Slowly, in the slightly tired manner of your typical Soviet Russian, Danny trudged toward his assigned car, papers in hand. He looked up idly at the cars as he passed, referring back to his ticket as if he were trying to find the right car, but instead peering through the windows to ensure that his targets were indeed where he thought they’d be.
As he passed the fifth car, an unfamiliar face stared blankly out the window, and Danny felt his presence in his mind — a Variant, one he’d never seen before. There was no sign of the man’s Enhancement, not that he expected him to be on fire or anything, but a physical cue might have helped. Regardless, Danny made note of the man’s appearance — brown hair, lean, midthirties, captain’s rank.
Then something began to stare back.
Danny nearly froze in his tracks as a ghostly face seemed to somehow detach from the NKVD officer’s head to look right at Danny. It was only for a split second, but Danny could’ve sworn that the face of a woman was looking at him, one with Asian features and a poisonous look of malice.
Then it was gone.
“Problem, Comrade?”
Danny jumped and turned around to find one of the station’s security men standing behind him. Apparently, Danny had stopped dead in his tracks, a goddamn rookie move. “No, Comrade, I’m sorry,” Danny stammered in Russian. “I am very tired and misplaced my car.”
“Papers.”
Handing over his papers and ticket, Danny looked up to see that the man requesting them was familiar — one of the guards working late the night before. It wasn’t one that had dealt with Danny personally, but he was around. A supervisor, maybe. Shit luck, for sure.
Yet the man simply handed the papers back. “You are in the seventh car. Two down. You can — wait a moment.”
Shit. “Yes, Comrade?”
The man — a dark-haired, burly fellow filling out his uniform to good effect — gave Danny a disconcerting once-over. “When did you arrive in Leningrad, Comrade?”
“Two weeks ago,” he replied. “I was helping Oblast Collective Farm Number Twelve with planning for the planting season, soil testing, that sort of thing.” Danny put down his suitcase. “I can show you some of the soil samples if you like, Comrade.”
The man stared intently at him. “I could swear I’ve seen you sooner than that. Let me see your hands.”
“My hands?” Danny asked, heart fluttering.
“Hands.” It was nothing short of an order, and an imperative one at that.
Danny held his hands out in front of him, and the security man took his right one and held it up to his face. “Hmmm. Yes. All right.” The guard dropped Danny’s hand and gave back his ticket and papers. “Seventh car. Hurry up.”
Trying not to seem horribly relieved, Danny grabbed his suitcase and, with a quick spasiba, hustled for his car. Only when he found his seat — padded this time — did Danny look down at his fingers.
At the time, it had seemed like an unnecessary bit of theatrics, but now, Danny was immensely grateful he’d had the foresight to jam his hands into the dirt of a freshly planted flowerbed at his hotel that morning. The dirt under his nails may have just saved his life.
This spy shit is gonna give me a heart attack.
The police station on Pervomayskaya Street in the little town of Skhodnya was tucked into a brick apartment block, across the street from another brick apartment block and about six blocks up from the local train station — perfect for commuters into Moscow. It was a sleepy little burg that, as Frank and Ekaterina got out of their car, would soon wake up in a big way.
“This is stupid,” Katie said as they walked up to the front door. “I am too young to be an NKVD cadet or assistant or whatever you say I am.”
Frank just smiled. “You look older than you are,” he said quietly, noting that the uniform Tim had stolen fit her perfectly, as did the colonel’s uniform he now wore. “And quit with the English. Pa Ruskiy, pozhalsta.”
Katie frowned, but kept quiet as Frank unceremoniously barged into the station. “Where is the chief of police? I need to speak to him now,” he demanded in perfect Russian.
The desk officer looked up lazily, then launched to his feet as if he had a rocket strapped to his ass and gave a salute that wouldn’t have passed muster in basic training anywhere in the world. “Hello, Comrade Colonel! The chief is on patrol with another officer now!”
Frank put on his best senior officer glare. “You have a radio, do you not, Comrade?”
The officer, a pudgy man in his midthirties, swallowed hard. “Yes, Comrade Colonel. We have a radio.”
“Then pick it up and call him in immediately. And do not, for the love of the Motherland, tell him who is here!”
The officer practically dove for the radio and made the call, greeted at the other end by a peevish older voice. It took some doing — the chief wanted to know why he had to come all the way back to the station — but the officer held fast, and soon the officer looked up with a sycophantic smile. “The chief will be here in five minutes.”
“If you wish to make yourself truly useful, you will call in every single officer from this town for a briefing. Every shift. I want them here and ready in thirty minutes,” Frank said. “Where is the chief’s office?”
The officer quickly paled. “Everyone?”
Frank leaned in menacingly. “Is there a problem with your hearing, Comrade?”
“No, Comrade Colonel. Every officer. Thirty minutes. The chief’s office is the second door down the hall to the left.”
Frank immediately marched off, Katie in tow, and let himself into the shabby, wood-paneled office, closing the door behind them. The desk was stacked high with papers, covering every square inch not occupied by a small blotter, a typewriter, or a telephone. “What a shithole,” he muttered in English, looking at the photos on the wall showing a corpulent man in a policeman’s uniform next to several other corpulent men in suits, shaking hands and smiling. “What is it about the locals that they all have ‘love-me’ walls like this?”
Ekaterina plopped down in a chair in front of the desk. “It is for when people like us come in, so we can see he is a proud member of the local Party, and loyal.”
Frank took the chief’s chair behind the desk. “Nice to know ass-kissing knows no borders. Timmy? How you doing?”
A voice came from the corner of the room. “The cleaning staff here needs to be fired.”
“They use inmates from the local jail,” Ekaterina said. “The drunks and the wife-beaters. You expect them to work hard for a man like this?”
Frank heard Tim chuckle, and let the matter drop as they waited. Four minutes later, the door opened and the chief himself — grayer and fatter than most of the pictures — barged in. “What is the meaning of — Oh.”
Frank rose stiffly. “Comrade, I am Colonel Pavel Andreyovich Petrov of the Ministry of State Security. And you are?”
The chief hustled over with a broad smile and a meaty hand extended. “I am Chief Mikhail Mikhailovich Mikhailov. It is an honor, Comrade Colonel.”
Most unoriginal parents ever, Frank thought as he shook the man’s hand and waved him to the seat next to Katie, which he took without argument. Like calling someone Michael Michaelson Michaels. “Understand, Mikhail Mikhailovich, the conversation we are about to have is of the utmost sensitivity. What I am going to ask of you is a critical matter of state security, and goes to the very heart of the Party and the Motherland.”
Frank could practically see the chief’s heartbeat increase before his eyes. “I am your man, Comrade Colonel. You may rely on my discretion fully.”