Warren Murphy: In Enemy Hands

There were two sausages which Ivan chomped on like pretzels, and a halfgallon of Strega liquor. Ivan finished off his meal with two pies.

"There are 40 million lire here, Ivan. We gave you only 20 million. Where did you get the rest of the money, Ivan?"

"I not beat up people and steal," said Ivan.

"Ivan, how did you get the rest of the money?"

"I not spend all money like you say."

"Ivan, you had to get the money from somewhere," Vassilivich said.

"You give it."

"No, Ivan, I gave you 20 million lire three days ago. You lived three days on assignment and you came back with 40 million lire. That means you at least got 20 million lire from somewhere, assuming you didn't eat for three days, which I doubt."

"Count again."

"I counted, Ivan."

"I not spend all the money."

"Where did you get that new watch, Ivan?" asked Vassilivich, noticing a gold Rolex held by a belt to Ivan's immense wrist.

"I find it."

"Where did you find it, Ivan?"

"In a church. Priest beat up helpless nuns and Ivan save nuns and workers and they gave him watch because priest so nasty to all of them, making them give all their things to the state."

"That's not so, Ivan."

"Is so," Ivan said. "Truth. You not there, you do not know. Priest a big man and very strong and very mean. He say Chairman Brezhnev stick his thing in sheep's asses and that Mao Tsetung is good and Brezhnev bad."

"You're lying, Ivan. That's not right."

"You like Chinamen and hate Russians. You always hate. I know."

Gently, for that was the only way one dealt with Ivan, Vassilivich walked the lumbering powerhouse out of the restaurant and up the street to the Atlas Hotel and up a flight of stairs to a small room where he told Ivan that he must guard the room and not leave it. And yes, Ivan would get another medal for protecting the room, and yes, Vassilivich believed what Ivan had said. He liked Ivan. Everyone loved Ivan because now he was in charge of this very important room which he must not leave. There was drink in the refrigerator and Vassilivich would send up food.

He only realized he was nervous when, in the elevator going down, he found his hands trembling and stuffed them into the pockets of his trim Italian suit.

If he had believed in God, Colonel Vassily Vassilivich would have said a prayer. He walked down the narrow street again and turned into the motor underpass beneath the Quirinal Palace. His footsteps made hollow clicks in the tunnel. A small sporting goods store featuring ski goggles, guaranteed to be worn by Gustavo Thoeni, was still open. Vassilivich knocked five times. The door opened with a thin dark man nodding respect. Vassilivich went into the back room, windowless, with walls of unpainted cement.

Three men were at a table marking a clear, long paper. Vassilivich nodded two of them out of the room. One stayed. When they were alone, Vassilivich said, "Sir, we have trouble."

"Shhhh," said the man. He was chubby, like someone's little doll, but he was bald, and the flesh folded on his face like flaps on a poorly made valise. His eyes were small dark balls beneath salt-and-pepper brows that sprouted like timid wheat in the dry season. He wore an open-necked white shirt and a dark, expensive, striped suit that somehow looked cheap on his short, round frame.

He had the new light shoulder holster, just like Vassilivich's, except that his dangled without that flat invisibility that the holster was designed for. No matter. The man could not be underestimated. He had a mind that could solve three problems simultaneously, he spoke two foreign languages without accent, four languages fluently, and understood three more. He had what the KGB had always looked for in their commanders force. It was a thing that could be felt by experienced men. Vassilivich knew that he himself did not have it.

The Second World War had shown some men to have it. A war was the easiest proving ground for it. Peace could allow subtle intrigue to promote men without that force to positions that required it. But General Denia, sixty-four fat, balding and graying, with sloppy clothes, had it in handfuls. He was the sort of leader that men who had known great pressure would choose, if the highest echelons had not already chosen.

Now he did not want to hear of troubles. He was opening champagne for his executive officer.

"Today, we celebrate. We celebrate what I never thought we would celebrate."

"General Denia," interrupted Vassilivich.

"Do not call me that," said Denia.

"This is a safe room. There is lead lining this room."

"I say to Vassily Vassilivich, do not call me general because I am no longer a general," he said, tears clouding his eyes and the cork popping open. "I am Field Marshal Gregory Denia, and you are General Vassily Vassilivich. Yes, General, General Vassilivich. Field Marshal Denia. Drink."

"I don't understand."

"Never before have there been such victories. Never have such a small number done such great things. Drink, General Vassilivich. You too will be a hero of the Soviet Union. Drink. Back at the central committee, they talk of nothing but us."

"We have a problem, Gregory."

"Now drink. Problems later."

"Gregory, it was you who told me that the surest way to death is undue optimism or undue pessimism. We have trouble with Ivan. There will be an international incident."

"There can be no international incidents. We are the power on this continent. From Vladivostok to Calais, there is nothing but KGB. Do you not understand what we are celebrating? Have you not counted the bodies? The CIA is all but inoperative from Stockholm to Sicily. From Athens to Copenhagen, there is us and no one else."

"We are overextending ourselves, Gregory. America will do something."

"America will do nothing. They have castrated themselves before the world,. If you think we have gotten promotions, you should see what Propaganda is getting. It's obscene. There are enough ZILs and servants floating around the Propaganda unit now to make a czar jealous. To us! The future is now."

"Nevertheless, it is impossible not to encounter some reaction from somewhere, and we will be overextended. We can no longer control Ivan, and he's not the only one. We have men setting themselves up in villas. I have not heard from three whole teams for a week."

"I give you one order and one order only, general. Attack. You have never before experienced the collapse of an enemy. I tell you, we cannot make a mistake. It is impossible."

"And I tell you, comrade field marshal, for every action there is a reaction."

"Only when there is something left to react," Denia said. "Attack." He gave the shaken Vassilivich a sloppy hands crawled list with running champagne diluting the ink in two of the names.

Vassilivich had never seen a list like this before. There were twenty-seven names. When the Sunflower was about, there would be one carefully examined and chosen name with cross descriptions, so that precisely the person designated, and no one else, would be hit. There would be practically a book on that one person. Now there was only a list with names and city addresses.

In a list drawn as sloppily as this one, at least five of the names had to be incorrect.

"This is not an adequate targeting if I may say so," said Vassilivich. He refused the glass of champagne.

"I know that," said Field Marshal Denia. "It doesn't matter. Bodies. We give the central cornmitee bodies. All they want. And you will inform Ivan that he is a major."

"Ivan is a homicidal imbecile."

"And we are homicidal geniuses," said Marshal Denia. He drank the champagne so rapidly that it spilled over his chest.

It did not take Vassilivich long to analyze the list. It included everyone in the vicinity of Italy whom the committee thought might better serve their interests by being dead, including a good halfdozen persons Vassilivich judged had probably done nothing worse than offend some KGB officer somewhere along the line. It was a garbage list. Success was doing what the American Sunflower teams had been unable to accomplish. It was destroying the skill and cunning of the Treska unit.