The Russian Affair (18 page)

Leonid had never wished for challenging work. With his qualifications, he might possibly have joined the army engineers or become a pilot—but he didn’t
want
to. Leonid Nechayev was twenty-nine years old, athletic and fit in appearance, with test results that demonstrated his intelligence; he was popular with his men and considered an agreeable subaltern by his superiors. But there was one quality lacking in his personal inventory: ambition. He’d reached the rank of second lieutenant effortlessly and had been promoted to first lieutenant when his turn automatically came up. His captain’s commission, the single unforeseeable turning in his career, had brought him freedom and anxiety in equal measure.

He recalled his telephone conversation with Anna. He’d recognized from the beginning the potential for problems with such a woman, but
all the same, recent events had surprised him. His Anna was proud, filled with the highest ideals, and she dreamed of accomplishing something that would benefit society. He hadn’t imagined that she’d cheat on him, but rather that she’d want to give her life a mission. Her father had probably laid those qualities in her cradle; to be the daughter of an important Soviet writer entailed obligations. When Leonid had first met Anna, she was already a house painter, but in his view, her profession had represented nothing more than an intermediate stage on the way to something else. He could imagine the sacrifice she’d made by giving up school after her mother’s death, but readiness to make sacrifices was also an essential part of her character; her important father must be enabled to go on living his poet’s life. Leonid prized books that dealt with interesting subjects; he was suspicious of poems. In Leonid’s eyes, someone who took weeks to get a couple of verses down on paper was a parasite.

As for the separation from Anna, Leonid was able to cope with it. Their relationship had never been particularly passionate. Of course, going so long without seeing Petya caused him pain—in fact, it was a source of deeper regret than he’d imagined himself capable of. For Leonid, his son’s welfare was more important than anything else. Now Petya was ill, seriously ill, and Leonid, six thousand miles away, felt helpless to do anything for the child. Taking early home leave was out of the question. His garrison was small, the number of officers limited, and the duty arduous. He and his comrades represented Russia’s last bulwark against the imperialistic world; just beyond them lay Japan.

The abyss was now so close that the sea-spray struck his face like a steady drizzle. The final feet had to be crossed without the help of the steel cord. He narrowed his eyes, wobbled forward, and entered the office of the technical unit like a shipwreck survivor. Except for the private first class on telephone duty, the office was empty; the rest of the men were in the workshop, preparing their mission.

“They’ll be ready soon,” said the private. His rolled-up shirt sleeves revealed a pair of powerful forearms.

“Before we begin the operation, we have to do a security check.” Leonid removed his coat, which was soaking wet, and took his foul-weather gear out of his locker.

“High tide’s in an hour,” the telephone man said. “After that, we won’t be able to do anything.”

“Major’s orders,” said the captain, his voice grating. “We start in ten minutes.” He went into his room. Formerly, he’d never had to speak sharply to his men; he’d been on good, even familiar, terms with them. These lads, however, were falcons, overqualified, ready for anything, and often bored by the endless, dark days, on which nothing happened. It was hard to keep them under control, especially since Leonid was their professional inferior. For these men, it was a joy to board a light boat and head into the breakers, but Leonid hated the entire process. Mostly, he held on tight to whatever he could while the others sat insouciantly on the sides of the boat. The spray blinded him, and he feared that one of the three-foot-high waves might sweep him into the sea.

He kicked off his boots, pulled the oilskin over his pants, and slipped into the black waterproof jacket that bore the insignia of his rank on its lapel. This little scrap of material gave him the power but not the qualifications to command. He sank down slowly onto a chair; the oilskin made an unpleasant sound. Outside Leonid’s window, the storm was howling with such force that rational thinking was scarcely possible. Nature burned a single thought into his brain: Sakhalin was an isle of madness. Before he left Moscow, he’d read Chekhov’s travel report, but the reality of the island was worse and could hardly be described in words. From January to March, cyclones blowing up from the Indian Ocean raged over Sakhalin. Between July and November was typhoon season; the last of those had caused more than a hundred million rubles’ worth of damage. Seaquakes regularly flooded the eastern portion of the island; because of the incessant tremors, large and small, no house with more than one story could be built without proper anchoring. The temperature often sank below minus sixty degrees Fahrenheit, and the
men were frequently shut up inside their garrison for weeks because of snowstorms. After two sentries were snowed in and nearly starved in their guard post, subterranean passages between the barracks had been dug. Normally, the harbor wasn’t navigable at that time of year, and the patrol boats stayed in a cove protected by concrete walls. So far, it had been an unusually mild winter; it was already March, and still no avalanche had blocked the roads or severed energy connections. The technical unit helped earthquake victims, towed ships in distress, and set up new seismographs around the mud volcano’s crater in order to predict its next eruption more precisely.

While Leonid was looking forward with trepidation to the upcoming mission, he reflected that only a word, only a signature would have sufficed for him to be transferred to some other location in the Soviet Union, to some quiet one-horse town in the Russian provinces, say, where time would have passed gently, shortened by little amenities. Why hadn’t he taken that path?

The invitation had reached him through the mail. With mixed feelings, he’d gone across town to the Lubyanka and approached the ominous building from the side. In the square, the monument to Dzerzhinsky was shining in the sunlight, but even on that fine, bright day, the headquarters of the state security agency had looked gloomy and menacing to Leonid. Instead of being subjected to the usual stringent controls, he hadn’t had to wait so much as a minute before being shown directly into the Colonel’s office. Kamarovsky was sitting behind a metal desk. His uniform was made of fine wool, the epaulets embroidered with “gleaming gold thread,” for which officers had to pay out of their own pockets. His decorations included the Order of Lenin and two badges identifying him as a Hero of Socialist Labor. When Leonid entered the room, he’d wondered why the curtain was half closed on such a beautiful day before realizing that the Colonel preferred to sit in shadow while every visitor was obliged to stand in the light.

After the exchange of salutes, Kamarovsky had asked, “Are you familiar
with this?” and pushed a book with colorful binding across the desk to the lieutenant. “Informative, enlightening, and entertaining, all at the same time.”

Secret Front
was the book’s title, white letters on a red background, under them a sword, a yellow shield, and, in the center, a red star, the emblem of the Committee for State Security, or KGB. The author of the book was Semyon Tsvigun, whom Leonid knew by name as the Deputy Chairman of the Committee. Leonid asked, “What’s it about?”

“About the Soviet citizen’s need for vigilance against imperialist undermining.” Kamarovsky had pushed up his spectacles and massaged the bridge of his nose. “The bookstores can’t keep up with the demand for this volume. Keep it, Lieutenant.”

“Many thanks, Comrade Colonel.” As though wanting to take no chances on forgetting the book, Leonid placed it on the edge of the desk.

“Vigilance.” The Colonel offered him a seat. “An important quality in the service.”

Leonid was of one mind with the Colonel.

“So you want to leave Moscow?” Kamarovsky was holding a form that Leonid recognized as his own application for transfer.

“Temporarily,” he hastened to reply.

“What led you to request Minusinsk, of all places?” The Colonel’s finger ran along the lines of print.

“I’m interested in geology. The bituminous coal mined around Minusinsk is unusual and valuable, and the mining methods—”

Kamarovsky raised his hand. “You’re serving with the armored infantry. What do you care about mining?”

Minusinsk was said to be a pretty town with a mild climate, and the company stationed there had a reputation for informality. “I’ve read that soldiers are brought in to work the seams when there’s a personnel shortage in the mines,” Leonid replied. “That was my motivation.”

“Ah, I see.” The Colonel laid the paper aside. “I spoke earlier of vigilance. What would you say to an assignment in that field?”

Leonid made no reply. In itself, his transfer was a routine army matter, involving nothing of necessary interest to “competent organs.”

“Minusinsk is in an exposed position,” Kamarovsky said into the silence. “Any infiltration must be prevented. Our vigilance not only preserves the integrity of the regiment stationed there, but also thwarts industrial espionage in the mining areas. It’s important to identify anti-Soviet elements both among the soldiers and among the local civilian population. Such elements are troublemakers and enemies of the people.”

“What form would such an assignment take?” Leonid’s eyes fell on the book
Secret Front
. The title took on a new meaning.

“Your rank would entitle you to live in the quarters reserved for higher-ranking officers and to eat in their mess hall. That’s an important advantage. The assignment would also entail a flexible allocation of your duty time. And of course, your special field of activity would have a positive effect on your pay.”

“I mean the practical part of my work.” Tension made Leonid sit there stock-still with his knees pressed together.

“This intelligence work requires you to select an internal staff of collaborators, whose task it is to provide you with information. You draw the necessary conclusions, write up reports, and forward them to us.”

From the day when Anna revealed to him that she was working for the state security agency, it had been clear to Leonid that, sooner or later, he’d be drawn in, too. He didn’t condemn her, but he couldn’t forgive her for not having told him sooner.

“I’m grateful for the honor of having been taken into consideration,” he said formally. “However, I find ordinary regimental service sufficiently demanding. More difficult assignments would be beyond my capabilities at this time.”

“Ah, well, we don’t want to rush into anything,” Kamarovsky replied affably. “It’s an unexpected offer. I understand that. You should give it some thought and—of course—consult with your wife.” His smile was so insolent that it infuriated Leonid.

“Thank you, Comrade Colonel. I’ll think it over,” he said. When the Colonel nodded, Leonid rose to his feet, saluted, and made an about-face.

“Lieutenant.” Leonid, heading for the door, heard the voice behind him. “You’ve forgotten your book. I shall expect your answer in a week.”

Leonid had neither spoken to Anna about this conversation nor reported to the Colonel after the week had passed. He’d simply kept silent. His transfer to Sakhalin had come through a month later in the form of marching orders passed on to him without explanation. Leonid had never again heard from Colonel Kamarovsky.

There were sounds outside, and then men entered the building. Before the knock on his door, Leonid was on his feet, clad in his weather gear and ready to go. The first man to enter his office was Staff Sergeant Likhan Chevken, the alpha male among the men and the only Nivkh. As a member of one of the indigenous peoples of Sakhalin, he couldn’t become an officer in the Red Army, but he was the person best qualified to command Leonid’s frontier troops. Chevken had served in the company the longest; he was a soldier, mechanic, sailor, and medic, all in one person. He was familiar with all of Sakhalin’s natural phenomena and spoke all the dialects of the island. Chevken was short and round; his dexterity, tenacity, and fighting spirit were not immediately apparent. At the same time, he was the personification of gentleness, the only man in Leonid’s troop who didn’t make him feel that he wasn’t entitled to lead it. “So we’re doing the security check first?” Likhan Chevken asked in a tone that implied the existence of a better solution.

“What do you suggest?” Leonid asked.

“Maybe we could work in parallel,” the Nivkh replied. “Three men can inspect the cutter while the others prepare for the salvage operation.”

Leonid didn’t act as though he first had to ponder Chevken’s suggestion; the man was always right. The captain divided his men into groups and gave the order to move out.

The men left the barracks ten at a time, bracing themselves against the wind. It looked as though they were about to stagger straight to the edge of the abyss, but in reality, they were heading for the elevator that was hidden behind a rock overhang. The steel cables sang. The mounts for the guide rails had been driven into the stone a yard deep, yet Leonid got nervous every time he had to descend into the void that lay beneath the veils of sea-spray, fog, and drizzle. He stood as far to the rear of the elevator cage as he could, clinging to the grille. Before Chevken, the last to enter, stepped inside, he used a remote-control device to start the diesel motor, which was located in a bunker at the base of the elevator. The gears engaged with such a jolt that Leonid was afraid they were in free fall, but the metal cage slowly went into motion and slid down the face of the blackly gleaming cliff. When, after riding down in silence, they arrived at the bottom, the men dashed out into the storm and began running around busily. Since the elemental roar made speech impossible, they communicated with hand signals; like a bunch of deaf-mutes, Leonid thought, as he struggled toward the last of the three boats. He’d already been through the procedure: The first of the inflatable dinghies carried a load of steel cables, which would be transported to the site and made fast to the cutter; men from the second boat would mount balloons, which after being inflated by remote control would lift the grounded vessel’s cargo and hold it in equilibrium. Leonid would sit in the third boat, which served as a backup in case something happened to one of the other two. He felt for the weapon under his oilskin. In spite of the ice storm, a smile crossed his face; he wouldn’t be so careless a second time.