In the Shadow of Mordor

Chapter 13

1987

Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB

Michurinskiy Prospekt, 70

Moscow, Russia

The man’s eyes were wide, and he was screaming, the veins in his neck distended. His shrieks echoed through the empty foundry. There was no other sound.

The terrified man was naked and bound to a heavy wooden plank with what appeared to be thin piano wire, wrapped round and round his body in tight, painful coils, rendering him completely immobile except for his head. It required four stout men to carry him toward the open, flaming maw of one of the foundry’s furnaces. The men wore heavy, heat resistant suits and gloves, their faces grotesquely masked by hoods with a rectangular slit of thick glass for eyes that made them even more hideous. The flames were so intense that the two men at the foot of the plank raised their hands to protect their faces from the heat despite their hoods.

The man bound to the plank, knowing what was to come, continued to scream.

With a heave the men dropped the foot of the plank onto the lip of the open furnace. The ones nearest the furnace retreated quickly to the other end to help their comrades feed the plank ever so slowly into the flames.

As his feet were consumed, the shrieks of the bound man took on an unearthly quality, warbling almost to the edge of audibility and renewing with each breath. His mouth was so far open that he might have dislocated his jaw.

The men continued to shove the plank into the flames. The bound man’s legs were now completely engulfed as the white hot furnace, hot enough to melt metal, greedily ate away his flesh and then turned the bones black and brittle until they too were so much smoke up the flue.

The screaming continued until the flames reached the bound man’s chest. By that time, the face was no longer human. His gut exploded in a riot of wet entrails that lasted but a few seconds, sizzling in the flames. When the screaming stopped, the men heaved what remained all the way into the furnace in a single motion.

In the back of the auditorium someone was vomiting.

Simultaneously horrified and fascinated, Lieutenant Gleb Solntsev did not dare turn his head from the screen or close his eyes like a child at a horror movie lest his fellow graduates notice his discomfort, and he choked back his own rising gorge. The film had been in color, and the sound track, while scratchy, had been amped up to ear splitting levels.

General Nikolay Davydovich Lisitsyn, accompanied by Colonel-General Rstislav Kromarkin, head of the Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB, stalked to the middle of the stage. The only sounds in the auditorium were their footsteps.

Kromarkin, his slightly corpulent figure held stiffly erect so that the buttons of his uniform jacket strained to hold in his gut, stood in the middle of the stage and gazed out over the audience of new graduates. His voice, when he spoke, filled a nervous silence. “To be worthy of the title of Chekist you must remember always that ours is a mission of love and devotion — love of the Fatherland, devotion to the Russian people, the narod. This was the philosophy of our founder, Feliks Dzherzinski. And we, you, are the beneficiaries and guardians of his legacy. We do our duty in the true Chekist tradition.”

Kromarkin glanced over his shoulder at the now blank movie screen, then back at the audience. “I want to introduce General Lisitsyn of the Second Chief Directorate, who will now address you.”

He surrendered the dais to the Colonel, who in contrast to Kromarkin was lean and broad-shouldered and still with a full head of jet black hair.

Lisitsyn stared silently at them for long moments, seeming to engage each of them directly in the eyes until the young officers fairly squirmed in their seats. At last, he spoke.

“The film you have just seen would be shocking were it not for the truth behind it. The man was a traitor, one of the worst traitors in our history who betrayed the trust of the KGB and the Motherland. You are too young to remember his name, but he betrayed our most precious military secrets to the Americans. You are privileged to be the first graduates to see the film since 1965. It is a reminder of the fate that awaits all traitors to the Motherland, and it is a warning.”

Lisitsyn glared at the audience to underscore the import of his words, before concluding, “From now on, as in the past, the film you have just seen will be a part of every graduation from the Academy. True Chekist tradition will be restored and honored.”

Gleb Solntsev took those words to heart.