“I’m developing an immunity to grime.”
“Everyone understand what we’re doing? Any last questions? Let’s get our gear and be on our way.”
“Whoa,” Faith said. “What if something goes wrong?”
“Improvise and be glad your mama is on her knees for us.” Summer snapped the lid on the polish and dropped it onto the floorboard. He opened the car door and hunched down behind it. Faith and Zara followed him.
Zara opened the trunk and handed Faith one of the rucksacks her mother had loaned them. “I never intended to bring you into anything like this. I’m so sorry.”
Summer grabbed the pack stuffed with C-4 and two landmines and slung it over his shoulder. “It’s now nine forty-three. Comrade, I’ll give you a couple of minutes to park the car and talk to the guards. Be out of there by ten twenty-five at the absolute latest. I’ll pull the pin then, and it’ll go off within seven to fifteen minutes, give or take-and I can’t emphasize enough how inexact this is. I did my best to whittle away half of the lead strip, but who knows exactly how long the mines will take to arm.”
“Understood.”
“I trust you have your little tape recorder and spy camera ready?” Summer said.
“Don’t worry. We’ll have our evidence. You’re more likely than I am to run into a firefight, so you take the extra magazine,” Zara whispered as she slid into the driver’s seat.
“Thanks. One more thing,” Summer said, crouching beside the car. “Make sure you leave the car unlocked and the keys under the driver’s floor mat. Not that we plan on going anywhere without you, but just in case your timing’s off.” He winked at Zara.
Summer took Faith’s hand as Zara drove away. “You doing okay, Faith? You up to this?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen your fireworks.” She looked at him from the corner of her eye and smiled.
They sat down on the ground behind the burnt-out dacha and waited. Summer didn’t take his eyes off his watch. “So what do you think Mama Whitney was doing with that Stasi general?”
“I’m still trying to figure it out. It doesn’t add up. Ever since I found out Daddy’s alive, I’ve assumed he was captive in the Soviet Union, but it could be he’s in Germany. I was thinking maybe Mama was forced to sleep with Kosyk as part of a deal to get Daddy released from an East German prison, maybe even Bautzen.”
“I can’t remember the last time I heard you empathize with your mother. At least some good’s coming out of all of this.” He nodded and looked up from his watch. “It’s time. Stay put. I’ll be back in five.” He kissed her on the top of the head and disappeared into the darkness.
As the cool moisture seeped through her coveralls and underwear, she knew she had to summon the same fortitude as Summer, but she also knew him well enough to sense it wasn’t real. He was scared and that unnerved her.
Her watch’s minute hand had hardly moved since Summer left, though it felt like he had been gone too long. She pressed her eyes shut and strained to listen for Zara’s voice, but only heard the laughter from the dacha and owl screeches from the woods. A breeze picked up and she opened her eyes. Nine fifty-two. Where the hell is he?
Summer suddenly slipped beside her. “Ready, honey?”
“You’re not going to need the night-vision thing are you? Can you at least leave it with me? I’ll go crazy here if I have to wait for you even longer next time. At least with it I could be a lookout for you after I’m done with my minefield.”
“You might as well take it because it’s not going to do me any good under the house. Just keep low.” He unzipped a pocket, handed her the monocular and then looked into her eyes. “Faith, you know I love you, don’t you?” He picked up the backpack and held open the strap for her.
Faith turned her back to him, put on the pack and paused. She swirled around and kissed him on the lips, smearing the shoe polish between their faces. She pulled away from him, unsure whether she dared tamper with the past, particularly at a time when it was being rewritten. “Be careful. I don’t want anything happening to you.”
“Same here. Remember to keep low and watch the time.” He kissed her on the cheek and crept away toward the dacha.
CHAPTER FIFTY
In Germany you can’t have a revolution
because you would have to step on the lawns.
– STALIN
GENERAL STUKOI’S DACHA
A FEW MINUTES EARLIER, 9:28 P.M.
Even as Kosyk walked up the driveway of the dacha, he could hear drunken laughter. Tonight they should be reviewing plans and contingencies, checking and rechecking all that was so meticulously prepared, but he knew the drunkards hadn’t even agreed yet which of them was going to run the country. He went inside. As expected, the Russians were swilling vodka and gorging themselves on caviar. Even Titov’s protégé from the Berlin residency, Resnick, was sauced.
“Sit, sit.” Stukoi poured Kosyk a glass and stuck it in his hand. “Drink with us.”
“Tomorrow night, when we have something to celebrate.” Kosyk shook his head and pushed the glass back to Stukoi, but he wouldn’t take it.
“Tonight we have something to celebrate. We’re on the eve of the future.” Stukoi gulped vodka.
“I came to work, not to make merry. Is everything in place for tomorrow? Have you found FedEx and Otter?”
“Tomorrow will take care of itself. Enjoy yourself with your comrades tonight.” Stukoi slapped him on the back, jarring him enough to splash his drink all over him.
“We have a problem with Honecker,” Kosyk said, ignoring the indignation of the alcohol soaking into his clothes. “I just found out he’s making a move on West Berlin tonight. I tried to talk them out of it, get them to delay until after the putsch.”
General Zolotov waved his hand dismissively. “Let the Germans do whatever they do tonight. We clean up after them in the morning. You know what Stalin thought of you Germans.”
“You can still stop him from blundering into war.”
“You’ve done your duty. We’ll remember it.” Stukoi patted him on the back.
“You have to stop them tonight.” Kosyk lit a cigarette. “Honecker can no longer be trusted.”
“General Kosyk,” Zolotov said, slurring his words. “We heard you. You’re like a schoolboy tattling on your friends. I hated boys like you.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
9:49 P.M.
Zara flicked on the tape recorder hidden in a brooch, fingered the miniature camera concealed as a cigarette packet and then turned the doorknob, but the door was stuck, swollen from the humidity of recent showers. She butted it open with her shoulder and caught herself before she stumbled into the room. Half-empty bottles were scattered on every surface and a smoky blue haze clouded the dozen men, most of whose faces she recognized; the KGB was well represented. She had expected the Soviet Army generals, but was surprised by the GRU’s presence. She was more taken aback by the satisfied smile on Kosyk’s face when he saw her. She recognized the sated look of revenge.
“Zara Antonovna,” General Stukoi spoke with uncharacteristic familiarity. “Finally you join us.”
“Tovarishch Bogdanov,” General Zolotov said. “So you are the girl we have to thank for the restoration of order to our world. You make your father proud. You should have brought Anton Antonovich along. Someone get her a glass so we can drink to her.”
“I can’t take the glory. General Stukoi was the one who brought all of you together. And our German colleagues-”
“Our German comrades failed. Stukoi tells us they didn’t deliver the American explosives and thanks to them we have to hunt down the smuggler and the commando,” a KGB colonel said.