“Moscow is too small a city to take the risk. I’ve learned that already in my career. I do not intend to make the same mistake twice.”
“All the same,” said White, “if we are in possession of the means to destroy America, it seems foolish not to employ it before the Americans have time to formulate a more active response.”
“At least a larger demonstration,” suggested Green.
“Comrade Green,” Raskowski started, groping for the advantage, “you have already informed me that your override of the Omsk communications facility cannot take place for at least four more days. At that time the Russian people will be informed of the ultimatum the true leadership of our country has issued the United States. With that time frame in mind, what could we possibly gain from escalating matters now? I would suggest, then, that you, all of us, remain concerned purely with our own individual roles. Time can only work for us. The more we give the U.S., the more she will realize her hopelessness. If she accedes to our demands, then her surrender will pave the way for our ascension to power. If she does not and we are forced to destroy her, the Soviet Union will be left as the lone superpower, and the present impotent leadership will have no choice but to abdicate to us.”
For a few moments only breathing emerged from the speakers. Finally Red spoke again.
“When do you plan to inform us of the precise timetable for the final stage?”
“In two days. Three at most.”
“I can accept that,” Red told him.
“And I.”
“And I.”
Raskowski smiled, relaxed now. “Then I believe our business for today is concluded, comrades. I will contact you again soon through the usual channels. Das Zvedanya.”
Chapter 19
“Banna es su sei! Banna es su sei!”
Natalya Tomachenko shoved through the crowd of young Thai children who continued to plead for money with their hands outstretched. She had arrived in Bangkok yesterday afternoon and checked into the Siam Intercontinental Hotel to await contact from Raskowski’s underling. His name was Katlov and the intelligence reports she had read before leaving Moscow had no trace of him. He would be checking for a certain name daily in the hotel register, and when it appeared a letter would soon arrive with further instructions for her.
True to his word, it had arrived just one hour before, instructing her to wear a blue hat and to walk from her hotel to Taa Phra Chan Pier and then take a boat to the Thonburi Floating Market. She had obtained the hat from a shop in the hotel and set straight out into the hot and humid Bangkok day. Thunderstorms were in the forecast. She loved the city for its vitality and pace, and also for the way it clung to ancient traditions and manners. The streets were crowded but locals generally moved aside to let tourists pass.
As she walked Natalya’s thoughts turned to Blaine McCracken. She was attracted to him mostly out of admiration for his personal honor. Natalya knew what he had been through, knew what his government had done to him. In a sense it was not much different from what her government had done to her. The difference was that in America McCracken had found room to slide out. It was Natalya’s lot to have to make her own room.
Even before he and his former employers parted company, though, McCracken’s career had been marked by a relentless individualism. In one respect he was a mercenary, a hired killer. Yet in another he was a liberator, a man who stood for something. Somehow these two opposites had meshed within him, creating a man of incredible complexities who was quite comfortable with himself.
His physical appearance personified this. Not handsome, maybe not even good-looking, but still attractive and sensually appealing. He didn’t try to be anything and ended up being much. Natalya could admit only to herself that Friday night she wanted more than anything to invite him to her bed. But she hadn’t let herself. It would have revealed more of herself than she was prepared to. Her shields were her greatest resource. In a world of men, she needed them always. She was an outsider in their world, tolerated by her superiors and feared by her enemies who inevitably underestimated her. But Blaine McCracken hadn’t tried to estimate her at all. His only personal comment stung her for the insight he possessed, as if he could look into her soul and read its message.
What have they got on you, Natalya?
She hadn’t told him because as much as it hurt to think about it, it would hurt even more to discuss. She had come from a family of soldiers, heroes whose coffins were weighed down by many medals. Her father had been the lone exception, an outspoken professor of philosophy whose frustration mounted with each book that was refused publication in the Soviet Union. For a time Natalya could barely tolerate him herself, considering him an embarrassment to the State. It had been a pair of uncles who had secured her appointment for her, one of the conditions being that she renounce her father, which she did willingly and with a minimum of guilt.
The guilt came later, for he never disowned her, respecting her choice as she had never respected his. The early years of her work brought them closer, as she rose through the ranks and saw increasingly that the opinions that had branded him an outcast were justified. She had just had her request for reassignment out of the field accepted when her father was sentenced to a gulag, and her KGB superior quickly made it plain that his only hope for a pardon lay in her agreeing to continue to work on “wet” affairs, the wettest in fact. They promised her just one mission would do the job and she agreed. Her father, they said, would be waiting at home when she returned.
Natalya could barely get her key into the door, she was so excited. At last they would have time together to make up for the lost years. When the door swung free her eyes fell on her KGB control, seated in any easy chair flanked by a pair of his mindless henchmen.
“My father,” she said flatly.
“Some legal problems,” came his businesslike response. “Nothing to concern yourself with. The paperwork tends to be slow in these matters. In the interim we have another mission which you might want to consider. Not part of the deal of course, merely a show of good faith on your part.”
The control didn’t elaborate; he didn’t have to. His message was clear. She resisted, and he kindly offered to let her visit her father. In three short months he had aged a dozen years. But still he bore her no ill feeling. She promised him he would soon be out without telling him that to assure his release she had sold herself to the forces he hated most.
At the end of her next mission, she was greeted with the news that he had, in fact, been released. She was taken straight to him, but not to his home of thirty years near the university. More technicalities, her control explained, which led to his being placed in a small guarded flat in Gorky. The implication was clear. A return to the university could come only after she completed yet another mission. That was it. They had her. Then, after two further missions, when he was finally allowed to return to teaching in a much lower position, the news came that he had progressive heart disease and only a visa to the United States could save his life. Just one more mission and he’ll have it, her control had told her three missions back.
Well, this was the mission that would finally win her father that visa. If she could add a few years to his life, perhaps it would make up for the years they had lost together. Natalya had become a child of the State instead of her father. She had realized too late the bitter lesson that the State was a loveless parent that cared for its children only as far as those children could provide for it. But Natalya was providing only for herself now. This time she would complete the mission with the means to finally end their extortion. Her conversations with the General Secretary had been recorded, and she would use them against him unless he cooperated. Eventually this might mean her death, but she owed it to her father to try.