“Colonel Teresov was only trying to get your attention,” Gabovich said. “Your excitement raises a lot of concern among your colleagues here.”
“No one listens to me,” Luger muttered. “I don’t know any of these people… I don’t know… I don’t know who I am… sometimes …”
It was happening again, Gabovich thought.
Luger was losing his carefully regimented programming. After years of hard work, the effects they had so wondrously achieved were being nullified. This was the third incident in just two weeks. Gabovich wondered if Luger wasn’t getting addicted to the pain to which he was being subjected, because it always took more and more of a booster to get him through a day’s work.
“You must not get so excited,” Gabovich said patiently. He snapped his fingers for some nearby guards, both known personally to him — Luger was too valuable to be entrusted to an uncleared person. “Come, Ivan. Go back to the dormitory with these men. You’ve had a very long day.” To the guards, Gabovich hissed, “Take him to the Zulu facility immediately. No one is to speak with him—no one.”
Luger seemed steady enough on his feet, so the two ex-Soviet guards began escorting him to the back exit and a waiting car outside which would take him to the security building, also in the compound. Luger looked downtrodden, as if the pain in his stomach was nothing compared to the hopelessness he felt as he thought of all the months of work that still lay ahead.
As they proceeded down the corridor, they noticed a Lithuanian Self-Defense Force officer, with a sergeant at his side, standing nearby watching them. “You. Come here,” Gabovich ordered. The two soldiers walked over to him. “You are?”
“Major Alexei Kolginov, deputy commander, Iron Wolf Brigade headquarters,” the officer replied. “This is Command Sergeant Major Surkov, Brigade NCOIC. I was—”
“Kolginov? Surkov? You are Russians?” General Gabovich asked with an expression of surprise and amusement.
Kolginov nodded.
“You are officers in a Lithuanian Boy Scout army…?”
“We are part of the Lithuanian Self-Defense Force,” Kolginov asserted.
“Ah yes, the Iron Wolf Brigade,” Gabovich said derisively. “Such a tough name for such a playschool army.”
Kolginov let the insult roll off his back. “We are on a facilities inspection, checking for treaty compliance as part of the deactivation of this facility, when I noticed you taking this man out of the security conference room. He appears to be ill or disoriented. Is there a problem here? Is he all right?”
Gabovich made an expression of undisguised exasperation. The security problems here at the Fisikous Institute were becoming a joke.
When the facility, and Lithuania, belonged to the old USSR, security at the Fisikous Research Institute was handled by the MVD, the Soviet Troops of the Interior. From the MVD troops stationed in Lithuania, a special detachment of highly trained troops was formed specifically to handle security here in Fisikous and in other critical Soviet offices in Vilnius. That unit was called OMON, or Otriad Militisija Osobennoga Naznachenaia, meaning “Special Purpose Military Detachment.” Because they wore black berets to distinguish them from other MVD troops, they were called the Black Berets by many in Lithuania and in the West. They soon gained a terrible reputation as ruthless enforcers, and were charged with murdering many Lithuanian citizens, along with citizens of the other Baltic republics, before those countries declared their independence from the Soviet Union.
When Lithuania became independent in 1991, the Black Berets were supposedly disbanded. But they weren’t. They still existed, in smaller numbers, in the most important Soviet facilities in the Baltic states. At the Fisikous Institute in Vilnius, they were called “private Security employees” and placed under the command of Viktor Gabovich, who was no longer part of the KGB (since technically the KGB did not exist as of 1992) but was an officer of the Commonwealth of Independent States’ Inter-Republican Council for Security, or MSB, charged with maintaining security for Commonwealth facilities in Lithuania during the transition period.
But because of the treaty for the transition of control of former Soviet facilities between Lithuania and the Commonwealth, Commonwealth troops and Lithuanian officials had equal access to Fisikous to monitor compliance. Military personnel wearing all sort of uniforms paraded around the place all the time, making it nearly impossible for the scientists to get anything done. This went up Viktor Gabovich’s ass sideways. The Institute was his domain, his base of operations, and even though he wasn’t a scientist, he sure as hell had authority over what they did. Turning Fisikous into the premier weapons-and-aircraft-design facility in the Commonwealth was not only his goal, it was his obsession.
It was the reason he had brought the American from that hellhole in Siberia, and the reason he’d expended so much time and energy turning him from a prisoner into a collaborator.
It was also the reason he put up with these petty interruptions by the Lithuanians, on whose soil the Institute unfortunately sat. Every day he was tempted to simply lock the doors and gates, tell these Boy Scouts to fuck off, and seal off access. But Viktor Gabovich knew that his Black Berets did not have the numbers needed to keep the Lithuanians at bay, let alone the might of the Byelorussian-equipped Commonwealth forces.
But just because Gabovich had to let these popinjays in did not mean he had to stand for their petty interrogations. To Kolginov he replied, “You asked if he’s all right? That is none of your business.”
Kolginov’s eyes narrowed, and Surkov instinctively took a defensive step backwards, immediately drawing his walkie-talkie to summon help. “Your identification cards, please,” Kolginov demanded.
Gabovich produced his identification card and replied hotly, “What the problem is, Major, is that you are skulking around here and observing Private research activities that do not concern you.
Kolginov examined the card and recognized the man’s name immediately — although they had not met before, Kolginov knew Gabovich was the head of security for Fisikous, hired by the scientists themselves to Provide “special” security procedures and services for parts of the facility not yet open to inspection by Lithuania. Kolginov also knew that Gabovich and his aide, a man named Teresov, were former KGB officers and most likely still had their entire KGB apparatus intact. Kolginov had never seen the third man. He motioned to Luger and asked, “And that man…?”
“Doctor Ivan Sergeiovich Ozerov. He is under my supervision. He is not required to show you his identification,” Gabovich said testily. “Now, what is your reason for being in this wing of the facility, Major Iron Wolf?”
“I am on an inspection tour of—”
“There are no guard posts down this corridor, Major,” Gabovich pointed out. “I suggest you keep your nose out of business that does not concern you.”
“If you have a problem with my actions, Comrade Gabovich,” Kolginov said loudly, “you—”
But he never had a chance to finish. Gabovich, flushed with anger as his patience finally snapped, pulled out a huge Makarov pistol and aimed it at Kolginov, silencing him immediately. Teresov pulled a gun on Surkov before the NCO could reach into his holster.
“I am ordering you to close your mouth, move away from this area immediately, and keep your mouth closed about this incident, or I will shut you up permanently,” Gabovich said. “This is a private operation, underwritten by the Commonwealth of Independent States. Ozerov is a CIS scientist under my care, and you are in violation of internal-security regulations. If you have damaged this operation with your actions, I will see to it that General Voshchanka goes to your government and has you stripped of your rank. If you don’t believe we have the power to do that, just try it. Now go.”