Owen Matthews - Black Sun

Vasin felt loneliness seating itself beside him like a companion who doesn’t need to speak. He would never see Masha again. The only person who had ever called him brave, or probably ever would. What had he wanted from her? To make her his mistress? To escape with her into a different future from the one that the world had prescribed for both of them? Now that she was gone, Vasin realized with a sharp pang that, yes, that was the secret his own heart had kept veiled, even from himself.

There had been a clarity to Masha, an animal single-mindedness that Vasin found obscurely shaming. Her childhood suffering, the violence that she had inflicted on others to survive, the ruthlessness with which she had used and deceived him in defense of her Adamov. Even the addled moment when she decided to destroy herself: all these were impulses of absolute, fearless resolution. Masha had been a mirror upon which Vasin’s life had been violently dissected. And he could find no absolutes to put opposite her own. His own life had been a series of useless efforts, each driven by the material dictates of the little world that surrounded him, or the pathetic impulses of his body. But Masha was the one who truly did not live by lies.

In a few minutes, from the moment that he picked up the telephone and invited the world to burst in on his silence, Vasin would be irretrievably plunged back into the tangled unhappiness of his own life. And he realized that perhaps unhappiness was the one state he truly deserved. He was not a cloud dweller, but a swamp dweller. There were no pure universes of numbers in his life, no eternal truths to discover. Just existence, with its daily compromises. But at least, here in Masha’s death-dealing city, he had touched a different world. A world from which Vasin had brought away a lie of his own, the falsehood of Korin’s espionage, to add to all the rest of the lies in the basements of the kontora . But this would be his lie. A good lie. And Vasin would share this secret with Masha, and with Adamov, and it would bind them together forever. A secret that he would know, and Masha would know, but that the kontora would never know. Which felt almost like a victory. And that gave him strength.

In front of Vasin was a telephone, its wire linked to other wires that spread across the secret city and out across the great Soviet empire like an infinite web. Vasin waited for another minute, feeling time run around him like a stream.

Then he picked up the receiver, and dialed.

Vasin glanced at the clock on Zaitsev’s wall.

10:35.

An hour to the test.

Up in Olenya, snow would be swirling in the monstrous draft of the Tupolev bomber’s propellers as the pilots prepared to taxi for takeoff. The military’s top brass would be there, shivering in the Arctic wind. Korin’s loading team would be huddled in the lee of their fuel truck, watching the plane’s run with hard, unimpressed stares. The Sailor might even be among them, chewing on an unlit papiros cigarette in the slanting morning light.

There was a gentle knock on the door of Zaitsev’s office. Hesitantly, Efremov entered, bearing an armful of dossiers. The adjutant’s former cold hauteur had dissolved into nervous hesitation.

“Major? The documents you requested.”

Vasin gestured to the sea of paper that already covered the General’s conference table. Reverently, as though they were sacred objects, Efremov placed the files with the rest.

“Vasin. I just wanted to say…”

“Make it brief, Efremov.”

Vasin was now the spy catcher. The bloodied executioner. He was now a man with no time to spare for the likes of Efremov.

“I wanted to congratulate you, Comrade. Wanted to say that I was always on your side. You should know that it was Zaitsev who insisted on placing obstacles…”

“Anything else?”

Efremov’s angular face had gone pale. He drew himself up and saluted. Vasin returned the salute with a casual flick of the hand.

“One thing before you go. Kuznetsov was an excellent choice as my handler. Helped me a lot. I’m recommending him to the higher-ups for promotion. A posting to fraternal Cuba, we’re thinking. I knew you’d want to congratulate him before he goes.”

General Zaitsev himself was off supervising the search of Korin’s barrack. The last twenty-four hours had drained him of his habitual choler like a bloodletting, leaving only pale nervousness behind. In the cold light of the previous dawn, as Zaitsev and Vasin had faced each other on the steps of the Institute, the old brute had looked deflated. A spy. Oh yes. A real American spy in the heart of Arzamas. And Zaitsev had failed to discover him. The knowledge of his impending disgrace had punctured the General like a balloon. Zaitsev’s enormous uniform seemed to hang on him like a sack. And in his eyes, when they met Vasin’s, was pure, animal fear.

Vasin had called Orlov at home from the secure line in Zaitsev’s office, which by the unspoken right of victory had temporarily become his own. It had been half past five in the morning, but Orlov was already awake. Or perhaps still awake. Vasin had communicated only the essentials. Colonel Korin, a spy and double murderer. Religious fanatic. Secret radio. Shot dead. Requesting instructions.

“Understood” was all Orlov said. The silence that followed lasted a minute. “A team will be at the Arzamas airfield in four hours. The witnesses are to speak only to Special Cases. Stand by.” Then the electronic purr of the disconnected line.

Zaitsev’s clock ticked forward. 10:55.

The Tupolev bomber would be climbing steadily toward the testing ground now, laboriously gaining altitude. Adamov was in the radio room at the Citadel, listening in to the bombardiers and pilot’s reports. He’d been there since dawn. A pair of Vasin’s Special Cases comrades were discreetly escorting the Professor wherever he went to ensure that none of Zaitsev’s goons tried to speak to him.

Vasin wondered how Adamov had pretended to take the news of Axelrod’s death, of Korin’s, communicated by some stammering kontora minion. With superb unconcern, he would guess. He could imagine Adamov’s slow blink, the magisterial nod that acknowledged the latest sordid affair of the world. Vasin had little doubt that the Professor would play his role perfectly.

At Arzamas’s airfield, a kontora plane was waiting for them. Orlov’s terse orders: Fly to Moscow immediately after the test. Bring Adamov, but do not speak to him beyond pleasantries. Gather the most important files on the Petrov murder and take them with you. Seal the rest. Brief the Special Cases counterintelligence team who will remain in Arzamas.

Crystal clear. Orlov’s order, imposed on chaos.

But first, the test.

11:22.

Zaitsev’s secretary came in with tea, which she placed on the table in front of Vasin with exaggerated formality before backing away. Vasin did not acknowledge her. He was staring out of the window over the rooftops of Arzamas. A bright autumn sun had burned off the morning’s mist, leaving the sky a deep blue with a marbling of cloud. Somewhere far to the north, beyond the curve of the earth, the bomber crew would be arming RDS-220 for detonation. The pilots would be making their final reports to ground control as they prepared for their approach to the test site.

11:31.

Between Vasin and the bomb were thousands of kilometers of clear, bright air, a universe of trillions of invisible molecules, all vibrating to a mysterious, unheard rhythm. He thought of RDS-220 tumbling from the sky, momentarily free of its cellars and its bindings, falling beautifully through the morning sky, accelerating downward as the earth pulled it toward herself.