Danny opened the room to find everything neat and tidy — Frank’s military background had never left the man. There was no sign of anything amiss. Dashing downstairs, Danny ordered everyone to assemble, and to account for every bit of equipment and intel they had.
Fifteen minutes after that, Danny and Sorensen were out the door, heading for the car. He knew where Frank was going, and it was practically suicide.
The Lubyanka Building stood like a silent guard over its namesake square in the cold Moscow evening, poorly lit and imposing. Headquarters of the MGB and the seat of Beria’s power, the running joke was that the massive yet squat structure was, in fact, the tallest building in Moscow — because so many people could see Siberia’s prison camps from its basement cells. Its neo-Baroque facade, with pillars and all kinds of architectural flourishes, stood out amongst the brutalist buildings going up around Moscow, a grand old haunted house amid the city. Listen closely, and one could imagine the screams coming from the basement.
Frank would be the first to admit he wasn’t the most imaginative guy, but as he flashed his falsified MGB papers and walked into the building, he couldn’t help but feel a bit like Daniel in the lion’s den. How’d that Bible story go again?
Daniel was condemned to die by being thrown into a pit of lions, but an angel came and saved him, came the voice of Ibrahim, a Turkish scholar who had been with Frank for several years now.
I thought the lions ate one of Daniel’s accusers instead, said Jan, an Icelandic fisherman.
Doesn’t matter. Nobody comes out of this den, added one of the Russians Maggie had killed in the park last month. Frank still hadn’t sorted out all their names. You’re going to die. The office is on the third floor. And you really should’ve brought a null generator.
“Everybody shut the fuck up,” Frank muttered under his breath as he straightened his stolen MGB uniform and made his way up the main stairs, throwing back salutes from the minor officers stuck with night duty. Yes, he should’ve brought a null-field generator, but they were valuable and expensive and, frankly, he’d done enough damage to the team without risking one of their key operational advantages.
The Russian — Boris? Andrei? — led him to the end of a hallway and a corner office, the anteroom of which looked far too ornate. A rather attractive young woman in an MGB uniform looked up from her reading and regarded him with a cocked eyebrow. “Yes?”
“Here to see Comrade Beria,” Frank said.
Her look grew more quizzical. “Is he expecting you?”
“No, Comrade,” Frank replied with a smile. “You may tell him that the operative codenamed DOMIK is here.”
The woman looked ready to send him packing, but eyed the insignia on his uniform and thought twice about it, instead picking up one of the three phones on her desk and pressing a button. “I am sorry… yes… there is an officer here to see you… he says he is an operative, code name DOMIK… yes, he is, in fact… yes… very well.”
With a look of surprise, the woman hung up the phone. “Are you armed, Comrade?”
Frank held up his arms. “No, Comrade. Do you wish to check?”
The woman came around and efficiently frisked Frank, then nodded. “Go in.”
Frank opened one of the two heavy wooden double doors behind the woman’s desk and entered an even more ornate corner office, brimming with fancy moldings, gold-paint trim, heavy red curtains, and a glittering chandelier. A pair of couches—late nineteenth century, very expensive, came an unwanted critique — flanked a coffee table in the center of the room, and beyond that was a massive carved mahogany desk with a silver tea service on one side and four phones on the other.
Lavrentiy Beria looked up and smiled. “Comrade DOMIK. It took me a moment, but that is very clever,” the man said in English.
Frank closed the door behind him and slowly walked toward the desk. “I was hoping you’d get the translation right. I don’t really know how good your English is.”
“Good enough to know what a ‘lodge’ is.” Beria waved toward a crystal decanter on the coffee table. “Drink?”
“No, thanks. I’m not here to be social.” Frank stopped about three feet from the desk, heeding several voices in his head telling him the right distance necessary to dodge one of Beria’s fiery assaults, should things come to that.
Beria regarded him for a long moment, leaning back in his leather chair with his fingers pressed together — a perfect look for a matinee villain — before switching to Russian. “I did not know you had returned to the Soviet Union, Mr. Lodge. Am I to assume you are responsible for the recent attack on my NKVD men? And the loss of three of my Champions?”
Frank smirked, but replied in his perfect Russian. “That what you’re calling them now? I thought you guys used ‘Empowered’ instead.”
“Answer the question.” Beria’s expression didn’t change, but his voice was quickly layered with icy menace.
A pair of voices rose out of the jumble in Frank’s mind, both agreeing that Beria was just as much on edge as Frank was. Small comfort. “Your people are fine. They’re taking a little break, getting away from it all. You know how it is. Stressful times.”
“I was surprised at the fate of the others, Comrade Lodge. I didn’t think you Americans had it in you,” Beria said, slowly reaching over to pour himself a cup of tea from the small samovar on the desk. “Efficient. Cruel, but efficient. Of course, we knew you Americans had sent your ‘Variants’ here, but we had assumed your target would have been the Behkterev Institute. That is, of course, the heart of our operation, just as you once had yours at that base in the desert in… Nevada, I believe the province is called.”
“State,” Frank corrected.
“State. Of course. United States,” Beria said with a smile. “And so we began to move our resources here to Moscow. That was our mistake, and my men paid for it. The murder of our men has accelerated our timetable. The Champions may introduce themselves to the Party ahead of schedule.”
“That could happen even earlier than you’d like,” Frank said, taking a seat on one of the couches. “They could end up parked in front of Malenkov’s dacha tomorrow. Or Khrushchev’s. With a little note explaining just who they are and what they can do — and who they answer to.”
Beria chuckled. “Oh, Comrade Lodge. Do you think they are so poorly trained as that? They will keep their abilities to themselves, swear fealty to whomever they must, blend back into society, even go to Siberia and work in the camps until the time is right. None of my Politburo colleagues would even begin to entertain such a fanciful story.”
“I’m not your comrade,” Frank said, quietly but with a sharpness of his own. “I came to deal.”
Beria stood with his teacup and walked around his desk toward Frank. “Ah, now I understand. Of course.” He took a seat opposite Frank. “You want to trade.”
“One for one,” Frank said. “I’ll even let you pick. Whichever ‘Champion’ you want in exchange for ours.”
“I didn’t know you were so sentimental,” Beria said. “But then, Margaret has a certain proletarian beauty to her, rather like our beautiful Russian peasant women.”
“We look after our own,” Frank countered. “Do you?”
Beria shook his head and smiled, a serpent’s grin merely in need of a forked tongue. “I very much care for my own, Mister Lodge. But I think we define things differently. Margaret is one of my own. You are one of my own. All of us, whether you call them Variants or Empowered or Champions of the Proletariat — we are one people. The sooner you realize this, the sooner you can embrace your gifts and take your proper place in the world.”