“
H
ave you had any sleep?” Tarankov asked.
Chernov shook his head as he placed the last of three cases of Marlboros into the trunk of the Mercedes 520S parked beside the tracks. The top two layers of cartons actually contained cigarettes. He closed the trunk, leaned back against the car and accepted a cigarette from Tarankov, though he hated the things.
“It went well this morning,” Tarankov said. “Moscow is going to have to deal with power outages for a long time. It'll make things worse for them.”
“Yeltsin and his cronies have access to emergency generators. And if things get too bad they can always escape to the dachas.”
“You don't approve,” Tarankov said crossly. He was tired too.
“On the contrary, Comrade. I neither approve nor disapprove. But I'm a realist enough to understand that it's the ordinary people on the street who
make revolutions possible. Once the leader is in power, he can do anything he wants, because he'll control the guns, and the butter. But if he loses the people in the beginning he will have lost the revolution.”
“A good speech, Leonid. But you failed to take into account the fact I was cheered.”
“By the people of Dzerzhinskiy who were afraid of the power station. By next winter when the snow flies again, and still there is not enough power in Moscow, the rest of the city will remember who to blame.”
Tarankov smiled faintly. “By then the power will be restored.” An event, he thought, that Chernov would not be alive to witness.
“That's as optimistic as it is naive, I think,” Chernov said.
They were parked in a birch woods two hundred fifty kilometers north of Moscow. Tarankov gazed across a big lake, still frozen, his eyes narrowing against the glare from the setting sun, as he tried to keep his temper in check.
“Throughout the summer I will divert military construction battalions from as many division as it will take to get the job done in ninety days,” he said.
“You
do
have a timetable,” Chernov said, flipping the cigarette away. “If you're right, Dzerzhinskiy can be turned into an advantage. And Nizhny Novgorod can be important if the situation doesn't become untenable after tomorrow. But you still need Moscow and St. Petersburg. We can't kill them all.”
“Only those necessary.”
“They're not stupid. They'll figure out your plans, and try to block you somehow.”
“It's already too late for them,” Tarankov said. “You're close to me, have you figured it out?”
Chernov smiled. “It's not my job. I'm nothing more than a means to your end.”
“What about when we come into power?”
“I'll leave, Comrade Tarantula, because I will no longer be needed. And we know what happens to people in Russia who are not needed.”
“Maybe I'll kill you now,” Tarankov said with a dangerous edge in his voice.
Chernov's gaze didn't waver. “I don't think that would be quite as easy as you might think,” he said in a reasonable tone. He pushed away from the car, and Tarankov backed up a half-pace despite himself. “I have work to do, unless you have second thoughts.”
“You're confident you can do it?”
Chernov nodded seriously. “Yeltsin could have been eliminated anytime over the past couple of years, but nobody wanted to take responsibility for it. He's not been worth killing until now.”
“Am I worth killing, Leonid?” Tarankov asked.
“Oh, yes. Especially after tomorrow,” Chernov replied. “And believe me they will try. Someone will almost certainly try.”
“You will see that they fail.”
“That, Comrade Tarankov,
is
my job.” Chernov pointed to the cigarette in Tarankov's meaty paw. “But they won't have to send an assassin if you keep that up.”
Tarankov grunted. “You sound like Liesel.” He smiled. “One nag is enough.”
“She's right.”
“Good of you to say so,” Tarankov said. “We'll wait for you at Kostroma. But if you get into trouble you will have to rely on the usual contacts in Moscow, we won't be able to come for you. Not until after Nizhny Novgorod.”
“I'll be there,” Chernov said. “Now, if you will excuse me, I need to get a few things before I leave. I want to be in Moscow before midnight.” He abruptly went back to the train and boarded the second car from the rear, not seeing the intense look of anger and hatred that flashed across Tarankov's heavy features.
Chernov's car contained the officers' wardroom and kitchen, as well as quarters for him, Colonel Drankov and the four unit commanders. The colonel and two of his officers were smoking and drinking tea in the wardroom when Chernov passed. They did not look up, nor did he acknowledge them. Their relationship was exactly as he wished it to be: one of business, not friendship.
In his compartment, which consisted of a wide bunk, a built-in desk and two chairs, a closet and a well-equipped bathroom, Chernov laid out the uniform of a lieutenant colonel in the Kremlin Presidential Security Service, then pulled off his boots and combat fatigues.
Someone knocked at his door. He quickly looked around to make sure nothing of importance was lying in plain view, then flipped a blanket over the uniform. “Come,” he said.
Liesel Tarankov, wearing a UCLA Sailing Squadron warmup suit, came in. She looked Chernov up and down, then glanced at the turned down blanket. “I thought you were getting ready to leave us, not go to bed.”
“I was changing clothes. Is there something I can do for you, Madam?”
“I want to discuss your assignment.”
“Very well. If you'll allow me to finish dressing, I'll join you and your husband in the Operations Center and we can go over the detail.”
“No. I want to talk about it here and now.” A little color had come to Liesel's cheeks, and a strand of blonde hair was loose over her left temple. She was fifteen years younger than Tarankov and not unattractive.
“Then I'll call him, he can join us here.” Chernov stepped over to the desk and reached for the telephone, but Liesel intercepted him, pushing him away.
“Just you and me.”
Chernov smiled. “Did you come here expecting me to make love to you, madam?” he asked in a reasonable tone. “Is that how you meant to control me?”
“I'm not ugly. I have a nice body, and I know things.”
“What if I told you that I'm a homosexual.”
She laughed. “I wouldn't believe it.”
“I think you'd rather believe that than the truth,” he said.
It took a moment for the meaning of what she'd just heard to penetrate, and when it did a flush came to her face. “
Schweinhund!
” She lunged at him, her long fingernails up like claws.
Chernov easily sidestepped her. He grabbed her arms, pinned them behind her back, and shoved her up against the bulkhead, his body against hers.
She struggled for a moment, but then looked up into his eyes and parted her lips.
He stepped back, opened the door, and spun her out into the passageway. “Go away before I tell your husband that you tried to seduce me.”
“He wouldn't believe you,” she shot back, a catch in her voice.
“I think he would,” Chernov said disparagingly, and he closed and locked the door.
For a few moments he thought the woman was going to make a scene, but when nothing happened he got dressed. Before it was all over, he thought, he would fuck her, and then kill her. It would be the best thing he'd ever done for Tarankov.
Chernov arrived at the Borovitsky Tower Gate, on the opposite side of the Kremlin from Red Square, at 11:45 P.M. One guard examined his papers, which identified him as Lieutenant Colonel Boris Sazanov, while the other shined a light in the back seat, and then requested that the trunk be opened.
He popped the lid then stuck his head out the window as the guard spotted the cases of cigarettes. “Take a couple of cartons. They won't be missed.” His hat was pulled low, most of his features in shadow.
“Who are they for?” the guard asked.
“Korzhakov,” Chernov said. Lieutenant-General Alexander Korzhakov was chief of presidential security, a drinking buddy of Yeltsin's and the number two most powerful man in the Kremlin.
“I don't think so,” the guard said respectfully. “I think I'll call operations.”
“This car was left unlocked for an hour on Arbat Street. The cigarettes will not be missed if you're not greedy, and you keep your mouth shut.”
The first guard handed Chernov's papers back. “What are you doing here this evening, Colonel?”
“Delivering cigarettes.”
The second guard pulled two cartons of cigarettes out of one of the boxes and stuffed them inside his greatcoat. He slammed the trunk lid, and went back into the guardhouse.
“I don't smoke,” the first guard said.
“Neither do I, but they're sometimes better than gold, if you know what I mean.”
The guard stepped back, saluted and waved Chernov through.
Chernov returned the salute and drove up the hill past the Poteshny
Palace and around the corner to the modernistic glass and aluminum Palace of Congresses. It was a Wednesday night, the Duma was not in session, nor was any state function or dinner being held, so the Kremlin was all but deserted.
The guard at the entrance to the underground parking garage checked his papers, and waved him through.
Chernov took the ramp four levels to the most secured floor where Yeltsin's limousines were kept and serviced. He parked in the shadows at the end of a long row of Mercedes, Cadillacs and Zil limousines. The entrance to Yeltsin's parking area and private elevators fifty meters away was guarded by a lone man seated in a glass enclosure. Chernov checked his watch. He was exactly on time.
Two minutes later, the guard got up, stretched his back, left the guard box and took the service elevator up one level.
Chernov took a block of eight cigarette cartons from the bottom of one of the cases, and walked to the end of the parking row, ducked under the steel barrier and went back to the Zil limousine with the SSP 7 license plate. It was the car that would be used to pick up Yeltsin in the morning and bring him here to his office.
It was a piece of information that Tarankov got. Chernov trusted its reliability.
The freight elevator was still on sub level three, and would remain there for three minutes. No more.
Chernov climbed into the back compartment of the limo and popped the two orange tabs that released the seat bottom. Next he peeled the back from a corner of the bottom of the brick of cigarettes and stuck a radio-controlled detonator into the soft gray mass of Semtex plastic explosive. This he stuffed under the seat, molding it against a box beam member. The bottom of the car was armored to protect from explosions from outside. The steel plates would focus most of the force of the blast upward through the leather upholstered seat. No one in the rear compartment could possibly survive, nor was it likely that anyone in the car would escape critical burns and injuries The amount of Semtex was five times more than necessary for the job.
Chernov relatched the seat bottom in position, softly closed the door,
and as the freight elevator began to descend, ducked under the barrier, hurried back to his car and drove away.
“That was quick,” the guard at the ground level said.
“I just had to deliver something,” Chernov said.
“Well, have a good evening, sir,” the guard said. He raised the barrier.
Chernov headed past the Presidium to the Spassky Tower where the guard languidly raised the gate and waved him through. Threats came from outside, and besides no one of any importance was inside the Kremlin tonight. Anyway, all colonels were damned fools.
After clearing Red Square, Chernov drove out to Krasnaya Presnya past the dumpy American Embassy on Tchaikovsky Street to a block of old, but well-maintained apartments near the zoo and planetarium.
Traffic downtown was heavy, but out here the shops were all closed and the neighborhood streets were quiet, though lights shone in many windows. Russians loved to stay up late talking. In the old days they fitted blackout curtains on their windows. These days they weren't worried.
All that would change, Chernov thought as he drove around back and parked the Mercedes in a garage. Tarankov truly believed he had the answers for Russia. Likely as not, his revolution would bring them to war. But by then, Chernov intended on being long gone.
He waited for a couple of minutes in the darkness to make sure that he hadn't been followed, then climbed the stairs to the third floor, his tread noiseless. He produced a key and opened the door of the front apartment, and let himself in.
The apartment was dark, only a dim light came from outside. It smelled faintly of expensive western perfumes and soap. Feminine smells. Music came softly from the bedroom.
Chernov took off his uniform blouse, loosened his tie and went into the kitchen where he poured a glass of white wine. Removing his shoes, he walked back to the bedroom, and pushed open the door.
“Can you stay long this time, Ivan,” Raya Dubanova asked softly in the darkness. She'd been a ballet dancer with the Bolshoi. Now she was an assistant choreographer of the corps de ballet. Her body was still compact and well muscled. She knew him only as Ivan.
“No,” Chernov said sitting beside her on the bed. He put the wine glass aside and took her in his arms. She was naked.
“Can you stay at least until morning?” she whispered in his ear.
“I can stay with you tonight if you promise to wake me at six sharp,” he teased. “But if you snore I'll have to go to a hotel.”
“I don't know if you'll be capable of getting out of bed when I'm finished with you,” she said wickedly. “Now take off your clothes, and come to me.”
She'd been forced to be the escort of a Strategic Rocket Force general who Chernov was contracted to kill three years ago. He'd shot the man in his bed while Raya hid in the bathroom. When it was over she came out,
looked at the general's body, took the gun from Chernov and pumped three bullets into it, then spit in the general's face.
She wouldn't stay in the apartment so Chernov brought her to this one. He came to her as often as possible, sometimes able to stay for only an hour or two, other times staying an entire evening.
She knew what he was, but she never asked who he worked for, or if he'd killed again. She was simply grateful that he'd saved her from the old man. And each time he came to her bed she showed her appreciation.
Tarankov didn't know about their relationship. No one did.
He undressed and joined her in bed. “I need a couple of hours of sleep,” he said.
“We'll see,” she said, straddling him. She raked her fingernails across his chest almost, but not quite with enough force to draw blood, and he immediately responded.
Maybe he wouldn't need so much sleep as all that, he thought, a soft groan escaping from his lips as Raya began to bite the tender skin on the insides of his thighs.