TARANKOV, AND I HAVE COME TODAY TO OFFER MY HAND IN FRIENDSHIP AND HELP.” His amplified voice boomed across the crowds from powerful speakers mounted on the train, and on each of the APCs.
The people went wild, screaming his name, raising their right fists in salute, waving banners and posters with his picture. Old women and men, tears streaming down their cheeks, pressed forward, calling his name, begging for him to see them, to hear then-pleas. It reminded McGarvey of a revival tent meeting his sister had taken him to when he was a boy in Kansas. He half expected to see people on crutches and in wheelchairs making their way to Tarankov’s side so that he could heal them with his touch. In effect that’s what they were asking him to do here today. Heal the nation with his touch. Right the wrongs they’d endured for so many difficult years.
Tarankov was joined by a dark haired woman and a tall man, both dressed in plain battle fatigues. The three of them stepped down from the train, and headed through the ranks of APCs and commandoes into the square.
“OUR COUNTRY IS FALLING INTO A BOTTOMLESS PIT OF DESPAIR. OUR FORESTS ARE DYING. OUR GREAT VOLGA AND LAKES HAVE BECOME CESSPOOLS OF WASTE. THE AIR OVER THIS GREAT CITY OF GORKI IS UNFIT TO BREATHE. THE ONLY FOOD WORTH EATING FILLS THE BELLIES OF THE APPARATCHIKS AND FOREIGNERS HERE AND IN MOSCOW. OUR CHILDREN ARE DYING AND OUR WOMEN ARE CRYING OUT FOR HELP, BUT NO ONE IN MOSCOW CAN HEAR THEM. NO ONE DM MOSCOW WANTS TO HEAR THEM.”
A silence descended over the people, as Tarankov strode into the square, his amplified voice continuing to roll over them.
“OUR HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IS BANKRUPT. OUR MILITARY HAS BECOME LEADERLESS AND USELESS. HOOLIGANS AND PROFITEERS EAT INTO US LIKE A CANCER GONE WILD. AIDS AND DRUGS AND MINDLESS MUSIC ROT THE BRAINS OF OUR CHILDREN.”
As Tarankov and his group approached the prisoners, McGarvey worked his way closer to the edge of the crowd so he could get a better look. The Tarantula was not a very imposing figure. He could have passed as any ordinary Russian on the street, or in a factory, except that his fatigues were well pressed, his boots well shined, and his face alive with intelligence and emotion. It was obvious, even at a distance, that Tarankov was no charlatan revival preacher. He was a man who truly believed that he had the answers for his people, and that he was the one to lead them out of what he was calling a cesspool of hopelessness imposed on them by the western powers.
“MOSCOW… HOW MANY STRAINS “ARE FUSING IN THAT ONE SOUND, FOR RUSSIAN HEARTS?”
A cheer went up from the crowd.
“WHAT STORE OF RICHES IT IMPARTS! I WILL GIVE YOU MOSCOW! I WILL GIVE YOU RUSSIA!”
The crowd roared its approval, chanting his name over and over.
“I WILL RETURN YOUR PRIDE, YOUR HOPE, YOUR DIGNITY. I WILL RETURN THE SOVIET UNION TO YOU!”
Again the crowd cheered wildly. They held up his picture and posters with his name or the tarantula symbol, and chanted his name.
The attractive woman beside him was his East German wife Liesel. Rencke had come up with one photograph of her taken while she was at Moscow University. She had held her good looks, and her figure was still slight. She was beaming at her husband with such a look of open admiration and adoration that whoever loved Tarankov, had to love her.
“IT IS BETTER TO LOSE A RIVER OF BLOOD NOW THAN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY LATER, EVEN IF IT IS RUSSIAN BLOOD,” Tarankov shouted. He stopped a few yards in front of the prisoners, unbuttoned the flap of his holster and pulled out his Makarov pistol. “WE WILL ONLY SPILL THE BLOOD OF TRAITORS.” His voice boomed across the square.
He was wearing a lapel mike, which broadcast his voice back to a central amplifier probably aboard the train, which in turn sent it out to the loudspeakers. It was a clever bit of stagecraft.
“LOOK AROUND AND YOU WILL SEE WHAT THEY HAVE DONE TO YOU. IT IS TIME FOR A CLEAN SWEEP BEFORE WE ALL CHOKE ON THE FILTH.”
The man beside Tarankov stood a full head taller than his boss, and unlike Liesel he wasn’t looking at Tarankov with adoration. Instead his eyes continually swept the crowd. It was obvious that he was a professional who had no illusions about Tarankov’s safety. No one was immune from assassination, and he knew it.
His gaze landed on McGarvey and remained for a moment. McGarvey raised his right fist in salute, and shouted Tarankov’s name with the chanting crowd, and the man’s eyes moved away.
McGarvey had no doubt that he was Leonid Chernov. And in the brief moment that Tarankov’s right hand man had looked at him, McGarvey had the uneasy sensation that an old enemy of his had come back from the pauper’s grave in Portugal. His name was Arkady Kurshin, and he’d been General Baranov’s right hand man a number of years ago. Because of Kurshin” McGarvey had lost a kidney, and had nearly lost his life. No man before or since had been as dangerous an enemy. But at this moment, McGarvey thought he’d just looked into the eyes of Kurshin’s equal, and a slight shiver played up his spine, a little tingle reached up from his gut chilling him like a fetid breeze coming from an open grave.
“WHEN OUR STRUGGLE IS OVER, I PROMISE THAT I WILL RAISE A BRONZE STATUE WITH MY OWN TWO HANDS IN DZERZHINSKY SQUARE OF A YOUNG RUSSIAN SOLDIER, HIS RIFLE RAISED OVER HIS HEAD, AND HIS FACE TURNED UP TO HEAVEN IN HOPE.”
McGarvey moved a few yards away, and a little deeper into the mob. When he caught a glimpse of Chernov again the man was looking directly at the spot where McGarvey had been standing. Chernov suspected something. But he didn’t know yet, he couldn’t know.
“TRAITORS TO THE PEOPLE,” Tarankov shouted. “ALL OF YOU.” He raised his pistol and shot one of the prisoners in the forehead, driving the older man dressed in a business suit backward, his head bouncing off the pavement, blood splashing behind him.
One of the women screamed, and Tarankov shot her twice in the chest, knocking her off her feet.
In the next seconds a half-dozen of Tarankov’s commandoes opened fire on the remaining prisoners who madly tried to scramble out of the way, cutting them down before they could get more than a step or two.
When the firing stopped, the crowd went totally wild, cheering and hooting in a frenzy of bloodlust, that seemed as if it had the power to continue unabated for hours if not days.
Tarankov bolstered his pistol, then turned to his people and raised his hands. Almost immediately the crowd fell silent.
“I HAVE A VISION FOR THE FUTURE OF THE RODINA WHICH I WILL SHARE WITH YOU TODAY, COMRADES,” he began.
McGarvey glanced over at Chernov who was staring at him, and he let all expression drain from his face except for one of love and admiration. Tarankov was his hope too.
But one thing was certain. Tarankov was not going to wait until the general elections in June to take over the government. He would almost certainly make his move much sooner than that, and McGarvey had a good idea exactly when that would be..
EIGHTEEN
Pulling into the driveway of her mother’s two story colonial across from the country club at 9:00 a.m.” Elizabeth felt like death warmed over, yet she was more alive than she’d ever been. She was working for Operations, and if everything went right she’d soon be working with her father. It couldn’t have been better, though she had to find him first, and keep Ryan’s goons away from him until they figured out what their next moves would be.
It had been after midnight by the time she was able to go home and then she hadn’t got much sleep. They’d set her up with a false passport and a complete legend under the name Elizabeth Swanson, from New York City. Her contact procedures were direct to Tom Moore on a blind number. When she went to France she was supposed to report to the COS Tom Lynch.
Between photo sessions and briefings, Elizabeth had managed to get back down to her own computer console. Toivich was gone for the evening, and no one else in the section had been told yet that she no longer
