Assassin km-6

by David Hagberg

  Dzerzhinsky Square was often overrun by western journalists under the openness policy instituted by Gorbachev. But Lefortovo was secret from nearly everyone.

  Yuryn’s limousine was admitted through the main gates, and pulled up in front of the administration building that faced the assembly yard. Yuryn and Chernov went immediately upstairs to the third floor where Lefortovo’s administrator, Colonel Anatoli Zuyev, was waiting for them.

  “Your assistant Captain Paporov is on his way over,” the hawk-nosed director said. “He can provide you with anything you need.” “I expect no interference from anyone here, Colonel—” Chernov began, but Zuyev held up a hand.

  “Believe me, Colonel Bykov, I don’t know what your special operation is about, and I have no desire to find out. If you want to perch on top of the flagpole at midnight, drink vodka and piss on us, be my guest. No one will even look up. But if you need something, anything, Paporov will get it for you. He is very good.”

  “Very well,” Chernov said.

  “Paporov will meet you downstairs. If there’s nothing else I can do for you, I have a dinner date.”

  “Enjoy your dinner, Colonel.”

  “I will,” Zuyev said brusquely.

  Chernov and Yuryn went downstairs, to the darkened day room empty at this hour. Everything was institutional gray, nothing more than functional. There was no television, no pictures on the walls, no rugs on the bare tile floor, just a few steel tables and chairs.

  “Kabatov will want progress reports,” Yuryn said.

  “Tell him whatever you want to tell him, General.”

  Yuryn eyed him coldly. “You and I both know the truth, so don’t screw around here. You have less than ten weeks.”

  Chernov’s left eyebrow rose. “I don’t screw around, as you put it.”

  Yuryn nodded. “I’m having dinner at my club tonight, would you care to join me?”

  “No,” Chernov said.

  “As you wish,” Yuryn said. He turned and left.

  Chernov went to the window. The prison seemed all but deserted. The outer walls were not illuminated, so far as he could tell there were no guards in the four towers and only a few windows on the one and two story yellow brick buildings were lit from within.

  After Yuryn’s limousine passed through the main gate, Zuyev came downstairs and passed Chernov without noticing him. Outside, his car drew up, he got in the back seat and left by the main gate, and the building fell silent.

  Chernov lit a cigarette as he examined his thoughts.

  He had been placed in a very dangerous position, caught between the forces inside the Kremlin, and forces outside that were allied with Tarankov. Under ordinary circumstances he wondered if he would have got out while such an act was relatively uncomplicated. But these were not ordinary circumstances. McGarvey was the assassin, and whatever dangers there were here in chaotic Moscow they were worth facing for a chance at finally killing the bastard.,

  A dark figure came across the parade ground. Chernov stepped away from the window and stubbed out his cigarette. The figure passed through a strip of light that came through the steel gates, and Chernov caught a brief look at the man’s face which was framed by long hair, and covered by a beard. Unusual for a military officer, Chernov thought, even in these times.

  The man came in and walked over to where Chernov stood next to the window. “Good evening, Colonel. I’m Captain Paporov, I’ve been assigned to be your assistant.” “How did you know I was standing here?” Chernov asked in English.

  “Your cigarette.”.

  “That sort of a mistake could cost us our lives,” Chernov said, switching to French.

  “Mats oui, man colonel.”

  “Then we’d better not make any more mistakes.”

  Paporov managed a slight smile. “I think we will, Colonel. But I’ll try to keep mine to a minimum.”

  Chernov grunted. “You’re an arrogant bastard.”

  “Yes, sir, that I am.” “Is that why they let you get away with all that hair?”

  “It’s either that, or fire me. Something General Yuryn won’t allow, because I’m good at what I do. And from what I was told, so are you. Otherwise I wouldn’t have taken this assignment. Kirk McGarvey is a tough son of a bitch, and frankly I don’t give a shit whether Tarankov lives or dies. But trying to stop a man like McGarvey might prove to be interesting.” “For the duration, then, you’re mine. That means you will discuss no aspect of this operation with anyone, including General Yuryn, without telling me. Clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “From now on we have no military rank between us. Call me Yuri, and I’ll call you Aleksi. It’ll save time. Do you have a wife, girlfriend, parents, or anyone else who will demand your attention, or need protection when things become difficult?”

  “No.”

  “Has anyone given you any special instructions either about this assignment or about me, personally?”

  “Only that you’re a demanding, cold-hearted, ruthless bastard, and that you have a habit of destroying anyone who gets in your way.”

  Chernov had to laugh. “Did that come from General Yuryn?”

  “Personally.”

  “Okay. I’m a ruthless bastard, you’re an arrogant bastard, and McGarvey is a tough son of a bitch who I mean to find and kill. Nothing else matters, just that one thing. Are you clear on that as well?”

  “Perfectly.”

  They walked back to a small, one-story brick building that, Paporov said, had originally been used as the prison dispensary. Most recently it had been fitted out as a communications and operations headquarters for special FSK projects. The largest of the three rooms was equipped with several desks each with a computer terminal. A bank of sophisticated radio gear, tall grey file cabinets and map cases, a light table and a big conference desk filled the room. Another of the rooms was set up as sleeping quarters, and the third as a kitchen with a small fridge, a hot plate, a sink and several cabinets filled with food. The bathroom was at the rear. All the windows were sealed and alarmed, the glass painted black and covered with a heavy steel mesh. The front and back doors were made of thick steel with coded, eight-digit locks.

  “We have ten phone lines, all of them encrypted, in addition to satellite up-and downlinks with everything we have in orbit,” Paporov said. “We have communications links with the Militia, FSK and SVR as well as every command in every branch of our military. All the computer equipment is state of the art IBM which gives us good access to nearly every computer system in the world.”

  “I’m a computer illiterate,” Chernov admitted.

  “I’m not,” Paporov said. “I got one of my degrees at Caltech when I worked for the KGB in California ten years ago. That’s one of the reasons for this,” he said, flipping his long, sand-colored hair. “Where do we start?”

  “We’ll need transportation.” ‘

  ‘ “There’s a BMW and a Mercedes parked in back. The plates are government. Do you want a driver?”

  “No,” Chernov said. “For now I want McGarvey’s file, your file, a very good map of Moscow, above and below ground, and a complete schedule of every single. event for the next ten weeks, until the general elections, in which more than a handful of people are expected to be present.”

  “No problem,” Paporov said.

  “Why aren’t you writing this down?” “I have a photographic memory.”

  “Very well,” Chernov said. “I want you to find the best police artist in the country and get him or her here as soon as possible. Then I want you to schedule a meeting here at noon tomorrow, providing the artist shows up first, for the division chiefs, of the Special Investigations units of the Militia and the FSK.”

  “What shall I tell them?”

  “To come.”

  “What else?”

  “That’s it for now,” Chernov said.

  “Okay. I’ll start with the files.” Paporov took off his jacket, tossed it over the back of a chair and went over to
the file cabinets.

  Chernov walked into the kitchen where he got a bottle of beer, some sausage and a piece of dark bread, happy to be away from Tarankov and the man’s insane plans for the moment.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Moscow

  Letting himself into his apartment, Yemlin resisted the urge to go to the window and see if anyone was down in the street. So far as he could tell he wasn’t being followed, but that didn’t mean a thing. The FSK had a lot of good men working for it, and some of the best field officers of any secret service in the world.

  They could be there, and he’d never see them.

  He went into the kitchen, poured a vodka, and lighting a cigarette, went back to his chair. He turned the television to CNN, and let the words and images flow around him while he tried to work out his position.

  The FSK had not arrested him because they hoped that he would lead them to McGarvey. But they couldn’t be aware yet that he knew that they knew, so for the moment he would do nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to raise their suspicions. He was an old man caught up in the allure of the Magesterium, and the novel experience of being sexually ministered to by a young man.

  The same-question kept running through his mind, though, threatening to blot out his sanity. If the act were so abhorrent to him, why had his body responded? The first time he’d been drugged, but tonight he’d done it of his own free will. He’d forced himself to do the act in order to gain the one vital piece of information. Did it make him a homosexual?

  He’d prided himself on being a man of experience. But faced with this situation he felt like a complete fool. Even thinking about tonight, gave him an unsettled feeling in his loins. He closed his eyes and tried to blot out the images of what he’d done.

  He was going to have to get out of Russia permanently, and he was going to have to warn McGarvey off. He took the two problems as a single unit, because he felt that the solution to both would lie initially in Paris. If he could get to Paris, even if the FSK followed him, he could manage to hide himself. Once there contacting McGarvey would be easier than doing it from Moscow, even though here he had the resources of the SVR, because in Paris he would be free.

  He would have to be careful about his own service, because if questions were to be-raised about his behavior it might lead his own people over to the FSK, and his participation in hiring McGarvey would come out.

  Despite the interservice rivalry, General Aykazyan would not hesitate to throw him to the wolves if for no other reason than to hedge his bets against Tarankov’s victory.

  The FSK would probably not interfere with his movements for the time being. They might believe that he was going to Paris to meet with McGarvey. In the meantime, he was going to have to warn Sukhoruchkin. He owed his old friend at least that much.

  He stubbed out his cigarette, finished his drink, then threw on a coat and left the apartment. Two blocks away he caught a taxi to the Hotel National. The driver dropped him off in front, and Yemlin stared at the Kremlin walls across Manezhnaya Ploshchad for a few moments before he went inside the ornately refurbished hotel.

  It was just past 9:30 p.m. when he walked back to a bank of pay phones, and called Sukhoruchkin at home. His old friend answered on the second ring. Yemlin could hear music in the background.

  “Da.”

  “I’m at the National, how about dinner tonight, Konstantin?” “I’ve already had my dinner,” Sukhoruchkin said. “But I’ll join you for drinks at the Moskovy.”

  “Fifteen minutes?”

  “Da.”

  Of the National’s four restaurants, the Moskovy was the most traditionally Russian. Since its reopening after a four-year renovation of the hotel, it had become one of Yemlin’s favorites. He and Sukhoruchkin often came here for late dinners, drinks and private conversations. They were always given good service, and if they wanted to be left alone, they were.

  A woman was strumming a guitar and singing a folk song on the small stage when Yemlin walked in. The place was three-quarters full and most of the diners were paying close attention to the singer because she was very good, and the song was very old and very sad, something most Russians loved, especially these days.

  “Good evening, Mr. Yemlin,” the maitre d’ greeted him. “Will you be dining alone this evening?”

  “No, Konstantin will be joining me. We would like a table away from the stage. A quiet table.”

  “Of course,” the man said. “But you’ll still be able to hear Larissa.”

  Konstantin Sukhoruchkin sat on the edge of the chair in his bedroom lacing his shoes as he waited for his call to Tbilisi to go through. His old friend was in trouble. He’d picked up that much from the few words they’d spoken on the telephone, and from a rumor that had been circulating around the Human Rights Commission the last few days. The rivalry between the two divisions of the old KGB was apparently coming to a head, and Yemlin was being targeted as a scapegoat for some purely internal problem. He’d heard nothing other than that, but he was astute enough to understand that something else might be happening. Something concerning McGarvey’s assignment. Just the thought of anything going wrong made his blood run cold.

  Shevardnadze’s special number finally rolled over, rang once with a different sound, and then was answered by the man himself.

  “This is Konstantin Sukhoruchkin, Mr. President. I’m telephoning from Moscow.”

  “What is it?”

  “Has Viktor contacted you in the last two or three days?” *

  “No,” Shevardnadze said.

  “He just telephoned me to have dinner with him tonight. I have been friends with him long enough to know when he’s in trouble. Big trouble.”

  “Have you heard anything?”

  “The FSK is raising hell again. There’s a rumor that Viktor might be under investigation for an internal problem.”

  “Nothing about the..: project?”

  “Nyet. But I am having these feelings.”

  “I know what you mean, Konstantin. I’m also having those feelings. Do you want to call it off?”

  “I don’t know. But I intend asking Viktor that very question,” Sukhoruchkin said. “I wanted to talk to you first. To find out how you feel.”

  “Nothing has changed, has it?” Shevardnadze asked.

  “If anything the situation gets worse every day, Mr. President. I doubt if we’ll even last until the June elections.”

  “So the need is still there,” Shevardnadze said. “Viktor may be getting cold feet. If that’s it, if the project hasn’t been compromised beyond salvaging, then you have to convince him to press on. Don’t you agree?”

  “No. Not unless I consider the alternative,” Sukhoruchkin said. “I’ll see what the matter is, and we’ll go from there.”

  “It’s all you can do, Konstantin. It’s all any of us can do now.”

  Yemlin put down his glass of iced Polish vodka, opened the latch of the heavier cigarette box and laid it on the table as he spotted Sukhoruchkin coming across the room toward him. The woman was still singing, and in the past fifteen minutes no one suspicious had entered the restaurant, but this hotel was owned by the city of Moscow, which meant the restaurant was probably bugged.

  His friend looked troubled, as Yemlin rose to greet him. “Has something happened, Korstya?”

  “That’s my question for you,” Sukhoruchkin said, shaking hands. They sat down.

  “I’m going to Paris to call McGarvey off,” Yemlin said. “I won’t be coming back.” He poured a vodka for Sukhoruchkin, who glanced nervously at the door.

  “I knew something was wrong.”

  “They know about McGarvey and it’s my fault, I’m afraid.”

  The color drained from Sukhoruchkin’s narrow face. “Is it safe to speak here?”

  “Yes. But listen, you have to call Shevardnadze and tell him what’s happened. There could be a backlash. They might try to assassinate him.”

  Sukhoruchkin was shaking his head. “I just talked to him.
He told me to tell you that unless the project is beyond saving we must continue, because nothing else has changed. If Tarankov succeeds we’ll lose the Rodina.” Yemlin passed a hand across his eyes. “They know about McGarvey, didn’t you hear me?” “They can’t know about McGarvey’s actual plans, because none of us do.”

  “He has to be warned!”

  “Why?” Sukhoruchkin demanded. “We owe this man nothing other than the money you’ve already paid him. If he’s as good as you say he is, then he’ll go ahead with it. If he succeeds we’ll be in the clear.”

  “What if he fails?”

  Sukhoruchkin raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Then nothing will matter. We’ll be dead and the nation lost.”

  Yemlin motioned the waiter over, and ordered another carafe of vodka and another plate of blinis, and caviar.

  “Would you give your life to save Russia?” Yemlin said quietly.

  “If it came to that, yes, of course.”

  “What about your dignity, Korstya? Your pride? Your — manhood? Would you as easily give those up for Mother Russia? Would you, for instance, give up the use of your limbs to save the nation? Would you become a quadriplegic for the sake of your countrymen? Because that’s what I’m being asked to do.”

  Sukhoruchkin was studying his face. “My God, Viktor, what’s happened? What have you done?”

  Yemlin looked away for a few moments. It took courage to be a Russian. That was something they’d never understood in the West. Russia had been at war with most of her neighbors at one point or another in her history. But there’d never been a time when Russians hadn’t been at war with each other. The tsars had killed peasants by the millions, as had Stalin and as Tarankov was threatening to do. Food was plentiful in the fields, but the harvests often didn’t get to the population centers, so lack of food had taken uncounted millions of lives. The weather killed people. Vodka and cigarettes killed people. Even the very air and water had become deadly in many parts of the country. Nuclear fallout and poorly processed chemical wastes were killers. Infant mortality rates were up, as were abortions. More than ten percent of all Russian babies were being born with life-threatening defects. Over half of all children in school were sick. The average life span for a man in Russia was now fifty-seven years, by far the lowest of any industrialized nation. Murder was a way of doing business, and suicide rates continued to rise every year. And Tarankov would make all of that worse.