“Enlighten me,” Maggie said, eyes rolling.
“Go visit a hospital. See the newborns. See the kids in the critical wards. See the folks dying there. See all the visitors and feel all that emotion. Maybe that’ll hot-wire your brain again.”
Maggie frowned. “You can both keep your ideas to yourself. In fact—” She was interrupted by four quick buzzes in her clutch; a small radio disguised as a makeup case was there, and someone had keyed in a silent, vibrating code. Beria is in the room.
Both Maggie and Frank looked toward the back door of the room, where Danny was lounging by the bar, having traded in his fake proletariat clothing for his own real U.S. Navy uniform, even though he was still acting, this time as America’s fake deputy naval attaché to the U.S.S.R. Danny nodded forward, and they turned to see Beria enter the room, now wearing a Western-style suit. Maggie was amazed at how much the Georgian had gained weight and lost hair in the less than four short years since they’d met on the battlefield, and wondered just how much juggling Stalin’s declining health had taken a toll on the man.
One way to find out.
“I’m gonna go say hi,” she said to Frank. “Coming?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” he replied, tightness and tension softly radiating from him. Frank was coiled, ready for anything. She’d felt it a hundred times before from him; it was an emotional state peculiar to only a handful of people — people who took life-and-death risks for a living.
They walked across the hall, drinks in hand, and then waited their turn as Beria made his way through the crowd, glad-handing the diplomats and party officials present, his face seamlessly shifting from practiced smile to practiced somberness. His emotional state was one of impatience and, depending on his conversation partner, boredom or contempt, with barely a few sparks of interest or favor.
Then Beria laid eyes on them, and she felt a tendril of fear from him that was quickly quashed down. Good.
Beria walked over and extended his hand to Frank. “Ah! Mr. Lodge, if I recall? So kind of you to come. I am pleased America sent individuals so… accomplished… as yourselves to pay your country’s respects to our great leader.”
Frank took Beria’s hand and shook it perfunctorily. “It’s been a while, Comrade Deputy Premier,” he said quietly. “I haven’t forgotten your hospitality from before.”
Beria smiled; the “hospitality” Frank mentioned was imprisonment and a battery of tests at Beria’s secret base in Kazakhstan, where the Georgian had tried to turn Frank and two other Variants against the United States — then attempted to drop an A-bomb on them when that had failed.
“I should hope you would be my guest again very soon, Mr. Lodge,” Beria said before turning to Maggie. “And… my dear, I’m sorry, we met but only briefly, and I do not remember your name. Though you certainly made an impression then.”
Maggie smiled — a genuine smile this time. She was part of the rescue mission to get Frank and the others back, and her “impression” on Beria had been putting the holy fear of God in him, prompting him to flee in terror. “Maggie Lodge, Comrade,” she replied, using her false married name, “and as you said, I hope for the opportunity to make an impression again soon. Perhaps even now?”
She thrilled at the new thread of terror that whipped around Beria’s head, but resisted the urge to seize it, to pull, to send nightmares into Beria’s mind and turn him into a puddle of terror, spit, and piss on the floor. For his part, the Russian took a little longer to clamp down on the fear again. “Are you now part of the embassy here, Mr. and Mrs. Lodge? Shall we be seeing more of you in the future?”
Frank smiled. “I think that depends on how things go here,” he replied, venom just barely concealed under the gentle cadence of his voice. “Obviously, the United States is keenly interested in a peaceful transition within the Soviet Union, now under new leadership, with whom we might work toward more peaceful coexistence. Should that occur, our talents would be better used elsewhere, no doubt.”
In other words, we’re onto you, asshole, Maggie thought.
“I see,” Beria said, his facade slipping slightly. “Well, then. We can only hope for such fine goals. Until then.” And with that, Beria turned his back and started working the rest of the crowd — pausing only to whisper something to an aide, who shot both Frank and Maggie a brief but hardened look.
“And now we’re tailed,” Frank said simply. “Time to go.”
Maggie reached into her clutch and tapped her makeup case three times—we’re tailed, we’re leaving. The two of them then sauntered slowly toward the exit, making sure they talked to as many diplomats and Party officials as possible — but not Danny or any other Americans in the room. It took them an hour just to get to the coat check.
After that, they got in a cab, which was dutifully followed. So they went to an early afternoon tea at the Hotel Budapest, then took another cab to the Hermitage Garden, where they took a stroll and made a point to interact with as many people as possible. Frank felt bad about that — the old pensioner, the young couple with a couple of cherub-faced kids, the vendor selling hot tea from a cart — they’d all be taken to one of the MGB’s many offices hidden around Moscow, to be interrogated as to what the Americans said and did. Their backgrounds would be checked for subversions; God forbid any of them had any actual opinions that differed from the Communist Party line. Frank’s stomach sank as he thought of those kids never seeing their parents again because their grandpa was the old tsar’s gardener or something. It was a necessary evil, one he would add to the litany he’d committed over the past five years.
“Don’t feel bad,” Maggie said, her breath fogging in the cold. “They’ll be fine.”
Frank tamped down on the surge of anger that rose inside him. She didn’t know that, and it was getting hard to tell just how much her detachment had grown. It had started as a defense mechanism against all the emotions thrown at her, but maybe she genuinely didn’t care anymore. And while he felt spied on, he also knew she was using her Enhancement to keep a sharp lookout for their tails — ten yards behind them, sauntering slowly through the gardens, only the evergreen topiaries offering anything to really look at. The fact that she had picked up on his state of mind was part of the package.
But still. “I’m gonna start using more null generators on you,” Frank groused. The null generators were a refinement of an Enhancement displayed by a Russian Variant early in their careers: creating a field in which no other Enhancement worked. Rose Stevens, MAJESTIC-12’s resident genius and technology expert — a Variant herself, with an Enhanced intellect — had taken that one person’s ability and concocted a way to transfer the power into devices. The gadgets weren’t perfect; after years of tinkering, they still had a deleterious effect on Variants — aside from stripping them of their abilities, they also contributed to cancer if used long enough. But there was no better way for mere mortals to keep Variants in check.
Maggie, however, was having none of it. “Don’t you fucking dare,” she hissed between gritted teeth. “I’ll gut you in your sleep.”
Maggie was one of the most effective combatants MAJESTIC-12 had. If it weren’t for the lifetimes of combat experience in Frank’s head, she could probably take him wide awake if she worked hard enough. But the anger was surprising. “Easy, champ. It was a joke. Don’t you shut it off now and then? I do. If the voices are particularly rambunctious, I’ll flip on a generator for a few hours just to get some peace and quiet.”