IX

Tuesday Noon

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) … President Forsythe today denied Soviet charges that yesterday’s series of Strategic Air Command exercises were in reality a “thin disguise” for bringing the U.S. strike force up to alert status.

“It would be dangerous to assume such,” the president said answering the charges published today in Izvestia.

“And it would be even more dangerous to respond with any kind of countermeasures,” the president added.

First Chief Directorate territory was downstairs on the second floor of the Center. Zamyatin got off the elevator and stood to one side across the busy corridor from the executive dining room doors, his stomach rumbling not so much from hunger as from nervousness.

Very early that morning he had gotten off this very same elevator. Had hurried down the nearly deserted corridor to the Executive Action duty officer’s cubicle where he had handed the startled night man an Action Order Kill form.

He had held his breath foolishly waiting for the explosion to come, but the young first lieutenant had merely shrugged, logged Zamyatin’s time in and shoved the single page document into the Telefax machine that would distribute the order to the proper departments as well as record it downstairs in the computer.

Zamyatin had stared at the man who finally looked up.

“Will there be anything else this morning, Comrade Colonel?”

Zamyatin shook his head, turned on his heel, and went back upstairs to wait for the storm to break.

At eleven o’clock it had come when the head of the First Chief Directorate himself had called to invite Zamyatin to lunch at noon.

He was exactly on time. Zamyatin took a deep breath, crossed the corridor and entered the executive officers’ mess, which was a large room with an un-cracked plaster ceiling, warm wood-paneled walls adorned with several paintings, and soft, luxurious carpeting. The only reminder that this room was within the Center and not some exclusive restaurant was the wire mesh over the four large windows.

The head of the First Chief Directorate, General Sergei Anatolevich Ganin, was a kindly-looking old man: white hair, roly-poly cheeks, a red, smiling face, and flashing gold-capped teeth.

He was seated alone at the head table, and when he saw Zamyatin by the door he stood up and beckoned.

What worried Zamyatin was that he knew absolutely nothing about the man. Not rumor, not legend. Nothing. Merely that the man was chief of the KGB’s most powerful and feared directorate.

“Yurianovich!” General Ganin boomed. “I am pleased that you could join me.”

A number of men in the dining room glanced idly toward Zamyatin who had made his way across the room, but then they went back to their meals.

“I am honored, Comrade General, that you asked me to join you,” Zamyatin said.

General Ganin was beaming as if he was genuinely pleased to see Zamyatin, and he indicated a chair. “Sit. Please sit down. I have taken the liberty of ordering for us. I think you will be pleased.”

Zamyatin took his seat across the table from General Ganin, and a moment later two young men in long white aprons came with a wheeled serving cart laden with food and a bottle of red wine. One of the men uncorked the bottle and poured first for the general and then for Zamyatin.

“It is Khvanchkara, the best of the Georgian reds,” General Ganin boomed heartily as he held up his long-stemmed wine glass to the light.

The two young men quickly and efficiently laid out several silver serving dishes of caviar, smoked salmon and sturgeon, several kinds of thinly sliced meats and cheeses, a bowl of cut fruit, and a small tureen of borscht, and then they were gone.

Still smiling broadly, General Ganin held up his wine glass for a toast. “To operation CLEAN SWEEP,” he said. “A successful completion.”

Zamyatin’s hand shook when he raised his glass, but he managed the toast. He had known exactly why General Ganin had called him for lunch, but being confronted under these circumstances was somewhat unnerving.

Three men came into the dining room talking loudly, and they took a table by one of the windows. Zamyatin was suddenly aware of the other sounds in the room: the silver clinking against dishes; the indistinct snatches of conversations; and through the wide kitchen doors behind him the pots and pans rattling. They were soothing sounds. Not urgent. Sounds of normalcy, if that word could be applied to any room in the Center.

General Ganin was watching him, and when Zamyatin looked up from his wine he got the distinct impression that he was about to hear some bad news. The instant the feeling began he tried to shake it, but it persisted.

“I was really quite surprised this morning,” the general said conversationally as he dished up some of the salmon and a large dollop of caviar onto his plate.

Zamyatin said nothing, nor did he make a move to serve himself any of the food. He twirled the wine glass, holding the stem between his finger and the thumb of his right hand.

“Try some of the caviar, Yurianovich,” the general said. “I doubt if your officers’ mess serves anything quite so fine.”

Zamyatin still made no move to help himself to the food. General Ganin laid his knife and fork down precisely where they had been placed when the table was set. Gone suddenly was the general’s jovial expression; his eyes now held a cruel, calculating look.

“As you evidently learned from the overnight log, your action order was delayed.”

“Yes, Comrade Director,” Zamyatin said, keeping his voice even. “As point-of-origin officer I was informed.”

“Your request this morning to kill that action order came as quite a surprise to us. Yashchenko especially was surprised. He asked me to have a word with you.”

“I have an explanation, comrade,” Zamyatin said. Guilt. That was the force upon which the entire Komitet was run.

“Indeed,” General Ganin said. “I would be most interested.”

Guilt drove some men into working harder to accomplish the goals set out for them, whereas guilt drove other men, weaker men who could not do their jobs, into confession. Cleanse your souls, sinners against the State. Expunge from your very existence all but steadfast devotion to the Party and its ideals.

“Mahoney is a very capable intelligence officer. A man whose career spans more than three decades.”

“But he is not an expedient man,” the general interjected.

“No, nor is he ruthless,” Zamyatin said.

General Ganin held both of his hands palms down in front of him on the table as he stared at Zamyatin, waiting for him to continue.

“He is a man who when pushed will fight back. Swiftly and with much force. But he also is a man who can be led.”

“And you are the one to lead him?”

Zamyatin inclined his head slightly. “Yes, Comrade Director. Because of our past association I believe I can. Because of my understanding of Mahoney as a reasonable man I believe I can convince him to help us.”

General Ganin seemed to be weighing Zamyatin’s words very carefully, but beyond that, very little else could be told from his expression.

The man had begun his career during the war as did many officers of his present status. Those who survived the purges tended to go in one of two directions: either up the political ladder in the Party heirarchy, or up the ladder in the State Secret Service. In either direction the structure was like a huge Egyptian pyramid with a greatly elongated peak. The base was massive and heavily supported. The pinnacle was tall, the positions near its peak immensely powerful.

Men who were strong enough, shrewd enough, expedient and ruthless enough to survive the climb to the pinnacle had to be extraordinary individuals to begin with. But in their climb upward they seemed to gain strength and depth rather than lose it from the weariness of the climb.

General Ganin was very near that pinnacle, and near the height of his power, and he was now very much like a high tension wire. Emanating in all directions from his office, the power served his purposes, ran the motors that operated the State. And like a high tension wire the man was exceedingly dangerous to the unsuspecting fool without the proper insulation.

Zamyatin at this moment felt like an ignorant savage whose bare hand was reaching out to touch the wire. The sparks were already beginning to arc his way.

“I won’t ask you if you have already contacted the man,” General Ganin said slowly. “Nor will I ask the substance of your conversation.”

Zamyatin held his breath.

“Suffice it to say that you are a capable officer who knows his job well and whose career has been nothing short of illustrious. But this morning you made a mistake.”

Zamyatin noticed that the rain which had let up for a short while this morning had started again.

“Your original action order was quite brilliant, almost elegant, but this morning’s request to kill the order was nothing short of a pang of conscience.”

General Ganin looked down at the food on his plate, selected a fork with care, flaked off a small piece of the salmon and raised it to his lips.

“Nowhere in the world, not even in Paris, is the food like this,” the general said, his eyes half-closed as he savored the tiny bit of fish. “Are you sure you won’t join me?”

Zamyatin shook his head. “No, thank you, General. I have no appetite.”

“It is a shame,” the general said, wiping off his fork with his linen napkin and then setting it back in its place beside his plate. “I have a curious shortcoming in that I simply cannot eat alone.” The general shrugged. “Silly, actually, but I can’t help myself.”

“Shall I withdraw the kill order?” Zamyatin heard himself asking, but it was as if the general had not heard him.

“Conscience, Yurianovich. Do you know what it really is?”

“The ability to distinguish between right and wrong and then feel remorse if we do wrong,” Zamyatin said impulsively. He felt very close to the high tension wire.

The general laughed. “Quite a naive view for a man of your experience and intelligence.” He shook his head. “No, my dear Comrade Colonel, you are not correct. The implication you give depends upon a concept of absolutes. Conscience is nothing more than an awareness of oneself in relationship to his own social order.”

Despite himself Zamyatin was intrigued. The general was a philosopher.

“Murder in our society is generally punished. It is a negative. Not right or wrong, merely negative. If we commit murder the feeling that we have done something against our society’s rules is a pang of conscience.

“But consider a south sea island where for a man to see a woman’s bare feet is considered taboo. If you or I—unknowing of the islanders’ taboos—observe a woman’s toes, we would suffer no pangs of conscience.”

“And the business with Mahoney?” Zamyatin asked softly.

“Let us remain with the south sea islanders for a moment where to see a woman’s breasts, on the contrary, is of little or no importance. Let you or I see her breasts and we may become red in the face. A pang of conscience.” The general leaned forward. “But an unnecessary pang of conscience because our behavior was well within the laws of that island’s customs.”

“There are no universal rights or wrongs?”

The general shook his head. “No, Yurianovich, which is an oftentimes difficult lesson for a man to learn.”

Zamyatin just stared at him.

“I have withdrawn your request to kill the action orders. Mahoney’s children and his three grandchildren have been picked up and are at present being held.” The general flicked an invisible crumb on the tablecloth next to his plate. When he looked up into Zamyatin’s eyes he seemed genuinely sad.

“What we have devised, perhaps the CIA will devise as well. Yours was and is a very good plan. So we have taken your children into protective custody until this matter is settled. We do not want the Mahoneys of the world to touch them.”

For the first time in a very long time, since his wife died, he realized, Zamyatin felt fear as a palpable, solid, dark thing. “Where are they?” he asked, the words half choking in his throat.

General Ganin waved him off. “It is of little consequence. They are safe and are being well cared for. It is a holiday for them, actually. As I understand it they are having a good time.”

Anger began to build inside of Zamyatin, replacing the fear at least temporarily, but the general knew what was coming and he shook his head.

“Do not do anything you would later regret. Your children are safe, as are Mahoney’s children. You may assure him that they will remain safe as long as he deigns to cooperate.”

Zamyatin just stared at the general.

“Let me hasten to add that when Thursday comes and goes without incident, all will return to normal. There are rules to this business after all. We do not want to involve a man’s family, or else none of us would be safe.”

*   *   *

Faces in the busy corridor and then in the elevator were a blur to Zamyatin, and he was suddenly very cold although he repressed the urge to shiver.

Eleven years ago it had been nighttime. He had been working late here in the Center when the hospital contacted him.

“There have been some complications with your wife’s pregnancy, Comrade Zamyatin,” the doctor said. “She is asking for you.”

Colonel Morozov, whom everyone called grandfather, had offered his car and driver, but because of a late winter snowstorm it still took them nearly forty-five minutes to make it across town to the hospital.

“Good luck, little Yurianovich,” Morozov had called to Zamyatin who ran up the broad steps, through the heavy doors and down the wide corridor.

The doctor was waiting, his surgical mask hanging loosely around his neck, his gown blood-spattered. He was smoking a cigarette.

Zamyatin stopped several feet away from the doctor, and he suddenly knew that he was too late.

“Sandra!” he shouted. “My Sandra!”

Stefan Chekalkin stood at the open elevator doors staring at Zamyatin. “Yurianovich?” he said.

Zamyatin blinked, his mind snapping back to the present. He realized he must have called out.

“Is there something the matter?”

Zamyatin shook his head as he stepped off the elevator and brushed past the young man. Without a word he hurried down the corridor to his office, but he could feel Chekalkin’s eyes on his back until he rounded the corner and entered his operations room.

Most of his staff was here busily at work, and the noise of dozens of typewriters clacking, and as many voices speaking into tape machines created a din that under normal circumstances Zamyatin found soothing. But at this moment the noise seemed to be too loud and too sharp for his ears that were suddenly ultrasensitive.

He hurried across the room, acknowledging none of the greetings and entered his office, slamming the door behind him.

Major Balachov was seated in the chair next to Zamyatin’s desk, and he looked up.

“They said you would be back soon, so I decided to wait,” Balachov said.

Zamyatin went around behind his desk and sat down. Balachov, like Chekalkin in the corridor, had an odd expression on his face.

“What do you want?” Zamyatin asked.

Balachov looked startled. “You asked me to report after lunch. You called this morning.”

This morning. It seemed like a million years since the children were getting ready for school. They must have taken them from school, or perhaps on their way to school.

“Is there something wrong?” Balachov was saying. “Are you sick? Shall I call a doctor?”

Zamyatin looked at his staff officer. He wore the same clothes he had worn yesterday and the day before. His soaked raincoat was draped over one of the other chairs and it was dripping onto the floor.

“Take that miserable raincoat out of here and hang it someplace else,” Zamyatin snapped harshly.

Balachov sat immobile for a moment, but then he jumped up, grabbed his raincoat and went out the door. When he returned he had a sheepish look on his face.

“I’m sorry…” he started to say, but Zamyatin cut him off.

“Number one. I want a floating seal put on the U.S. Embassy. I’ll pull officers and surveillance people off other details for you. Set up as many command posts as you need to cover every direction.”

“How far out do you want it extended?”

“I want the coverage absolute,” Zamyatin said. “I’ll expect implementation within the hour. No movements in or out of the embassy are to be interfered with. However, any person who leaves the embassy will be tailed no matter where he or she goes, no matter how long they are gone, and no matter the expense.”

“Security?”

“This time I don’t care if we are spotted. I merely want to know where everyone is at all times.”

“Any exceptions?” Balachov asked.

“Two,” Zamyatin said. “Your cook, Zeta-one. Whoever was responsible for running him will now be responsible for his activities.”

“And the other?”

“I am taking the responsibility for Wallace Mahoney,” Zamyatin said and reached for Mahoney’s dossier.

“I know the man,” Balachov said. “Are we running a specific operation on him? Anything I should know about?”

Zamyatin ignored the question. His anger, which at first had tended to blur his thinking, was now making him see everything in sharp perspective. Thursday at 1100 hours it would be over.

“I will be pulling in every legman I can get my hands on for the duration.”

“We can handle this without…” Balachov began, but again Zamyatin cut him off.

“Every person coming out of the Unites States Embassy will be followed. In turn, every place any embassy person stops at will be thoroughly checked out.”

Balachov looked stunned.

“If a man comes out of the embassy and stops at a tobacconist’s shop a legman will be detailed to check out the shop. If a man takes an airplane somewhere, the clerks and baggage handlers all will be investigated. Am I making myself clear?”

“It’s a mammoth operation, comrade,” Balachov said, the words barely audible. The man was obviously completely shaken.

“Indeed,” Zamyatin said. “We must know minute by minute what every single person who has any contact with the embassy is doing while off embassy grounds.”

“Someone will lead us to Sakharov and the laser?” Balachov asked.

Zamyatin nodded. “We will continue this operation until the president of the United States arrives safely or until Sakharov and the laser are recovered.”

Balachov fumbled in his breast pocket for his package of cigarettes, but suddenly Zamyatin felt the need to be alone.

“Get out of here,” he said softly.

Balachov looked up, startled. “Comrade?” he said uncertainly.

“You have a job to do,” Zamyatin said, holding his voice even against the strain building up inside of him. “Get to it.”

“I…” Balachov started to speak, but then he jumped up. “Yessir,” he said. “How shall I handle the reporting?”

“I don’t want reports. I want results. Bring me Sakharov and the laser and the people responsible.”

“Of course, comrade,” Balachov said. He looked at Zamyatin for a few seconds, then turned and went out the door, closing it softly behind him.

Zamyatin stared at the closed door for several minutes, then slowly swiveled his chair around so he could look out his window. The rain was coming down so hard now that he could not see anything outside except for indistinct blurs.

The view out the window perfectly matched the condition of his mental state.

The operation must have been simple. One moment the children would have been standing at the corner waiting for the school bus. The next moment a black limousine from the motor pool downstairs would have pulled up, and two men would have gotten out and hustled the children into the back seat.

The license plates identified the car as official. No one would have questioned the action. No one.

At this very moment his children were probably in some room in the Center. There was no logical reason for General Ganin to deny his request to see his children.

Zamyatin blanked that thought out of his mind as best he could the moment it occurred to him.

“Logic,” the general would say, “is nothing more than a panacea of the proletariat. Or more accurately, the tool by which the ruling class maintains the status quo.”

Every cause produces one or more effects. Every effect is the result of one or more causes.

The effect: The action order to kidnap Mahoney’s children and grandchildren was carried out. The cause: General Ganin’s override of Zamyatin’s request to kill the action order.

The effect: Zamyatin’s children were placed in protective custody. The cause: On an order from General Ganin. “We do not want the Mahoneys of the world to touch them.”

The effect: Zamyatin’s children were being held incommunicado from their father. The cause: Superficially, General Ganin’s orders. But why?

The effect was General Ganin’s order. But what was the cause of such an order? Zamyatin’s children were now safe from the Americans, but they were also being insulated from their own father.

Zamyatin turned and reached for the phone on his desk, but then withdrew his hand. Did he want to hear the reason, or did he already know?

For nearly thirty-five years he had worked for the State. Thirty-five years of convoluted logic ran through his brain.

Although the operation may be distasteful, the protection of the State transcends normal moral considerations.

No one had ever said that out loud. But surely, Zamyatin’s confused mind cried out, there were men who thought it. Who believed it.

If the State is not an entity in itself, but rather is made up of the individual, then immoral individual acts of definition reduce the State to an immoral condition.

“Morality as a measure of rightness or justice is just as naive a view as yours on conscience,” General Ganin would say.

Zamyatin laid his head down on his arms on the desk and wept: for the State, or actually his concept of the State; for the Komitet and what he had done and become in its name; and most of all for his and Mahoney’s children.

Late Tuesday Afternoon

A thin man in his early thirties wearing the uniform of an army major, showed the guard at the Vnukovo Official Airport administration building his identification and was allowed through.

Looking neither right nor left, the man strode down the long corridor into the airport security wing, and entered a door marked SECURITY ADMINISTRATOR.

Inside the plain office the Vnukovo Chief of Security, an army captain, was waiting, and he jumped up and came around from behind his desk, offering his hand.

“Comrade Major, we were expecting you.”

The major made no move to accept the man’s hand, and after an embarrassed moment, the captain indicated a chair.

“Won’t you sit down?”

“I will need free access to the control tower until Thursday, at which time I will need free access for myself as well as my aides.”

The security administrator, a large man with a pockmarked face, looked startled. “Major?”

“Is something in what I said not clear?”

“I don’t understand,” the captain said. He was clearly flustered. “I was told to expect you here for a security conference. You are providing an additional security detail for Thursday?”

“That is correct,” the major snapped.

The captain went around behind his desk but did not sit down. “Then, begging the Major’s pardon, I am the security administrator here. As I understand it you have been assigned to me.”

The major took two steps forward, yanked the telephone off the captain’s desk and thrust it at the man. “If you have the stupidity to challenge my orders, telephone your superiors for confirmation!”

The captain shrank back from the telephone, the tone of his voice suddenly placating. “I am sorry, Major, I didn’t mean to question your orders.”

“In that case notify your security detail. I wish to visit the control tower at this time.”

“Yessir,” the captain snapped, and he took the telephone from the major, dialed a number and a moment later spoke into the phone. “Major Boris Azarov has authorization to visit the tower. He’ll be up in a few minutes.”

The captain hung up the phone, then reached inside a desk drawer and withdrew a plastic security badge that he handed across the desk to the major. “When you leave the facility, drop this off at the main guard post. It will be there whenever you need it.”

“And my aides?”

“How many will there be?”

“Two.”

“Badges will be waiting for them at the main guard post Thursday morning.”

The major stared at the captain for a moment, then managed a very slight smile. “Your cooperation in this matter will not go unnoticed, Captain,” he said.

The captain beamed. He came around his desk and again held out his hand. “It is my pleasure, Comrade Major,” he said, but the major had turned and was out the door before the words were out of the captain’s mouth.

*   *   *

The major hurried down the corridor toward the heavy steel door at the control tower entrance which was guarded by two men both armed with automatic weapons. As he came closer, the two guards came to attention, and he could feel the sweat rolling down from his armpits.

It had been close in there with the security administrator. But the man was indeed stupid, his actions reflexive, not thought out.

A man in an army major’s uniform could not be lying. He had to be who he represented himself to be. Behavior other than that was unthinkable.

The guards at the steel door saluted when they saw the security badge the major had clipped to his tunic pocket and one of them opened the door.

“You may go directly up, Major,” the one holding the door said.

Without breaking stride he nodded at the men, went through the door and calmly took the stairs two at a time, the heels of his highly polished black boots ringing loudly on the metal treads.

At the top of the stairs, four stories above the ground level, was another metal door. A button was set in the door frame. The major took a deep breath and pushed the button. A moment later a man in an open-necked white shirt and light gray trousers opened the door.

“Come in, Major—we were told to expect you.”

The major entered the control tower and the man closed the door behind him.

“Will you require anything, Major?” the man asked.

The major did not turn around, instead he moved slowly forward to look out the large bay windows facing east, toward the official aircraft parking apron. “No,” he said. “Go back to your work. I’ll only be a minute.”

“As you wish, comrade,” the man said, and he went back to one of the radar consoles along the far wall.

Several other men in the large room had looked up from their radar scopes and glanced at the major, and then went back to their work.

The American Air Force One jet would land on the main east-west runway and then would taxi to the official parking apron directly below. The boarding steps would be placed in position, the door would open and the president of the United States would step out into the open.

The major took a package of cigarettes out of his breast pocket, lit one and inhaled deeply.

He stared out the windows for several minutes. It would be simple, he thought, studying the layout below. Almost too simple. He finally turned around, quickly surveyed the room and the men busy at their equipment, then moved toward the door, stopping long enough to put out his cigarette in an ashtray atop one of the equipment consoles.

“Will there be anything else, comrade?” the man in the white shirt asked, getting up from his console and coming across the room.

“Not at this moment, thank you,” the major said, and he left the control tower.

After the door was shut, the chief controller picked the half-smoked cigarette butt out of the ashtray and held it up so the others in the room could see it.

“The major has power. He shops at the exchange store. I’m sure he gave our captain a good time.”

The others laughed. “What kind of cigarette is it, Vladimir?” one of them asked.

“It is a Marlboro. American, I think.”