Джозеф Файндер - Extraordinary Powers

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I can. How do you know?”

She continued to smile, her eyes still closed.

I know of these things. I know of James Tobias Thompson’s projects.

“How?” I said.

While my husband served as a clerk in Paris, I was kept behind in Moscow. They liked to do that — to keep the husband and wife separated so that they would have leverage over you. My job, in any case, was very important. Too important for me to give up. I was the chief secretary to three successive KGB chairmen. I was, in effect, the gatekeeper. I handled all of their secret papers, their correspondence.

“And so it was you that found the MAGPIE file.”

Yes, and many other files.

Berzin said, bewildered: “What is going on?”

His wife said soothingly, “Vadim, please. Silent for a few moments. I will explain all.”

And she went on, her thoughts as clear and understandable as her spoken voice.

All of my life I have had this disease. Her left hand fluttered toward her face. But when I reached my forties, it attacked my face, and soon I became... unsuitable... to occupy a position of such visibility. The chairmen and their aides could no longer bear to look at me. Just as you cannot bear to look at me. And so they removed me from my job. But before I left, I took with me a document that I believed would at least let Vadim leave for the West. And when he visited me in Moscow, I gave it to him.

“But how,” I persisted, “how did you know about... about me?”

I didn’t know. I guessed. In my position, I learned of the program that Thompson was working to develop. No one at the First Chief Directorate headquarters at Yasenevo believed such a thing was possible. But I believed it was possible. I didn’t know if he would ever succeed. But I knew it was possible. It’s a remarkable, remarkable thing you have.

“No,” I said. “It’s a terrible thing.”

Before I could tell her, explain to her, she thought: Your wife’s father got us out of Russia. It was a generous and good thing for him to do. But we had more to offer than this tape.

I furrowed my brow, silently asking, What?

Her thoughts continued to flow, impassioned and clear.

This man, James Tobias Thompson. Your mentor. MAGPIE. He continued to report to Moscow. I know; I saw his reports. He tells of people inside and outside the CIA who plan to take power. They cooperate with the Germans. You must find him. Thompson will tell you. He regrets what he did. He will tell you—

Then suddenly the dog’s whimper became a sharp, loud bark.

“Something is wrong with Hunter,” Berzin said. “Let me go find out—”

“No,” I said. The sharp barking grew steadily louder, faster, more insistent.

“Something is wrong with him!” Berzin said.

Then the bark became a horrible, horrible, piercing yowl, a cry that was almost human, almost a shriek.

And then there was a terrible silence.

I thought I could hear something, a thought. My name, thought with great urgency, from somewhere very close by.

I knew the dog had just been brutally slaughtered.

And that we were next.

It is amazing, really, how fast you can think when your life is at stake. Both Vera and Vadim started at the dog’s earsplitting, agonized scream, and then Vera shrieked and jumped up from the couch and began awkwardly to run in the direction of the sound.

“Stop!” I called out to her. “Don’t move — it’s not safe! Get down !”

Confused and terrified, the old couple grabbed at each other, arms flailing wildly. Now the old woman began to moan loudly, and her husband sputtered in protest.

“Quiet!”

Startled, they fell silent, and immediately there was an ominous, unearthly quiet in the apartment. An absolute silence, in which I knew someone — or several people — were moving stealthily. I didn’t know the layout of the apartment, but I could surmise: the apartment was on the second floor — le premier étage , as the French designate it — and probably a fire escape wound up the rear of the building, where I assumed the kitchen was located, where the dog had been tied up — and into which the invaders had come.

The invaders. Meaning?

My thoughts raced: Who knew I was here? There was no transmitter to guide my pursuers; and I hadn’t been followed, to the best of my knowledge. Toby Thompson... Truslow... were they working together? Or at cross-purposes, against each other?

Had this old Russian émigré couple been on a watch list? Was it possible that someone with excellent access to Agency secrets — and that described either Truslow or Thompson — knew of the deal Molly’s father had struck with this couple? Yes, certainly it was possible. And I was known to be in Paris; and it would be natural to intensify a watch that might otherwise have remained dormant...

In no more than a second or two, these thoughts flashed through my brain, but as I paused momentarily, I saw that both of the Berzins were rushing, or really lumbering, toward the tiny dark hallway, presumably toward the kitchen. Fools! What were they doing? What were they thinking ?

“Get back ,” I said, almost shouted, but they had already reached the doorway, frantic and crazed as frightened deer, unthinking and illogical and reflexive. I lunged toward them to pull them back, to get them out of the way so that I could move unencumbered by fears of their safety, and as I moved I saw a flickering shadow in the hallway, a silhouette of a man, it seemed.

“Down!” I shouted, but at that very instant there was that sibilant, dull phut phut phut of a silenced automatic, and both Vera and Vadim began to slump forward and then topple in a grotesque, balletic slow motion, like fallen trees, great ancient trees that have been sawn at their base, and the only sound was a lowing, a deep caterwauling that suddenly emanated from the old man as he crashed to the ground.

I froze, and without thinking fired a volley of shots into the dark hallway. There was a shout, a high-pitched scream of pain that seemed to indicate I had hit someone, and several rapid, male voices shouting at once. Now the shots were returned, splintering the doorjamb. One bullet grazed my shoulder; another hit the television screen, and the set exploded. I sprang forward, grabbed the door handle, and fell against it, slamming the door to the sitting room, turning the lock as I did so.

For what? So that I could be trapped in this room? Think , dammit!

The only way out was the hallway, where the gunman or gunmen were, and that made no sense, but now what?

I had no time to think; there was time only to react as swiftly as possible, but I had put myself into this treacherous corner, and as I desperately calculated, a round of bullets was fired against the door, through the heavy wooden door.

Where now?

Jesus, Ben, move it, for Christ’s sake!

I whirled around, saw the wooden chair on which I had been sitting just a few seconds earlier, and flung it toward the window. The window shattered, the chair lodged in between slats of the aluminum venetian blinds. I raced toward the window, yanked out the chair, and used it to clear away the remaining jagged edges of glass.

Another volley of shots came behind me; the doorknob was rattled; and then more shots.

And just as the door somehow came open behind me, I leapt — without looking — out of the second-floor window and into the street.

I bent my legs, bracing for the impact, my arms spread to protect my head in case I pitched forward.

I moved, it seemed, in slow motion. Time, for a moment, had stood still. I could see myself fall, almost as if I were watching on a movie screen, see myself tuck my legs in, see the street as it zoomed up toward me, shrubbery and concrete sidewalk and pedestrians and...