place was three-quarters full and most of the diners were paying close attention to the singer because she was very good, and the song was very old and very sad, something most Russians loved, especially these days.
“Good evening, Mr. Yemlin,” the maitre d’ greeted him. “Will you be dining alone this evening?”
“No, Konstantin will be joining me. We would like a table away from the stage. A quiet table.”
“Of course,” the man said. “But you’ll still be able to hear Larissa.”
Konstantin Sukhoruchkin sat on the edge of the chair in his bedroom lacing his shoes as he waited for his call to Tbilisi to go through. His old friend was in trouble. He’d picked up that much from the few words they’d spoken on the telephone, and from a rumor that had been circulating around the Human Rights Commission the last few days. The rivalry between the two divisions of the old KGB was apparently coming to a head, and Yemlin was being targeted as a scapegoat for some purely internal problem. He’d heard nothing other than that, but he was astute enough to understand that something else might be happening. Something concerning McGarvey’s assignment. Just the thought of anything going wrong made his blood run cold.
Shevardnadze’s special number finally rolled over, rang once with a different sound, and then was answered by the man himself.
“This is Konstantin Sukhoruchkin, Mr. President. I’m telephoning from Moscow.”
“What is it?”
“Has Viktor contacted you in the last two or three days?” *
“No,” Shevardnadze said.
“He just telephoned me to have dinner with him tonight. I have been friends with him long enough to know when he’s in trouble. Big trouble.”
“Have you heard anything?”
“The FSK is raising hell again. There’s a rumor that Viktor might be under investigation for an internal problem.”
“Nothing about the..: project?”
“Nyet. But I am having these feelings.”
“I know what you mean, Konstantin. I’m also having those feelings. Do you want to call it off?”
“I don’t know. But I intend asking Viktor that very question,” Sukhoruchkin said. “I wanted to talk to you first. To find out how you feel.”
“Nothing has changed, has it?” Shevardnadze asked.
“If anything the situation gets worse every day, Mr. President. I doubt if we’ll even last until the June elections.”
“So the need is still there,” Shevardnadze said. “Viktor may be getting cold feet. If that’s it, if the project hasn’t been compromised beyond salvaging, then you have to convince him to press on. Don’t you agree?”
“No. Not unless I consider the alternative,” Sukhoruchkin said. “I’ll see what the matter is, and we’ll go from there.”
“It’s all you can do, Konstantin. It’s all any of us can do now.”
Yemlin put down his glass of iced Polish vodka, opened the latch of the heavier cigarette box and laid it on the table as he spotted Sukhoruchkin coming across the room toward him. The woman was still singing, and in the past fifteen minutes no one suspicious had entered the restaurant, but this hotel was owned by the city of Moscow, which meant the restaurant was probably bugged.
His friend looked troubled, as Yemlin rose to greet him. “Has something happened, Korstya?”
“That’s my question for you,” Sukhoruchkin said, shaking hands. They sat down.
“I’m going to Paris to call McGarvey off,” Yemlin said. “I won’t be coming back.” He poured a vodka for Sukhoruchkin, who glanced nervously at the door.
“I knew something was wrong.”
“They know about McGarvey and it’s my fault, I’m afraid.”
The color drained from Sukhoruchkin’s narrow face. “Is it safe to speak here?”
“Yes. But listen, you have to call Shevardnadze and tell him what’s happened. There could be a backlash. They might try to assassinate him.”
Sukhoruchkin was shaking his head. “I just talked to him. He told me to tell you that unless the project is beyond saving we must continue, because nothing else has changed. If Tarankov succeeds we’ll lose the Rodina.” Yemlin passed a hand across his eyes. “They know about McGarvey, didn’t you hear me?” “They can’t know about McGarvey’s actual plans, because none of us do.”
“He has to be warned!”
“Why?” Sukhoruchkin demanded. “We owe this man nothing other than the money you’ve already paid him. If he’s as good as you say he is, then he’ll go ahead with it. If he succeeds we’ll be in the clear.”
“What if he fails?”
Sukhoruchkin raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Then nothing will matter. We’ll be dead and the nation lost.”
Yemlin motioned the waiter over, and ordered another carafe of vodka and another plate of blinis, and caviar.
“Would you give your life to save Russia?” Yemlin said quietly.
“If it came to that, yes, of course.”
“What about your dignity, Korstya? Your pride? Your — manhood? Would you as easily give those up for Mother Russia? Would you, for instance, give up the use of your limbs to save the nation? Would you become a quadriplegic for the sake of your countrymen? Because that’s what I’m being asked to do.”
Sukhoruchkin was studying his face. “My God, Viktor, what’s happened? What have you done?”
Yemlin looked away for a few moments. It took courage to be a Russian. That was something they’d never understood in the West. Russia had been at war with most of her neighbors at one point or another in her history. But there’d never been a time when Russians hadn’t been at war with each other. The tsars had killed peasants by the millions, as had Stalin and as Tarankov was threatening to do. Food was plentiful in the fields, but the harvests often didn’t get to the population centers, so lack of food had taken uncounted millions of lives. The weather killed people. Vodka and cigarettes killed people. Even the very air and water had become deadly in many parts of the country. Nuclear fallout and poorly processed chemical wastes were killers. Infant mortality rates were up, as were abortions. More than ten percent of all Russian babies were being born with life-threatening defects. Over half of all children in school were sick. The average life span for a man in Russia was now fifty-seven years, by far the lowest of any industrialized nation. Murder was a way of doing business, and suicide rates continued to rise every year. And Tarankov would make all of that worse.
The question Yemlin asked himself was not whether he had the courage to help McGarvey succeed against all odds by whatever means he could, but whether he had the courage to continue being a Russian.
“I went to the Magesterium on Friday where I was given drugged champagne and was seduced. I told them about hiring McGarvey to kill Tarankov.”
“Who does the girl work for?”
“It wasn’t a girl,” Yemlin said, lowering his eyes. “It was a young man. And he probably works for the.
FSK.”
Sukhoruchkin’s mouth hung open. “You were drugged, Viktor. It wasn’t your fault.”
Yemlin said nothing. “But if you were drugged how do you know if you spoke McGarvey’s name? Maybe you dreamed it.”
“I went back tonight, to the same young man. This time I seduced him, and drugged him. He told me what I’d said.”
Sukhoruchkin sat back and closed his eyes for a moment. “I see what you mean,” he said softly. “But the first time wasn’t your fault, and the second time you had to find out what they knew.”
“If I stay, there’ll have to be a third time, Korstya. The only way I can help McGarvey how, short of calling him off, will be to feed the FSK disinformation.”
“We can’t call him off.”
Yemlin nodded.
“If it’s any consolation, my old friend — and I expect that it’s not — if I were in your shoes I would probably do the same thing. But you’re right, it is easier to give your life for your country. Infinitely easier.”
Yemlin’s eyes met Sukhoruchkin’s. “Do you think badly of me, Korstya?”
