Major-Commissar Zimyanin had been allocated one of the better wags run by Internal Security. It had once been a Mercedes saloon, but the rear end had been crushed in an accident. The rebuilding had been done by various hands at various times and now little remained of the original auto. But it ran well and the heater worked.
Zimyanin was on his way to talk personally to one or two of the witnesses who'd seen the trio of strangers. The letter to the marshal had worked even more dramatically than he'd hoped.
The call had come through direct on Zimyanin's personal sec line. He'd picked up the cracked Bakelite receiver and held it to his ear without saying anything, guessing who his caller might be.
"Are you there?"
"Yes, Comrade Marshal?"
"Your letter! Have you lost your mind, Major?"
Zimyanin didn't reply for several seconds. Then, "No."
"No! Is that all you have to say?"
Again a careful pause. "Yes."
"But, but... You can't... Do you realize what a letter like this means?"
"It means I believe we may have a full condition red."
"Americans! There hasn't been any proved evidenced of Americans within our country for more years than I can recall."
"I think they are here now."
"Proof?"
Zimyanin smiled. It was the concession, the sign of weakening that he had guessed would eventually appear. Siraksi couldn't take the chance, however remote, that the suspicion might prove correct.
"Once I take them, you will have the proof, Comrade Marshal."
"If you do not take them?" The senior officer was slowly recovering his control. "Then what?"
"Then you'll be correct and I will not, Comrade Marshal."
There was a long, hanging silence. "You think you know them?"
For the first time, Zimyanin hesitated for a moment before replying. "I think it is possible that I have once met that one-eyed man and the woman."
"Your adventure in the Kamchatka? The same man, Comrade Major-Commissar? Could they have invaded us from the far northeast and trekked all the way to Moscow?" The voice was considering its own question. "Yes, yes, it is possible. You have my authority to go to condition orange and put any sec forces you need on red standby. Where are you going to search for them?"
Zimyanin was going to play a hunch. "Their trail leads directly to the heart of the ville, Comrade Marshal. Through Govorovo and Nikulino, into Ramenki and up to the river. I suddenly thought what lay in their path, what they might not be able to resist. You know?"
"What?"
"Pamyatnik," Zimyanin told him,
"Of course. Yes, of course. Brilliant, my dear boy. Brilliant! The Museum of the Peoples' Struggle Against the Oppressors of the United States! Yes, I'm sure you're right."
"I'm going there myself."
Ryan, Krysty and Rick had finally reached the front of the seemingly endless lineup, enduring the biting cold and the flurries of fresh snow, as well as the hectoring and bullying of the patrolling female sec guards.
Just as he passed under the portico of the building, Ryan glanced out into the wide street. A maroon passenger wag drove by and slowed down. The passenger was speaking to the driver, a uniformed man, bareheaded, totally bald, with a long drooping mustache.
Ryan was struck by the man's close resemblance to the Russian they'd met in Alaska, though the name eluded him.
"Zimyanin," Ryan finally whispered.
Chapter Twenty
It was one of the most amazing buildings that Ryan Cawdor had ever seen.
Over the years he'd watched a number of scratched old vids, and some of them had been set in big churches and huge, stately edifices, the like of which no longer existed in the Deathlands. The anti-American memorial was that kind of building. Though it did show some evidence of the sky-blackening nuking the ville had suffered, it was still in incredibly good shape.
The entrance hall soared several stories high, with a vaulted roof, one corner patched and marred with a tangle of metal scaffolding. Several of the windows on the northern flank had been destroyed, but some of the others remained intact. Panes of colored glass were bound about with lead strips. Despite the dull weather outside, the stained glass glowed with the richness of the hues azures and scarlets, deep cobalts and pale greens.
The pictures were what Ryan recognized as being religious subjects, though he'd always believed that the Russians had been a godless people. Here were old men with snowy beards and circles of golden light around their heads, little babies in white robes, tiny silver wings sprouting from between their shoulders.
The sound of the villagers' shuffling feet echoed through the hollow mausoleum, like the faint clapping of an immeasurably distant host. Once they were inside, the pressure from the sec forces eased. The maroon uniforms were replaced by a dull green, worn by a number of elderly men and women who seemed to function as both ushers and guides. They shepherded the throng along the winding corridor, following the route marked out by a sequence of black arrows.
Overhead was a booming, crackling voice, so distorted by the echo that it was barely possible to make out any words. Ryan looked inquiringly at Rick, who shrugged his shoulders. He put his head to one side and tried to concentrate, listening to the message repeating itself several times before he moved in close to Ryan and whispered in his ear.
"Yeah. It just welcomes us to the Memorial Exhibition, tells us to keep to the left and keep moving, not block corridors, where toilets are and... all that kind of stuff."
Krysty had been listening to Rick. "Where are they?" she asked.
"What?"
"The toilets, you stupe!"
"Oh. I think he said they were on this level, at the bottom of the main flight of stairs up into the first exhibition hall. Yeah. Look, there they are. See the signs?"
That was something that hadn't changed at all since before the long grayness.
Ryan and Rick waited together in the main hall while Krysty picked her way between the lines of people, vanishing into the doorway marked with a childlike drawing of a female figure.
"What kind of stuff's going to be in here?" Rick asked.
It was Ryan's turn to shrug. "Who knows? I guess there would have been a kind of American... what's the word I want?"
"Embassy?"
"Yeah. That's it. There'd have been one of them in the ville. Russkies could've raided things from there."
Rick nodded. "Guess so. Mebbe some propaganda movies and posters as well. It seems to me as if this place is almost like a shrine. There's sort of a religious feel to it."
"Like a church, you mean?"
"Yeah. But instead of being dedicated to love and humanity, this looks like it's probably devoted to keeping the flame of hatred still burning bright and hot."
They were talking quietly, trying to keep out of people's way. But one of the old men came up to them and said something sharply, pointing to the flight of stairs and the first of the arrows.
Rick nodded and pointed to the sign for the ladies' rest room, grinning at the usher and making a, "Women! What can you do about them?" sort of gesture with his hands. The Russian's face cracked into an understanding smile and he walked away, leaving them alone.
At the top of the stairs Ryan could just make out some huge black-and-white portraits, at least thirty feet high. They'd been daubed with great smears of bright vermilion paint, looking like fresh blood.
"Who're they? I recognize that one in the middle. Kennedy, isn't it?"
The freezie peered up. "My eyes aren't so good today, Ryan. Yeah, that's Jack. And there's Teddy, Harry, Dwight, Richard and... and all of 'em."
"Who's that fat, ugly one at the end? With the kind of scar on his cheek?"
"You're kidding me, Ryan."
"No. So much red paint I can't recognize it at all."
Rick shook his head. "Him of all men! So soon you forget! After the nineties and all the political in-fighting... You know who suddenly came popping out of the closet like the old wooden nickel, don't you?"