Paul Vidich - The Mercenary

GARIN HEARD THE GUARD’S LOUD voice through the cell door’s grated window: “Hey, you in there. Wake up.” He had been returned to his basement cell in Lefortovo Annex before the end of the proceeding and told nothing. He had been unshackled and thrown onto the floor of his cell. He had spent some time looking for a way out. There was a weakness in every prison, and he had made a concerted effort to find it in his cell. He had tried the bedroom’s grated window, testing the iron anchors in the crumpling mortar, but he found that no amount of force dislodged them. He spun around to look for a tool, but the cabinets were empty. The kitchenette, the sofa, and the small bedroom all added to the appearance of a voluntary confinement, but the outside door was firmly locked. He was a prisoner of the State, and he knew from experience, and from the way the Soviet bureaucracy worked, that the full lens of State Security would focus on him until the magnification caused him to combust. To escape, he had to get past the guard, which seemed like an impossible challenge, but he knew that his most dangerous enemy was his feeling of helplessness.

His plan was terrible, but it kept his mind from the numbing fear that he didn’t exist to the outside world—and would cease to exist, with a bullet to the nape of his neck, buried in an unmarked grave. The mortal void angered him. As he had done all his life, even as a child, he put his fear into the service of crazy ingenuity. He screamed and then was quiet. Again, he screamed, pounded the door with his fists, and screamed. This went on for several minutes, and then he listened through the door. He had counted the minutes that the guard took to reach the end of the hallway in his rounds, inspecting each of the hallway’s cells, and he timed his activity to the guard’s schedule. He loosened one leg of a three-legged stool and tested its strength, proving to himself that it was an adequate weapon. He hid it under his belt.

Garin lifted his head from the table, where he pretended to rest, and looked at the guard’s face through the grated window. “Fuckhead,” Garin growled. “Look at me. So quiet.”

“Come to the door,” the guard said. “Snap to it.”

Garin heard the door bolt slide free, and his hand went to the club. A quick blow to the head, drag the man inside. Garin had mentally mapped the turns he’d taken in the old mansion’s basement tunnel when he’d been returned to this cell, so he could reverse them.

The door opened with a great, aching screech of hinges, and the guard pushed against the rusted resistance until it was fully open. “You have a visitor.”

Natalya stepped from behind the guard. She was dressed as she had been in the courtroom—smart KGB uniform, hair in a bun—and her face was grim and unsmiling. She carried a notebook in one hand and a small duffel bag in the other.

“I will be fifteen minutes,” she said to the guard. “Stay close by. When I’m finished taking his statement, I will knock.”

“Be careful of him. He bit a guard’s ear. He’s a shit.”

“Don’t go far,” she said.

The guard closed the door, locking it.

Natalya stared at Garin. She hadn’t slept, her dark eyes were nervous, and she made a great effort to look composed. Her lips were pressed tight, which gave her expression a hint of menace. “You look like an animal,” she said.

“What are you doing here?”

“Yes, what?!” She looked at the cell’s interior doors. “Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

She placed the duffel bag on the table. “I am here to take notes on your case so there is a record for your trial. That is what I have told the guard. If he comes back, that is what I must be seen doing.” She unzipped the duffel bag. “I don’t feel responsible for you. This, you brought on yourself.”

His notebook and travel documents were inside the bag. She pushed them aside to pull out a Soviet Army captain’s uniform, which she presented to Garin.

“You are Luca’s size. Put it on quickly. If you walk confidently, no one will ask questions of a Soviet captain wearing the Order of the Red Banner. Afganets .”

Garin stripped his smelly clothing and pushed his arms in the sleeves of the wool jacket and thrust his legs in the pants, buttoning the tunic, his hands shaking. He swept his hair back and placed the high-crown cap on his head. “Why are you doing this?”

She scoffed. She looked through the barred window and turned back to Garin. “What happened in the courtroom after I left?”

“His defense was rejected.”

“What will happen to him?”

“You know. He’ll be executed. He may already be dead.”

She flinched, and her mouth opened involuntarily at the sudden, shocking news. She covered her surprise with a deep, calming breath and fortified her expression with false bravery.

“Why haven’t they let me go?” Garin asked.

“Why would they? You know too much.”

“And so do you.”

She shook her head. “I am not under suspicion.” She looked at Garin accusingly. “You conspired against Dmitry.”

“I did what I had to do.”

Her eyes were fierce. “You lied. Everything you said was a lie.”

“He betrayed your father. He is the one who informed Talinov of the border crossing.”

Color left Natalya’s face, and she stared at him, confused and disbelieving, but she knew the truth. Her face remained tough, but her hands began to tremble.

Garin had a great urge to comfort her, but he didn’t. He felt the club in his hand, which he gripped threateningly, but there was dangerous sympathy in his heart. “That is what you need to know,” he said. “Yes, I lied. You want to know? I will tell you. But it is dangerous for you and dangerous for me.”

Garin heard the guard approaching. “We set up Posner from the beginning,” he said. “We used you. We used him. We needed to shift attention away from GAMBIT. Posner once worked for us—he worked for everyone, if it paid—but he was no longer useful. Or reliable. We used you to set him up. Now you know everything. It won’t make things easier. The truth never makes things easier.”

She looked like she’d been punched, and she gasped audibly.

The guard was approaching. Garin lowered his voice. “Are you coming with me?”

She handed him her nine-millimeter Makarov. “You will need this.”

“You’re not coming?”

“For what?” She stared at him. “This is my country, my home. Leave for what? An immigrant’s life in a strange place? Chernenko is dead. Things will change.”

Garin heard determination in her voice, and he knew nothing he said or did would change her mind.

She smiled—an insolent smile. “To be like you, a man without a country? I prefer to stay. I can be miserable here in my own home. I don’t have to be miserable in Brighton Beach with the zadroty , still talking and plotting against what they left.” Her expression softened. “Kiss me.”

“What?”

“You shouldn’t leave believing I don’t care for you.”

Garin heard the guard yelling at the man in the next cell. Urgency made a claim on him, but he did as she asked. He kissed her briskly, with urgent emotion that she returned.

She broke away, frightened by the power of the moment to change her mind. She presented her wrists. “Tie me up. There’s a car outside, a red Lada. Bogdan is driving. He is excited to play his part, so make him think he’s important. He will drive you where you tell him.”

“This is stupid. Come with me.”

“It’s not possible. The door is opening.”

Garin had stepped to one side so when the door opened, he was able to bring the club down on the unsuspecting guard’s head, sending him to his knees. A second blow put him on the floor, and a low moan came from his throat. Garin tied his hands behind his back with his belt and wound a cloth over his eyes. A towel went in his mouth to silence him.