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Sofia had been careful to keep her right hand concealed behind her while moving toward them. When she was within ten feet, she lifted her Makarov in a smooth quick motion and fired four times in rapid succession, two shots in the forehead of each startled officer, spaced evenly above the bridge of the nose, like giant snakebites that exploded huge chunks of bone out the back of their heads. The muffled reports dissipated quickly as the two dead officers crumpled to the pavement.
“What the hell—” Talanov began.
“You had a problem and I fixed it,” Sofia said, casually strolling past Talanov and kicking one of the bodies to make sure he was dead.
“You don’t fix problems by creating bigger ones!”
“Ice Man would have done the same thing.”
“Not this time. A bribe would have sufficed.”
Sofia laughed. “Then I just saved you some money.”
Talanov shook his head and began dragging the first officer off the pavement.
“It is how we were trained, Sasha,” Sofia said. “To strike preemptively. To eliminate potential threats before they become threats.”
Talanov stopped in his tracks. How we were trained? There was only one place where agents received training like that.
Sofia laughed at Talanov’s stunned expression. “Yes, Sasha, I, too, was at Balashikha.”
Talanov looked hard at Sofia. Admission into Balashikha was reserved for two types of individuals: elite Soviet agents and extremists interested in learning the latest techniques in assassination and terrorism.
Which one of those types was Sofia?
“I knew what I did would shock you,” she said, dragging the other body off the pavement, “and although it may not have been necessary to kill them, I wanted you to see how good I am. That my skills match yours. That you can depend on me.”
“Depend on you? I told you to remain in the van!” He finished dragging the first policeman’s body into the scrub, where he laid it behind a tangle of prickly pear.
“Do not be angry,” she said.
“You killed two men!”
Sofia waved that away. “You are offended that I did not do what I was told. I understand this, just as you must understand why I chose to kill them: to show you that I can be as cold and calculating as you. It is why we make a good team.”
“We are nothing alike.”
“Oh, but we are. You are the Ice Man! I read, for instance, how you refused to visit your uncle when he was in the hospital dying with cancer. Vov, I think was his name, a foolish man – superstitious – wishing you would forgive him for killing Olaf. You must tell me this story sometime. I read also how as a foster child you were passed around like an unwanted party gift. They called you headstrong and eager but difficult to manage, always thinking your way was best. A rule breaker,” she laughed, “like me.”
They saw headlights coming toward them. Sofia ran to the squad car and pulled it forward over the blood pool until the cars had passed. She then switched off the flashing lights and drove the squad car into the scrub, out of sight.
A solemn Talanov was waiting behind the wheel when Sofia climbed back in the van. He did not look at her when she got in but simply shifted into gear and drove away.
“I ended up at Balashikha by a much different path than you,” Sofia said as if nothing had happened. She slipped out of her party dress and again pulled on her fatigues before strapping the black knife onto her ankle. “And all because I made the mistake of outrunning the boys.”
She glanced over for some kind of a response but Talanov kept his eyes on the road.
“It was a dreary Moscow morning,” she continued, “and I was eight. It was wet and gray and I was playing in a neighborhood park, which was not much more than a few pipes in the ground and some trees. I was tall and skinny and I remember this boy, Ivan, telling us the Beatles had disbanded. I didn’t know who the Beatles were, and when I said so, the kids all laughed, especially Ivan. He began calling me a stupid stick, and giraffe. So I kicked him in the testicles and it dropped him like he had been, well, kicked in the testicles. I stood there watching him roll around on the ground, screaming. A couple of the bigger boys grabbed me so I kicked them, too, and I punched one of them in the throat. Then I started running. They gave chase – probably half a dozen of them – some of them teenagers, all of them boys – and I outran them all. I ran for maybe six or seven blocks until they gave up and I got away.
“But not for long, because a man from the KGB named Grigory – he was short and fat, and had hairy ears and a veined nose – had seen it all and found out where I lived. So he came to my boarding school – my parents were both dead from overdoses – and Grigory made the boarding school an offer they couldn’t refuse. I don’t know how much he paid them, but Grigory took me away and began making me do things I will not speak of here. I hated him, and I kept hating him more and more every day. So one night, when Grigory was asleep – I was fifteen by then and he was making me sleep with him – I got up and crushed his head with a heavy bronze statue of Lenin that he kept on his desk. I was accused of murder, of course, and thrown in jail to await trial. That’s when I met the stern woman in the gray uniform. She had oily black hair that was cropped short and full of dandruff. I was taken in to her, and I remember her being seated behind a wooden desk in a windowless concrete room. I was shivering and she did nothing for the longest time. Finally, she got up and came over to me. She was short and she just stood there, not saying anything, staring up at me. Finally, without warning, she slapped me in the face. I started to punch her but stopped. That’s when I saw the hint of a cold smile crease her lips, She walked back over to her desk, sat down and said, ‘You belong to me now, and the first piece of advice I give you is this: the next time a man abuses you the way Grigory did, do not wait seven years to kill him.’ The following day, I was sent to Balashikha, where I was given a set of clean clothes and a juicy steak dinner. And thus my training began.”
After a long moment of silence, Talanov said, “If you’re trying to prove that you’re more than your looks, you have done so. You have proved you’re a terrible liar because most of that story was a lie. Not everything, but certainly most.”
He glanced over and saw the faintest hint of a smile on Sofia’s face.
“They said you were good,” she replied. “How could you tell, when you were not able to see my face?”
“Is there a point to this?” he asked.
“I have money, Sasha. Lots of it. If you doubt what I am saying, look into my eyes. You will see that I am telling the truth.”
“Again, what’s your point?”
“The Soviet Union is disintegrating. It is collapsing from within. But you and I, we need not be casualties of this collapse.” She placed her hands on his thigh and squeezed it affectionately. “Come with me!” she said.
“Come with you? Where? To do what?”
“Everything. There is a market for people like us. People with specialized skills.”
“As in mercenaries, you mean? Hired guns?”
“I wouldn’t put it so crudely.”
“Then what would you call it? And where exactly would your loyalties lie? With whomever pays you the most, no matter what other commitments you’ve made?”
With a deep sigh, Sofia returned to her side of the seat, where she looked out the window for a long moment. “This is why Moscow favors you,” she finally said, her attention on the lights of some passing houses, “and why you are allowed certain indulgences.” She looked at him again. “Have you ever thought about that? Why you lead such a privileged life when we as a nation can barely feed ourselves?”
Talanov did not reply.
“It is for the ideals that you hold,” she said, answering her own question. “Your belief in equality and fairness and the faith you place in our system. And so you do their bidding and follow their orders because you believe the end will one day justify the means. It is how you were trained, by instructors you admired and respected. Idealists, like yourself. That is why Moscow needs people like you. People they can trust to follow orders while they line their pockets with the fruits of your labor. People like Kozloff. Communism is profitable only for those who run it, Sasha, and the people running it are getting rich.”
“I’ve seen no evidence to support such a claim.”
“Why do you think that is? Why have you – a KGB colonel who sees everything – not seen that?”
Talanov did not reply.
Sofia said, “Because those at the top do not want you to see. And the reason is simple. It is because you frighten them. Honesty in the face of corruption. That is why you have been excluded.”
“If what you say is true—”
“It is.”
“Again, if what you say is true, how is it that you know? How did you come by this information?”
“When the target is a lion, the mouse is ignored,” she replied. “I hear the whispers. The careless remarks.”
Talanov pursed his lips thoughtfully. The headlights of oncoming cars were like strobes across their faces.
“Come with me,” she said again. “Why should others be the only ones profiting from our labor?”
“How long have you been planning this?” he asked, stopping for a red light.
“Does it matter?”
“If it didn’t, I wouldn’t be asking.”
“What I need to know is whether or not you will join me. That is the question.”
Talanov did not reply.
“Allow me to put it this way,” Sofia said. “Moscow is full of trained operatives. Men as deadly as you. But I want you, Sasha, and do you want to know why? It is because we are so much alike. Because we have skills. Because we have chemistry, especially in bed. You took me to the edge. Made me scream like no one else.”
“Is that important?”
“It is to me. And you succeeded where others have failed.”
“Our role as lovers was scripted for a purpose,” Talanov said as the light changed to green. “We were actors on a stage, playing parts. That is all.”
“At the beginning, that was true. Along the way, things changed.”
“Nothing has changed.”
“Everything has changed. We became more than actors.”
“Then you got the wrong impression.”
“Acting in public is one thing,” Sofia replied. “But no one – not even you – can fake the kind of intimacy we had. Making love is much more than a technical skill that is learned by an actor.”
“If love had actually been part of the equation, then, yes, it would have been more than a technical skill. Having sex is different. That is why satisfying a man in the bedroom is easy. It’s a physical release. Satisfying a woman is different. I simply learned how to do it.”
“I know what we experienced.”
“It was a performance,” Talanov replied.
“No one is that good.”
Talanov shrugged.
“You had to feel something. I know it.”
“Why do you fight me on this?”
“Because I do not believe you!” Sofia declared. “Everyone has feelings.”
“Feelings, yes – anger, laughter, sadness – but feelings for someone: no. Those I do not permit. If I am called the Ice Man, this is the reason. Not because I am a cold-blooded killer.”
“But you ignited desires within me. Desires I did not know I had. How is that possible if you do not feel anything more than . . . nothing?”
“You said you wanted to know about Olaf. Well let me tell you that story. Olaf was my great uncle Vov’s dog, a big, galloping Caucasian Shepherd who lived with Uncle Vov on his farm in the pine country east of Nizhny Novgorod, which was about two-hundred miles east of Moscow. One winter morning in December – the snow was deep by then – Uncle Vov took me into the forest on a hunting expedition. I was eleven. On the second day a snowstorm set in. We found shelter – an old cabin – but the blizzard lasted for days and our food soon ran out, and there was no chance of going outside to shoot anything because of the snow. On the fifth day we were seriously hungry – Uncle Vov, me and Olaf – all of us. That night, the wolves came and Olaf began howling with them. Uncle Vov told him to shut up but Olaf became agitated and restless. So Uncle Vov killed him. Shot him right there on the floor in front of me. I remember crying and Uncle Vov told me to stop crying and build a fire, that dogs were dogs and we needed food, and that if he hadn’t done what he did, the dog would have turned on us. Animal eating animal. The strong eating the weak.
“When I wouldn’t quit crying, Uncle Vov said I needed to learn a lesson. So he locked me outside until I heard the wolves again and began pounding on the door. He let me back in and I hid in a corner and watched him skin Olaf and begin roasting him over the fire. When the meat was done, he told me to eat. I shook my head. He just shrugged, tore off a hind leg and sat down in front of the fire. Finally, later, after he had fallen asleep, I tiptoed across the floor and took a few bites. I hated what I was doing, but I was so hungry and the meat tasted so good. After a few mouthfuls I looked over and saw Uncle Vov looking at me, so I ran back to my corner.
“‘Do you think me cruel?’ he asked in that deep, gruff voice of his. I nodded. ‘Have you ever seen a starving dog turn on a man?’ he then asked. I shook my head. ‘Well, I have,’ he said, ‘and Olaf was ready to turn. Not on me, but you, the smallest and the weakest.’ ‘But Olaf was my friend,’ I replied. ‘Any dog will be your friend until he gets hungry enough to eat you. And people are not much different. They’ll just turn on you a lot quicker. And the more you care for them, like you did for Olaf, the harder it is to see the truth and the easier it will be for them to kill you. Feeling nothing will keep you alive. Remember that, boy. It’s the best piece of advice I’ll ever give you.’”
“Why do you tell me this story?”
“Because part of me died that day, and it was not until Uncle Vov was gone that I saw the value in what he had said. Because when he died, I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t . . . anything. And I’ve seldom felt anything since.”
