operation with anyone, including General Yuryn, without telling me. Clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“From now on we have no military rank between us. Call me Yuri, and I’ll call you Aleksi. It’ll save time. Do you have a wife, girlfriend, parents, or anyone else who will demand your attention, or need protection when things become difficult?”
“No.”
“Has anyone given you any special instructions either about this assignment or about me, personally?”
“Only that you’re a demanding, cold-hearted, ruthless bastard, and that you have a habit of destroying anyone who gets in your way.”
Chernov had to laugh. “Did that come from General Yuryn?”
“Personally.”
“Okay. I’m a ruthless bastard, you’re an arrogant bastard, and McGarvey is a tough son of a bitch who I mean to find and kill. Nothing else matters, just that one thing. Are you clear on that as well?”
“Perfectly.”
They walked back to a small, one-story brick building that, Paporov said, had originally been used as the prison dispensary. Most recently it had been fitted out as a communications and operations headquarters for special FSK projects. The largest of the three rooms was equipped with several desks each with a computer terminal. A bank of sophisticated radio gear, tall grey file cabinets and map cases, a light table and a big conference desk filled the room. Another of the rooms was set up as sleeping quarters, and the third as a kitchen with a small fridge, a hot plate, a sink and several cabinets filled with food. The bathroom was at the rear. All the windows were sealed and alarmed, the glass painted black and covered with a heavy steel mesh. The front and back doors were made of thick steel with coded, eight-digit locks.
“We have ten phone lines, all of them encrypted, in addition to satellite up-and downlinks with everything we have in orbit,” Paporov said. “We have communications links with the Militia, FSK and SVR as well as every command in every branch of our military. All the computer equipment is state of the art IBM which gives us good access to nearly every computer system in the world.”
“I’m a computer illiterate,” Chernov admitted.
“I’m not,” Paporov said. “I got one of my degrees at Caltech when I worked for the KGB in California ten years ago. That’s one of the reasons for this,” he said, flipping his long, sand-colored hair. “Where do we start?”
“We’ll need transportation.” ‘
‘ “There’s a BMW and a Mercedes parked in back. The plates are government. Do you want a driver?”
“No,” Chernov said. “For now I want McGarvey’s file, your file, a very good map of Moscow, above and below ground, and a complete schedule of every single. event for the next ten weeks, until the general elections, in which more than a handful of people are expected to be present.”
“No problem,” Paporov said.
“Why aren’t you writing this down?” “I have a photographic memory.”
“Very well,” Chernov said. “I want you to find the best police artist in the country and get him or her here as soon as possible. Then I want you to schedule a meeting here at noon tomorrow, providing the artist shows up first, for the division chiefs, of the Special Investigations units of the Militia and the FSK.”
“What shall I tell them?”
“To come.”
“What else?”
“That’s it for now,” Chernov said.
“Okay. I’ll start with the files.” Paporov took off his jacket, tossed it over the back of a chair and went over to the file cabinets.
Chernov walked into the kitchen where he got a bottle of beer, some sausage and a piece of dark bread, happy to be away from Tarankov and the man’s insane plans for the moment.
TWENTY-SIX
Letting himself into his apartment, Yemlin resisted the urge to go to the window and see if anyone was down in the street. So far as he could tell he wasn’t being followed, but that didn’t mean a thing. The FSK had a lot of good men working for it, and some of the best field officers of any secret service in the world.
They could be there, and he’d never see them.
He went into the kitchen, poured a vodka, and lighting a cigarette, went back to his chair. He turned the television to CNN, and let the words and images flow around him while he tried to work out his position.
The FSK had not arrested him because they hoped that he would lead them to McGarvey. But they couldn’t be aware yet that he knew that they knew, so for the moment he would do nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to raise their suspicions. He was an old man caught up in the allure of the Magesterium, and the novel experience of being sexually ministered to by a young man.
The same-question kept running through his mind, though, threatening to blot out his sanity. If the act were so abhorrent to him, why had his body responded? The first time he’d been drugged, but tonight he’d done it of his own free will. He’d forced himself to do the act in order to gain the one vital piece of information. Did it make him a homosexual?
He’d prided himself on being a man of experience. But faced with this situation he felt like a complete fool. Even thinking about tonight, gave him an unsettled feeling in his loins. He closed his eyes and tried to blot out the images of what he’d done.
He was going to have to get out of Russia permanently, and he was going to have to warn McGarvey off. He took the two problems as a single unit, because he felt that the solution to both would lie initially in Paris. If he could get to Paris, even if the FSK followed him, he could manage to hide himself. Once there contacting McGarvey would be easier than doing it from Moscow, even though here he had the resources of the SVR, because in Paris he would be free.
He would have to be careful about his own service, because if questions were to be-raised about his behavior it might lead his own people over to the FSK, and his participation in hiring McGarvey would come out.
Despite the interservice rivalry, General Aykazyan would not hesitate to throw him to the wolves if for no other reason than to hedge his bets against Tarankov’s victory.
The FSK would probably not interfere with his movements for the time being. They might believe that he was going to Paris to meet with McGarvey. In the meantime, he was going to have to warn Sukhoruchkin. He owed his old friend at least that much.
He stubbed out his cigarette, finished his drink, then threw on a coat and left the apartment. Two blocks away he caught a taxi to the Hotel National. The driver dropped him off in front, and Yemlin stared at the Kremlin walls across Manezhnaya Ploshchad for a few moments before he went inside the ornately refurbished hotel.
It was just past 9:30 p.m. when he walked back to a bank of pay phones, and called Sukhoruchkin at home. His old friend answered on the second ring. Yemlin could hear music in the background.
“Da.”
“I’m at the National, how about dinner tonight, Konstantin?” “I’ve already had my dinner,” Sukhoruchkin said. “But I’ll join you for drinks at the Moskovy.”
“Fifteen minutes?”
“Da.”
Of the National’s four restaurants, the Moskovy was the most traditionally Russian. Since its reopening after a four-year renovation of the hotel, it had become one of Yemlin’s favorites. He and Sukhoruchkin often came here for late dinners, drinks and private conversations. They were always given good service, and if they wanted to be left alone, they were.
A woman was strumming a guitar and singing a folk song on the small stage when Yemlin walked in. The
