It was the Premier’s aide, Vasily. The call Deschin long dreaded had come.
Twenty minutes later he was fully dressed and hurrying in the darkness to a waiting sedan. The cultural minister rarely went out at such a late hour. When Uzykin saw Deschin’s grave expression he knew his destination was the Kremlin.
The black Chaika crossed Dzerzhinsky Square, accelerating beneath a latticework of cottonwoods into Karl Marx Prospekt, and headed west in the center lane reserved for vehicles of government officials.
The mature one-hundred-foot trees, planted by Stalin at Franklin D. Roosevelt’s suggestion, were already budding. Moscow’s streets would soon be dusted with snowy pookh, the tufts of silky fiber released by the female cottonwood.
Deschin sat glumly in the Chaika, wishing the problem he’d be facing could be eliminated as easily as the flammable pookh which, as every Moscow schoolchild knows, ignites at the touch of a match, and vanishes instantly in a brilliant flash.
The Chaika came out of Karl Marx Prospekt, crossed Gorkovo, and approached the Kremlin.
The bureaucratic citadel is a sixteenth-century walled fortress. Dark red brick, twenty feet thick in some places, stretches almost eight hundred meters between corners of an inverted trapezoid. Golden onion-shaped domes of four cathedrals swell above the crenellated walls, and countless towers spike skyward, the five tallest thrusting illuminated red stars aloft — into a heavy mist that diffused them.
The Chaika drove the length of the wall to the southwest corner, and entered the Kremlin through a gate at the base of the Borovitsky Tower. It continued up the steep hill, past the Great Kremlin Palace, and beneath the arch of the Council of Ministers Building, stopping inside the triangular courtyard.
Deschin entered via an ornate bronze door, walked beneath the gilded dome, and hurried down a long corridor to Premier Dmitri Kaparov’s apartment.
The Premier’s wife; aide, Vasily; and personal physician, along with Anatoly Chagin, head of GRU; and KGB Chief Sergei Tvardovskiy were gathered in the bedroom where the Soviet Premier lay near death.
A tangle of tubes and wires snaked from beneath the bedding to vital signs’ monitors and life-support systems. The ping of the EKG monitor alternated with the asthmatic hiss of the dialysis machine.
“When?” Deschin asked softly as he entered, his nostrils filling with the suffocating smell of illness.
The doctor turned from the equipment and shrugged.
“Morning, midday at the latest, Comrade Minister,” she said.
“Poor Dmitri,” his wife whispered sadly, adding almost apologetically, “he thought he had more time.”
“We all did,” Chagin said, his lips barely moving.
“Yes, you said three months,” Tvardovskiy growled, challenging the doctor.
“I know,” she replied. “I’m afraid the recent stress accelerated his deterioration.”
Deschin stepped to the bed and studied Kaparov’s ashen face, knowing his friend would not live to see SLOW BURN realized. He took the Premier’s hand and squeezed it gently. He was about to let go when Kaparov squeezed back — hard, as if he knew who it was. Deschin’s lips tightened in a thin smile. He turned to the Premier’s wife and hugged her. Then he crossed the room and led Vasily, Chagin, and Tvardovskiy down the corridor to the Premier’s office.
Vasily entered the ornate chamber last, closing the door. As the Premier’s longtime aide, matters of protocol, such as the arrangements for a state funeral, were his responsibility. “How shall I proceed?” he asked, careful not to direct the question to one man over the others.
“The procedures are clearly outlined in Article Twenty-seven, comrade,” Tvardovskiy snapped. “I suggest you follow them.”
“No,” said Deschin decisively. His title was minister of culture; but when it came to SLOW BURN, his power was second only to the Premier’s. “Things are going too well in Geneva. We can’t appear to be without leadership, now. We can’t lose our momentum.”
“I agree,” Tvardovskiy said. “But the Americans know of the Premier’s condition. They—”
“How? How do they know?” Deschin interrupted rhetorically. “Not by what they see.”
“Of course not,” Tvardovskiy replied impatiently. “The opposite has always been their only gauge.”
“Exactly,” Deschin said. “When they don’t see the Soviet Premier, they conclude he’s ill. But they have no way of determining degree. Tomorrow, he will have recovered sufficiently to leave the Kremlin. Find a military pensioner, preferably a senile one. Dress him in the Premier’s greatcoat and hat. Put the old fellow in his limousine and get it out in the streets — where their press people can see it.”
“Fine, Aleksei,” Tvardovskiy said. “But how long do you think we can—”
“—A day, two, ten,” Deschin snapped. “Every hour we give Pykonen before making the announcement brings the unchallenged nuclear superiority Comrade Dmitrievitch wanted for his people that much closer.”
“I’ll do it,” Chagin said. He turned and left before either of them could reply.
Tvardovskiy started after him.
“Sergei?” Deschin said sharply, waiting until he had paused and turned to face him before continuing. “You spoke to Zeitzev?”
Tvardovskiy winced, revealing the gold edges atop his incisors. He’d been hoping the subject wouldn’t come up.
“Giancarlo Borsa is an old friend. And heavily involved in Geneva,” Deschin went on tautly. He paused, then, with quiet outrage, asked, “How? How the hell did that happen?”
Tvardovskiy stared at him for a long moment while he brought his temper under control.
“It will be taken care of,” he said gravely. He was about to warn Deschin not to use that tone when it occurred to him, he might just be addressing the next Soviet Premier.
Aeroflot INT-237 from Rome had flown a northeasterly course across the Adriatic, Yugoslavia, Hungary, the eastern tip of Czechoslovakia into western Russia, and was on final approach to Sheremetyvo International Airport, in the desolate flatlands twenty-six miles northwest of Moscow.
“By the way,” Andrew said, taking Melanie’s hand, “in case you’ve heard those stories about Russian air traffic controllers looking at their screens through glasses of vodka—”
“I was just wondering about that,” she replied, amused rather than alarmed.
“No problem,” he concluded. “The ATC system here was manufactured by Churchco Electronics. It’s the best in the world.”
“Churchco—” she said, connecting his name to the conglomerate. “You’re—”
“Theodor Churcher’s my father,” he said, nodding. “As they say, I made my money the old-fashioned way—” he cut off the sentence, leaving the joke unfinished. It was the first time he had actually thought about inheriting the billion-dollar empire.
Sheremetyvo was a modern, efficiently run airport, and in minutes they had landed, deplaned, and cued for passport control. A young inspector with a sullen face and brown uniform processed Andrew’s travel documents, then began digging through his bag. He unzipped one of the pouches, removed an electric razor, and held it up.
“Is for what?”
“Shaving?” Andrew replied, making the motion over his face with his hand.
The inspector eyed him suspiciously, then shifted his eyes to the shaver, looking for a way to open it; finally he took a penknife from a pocket.
“Hold it,” Andrew said, concerned he would damage it. “I’ll do it, okay?” He took the shaver and popped off the rotary heads.
The inspector shook his head no, unsatisfied. “Where is cord?” he challenged.