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She slowly nodded.
“Can you tell me?”
She turned to leave.
“Not here.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LAKE BAIKAL
7:50 P.M.
Zorin returned to the dacha and immediately headed into the main house. He’d been told on arrival that the American, Malone, had been captured. So he took his time removing his coat and gloves. He’d be glad to leave this weather behind. Summer was so fleeting in this part of the world, and he longed for a steady warm breeze. What the next few days held for him was hard to say. All that he could hope for was that his recollections were correct, his research accurate, his planning thorough, and his resolve intact. He’d been idle far too long and he liked the feeling of being on the move again. Everything about him was primed and ready. Only this new wrinkle—the presence of an American—had proved unexpected.
Yet even that excited him.
He passed through the great room with its high ceiling and unobstructed views of the frozen lake. A welcomed fire burned in the hearth. He found the staircase to the basement and descended to where Malone stood handcuffed to a thick iron pipe. Light came from bare bulbs wrapped in iron cages that cut sharply etched shadows. The American’s coat had been removed, as had apparently a weapon since a shoulder holster hung empty.
“You killed two of my men,” he said.
Malone shrugged. “That’s what happens when you start shooting at someone.”
“Why are you here?”
“To find the old man, Belchenko, who clearly doesn’t want to be found. My mistake.”
“And two of my men are dead.”
“Whom you sent to kill me.”
“Are you a spy?”
“I’m a bookseller.”
He chuckled. “You told me on the radio that you are Cotton Malone. Where did you acquire such a name? Cotton.”
“It’s a long story, but since we have the time I’d be glad to tell you.”
“I have to leave.”
“Are you one of the Red Guard?”
This man was informed. “I served my country until the day my country dissolved.”
“And then you ended up here—in the middle of nowhere.”
“I came on my own, with others who believed as I did. We founded this place and have lived here peacefully for a long time. We have bothered no one, yet the government feels a need to spy on us.”
“I imagine millions of dead, innocent people would have said the same thing about the USSR.”
“I suppose they might. We did have a tendency to overdo things.”
Which seemed an understatement. Torture and death had been Soviet mainstays. He and every other KGB officer had been trained in their subtleties. Millions had indeed perished. When he first started with the KGB pain and violence had been its main tools of persuasion. He’d been trained extensively in how to twist their levels until the mind screamed. Then drugs became the more common tool to open closed mouths. After that, psychological tricks took over. Toward the end, physical stress rose in popularity. He’d read all about the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Just a fancy way to say torture. Which he, personally, didn’t mind. But judging by the look of this American—who appeared strong and confident—breaking him would take effort.
And he simply didn’t have the time.
“America has no idea what it meant to be Soviet,” he said. “Seventy-five million of us died in the 20th century, and no one gave a damn.”
“Most of whom were killed by either corrupt or stupid leaders. The Nazis were rank amateurs when it came to slaughtering people. You communists became the real pros. What were you, KGB?”
He nodded. “I led a spetsnaz unit, preparing for war with the United States.”
Which he liked saying.
“That’s all over now,” Malone said.
“Maybe not.”
He clearly remembered that horrible August day in 1991, watching from KGB headquarters as a mob stormed Lubyanka Square, spray-painting HANGMAN, BUTCHER, and swastikas across the building. They’d shaken their fists and cursed, then tried to topple Dzerzhinsky’s statue but could not bring the Iron Felix down. Finally a crane arrived and completed the task, leaving only a bare pedestal. Not a single person that day feared any retribution for desecrating the memory of the once feared head of the state police.
Their message came loud and clear.
Your time is over.
He recalled the paralyzing horror that had gripped him. The shouts, requests for calm, then a cacophony of sirens and chaos. For the first time in his life he had felt fear, that chilly sliver in the small of his back, something he’d made a career out of instilling in others. The incomprehensible possibilities in the future had sent a wave of doubt surging through his body that finally settled at his bladder, which voided. He’d stood at the window, watching below, feeling the shame of warm urine saturating his crouch and pant legs.
An awful moment.
Which he’d never described to anyone.
“Reagan was quite clever,” he said. “Much more so than Gorbachev. He set out to destroy us, and he accomplished the task.”
Thank goodness Americans believed in openness. Democracy thrived on a clash of ideas, a tolerance of viewpoints, and robust debate. Its proponents foolishly believed that truth would always prevail and the people were its best arbiter. The widest circulation of information was deemed good. Many American documents, once classified, had come to light thanks simply to the passage of time. Books had been written, which he’d read, that hinted at how the White House and the Vatican had worked together to bring Moscow to its knees. But where those books dealt only in speculation and conjecture, he knew things those authors did not. There had indeed been a plan, a conspiracy, a concerted effort to undermine the Soviet Union.
And it had worked.
He even knew its name.
Forward Pass.
“America has no idea the chaos it caused,” he said. “When you destroyed the Soviet political system all order ended, which allowed the criminals to take over. Everything I, and so many others, spent a lifetime defending disappeared. And did you give a damn?” He did not wait for a reply. “No one gave a damn. We were left on our own to wallow in failure.” He pointed a finger. “So we owe America. And I think it is time we repay that debt.”
It felt good to say those words. They’d lingered too long in the pit of his stomach. And though he was now in his sixties, the lessons learned from his youth had never been forgotten. In fact, those memories had helped sustain him for the past twenty-plus years. From this point on his actions would come swift and natural with no hesitation. There’d be no rationalization or quarrels of conscience.
Just results.
And he’d liked the freshness of that freedom.
Lately, he’d thought more and more about his time at the infantry academy, where before he became a spy he’d learned to be a soldier. His favorite instructor, a lieutenant colonel, had hammered into all of his students that the United States was glavny protivnik, the main adversary.
“To forget that will mean your death.”
And he hadn’t forgotten.
Many times in his career he’d been called upon to kill a foreign asset and, each time, he’d accomplished the task.
“Hate your neighbors, your classmates, even your friends, but never your fellow soldier. Remember, when the war comes all of you will have a common enemy. You must know and respect that enemy. Learn how America is organized. How it works. Know its strengths and weaknesses, and America makes that easy. They air their grievances to the world. Pay attention to them.”
And that war came.
But not from the main adversary he’d imagined. Instead, the battles had been fought with stealth, few even realizing they were being waged. Two generals, Reagan and the cursed Polish pope, had led the armies. Their weapons had not been bullets or bombs. Rather God, morality, and money had combined to pin the Soviet
Union into a political and economic corner from which it could not emerge.
No one saw it coming—until it was far too late.
Communists must thoroughly, carefully, attentively, and skillfully exploit every fissure, however small, among their enemies.
Lenin’s words from the 1920s, which the United States of America had followed with consummate skill.
Now it was his turn to follow that lead.
