Peter Kirsanow - Second Strike

Although every official document stated, and everyone who knew them believed, that they had been born in the United States, they hadn’t arrived until the late seventies, as sleeper agents under the supervision of the First Chief Directorate. Since then, they’d lived a typical American lifestyle in every respect. They worked their modest farm. They attended Saint Matthew’s across the county line. For a period during the late eighties, Allie was even a member of the county planning commission, impressing several residents enough to urge her to run for the state legislature. She didn’t, citing family farm obligations.

George supplemented their modest income as a talented handyman. They also received irregular cash stipends from the KGB and SVR. Not much, so as to discourage anything but modest purchases that wouldn’t attract attention. They paid all of their taxes on time but every few years remembered to make inconsequential errors on their forms so the filings wouldn’t be suspiciously immaculate.

The last forty years for George and Allie had been unremarkable. With the collapse of the Soviet Union they’d made a seamless transition from working for the KGB to working for the SVR. In practice and substance, nearly everything remained the same. They were rarely pressed into service, and then only to provide a temporary accommodation for the occasional KGB or SVR agent. The years had seen them evolve from revolutionary communists to ardent nationalists to senior citizens. In all that time, Bor’s team was by far the largest and most consequential they’d ever accommodated.

The Nicholses knew nothing of Bor, only that he and his companions would be stopping by during the night. Upon learning the size of the entourage, the couple were concerned about what would happen if someone was to drop by. They were assured that everything would be all right; the group would be arriving at night, and even if a curious neighbor or law enforcement officer should visit, their guest was quite adept at managing fluid situations.

Although they were unfamiliar with Bor or his reputation, George, having raised a variety of farm animals over several decades, knew something of predators, and he was certain Bor was just such a creature. He was quite pleasant, his mannerisms almost charming. But his eyes were uncompromising and his body was designed for destruction.

He was sitting casually in George’s modest den, watching the story about the Georgia massacre. The Nicholses were unaware, of course, that Bor had anything to do with the massacre or had sanction to kill them both—a sanction directly from Yuri Mikhailov himself. For although Bor occasionally reported, as circumstances might warrant, to either Aleksandr Stetchkin or the chief of the general staff, he was answerable to the president of Russia alone. In a very powerful circle in Russia it was said even Stetchkin afforded Bor something of a broad berth.

Bor’s only concern regarding the news reports related to the reference to each of the victims having been shot at the bridge of the nose. He was certain that if Michael Garin heard the report he would conclude that Bor was in operation, and Garin was the primary impediment to the success of the operation.

Bor was scheduled to receive a call any moment confirming Garin’s death. And while Bor patiently awaited the call, he thought the odds he would receive a favorable report were bleak. Garin had frustrated their plans in the past, and absent Bor’s direct involvement in his demise, it was best to assume Garin would do so again.

That was okay. Bor desperately preferred Garin’s elimination, but Russians played chess while Americans continued to struggle at checkers. The shots to the bridge of the nose were not a mistake. Whether Garin survived, or even if he didn’t—the placement served a purpose. It facilitated the double blind.

George came into the den and placed a cup of tea on the table next to Bor. “Let me show you something, friend,” George said, waving him to a corner of the room. “You’ll get a kick out of it.”

Bor shrugged and rose from the chair. “Sure.”

Before he could move toward George, Bor’s cell vibrated. He pressed the phone icon on the screen and put the device to his ear.

“Yes?”

“Trident is down,” the voice on the other end said. It was the voice of an agent of the Russian foreign intelligence service.

“Both of them?”

“Yes, I’m afraid.”

“What is the location of the subject?” Bor asked.

“Unknown.”

“You had two surveillance teams.”

“The subject eluded them somehow.”

Of course, thought Bor, just as I suspected.

“My teams will be there shortly. We will discuss this further,” Bor said curtly and ended the call. The asset on the other end felt a spike of terror.

Bor, his expression relaxed, returned his attention to George. “Now, what do you want to show me?”

George grinned again and bent down to lift a three-by-four-foot section of flooring in the corner of the room behind the television. A trapdoor. He laid the section next to the opening and began to descend some stairs.

Bor followed the old man to a cellar the size of a small bedroom. The walls were completely lined with magnesium incendiaries that, when ignited, burned at more than two thousand degrees Celsius, turning everything within the cellar into an unrecognizable and indecipherable cinder.

Most of the cellar was stacked from floor to shoulder height with boxes and crates containing several generations of computer equipment, communications devices, and weapons—most of which had never been used.

A small museum of the Cold War, a war that many American politicians failed to recognize had never ended.

Bor took particular interest in the weapons: two Makarovs, a PSS-2, a KS-23 shotgun, and, of course, the ubiquitous AK-47, all lying atop a container with stenciled markings. Bor was intimately familiar with them all. He was sure the Nicholses were familiar with none. Numerous boxes of the appropriate ammunition lay unopened next to each.

“We have our own little armory down here,” George said, like a boy showing off toys in the attic. “I have no illusions about the guns. But I imagine one day we’ll get to use some of the equipment.”

Doubtful, thought Bor.

George pointed to a switch on the wall next to the stairs. “That’s on a thirty-second timer. There’s an identical one upstairs next to the front door. If I flip it on, this place gets incinerated. Given the temperature of the flames, probably the house above goes too.”

No doubt, thought Bor.

“What do you think, tovarishch ?” George asked.

For a fraction of a second, Bor’s hand moved toward the pistol in the waistband under his shirt. George had made a grievous mistake, perhaps the only one of his long and uneventful career. Speaking Russian, even in the cellar of a safe house on an isolated farm, could get someone caught or killed. This wasn’t the seventies, eighties, or even nineties. There were satellites, drones, directional microphones, and listening devices everywhere. Even in rural South Carolina.

But Bor caught himself. George’s one mistake in forty years, and only a few years left. Was it truly worth a bullet to the head? Besides, the important thing was they were still on time.

George caught the glint of anger in Bor’s eyes and shook his head. “That’s never happened before,” he offered contritely, disappointed in himself. “It will never happen again, friend.”

Bor nodded dismissively and ascended the stairs, followed by George.

As the old man replaced the heavy flooring over the cellar opening, it slipped from his grasp, slamming sharply to the floor of the den with a loud crack that echoed out the open window into the warm night.