XV

Early Thursday Morning

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) … President Forsythe left this morning aboard the Air Force One SST from Andrews Air Force Base for his scheduled meeting in Moscow with Soviet leaders.

Meanwhile, fighting stopped in Syria with Israeli troops surrounding the city of Damascus.

The president, before he left, said this would be the last war in the Middle East. His talks with Soviet leaders would assure that.

The marine guard at the front gate of the U.S. Embassy had not been told Mahoney could not leave embassy grounds so he thought nothing of it when the man, bundled in a raincoat, his hat pulled low, signed out and headed down the street on foot.

It was raining, as it had been all week, and Mahoney had to admit to himself a vast relief that he and Marge would be getting out of the Soviet Union for good. In only a few more hours their plane would be leaving for New York.

Zamyatin’s children were the problem, he told himself. If Zamyatin was to be eliminated, what would become of his children?

The streets were dark and completely deserted as they usually were this late at night. Mahoney felt old, tired, used up. And no matter how hard he tried, he could not keep his thoughts from drifting back to his son Michael. His baby boy who could not stand to be confined to an office. Who had finally made something of himself. At Syracuse University he had become a straight A student almost overnight and an outstanding scholar all the way through his doctoral thesis and postdoctoral work in plant pathology.

God, what a waste. What a terrible waste.

The face of the KGB agent that Mahoney had killed in Zamyatin’s apartment merged in his brain with the faces of Michael, of Marge, and of Zamyatin’s three children.

They were still awake, playing the children’s card game Go Fish with Marge, when Mahoney had left Carlisle’s office and went down to Congdon’s apartment.

Congdon was in his bedroom, and when Mahoney came in he came to the door. There were cardboard boxes strewn around the room and several half-packed suitcases lay open on the davenport and easy chair.

“I’m leaving in the morning on the same plane with you and Marge,” Congdon said.

“I’m sorry George…” Mahoney started to say, but Congdon cut him off.

“The hell with it,” Congdon said. “If it hadn’t been Carlisle it would have been someone else, somewhere else. It was time for me to bail out anyway.”

The children had looked up and were staring wide-eyed at Mahoney, obvious fear in their expressions.

“Why don’t you come with us, George,” Marge said brightly. “We’re having a family get-together in Montana. The mountains would be a nice place for a vacation. Michael could show you around.”

Congdon did not look at Marge, and Mahoney knew that he had heard about Michael.

“I’m sorry Wallace. I’m truly sorry.”

Marge’s eyes had darted from her husband to Congdon and back to her husband again. She put down her cards and got slowly to her feet. “What is it, Wallace? You said there had been trouble. What kind of trouble?”

Congdon went back into the bedroom, and Mahoney went to his wife and took her in his arms.

“It’s Michael,” he said, and Marge stiffened. “There was a highway accident outside Missoula.”

She pulled away from him and looked up into his eyes. “Michael is dead,” she said with no trace of emotion, only tiredness, in her voice.

Mahoney barely nodded his head.

It took several seconds for her to react, and when she did it was as if she were melting. “Oh … Wallace … our son … our baby…” she mumbled, and she collapsed into her husband’s arms.

Mahoney was crying, and Zamyatin’s children were staring frankly at him, their mouths open and the fear that had been on their faces turning to an expression of bewilderment. They did not know what to do or where to go.

Despite his grief Mahoney’s heart went out to the children, and he managed a slight smile for them. “You will be safe here,” he said softly to them over Marge’s shoulder.

The oldest girl flinched. “We would like to go to our father,” she said. Her English was heavily accented, but understandable.

Marge again pulled away from her husband. “It’s all right now,” she said, looking up into his eyes. And then she turned to look at the children. “What about the children’s father?”

The boy said something to the oldest girl that Mahoney could not quite catch, but the other girl looked as if she was about to cry.

“Is this the American embassy?” the oldest girl asked.

“Yes, it is,” Mahoney said.

“Why are we being held here?”

“My papa,” the boy cried in Russian. “I want my papa.”

The oldest girl moved around the table and took the boy in her arms. The other girl instinctively moved next to them.

“We don’t care if you torture us. We will tell you nothing,” the girl said.

“Oh, my God,” Marge cried, stifling a gasp. “Wallace?” she said, glancing at her husband. Then she went around the table and put her arms around all three of the children.

“No one is going to hurt you,” she said gently. “I promise.”

The children were looking up at her, their expressions gradually softening. Marge was a woman who, no matter what the situation, people instinctively trusted and liked.

What she was doing was dangerous, Mahoney thought. She was transferring her grief about Michael to protectiveness toward these children. But it was a situation that could have no satisfactory solution for her. And he was worried for his wife.

“Marge…” he started to say.

“Don’t worry about us, Wallace,” she said. “I’m going to put them to bed. It’s late.”

“Are you going to stay here with them?”

“Yes,” she said.

Mahoney stared at her for a moment longer, then sighed. “I’ll be back in a few hours,” he said.

A look of abject terror briefly crossed her face. She took a half step forward. “Wallace … don’t do anything foolish…” she said.

“Don’t worry, old woman,” he said, smiling. He came around to her and kissed her on the cheek. “There is something that has to be attended to. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

“Must you?” she asked.

Mahoney nodded.

“Then be careful, old man,” she said, and Mahoney turned and went out of the apartment.

His thinking had been very straighforward and even a bit company-oriented this morning, he told himself tiredly as he rounded the corner onto Kutuzovsky Prospekt and stopped in the shadows.

Zamyatin’s building was across the street and half way down the block. There were a few lights shining from windows here and there in the building, but not in Zamyatin’s apartment.

There was a good chance that the man was not at home. Possibly he was at his office, or he might have already been arrested.

Zamyatin was of no further use to the KGB. Carlisle was correct about that. But the man certainly would be of vast importance to the CIA if he could be gotten out of the country. And he was of even greater importance to his children.

There were no cars parked in front of Zamyatin’s building and Mahoney could not detect any surveillance team.

So far as any of them knew, the KGB operation CLEAN SWEEP was still on the active list and would remain so until later this morning when the president arrived. Which meant that there was a possibility that Zamyatin was still around in one piece. At least for the time being.

The timing would be tight, but Mahoney figured if he could get to Zamyatin, convince him of what was happening, and what had been happening, they could return to the embassy, and later this morning he and his children could somehow be smuggled out to Vnukovo and gotten aboard the diplomatic plane for New York.

After that, Zamyatin would be debriefed, he and his children given new identities, and they could slip into anonymity in the United States.

That was the plan, as thin as it was, Mahoney told himself where he stood. But General Barynin’s operations were never run on a single level. Maybe this too was a setup. Maybe at this point Zamyatin was being used as bait.

He moved out of the shadows and slowly walked toward Zamyatin’s building. There was someone watching. Mahoney was almost certain of it. He could feel it in the air.

Across the street he entered the deserted lobby and started up the stairs. The biggest problem, he told himself, might not be getting back to the embassy. It could very well be convincing Zamyatin to come with him.

He stopped at the first floor landing to listen, but there were absolutely no sounds except for his own breathing. No one was following him. Yet.

They would be watching the Finnish border and probably would not be paying too much attention to Vnukovo which would be crowded with people coming to see the American president. They could do it. But only if Zamyatin cooperated.

On the second floor landing Mahoney paused again to listen. And again there were no indications that he was being pursued.

At the very least, Zamyatin would be fired from his job and would be banished from Moscow. Internal exile, they called it. A very effective weapon against a man like Zamyatin with three children.

Mahoney resumed his climb to the fifth floor landing where he stopped long enough to take the .45 out of his shoulder holster and with his finger on the trigger stuffed it into his coat pocket. With his other hand he opened the corridor door and silently hurried to Zamyatin’s door.

There were no sounds from within, and like before, the door was unlocked. Just inside the vestibule Mahoney closed the door behind him and carefully moved a few steps forward, stumbling and almost falling over something large on the floor.

Mahoney bent down and reached out in the darkness, and his fingers brushed the cold, firm flesh of a dead man’s face. He recoiled, almost falling backward.

And then he heard the sound, low and animal-like coming from somewhere within the apartment. He strained to hear more clearly and suddenly he realized what it was. Someone was crying. Sobbing. But very softly.

“Yurianovich?” Mahoney called.

The crying stopped, and the apartment was deathly still.

“Yurianovich,” Mahoney called again. “It is Mahoney. Wallace Mahoney.”

“You have my children,” Zamyatin’s ragged voice came from the living room. Something crashed in the dark, Zamyatin swore, and a moment later a light came on.

Major Boris Balachov lay on his side on the floor directly in front of Mahoney. His eyes were open and his skin was a pasty white. He had been dead for several hours. The handle of a butcher knife protruded from the middle of a large dark stain in his back.

Suddenly Zamyatin was standing there, obviously drunk, his hair disheveled, his eyes bloodshot, and his clothes a mess.

“This heathen came looking for me. Said I was a traitor. Said he hoped I would never see my children again,” Zamyatin slobbered. He peered down at Mahoney still on his hands and knees. “But I believed him when he told me that you have my children. You do have my children?”

Mahoney got slowly to his feet, the effort taking almost more strength than he had. “I have your children. They are safe. They are with my wife.”

Zamyatin lurched forward, stumbling over Balachov’s body and falling heavily into Mahoney’s arms.

“They’re all I have, Mahoney. Don’t you see?”

Mahoney helped Zamyatin back to his feet, stepped over the body, and led him back into the living room. Zamyatin had evidently turned the couch upright, but had done nothing else to straighten up the apartment. The body of the KGB agent Mahoney had shot earlier was gone, and he wondered if they knew or suspected who had killed the man.

He sat Zamyatin down on the couch and quickly rummaged around the apartment finally finding Zamyatin’s coat and hat in a pile in the kitchen.

When he returned to the living room Zamyatin was drinking out of a half full bottle of vodka. An empty bottle was laying near the couch.

Mahoney took the bottle away from Zamyatin and threw it down, then pulled the man to his feet and helped him struggle into his coat and hat.

“I’m taking you to your children. And then all of us are getting out of the country.”

“No,” Zamyatin shouted, pulling away from Mahoney. He was still drunk but he seemed suddenly more in control of himself. “I’m not a traitor, Mahoney. Despite what Balachov thought, and despite what you are trying to do.”

“The operation was a setup from the beginning,” Mahoney said. They did not have much time left. “Both of us were set up. And now it’s over with.”

Zamyatin was shaking his head. “Balachov and the Democratic Movement are going to kidnap the president. Kidnap him, not assassinate him.”

“No,” Mahoney said. “That was a setup, too. Your people wanted only to discredit the Democratic Movement. Meanwhile, you and I were supposed to convert each other. Our children were the trump cards.”

“But the president,” Zamyatin mumbled.

“There was no real plot, Yurianovich, you’ve got to see that. Balachov was running the Democratic Movement for your people, and Carlisle was running the movement for us. We got caught in the middle.”

“You grabbed my children anyway,” Zamyatin said bitterly. “You are no better than the rest of them.”

“My youngest son was killed when your people tried to grab him,” Mahoney said softly.

Zamyatin just looked at him.

“My son is dead. Your children are safe and sound.”

Zamyatin reached out and touched Mahoney’s arm. “I’m sorry, Wallace. I am sorry. None of this should have happened.”

“Just like World War II,” Mahoney heard himself saying. He was angry. Where Marge had transferred her grief into concern for Zamyatin’s three children, Mahoney was turning his grief into hostility against Zamyatin.

“What?” Zamyatin asked confused.

“World War II. Remember? The Obersalzburg? The German soldiers you tortured for information? Remember?”

Zamyatin said nothing.

“I can understand you the way you are now, Yurianovich. I can understand you and your children. And, God help me, I can even understand why you proposed kidnaping my children to use them as a lever against me. I did the very same thing. But I cannot understand how you could have changed since the war. Unless you haven’t.”

“The Nazis tortured and killed my mother, my father, my sisters and my younger brother. They thought they were Jews. There were people who survived. I learned about it. I knew it before I was assigned to the Obersalzburg. A lot of us knew.”

“I understand,” Mahoney said simply. And after more than thirty years, he really did understand finally.

“Do you?” Zamyatin asked, his voice intense, bordering on maniacal. “You live in a country that has never been invaded. How can you understand? How?”

Mahoney took Zamyatin’s arm and guided him to the front door, stepping carefully over Balachov’s body. “I understand, Yurianovich. And now you must understand that I am taking you to my embassy. To your children.”

Zamyatin stiffened in his grasp. “I am no traitor.”

“Do you want to stay here and die?” Mahoney snapped. “What about your children?”

“My children…” Zamyatin repeated dumbly, and then he trailed off.

Mahoney opened the outer door a crack and peered out into the corridor. It was deserted. A moment later he was guiding Zamyatin toward the stairwell door.

Just a little longer. Even a few minutes to let them get downstairs and clear the building. Then fifteen more minutes and they would be through the gates of the embassy. From that moment they would not be alone. They would have help.

They started down the stairs, one at a time, Mahoney careful not to let Zamyatin stumble and fall.

“Are there any surveillance people on this place?” Mahoney asked as they passed the second floor landing, and headed down the last flights of stairs to the ground floor.

Zamyatin shook his head. “I don’t know.”

At the bottom was a metal door with a small square window set about eye level. Mahoney propped Zamyatin against the wall and peered out the window. Nothing had changed. The lobby was still deserted.

“What did you feel like when you signed the order to have my children picked up?” Zamyatin asked.

Mahoney turned to him and buttoned up his raincoat and pulled his hat low.

“What did it feel like?”

“Shut up,” Mahoney said.

“I mean it,” Zamyatin said, pushing himself away from the wall and grabbing Mahoney’s lapels. “Did it make you feel powerful? Like a god?”

“For Christ’s sake, how did you feel?” Mahoney snapped. “How do you feel now? Are we gods?”

“I feel terrible,” Zamyatin said miserably. “I kept thinking about my own children.”

Mahoney opened the door with one hand and with the other guided Zamyatin out of the stairwell, across the lobby and out the front door where he headed them across the street.

Even if there was a surveillance team on them they could not be certain what he and Zamyatin were up to. For all anyone knew he and Zamyatin were heading someplace to exchange information.

If there would be trouble, it would probably come near the embassy when it would become obvious what was happening.

They made it across the street and headed toward the corner. It would be the case, that is, Mahoney thought, if the KGB had not already tumbled to Zamyatin as Balachov apparently had.

It was cold and the rain beat against them in sheets driven by a rising early morning wind. And for the first time in a long time Mahoney suddenly wondered if he had not bit off more than he could chew.

He had left the embassy with no thought other than to get to Zamyatin and bring him back. He had not stopped to think about the consequences or possible consequences of that act. Nor had he stopped to tell anyone where he was going, or ask for help.

At this moment he was one man alone in a city of nearly ten million people. A hostile city in which he could be arrested and executed as a spy.

About fifty yards from the corner it happened.

A Zil limousine pulled up and parked across the street from them and four men got out.

“Mr. Mahoney. Comrade Zamyatin. Wait a moment, please,” one of the men called out.

Mahoney grabbed his .45 out of his coat pocket, turned and snapped off two shots, the bullets ricocheting off the concrete building beyond the car.

The four men scrambled for cover and Mahoney bolted toward the corner with Zamyatin in tow.

“Stop!” one of the Russians shouted.

It was a long way back to the embassy and Mahoney knew there was very little possibility that they would make it. But he did not let himself think about it. The corner. They only had to make it to the corner.

A shot was fired, and then another and Zamyatin went down. Mahoney spun around, crouched down and snapped off a shot at a solitary figure running toward them. The man stumbled and fell forward.

Mahoney jumped up and literally dragged Zamyatin the last few feet around the corner of the building as several more shots were fired at them from behind the parked limousine.

Blood was pumping from Zamyatin’s neck in huge spurts completely covering his shoulders and one side of his face. His eyes were open but glazed.

Mahoney dropped down to his knees, the pavement cold and wet through his trousers, his face just inches from Zamyatin’s.

“Your children love you, Yurianovich. You must know that.”

Zamyatin’s eyes blinked rapidly, and he tried to move but gave up almost immediately.

“We will take care of them. Unless you want us to return them to your government.”

With a superhuman effort Zamyatin managed to shake his head no. The movement was very slight, but Mahoney understood.

“We will take care of them. My wife is a very good woman.”

Zamyatin was not moving now, and the blood was no longer pumping out of him.

Mahoney stared at his old friend’s face for a long moment, and then scrambled to the corner of the building in time to see two of the Russians running his way.

He fired two more shots. One of the Russians went down, and the other turned and headed in a zigzag pattern back to the car.

Mahoney got to his feet and began running as fast as he could toward the labyrinth of dark, winding, narrow streets in Old Town. From that point there was a chance—only a chance—that he could make it back to the embassy before they caught up with him.

11 A.M. Thursday

It was raining furiously, but the clouds were very high, and from the southeast the sun was just peeking from a small blue break. It was the first sun anyone in Moscow had seen for at least ten days.

Ambassador and Mrs. Leland Smith, Margery Mahoney, and Zamyatin’s three children all in the back seats of a long, black Cadillac limousine, were passed through the security gate at Vnukovo Official Airport outside Moscow by a bewildered and uncertain captain of the guards.

His pass manifest showed none of the passengers in the car except for Margery Mahoney. But captains of the guards, of any guards, simply did not question the ambassador from the United States, so he waved the car through.

“I don’t know how I can thank you for all you have done,” Marge said to Mrs. Smith, and the woman smiled, reached out, and patted Marge’s hand.

“I think you will find that it will all work out, Mrs. Mahoney,” the ambassador said. His voice was deep, very rich and warm. He and his wife made a wonderful couple.

Marge glanced at the children seated next to her, and her heart ached so deeply that she wanted to cry.

The embassy chief of medicine had sedated the children with mild injections of Valium so that they would offer no resistance.

Congdon had helped her approach Carlisle with the request that the children be taken out of the Soviet Union, but the CIA chief of station had denied the request.

“They are not our responsibility,” Carlisle had said, and she had not argued with him.

Wallace had not returned as he promised he would, and yet she had to think of the children’s welfare. They could not be left behind. So she had gone to the ambassador’s wife, and explained everything. Suddenly doors had begun to open and Carlisle became a highly cooperative soul.

Marge turned and looked out the car window toward the sun. Behind them were the administrative buildings but ahead and to either side in the distance were birch forests, looking green and white and fresh in the sun despite the heavy shower.

The sun she had missed during their time here in Moscow. Church she missed. Black pepper at times. American newspapers less than three days old. American television, especially One Day At A Time and All My Children.

A 727, gleaming silver in the sun and rain, stood ready on a utility parking apron away from the administrative building where the president’s Air Force One would be parking and discharging its passengers.

Back at the ceremony area were gathered a large crowd of people, a great number of Soviet military troops and most of the dignitaries who would be greeting the U.S. president in just a few minutes.

At the 727 however, there was only a small contingent of American marines, an equally small contingent of Soviet military honor guards and two low-ranking Soviet officials from the Ministry of Protocol, both obviously flustered.

Several American technicians in white coveralls, stationed at the embassy, had finished the final preflight check of the 727, had loaded the remainder of the baggage including the diplomatic pouch that was not allowed to be touched by Soviet baggage handlers, and were waiting now to load personal luggage aboard the plane.

The limousine pulled up and parked near the boarding stairs; a marine guard opened the door and the ambassador climbed out of the car and shook hands with both the Soviet officials as his wife and Marge helped the three children out.

“Highly unusual, Mr. Smith,” one of the officials was saying.

“On the contrary,” Ambassador Smith boomed heartily. “I am not leaving on this flight. As a matter of fact, we should all get back for my president’s arrival.”

Both Soviet officials glanced at the children. They both were clearly uncomfortable.

“Then we do not understand, sir,” one of them said.

The ambassador smiled. “There is nothing to understand. My wife and I merely wished to accompany an old friend of ours and her children to the airplane. They are returning home.”

“But this was not scheduled, sir. We were not informed.”

“Informed?” Ambassador Smith said, his right eyebrow arching aristocratically.

“What I mean to say, Ambassador, is that this lady was on the passenger manifest, but the three children…”

“Are you questioning my word, sir?” Ambassador Smith said angrily. “Must I have a word with Mr. Brezhnev personally about this?”

The color had drained from both men’s faces. “By all means no, sir. I merely meant that we felt badly that we could not provide the proper ceremony for a close personal friend of the ambassador himself.”

Ambassador Smith was beaming. “No need, my good man. Absolutely no need. Let us save the ceremony for the president who should be arriving momentarily.”

“By all means,” the one Soviet diplomat said.

Marge was staring at the four white-suited technicians who were carrying several pieces of luggage up the boarding stairs and into the aircraft. One of the men …

The ambassador had come over to her and he hugged her and kissed her cheek. “Everything will work out, my dear,” he said softly in her ear so that no one else could hear him.

Marge looked up into his sparkling eyes, and she could barely believe what she was seeing. “Thank you, Leland, you’re a dear,” she said loudly enough so that the Russians could hear her.

The ambassador laughed, and then Marge hugged his wife. “Thank you … oh God, thank you,” Marge said into her ear.

“Absolutely,” Mrs. Smith said, parting. “I would be delighted, my dear. Please write.”

And then Marge was herding the children to the boarding stairs and they were climbing up toward the open door. The children went in first and at the top Marge paused, turned and waved at the ambassador and his wife. She would never forget them.

The children were already seated and strapped in when Marge stepped into the airplane. A stewardess led her toward one of the rear seats as another stewardess closed and locked the main door.

Almost immediately the engines began coming to life and many of the 127 passengers who were taking this flight back to New York watched as the dowdy-looking little woman in a mouse brown raincoat suddenly lit up, her face suddenly radiating joy and happiness like piles of diamonds glittering under a summer sun. And then she was in her husband’s arms as the plane began to move toward the runway.

“You didn’t come back. I didn’t know. Carlisle said you would be delayed. That I had to go without you. I thought that you were … that you … that you were never coming.”

The stewardess, a young woman in a pretty blue uniform, was gently pulling them apart. “I am afraid you both will have to be seated and put on your seat-belts. We are about to take off.”

They separated, sat down, and the stewardess helped them with their belts.

“How?” Marge said when the young woman was gone.

“I was in the trunk of the car,” Mahoney said laughing. He looked infinitely tired. There were heavy bags under his eyes, and he looked old and lined. “They dressed me in white coveralls, stuffed me in the trunk at the embassy and while Smith was giving those Russians hell I just slipped up the steps into the plane.”

“Why wasn’t I told?”

“It was my idea, dear Margery. I didn’t want that burden on you. You’re just not a liar.”

Marge smiled. “I did all right with Leland in front of those Russians?”

“Leland?” Mahoney said, laughing.

“Yes,” Marge said, and she turned and looked across the aisle where the children were strapped in their seats. Already they were asleep.

For the next year their little lives would be difficult if not nearly impossible. But Ambassador Smith had promised to pull the right strings back home to provide the children with new identities and the proper education. Summers they could spend in northern Minnesota with Wallace and her. That is, if they wanted to.

The way the little boy, Aleksei, had sat on her lap earlier this morning left her no doubt about their outcome. All they needed was love. Just like any child.

Marge turned to her husband and smiled. “I love you, old man,” she said.

“I love you, old woman,” he replied.