Eyes closed, Kiril pushed back in his seat. He’d been virtually certain Galya had been co-opted—but with misgivings. Would she have committed suicide because he was leaving the country and in no position to take her with him? That may have been part of it, he reasoned, but guilt was more likely the greater part. He’d seen it too often in the camps. People clinging to life as they scrambled to survive just one more day. Another. Still another…
Checking his watch, Aleksei did a quick mental calculation. “It’s about time for Dr. Anna Brenner’s speech at Medicine International’s symposium in West Berlin. I suggest we listen while we wait for our plane to be ready. A comrade in West Berlin tells me she has some harsh things to say about you, Dr. Brenner.”
Aleksei nodded to Luka, who turned on a radio and fiddled with the dials until the radio coughed. Static muffled the background noise.
The symposium had begun.
Kiril and Adrienne leaned forward in their chairs, straining to hear. Aleksei was paying close attention. Brenner, looking mildly curious, had a pretty fair idea what his mother was about to say about his alleged defection. Luka, blank-faced, sat in the corner.
A Master of Ceremonies’ preliminary remarks signaled the start of the symposium, his mellow voice announcing the presence of an unscheduled but much respected speaker, Dr. Anna Brenner, mother of the esteemed heart surgeon Dr. Kurt Brenner, who had just told the world of his defection to the Soviet Union.
“I am here to speak the truth about my sons,” Anna Brenner said. “I chose to speak at Medicine International because my son, Kurt Brenner, is a peer of many in this audience. Until the mid-1920s when I married Max Brenner and became a German citizen, I resided in the Soviet Union. My name at that time was Anna Andreyev. My eldest son was, and perhaps still is, Aleksei Andreyev. My second son was Kiril. My youngest son, the eminent American heart surgeon Dr. Kurt Brenner, is about to learn that he was born—not in America—but in the Soviet Union. His name was Nikolai ‘Kolya’ Andreyev.”
Aleksei’s body turned to stone.
He noticed that neither Kiril nor Adrienne Brenner seemed surprised.
They must have learned about this in Zurich.
“—and it was because of a near-tragic accident that I received permission to take Kolya to Germany in hopes of saving the child’s life. I lost my eldest son Aleksei—politically, you might say—to his father and ultimately to the Communist Party. And once I made the painful decision to raise Kolya in a free country, I lost my son Kiril. Any attempt to communicate with him would have placed him in grave danger because of who I was—an Enemy of the People.
So this is what I wish to say by way of farewell to my son, Kurt, who has just defected to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”
The close of Anna Brenner’s speech brought silence in West Berlin as a distinguished gathering of doctors, scientists, and politicians absorbed her shattering words.
In a small office at the East Berlin airport, three men and a woman looked at each other, pondering their new relationship.
You! Aleksei’s eyes were fixed on the radio, as if Anna Brenner awaited his reaction.
Kiril’s mouth was twisted with the violence of his emotion.
Kurt Brenner’s near-hysterical laughter rose above a raucous mix of voices and static. “The Brothers Andreyev! It’s more like the Brothers Karamazov,” he said disdainfully, looking from Kiril to Aleksei as one would look at a couple of bastards who had abruptly sprouted on an impeccable family tree.
Aleksei’s hardened features melted into feigned amiability. “Little Kolya, is it?” he said, turning to Brenner. “And all these years I thought you were dead. My father—excuse me, I should say our father—never considered the possibility that German records could be forged. That citizenship could be so easily obtained. So the doctors gave you a forty percent chance of recovery? You certainly have recovered. Prospered, too. Time to share the wealth, Kolya—not literally, of course. Your operating skills will most certainly put our current heart surgeons to shame. But it’s your defection that has great propaganda value.”
“Dear God, the man is serious,” Brenner muttered, groping for Adrienne’s hand.
“Have you no sense of humor?” Aleksei mocked. “Has your soft American life bred it out of you? The joke is on our dear mother. Three sons, and the only one who merits her undying devotion—her precious Kiril—is the very one who tricked her and delivered you back into my hands. And now, madam,”—his glance shifted to the radio—“Mother Russia has all three of your sons. How you must be suffering!”
The static yielded to the animated voice of the Master of Ceremonies.
“But the biggest surprise, ladies and gentlemen, is how the woman whose revelations set off the tumult you hear is bearing up. The mother of Dr. Kurt Brenner is waiting, microphone in hand, for people to quiet down, ready to answer all those painful probing questions many of you are eager to ask. Yet Anna Brenner is the very picture of that old cliché—calm, cool, and collected. In point of fact, she looks relieved—”
Aleksei shot to his feet and snapped off the radio.
It was dusk when the phone rang. Aleksei picked it up. “Well?” he asked, and waited for an answer. “Good.” He hung up. “Time to go,” he announced unceremoniously.
Kurt Brenner was terrified to the point of immobility. He was silent as Luka Rogov twisted one arm behind his back and pushed him out the door. Adrienne and Kiril followed, heading for the waiting staff car.
Unwilling to risk losing his prize possessions, Aleksei ordered Luka to put Brenner in the front passenger seat, and then get under the steering wheel next to him. Aleksei himself sat behind Brenner. Telling Adrienne to sit in the middle of the back seat, he left the seat in back of Luka for Kiril.
As soon as Luka cranked the ignition, turned on his lights, and headed for the executive jet that would take them to Moscow, Aleksei was visibly relieved—though guardedly so.
Adrienne reached for Kiril’s hand, puzzled when he brushed off her overture.
Minutes into the ride—in a motion too swift for anyone to integrate—Kiril slipped one hand under his tuxedo jacket and removed a letter opener from his belt. He’d spotted it while he was clearing off the chairs in the clerk’s office.
Leaning forward, he placed the metal blade on the left side of Luka Rogov’s thick neck.
Aleksei blanched.
“This blade is resting on Rogov’s carotid artery, Aleksei,” he said. “If I were to push it just an inch or so, there will be a gusher of blood that even Dr. Kurt Brenner would be unable to stop. Your alter ego will be exsanguinated. Tell him what that means, Kurt.”
Brenner turned and had the pleasure of seeing Aleksei Andreyev’s terrified expression. “It’s true, Colonel,” Brenner said with authority. “If Kiril cuts or punctures this man’s carotid artery, he’s finished.”
Kiril had always sensed that Rogov was an irreplaceable part of the psychological netherworld that Aleksei inhabited. That in some primal undefinable way, Aleksei would do almost anything to keep Rogov safe. He was relieved to find that, so far at least, he had been correct.
“Do whatever Kiril tells you, Luka,” Aleksei said. He couldn’t resist adding, “We will have our time soon.”
“Drive to the furthest and darkest part of the tarmac and stop when I tell you,” Kiril told Rogov. “Aleksei, I want you to unholster your revolver—slowly—and hand it to Mrs. Brenner butt first.”