Patriot

CHAPTER 62

Less than ten days after their game-changing meeting at Ravenswood Farm, the two old spies found themselves shivering at the edge of a dark Siberian wood, hunkered down against the chill in the night air. But, as the Englishman politely reminded his Russian confrere, it was Siberia after all. Was that not a word synonymous with freezing one’s balls off?

The Cambridge Two were wholly exhausted. They had endured a long and perilous trip. The journey to the back of beyond had been an exhausting chore but they had prevailed.

Traveling incognito, dressed as wealthy businessmen, the two men had flown from Heathrow to Moscow. Then, having safely gotten past airport security, it was on to St. Petersburg, sitting in the back of the 1950s bus. Disembarking, they caught the Red Star Trans-Siberian train with seconds to spare, and began the endless journey to Tvas.

Once aboard, shivering in their beastly compartment, they made their way overland to the tiny rail station at Tvas. Somehow, they managed to secure a pair of stout horses for the arduous cross-country trek across the bloody tundra to the winter palace of the tsars. That had taken the better part of the day and now, when night had fallen, they knew the temperature would surely plummet like a stone.

In the lone canvas duffel bag they’d shared were food, ammo, weapons, and two heavy bearskin coats. These were coats Halter used when he was at his home in the Swiss Alps, and they were undeniably warm. Halter’s coat fit; Congreve’s did not. It brushed the tops of his gum boots and proved very difficult to walk in. However, it had been a godsend while they were traveling in high winds on horseback.

They were now shut of their traveling clothing, and beneath the bearskin coats each man was wearing a black KGB officer’s uniform from Ambrose’s carry bag. Halter had secured these from his tailor in Moscow for their impending operation. These, along with serviceable identification and both men’s fluency in Russian, were the only hope they had of getting inside the heavily fortified compound.

But Congreve wasn’t so sure. His spoken Russian, while technically correct, was not nearly so idiomatic as Halter’s. But, he reassured himself, perhaps it was good enough. He felt he looked preposterous in the ill-fitting KGB uniform and voluminous bearskin rug, but who in God’s name knew what the reaction of the guards might be to this apparition.

Ambrose saw Halter looking at him in an odd way.

“What?” Congreve said.

“The trademark moustache, I’m afraid.”

“What about it?”

“It won’t serve, that’s what. It needs shaving. No one, I mean no one, in the officer ranks of the KGB wears a moustache. You’ll have to lose it.”

Ambrose, a chap in a perpetual state of moustache, was stunned.

“Lose it?” he said, clearly terrified.

“Here. Use my knife. Don’t bloody cut yourself, either.”

A light and misty rain had begun to fall, adding to the chill and filling the forest with shadowy plays of light as Congreve removed every trace of facial hair without use of a mirror.

They had managed to get their horses inside the dense thicket of woods sight unseen. From there, they had made their way to a serviceable hiding place at the edge of the forest proper. Their concealed position was perhaps a thousand yards from the main gate.

It was staunchly defended. Guard towers manned by machine-gun-toting soldiers every fifty feet, a broad no-man’s-land occupied by roving Dobermans, and armed sentries on high alert around every searchlight tower.

It occurred to Ambrose that such redundant security didn’t make much sense out here in the uncharted realms of Siberia. Unless, of course, you were expecting unwanted company after the outbreak of recent hostilities in Florida. Or perhaps the arrival of some deity from Moscow had upped the ante?

“Are you quite done with those binoculars?” a slightly nicked but freshly shaven Congreve asked. They’d only managed to secure one pair of night-vision optics when they really needed two. The misty glare from the mammoth searchlights atop each guard tower made seeing clearly all but impossible, only adding to Halter’s apparent frustration with what he thought merely an expensive gadget.

“Just a damn minute, will you? I think I actually see something,” Halter said out of the corner of his mouth. “Movement in the vicinity of the command-and-control center entrance. A small motorcade is arriving. A fancy black Audi in the lead has just pulled up in front. Kremlin cars, I’d recognize them anywhere. Two KGB men getting out of the front. Someone climbing out of the rear seat… yes. Has to be bigwig whose helo has just landed from Moscow and he’s… he’s standing out in the cold, talking to two or three officers who’ve come out from inside the gate…”

“Recognize him?”

“No. Can’t make out that much detail at this distance. Short. Squat. Has two security brutes in close attendance. They’re all chatting like mad about something. Odd. A high-level meeting in the middle of the night? Here, have a look.”

Halter handed Congreve the high-powered NVGs.

Congreve first turned them over in his hands, scrutinizing the optics.

“Ever used these before?” he asked Stefan.

“Not really. No. Why?”

“Your settings are all wrong, Professor. You need enhanced filtration in these wretched conditions. There we go. That should do,” Congreve said, raising the glasses to his eyes and peering through them. He looked hard for a few moments before exclaiming, “What? No, no, that cannot be. I think I’m going stark raving mad, Stef!”

“What is it? Let me see…”

Congreve held on to the device.

“Hold on a tick… yes… unless my poor eyes deceive me… here… have a look and tell me what you see. Maybe I am crazy after all.”

“All right, what am I looking at?” Halter took the bloody things to have another look, swinging them back and forth.

“Zoom in, Stef. Get a very close look at the short chap in the middle of the group. Turn the big knob underneath…”

“What? Oh, yes. Good God. I don’t believe it. That’s impossible… astounding likeness, really… however, I do think… but, still, I mean, really.”

“It’s Stalin, isn’t it, Stef?”

“Well, it’s obviously not Stalin, now, is it? Uncle Joe left us to fend for ourselves in 1953, remember?”

“So who the bloody hell is it then?”

“I’ve seen hundreds of hours of film of Joseph Stalin. Yet, for all that, I would swear on my mother’s grave that the fellow I’m looking at was him,” Halter said, handing the NVGs back to his comrade.

Congreve peered through them and said, “The ghost of Joe Stalin is now entering the building. Time to make our move, agreed?”

“If we’ve got but one life to live,” Halter said, “let us give it now. We’ve really no alternative at this point, old fellow. Let’s go cause trouble!”

The two spies retraced their steps through the heavy wood, the rocky ground now sodden with rain. They saw their tied steeds where they’d left them, stamping their hooves and snorting steam in the frigid air of the small clearing. They mounted up and made their way out of the woods to the stony, now muddy road they’d found earlier. The one that eventually wound its way around the perimeter of the forest and back to the main gate of the KGB compound.

Congreve could feel a thousand eyes on him as they approached the brilliantly illuminated guardhouse next to the heavily gated entry. Two men with machine guns instantly emerged from it and called for them to halt and dismount. Not a request, an order. Halter nodded agreeably and nimbly dropped to the ground. He then walked smiling toward the waiting muzzles of the dozen or so guns now pointed in his direction. It had been decided on the way in to let Stef do the talking. Ambrose would mutter a few appropriate words when challenged and show his ID when asked.

Halter was accustomed to real power inside the subtle but deadly political minefield that was the Kremlin and most of Mother Russia. His name was known and feared inside the Kremlin walls, and his imposing presence could knock down any door that was closed against him.

One guard stepped forward while the other took the reins of Halter’s black steed.

“Identification, please, General,” the man said, holding his hand out.

Halter presented his KGB and state papers. The man perused them with great care, nodding his head. Congreve felt a wave of relief. Stef must have pulled it off. The two guards actually seemed in awe of his friend who, had, after all, legitimate credentials. But then they shifted their focus to him. At least, the two brutes didn’t seem in the mood to shoot him where he stood as they approached. Even his horse was visibly nervous.

“Papers, Captain,” the larger of the two demanded in harsh language.

Congreve muttered back in a strong Russian dialect intended to convey the tone of a seasoned KGB officer with a strong sense of power, command, and entitlement.

“Of course, Sergeant.”

The man had a sturdy flashlight and studied his papers in the brilliant white beam. These gentlemen, he noticed, had helmets with a bit of flash. They appeared to be made of steel, polished to a mirrorlike finish. And their sharply tailored black uniforms reminded Congreve of nothing so much as Hitler’s infamous SS “Death’s Head” outfits.

“What is this here? No stamp? Why is it blank, the space, Captain?” the fellow said, staring at him suspiciously. Congreve’s mind went blank for a terrifying moment while it searched in vain for a satisfactory response.

“Well?” the big man said, with deliberate menace in his voice. He unsnapped his leather holster and grasped the grip of his pistol.

Congreve froze.