Critical Mass (22 page)

The two men watched the valley, waiting for the last pink echoes of sunlight to disappear. Birds, screaming faintly, sailed in the high light.

“You do it,” Alexei said.

All the way from Tashkent, they had carried on a desultory argument, drinking and watching the bleak landscape pass by. “It’s for you to do.”

“It’s loathsome.”

Vladimir made scrambling motions with his fingers. “They’re going to run all about screeching, ‘Don’t, mister, don’t.’ ” He chuckled. “You will do it because you are an exceptional man.”

When Alexei started with his knife, he couldn’t stop. He terrified even himself, the way he killed.

Far below, a truck wound its way along the road. From the installation there was not the slightest sign of activity. “Such peace,” Alexei said.

“You’re a superman, Alexei.”

“Let’s go, then.”

They were in Afghan dress. Vladimir wore a
pakol,
the favored hat of the mujahideen who had destroyed the Soviet armies. Alexei was in a dark
lungee
, clumsily arranged, which the meddlesome desert wind threatened at all times to unwind. He felt the wind, cooling quickly now, as it insinuated itself under the folds of his
chapan
. He would have preferred the sand-mottled uniform of Russian desert forces, but the American, British, and French satellites could all see two people moving in terrain this sparse, and would immediately notice them. Soon, the drones would arrive, and then God knew what might happen.

Alexei stopped. “Now, what is that spit of land? Is that it?”

Vladimir unfolded the oilcloth map, which whipped in the rising wind. “God, I hate deserts,” he muttered. The damned Americans had turned off their Global Positioning System, so the Garmin that Mother Russia had bought for them was now nothing more than baggage. But it had an MP3 player in it, so they could listen to music, anyway. “This is it,” he said. “Down there, we find the air shaft.”

“Why not just let the Americans complete their fez-boil? We could go back to Tashkent now and drink.”

“I have plenty yet.” He produced a flask.

“How many of those did you bring?”

“You’ve stolen everything else of value in my pack. You should know.”

“I only steal what others don’t need.” Alexei took a swallow from the flask. “Jubilee, no less.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. That’s Hennessy X.O.”

“I only drink patriotically.”

“Then I will be drunk while you kill the children.” He pointed. “That’s the right ground formation; the entry is there.” As he moved ahead, he heard Alexei scrambling along behind him.

“Do we know why we’re doing this?” the young man asked.

“Do we care? Without Las Vegas, my hopes for a better future are lost.”

“Your sense of humor is too French, dear Vladimir. There was a time when a statement like that would have sent you to the gulag.”

“True enough, under Stalin you would be Beria and I would be dead. Now, it’s the time of the thinking men, so I lead and you do the bloodletting. It suits you, anyway. Your butcher’s hands.”

“I have the hands of a pianist.”

“Same difference. Did you ever see Denis Naumov perform? His hands look like roasts, but his Debussy—amazing.”

“Naumov. Debussy. When I hear the word ‘intellectual,’ I go for my gun.”

They came to the entry port. It was a kilometer from where the fezzes were living, and nobody but a Russian with a proper schematic could possibly get through to the personnel deck. Vladimir had never been inside the installation. They’d been shown photographs, though, so they would be able to comb through it until they reached the flesh. Then their orders were to kill everybody, no exceptions, no mercy, no bribes. If they did not do this correctly, they would, themselves, probably be killed.

Often Vladimir wondered if he actually cared for his own life. He had when he was young, certainly. Had loved it, loved just to breathe. They don’t say it in the movies, but when you kill for a living, gradually you also die. Then you are like he was now—dead and alive at the same time.

He had a condo in the South of France, in the development of La Californie. He was happy there, happy to watch the French with their snails for luncheon and their wonderful legs. He would get drunk there, good and drunk, and recite Lermontov, who had been his father’s favorite and was therefore also his favorite. “I love you, my friendly dagger, dear friend forged of Damascus steel.”

“You’re mad as a Chechen, Vladimir.”

“Mad and sad, which is to say, Russian. Come now, roast-paws, let’s do this work that is ours to do.”

“You call it work?”

“What else is it?”

They entered the air shaft, bending low and moving fast, their way lit by their powerful German-made flashlights. The deeper they went, the louder the intake fans became. Soon they were churning and wind was whipping past the men’s heads. “Don’t let that idiotic turban get into that thing,” Vladimir said. “I don’t need your head torn off.”

“I was issued this turban.”

“I was issued a turban also. Do you see me wearing one?”

“I see you wearing the uniform of the bastards who wrecked our army.”

“Let me ask you this, Alexei. What is one mujahid with a cigarette lighter responsible for?”

“I have no idea.”

“Six Soviet tanks.”

“Traitor.”

“Just getting your blood up. Here’s the hatch.” He opened his general-purpose tool and loosened the old bolts, probably last tightened thirty and
more years ago, by some sweating Soviet technician who was now an old man with a nicotine-stained moustache—or, more likely, dead.

They had to heave the heavy hatch back together. “The USSR built to last.”

“But not my flat.”

“Worthless roast-hands, what are you doing in our glorious FSB? Ah, the quarry is heard. Listen.”

Wailing Arab music echoed from beyond the end of the tunnel.

“Do they have happiness? Humor? All of that wailing . . .”

“A love song. Her man is a shit.”

“All fezzes are shits, in my experience.”

“You fuck their sisters in Tashkent.”

“I have to. They demand it. Anyway, they’re not Arabs. Just with the mullah shit.”

They went out into the broad personnel tunnel, carefully closing the inner access hatch behind them. Silent now, each intent on his work, the two men moved off to their respective areas of responsibility.

Vladimir had to kill his old friend Aziz, who used to masturbate in his bedroom, leaping like a great frog while he did it, no idea he was on video in ten different departments of the FSB, let alone the iPods of many of the department heads’ teenagers.

Vladimir went into the old communications shack, with its walls lined with ancient, useless radio equipment. To evade American detection, Aziz’s operation used manually delivered messages now. The mules were their shortwave radios, and piggybacked number stations. The fezzes actually believed that the Russian operators knew nothing of the fact that they were using the number stations. Absurd, of course.

“Hello, Vladimir.”

The prick against the back of his neck told him everything he needed to know. “I hope it’s sharp,” he said to Aziz.

“It’s dull as stone, Vladi. Your sort of a knife.”

“I was afraid of that.”

Then there came a sharp, echoing cry. The surprise—no, astonishment—in Alexei’s voice was unmistakable.

There was movement behind Vladimir, and then he was shoved into the small communications room by two figures in full purdah. Women? No way to tell. One of them had what looked like an antique Arab dagger, curved to
tear out guts. The other had Alexei’s pistol. They were followed by a boy with a meat cleaver. Aziz stood in the concrete hallway behind them.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” a familiar voice said.

“A double agent, then, Eshan?”

“You always underestimate us, you Russians. You cannot accept our abilities.”

Aziz came in. He nodded toward Alexei. “That man was here to cut your head off, boy. Kneel down, Alexei; young Wasim here is going to cut your head off instead.”

Alexei cried out, then stifled it.

“What? You were going to cut his head off? But he can’t do the same? Why, because he’s only a stupid fez?” Aziz took a step toward Alexei. “You helped us. Useful Russians. But it’s finished, the bombs are there, so you don’t matter anymore.”

Alexei grinned—a thin, pitiful attempt. “I can pay.” He shook like a palsy victim, and Vladimir was embarrassed for him, and for Russia.

“Alexei, face it. We’ve been betrayed and we’re dead,” Vladimir said. “You might as well do as he says.” Himself, he felt only a dull, empty hopelessness. He’d been at this most of his career, assembling and transmitting the thousands of tiny packages that had been sent to the hidden stations around the world. It had taken eleven years of work to get the bombs in place, moving them bit by bit, then getting the Islamist fools to assemble them correctly, these men who did not know a motor from an engine.

“Wait,” Alexei yammered. “Eshan, Wasim, and you women—listen to this! Yes, listen! There’s a reward—many rewards—for him! Yes, for Aziz! The Americans, ten million, the Syrians, two million—dollars, yes, listen! The Pakis, two million—oh, a long list! You can betray him and be rich. Rich!”

One of the women knocked Alexei in the shoulder with an empty butane tank she had been carrying as a weapon. Squalling, he lurched away from the figure, whereupon Eshan tripped him, and he went down groveling like a whipped cur.

Vladimir simply waited to die. He didn’t care anymore. This operation had gone out of control. It would not be recovered. The group grabbed Alexei’s arms. They pushed him to his knees.

Aziz said to the boy, “Chop at it, at the back of it. Let him scream; they’re holding him.”

While Alexei screamed and twisted his head, the little fellow took a gingerly chop at his neck. The touch of the blade caused Alexei to bob his head almost comically. Vladimir was reminded of a chicken. How banal, for this to be among his last thoughts, Alexei the pecking hen. Shouldn’t he contemplate Pushkin or “O God, our help and aid in distress . . .”? But it was a long prayer; he’d best come up with a shorter one. The Dinner Prayer, perhaps. Could he recall the damned thing?

Again the boy hacked and Alexei squalled. How afraid he was, old roast-hands, who would have strangled this pretty boy slowly, just to watch his eyes fade.

Aziz shouted, “This is a Crusader devil; do it!”

The boy, weeping, muttered something in Persian. Aziz snapped at him, and the boy hacked at Alexei harder, the cleaver now making a sound like a butcher’s off-center chop. Blood spurted and Alexei stomped and babbled some sort of slurred plea. He was losing blood fast. Consciousness was going.

But that poor child, dear heaven, what a thing to make an innocent kid do! “The boy will not forget this,” Vladimir shouted. “Never! Aziz, it’s wrong to do this to him!”

“To the Muslims, execution is not extraordinary.”

“There soon will be no Muslims.”

“The Muslims have won the world.”

“Have you any knowledge of Dream Angel?”

“They will not execute Dream Angel, Vladimir. They will choose to live as slaves.”

The boy stood trembling.

“Do it, boy! Do it!”

The kid’s big eyes bulged, his face shone with sweat, and he chopped and chopped. Like great, swaying birds, the women in their black burkas hovered nearby, their arms sweeping in their distress like impotent wings.

Alexei’s screams became sucking hisses, and then the boy lifted his head by the hair. “It’s heavy,” the boy cried.

“Then put it down,” Aziz replied mildly.

“This is not a lesson I was sent to learn!”

“ ‘As for those who disbelieve, we enter them into the fire and often, so that their skins are terrible with fire. Then we will change them for other skins, that they may taste the pain of it again.’ ” He took the boy by his collar and raised him eye to eye. “Which sura, boy?”

The boy stared right back at him. “Four. Fifty-six.”

He threw the boy to the floor. “Now, Vladimir, you have some work to do for me. There must be a signal, to be sent when you succeed. I want you to send that signal.”

“Fine. I don’t care.” He gave no sign to Aziz that he was mistaken. No signal was to be sent. The least flicker of radio transmission out of this place and the Americans would be here within the hour. So, let them come.

“What is it, then? Not a radio signal, surely.”

“Of course it is.”

There was a flash in Vladimir’s face, and a terrific blast of pain. For a moment, he was confused, his mind questing for some understanding. Then he realized that he’d been slapped with a gun butt. He had not the slightest intention of being tortured. “Here’s the truth: If I don’t return to the forward base at the appointed time, then a radio signal is sent. It will appear to be from you. It is intended to draw the Americans. There are rangers waiting on top of this structure. They have a transmitter.”

Aziz had known Vladimir for eleven years. He had first met with Vladimir when he was a spy in Chechnya, had lived with him in Moscow, had slept with him on drunken nights when they were hunting bear in Siberia and the two of them were in a tent in the depths of the taiga, and—it had simply happened. It was nothing, a matter between men. Nothing sinful.

Well, never mind. Vladimir must now die.

It was also necessary to abandon this place, given that the Americans might indeed be somehow alerted. Very well, they would return to Peshawar. It was past time, for there was political work necessary. Hezbollah had condemned him. Syria, Iran, even the Taliban were uniform in rejecting this messiah of whom they knew nothing. Hamas, of course, those running dogs of the Jewish state.

“Do you know, Vladimir, that we have a weapon in Moscow?”

“You do not.”

“Do you want to find out?”

“What code are you using?”

“Purple.”

“You’re lying!”

“Why should I be lying when the president, in his very office not three hours ago, said to launch Dream Angel. But wait, he said.”

“Dream Angel is going to its fail-safe points?”

“So I have been told by a simple man with a very bad truck, who drove along your terrible Soviet road with a certain message. Here, I have a photo.” He showed Vladimir a picture of the Kama 3 of old Hassan, with the names of certain djinn written on the door. It was the order of the names that revealed the information.