“Reagan would’ve, but he’s been gone for months. Honecker’s counting on the confusion in Moscow to slow down their response. The Americans aren’t going to want to start a war over Berlin with an unknown Soviet government-particularly if it wasn’t involved in the action. The American finger isn’t on the trigger anymore. They’ll hesitate, debate. They’ll be too late, maybe.”
“It’s the maybe that worries me. The Americans will fight for Berlin. That policy’s never wavered. I can’t believe no one in there would listen to you and stop it. The GRU could warn the Soviet Army units in Germany to stop them. Hell, any of them could get word through to the right people,” Bogdanov said.
“Exactly. I thought they would do that immediately. They could clean house with Honecker tomorrow. A fitting epilogue. But you know what they said to me?”
“Cleaning house with Honecker-that’s what it’s all about for you, isn’t it? They take out Honecker and his cronies, and you’re the loyal German who dutifully reported their insubordination to your Soviet masters. You’re putting yourself in line to run the GDR, aren’t you?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“My ass. So is this about liberating your repressed Sorbian brothers, or is it just a power trip for you?”
“There are too many nationalists in this world. The Sorbs are respected, treated well in the GDR. They have money for their organizations, their little books and theaters.”
“And so well treated that’s why you haven’t made it to the Central Committee?”
Kosyk reached into his sport coat. Just then Stukoi and Zolotov stumbled into the kitchen. Several others followed them.
“Come join us, little lady,” Zolotov said. “We go to the banya.”
He put his arm around Zara, puckered his puffy lips and lunged for her. She dodged. He toppled forward, grabbed at her and ripped the brooch from her jacket. It skidded across the floor. In an instant she grabbed his arm as if breaking his fall and bent his thumb backwards, but wasn’t sure if he could feel any pain through the alcohol. “Watch your step. You could really get yourself hurt.” She shoved him along and then reached down for the brooch.
But Kosyk already held it.
He flipped it over and handed it to her with a rare smile. “Please.”
She thanked him and then turned to Stukoi, hoping she could use him to get away from Kosyk while keeping them above the explosion. “Why don’t you wait to go to the banya until after I leave?”
“We added wood to the fire long ago. It should be perfect now. Come join us,” Stukoi said.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea. I need to be going soon. My father isn’t feeling too well and I get so little opportunity to see him.”
The men wobbled out the back door.
Zara glanced at her watch. Explosion in ten minutes-plus or minus. She had to get out. And she had to do something about the men in the banya. “General Kosyk, it’s been interesting as usual, but I have to excuse myself.”
“You cannot go yet.” He reached into his tweed sport coat and pulled out a gun.
It seemed like it had taken hours, but in less than twenty minutes Faith had crept to the cars, laid her landmines and returned to the burnt-out dacha to wait. She sat down in the familiar spot. The seconds dragged. What was happening? She knew it was too early for Summer to return, but she couldn’t stand not knowing. She twisted a twig between her fingers until it snapped. There was no reason she couldn’t wait on Summer closer to the dacha. With the night scope she could watch the entrance under the house and could be back at the rendezvous spot before him.
Still wearing the backpack with three leftover mines, she crawled toward the dacha. She perched behind a bush on a small rise from which she could view the entire area. She looked through the night-vision scope, but the resolution wasn’t enough to make out much. Time slowed to a standstill. She waited, staring at the unchanging scene. The breeze shifted directions and she smelled smoke. Nothing was coming from the chimney of the dacha, but smoke curled from the banya.
Ten twenty-two-only three more minutes until he pulls the pin.
She raised the monocular to her right eye to watch for Summer. He should be pulling the pin and coming back within a minute. Then she saw movement. Four men staggered out the back door of the dacha. Oh, shit.
Faith shoved the scope back into her pocket, zipping it shut. She crawled on her belly toward the dacha, forcing herself to watch the obese men undress. Slowly they stripped off their suit jackets, dress shirts and trousers. One shoved his clothes at a peg on the side of the sauna, but they crumpled onto the ground. The men stumbled inside.
As soon as the last one shut the door, Faith crawled through a flowerbed and under the house.
It was time. Summer steadied the landmine with his right hand and pulled the pin. The metal striker whizzed out of the detonator plug hole, the tiny steel missile zooming through the air. Summer jumped back, sure he’d filled his pants. Crap. Must’ve cut too far through the delay strip.
Now the mine was useless.
He raced through the dark obstacle course of junk toward Faith and the extra mines.
Kosyk pointed the gun at the center of Zara’s chest. His left eye twitched. “I assume you have an arsenal strapped to your body. Set them on the counter one at a time. You know the routine, any fast moves, any noise-”
She removed the Makarov semiautomatic from her ankle holster, holding the butt with two fingers. She spread her feet apart and held out her arms for a search.
He picked up her gun and stuck it in the back of his trousers. He patted her down with his left hand while the gun in his right pressed against her throat. He stopped at her pockets, removed the cigarette-pack camera and dropped it into his sport-coat pocket. “Marlboro. You won’t need these.”
Zara didn’t want to call his attention to her concern with the time, so she didn’t look at her own watch, but stole a glance at his. She knew that under her feet a spring-loaded metal pin was pushing against a steel wire, wearing away a thin lead strip between her and death. She guessed she had less than four minutes.
“You know, it never did make sense to me why you were the one who approached us with plans for the coup. Mielke has a close relationship with over half the KGB generals and considers the other half blood brothers. He knew exactly whom to trust and who hated Gorbachev. He even came to us directly a couple of years ago with a proposal we oust Honecker. If Honecker and Mielke decided to knock off Gorbachev-Mielke would’ve come straight to us.”
“A rogue general is deniable-Mielke’s not. I couldn’t get the fools to understand that eliminating Gorbachev alone wasn’t enough. They had to find a way to control the successor.”
“You can’t tell me Mielke didn’t grasp that.”
“He believed Gorbachev’s support was weak and fractured. He had faith in his generation of Chekists and Soviet Army commanders and believed they’d seize power, maybe not immediately, but as soon as they thought the imperialists were behind the assassination. Mielke’s getting old and losing his edge-they all are.”
“Sad, in a way. He was probably the most ruthless, cunning bastard I ever met-present company excluded, of course.”
“Of course.” Kosyk smiled again.
“You know it makes no sense they’d make a play for West Berlin on the eve of a coup when there’s the danger of Gorbachev getting involved, possibly changing his plans for the morning. Even if they’re bold enough to invade the city on their own, they wouldn’t do it before the chaos ensued in Moscow. I’m betting you set them up by signaling them that the murder had already happened. They’re probably sitting in Berlin right now, listening to Radio Moscow, wondering why it isn’t playing a dirge like it usually does in the interim between the death of a Kremlin leader and the official announcement.” Zara knew the lead strip had become a little thinner. “You expected your Russian friends in there to contact their colleagues in Germany and stop Honecker, didn’t you? You thought that would be enough for them to boot out Honecker and the whole bunch. After proving your loyalties to the new Soviet leaders, you’d be in line for a major role in the post-coup order, definitely Politburo, maybe chief of the MfS and quite likely the First Secretary.” Where was the explosion?