"We're doomed. If they have him, we are doomed."
"We are doomed to the extent that he believes he is surrounded by a malicious world. I have gone through his dossier. All this man wanted for the years he was in the parapsychology village was to be left alone. Do you know what our response was? We sent in round-the-clock teams to find out why he wanted to be left alone. So he left. Now he is in America, and we don't know what on earth he is doing. If he is frightened, as he may well be, he could be planning to set off a missile right now. This very moment a nuclear warhead could be coming at our country. And do you know why? So he would not have to feel defenseless. And against whom? The people who would send a Matesev to bring him back. Shoot, kill, capture, and run. Lunacy."
"It was a good decision," said a KGB general. This did not tell Anna about how good the decision was, but that it had come from the KGB.
"A good decision, comrade, except the results were bad, yes?"
"Yes," said the KGB representative.
"Well, that's possible," said Anna. "We all can't be expected to know how everything will turn out. Except I will take that onerous burden. I will guarantee the results of my taking over. I take full and absolute responsibility."
"How can you guarantee the results?" asked the KGB representative. He did not trust her. He did not trust any women in important roles. A woman could be put in a post, paraded in a post, but a man had to be behind her. "Because I will do it."
"If the likes of General Matesev could not succeed, how can someone like you guarantee you will succeed?"
"The same way I could guarantee that I would get this mission after the special commanders killed themselves." Anna smiled.
"But you asked for this meeting yesterday. They only killed themselves just now."
"About ten minutes ago, five minutes after I told each of them someone was planning to kill them, I turned out the lights and threw in a firecracker. They acted the way I knew they would."
"You killed them! Do you think we will send you out on the mission after you connived to deprive us of our best special-missions commanders?"
"Yes. Of course. Deprived of every other avenue of action, in the end, my dear comrades, you will make a rational decision," said Anna Chutesov. "And in the end, that decision has to be to use me. You have no one else readily available."
A general from the armies in the East rose, pounding the table.
"That is ruthless, deceitful, and despicable. Do you expect us to send you on one of the most crucial missions in the history of the Soviet Union after you have done something like that?"
"Absolutely. I use the incident of upstairs as my main credential. Until this moment, gentlemen, I have not shown that I could kill. There is a room awash in blood on the first level that will attest that I can do this very well."
Most of the men shook their heads. But an older comrade, one who had been through the revolution of 1917 and through the years of Joseph Stalin himself, nodded slowly.
"She's right. Beyond a shadow of a doubt our beautiful Anna Chutesov has proved she is not only the best person for this task, but possibly the only one. Good for you, Anna," he said.
"But what if she decides to use Rabinowitz for her own ends?" said the other woman in the room, the one with the biggest biceps.
"Do you really think I would be so stupid as to try to control something that could convince me I was talking to my mother or father whenever it wished? Are you mad, or just acting that way because you are a woman in a room surrounded by men?" asked Anna.
"I am every bit as good as the men," said the woman.
"Yes," said Anna without sarcasm. "You certainly function at that level. Now, is there anyone here who remotely thinks I would wish to keep something like a Vassily Rabinowitz alive?"
There as no answer.
"My first job is to stop him before he gets his hands on the nuclear trigger or an army. This I may not be able to do. But you should be aware of what he can do, because a missile fired at our country may well not be the beginning of an atomic war. It could be some silly thing a frightened man would do, hoping to prove to us he is not as weak as he feels. Do you understand?"
"You mean to say we are to take an atomic explosion and do nothing?" asked the commander of Russia's western missile station.
"No. I want you to end the entire world in a nuclear holocaust to teach a lesson to an already frightened man. Good day, gentlemen. I don't have time for any more of this."
"What can we do to help you, Anna?" asked the oldest man.
"If you believe in praying, pray Vassily Rabinowitz does not get hold of an army. I have read his psychological profile. I would say that defecating in one's pants at this moment would be an appropriate response to the situation."
Vassily Rabinowitz liked the tanks. He liked the way they could line up and fire at a ridge and the ridge would explode as the shells hit. He liked the way the ground trembled as the tanks rolled by in review. He liked the way infantry had to scatter when the tanks rolled into their positions. He liked tanks.
He also liked the howitzers.
"Almost like a real war, sir," said the colonel.
Vassily tried to brush the dust of Fort Pickens, Arkansas, off his suit. It was no use. Dust, when rubbed off, tended to grind itself in, and there was more than enough dust in Fort Pickens for all the suits ever woven in all the mills of mankind.
"It's very nice," yelled Vassily above the whak-boom of the howitzers. "Very nice."
"Better than Nam, sir; we can see what we're shooting at. "
"Yes, a mountain ridge makes a good enemy. Have you ever thought about fighting the Russians?"
"Sir, I think about it every day. Isn't a day goes by I don't think about it. They're the ones we should be fighting."
"Let's say tomorrow morning?"
"All we need is a little warm-up," said the colonel.
"What's this warm-up business?" asked Vassily. "You're getting paid to be ready. You have a big budget, Colonel. What is this warm-up business?"
"You're never ready for a big war unless you have a little one first. Better than maneuvers. Gets the kinks out. "
"I always thought you had to be ready for war to have peace, not make war in order to make war," said Vassily.
"Both," said the colonel. He wore a field helmet and had a pistol strapped to his side. "If you weren't my commanding officer in Nam I wouldn't even be talking to you about these things."
"I just want to show the Russians we have an army willing to fight. I don't want to have a major war with them. I have no desire to kill them."
"Can't have a war without killing, sir."
"A few battles. That's all I want. Maybe only one battle."
"Wouldn't we all want that, sir. But you can't have your battle without a war coming with it."
"I was afraid of that," said Vassily. "By the way, don't you think those tanks should be firing while moving instead of standing still? I mean, if you needed guns to be still, then you could use howitzers."
"Our mode of training doesn't call for that, sir," said the colonel.
"Do it," said Vassily.
"But, sir-"
"Do it," said Vassily. Something inside him told him that if these men were to get ready even for a preparatory war they had better be prepared right, because the worst thing that could happen was to fight and lose a small war. Then he could never impress the Russians. America had to win its next war.
Vassily wrote down in his notebook: "One regiment, with armor."
He needed more. He needed divisions. And he needed divisions that could fight. He would not have been here himself checking things out, making sure the guns fired and the soldiers were there to fire them, but for his second encounter with the American military establishment.