When he returned to the barracks to tell the others, morale at the Institute collapsed more completely than had the old Soviet system. All the men there had assumed they were being prepared for some higher purpose. The truth was almost too much for them to bear.
For the next few months, Lavrenty and the others went through the motions. They engaged in their training-much of which was now handled personally by Master Lavrenty-but it was hollow exercise. Life without purpose.
Lavrenty considered escape. They were meant to be enrolled in the Mactep program for life, but with the skills he now possessed it would be impossible for them to stop him. Yet these men belonged to him and he to them. They were part of a fraternity like no other. And so he stayed.
His pointless life at the Institute had begun to feel much like his life of drunken despair in Sevastopol, when fate once more intervened to rescue Lavrenty Skachkov.
He was on summer leave from the Institute. Instead of going home, he remained in Moscow. On the first evening of his vacation he went for a stroll through Gorky Park. Walking along a winding path, Lavrenty came across a small crowd. Men and women formed a circle around a speaker who stood on an upended Absolut crate. The man had wild graying hair, a big bushy mustache and unblinking black eyes that seemed to target every member of his audience like twin rifle scopes.
Lavrenty listened to Vladimir Zhirinsky rant and rave for over three hours. The sun had long fallen and the last of the crowd dispersed before the ultranationalist finally climbed down from his makeshift stage. By then he had already won over a new convert to his cause.
Zhirinsky wasn't entirely accepting at first. In fact, when Lavrenty went to introduce himself, the former Russian senator snapped his teeth like an angry dog. Only when the man who had been standing before him vanished and Zhirinsky found that he was not savoring a mouthful of nose did he start to get an inkling that there was something odd about this late-night encounter.
"Where did you go?" Zhirinsky asked the shadows of the park. His black eyes were slivers. "Trotsky?" he questioned softly. "Kosygin?" His voice grew awed, as if he scarcely dared entertain the notion. "Stalin?"
A tap on his shoulder. He wheeled.
He saw the young man again. Short white hair. Delicate features. Like a woman's. This was not one of the great leaders of days long past, come back to aid him in his struggle against the lapdogs of the West now in the Kremlin.
If he was not going to get help from the heroes of the Revolution, he was at least going to get a meal. His brief moment of hope dashed, Zhirinsky lashed out again. Again the man vanished.
Only the second time did Zhirinsky realize something large indeed might be going on here. When he reappeared this time, the young man's delicate face was serious.
"Comrade," Lavrenty said, surprised by how happy it made him to use the old form of address, "we need to talk."
That night Lavrenty broke the most important rule of the Institute. He told an outsider precisely what was going on in that somber building with the bricked-up windows.
For his part Vladimir Zhirinsky had a hard time controlling his drool, let alone his joy.
Together that very night, the two men hatched a scheme that would liberate the others from the Institute. Zhirinsky already had plans for Mother Russia. With the addition of these specially trained forces to the mix, he was more certain than ever that he could achieve his goals.
The only real problem would be Anna Chutesov. She was never away from the Institute for more than a few hours at a time. While Zhirinsky suggested they kill the pesky woman and leave with their heads held high, Lavrenty could not bring himself to do the deed. Director Chutesov had been the only person in his life who had ever made clear promises to him without ever breaking a single one.
With Anna there, they could not just up and leave, for she apparently had ties to the highest level of government. She would alert the army were they to defect.
And even his men might have difficulty against the entire Russian army.
The solution came as a surprise nine months after Lavrenty's first chance meeting with Vladimir Zhirinsky.
Anna Chutesov had summoned Lavrenty to her office to tell him she was going away. An assignment had come up, and she had been ordered to leave at once. Since the other men looked up to Lavrenry as their leader, she put him in charge of them during her absence. The way she spoke that day, it sounded almost as if she expected not to return.
She was gone no more than an hour when Vladimir Zhirinsky's rusted-out Zil pulled to a coughing stop before the Institute building.
Lavrenty met the ultranationalist at the curb. With a simple downward stroke of his hand, the Institute's reigning Master broke the chain on the driveway fence and led the former senator down into the heart of modern Russia's most closely guarded secret.
The others didn't know of his betrayal. They were shocked when he walked into their barracks with an outsider.
They all recognized Vladimir Zhirinsky. Many there agreed with his political views. Jaws dropped. Eyes looked to Lavrenty for an explanation while the ultranationaiist silently toured the rows of worn beds and battered bureaus.
At the far end of the barracks, Zhirinsky had stopped, turning slowly. His black eyes were dully accusing.
"Is this a kennel?" Zhirinsky had asked quietly. No one said a word. Initial confusion was slowly giving away to a sense of creeping hope. Zhirinsky's bushy eyebrows formed an angry V. "Have they removed your tongues as well as your will to fight for Mother Russia?" he exploded.
Fire lit in his dark eyes, igniting sparks in their own. Without even realizing it, they snapped to attention. "No, sir!"
The fire in his eyes grew cold.
"I am not a 'sir,'" he spit in contempt. "I am your comrade. Your equal. And together we comrades will make them all fear once more the might of a united Russia!"
When they saw Master Lavrenty cheer, the others knew they had finally found their special purpose. In the person of Vladimir Zhirinsky, they had their savior.
A cheer rose up from the buried basement of the Institute building, like a chorus of lost souls, muffled by dirt and concrete and the hum of passing cars.
And through it all, a smile remained plastered to the delicate face of Lavrenty Skachkov. He was finally going to be able to fulfill his purpose in life. The Mactep program had bestowed on him the powers of a god. With them, Lavrenty Skachkov was at long last going to be allowed to kill.
THEY WERE GHOSTS. Shadows upon shadows, slipping silently through the streets of Fairbanks.
Master Lavrenty led the Institute army. Here a lonely car moved. There a streetlamp sliced the night. The Russians avoided it all. Of the world, but not. According to Zhirinsky, the city of forty thousand would be an easy target. By the standards of the contiguous United States, it was a small town. But it was along the pipeline route, and so served a strategic purpose.
They had abandoned their trucks and helicopters well outside of town, coming in from the north.
Fort Wainwright lay sleeping beyond the Chena River on the east side of town. The Russians steered clear of the Army base. The clock had long struck midnight by the time they made their cautious way along First Avenue.
Lavrenty found the flatbed trailer precisely where it was supposed to be. Parked along the side of the road. Smuggled in so easily. Like all of their equipment.
Comrade Zhirinsky was right. Openness fed weakness. The Americans were too trusting. And for that, Master Lavrenty thought, they would pay dearly.
Huge tarpaulins-lashed down with heavy rope and chains-hid the vehicle's cargo from view. Even so, the long cylindrical outline was visible beneath the dirty tarps.
Lavrenty and the others stayed to the shadows. On cautious, gliding feet they approached the truck. The street was empty. Other than the rattling of the tarpaulins, the only sound came from a tiny scrap of paper that flapped in the wind under the windshield wiper of the truck's flat-nosed cab.