Jeffery Deaver: Ice Cold

“The Comrade General told me there are two men who present an immediate threat.”

“Yes, that’s correct. They are U.S. citizens, though of Latin American extraction. Comrade Rasnakov learned that they plan to kill him sometime on Friday.” He slid a slim file across the battered desk. “Your job is to intercept them. Then communicate with them.”

“Communicate?”

“Yes, exactly. With one of these.” Spesky removed two pistols from his desk, along with two boxes of ammunition.

“You’re familiar with these?”

One was a Colt Woodsman, a small caliber, .22, but very accurate, thanks to the long barrel. The other was a large 1911-style Colt .45. “And you will need a car, Comrade,” Spesky told him. “I understand you can drive?”

A nod.

“Good. In the file you will find an address, an abandoned house. There’s a garage behind it, off an alley—‘garage’ they say here to mean not a repair station but a separate place to keep your car in, like a stable.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“In the garage is a Chevrolet Bel Air. The keys are hidden up under the front seat… Ah, I see you know not only guns but automobiles too, Comrade.”

Spesky had apparently noticed that Kaverin was smiling at the mention of the Bel Air.

“Now these are your targets.” Spesky opened the file and tapped the documents.

Kaverin read through the file carefully, noting facts about the two men whose mission was to kill Comrade 35—Luis Suarez and Carlos Barquín, both in their mid-thirties. Dangerous men, who were former prisoners. They had murdered before. Their round faces—both bisected with thick mustaches—looked sullen, and Barquín gave the impression of being stupid.

Kaverin, though, knew it was a mistake to underestimate your enemy; he’d seen too many soldiers and agents die because they had done just that. So he read carefully, learning every fact he might about the men.

According to Rasnakov’s sources, the two were presently traveling—whereabouts unknown—but would arrive in Texas day after tomorrow. The plan was to kill Comrade 35 that day. Spesky explained that Rasnakov had planned to lie in wait and kill them when they arrived at the boarding house. This would be Kaverin’s job now. He pushed the file back and placed the guns and ammunition in his attaché case.

Spesky then handed him an envelope. It contained one thousand dollars U.S. and another airline ticket. “Your flight’s tomorrow morning. You’ll stay at a hotel near the airport tonight.”

After calling for a taxi, Spesky poured more vodka and they ate the rest of the paté and some smoked oysters. Spesky asked about life back in Moscow and what were the latest developments at GRU headquarters. There was gossip about who had become nonpersons and an affair at a very high level, though Kaverin was careful not to mention any names. Spesky was delighted nonetheless.

Neither man, however, had any hesitation in sharing stories about the latest KGB cock-ups and scandals.

When the taxi arrived, Spesky shook Kaverin’s hand. Suddenly the brash spy seemed wistful, almost sad. “You will enjoy certain aspects of life here, Comrade. The weather, the food, the plenty, the women, and—not the least—the absence of spies and informers dogging you everywhere. Yet you will also find such freedom comes at a price. You will be alone much, and you will feel the consequences of that solitude in your soul. There is no one to look out for you, no one above to care for you. In the end, you will long to return home to Mother Russia. I know this for a fact, Comrade. I have eight months left here and yet already I am counting the days until I can fly back to her bosom.”

The flight the next morning, on a propeller-driven DC-7, was turbulent as the plane fought its way west through strong winds. The journey was so bad that the stewardesses, who were quite beautiful, could not serve breakfast. Kaverin, more irritated at that fact than scared, at least had managed to secure a vodka and he took comfort in sipping the drink and smoking nearly half a pack of Chesterfield cigarettes, which were marvelous, during the flight.

The weather broke and, as they descended, he could look down and see flat sandy earth for miles and miles, grass bleached by the season, occasional groves of trees. Cattle, lots of cattle.

The aircraft landed uneventfully and the passengers disembarked.

He took his attaché case, containing his guns and ammunition, from the plane’s overhead bin and walked down the stairs onto the tarmac.

Pausing and inhaling the petrol- and exhaust-laced air, Mikhail Sergeyevich Kaverin found himself content. Here he was in a country very different from that portrayed by the great propaganda mill of the Soviet empire. The people were friendly and courteous, the food and cigarettes plentiful and cheap, the workers content and comfortable, not the least oppressed by greedy capitalist robber barons. And the weather was far nicer than in Russia this time of year. And nearly everyone owned an automobile!

Kaverin strode into the lobby of Love Field in Dallas, Texas. He glanced at the front page of today’s morning newspaper, Thursday, November 21, 1963.

Feeling the weight of the guns and ammunition in his case, Kaverin now felt an unabashed sense of pride to think that he alone had been selected for this critical mission of helping the USSR extend its reach throughout the world and further the glorious goals of communism.

As he waited for his bus, at a weedy stop in Dallas, Lee Harvey Oswald was troubled.

People had been following him. He knew this for a fact.

People who wanted to do him harm.

The skinny, dark-haired man, in his mid-twenties, looked around him again. Was there someone watching him? Yes!

But no. It was just a shadow. Still, he wished he had brought his pistol with him.

He awakened early in his boarding house on Beckley Avenue in Oak Cliff and taken a bus to a stop near the Dobbs House Restaurant for breakfast. The food had been bad and he’d complained. He wondered why he kept going back there. Maybe I’m a creature of habit, he reflected. He’d heard the phrase on a TV show.

Was it Ozzie and Harriet ? He’d wondered. He liked that show, partly because it echoed his nickname in the Marines. Ozzie Rabbit .

When he thought this, he remembered his days in the service and recalled the fight he’d gotten into with a sergeant and that made him angry once more.

As angry as he’d been with the waitress over the food.

Why do I keep going back there? he thought again. Looked around once more. He didn’t see any overt threats but he still had to be careful. Considering what he had planned for tomorrow. And considering that he knew people were after him, smart people. Ruthless ones.

The bus arrived and Oswald boarded it and rode to the place he worked, the Texas Book Depository on Elm Street and North Houston, across from Dealey Plaza. He climbed off the bus, and gazed about him once more, expecting to see one of the sullen faces of the men who he was sure were following him.

FBI maybe. Those bastards had been harassing Marina and their friends again.

Oh, he’d made some enemies in his day.

But in morning glare—it was a beautiful autumn day—he saw only housewives with perambulators and a few salesmen, a retired couple or two. Ranchers. Some Hispanic men…

Killers?

It was possible. Oswald grew alarmed and leapt into the shadows of the depository building to study them. But they showed no interest in him and strolled slowly to a landscaping truck, pulled out rakes and headed into the park across the street.