by Erika Holzer
A syringe had spilled onto the floor. Perfect.
But did she have the courage to go through with it?
Her hand tightened on the syringe.
Leaving the bathroom, she passed a long mirror over the four-poster bed and caught a glimpse of her reflection.
Drab black dress that complemented the dark circles under her eyes. Hair pulled back, giving her the pinched dry look of a spinster—
No!
She rushed down the corridor and reentered the Brenner suite.
A few minutes later, she stood once more in front of the long mirror, only this time she wore a cream-colored floor-length gown, her lustrous blonde hair swept down around her shoulders.
A glass of champagne in her hand, she tried to drink away her regrets, her desolation, her abject terror.
It took a while—an eternity—before all three disappeared.
It took what she herself set in motion as she walked about the room until she was quite breathless, head held high, arms slightly apart, stealing glimpses of herself in the mirror whenever she passed it.
Ending with a graceful pirouette.
She smiled one last time, indifferent to the tears because this time, her smile was right and true.
Then she returned to her own room.
* * *
How still he is.
Kiril should have revived by now, Aleksei thought. Could someone remain unconscious for three hours from a simple blow on the head—even a concussion?
And where the hell was Galina Barkova?
He leaned over Kiril’s body to press his fingertips along the back of his scalp.
He found the lump. Of course there was a lump! Why would Brenner lie about something like that?
There was no reason to be uneasy, he told himself, knowing damn well he’d been uneasy since he had first laid eyes on Kurt Brenner.
Uneasy, but not apprehensive. There was nothing unique about the strong resemblance between Kiril and Kurt Brenner. The Index was full of people who resembled one another. In some cases the men or women in question were virtually identical.
He shrugged off his anxiety. It was a trick of nature, nothing more.
But his “something-is-missing” feeling, liberated from the mental turmoil and stress of a long tension-filled day, persisted.
A clever man could turn a trick of nature to his advantage.
Could his brother be that clever?
Certainly Brenner would have had no conceivable reason to drug Kiril—
He forced himself to complete the sentence.
—but Kiril would have had damn good reason to drug Brenner.
Why didn’t the possibility occur to me sooner?
But he knew why. Too many distractions. The aftermath of Stepan Brodsky’s attempted defection on the bridge. Intense pressure from General Nemerov about the microfilm in Brodsky’s cigarette lighter. Organizing a time-consuming search for the lighter only to discover a security leak spelled out in seven ominous words. A false assumption that Ernst Roeder was in league with Adrienne Brenner, culminating in Roeder’s fatal heart attack. Talking a venomous Colonel Emil von Eyssen into joining forces for their mutual preservation.
What he’d had to cope with in a very short span of time would have distracted anyone, he thought, willing himself to remain calm.
He stared at the form on the bed, thinking that the hair looked peculiar. He pulled at a few strands, wishing he could pull Kiril’s brain into consciousness. Instead, he chose hairs at random.
No wig. The hair was real! It was also slightly damp.
He removed Kiril’s dark glasses, remembering that he was supposed to have had some sort of eye infection—the left eye? He lifted the lid.
Of course the eye was infected!
He turned to Luka with obvious relief. “See if Galina Barkova is back in her room.”
“Barkova woman asleep,” Luka said.
“Really? When did you check her room?”
“One hour ago, maybe two.”
“Wake her, please, and bring her to me.”
Luka was back in five minutes. “She won’t wake up,” he reported, his brow furrowed. “Not even when I shake her.”
Aleksei shot to his feet and rushed down the hall.
She was stretched out on the bed, fully clothed in a gown of some kind. “Galina?” he said sharply.
His voice trailed off as he noticed the belt of a black dress tied tightly around her upper arm. A syringe dangled from her forearm.
“Why?” he cried out.
But he knew why.
His own words came back to haunt him. When he’d tapped his “most charming co-optee” to spy on her lover, he’d spelled out what he was after.
There are things a woman can see—and sense—more easily than a man.
Had she sensed something that he had not? Come to think of it, what was the matter of “great urgency” she’d wanted to speak to him about while he was bartering with von Eyssen and, in a fit of temper, had sent her packing?
Aleksei had never sobered up so fast after so much vodka.
There are only two possibilities, he thought in a wave of panic. If it’s Kiril on the couch, Brenner will be back. If it’s Brenner, Kiril has defected.
He knew what would happen once the real Kurt Brenner was safely back in the United States. Brenner’s outrage and victimhood would drive him to display his psychological and physical bruises, confirming what the world had seen on its television screens—a clever impersonation by Kiril Andreyev, brother of KGB Colonel Aleksei Andreyev.
A successful defection in full view of a banquet-hall of East Germans, then broadcast around the world. The embarrassment of the century!
He glanced at his watch. Too late to stop the plane. They were already in Zurich.
Think! If ever I need my wits about me, it’s now. When I release Brenner tomorrow—
“When,” he said aloud, “or if?”
What if he claimed that Dr. Kurt Brenner had changed his mind about taking his wife to Zurich? That he’d decided to go directly to Moscow from East Berlin? Who could prove otherwise? Who knew for certain that it wasn’t Dr. Kurt Brenner who’d announced his defection for all the world to hear?
That would leave Kiril as the only loose end. He’d deal with that later.
Aleksei grabbed the telephone from the night table and gave the operator a Zurich telephone number. When he was through talking, he replaced the receiver cautiously.
“We still have a chance,” he told Luka shakily. “We may yet survive.”
Chapter 42
On the flight from Schönefeld Airfield to Zurich, the executive jet suddenly shuddered as it banked steeply. The cabin seemed to roll precariously over on its side.
“We’ll be running into severe turbulence over the mountains,” the pilot announced.
The ultimate irony, Kiril brooded. I am going to die even as I escape from communism.
Beside him, Adrienne Brenner moaned, still on the edge of air-sickness from a surfeit of champagne. The promised explanation had never materialized. She had barely opened her eyes the whole time. Better that way.
The sky cleared abruptly, then turned calm. The plane shifted direction.
“Zurich,” he told her. “We’re going down.”
Adrienne nodded. Her eyes, opening for a moment, fell closed again.
Kiril stared out the window, his blank expression masking inner turmoil.
I am forty years old. I have no work, no money, no friends. I don’t even own the clothes on my back. Yet I have never felt so young. So confident of the future.
Future? He had never had the luxury of thinking about his future, let alone planning one. All the days were his now, he thought, realizing that he would need time to get used to the idea. What should he do with that precious new commodity, time?
Dream without restraint. Make plans. Change them if it pleases me. Buy an automobile. Travel with anticipation, not fear. What’s the American express
ion that sums it all up? No holds barred!
He stole a glance at Adrienne Brenner. Free to fall in love, he thought. However much he cared for Galya, he had never allowed himself to slip into a deeply emotional commitment. In the Soviet Union, to have a loved one—a family—was to forge your own chains. What kind of man plots escape when he’s locked in the grip of the hostage system?
He tensed with the sudden thud of the plane’s wheels on the runway, the vibrations coursing through his body—and nearly bolted from his seat. He had to grip both its arms as he counted the seconds. Taxiing… slowing… turning…
Stopping.
Someone slid open a door. He forgot about Adrienne Brenner’s suitcase, about helping her out of the window seat, standing aside so she could exit first.
He was moving toward the open door when he became aware of a noisy cluster of people who waited at the bottom of the aircraft’s steps.
But all he saw was pavement. All he felt was the desire to fall on his knees and kiss the ground. The instant his foot made contact with the tarmac all he felt was a sweet solemn wonder, coupled with an overwhelming exuberance.
I made it, Stepan! Anna! Kolya! I’m here!
“Look this way, please, Dr. Brenner.”
A flashbulb went off in his face. Then an unbroken series of them, popping like firecrackers, reducing his eyesight to white glare. Raising his arm like a shield, he blinked to clear his vision.
“Is it true you’re defecting to the Soviet Union?”
“Are you here to say goodbye to your parents?”
“What about your wife? Does she stay or go?”
“When do you leave for Moscow?”
“What’s behind the defection?”
“Was your family aware of your plans?”
“What are your plans, Dr. Brenner?”
The questions pitched at him were mostly in rapid-fire English, only a few in German. None in Russian.
He waited. Adrienne Brenner had joined him and stood groggily at his side.
As soon as the voices began to subside, Kiril said, “I wish to make a statement.” He took a cautious few steps away from the plane. “But not here. Is there someplace we could go?”
“Right this way, Dr. Brenner, Mrs. Brenner. It’s a short walk to the quarantine section of the terminal. You won’t have to go through customs or immigration yet,” an American reporter said, a hint of disapproval crossing her face. “Your mother and father are in a bad way about your defection,” she told him. “They have refused to make a statement until they’ve had a chance to talk to you.”
“Where are they?”
“Somewhere in the terminal. No one knew exactly what time your plane was due—or, for that matter, whether you’d even show up. I’m pretty sure your parents are still here. Should I find them and bring them to the VIP lounge? There’s a private room inside.”
“Please. I’d be extremely grateful.”
“No problem,” the reporter said, sensing the man’s acute distress; the sharpness no longer in her tone. “No one will disturb you in the lounge.”
By the time they reached the private room, Kiril’s thoughts were in turmoil. For the first time, he realized how difficult it would be to give a full explanation to Dr. Brenner’s parents. Should he tell them that a Soviet KGB colonel had a hold on their son because of some allegedly despicable act he’d committed during World War II? That only when Kurt Brenner had threatened to turn him over to the KGB had Kiril knocked him out and switched places with him?
But not to explain was futile, he thought. The truth would surface soon enough when the real Dr. Brenner stepped off a plane tomorrow. The only thing he could do for Brenner’s parents was tell them the truth face to face—and in private.
He thought of how, in desperation, he had used Adrienne Brenner. He owed her the truth as well.
Steeling himself for what was to come, he steered a still-woozy Adrienne Brenner into the VIP lounge. The American reporter had just passed some Swiss francs to a couple of bored VIP lounge attendants. As soon as they gave her a key, she handed it to Kiril.
“Your private room,” she said.
He gripped her hand. “I can’t thank you enough for your kindness.”
“Good luck, Dr. Brenner,” she said, and was surprised to realize that she meant it.
How incongruous we must look in this dingy little room of an airport in the middle of the night, Kiril thought. You in your beautiful green gown, Adrienne Brenner, me in bowtie and tuxedo…
And because he had been forced to deceive her and knew it was far too late to earn this woman’s love, he reached out and drew her into his arms.
It was all he meant to do. But suddenly he was kissing her with a punishing violence, an unquenchable thirst—
Adrienne broke free, breathing in gasps, the back of one hand pressed against her mouth. “Where’s Kurt? Where’s my husband?”
“Forgive me. I had no right—”
“What’s the meaning of this masquerade? Where is he?”
“Still in East Berlin. I never intended this to happen, but your husband left me no choice. At the moment, he’s probably still unconscious from a harmless drug.”
“What did you hope to gain, damn you?”
But even as she asked the question, things began to fall into place.
“My freedom,” he told her simply.
“And Kurt’s?”
“He’s safe enough. In a few minutes I’ll reveal my true identity and expose my brother’s attempt to coerce your husband into defecting. Don’t worry. He’ll be allowed to leave East Berlin. Neither the Soviets nor the East Germans would dare to forcibly detain a man of his prominence— especially after all the publicity.”
“I don’t understand. Why would the Soviets want to detain Kurt in the first place?”
“Not for his surgical skills, certainly. He’s the victim of Moscow-style propaganda,” Kiril said bitterly. “One of my KGB brother’s jobs involves defections. He was blackmailing your husband—something to do with when he was in Germany during the war. He was very young.”
“You had no right—”
“I had every right,” Kiril bristled. “It’s called self-defense. Your husband threatened to trade his knowledge of my defection plan for the blackmail Aleksei was holding over his head.”
He turned away from her. “I’m free,” he said, turning away from her. “By tomorrow, your husband will be too.”
“You could be wrong about that,” Adrienne said slowly. “You must have been under a great deal of stress. You were making split-second decisions. Hoping to keep me in the dark. Figuring out what to say to the press. Wondering and worrying about whether you could pull this off.”
All true, he thought. “What are you getting at?” he said tensely.
“Something I hope doesn’t occur to your KGB brother. What if he doesn’t let Kurt go? If Dr. Kurt Brenner’s own wife was fooled—and no one knows him better than I do—why not the rest of the world?”
“But—”
“I know what you’re thinking. I had so much champagne I couldn’t see straight—literally. But only a handful of people knew about that—mostly East German butlers in tuxedos. If my husband is kept in a semi-drugged state and paraded in front of the cameras—not too close, just close enough to make it look good—it’s conceivable that KGB apparatchiks like your brother could get away with it. Over time, they might even trust Kurt with a microphone and a rehearsed speech.”
She closed her eyes briefly, as if she could picture the scene. “Drugs and blackmail are a lethal combination,” she said grimly.
Kiril spread his hands in a gesture of futility. “You’re right, of course. The only thing I can do is hope that Aleksei isn’t as clever as you.”
And hope even more that Brenner’s parents realize that I never intended to harm their son—that he forced my hand.
A knock on the door.
“What will you tell them?” Adrienne whispered.
“What I lost the courage to tell you,” he admitted, “even after I was safely on the plane.”
The press, held in check by the American reporter, buzzed with impatience.
Dr. Max Brenner, grim and ashen, helped his wife enter the lounge’s private room. Pausing to clasp Adrienne’s shoulder for a moment, he closed the four of them inside.
Anna Brenner took her daughter-in-law’s hands in hers. “I cannot find words to express how sorry I am that my son has shamed you.”
“Don’t even try,” Adrienne whispered, squeezing Anna’s hands tightly.
Adrienne remained standing by the door, near-paralyzed by the decisions she knew she would have to make before she left this room.
Max Brenner held his wife’s arm—a useless restraint.
Shrugging it off, Anna Brenner made no effort to restrain her tears as she crossed the room toward her son. She moved slowly, her gait unsteady, not stopping even when she heard Adrienne burst into tears.
Kiril, having braced himself for this sad encounter, felt on the edge of tears himself. But as Anna Brenner approached him, he realized that he should have anticipated more than sadness. What he saw in the set of her mouth was a smoldering anger bordering on rage.
“Tell me to my face,” she said.
He heard the trace of an accent. Her voice, in sharp contrast to her anger, was anguished.
For a moment he lowered his eyes to gather his own strength.
In the next moment he was staring at a gold charm bracelet on her wrist—a tiny thermometer, a reflex hammer, a stethoscope, a head-mirror, each charm suspended from the bracelet by a gold link—
Except for one link with nothing hanging from it!
For a split second, Kiril felt as if a burst of electricity had coursed through his body—the second he knew with certainty that the link had once held the miniature gold scalpel he still wore around his neck.
A charm that held long-suppressed memories for them both… .
“Tell me how you can do this, Kurt. And then, tell me why.”
He looked into the face of the mother he had said goodbye to when he was four and had loved all his life. A face forever with him, forever lost.
