even.”
“So I have not told you. Do you remember the War, Comrade Sergeant? No, of course, you couldn’t. It was over a decade before you were born. I formed many habits during the War. One was a respect for fuel. I learned to spill my lifeblood itself rather than waste gasoline, and a commitment that strong is not easily changed, even when the times do.
“So, Comrade Sergeant, when the rotation selects you to drive for me again, turn the motor off while you wait for me. It pains me to see a car burning fuel without accomplishing anything.”
“I will, Comrade General. I am sorry.”
“You could not know; I had yet to tell you. No blame attaches.”
“Thank you, Comrade General.”
“Just remember what I have said. You drive very well.”
Borzov could see her ears redden. He allowed himself a flash of amusement, then leaned back against the cushions and began to think.
Chapter Two
H IS THOUGHTS WERE DEVOTED to one project for the entire trip, but they did him little good. He was glad to feel the car stop (the sergeant switched off the engine when it did), letting him know he had arrived at Dzerzhinski Square. Borzov entered and went downstairs to his office.
The office was another habit Borzov had formed during the War, working in a small, dark room many levels below the street. It had been a precaution against air raids. But he had come to like it. The basements of Lubyanka had been where the most strenuous interrogations had taken place, and when Borzov had something to do with them, it was convenient to have his office nearby, where he could go in peace to digest the results. He had steadfastly refused to move upstairs, and when the KGB built the branch headquarters, a modern monstrosity on a ring road skirting the capital, Borzov had nearly resigned.
He needn’t have worried. Plenty of work was still done here. It was convenient to so many other organizations. And even with the advent of new techniques and new drugs, making interrogation just as profitable but with less physical labor, the basement rooms had not been entirely decommissioned.
He went to his desk and called Communications for progress on the American newspaper operation. Only with his request would the reports be printed. An armed courier rushed them to the general’s office where he read, then destroyed, them. The whole procedure had taken less than three minutes, and the papers themselves had been in existence less than that. Borzov was pleased, as he always was when things went smoothly.
Things were not going smoothly in America. The woman was being stubborn. She had been given warnings, and she had ignored them. There was no doubt the warnings had been received. The American madman—Azrael in coded dispatches, by his own choice—was perfection, as always. No one suspected that the children had been eliminated by anything but blind chance. Except that woman. She knew. And still she defied him.
It made Borzov angry in the most fundamental way. It bothered him even more than the mysterious setbacks of recent years, the foiling of the Liz Fane kidnapping or the defection of Bulanin, Borzov’s top man in England. The Americans had been responsible for those in some way Borzov had yet to fully understand.
He could, however, accept it. Even the greatest of chess masters lost from time to time.
But this was different. This was as if he had spent hours developing a strategy, and just as he was about to put his opponent in check, his queen had tried to sneak off the board.
Ordinarily, of course, someone who tried to ignore his assignment without at least having brains enough actually to defect would be doused, painfully, before becoming anything more than a minor annoyance.
The times were not ordinary. Soviet-American relations were on the brink of entering a new phase, and that phase must be carefully shaped. American and Soviet officials had started a round of talks that would proceed, on and off, with cancellations for minor
“So I have not told you. Do you remember the War, Comrade Sergeant? No, of course, you couldn’t. It was over a decade before you were born. I formed many habits during the War. One was a respect for fuel. I learned to spill my lifeblood itself rather than waste gasoline, and a commitment that strong is not easily changed, even when the times do.
“So, Comrade Sergeant, when the rotation selects you to drive for me again, turn the motor off while you wait for me. It pains me to see a car burning fuel without accomplishing anything.”
“I will, Comrade General. I am sorry.”
“You could not know; I had yet to tell you. No blame attaches.”
“Thank you, Comrade General.”
“Just remember what I have said. You drive very well.”
Borzov could see her ears redden. He allowed himself a flash of amusement, then leaned back against the cushions and began to think.
Chapter Two
H IS THOUGHTS WERE DEVOTED to one project for the entire trip, but they did him little good. He was glad to feel the car stop (the sergeant switched off the engine when it did), letting him know he had arrived at Dzerzhinski Square. Borzov entered and went downstairs to his office.
The office was another habit Borzov had formed during the War, working in a small, dark room many levels below the street. It had been a precaution against air raids. But he had come to like it. The basements of Lubyanka had been where the most strenuous interrogations had taken place, and when Borzov had something to do with them, it was convenient to have his office nearby, where he could go in peace to digest the results. He had steadfastly refused to move upstairs, and when the KGB built the branch headquarters, a modern monstrosity on a ring road skirting the capital, Borzov had nearly resigned.
He needn’t have worried. Plenty of work was still done here. It was convenient to so many other organizations. And even with the advent of new techniques and new drugs, making interrogation just as profitable but with less physical labor, the basement rooms had not been entirely decommissioned.
He went to his desk and called Communications for progress on the American newspaper operation. Only with his request would the reports be printed. An armed courier rushed them to the general’s office where he read, then destroyed, them. The whole procedure had taken less than three minutes, and the papers themselves had been in existence less than that. Borzov was pleased, as he always was when things went smoothly.
Things were not going smoothly in America. The woman was being stubborn. She had been given warnings, and she had ignored them. There was no doubt the warnings had been received. The American madman—Azrael in coded dispatches, by his own choice—was perfection, as always. No one suspected that the children had been eliminated by anything but blind chance. Except that woman. She knew. And still she defied him.
It made Borzov angry in the most fundamental way. It bothered him even more than the mysterious setbacks of recent years, the foiling of the Liz Fane kidnapping or the defection of Bulanin, Borzov’s top man in England. The Americans had been responsible for those in some way Borzov had yet to fully understand.
He could, however, accept it. Even the greatest of chess masters lost from time to time.
But this was different. This was as if he had spent hours developing a strategy, and just as he was about to put his opponent in check, his queen had tried to sneak off the board.
Ordinarily, of course, someone who tried to ignore his assignment without at least having brains enough actually to defect would be doused, painfully, before becoming anything more than a minor annoyance.
The times were not ordinary. Soviet-American relations were on the brink of entering a new phase, and that phase must be carefully shaped. American and Soviet officials had started a round of talks that would proceed, on and off, with cancellations for minor
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