Black Sun

CHAPTER 27

Ivan Saravich emerged from the subway car and into the transfer mezzanine of the Park Kultury metro station in central Moscow. The opulent surroundings resembled a museum or the hall of some great palace. The floor was tiled in large squares of polished black and white like a giant chessboard; the walls were covered with marble and lined with ornate sculptures. The whole station was lit in a warm glow from rows of hanging chandeliers.

Unlike American subways, made mostly of functional concrete and steel, the Russian metro was more than just a mode of transportation; it was a source of pride, Russian pride now, Soviet pride when they were designed and built in the 1950s and ’60s. For a nation that considered itself a worker’s paradise, the metro stations were to be the workers’ palace, their great halls.

Saravich remembered the first time he’d walked this particular hall. A twenty-year-old recruit from the Urals, he’d come to Moscow to join the great struggle, to begin his work for the KGB. Entering this hall, he’d felt exactly what the party wanted him to feel: pride, power, and Soviet supremacy. To him it was the dawning of a new age in which the ideology of the common would overcome the oppression of the elite.

Thirty years later, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had dissolved and with it went any illusions about the common and the elite.

Saravich had come to the conclusion that any form of government would inevitably evolve into extensions of the elite. It was the natural progression; those who wanted power gathered it unto themselves. Those who craved equality lacked the ambition, ego, or selfishness to match up. And so the change.

With the new age in Russia, Saravich began to understand that even civilized life was every man for himself. With that in mind, he took to capitalism far more easily than he’d expected, even if he spent most of his time working freelance for the same people who once gave him a government check.

He was wealthier now, enough to retire five times over if he wanted, but he felt no desire to do so. As a widower with no children, no friends, and few outside interests, he saw little point in it. To him this was the true curse of capitalism: Work was rewarding in a way few other things could be, and so it diminished everything else in its wake.

Making his way down the concourse of Park Kultury, Saravich felt nothing of the pride it once stirred in him. He walked briskly, head down, hands shoved into his pockets. The mezzanine looked as splendid as ever, but it was just a train station now.

A gravelly voice broke his stride. “Comrade,” the voice said from behind him, “you seem to be in a hurry.”

Saravich slowed but kept walking. He recognized the voice and the question or at least its ilk: an old KGB habit of asking a suggestive but open-ended query, thought to startle those who might have something to hide.

The shape of a hulking man fell in beside him; the man was a hundred pounds heavier than Saravich, but not fat, just oversized, with huge arms, huge shoulders, a huge head. Saravich knew the man’s name, but no one used it. They simply called him Ropa: the Mountain.

“Why are you meeting me here?” Saravich asked. “I have a report scheduled for the morning. Is that not soon enough?”

“I’m afraid not,” Ropa said. “It is known already what happened in Hong Kong. The firestorm is growing. Soon someone will have to burn.”

“Me?”

“Or all of us.”

All of us. It was hard for Saravich to imagine that Ropa and the others who hired him would feel the heat for what had gone wrong. Most likely Saravich would find his feet being held out for the flames to lick and taste.

“What were you thinking, hiring that American?”

Saravich turned to face Ropa. “It seemed a good way to keep us out of the picture. And it has. You notice there is no backlash.”

Ropa laughed and Saravich wondered if the laughter was directed at his attempt to justify the failure or some other, deeper fact. Whatever the truth, Saravich was too tired to worry about it tonight.

He turned and began to walk again, soon reaching the stairwell.

Ropa followed, just a foot or so behind him. It gave Saravich the distinct impression of being herded somewhere.

The two men exited into the frigid Moscow air. Snow was falling, illuminated by the city lights. Five inches or more already coated the streets. A light snow by Russian standards. Waiting in that snow was a black Maserati sedan. Twenty years ago it would have been a boxy Zil, the Russian equivalent of an American Lincoln or Cadillac. But with the new wealth in Russia, Mercedes and BMW were favored. Always looking to top his peers, Ropa went a step beyond.

A Maserati with oversized, studded snow tires. What would the Italians think? It was like a runway model wearing galoshes.

“You’re coming with us,” Ropa said.

“Where?”

“To explain yourself.”

With that Saravich felt Ropa’s paw of a hand fall heavily on his shoulder. It guided him to the sedan’s rear door.

A moment later Saravich found himself in the back with another man, one he didn’t recognize. Ropa squeezed through the front door and filled the passenger seat to capacity as the driver put the car in gear.

So this is how it ends, Saravich thought. On a snowy night in Moscow I’ll disappear. Perhaps not to be found until the spring thaw.

The car moved through traffic and crossed the Moscow River. A minute later they were pulling to a stop at the very center of Red Square.

Would they really do it here? Maybe, if they want to send a message.

Another vehicle pulled up beside them, pointing the opposite direction and berthing so close that neither vehicle could open a door.

Ropa lowered his window. Quick words were exchanged and he snatched something being held out by the passenger of the other car.

“Let’s go,” he said to the driver.

As the Maserati began to move, Ropa did what he could to turn and face Saravich, handing him a padded envelope.

“You have one more chance,” Ropa told him. “The orders come straight from the FSB now.”

“What are they?” Saravich asked disdainfully.

“Go there, find the boy, and bring him back to the Science Directorate. If you can’t capture him, then you are to kill him and everyone who has touched him.”

Saravich looked inside the envelope. A new passport, cash, instructions. “I don’t do that kind of work anymore,” he said. “Tell them to send one of their own.”

“It was your disgrace,” Ropa said angrily. “Petrov was your brother.”

“My half brother,” Ivan insisted.

“Still,” Ropa said. “It is your family that has ruined this. You must be the one to pay for it.”

Saravich looked outside. He’d done much and given up much for the Soviet Union, but despite a life of work, his name was now a mark of dishonor. Then again, what did he care of honor anymore? What had it ever gotten him?

“You will be met in Mexico City,” Ropa added. “The men will take orders from you, but you will not be free to leave them. Do you understand?”

Of course he understood. The men would be FSB, from the ninth directorate, assassins with orders to kill whomever he asked them to kill. And then to eliminate Saravich himself if they did not bring the boy home, or perhaps even if they did.

“You may think you have nothing to lose,” Ropa told him, “but you still have nephews, nieces. These people will suffer if you do anything less than what’s necessary.”

Saravich stared at Ropa, but the Mountain did not blink. The threat was real. He tucked the envelope in his jacket and glanced out the window. They were approaching Moscow International. He would be boarding a plane without ever going home.

Apparently there would be no rest for the wicked.