Rodney Mallard and Roy Longfellow went to a café for tea that night.
“Tomorrow, you make your pick up and run like hell for Vyborg,” Longfellow told Mallard. “I’ll be headed for Leningrad.”
“It doesn’t feel like this is going to work at all,” Mallard said. “How in God’s name do you shake loose from your KGB escort tomorrow so you can make the church and pick up poor Nikolai?”
Longfellow slowly shook his head. There was a grim set to his mouth. “I don’t honestly know,” he finally said. “I’ve played it over and over in my brain hundreds of times. We’re going to have to pray, I suppose.”
Mallard wasn’t satisfied. “No, you need a plan. Some way of throwing them off.” Then he scoffed. “I’m not even sure the hymnal was put there by TINKER. Do you know how many hymnals I saw in that church?”
“No. But that troubles me, too.”
“I counted three hymnals up front where the priests sit. Scares the hell out of me that maybe we’ve triggered this whole thing, and it isn’t even TINKER.”
“What if the KGB tortured Nikolai and made him give up the plan, and it was KGB who signaled? Have you worked that scenario through your head yet?”
“Only a hundred times. It’s entirely possible.”
“This could blow up into a horrendous mess. It could result in us getting expelled from Russia and bringing great condemnation to Britain. That, alone, worries the hell out of me. Not to even mention poor Nikolai. For all we know, he’s lying in some unmarked grave this minute. What in the hell are we doing? Aren’t we supposed to be spies and have the upper hand?”
“If only,” Mallard said. Another pot of tea arrived, and the men poured milk into their cups.
“Plus, am I going off the deep end, or is there more KGB surveillance around the embassy the past few days? I feel like ants are crawling all over us.”
“I’ve noticed it, too. Ordinarily, I ignore them, but this feels like they’re on to something.”
“And we don’t even know his identity or what he looks like. The man I saw outside the church might not have been him, just some random guy smoking a cigar. But I couldn’t describe him now. It was only a split second our eyes met.”
“London has told me he is a KGB colonel, a long-time agent dating back to his London days, a man so important to the UK that they’re willing to take losses to save him.”
“Take losses?” asked Mallard. “What in the hell does ‘take losses’ mean?”
“Go figure. It startled me, too,” Longfellow agreed. “I’ve never seen that before.”
“Sounds like we have Khrushchev himself in our net.”
“Might be easier to smuggle out of Russia. He’s bland as hell.”
They laughed at that. Sometimes the laughter helped when things were ominous, and there was unknown meaning in every stranger’s face and untold danger behind every corner.
MI6 Moscow kept MI6 London apprised of its preparations. But in MI6 London, too, there was new worry that a failure could compromise Anglo-Soviet relations at the exact moment the world was balancing on the precipice of war. The Cuban Missile Crisis was growing more frightening every day.
58
Nikolai’s most urgent task was to buy railway tickets to Leningrad for him and Sasha, which meant a trip to the Leningradsky Station on Komsomolskaya Square. Proof positive habitual dry-cleaning was fundamental to survival.
But right now, Sasha was dirty and wet. Potty-training was underway but wasn’t perfect, and mealtime was always a disaster. Her needs came first.
“Dirty diaper? You must be very upset. You’re a big girl, and big girls use the potty.”
“Mama?”
Here we go again, he thought. But it had to be done each time until she understood.
“Mama went to heaven. She’s with God.” He believed none of that, but until someone found a better alternative to give toddlers, it was what he knew to say.
“I want Mama!” she demanded and banged her sippy cup down on the table.
“Yes, I want Mama, too. I wish we had her with us right now.”
“Mama, come home!”
“That’s right. But Mama went away. She’s in heaven.”
“Where?”
Nikolai shrugged. “You know, heaven.”
Nikolai wasn’t all that comfortable with his answers for Sasha. At the safe house table, he teased her into a spoonful of food and a swallow from her cup while his mind roamed over the man he would have to anticipate.
It would be Bucharov, their best.
Bucharov would be a handful. Who killed who depended on who saw who first. If he saw Bucharov before Bucharov saw him, then Bucharov would die. Nikolai was at least that much of a warrior. He felt grateful he had been in the war and fought hand-to-hand. He was thankful he had killed and learned to keep going.
He picked up the baby’s meal things, washed them in the sink, and then washed the table where Sasha had pounded spaghetti into the placemat.
He went around the safe house and loaded a few items he would need, including a short length of chain and a padlock. Then he packed their gear into one bag.
He washed her hands and mouth and lifted her out of her kitchen chair. “Hang on. We’re almost ready to go.”
He dug out a spare set of clothes for Sasha and packed diapers in his bag. She was potty trained but was accident-prone if stressed. Nikolai’s old soldier knapsack let him carry her on his back, swaddled in her footsies and winter coat. Even though it was only October, it was freezing. She fit perfectly in the knapsack, the top of her head just peeking out from the canvas, and she was safely away from the wind and snow. If needed, he could even close the knapsack flap over her head, but that would be only in an emergency.
But before he set off, he had to ask himself one last time, was he sure this was the best thing to do for her? Meaning, might it be safer if Longfellow transported her? Each time he asked, he knew he would take her with him. It was the only way, for he loved her too much to risk losing her forever. Besides, she was all he had left of Yulia. “Come along, little Sasha.”
He called a taxi. When it arrived, he loaded the knapsack first and then followed. He told the driver to go to the end of the street and make a U-turn. The driver complied, and Nikolai told him to stop. Now they faced the two-way road with a view of all oncoming traffic. Nikolai then had the driver move ahead at a high rate of speed. At the next corner was a stoplight that Nikolai asked the driver to turn right on red. He drove down two blocks and stopped at the north corner of the shopping center, GUM, or Main Universal Store, facing the Red Square.
At that point, just as they rocked to a stop, Nikolai and Sasha climbed out and caught the bus just coming up from behind. The bus took them down a block, stopped, turned right, then another block, and stopped. He was now on the south end of the shopping mall. Nikolai climbed down out of the bus and began walking back toward the south entrance. He entered through the department store and immediately made his way to the public bathrooms on the basement level. By his wristwatch, he timed off fifteen minutes before reappearing outside. He found a phone by the entrance and called a taxi. When they climbed into the cab, he felt he’d made a good start. He had the cab take them downtown, pull into a parking garage, and stop. Nikolai walked to the stairwell and entered. The steps were concrete, and the door had a handle. Perfect. He pulled the chain from his bag and twisted it around the handle so it wouldn’t turn. Then he attached his padlock. Now it was time to take the elevator and disappear.