“I’ve always thought that you led a very interesting life for a simple merchant, Mr. Ushenko. Now I see I was right.”
Banich replaced the glass he’d selected and turned toward the familiar voice. Colonel Valentin Soloviev stood poised in the doorway, holding a dossier in one hand. As always, the Russian soldier’s dress uniform looked freshly pressed. He was suddenly conscious of his own bedraggled, unshaven appearance.
Soloviev came in and closed the door.
“I don’t see why I’m being held prisoner like this, Colonel,” Banich protested automatically, thinking fast. What was Soloviev doing here? “All I did was help a poor woman who was being mugged.”
“Killing two French security agents in the process.” The Russian seemed amused. “And the woman turns out to be an American diplomat who is also suspected of being a spy. A curious coincidence, indeed. Almost impossible to believe, in fact.” His voice turned harsher. “But not so hard when one realizes exactly how you came to be in that particular place at that particular time.
“Let’s be honest with each other. There was no good reason for a man named Nikolai Ushenko to be in Gorky Park yesterday afternoon, or for such a man to interfere in what must have looked very much like an official arrest — not a ‘mugging.’” Soloviev smiled thinly. “But we both know there was a very good reason for an American CIA officer to be there, don’t we, Mr. Banich?”
Shit. He tried to brazen it out. “Who?”
“Don’t play games with me. Neither of us has any time to waste.” Soloviev opened the dossier he was carrying and tossed two black-and-white surveillance photos onto the table.
Banich looked down at them. Both showed him in a suit and tie, holding a drink in one hand. They must have been taken at one of the innumerable trade conferences he’d attended shortly after arriving in Moscow. Damn it.
Soloviev nodded. “Unless you just happen to have an exact double stationed at the American embassy, those pictures identify you as Alexander Banich — ostensibly a somewhat simpleminded deputy assistant economic attaché.”
The colonel shook his head in mock disappointment. “It seems that my secret-police colleagues at the FIS have been rather sloppy, Mr. Banich. Their file describes you as ‘a nonentity, an Ivy League drone, and a borderline alcoholic.’” He shrugged. “I must admit that your work has been brilliant. I suspected that the man I knew as Ushenko might be feeding confidential information back to Ukraine. But I never dreamed you were an American espionage agent.”
Banich felt dizzy. He looked up sharply, suddenly tired of Soloviev’s cat-and-mouse game. “If you’re so goddamned sure of that, Colonel, where’s the FIS? Why aren’t they here to haul me away?”
The other man eyed him grimly. “For two very good reasons, Mr. Banich. First, they don’t know what I know about your identity. And second, they don’t yet know anything about what happened in Gorky Park yesterday afternoon.”
“What?” Banich couldn’t conceal his surprise. “Why not?”
“Because I am not the only Russian of rank opposed to this illegal regime and its insane policies, Mr. Banich. General Pikhoia is another.”
The American whistled silently. Major General Konstantin Pikhoia commanded the whole Moscow militia force. No wonder the word about Gorky Park hadn’t leaked yet. He found himself reappraising Soloviev. Allies that highly placed put the colonel in a very different context. Not as a lone wolf, after all, but instead as the point man for an opposition movement operating covertly inside Kaminov’s martial law government itself. Was such a thing possible?
Yes, he judged. The marshal’s purges had been directed primarily at the most outspoken supporters of democratic ideals in the military and the ministries. Officers and officials who were more discreet or more farsighted could easily have clung to their posts with an outward show of loyalty to Russia’s new rulers. Men like Soloviev.
Banich nodded. Playing that kind of double game must be familiar to those who had risen in rank during the old Soviet Union’s last days. For the first time he began to see a way out of the deadly box he’d put Erin and the others inside. Soloviev, Pikhoia, and their compatriots would have every incentive to hush this whole affair up. But then an unpleasant thought struck him. “What about the French? By now they must be back in their embassy screaming at the top of their lungs to anyone who’ll listen. And once the FIS starts asking pointed questions, both you and the general are going to be sitting pretty far out on a damned thin limb.”
Soloviev’s pale blue eyes grew cold. “I can assure you that those three gentlemen of the DGSE will not be shouting to anyone… ever.”
Oh. Banich’s estimation of the man in front of him as one ruthless bastard went up another notch. He gave in to a sudden impulse to needle the other man. “You don’t fool around very much, do you, Colonel? Someone gets in your way and bang, they’re dead.”
“Perhaps.” The Russian’s thin-lipped mouth tightened. “But then the same could probably be said of you, couldn’t it, Mr. Banich?”
Maybe so, Banich admitted to himself, remembering the two men he’d killed while trying to rescue Erin.
Soloviev shook his head in abrupt exasperation. “All of this is beside the point, however. We face much larger problems, you and I.” He pulled a chair out from the table and waved Banich toward another.
Somehow the Russian colonel looked older and wearier off his feet. “I’ve just come from an all-night negotiating session, Mr. Banich.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Kaminov has reached a final agreement with the French. Once he issues the go-ahead orders, my nation’s armed forces will cross into Poland. And our two countries will find themselves at war with each other within hours after that.”
This bad news, though expected, still hit Banich with sledgehammer force. If they were caught between two fires, the U.S., British, and Polish troops fighting in Poland were doomed. Russian intervention in the war would leave the U.S. policymakers with just two unpalatable options. Accept defeat and a Europe forcibly united under a hostile banner. Or prepare for a prolonged war that would make World War II look like a child’s tea party.
Banich swallowed hard, staring blindly down at the table in front of him. “It’ll be a goddamned bloodbath.”
Soloviev nodded somberly. “Yes, it will be. If we allow it to happen.”
Puzzled, Banich stared back at him. “What exactly do you mean by that, Colonel?”
The Russian’s eyes grew even colder. “The orders that will commit my country to this conflict have not yet been issued. In fact, they cannot be issued until Marshal Kaminov and the other members of the Military Council arrive back in Moscow and regain their access to the Defense Ministry’s secure-communications channels. Therefore, I believe the equation is simple: if we stop those orders from being given, we can stop this war before it escalates.”
Prevent Kaminov from contacting his field commanders? How on earth did Soloviev propose… The answer flashed into his mind. In that instant, the whole world seemed to narrow down to the Russian colonel’s grim face. “Are you serious?”
Soloviev nodded. When he spoke, his voice was flat, utterly without emotion. “Deadly serious, Mr. Banich.”
Flanked by armed guards, Erin McKenna followed the paunchy militia sergeant who had ushered her out of her cell. She kept her head held high. She didn’t want to give these people the satisfaction of seeing her frightened or distressed in any way. But she couldn’t stop the panic welling up inside as she contemplated the next few hours. Alex Banich had said she wasn’t ready to take prolonged torture and interrogation, and he was right. Oddly enough, though, she found the prospect of being forced to betray Soloviev and her friends and colleagues far more horrifying than the physical pain and mental anguish she expected to suffer.