Agent 6

Manhattan

To stop her hands from shaking, Elena clenched her fingers into a fist. Her heart was pounding in her chest, double beats to the second. She needed to calm down. The first part of their plan had worked. She’d slipped out from the hotel without being seen. Her lover, Mikael Ivanov, had studied the layout of the Grand Metropolitan, identifying a vulnerable area: the pool and outside sundeck on the fifth floor, monitored only from the main entrance. The American secret police had wrongly assumed there was no other way out.

The cab passed by the top of Central Park, heading into the north of the city. Part of her appreciated that she snk thered take in the sights around, the park, the apartment towers, the people on the sidewalk, but she was too distracted, unable to concentrate, the city passing in a blur. She looked through the rear window to see if anyone was trailing the cab. She’d never experienced traffic like this, an incredible number of cars. Few were official: the majority seemed to be privately owned. She would’ve marvelled at the experience if she hadn’t felt so sick and dizzy. Surely it was due to the motion of the vehicle. She hated the idea that it was her nerves. Throughout her life she’d been the weaker, younger sister – quiet and well behaved, the sister who never caused any trouble. In contrast, her older sister Zoya was independent, strong-willed, impressive. She’d made decisions for both of them. Her authority was unquestionable. Elena had always been compliant, deferring to her sister’s judgement. Their relationship had followed this pattern for as long as she could remember. But Elena was her own person. Now was the time for her to emerge from her sister’s shadow and find her own identity. For the first time in her life she’d been entrusted with a matter of great importance. It had taken someone outside of her family to recognize her potential. Mikael had selected her. He considered her an adult and an equal. Even before they’d fallen in love, he’d never spoken down to her, choosing to confide in her the real reason that he’d been assigned to this trip.

Mikael worked for a secret department within the Propaganda Ministry called SERVICE.A. As he’d explained to Elena its purpose was to promote the positive differences between Communism and capitalism overseas, to point out the institutionalized inequities of capitalism, to make a case for Communism that didn’t depend on military might or the use of fear – an attempt to rejuvenate an ideology that had been tainted by excessive measures against their own population. Hearing about the murder of Elena’s biological parents by the Soviet secret police, Mikael accepted that the party had made mistakes. He believed those mistakes obscured their ideological superiority. Communism was about racial and gender equality, an end to economic hardship for the many and lavish luxury for the few. Persecution and prejudice were issues Elena cared passionately about. Presented with an opportunity to make a difference, she’d agreed to play her part. She had lost so much under Stalin’s rule, including her parents, yet believed that the murderous excesses of one tyrant should not end the dream of a fair society. She would not allow it to make her cynical as it had Leo.

SERVICE. A operated only what Mikael referred to as passive protocols, such as funding publications and subsidies to sympathetic figures. They were a non-violent organization that stimulated dissent. They had recruited American academics and journalists to report honestly on the flaws within a capitalist society, founding a publishing house that accepted controversial manuscripts no other publisher would touch. Their backlist included a book about how Kennedy had been assassinated by extreme right-wing figures, a cabal of arms and oil magnates. The publishing house had found less commercial success, although a great deal of academic renown, with its feminist texts. But examining the response to these essays on gender inequality it proved impossible to imagine that there was any realistic chance of changing America through direct appeals to women. As a result of the relative failure of the feminist texts, selling only a hundred or so copies, it was accepted that a revolution was unlikely to be spearheaded by a gender-orientated manifesto and SERVICE. A changed direction, focusing its attention and resources on the issue of race. Pamphlets rather than books were given away for free on street corners in targeted cities such as Atlanta, Mely on, Oakland and Detroit. The pamphlets were intended to provoke, with a series of shock headlines: AVERAGE BLACK MAN EARNS $4000! AVERAGE WHITE MAN EARNS $7000! BLACK CHILD THREE TIMES MORE LIKELY TO DIE THAN A WHITE CHILD! BLACK FAMILY THREE TIMES MORE LIKELY TO LIVE IN SQUALOR!

Elena and Mikael would lie in bed, talking for hours about how Communism had neglected the heart of its appeal – its very reason for existing. She’d found his passion beguiling and was flattered to be involved. In contrast to Mikael’s beliefs, none of her immediate family seemed to possess any ideology. Raisa never spoke about politics beyond issues that directly affected her school. Leo was silent on the topic, as if it were prohibited. Elena pitied him: he’d been forced to work for a tyrant and his idealism had been corrupted. For him, there was no going back. He had lost his sense of hope. Outside of his family, he didn’t believe in anything any more. Just because he was disillusioned didn’t mean that she had to be too. Mikael was a man she believed in. Her older sister had once confided in her about the experience of falling in love. Elena had never fully understood the feelings her sister had described until she’d met Mikael. Love was admiration and devotion; love was doing anything for him because she knew he would do anything for her.

The cab had just passed West 120th Street – approaching her destination, on West 145th Street.