MJ-12: Endgame

20

Despite having been in America for nearly four years, Ekaterina couldn’t help but be amazed at the largesse Americans enjoyed — and how much they took it for granted. The U.S. Mission in West Berlin, a large, white-washed manor house in a leafy, genteel part of the city, had all the luxuries of home, from Coca-Cola in the commissary to some of the most comfortable beds she’d ever slept in, and yet just that morning she overheard the staff there complaining about the quality of the pancakes and bacon for breakfast and the weak coffee. Even the Berliners working there knew better, having seen their city rise from utter destruction just eight years prior.

She knew, intellectually, that the right to complain, to seek better things, was inherently American — and as far from the Russian mentality as could be. Russians made do with what they had. No matter who was in charge — the tsars, the Bolsheviks, the Party apparatus — Russians worked hard to get what they could and enjoyed what they managed to get without complaint. Who would listen, anyway? Certainly not the tsars, the Bolsheviks, the Party.

Yet Ekaterina looked on with disbelief as some minor embassy functionary demanded a word with the cook about that morning’s breakfast, even as she tucked into hers with relish. One of the side effects of her Enhancement was a ravenous appetite, a condition shared with Boris. Their metabolisms skyrocketed after they became Variants, and both of them regularly ate meals that three normal people would have struggled to finish.

Boris. The look on his aged, wrinkled face haunted her. He shot her. Did he guess she could shrug it off? She fervently hoped that might be the case. If not, what did that say about him? About her? Would they ever see each other again? Would he die before that happened? He looked to be about eighty. His Enhancement kept him quick, of course, but when would his body give out? Perhaps, when all was said and done, she would try to find Cal and bring him to Russia, to undo the damage he’d done back in ’48. As much as she hated Cal at times, she knew full well he was a good man, and if given the opportunity, he would indeed try his best to reach Boris and restore his youth.

But Cal was missing, and Boris was with Beria. And Beria was gone — somewhere.

“Join you, kiddo?”

Ekaterina looked up and saw Frank Lodge smiling down at her, a tray of food in his hands.

“It’s a free country,” she said with a tired smirk. “That is what you say, yes?”

“Yep, that’s what we say,” Frank said as he slid into a seat across from her. “Heard you saw your brother again.”

Ekaterina felt her face grow red. “I don’t wish to talk about it.”

Frank nodded and started in on his pancakes. She hadn’t see much of Danny and Frank since they’d arrived last night in West Berlin, courtesy of a diplomatic flight out of Leningrad and a somewhat nerve-wracking border crossing from East Berlin. Of course, she and Mrs. Stevens and Tim Sorensen had carried official-looking papers, but using those always made her nervous. She was Russian — she knew the value of identity papers more than any of them.

“So Leningrad was a bust?” Frank asked.

“What is a ‘bust’?”

“Nothing happening. Couldn’t get in.”

“No, it was not a bust,” Ekaterina said. “We saw that the Red Army had taken control of the Bekhterev Institute. We could not go in, but we could see the building had been severely damaged — another fire. Mrs. Stevens believes Beria’s Variants took all their papers and studies and set the fire to cover their tracks.”

Frank took a gulp of black coffee. “Yeah, but they have the other vortex.”

“Maybe. It was kept in a basement much below the ground level. There were iron doors and locks and all different things protecting it. They bragged that it would take a month for anyone to break into the room where it is without the right keys and codes. So there is time, yet. I wish to find Beria. He is very dangerous.”

“Tim said they used a code word in the Central Committee room. ‘Yanushkevich.’ That ring a bell?”

Ekaterina smiled slightly. “I thought you knew everything, Frank. It is a name. Nikolai Yanushkevich, one of the tsarist generals during the First World War. He was in charge when the Russian Army had its ‘Great Retreat’ from Poland. I think it is code for retreat.”

“Makes sense. Burn everything and get the hell out of Dodge. We really stuck it to him. You and Tim did a fantastic job, by the way. Danny’s giddy as a schoolgirl about all the records you got out of that safe.”

“I am a schoolgirl. Or I should be. What is giddy?” she asked.

Frank chuckled. “Giddy. Happy, in a cute kind of way. Like when a girl likes a boy or gets a present or something.”

Ekaterina thought about this for a moment. “That’s not me.”

“No, it’s not,” Frank agreed, looking a bit more somber. “Hey, question for you. Are your abilities changing? That’s been a concern.”

Ekaterina thought back to throwing the car halfway down the alley near the Bolshoi. “Yes, maybe I am getting stronger? But it is hard to say. I am also young. Growing up. Why?”

“Something Beria mentioned when I met with him, that’s all,” Frank said. He didn’t seem very convincing, and quickly changed the subject. “What did you end up doing with our visitors?”

Ekaterina frowned. “I do not wish to talk about that either.”

Frank nodded silently and focused on his food. The problem of the Soviet Variants was a profound one. Beria had done MAJESTIC-12 a massive favor by keeping his Variant program a secret from the rest of the Soviet government, but if the captured Variants were to be discovered by, say, the Red Army or other Party officials…

Ekaterina had pleaded with Mrs. Stevens and Sorensen to spare them. They nodded and consoled her. And then they didn’t bring it up again. She hoped against hope that the three were somehow released or contained, but… that was unlikely.

The awkward silence was broken a few minutes later by Sorensen, who quickly stopped by their table, coffee in hand. “Meeting. Secure room. We got something,” he said before rushing off. They quickly downed as much of their food as possible, and Ekaterina filled another plate with eggs, sausages, bacon, toast, and pancakes before heading up to the embassy’s secure conference room, where Danny and the rest of the Variants were waiting for them.

“Got a cable from our man in Vladivostok,” Danny said once the doors were closed. “A large contingent of high-ranking NKVD officers left the city about twelve hours ago in three different NKVD-flagged vehicles, along with a Red Army cargo truck. They apparently came in the night before from Chuguyevka, an airfield north of the city, and ended up taking over the local NKVD headquarters for the evening.”

“Did they catch a glimpse of Beria?” Mrs. Stevens asked.

“No, but the report says all NKVD officers were summoned to headquarters before the caravan arrived, and stayed there all night. But it gets better,” Danny said. “Four hours after the contingent left, an entire Red Army battalion roared into town and headed straight for the NKVD, setting up a perimeter and everything.”

“That’s our boy,” Frank said. “Anything else?”

“Nope, that’s it. But it’s consistent with what I’ve been sensing, that they’ve been heading east for the past three days. Vladivostok is as far east as east goes. So now they have to make a decision,” Danny said, laying out a map of eastern Asia on the conference room table. “Thoughts?”

Everyone stood to get a look at it, but as had become habit, they waited for Mrs. Stevens to speak first. “He’s not hiding, that’s for sure,” she said after a while. “Russia’s a big place. If he wanted to hole up somewhere and hide, you don’t go through Vladivostok to do that. You go to Siberia, somewhere you can set up shop with nobody caring. He’s got a lot of Variants with him. He could have easily taken over a small town and built up a power base out there, or just waited until things cooled down. It’s a huge country, and he went to a major population center instead.”

“And then left,” Sorensen noted.

Frank paced around the table. “So you have a traveling menagerie of at least a dozen Variants, some of the most powerful people on the planet, and you’re not holing up anywhere — you’re at the ass end of the Soviet Union. If you came in from Chuguyevka, that’s, what, four hours north of the city? So they weren’t heading back north. And you’ve got two major borders within a short drive from there — China and North Korea.”

“Maybe he’s going to hand everything off to Mao,” Danny said. “Convince the chairman that Russia’s fallen to rogue elements, and that the Chinese have to help him?”

“That’s a tall order,” Sorensen quipped.

“Beria does not ask for help,” Ekaterina offered. “He is… pig-head. Stubborn.”

“Arrogant,” Frank added.

Mrs. Stevens nodded along and pointed again to the map. “And you don’t need to go all the way to Vladivostok to get to China. You go through Kazakhstan or Mongolia. And you could’ve been there by yesterday.”

“So he’s going to Korea,” Danny said. “But why? If you’re trying to protect your Variants — the only real resource he has left — do you drag them into a war zone?”

“Maybe he’s doing a deal with the North,” Sorensen said. “You know — we’ll win your war for you, you give us a home for a while. Or maybe he thinks he can just take over or something.”

“That’s assuming his goal really is to just protect his Variants,” Mrs. Stevens said. “It’s a priority, sure, but again, if that’s the sum total of his plan, he wouldn’t have been seen. So there’s something else up his sleeve, and yes, I think he’s going to North Korea to do it, whatever it is.”

Ekaterina studied the map and thought back to her time at the Bekhterev Institute, and the creepy man who could shoot flames from his hands and called her “daughter” in a very disturbing way. She was sure Beria was as sick as he was arrogant. He would not run and hide. He would run and do something else, but what could he do with three cars full of Variants and….

“Excuse me,” she said. “But do we know what’s in the truck?”

Danny, Frank, and Mrs. Stevens traded looks around the table. “Red Army cargo truck,” Mrs. Stevens said. “The Red Army isn’t just going to up and give that to him.”

Frank nodded. “Dan, maybe see if our man in Vladivostok can take a little drive north to Chuguyevka, see what that place looks like. Meanwhile…”

Danny finished Frank’s sentence for him. “Pack your things. We’re out of here in two hours. Move.”

Night gently descended on the forested mountains around Songbul-sa, punctuated by the growing sounds of cicadas in the trees. Cal had just finished another meal with Hei Feng, and now walked slowly around the temple courtyard, with Kim in tow to translate and a couple guards keeping a respectful distance. Yamato and Padilla had joined them for dinner, then begged off on the walk.

Honestly, if it wasn’t for the two guards shadowing each of them, weapons at the ready, Cal would’ve really enjoyed the stay. Well, that and missing his family. And failing in his mission. But Cal was always one to make the most of it, and while the Variants waited for the Reds to slip up and give them a window to escape — and maybe rescue those POWs before they were all killed in retaliation — he’d grown to appreciate the slower pace. Especially as his own pace had slowed.

Cal was very much feeling his real age — for the first time in years. In fact, he swore he felt older now. He should have been around fifty-seven, in a body that had seen a lot of miles and hard work and was getting a little arthritic before his Enhancement took hold. But today he felt — and looked — older than that, maybe early sixties. A little more gray, a little stiffer and achy. The thought worried him slightly, but given that he’d always kept himself younger and healthier than his real age, who was to say what his real age should be?

His captor noticed. “Your ability keeps you younger. And without it, you grow old,” Hei Feng said through Kim. “Is that true?”

Cal smiled as they walked past some kind of statue or stele in the middle of the court yard. It wasn’t the first time Black Wind had asked about their abilities, and he wasn’t sure if the young Chinese was probing again or just being kind. “Well, seeing as we’re not really on the same side, and with all due respect, I don’t feel right talking about it.”

Hei Feng nodded. “If you hold to our agreement, I may be able to let you slaughter some of the chickens we’ve gathered for food. Would that help?”

That sounded really, really good to Cal, and he was sorely tempted. But… “No, that’s all right. Appreciate it, though.”

“I understand. Your loyalty to your people is admirable, especially when… well, your people, Africans, they are not treated as well as they should be, yes?” Hei Feng asked.

“Nobody’s ever treated as well as they should be, but yeah, we have a ways to go. But I’ve been a lot of places, and I can tell you that if you look different, no matter how it is that you look different, people gonna treat you different. Black folk in Africa, they don’t like white folk much at all. Understandable. Indian folk don’t like Chinese folk. Arabs don’t like Jews. The French, well, they don’t like anybody. But America’s home. And I think it’ll get better, as long as we keep at it, keep trying to make a difference.”

Hei Feng took all this in as Kim translated, then pondered it for several paces before replying. “And how do they feel about Chinese people?”

Cal could only shrug. “I don’t rightly know. Most Chinese folks I know of tend to stick to their own kind in the cities. I don’t think they have it as bad as black folk in the South, but I really don’t know.”

“I have no family left to speak of, and the farmers and peasants are treated as well as you can expect, I suppose,” Kim translated. “Perhaps — what’s that?”

Cal turned to look at the Korean, pretty sure that he wasn’t translating anymore, and saw why a moment later when three Chinese Army jeeps sped into the tiny courtyard, filled with soldiers and at least three ranking officers.

“Friends of yours?” Cal muttered.

“No friend,” Hei Feng replied — in English.

One of the officers, dressed to the nines with enough brass for a tuba, got out and marched straight toward Hei Feng, who saluted smartly. The officer began pointing and shouting, and soon soldiers were spreading out into the rest of the temple, while three of them trained their guns on Cal.

“He is here for you,” Kim whispered. “You and your friends.”

Cal raised his hand slowly. “I thought Hei was keeping this quiet.”

Kim also raised his hands, out of caution if not solidarity. “He can be independent, but he still answers to people. Those people may have told his secret to someone else.”

Padilla and Yamato were brought into the courtyard at gunpoint, hands on their heads, while the officer continued to shout at Hei Feng. “What’s going on, boss?” Yamato asked.

“Think the vacation’s over,” Cal said.

Then the officer reached out and relieved Hei Feng of his sidearm and rifle, and Hei Feng raised his hands as well.

“Oh, shit,” Cal said. “This is bad. Ricky, light ’em up. Time to go.”

A moment later — nothing.

Cal turned to look at Yamato, who had a pained expression on his face. “It’s not there.”

“What do you mean, ‘It’s not there’?”

“I mean, it’s like a null field or something. I can’t call it up.”

“But the Chinese don’t have generators!” Cal hissed. “How the hell did — oh.”

Cal had missed the face when the jeeps first drove into the courtyard, probably because it wasn’t so different from the other Chinese and Korean faces he’d seen. But now, the person was unmistakable, the same one Cal had first seen in a European forest six years ago.

Mikhail Tsakhia, the original null-Variant, saw Cal looking over at him… and gave him a winning smile. Next to him, a human-shaped shadow coalesced from the darkness briefly, then disappeared again.

“What is it?” Padilla asked as they began to lead Hei Feng toward one of the jeeps.

Cal sighed. “We’re in trouble.”