nervously, then gotten up and headed for the toilet, her papers in hand. The contingency plan was to rendezvous in twelve hours at Leningrad’s Summer Garden—ironically, just a few blocks from the Big House where she was now. Maggie’d watched nervously out the window, finally spotting Katie well behind the column of guards that were now busy boarding the train. Katie, of course, was just a teenager, and had been easily overlooked by officials. And even if they had been looking specifically for her, they only had photos from when she was a baby-faced ten-year-old. Plus, she’d had her own MGB training to fall back on. Maggie hadn’t felt very guilty about letting her be on her own for a while; hell, she’d have pitied anyone who might have tried laying a hand on the girl. She would have removed said hand at the wrist with only the slightest of tugs.
Once Maggie had been certain Katie was in the clear, she’d decided to make her move as well, getting up and heading for the toilet. She’d left the suitcases in place—they’d only have called attention to herself when she eventually left the train—and had headed down the aisle, only to see four guards enter the car in front of her. She hadn’t even needed to turn around to hear the door at the other end of the car open behind her.
That had been fine. She could have taken ’em.
But when she’d reached for the mental threads that would have activated her Enhancement, she’d found nothing there.
Null zone.
The sting at the base of her neck had barely registered, and she’d been knocked out cold by the time she hit the floor of the train car.
She’d awoken in the cell she found herself in now. She’d been briefed on all known MGB and police facilities in Leningrad and Moscow, and she’d guessed she was in the Big House long before she ever heard a guard say the words Bolshoy Dom. She had to assume that, despite the null-zone generators around her at all times, she’d been tagged by Maria Suvovra, the Soviet Variant with the tracking ability. Even if she hadn’t been, it was wise to assume so anyway. That meant that even if Maggie managed to escape, her mission was effectively over. She didn’t know the range of Suvovra’s abilities, and so she had to further assume they were global. Her only real option for survival now was getting back to the United States before the MGB put a knife in her back.
Of course, escape remained a pipe dream. But it kept her going. No matter what they did to her, she wanted to be ready. Hope, she found, was a weird thing. When her Enhancement was available to her—which was nearly always now—she found hope to be particularly debilitating. It made people do stupid things, she thought. But maybe she was wrong. Right now, she figured hope and alertness were the two best things she had going.
It was late afternoon when her cell opened and eight MGB men, all armed with rifles, swarmed into the room, barrels trained on her head. She decided to hold off this time, let them perhaps get a little complacent before she decided to strike, so she allowed them to shackle her wrists and ankles and lead her, shuffling in chains, wearing nothing but a prison gown, down the hallway and onto an elevator.
The courtyard again. She closed her eyes briefly to prepare herself. That’s where she’d been beaten the day before. It would hurt, but at least they were getting repetitive. There was pride in that, too. When torture becomes rote, it becomes less torturous.
The lift descended past the ground floor, past the basement, and into
a sub-basement. This was … new. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that, and she tamped down on the rising fear that had wormed its way into her chest, squeezing her heart and empty stomach. Adrenaline was running through her now, and her eyes went from the dull glaze of a beaten prisoner to the shining alertness of someone looking for an edge.
The guards led her down a long dark hallway, past several closed wooden doors. Finally, they opened one and thrust her inside a small room with stone walls, a dirt floor, and a flickering fluorescent light humming loudly from the ceiling. The only furniture was a couple of hard points on one of the walls, to which they affixed her chains, leaving her to kneel awkwardly on the floor, her arms not quite at her sides. She watched carefully as they unshackled and shackled her again, and maybe, just maybe saw an opening in the process. A lot would have to go right, of course, including snapping the neck of the guy with the keys in such a way that he fell toward her, and not away, but …
“Thank you; that will be all.”
The MGB men ducked out of the room quickly, only to be replaced by a small, balding, bespectacled man in a nice suit. Of course, Maggie had met Lavrentiy Beria before, but she couldn’t help but register surprise at seeing him in front of her now.
“Don’t you have a country to take over?” she said quietly. “Or am I just that special?”
Beria chuckled. “You have no idea how special you are, Miss Dubinsky. May I call you Maggie?”
“Can’t stop you,” she said, moving her chained arms slightly. “May I call you Baldy, Comrade Deputy Premier?”
A flicker of annoyance crossed Beria’s face—ah, so good to see—before his smiling, placid countenance returned. “I can’t stop you either, Maggie, though I would hope we might dispense with such ploys. They’re so very typical, and we are anything but.”
Maggie shrugged calmly, but her mind was going a mile a minute. MAJESTIC-12 had indeed planned for every contingency—there were three or four options she could play with here—but she was still rather surprised this particular contingency had come to pass. “So what can I do for you, Baldy?”
Beria began to slowly walk around the room. “Do you know what I am trying to build here, Maggie? Here in the Soviet Union?”
“Dictatorship of the proletariat,” she replied. “Funny, though, how some members of the proletariat have dachas in the country and some still have to travel fourth class on the train.”
Beria shrugged. “We have an embarrassment of choices in the Soviet Union. Some of our comrades may choose to spend their money on other things, should they decide to travel without certain comforts. Or they may forego theater tickets or a bottle of Georgian wine, should they want to mitigate the rigors of travel.”
Maggie shook her head. “I thought we were gonna dispense with the typical bullshit.”
This earned her the short bark of a laugh. “Ah, you are as every bit delightful as your file suggested. Very well. Are you going to tell me anything at all about your American colleagues? It is highly likely that your MAJESTIC-12 program has already initiated an operation to stop me.”
“Yeah, not telling you squat,” Maggie said. “But you know that already, too. Come on.”
Beria nodded. “Yes, indeed. Did you know that roughly seventy-eight percent of prisoners here capitulate after the third day of our interrogation program? And ninety-eight percent of women? Even without your Empowerment, you are truly remarkable.”
“Yes, I am. Your point being?”
“The Soviet Union needs remarkable people. We need you, Maggie Dubinsky. Step out of the shadows. Come into the light and assume the rights and responsibilities your so-called friends wish to keep from you.”
Are we really going down this road? Maggie thought, her heart racing. “Bullshit. You just want another puppet.”
Beria simply walked over to the door and pounded on it. A moment later, a muffled voice said something she couldn’t quite make out.
Then Beria’s hand burst into flame, just as Maggie’s mind suddenly awakened to its full potential, and she could see the threads of fear, desire, and confidence coming off Beria.
“I am trusting you, Maggie Dubinsky, because I believe in you. And because I really don’t want to hurt you. I want to offer you something the Americans wouldn’t dream of giving you.”
Finally. “All right,” she said, staring at Beria’s flaming hand as he slowly moved it around in front of him. “I’m listening.”
April 2, 1953
“What the hell do you mean, ‘We lost one’?”
President Eisenhower glared at his CIA director and Air Force Chief of Staff as only a five-star general could, a look that mixed worry and disciplined rage in equal measure. Vandenberg thought his days of suffering such stares were over, but then, they’d never lost a MAJESTIC-12 agent like this before. Even in Syria, they’d had a trail to pick up, and Wallace had turned a near catastrophe into a successful rescue and intelligence coup.
Maybe Wallace—who had finally arrived in Moscow last night and reported in—could pull another rabbit from the hat. If not, Vandenberg figured he’d be out of a job in short order. Honestly, the thought of spending more time on the golf course seemed pretty good right about now, despite the growing pains and aches he suffered with age.
“We’re working to figure out where she’s been taken,” Allen Dulles replied, suitably chagrined yet still meeting the President’s gaze. “Sorensen’s infiltrated the MGB and NKVD several times to try to find records that could help, even as they plan the next operation.”
Eisenhower threw his briefing folder onto the mahogany Theodore Roosevelt desk with disgust. “And of course, you lose the one the psych boys are worried about the most. The one who just might listen to Beria and whatever cockamamie Übermensch fantasy he’s working on.”
Dulles and Vandenberg traded a look. “We do have a contingency in place, Mr. President,” Vandenberg said. “It’s a risk, but it could be a real win if it pans out.”
“Yeah, I read about it. It’s more than just a risk. And if it doesn’t pan out, it’s a catastrophe for this entire plan of yours,” Eisenhower said. “What if she turns? She’s the most powerful Variant we have. Paralyze a room in fear, create a riot with a thought—and now the Reds have her. I’m not convinced there’s anything to do other than a full sanction.”
Full sanction. For such a new president, Eisenhower certainly had the clinical lingo down pat. His position was clear: he would rather have Margaret Dubinsky dead than in the hands of the Soviets.
“The problem is, we can’t locate her. Soon as we do, we’ll work on a rescue plan. If that doesn’t work, our people know to exercise that option,” Dulles said assuredly.
“They’d better. Meantime, Allen, if this scheme to get the Soviets to turn on Beria doesn’t work, I want you to come up with a new plan to ensure his tenure as Premier is short,” the President said.
“Sir?” Dulles asked, before shooting Vandenberg another look.
Eisenhower just stared, and the message was clear. Reach into the bag of dirty tricks for the dirtiest, trickiest plan of all—the elimination of a Soviet Premier. To the President’s credit, he at least looked pained at the prospect.
“Let’s give the MAJESTIC team a little more time,” Vandenberg said. “Allen can work up the contingency op, but the latest from Beam and the Moscow station chief is that the Russians are still running things by committee—Malenkov on top, Beria right behind, and Molotov rounding it out.”
“There’s also a new Central Committee,” Dulles added. “It looks like Nikita Khrushchev is consolidating power in the Party while Malenkov, Beria, and Molotov duke it out in government.”
“Which weakens Malenkov and gives Beria an opening,” Eisenhower countered. “Beria owns the secret police. How long before Malenkov or Khrushchev gets that knock on the door in the middle of the night?”
“He’s not ready yet, Mr. President,” Dulles countered. “Beria just took over the secret police again. It�
�ll be months before he’s in full control. Until then, the apparatchiks still hold the cards, and they’ll get word to the other contenders if Beria tries to pull any funny business before he’s consolidated his power.”
“Which is why it’s critical for Wallace and our people to get in there and create headaches for him as soon as possible,” Vandenberg added. “If Malenkov or Khrushchev see him having problems, it’ll be easier to freeze him out.”
Eisenhower sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “There’s always a chance Beria could just unleash his Variants. Blow it all up at once.”
“It’s possible, but it immediately creates too many enemies for him to handle,” Dulles said. “We think there are some higher-ups in the Red Army who know about Beria’s program. If they’re smart—and we have no reason to think otherwise—they already have some contingencies in place. Nobody wants a country run by Beria and his supermen.”
The President sighed and seemed to weigh everything in his mind for several long moments. “All right. We’re committed at this point. Give Wallace the green light to begin operations. I want Beria hit hard, from every side, just so long as nobody figures out it’s us. If they can find Miss Dubinsky, so much the better, but as of right now, getting her back is secondary to getting Beria out of the picture.”
Wallace won’t like that, Vandenberg thought. The Navy man had spent the war in intelligence analysis, and had become Roscoe Hillenkoetter’s golden boy when the latter took over CIA and the MAJESTIC-12 program. Vandenberg thought Wallace was a little too independent-minded for his own good, and didn’t spend nearly enough time cultivating allies in the Pentagon or CIA to keep his program secured. And given what Vandenberg’s doctors were telling him, the Air Force general wasn’t going to be around too much longer to give MAJESTIC-12 the cover it needed.
MJ-12: Endgame Page 9
