Black Sun

by Owen Matthews

  PART FOUR

  I AM BECOME DEATH

  We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed. A few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita…“Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

  —ROBERT OPPENHEIMER, REMEMBERING TRINITY, THE FIRST ATOMIC BOMB, JULY 16, 1945

  CHAPTER TEN

  SUNDAY, 29 OCTOBER 1961

  ONE DAY BEFORE THE TEST

  I

  Vasin swallowed the chill air of the street like a draft of cold water. The lamplit faces of Korin and Adamov, hazy in the cigarette smoke–filled dining room, swam before him. The evening’s fog had cleared, leaving the air damp and fresh. He looked up and saw a young moon swimming among wreaths of cloud and moist stars. The plaster caryatids of the building’s facade looked down on him like old gods, trapped in cocoons of peeling paint. Vasin had walked into the building a man of truth, filled with righteous questions. He had emerged two hours later something quite different. A conspirator.

  He sensed rather than saw movement, left and right. Car radio receivers were being lifted off their cradles, whispers were traveling in waves through the air around him. Like a magnet trailing iron filings, Vasin’s tails were assembling into formation.

  It was just past midnight. The work of the scientists was over and Axelrod didn’t seem the type to celebrate at Café Kino. RDS-220 had, earlier that day, been carefully hauled up from its cellar and into the daylight. The device was now in the hands of the engineers, the pilots, and the firing crew. Somewhere, under this same moon, the railway flatcar bearing the bomb was trundling slowly northward through the snowfields of Central Russia, heading for the railhead at Murmansk. It would then be transferred to a truck for its final terrestrial journey to the Olenya air base. Korin was due to leave by plane to rejoin the precious cargo in eight hours’ time. The test was scheduled for the following morning, Monday, at 11:30.

  Only a moment of hesitation remained before Vasin threw his lot in with this pair of madmen. But what was the alternative? To put nine grams of lead in the back of Axelrod’s head, as the likes of Zaitsev, Orlov, and the other old butchers of the kontora would have done, without hesitation? To run to Efremov and tell all? To have Axelrod taken into protective custody? To hand Zaitsev a triumph, standing in the witness box at Adamov and Korin’s trial? To count the weeks and months before another scientist built an RDS-221, mightier and more deadly than its sabotaged predecessor? And so on until somebody finally succeeded in consuming the whole world with fire? Or maybe Adamov’s version of RDS-220 could still go out of control, like Castle Bravo, and incinerate them all.

  A chill breath of wind returned Vasin’s thoughts to the present. He found himself shivering. How long had he been standing here, paralyzed by thought, before his large audience of invisible watchers? He shook himself into motion. But rather than heading to Builders’ Street, he turned toward home. For the first time in his career, he needed his gun.

  II

  The apartment’s windows were dark. Vasin crept up the stairs and gingerly turned his key in the lock. He could see no sign of Kuznetsov’s usual discarded boots and coat in the slice of light that fell from the landing into the hallway. Vasin slipped off his shoes outside the front door and padded down the corridor in stockinged feet. The glow of the streetlamps, eerily orange when filtered through the curtains, gave him just enough light to see the outlines of the furniture. Kuznetsov’s drifts of magazines and books had disappeared. There were no empty teacups, ashtrays, or dirty glasses on the coffee table in the sitting room. The sofa and two easy chairs had been aligned at precise angles. Even Kuznetsov’s record collection was in wholly unaccustomed perfect order on the Czech dresser. The place had evidently been very thoroughly turned over, then equally thoroughly cleaned up, by professional hands.

  Vasin remembered that his door handle had always squeaked. A new spring. He began to turn it a fraction of a millimeter at a time, pulling the door gently toward himself to release the friction of the tongue in its housing. At the very first hint of the familiar metallic squeak, he stopped and listened to the silence of the apartment. Was it possible to feel people, in the dark? Could one really sense another human being without seeing or hearing him? Because Vasin certainly sensed an unsleeping presence, somewhere in the shadows. Yet each time Vasin paused, holding his breath and listening with every part of his body, he heard nothing. He continued to turn the handle until he felt it press home against its restraining latch. He swung the door open.

  Vasin’s bedroom windows opened on the courtyard, and there was less outside light to illuminate the room. He made out a pile of his dirty shirts at the foot of the bed and the white detachable collar of his uniform tunic picked out on the dark bedspread. On the back of a chair by the window, he could see his leather service belt, hanging taut under the weight of his pistol in its holster. He took a step toward it but stumbled on his tall boots, hiding treacherously in the shadow of the bed. Vasin froze and listened. He took two more steps and fumbled with the fastening of the holster, slipped his hand around the grip of the heavy Makarov, and pulled it out.

  The bedroom light snapped on. For a split second Vasin was blinded and paralyzed by the brightness. Recovering his senses, he spun around into a crouch, his pistol pointed at the door.

  Kuznetsov stood in the open doorway. He wore his usual shabby civilian slacks and shirt, but his face had none of its usual jollity.

  “Greetings, Comrade. Trust you had a pleasant evening. I’ve been waiting up.”

  Kuznetsov’s eyes were on the gun, but his voice was artificially cheerful. Vasin put his finger to his lips and motioned Kuznetsov into the corridor with his eyes. He lowered the Makarov and stuffed it into his trouser pocket. Vasin gestured his handler toward the stairwell. Kuznetsov shuffled down the corridor more in protest than obedience.

  “You’re a fucking wrecking ball, you know that?” Kuznetsov hissed. “The electricians were here today, installing bugs. They took my goddamned books. My Vozdushniye Puti. My Mandelstam. The Lubyanka library requires them for an audit, my ass. So thanks very much, Comrade Vasin.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, old man.”

  “I’ve never had a gun pulled on me. Got to say, didn’t think you’d be the one to take my virginity on that score.”

  Kuznetsov folded his arms across his chest and faced Vasin across the stairwell.

  “I’ve listened to you a lot, Kuznetsov. Now you have to listen to me.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that. Your face, when you waved that tool about. Doesn’t look like a late night game of cops and robbers. Now you’re going to tell me I shouldn’t mention that to the duty officer when he calls after you go back out. Which is where I presume you’re heading.”

  “Yes. That’s exactly what I want you to do. Just say I took a shit, then left on official business.”

  “With your gun.”

  Kuznetsov stroked his beard, grimacing doubtfully.

  “This is a very long shit you’re taking.”

  “Please.”

  “You planning to put a hole in anyone tonight with that thing?”

  “I beg you, Kuznetsov. I heard everything you’ve told me. What I have to do tonight is not going to hurt your cloud dwellers. Please. Just keep quiet.”

  Kuznetsov demonstratively put his hands to his ears and began humming.

  “If you discharge that cannon of yours, I’m in for the high jump. I’m under specific instructions to keep an eye on everything, including your sidearm.”

  “I won’t. Thanks, friend.”

  Vasin, in a gesture of intimacy that did not come naturally to him, clapped Kuznetsov on the shoulder and set off down the stairs.

  “Psst.”

  Vasin retraced his steps and leaned into Kuznet
sov’s whisper.

  “You forgot to flush. And, there’s no fucking clip in your pistol. You might find one in the front pocket of your holster. That’s what they told me during basic training, at least.”

  With a grateful glance Vasin darted back inside, pulled the chain, retrieved the cartridge clip, and slammed it home into the breech of his Makarov.

  “Hope your business does not detain you long, Comrade.” Kuznetsov was back in the corridor now, speaking loudly.

  “You know how it is. No rest for the wicked.” Vasin clenched his fist and raised it in solidarity, a gesture he had seen in a newsreel of Cuban revolutionaries, his voice self-consciously loud and cheerful. “They shall not pass, Comrade! No pasarán, compadre!”

  III

  Vasin turned off Gogol Boulevard onto Builders’ Street. The last tram was long gone. Most of the suburb’s residents, too, seemed to be parked for the night in their beds, though light still flickered in a few windows like gray bonfires. Tele-Vision machines, Vasin concluded, though he had never been in a home that boasted one, not even Adamov’s. He walked on the edge of the sidewalk, in full view of the kontora Volgas that ritually passed every two minutes. He could guess their orders. Straddle him, but don’t touch him. And don’t lose him.

  To his left were rows of dark trees, and a black mass of undergrowth. The streetlamps hung over him like yellow moons caged in broad steel brackets. Vasin glanced nervously from time to time into the thickets. Was Korin crazy enough to send Sailor and other cutthroats to murder both him and Axelrod under the noses of a full kontora surveillance team? There had been a chilling calm in Korin’s confession to the killing of Petrov, the practical callousness of a military commander. Korin needed Vasin for as long as it took to fetch Axelrod. But afterward?

  He hesitated in front of Axelrod’s archway. In the courtyard, a lynch mob of deformed apparitions appeared to have gathered in formation, ready to jump him. Most menacing was Karandash the clown, who cast the moon-shadow of a gorilla, backed up by the big-eared bear Cheburashka. Axelrod’s windows were dark. Vasin found a pay phone, positioned, just like in Moscow buildings, in the shelter of the main archway of the building, and dialed the scientist’s home number. Engaged. He waited two minutes and dialed again. Phone off the hook, most likely. Vasin crept through the shadowed part of the courtyard to Axelrod’s entranceway. The staircase was silent and deserted. Vasin waited three minutes in the first-floor-landing window, watching for signs of life in the courtyard, but saw none. He adjusted the pistol, uncomfortably wedged down the back of his trousers, and went up.

  Axlerod’s flat had a mechanical bell operated by twisting a knob in its center. It tinkled feebly in the silence. Eventually Vasin heard stumbling footsteps inside the apartment.

  “Who is it?”

  “Vasin. We need to talk.”

  A silence.

  “It’s one in the morning.”

  “Let me in and I’ll tell you everything.”

  “Are you alone? Was that thug lurking outside?”

  “I’m alone.”

  Another long pause. Vasin heard the grating of metal on metal, then the click of the lock turning. Axelrod opened the door a crack. But his pale face peered out through a steel door restrictor that prevented it from opening further.

  Vasin had installed exactly the same restrictor at his mother’s apartment. It was a solid fucker. By the time he kicked it in, the local cops would be swarming.

  “It’s Maria Adamova. She wants to see you.”

  “Now? Why on earth?”

  The suspicion in Axelrod’s voice had given way to alarm.

  “I think you know. We both know. She wants to talk to you about the information she has about you and Petrov.”

  Axelrod’s eye disappeared from the door crack. Vasin felt the weight of the scientist’s body slump against the door.

  “I don’t care. She can’t save her husband and her fancy life.”

  Axelrod’s voice came, muffled, out of the darkness of his own hallway.

  “She wants to protect you. That unpleasantness doesn’t have to hang over your life. Your career.”

  “Now she wants to blackmail me. Those photographs for her precious Adamov’s freedom. She thinks I care so much about myself that I will forget what that animal did to Fedya?”

  The logic of a man in love. Vasin could think of no answer to it.

  “Honestly, Axelrod? I don’t know what Masha wants.” Vasin weighed his words carefully. What do you tell a jilted lover? “Perhaps she loved Fedya, too, and she doesn’t want his bright memory besmirched.”

  A long pause.

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “It was not Adamov who killed Fedya.”

  “How? Vasin, you’re lying.”

  “Just come with me to see Masha, and you will learn everything. She has all your answers.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Masha is desperate. She will not destroy the evidence unless she speaks to you.”

  “Why has she confided in you?”

  “Because she thought you poisoned Petrov. But today I told her about the lab reports that Korin falsified. She realizes she has made a grave mistake. But she needs to see you. Now. Before the morning.” A final flash of inspiration sparked in Vasin’s tired brain. “She fears that you are too blinded by hatred for her husband. To listen to the real story. If you do not come, you will never know. And you will send the wrong man to perdition.”

  Nothing from behind the door. For a desperate moment, Vasin feared that Axelrod had tiptoed away from the door and was now dialing the police. But then he heard a sigh from inside the apartment and felt Axelrod lean into the door once again.

  “She swears to keep quiet about me and Fedya?”

  “I can’t speak for her. But I am sure that’s what she wants to speak to you about.”

  “And you? You will also keep silence?”

  “I give you my word.”

  “I hardly know you, Vasin. What’s your word to me?”

  “Listen. Axelrod. I know more than you think. I know how important Adamov is to the RDS program. I know his value to the defense of the Motherland. How important his genius is to all of us. What you propose to report tomorrow is only part of the truth.”

  The silence stretched. Vasin imagined he heard his own heart thumping. With an effort of will, he prevented himself from thinking of what he would have to do if Axelrod refused.

  The weight of the scientist’s body lifted from the door. Vasin heard the restrictor grind home, then free. The door opened again, revealing Axelrod in gray pajamas and dressing gown. He looked older, his eyes ringed with exhaustion.

  “God knows why I’m trusting you, Vasin.”

  “Because I’m on the side of the angels, Axelrod. Always have been.”

  IV

  They trudged along the deserted boulevards in silence, broken only by the regular soft crunch of cruising kontora Volgas. Axelrod was clearly nervous. Was he afraid of confronting his lover’s mistress? Masha said they had not seen each other since the evening Axelrod had run from Petrov’s apartment. Or was he ashamed of suffering the indignity of having to bargain with Masha, who held Fyodor’s reputation and Axelrod’s future in her hands?

  The Citadel was quiet, quieter than Vasin had ever seen it. In the final days of RDS-220’s gestation, every corner of the place had hummed with activity. Now he and Axelrod found the building nearly silent. The building’s baby had been birthed. For the hundreds of men and women who had worked so intently on its creation, there was nothing left to do but wait. It was the turn of others to see their precious device on its last journey into the skies over Novaya Zemlya.

  Once through the turnstiles in the entrance hall, deserted apart from a single sleepy sentry, Axelrod tur
ned instinctively to the lifts that would take them to Adamov’s office. Vasin stopped him.

  “She is waiting for you at the registry, Doctor.”

  Axelrod blinked quickly, and looked imploringly at Vasin, as though begging him to reveal whether he was really some enemy who worked under the cover of friendship, trust, and pity. Finding no answer, Axelrod looked past him into some troubled private territory of his own. He hesitated for a final moment, then turned quickly and began to descend the stairs.

  Axelrod was still well ahead of him when they turned in to the corridor that led past the calutron hall and the laboratory that housed Dr. Mueller’s barometric chamber and went on to the registry. Masha stood halfway down the long passageway. Her feet were planted apart, her hands deep in her pockets, her chin sunk into her chest. She looked up as they came into view.

  “Hello, Vladimir. You came.”

  “Maria Vladimirovna.”

  Their voices sounded unnaturally loud in the echoing corridor. She straightened, arrogant and defensive at the same time.

  “Let’s go somewhere they can’t hear us.”

  Masha flung a contemptuous glance down the corridor toward Vasin. Axelrod also turned, mirroring her look. In the moment of mutual dislike of the kontora man who stood before them, Masha put her hand on Axelrod’s shoulder and forearm.

  “Come.”

  She led Axelrod past the double doors of the calutron hall and on down the corridor, speaking to him in a low, confiding voice that Vasin could not hear. She steered him toward another pair of doors further down the passage, increasing her pace as she went. There was something angular and not quite reconciled about her movements. She’s moving too fast, thought Vasin. He had fallen back a respectful distance, but now he began to lengthen his stride. Masha opened a door and herded Axelrod inside. As he passed before her into the darkened laboratory, she turned and fixed Vasin with a fierce stare of warning.