Surprise spread across the interrogator’s face. “What?”
“Borodin. I need an address.”
“I don’t understand. I thought you had come here for.. McAllister raised the pistol and jammed it into Miroshnikov’s side. “I don’t have time. I want an address now, or you’ll die. Simple.”
Miroshnikov shook his head. “He has an apartment here in the city on Kalinina Prospekt, but his wife normally stays there. The general prefers his dacha.”
“Where? Exactly,” McAllister demanded. Being this close again to Miroshnikov was different than he thought it would be. He felt like a fool, or more accurately like a schoolboy who had done something naughty. Turn the gun over to him, he is your friend. Hadn’t that already been established? We are making such great progress together, you and I, Mac. Miroshnikov was watching him closely. “It’s on the Istra River. About fifty kilometers from here. Not so difficult to find.”
McAllister knew most of the area around Moscow. He’d been to the Istra River region with its Museum of Wooden Architecture onseveral occasions. An entire replica community of churches, peasant cottages, granaries, and windmills had been brought there from all over Russia.
“Is it near the village?”
“Yes,” Miroshnikov said, still puzzled. “Just a few kilometers to the north. There is a covered bridge across the river. He is first on the right.”
The parking lot was protected by a tall wire-mesh fence. One of the attendants had come out of his hut and was watching them. McAllister looked up.
“Start the car and drive out of here,” he said.
Miroshnikov saw the attendant as well. “To the general’s dacha?”
“No. Someplace private. Anyplace. Just get us out of here. Now.” Miroshnikov started the car and pulled out.
McAllister lowered the pistol so that it was out of sight as they passed the attendant who watched them leave the parking lot and disappear down the street.
Traffic was heavier than before, and for the next few minutes the interrogator concentrated on his driving. He turned right on Zhdanova Street past the Ministry of Higher and Special Education, and one block later had to stop for a red light. He refused to look at McAllister, his eyes straight ahead on the bumper of the car ahead of them. When the light changed, he pulled forward.
Look to Washington. Look to Moscow. Voronin’s words were so clearly etched in McAllister’s brain that he might always have known them. But there was something else. Still something that nagged.
“What is this general to you?” Miroshnikov asked, breaking their silence.
“Zebra Two,” McAllister said. It no longer mattered who knew. “What?”
“A spy.”
“Of course
“He was Donald Harman’s control officer. He and his people have been trying to kill me ever since I was sent home. Well, they’re all dead now, and Borodin is the only one left.“Miroshnikov was looking at him, a very strange expression on his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Zebra One was Donald Harman, an adviser to the President. General Borodin is Zebra Two, his control officer.”
“You’ve come here to kill him?” Miroshnikov asked in wonder. “Yes.”
“Why?”
McAllister started to reply, but no words came. His heart was racing now.
They crossed the Sadovaya Ring with the light, and continued north away from the city center. A banner was stretched above the broad boulevard. LONG LIVE THE SOVIET PEOPLE, BUILDERS OF COMMUNISM. McAllister struggled to maintain his control.
“Why?” Miroshnikov repeated. “You came back here at great risk. Kidnapped an officer of the KGB right in front of headquarters, and I suspect you weren’t even armed. And now you are saying that you mean to kill a very important general. I ask you again, why?”
“Because of… what he has done.”
“To you? To your country?”
“Yes.”
“You say this Donald Harman is dead. I read it in the newspapers. And so are some other very important men in Washington. You have done your job, Mac, and done it well. I am proud of you.”
“Americans,” McAllister whispered.
“And some Russians too, I think. I have seen reports. Gennadi Potemkin is missing. Presumed dead.”
“I killed him.”
“There, you see? And there have been others.” The traffic thinned out the farther they got from downtown. They passed the Riga Train Station and Dzerzhinsky Park, a big textile plant on the right after they passed beneath a railroad viaduct. Believe me, we are going to have a splendid time together, you and I. The interrogator’s words flowed around McAllister. The voice then as now, it was hard for him to distinguish which. They had left the city behind. Birch forests spread away to theundulating horizon, the highway rising and falling like swells on a vast ocean. The sky was overcast, and a wind had begun to blow snow across the road. The countryside seemed alien, as if it belonged on another planet. “You don’t understand, do you, Mac?” Miroshnikov’s patient voice came to McAllister. “But of course you couldn’t.”
A narrow road, barely a track through the snow, led back up into the trees. Miroshnikov downshifted and the little car bumped its way up a shallow hill, then down the other side around a steep curve. When he stopped the car they were completely out of sight of the highway. Only the trees were visible in any direction. Not a single sign of human habitation marred the desolate landscape.
“You won’t kill me, I don’t think,” Miroshnikov said. McAllister raised the automatic. Little spots of light danced in his eyes, like flickering embers from a campfire.
“I’m going to help you, as I have from the beginning, Mac. Believe me, I will turn out to be a good friend. Your only friend.”
The interrogator opened the car door and got out. “Where are you going?” McAllister shouted, suddenly rousing himself.
“For a smoke, nothing more. We will talk, and in the end you will see that together we can kill this general of yours, and together we will run to the West. We will be heroes, you and I. Believe me, we are going to have a splendid time.”
McAllister got out of the car as Miroshnikov was lighting a cigarette. The interrogator offered it across the hood of the car, but McAllister refused. The extremely cold wind bit at his face and ears, and his bare hands began to turn numb, but his head was clearing.
“We’ll do it tonight,” Miroshnikov said. “He is a difficult man. But with you I think it will be possible. Anything is possible.”
“He’s one of yours, why would you want to kill him?” Miroshnikov scowled. “He’s Russian, not one of mine.”
“And you?”
“Siberian. There is a big and very important difference, Mac. I will explain it to you someday.”
With Miroshnikov distanced across the car, and with the cold windcontinuing to clear his head, McAllister could begin to think again. He was no longer mesmerized by the interrogator… who after all was nothing more than a man.
“What did you do to me in the Lubyanka?” Miroshnikov had started to raise the cigarette to his lips, but his hand stopped halfway. “I saved your life.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You were a spy. You had been caught with a weapon in your possession. You should have gotten the death penalty. I prevented it.”
“How?”
“By convincing General Suslev, the head of my division, that you would be of more use to us in the States than in a Gulag, or two meters down.”
McAllister could feel his finger tightening on the Makarov’s trigger. He had no idea how much pressure it would take before the gun fired.
Miroshnikov saw it. “What did you do to me?”
“I convinced Suslev that I had turned you into an agent for us. The chances that it would work, that you could convince your people you were legitimate, were slight. But even a small chance is better than none.”