“I see your plan now, Comrade,” he said finally. “I was very concerned about you for a while: I believed you were actually selling out to Voshchanka, selling out the Union—”
“Never!” Gabovich retorted.
“I realize that,” Dvornikov said. “But how can you be sure that Voshchanka will turn the keys? He may be committed to his plan, but we have seen that he is not the most intelligent commander that ever got off the shitter. To say he’s primitive is being kind. Where is his command center at Smorgon? Can he communicate with his forces and send a launch message via radio or data link to his command center?”
“Of course,” Gabovich said smugly. “The Fisikous command network is the world’s most sophisticated system. But I don’t think you need to worry about Voshchanka pulling the trigger — he will do it. We will get a report in just a few hours that a weapon has been launched.”
“I wish I had your confidence that all will proceed normally, Viktor Josefivich. I like to be sure.”
“I doubt that. You want to know where the command center is because you really want to stop him from launching those missiles,” Gabovich surmised. “But why? Why do you want to stop him? Don’t you care about the Union, Comrade? You were a powerful man in the old Soviet Union, Boris Georgivich — would you like to see it come back?”
“I would feel better if those weapons were in your hands rather than a nut case like Voshchanka’s, that’s all.”
Gabovich regarded him warily. The flattery didn’t suit Dvornikov. It had, in fact, blown him completely. “Don’t try and placate me,” Gabovich snarled. “You’re lying. You no more want me to have charge of those weapons than Voshchanka. You think I’m crazy, don’t you? Fool! You don’t want them launched at all, do you? You care nothing about the future! The glorious future that will be ours—mine!”
Gabovich reached for the pistol in his holster, but he was far, far too late. From his greatcoat pocket Dvornikov withdrew a Walther P-4 automatic pistol fitted with a large cylindrical suppressor that was longer than the gun itself and fired twice into Gabovich’s heart from close range. The heavily suppressed, small-caliber subsonic rounds made virtually no noise. Gabovich stumbled backwards, his eyes wide with surprise and insanity; he was dead before he hit the floor.
“You had the power of life and death in your hands, you stupid bastard,” Dvornikov said to the corpse, “and you screwed it up. I only hope Voshchanka goes through with his plan now, or all this will turn into nothing but an incredible waste.”
Dvornikov holstered his gun and began rifling through Gabovich’s papers. The fool had an entire stack of information on the weapons, including their location, in his briefcase—I could have had the floor mother steal this stuff for God’s sake! He removed the files, ripped them into several pieces, tossed them into a metal garbage can, and dropped a match onto the papers. Well, he thought wryly, Gabovich wasn’t much of a spy anyway, but his plan was going to go forward despite his stupidity. He was going to be sure that—
“Freeze, Boris. Raise your hands and get away from that desk.”
Dvornikov stopped ripping papers, dropped them, and raised his hands. “Well, well, Sharon,” he said. Despite her warning, he turned and faced CIA agent Sharon Greenfield with his usual disarming smile. “At last we are alone, and in more pleasant surroundings.”
“Get away from that desk, I said.” He stepped away a single step, moving toward her. “Left hand, fingers only, remove your gun from the holster and throw it over here.”
“Really, Sharon …”
“Now!” she ordered.
He shrugged his shoulders, reached down with his left hand, withdrew the gun from his holster, and tossed it to her feet. She stooped down and stuck it in her coat pocket. Greenfield then motioned to the other side of the room with her gun. “Move over there.” He circled away a few pacer, but he was still the same distance to her. “You’re getting lax, Boris,” Sharon said, going over to the waste can, kicking it, and stomping on the burning papers. “Former KGB honcho like yourself, getting caught by a tail like me. You were much slicker, more careful in the old days, Boris. But thank God you’ve gotten lazier. Makes my job a lot easier.”
Dvornikov ignored the jab. “Sharon, you’re really making a mess of the new carpeting …”
“Shut up, Boris.” She checked Gabovich. The two bullet holes in his chest were hardly bleeding — he was very dead. His gun was still in his holster; she left it there. “Why did you kill Gabovich, Boris? If what our reports say is true, he might have sold nuclear warheads to Voshchanka in exchange for clemency after the invasion of Lithuania was completed. He might have known where the warheads are…
“He knew nothing. He was crazy. He reached for his gun, and I shot him.”
“How can you be so sure? Did he say anything to you?”
“Nothing.”
Greenfield frowned at Dvornikov, not sure whether to believe him or not, then motioned to the bullet holes in Gabovich’s chest. “Pretty good group, Boris. Did you ever think about putting that group in his shoulder or leg so we could question him?”
“Is that what you will do to me, Sharon? Will you just wound me or will you shoot to kill?”
She bent down to examine the burnt papers. The top papers were charred, but the bottom ones were still mostly intact. “Neither, if you behave.” Her Russian reading skills were poor, but she soon recognized what the papers said. “Boris, these papers… they show the location of Voshchanka’s missiles. Why were you—”
Dvornikov moved with the speed of a cheetah.
He kicked Greenfield’s gun hand, sending the gun flying. One more step, driving with his legs and hips, and he punched at her face with an expert karate blow. She cried out and went cartwheeling over. He was on top of her, pinning her arms to her sides with his legs. He slapped her across the face once, twice, and finally felt the fight go out of her body.
“You have no idea, bitch, how long I’ve waited to do this,” Dvornikov gasped. There was no hint of the civil, refined, sophisticated man-about-town anymore — now he was a shaking, wild-eyed attacker.
It was a side of Dvornikov Sharon had always feared but never actually seen. The times they had met on business over the years in Moscow had always included heavy-handed sexual inferences from Dvornikov, inferences Sharon had just as heavy-handedly rejected. Knowing his sadistic reputation both in his professional and personal life, she had always worried that he would someday pounce …
He pulled her coat open, then ripped her blouse apart, revealing her breasts. “Oh, yes, lovely Sharon. I knew you’d be this beautiful …”
She tried hard to concentrate, to distract him, refocus him, all the while squirming beneath him, not giving in. She had kept tabs on him since Moscow, tailed him all the way to damned Latvia, and she was sure as hell not going to let him blow her mission for a quick and unwelcome fuck.
“Why were you helping Gabovich?”
“Because I realized he was right,” Dvornikov said. He groaned in ecstasy, trying to undo his pants. “Voshchanka is going to destroy Vilnius and Minsk. When he launches those missiles, the world will change — again — back to the way it was before all this reform and glasnost and openness and capitalism that has been creating so much confusion and disorganization in my country all these years. Russia will retake the republics and reassert its dominance over Europe once again — and I intend to be part of it. All I have to do is make sure no one finds out about the missiles. When I return to Moscow, I’ll be the chief of the KGB.”