more years, but it's going to change. Ten years from now it won't be my problem, Moore told himself. But it sure as hell will be Ryan's problem. 'I'll have him flown out there tomorrow. And maybe we'll get lucky on Dushanbe. Foley got word to CARDINAL that we're very interested in the place.'
'CARDINAL? Good.'
'But if something happens?'
Greer nodded. 'Christ, I hope he's careful,' the DDI said.
Ever since the death of Dmitri Fedorovich, it has not been he same at the Defense Ministry, Colonel Mikhail Semyonich Filitov wrote into his diary left-handed. An early riser, he sat at a hundred-year-old oak desk that his wife had bought or him shortly before she'd died, almost-what was it? Thirty years, Misha told himself. Thirty years this coming February, his eyes closed for a moment. Thirty years. Never a single day passed that he did not remember his Elena. Her photograph was on the desk, the sepia print faded with age, its silver frame tarnished. He never seemed to have time to polish it, and didn't wish to be bothered with a maid. The photo showed a young woman with legs like spindles, arms high over her head, which was cocked to one side. The round, Slavic face displayed a wide, inviting smile that perfectly conveyed the joy she'd felt when dancing with the Kirov Company. Misha smiled also as he remembered the first impression of a young armor officer given tickets to the performance as a reward for having the best-maintained tanks in the division. How can they do that? Perched up on the tips of their toes as though on needle-point stilts. He'd remembered playing on stilts as a child, but to be so graceful! And then she smiled at the handsome young officer in the front row. For the briefest moment. Their eyes had met for almost as little time as it takes to blink, he thought. Her smile had changed ever so slightly. Not for the audience any longer, for that timeless instant the smile had been for him alone. A bulk through the heart could not have had a more devastating effect. Misha didn't remember the rest of the performance-to this day he couldn't even remember which ballet it ha been. He remembered sitting and squirming through the rest of it while his mind churned over what he'd do next. Already Lieutenant Filitov had been marked as a man on the move, a brilliant young tank officer for whom Stalin's brutal purge of the officer corps had meant opportunity and rapid promotion. He wrote articles on tank tactics, practiced innovating battle drills in the field, argued vociferously against the fall 'lessons' of Spain with the certainty of a man born to themprofession.
But what do I do now? he'd asked himself. The Red Army hadn't taught him how to approach an artist. This wasn't some farm girl who was bored enough by work on the kolkhoz to offer herself to anyone-especially a young Army officer who might take her away from it all. Misha still remembered the shame of his youth-not that he'd thought it shameful at time-when he'd used his officer's shoulder boards to win any girl who'd caught his eye. But I don't even know her name, he'd told himself. What do I do? What he'd done, of course, was to treat the matter as a military exercise. As soon as the performance had ended he'd fought his way into the rest room and washed hands and face. Some grease that still remained under his fingernails was removed with a pocketknife. His short hair was wetted down into place, and he inspected his uniform as strictly as a general officer might, brushing off dust and picking off lint, stepping back from the mirror to make sure his boots gleamed as a oldier's should. He hadn't noticed at the time that other men in the men's room were watching him with barely suppressed grins, having guessed what the drill was for, and wishing him luck, touched with a bit of envy. Satisfied with his appearance, Misha had left the theater and asked the doorman where the artists' door was. That had cost him a ruble, and with the knowledge, he'd walked around the block to the stage entrance, where he found another doorman, this one a bearded old man whose greatcoat bore ribbons for service in the revolution. Misha had expected special courtesy from the doorman, one soldier to another, only to learn that he regarded the female dancers as his own daughters- not wenches to be thrown at the feet of soldiers, certainly! Misha had considered offering money, but had the good sense not to imply the man was a pimp. Instead, he'd spoken quietly and reasonably-and truthfully-that he was smitten with a single dancer whose name he didn't know, and merely wanted to meet her.
'Why?' the old doorman had asked coldly. 'Grandfather, she smiled at me,' Misha had answered in the awed voice of a little boy.
'And you are in love.' The reply was harsh, but in a moment the doorman's face turned wistful. 'But you don't know which?'
'She was in-the line, not one of the important ones, I mean. What do they call that? — I will remember her face until the day I die.' Already he'd known that. The doorman looked him over and saw that his uniform as properly turned out, and his back straight. This was not a swaggering pig of an NKVD officer whose arrogant breath stank of vodka. This was a soldier, and a handsome young one at that. 'Comrade Lieutenant, you are a lucky man. Do you know why? You are lucky because I was once young, but old as I am, I still remember. They will start to come out in ten minutes or so. Stand over there, and make not a sound.' It had taken thirty minutes. They came out in twos and threes. Misha had seen the male members of the troupe and thought them-what any soldier would think of a man in a ballet company. His manhood had been offended that they held hands with such pretty girls, but he'd set that aside. When the door opened, his vision was damaged by the sudden glare of yellow-white light against the near blackness of the unlit alley, and he'd almost missed her, so different she looked without the makeup.
He saw the face, and tried to decide if she were the right one, approaching his objective more carefully than he would ever do under the fire of German guns. 'You were in seat number twelve,' she'd said before he could summon the courage to speak. She had a voice! 'Yes, Comrade Artist,' his reply had stammered out. 'Did you enjoy the performance, Comrade Lieutenant?' A shy, but somehow beckoning smile, 'It was wonderful!' Of course.
'It is not often that we see handsome young officers in the front row,' she observed.
'I was given the ticket as a reward for performance in my unit. I am a tanker,' he said proudly. She called me handsome! 'Does the Comrade Tanker Lieutenant have a name?'
'I am Lieutenant Mikhail Semyonovich Filitov.'
'I am Elena Ivanova Makarova.'
'It is too cold tonight for one so thin, Comrade Artist, there a restaurant nearby?'
'Restaurant?' She'd laughed. 'How often do you come to Moscow?'
'My division is based thirty kilometers from here, but I not often come to the city,' he'd admitted.
'Comrade Lieutenant, there are few restaurants even in Moscow. Can you come to my apartment?'
'Why-yes,' his reply had stuttered out as the stage door opened again.
'Marta,' Elena said to the girl who was just coming out 'We have a military escort home!'
'Tania and Resa are coming,' Marta said.
Misha had actually been relieved by that. The walk to the apartment had taken thirty minutes-the Moscow subway hadn't yet been completed, and it was better to walk than wait for a tram this late at night.
She was far prettier without her makeup, Misha remembered. The cold winter air gave her cheeks all the color they ever needed. Her walk was as graceful as ten years of intensive training could make it. She'd glided along the street like an apparition, while he gallumped along in his heavy boots. He felt himself a tank, rolling next to a thoroughbred horse, and was careful not to go too close, lest he trample her. He hadn't yet learned of the strength that was so well hidden by her grace.
The night had never before seemed so fine, though for-what was it? — twenty years there had been many such nights, then none for the past thirty. My God, he thought, we would have been married fifty years this? July 14th. My God. Unconsciously he dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief. Thirty years, however, was the number that occupied his mind.
The thought boiled within his breast, and his fingers were pale around the pen. It still surprised him that love and hate were emotions so finely matched. Misha returned to his diary
An hour later he rose from the desk and walked to the bedroom closet. He donned the uniform of a colonel of tank troops. Technically he was on the retired list, and had been so before people on the current colonel's list had been born. But work in the Ministry of Defense carried its own perks, and Misha was on the personal staff of the Minister. That was one reason. The other three reasons were on his uniform blouse, three gold stars that depended from claret-colored ribbons. Filitov was the only soldier in the history of the Soviet Army who'd won the decoration of Hero of the Soviet Union three times on the field of battle, for personal bravery in the face of the enemy. There were others with such medals, but most often these were political awards, the Colonel knew. He was aesthetically offended by that. This was not a medal to be granted for staff work, and certainly not for one Party member to give to another as a gaudy lapel decoration. Hero of the Soviet Union was an award that ought to be limited la men like himself, who had risked death, who'd bled-and all too often, died-for the Rodina. He was reminded of this very time he put his uniform on. Beneath his undershirt were the plastic-looking scars from his last gold star, when a German
