The gasps started up again in the audience. And Vladimir let it go on for a minute and then he began, again, his speech.
“Just over a year ago, Lev Volkhov informed his superiors here in Warwick, and their handlers in American intelligence, what he has been doing all of these years. That was when he became a traitor. He exposed the names of hundreds of your neighbors, your parents, your friends as double-agents. He gave them everything. The damage wrought by what he has done spirals outward, even now.
“I have spoken long enough. Now it is time for our new leader, our liberator Mikail Mikailivitch to speak to us.”
There was some applause and a lot of general noise, and a smattering of boos, and hisses, and even a few sounds of spitting as Vladimir bowed to Mikail and went to take a seat.
Mikail stood up and looked over the crowd. His eyes were piercing. While the crowd looked on and at one another and wondered whether anyone would tilt at windmills, or hoist themselves, you know, on their own petard, Mikail’s eyes gripped the whole town and everyone began to wait, in absolute silence, for whatever he had to say.
When he spoke, there were no interruptions. There was no applause, and no booing. The gymnasium, as a single entity, embraced the voice of Mikail with utter and soundless attention.
“Comrade Vladimir Nikitich has spoken well. I do not plan to wear out your patience, so I will speak only briefly.
“I am a young man. But I believe that actions speak louder than words.
“I know what you may think, but you are wrong. I do. I believe that actions… speak louder… than words.”
Full Stop.
“I think you all have some idea now as to what is happening. In here, and out there.
“As we gather here tonight, forces beyond your reckoning and your imaginations are gathering together to right many of the wrongs of the world. As you in Warwick now know, all of this part of the country is without power, and the Americans have announced that voting in Tuesday’s elections for the Presidency of America has been delayed in all of the areas affected by both Hurricane Sandy and the blizzard that we have all just suffered.
“Oh, how we all have suffered, and we have also persevered. But, because of the blizzard, all over America tonight, riots and disturbances have greeted this announcement about the election. Societal upheaval is underway. It is nothing that was not expected. But still, perhaps, not entirely to be welcomed, because it can be worked into the plan.
“Of course, we,” he indicated to the men standing at the front and the others with guns, “did not plan the Hurricane or the Nor’easter, but they could not have happened at a more opportune time for all of us. For well over two decades, for my whole life and for the entire lives of many of you young people here, our cultural and national brethren in Russia have been planning an event. Some say that the spark of the idea of that event was birthed as far back as 1960, and that very event, so long in the planning, is soon to come to pass.
“I will have more to say on that in the future, but I wanted to mention it because some of you might believe that this action of ours in taking the prison and then Warwick has been rash and unplanned. You might be saying to yourselves, ‘Hey, as soon as the Americans learn of it, they will raid this place and destroy all of us.’ But you would be wrong if you were to believe that. There is no help—or intervention—coming from the Americans, and if it does come, it will be destroyed.
“So tonight—and I hope you don’t mind if I just do away with all pretense—is all about the necessarily brutal assumption of power.”
He looked at the crowd. They looked at him.
“In several days, you will thank me. In the meantime I will expect you all to behave yourselves and to obey all commands and laws given to you, and to wait patiently for your liberation from this American Gulag. In the end, I am sure, you will thank me.
“But I am not a Pollyanna. I am not a sanguine dreamer just hoping that things will go right. Some of you, unhappily, feel affinity for your captors and you want to see America win. So old is the Stockholm syndrome… older than Stockholm. So to display to you my determined intention to maintain power and peace and security among us, we are going to have an execution. Right here. Right now.”
The crowd stirred, inhaling deeply for the first time, and there was conversation as each man or woman or child seemed to need to gain balance or understanding or perspective by whispering to a neighbor or parent or friend.
The word “execution”, in a general sense, hit Clay in much the manner that such a thing should hit a man, but the mental churnings and the snap-snap of puzzle pieces coming together in his brain prevented him from clearly analyzing just what the word meant to him.
“I apologize to those of you who are of a temperament that is too sensitive for what you are about to see. It is a necessary evil. The murders and deaths of thousands of your brethren and hometown friends have escaped your notice, but this death will not. Believe me, it is a necessitous act to insure order. We have brought before you tonight a few criminals, and one of them will now face execution as a sign of our determination.
“I am not a terrorist or a tyrant. I am a patriot, of sorts, for a nation I have never seen, and likely never will see. I, like you, am Russian. And so that we will not seem to be unfair, I have determined to let these two prisoners speak to you on their own behalf if they so wish.”
Vladimir walked over to Clay and lifted him up by his upper arm and pushed him forward toward the crowd. The people murmured and whispered, and he wondered what they were thinking. His heart pounded in his chest and his mouth was so dry that he could only swallow with difficulty.
Clay looked over and near the wall closest to the entrance he saw Vasily. The young man’s eyes were closed as if he were praying or wishing himself to be anywhere else in the world than here.
Clay’s legs moved only with reluctance, and he did not know if he could trust them for long.
“I have nothing to say,” Clay began, “other than that I am not a criminal. I have broken the laws of neither the United States nor Russia. I am an innocent man, just trying to get home to my old farm in upstate New York. In this, I am like you. I have been in a prison, and only hope to be free. I know nothing of Warwick, nothing of spies or intrigue or wars or traitors. I only want to go home.” He turned slowly and walked stiffly back to his seat.
Vladimir bent down to lift up Volkhov, but as he did, the old man began to rise to his feet under his own power. His head was still drooped over onto his chest as he began to rise, and Clay wondered whether he had been that way since he had first arrived—as if he were unconscious the whole time. As he stood to his feet, though, his head rose as well and, eyes ablaze, he stepped confidently forward before the people of his town.
“I don’t need to introduce myself. You all know me. Every one of you. I taught you, and I probably taught your parents. What young Vladimir has said about me is mostly true, and the things that are not true are things about which I will not quibble. All of my adult life I have been a Russian spy, and for most of that time I have lived in America. Now, for a short time, I have also been an American spy, living in a little piece of the world that, for all intents and purposes, is Russia.
“This place. Our place. Warwick.
“In reality, though, I have no country, for I am a citizen of nowhere.” He paused for a moment, and his legs seemed to grow unsteady. He attempted to wipe his face with his arm but was unsuccessful, the chains preventing any such movement.
“I am an old man,” Volkhov continued, “and old men learn things, and these things I will tell you.” He looked over the crowd and captured the audience with his steely gaze.