In his dacha northeast of Moscow, Leonid Todshivalin had been dozing off to the sound of the television when the crash of breaking glass startled him into full awareness. He jerked around in his reclining chair and saw that one of the back windows had been shattered. Cold wind swept into the living room through the jagged remnants of the pane. Spears of glass were sprayed across the rug beneath the sill. In a corner of the floor, he noticed a large rock lying amid the shards. A folded piece of paper had been bound to it with a rubber band.
Pulling his bathrobe closed around him, Todshivalin sprang off the chair and hurried over to the window. He knelt to pick up the stone, careful not to step in the glass, cocking an eye out the window at his snow-covered yard. He didn’t see anybody. But he thought he knew why the rock had been thrown.
He pulled off the rubber band and unfolded the slip of paper. Written on it in a large hand were two words:
BLOODSUCKING ASSHOLE
He felt a flash of anger. For two months his railroad had been relaying American grain deliveries bound from central warehouses in Moscow to the nearby western provinces. The amount shipped to each region was calculated according to population, and if not for his skimming off a portion of the reserves, his town’s allotment would have been negligible. He had assumed the risk. Why then did he not deserve to make a small profit by adding a surcharge to the grain he distributed?
“Ingrates!” he shouted, lobbing the rock back out at his unseen harassers. “You’ve had too much to drink! Go away!”
There was no answer. He rose, cursing under his breath, thinking he had better clean up the mess. Somebody would pay for this. All he had wanted was to spend New Year’s Eve relaxing in peace and quiet. Somebody would pay.
Todshivalin was starting toward the closet to get his broom when he heard a loud bang at the door. He halted suddenly, then turned and looked out across the backyard again. There were several sets of overlapping footprints in the snow. Had they been there before? He wasn’t sure, and he supposed it really wasn’t important. What mattered was that they swung around to the front of the house.
There was another bang on the door. Another. He shot his gaze at it, saw the hinges quivering.
“Get out of here!” he shouted. “Get out before I call the polizei!”
The door thudded and shook. Its bolt lock racketed in its socket. A spear of wood splintered off the jamb.
Todshivalin heard the dry rasp of his own breath. Beads of sweat had formed on his nose and forehead. He felt the hair on his scalp bristle at the nubs.
More drumming crashes at the door.
He stood in the entry hall for several breathless seconds and then decided to get his rifle from his bedroom closet. He had to do it fast, before the door buckled.
He lunged toward the bedroom and reached the entrance just as the door burst open, shaves of wood flying from its frame. His eyes cut back to the front of the house. Three men in stocking masks came surging in. Two were holding metal pipes. The third had a jerry can in his hand.
“You’re all out of your minds!” Todshivalin screamed. “You can’t do this! You—”
One of the men thrust himself at Todshivalin and swung a pipe across his middle. He collapsed like a ruptured accordion, the air whooshing out of his lungs. Now both of the men with pipes were standing over him, pounding him with blows. He raised his hands to protect his face and one of the pipes smashed his fingers. He grunted in pain and curled up on his side, whimpering, tucking his hands between his thighs.
The men continued beating him relentlessly, their pipes slamming his neck and face. They hit him in the mouth, knocking his front teeth down his throat. Blood gushed from his nose and an open gash on his cheek.
Tears spurting from his eyes, he saw the third man tilt the jerry can forward. Something poured from its spout and the room filled with the stink of gasoline. The man moved quickly around the room with the can, dousing the curtains and furniture. Then he came over to where Todshivalin was lying and splashed some gasoline on his bathrobe “Please, don’t,” he moaned weakly. His head spun and his mouth was swamped with blood. “I can… give… you… money… food…”
“Shut up!”
A pipe slammed Todshivalin just below the jawline and he emitted a high, choked whimper. Then the men stepped back from him. He caught a blurred glimpse of one of them pulling a lighter and a hank of cloth from his pocket, holding the lighter to the cloth, setting the cloth on fire.
“Shliúkha,” the man said through his mask.
And tossed the fiery swatch of cloth onto Todshivalin’s gasoline-soaked robe.
He shrieked and writhed on the floor, flames leaping up his back, flashing hungrily as they enveloped his body.
Todshivalin heard footsteps pounding away from him, and then he was alone in the house, fire roaring in his ears, black smoke churning around the room. He was burning, burning! He heard a voice, started to cry out for help, but then realized it was only the television, Pedachenko still droning away in the background as the fire ate him alive. He tried to pull himself to his knees, rose about an inch off the floor, then sank back down under a ragged fringe of flame, his flesh searing with agony, thinking that they’d killed him, the bastards, the bastards, they’d—
“You’re on the air.”
“What I would like to ask, Minister Pedachenko, is your opinion of why the American grain has been so slow in becoming available. Some towns in the east have received a single truckload for hundreds of families to share. And where I live outside of Stary Oskol, we have seen none of it.”
“A good question, my friend. As you know, there are members of our government who insist that political squabbles in the United States have been responsible for the irregular deliveries. But we might at least consider another explanation. Could it be the Americans have engaged in economic sabotage by deliberately having assistance reach us at a trickle? That their goal is to dominate us through long-term dependency? Sooner or later we must ask ourselves…”
Vince Scull glanced at the clock on the wall above him, and turned off the television. Enough was enough. He’d had about all he could take of Pedachenko’s contrived outrage for one night. Even in Russia, a man was entitled to enjoy himself on New Year’s Eve. Or at least keep the unwanted shit outside where it belonged.
He looked at the bland round face of the clock again. It was eight P.M. Meaning it was not yet noon in California, where his wife Anna — no, strike that — where his ex-wife Anna and their two daughters would be getting ready to celebrate the big event. If his memory was accurate, they were all going to Anna’s mom’s place in Mill Valley. He wondered if he should phone the kids there; probably they would be staying up till midnight to ring in the new year, century, millennium, and maybe another cosmic turning point or two Scull wasn’t aware of.
Midnight in California, he thought. That was, what, seven A.M. tomorrow his own time? Which would make it three A.M. in New York, where Scull’s mother still lived, eighty-two years old and going strong. He guessed she’d be celebrating in her own fashion, watching the ball descend from the roof of One Times Square on television, a glass of wine on one side of her armchair, and a tray of cocktail weenies on the other.
Scull rose to get his coat. His private quarters here at the Kaliningrad installation — three rooms in a modular living and recreational building that housed over a hundred people — were boxy and claustrophobic, like something that had been made with a giant Erector set. He needed, really needed, some fresh air.