“Are you too busy?” he asked, struggling to hide his irritation.
“No General, I’d like nothing better,” replied Vasiliy quickly. “It’s just the number you have given me refers to an area of records that only yourself, the Prime Minister and President can gain access to.”
“Vasiliy, Vasiliy, I trust you with my life and my sons’, and grandsons’ lives. I will call down and let them know you are getting them for me. Off you go.”
Vasiliy was about to protest but seeing the look on the General’s face thought better of it and began his wasted trip to the basement record department.
Borodin called the Head of Records and was informed he was indisposed and would return his call as a matter of urgency. Borodin had to laugh. The first time in fifteen years he had called to speak to the man, he had been on the shitter. Borodin could just imagine how crest fallen the man would be at having missed his call when it came in.
As he waited for the call, he picked up the file. The smiling couple stared back at him, he could feel the warmth and hope in their smiles. He guessed they were probably late twenties maybe early thirties when the shot had been taken. He could see from the summary that James Fox was already a rising star in the American Military — three tours in Vietnam and Congressional Medal of Honor winner, the American military’s highest honor. A full Colonel, one of the youngest ever, he was singled out as a future military chief and thanks to his aristocratic background, a potential political career beyond that. James Fox was a man going places and had been identified by the Washington GRU station chief at that time as a man of interest.
As he turned the page, his phone rang. Borodin grabbed at it.
“I’m very sorry General…” started the records chief.
“We all need to take a shit!” boomed Borodin, laughing. “I’ve sent Vasiliy down to get a file for me, make sure he gets it.”
“Of course, General,” replied the records chief. “I wasn’t on the toilet,” he tried to explain but the General had already gone.
Borodin read on. It seemed that James Fox’s career had gone exactly as the GRU had anticipated right up until the accident that claimed him and his wife. Not even fifty thought, Borodin, what a waste.
Borodin got up and poured himself a vodka from his drinks cabinet. It had been a long morning and was going to be an even longer day. He wondered where Vasiliy had got to, just as the phone rang.
“Yes!” he barked.
“General, I’m very sorry.” It was the records chief, his mousey voice more pathetic than normal. “The records you requested cannot be brought to you, Sir.”
“Rubbish! Send them up with Vasiliy!” he barked before replacing the handset firmly enough to ensure the records chief knew he had been hung up on.
Borodin’s phone rang again. “I’m sorry…” started the records chief.
“Now!” demanded Borodin, losing his patience and slamming the phone into its cradle.
The phone rang again. Borodin looked at it with fury. He lifted it and was relieved to hear Vasiliy’s voice. Had the records chief spoken, Borodin could not have controlled his actions.
“General, I’m sorry,” began Vasiliy.
“Do not tell me you can’t get the file!” warned Borodin sternly.
“General, you don’t understand, it’s not that we won’t, we physically can’t.” explained Vasiliy.
“Sorry?” replied Borodin beginning to understand this was not about defiance or his lack of authority.
“If you could just come down please, General. You will understand.”
Borodin got up from his desk and stomped along the corridor to his own private elevator. His was only one of two elevators that offered the option to every floor within the massive and ultra modern GRU headquarters. This was no relic of the Soviet empire. This was a symbol of modern Russia’s power and ambition. Borodin hit B6 and waited as the elevator rushed him down to the very bowels of the structure, available to only a handful of staff members.
Vasiliy met him at the elevator’s door, the records chief standing a good ten yards further away. Borodin noted he looked exactly as he had envisaged, small and somewhat mole like, perfect for his underground environment.
“Well, show me what all this fuss is about.”
The records chief led the way, quickly followed by Vasiliy and then Borodin. A number of blast proof doors separated the vast rooms of paperwork they passed through. It was only after the third door that Borodin actually realized they were walking in a slight curve and ever so slightly downhill.
“How far is it?” he asked as doors led off into the distance.
“Not much further,” promised Vasiliy.
After a couple of minutes, they reached another elevator. Borodin looked at Vasiliy and the records chief.
“Where does this go?” he asked with some consternation, stopping himself from asking why doesn’t mine go there?
“All three got into what turned out to be a very small space and rode another thirty feet towards the earth’s core. As the door opened, Borodin began to understand. A small corridor ended at a large vault door. A finger and eye scanner stood ready to reward only those who matched its system memory.
“Only yourself, the Prime Minister and President may gain access General,” offered the records chief with a little more conviction, signaling for the General to go ahead.
General Borodin, the first and only head of Russia’s GRU since the end of Communism, bent forward and rested his chin on the eye scanner and placed his right index finger on the pad to his right. The system went to work and quickly confirmed that both the retina and fingerprint did indeed match. A final check by the system was that a pulse flowed through both, holding a severed finger and plucked eye would not fool the vault door.
The door opened without a sound, its oiled hinges as good as the day they had been installed and never before used.
Borodin entered the chamber and found an even greater surprise, no records existed. One desk sat in the middle of the room with one chair before a screen. No printers, nowhere to plug any drives, DVDs or USB devices, just a screen and a keyboard. The reason Vasiliy couldn’t bring him the files was simply because there were none. As he stepped into the vault, a steel gate snapped closed behind him. Obviously he was not allowed any visitors. Whatever was in the system was for his eyes only and only while in that room.
Borodin made his way to the desk and noted the flashing cursor on the screen. He typed in the reference and after a second was rewarded with an index page. The index alone blew his mind, the list of names read like a who’s who. The first name on the list caught his eye. There had been no reference to it in his paper file but it explained why the front cover contained a description in German. The more he read, the more he wondered at what had been conceived all those years ago. His file had only hinted at the scale of the project, as had his predecessor.
He wished he could print the screen but that was obviously not an option and he could see why. The information before him was dynamite and could spark a whole new cold war. He clicked back to the main index and selected Sean Fox’s name from the list. He read page after page of information, pretty much the whole of Sean Fox’s life was detailed before him, pages upon pages, details of every single event that marked the young man’s life. His parents’ death, his college and courses, his girlfriends, his army career, his entry to the CIA, after which details became less detailed and spaces began to appear, until finally leaving the CIA and his death three months earlier.
It was only as he realized what he had just read that the importance of it hit home. His death three months earlier. Three months ago. The project had been shut down over twenty years ago.
Borodin closed down the system and rushed back to the vault door. Vasiliy stood patiently waiting for the General and matched his pace as they almost ran back to the elevator.
“Do you have a cell phone?”
“Of course, General.”
“Good, get me Pyotr Travkin on the phone!”
Vasiliy dialed the number and as the cell began to ring handed the handset to the General.
“Travkin?” asked Borodin as confirmation. Receiving an affirmative, he continued. “You’re off the hook, head back to Washington. GRU will take it from here.”
Borodin heard the sigh of relief from Travkin as he hit the end button.
