Текст книги "Snow Wolf"

Автор книги: Glenn Meade

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"As soon as you stepped into the elevator the guard on the desk couldn't wait to reach for the phone. So I decided to keep you company."

"You took a risk."

"Lucky for you the building's almost empty at this time of night."

"Thanks, Mischa."

Stanski nodded over at Pasha's body. "But too late to help your friend."

Lukin stared at the corpse. For several moments he didn't speak, then he turned back, grief etched on his face, "He was a good man. A good man wearing a bad uniform."

It took several moments for– him to compose himself. "What happened to the guard?"

"Dead in one@of the offices across the hall. Did you make the call?"

"There wasn't time."

"Then make it now."

Lukin crossed to the desk as Stanski went to stand by the door, leaving it open a crack, the Na gant raised and ready.

It took Lukin less than a minute to make the call, and when he replaced the receiver there was sweat on his face. He looked at Stanski and said, "It's done."

"Then let's get out of here before someone raises the alarm. Don't forget the uniform."

Lukin crossed to his locker in the corner and removed his spare uniform, gloves, boots and cap.

Stanski went out, pausing only to check the hallway, but it was deserted.

Lukin took a long, painful look at Pasha's bloodied face, then followed him out.

They reached the Kuntsevo road ten minutes later.

There was hardly any traffic. Once they had left the suburbs behind, Stanski said, "Pull over. I want to go over the plan one more time. There can't be any mistakes, Petya."

Lukin shook his head. "There's no time. It won't take long before someone discovers the guard on the door is missing. After that, all hell's going to break loose."

"How much time have we got?"

"The shift changes in half an hour. But someone's going to notice the missing guard before then."

"How much longer to Stalin's dacha?"

"Ten minutes, a straight road all the way. Another ten to get in, if we're lucky, We're cutting it fine.'@

Stanski looked ahead through the falling snow. There was a blaze of lights off to the right side of the Kuntsevo road, some sort of red-brick factory compound with massive gates, and then he saw an ambulance inch slowly out through the gates and realized the place was a hospital. On the left side of the road a narrow track led off into darkness. A squat, flat-roofed derelict building in the same red brick as the hospital stood to the right of the track.

Stanski pointed through the windshield. "What's that?"

"A bomb shelter from the war."

"Pull in beside it."

"But "We only get one chance to get this right. Let's go over the plan again. I want no mistakes. Pull in."

Lukin swung the wheel and pulled over in front of the shelter. The flat roof was covered in snow and steps led down beyond the dark mouth of the entrance, the door hanging off its hinges.

As Lukin switched off the engine, he saw the silenced Na gant appear in Stanski's hand. Before he could speak, Stanski had pointed the weapon at him.

Alarmed, Lukin said, "What's going on?"

"Listen to me, Petya, I can do this alone. You have a wife and child to think of. There's no need for you to throw away your life. I want you to live. At least one of us should live. Do it for me. Do it for Katya and our parents."

Lukin saw it then. Saw everything. His face drained of color as he stared at Stanski. "You never intended for us to do this together, did you?"

"I guess not."

"Mischa ... please ... you'll never get inside the villa alone."

"That's where you're wrong. You made the call and you're expected. I can get in with your identity card."

"But you don't even look like me!"

"Apart from hair color we're pretty much the same build.

As for the rest, let me worry about that."

Lukin shook his head fiercely. "Mischa, this is crazy. Together we stand some chance. Alone you have none."

"It's a better chance than having you explain I'm one of your fellow officers. With security so tight they may not even let me inside." He shook his head. "Like I said, I don't want you to die. If you come with me he'll have killed all of us in the end. I won't let him kill you. I won't let him destroy us all.

If there was time, I'd tell you about all the times I missed you.

How much I loved you and Katya. How much I longed to be with you both again. But there isn't."

Suddenly there was a hint of tears in Stanski's eyes. He quickly removed a set of keys from his pocket. Then he nodded to the bomb shelter. "I'm going to leave you here. Lebel's waiting with the train at a station called Klin, northwest of Moscow. There's a blue Emka van we passed half a kilometer back down the road, parked and waiting with a full tank of fuel. Here are the keys. You can make it if you hurry." He stuffed the keys into Lukin's breast pocket. "Live your life, brother. Live it for all our family."

"Mischa, no ... !"

"Goodbye, brother."

Stanski's fingers came up quickly and closed around Lukin's neck like a vice, the thumb pressing hard into the point below his ear. Lukin struggled and fought back, his arms flailing and his body bucking wildly, but Stanski was stronger.

It was only a matter of seconds before Lukin slumped in the seat and blacked out. Stanski stepped out of the car into the freezing night and went down the steps into the shelter.

The building was in darkness and smelled foul. He had to go back to the car and get the flashlight; then he flicked it around the walls and saw that the place was strewn with garbage. He cleared a corner and then quickly carried Lukin down from the car and propped him against a wall.

It took him another five minutes to do everything he had to do, moving quickly, then prying the interior mirror from the car and using it to apply the engine oil to his hair. Only when he had finished did he pull on the single leather uniform glove. He found the identity card with the photograph in Lukin's breast pocket. Everything else he needed was already in the car.

When he had checked himself in the mirror he shone the flashlight at the unconscious figure propped against the shelter wall. In the cold, he wouldn't be out for more than another five minutes.

For a long time Stanski stared at Lukin's face, until he was almost overcome with emotion, then he knelt down and kissed him hard on the cheek, suddenly aware of his struggle to keep back the tears, before he tore himself away and went out and up the steps.

As he climbed back into the BMW, he glanced over his shoulder at Massey's corpse lying across the backseat.

" Well, I guess you got to see it through to the end after all, Jake. If there's a heaven, and you're already there, wish us both luck, We're going to need it."

He checked his watch. It was 1:15 A.M. He started the car.

so The guards heard the car long before they saw it.

One of them pulled back a shutter in the green-painted metal gate and peered out into the falling snow. Headlights blazed through the veil of white, and when the BMW drew up in front and its lights were extinguished, searchlights in the watchtower above the gate suddenly sprang on, flooding the area with in tense white light.

The man carefully checked the license-plate number against his list before he stepped out through a gate and approached the car. He didn't fail to notice the bullet holes in the body work, and that part of the rear window was shattered. "Papers."

The uniformed KGB major with the gloved hand rolled down the window and smiled as he handed them over. "Major Lukin. I'm expected."

"This vehicle looks like it's been through the wars."

"I think you could say that."

The guard examined the identity card, then studied the major's face closely.

"Your car keys, comrade."

When the major handed them over the guard flicked on @a flashlight and went around the back and unlocked the trunk. Moments later he slammed it shut and shone the flashlight inside the car. When he saw the body lying across the backseat he recoiled in horror and said, "What the fucking hell ... !"

The major grinned. "I think if you check with the duty watch officer you'll find everything is in order." He glanced back at the corpse with obvious disgust. "An enemy American agent apprehended by the Second Directorate. Comrade Stalin wishes to see the body personally, so don't hang about."

When the shaken guard had regained his composure he said sternly, "Wait here."

He stepped back inside the gate and Stanski heard the jangle of a field telephone. Moments later he reappeared, flicking a distasteful look at the body in the back as he handed Stanski his papers.

"Looks like you're in business, Comrade Major. Follow the road for half a kilometer until you reach the dacha. No stopping until you get to the main entrance."

As the guard stepped back inside the gate, Stanski switched on the ignition and the BMW's headlights sprang to life.

The green metal gates yawned open. Half a dozen elite Kremlin Guards with blue bands on their caps stood inside the entrance, fingering their weapons. The woods beyond the gate were illuminated by the car's headlights, the shafts of light probing the snowy darkness. A narrow road wound around through the trees, the snow cleared away and raised in high banks on either side, and here and there the shadowy figures of more armed Kremlin Guards patrolled the forest with leashed Alsatians.

Stanski shifted into gear and released the clutch, sweat rising on his forehead. He saw the Kremlin Guards stare curiously at the corpse in the back as the car rolled forward.

As he drew up outside the dacha entrance he saw a massive two-story building of pale granite stone that looked like a Boston manor house.

The walls were covered in creeping vines, their leafless tendrils clinging to the granite like dead bones. Lights were on in the downstairs rooms and the white lawns were lit up in front.

A miniature wooden pavilion stood off to the left, its onion dome encrusted with huge hanging icicles, Stanski wiped the sweat from his brow before he switched off the engine and climbed out of the BMW. As he did so, two Kremlin Guards stepped out from behind the douhle-fronted oak doors of the dacha entrance.

Behind them in the lighted doorway appeared a massive Guards colonel. He stood well over six feet and was ruggedly built, his uniform immaculate, his boots brightly polished. He stood with his hands on his hips and stared at Stanski suspiciously before he strode down the pathway to the car.

"Major Lukin, I believe."

Stanski saluted and the colonel returned the salute smartly. He looked at the damaged BMW, then stared into Stanski's face. "Colonel Zinyatin, Head of Security. Your papers, Major.

"They've already been checked at the gate, sir."

The colonel smiled coldly. "And now they're being checked again. We can't be too careful, can we? I'm the duty officer responsible for Comrade Stalin's personal safety. No one goes inside without my permission." He held out his hand stiffly and Stanski handed over his papers.

The colonel examined them thoroughly, looking from the photograph to Stanski's face, checking the stamp on the identity card and rubbing his thumb vigorously on the print. Then he glanced at the black leather glove on Stanski's hand. He seemed to hesitate, as if uncertain of something, before he slowly handed the papers back and peered into the back of the car.

Stanski said, "Not a pleasant sight, Comrade Colonel. An American agent." He gestured to the bullet holes in the BMW. "He proved to be quite an adversary. Unfortunately, I was unable to capture him alive."

"So I heard."

"Then no doubt you know Comrade Stalin wishes to see the body personally."

The colonel glanced back at Stanski with no expression, then he opened the rear door and examined the body, gripping Massey's stiff jaw and looking into the lifeless white face.

"Definitely dead, I think you'll find, sir," Stanski offered.

"Don't be smart, Lukin. I'm not blind."

The colonel stared down at the corpse before turning back. "I'm certain it won't be necessary to take the body inside. Comrade Stalin will take my word for it the American's dead."

The colonel smiled without humor. ':

If he's in doubt, I'll have the corpse delivered to him personally. I believe congratulations are in order, Lukin."

"Thank you, sir."

The colonel's smile was replaced by a cold stare. "One more thing."

"Comrade?"

"Your sidearm. Procedure forbids visitors to Kuntsevo to carry weapons."

The colonel thrust out his hand.

Stanski hesitated, then unholstered the Tokarev and handed it over.

"Now, if you'll follow me, Comrade Stalin is expecting YOU."

The polished double oak doors opened silently on their hinges and the colonel went in first.

Stanski followed him into a dazzling room. A log fire blazed in one corner, and a long walnut table stood in the center, a dozen or more chairs set around it. An omate crystal chandelier hung overhead, its light flooding the entire room. Bokhara rugs were set around the floor and rich tapestries draped the gilded walls.

Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili-Joseph Stalin–General Secretary of the Communist Party, Generalissimo of the Soviet Union, stood at the end of the table. He smoked a pipe and held a glass in his hand, a half-full bottle of vodka on the table beside him. He was dressed in a simple gray smock tunic and his thick graying hair was swept back off a pockmarked face, his mouth half hidden under a bushy gray mustache. Hooded, watery gray eyes stared cautiously at his visitors.

The colonel crossed the room and whispered something into his ear. After a few moments the colonel stepped back.

Stalin put down his pipe and glass and crooked a finger-.

"Comrade Major Lukin, come here."

As Stanski stepped forward, Stalin turned to the colonel.

"Leave us, Zinyatin."

The colonel seemed to hesitate, his cautious eyes flicking to Stanski, then he saluted and left, closing the double doors softly after him.

A thin smile played across Stalin's lips, but the gray eyes regarded Lukin coldly. "Step closer, Major. Let me see you."

His voice sounded slurred. He motioned with the fingers of his right hand and Stanski noticed the stiff and withered left arm. He stepped closer, enough to smell the man's body odor, A strong mixture of alcohol and stale tobacco. He had been drinking heavily, that much was obvious.

Suddenly Stalin leaned forward and kissed Stanski on both cheeks. As he stepped back, he studied Stanski's face. His eyes clouded for a moment in doubtful recognition, then he said, "So, you brought me the American's body."

"Yes, Comrade Stalin."

"And what about the woman?"

"Under lock and key in Lefortovo prison."

The gray eyes smiled coldly. "You have surpassed my expectations, Major Lukin. My congratulations. You will have a drink."

"No thank you, comrade."

Stalin frowned. "I insist. No one refuses a drink with Stalin."

The old man shuffled to the drinks trolley and poured vodka into a tumbler. He came back, handed it to Stanski, and raised his own glass.

"I drink to your success, Comrade Lukin. And to your promotion. You have my thanks and my promised reward. As of now, you are a full colonel."

"I don't know what to say, Comrade Stalin."

"Perhaps, but I do, If only all my officers were as capable. Drink, Lukin. It's good Armenian vodka."

Stanski raised his glass and sipped.

Stalin swallowed his drink in one gulp, put the glass down and moved around the table.

He looked over at Lukin suspiciously.

"But you know, something bothers me."

"Comrade Stalin?"

"A small matter, but an important one. You didn't see fit to follow protocol and inform Comrade Beria of your visit here, nor of the American's capture. I've just been on the phone to him. He's as surprised as I am by your success. According to him, you've been avoiding answering his calls and deliberately obstructing one of his officers, Colonel Romulka, in his duty. Your behavior has been somewhat unusual and unorthodox, Comrade Beria thinks.,And I agree. In fact, before I informed him of your call, he wanted you arrested. He's on his way here now, to confront you. He claims you have kept the woman from him." Cold eyes stared into Stanski's face. "Why is that, Lukin? Did you want all the glory for yourself? Or are you keeping a Secret? Comrade Stalin doesn't like secrets kept from him."

Stanski put his glass down carefully on the table. "There is a matter I needed to discuss in private. It concerns the American plot. I have information of vital importance for your ears only."

The bushy eyebrows rose slightly. "And what information is that?"

Stanski slipped off the black leather glove and the small Na gant appeared in his hand. There was the softest of clicks as he cocked the hammer and aimed the weapon at Stalin's head.

Horror shone like torchlight in the old man's eyes as Stanski leaned in closer and whispered.

"Not something you're going to enjoy. But you'll listen or I'll take your head off. Sit down. The chair to your right. Make a sound and I kill you."

Stalin's face turned an angry red. "What's the meaning of this ... ?"

"Sit. Or I put a bullet in you here and now."

Stalin lowered himself shakily into the chair. Stanski re moved his officer's cap. Stalin stared in shock at the face, then at the ungloved hand.

"YOU. – you're not Lukin. Who are you? What do you want?"

"I'm sure the answer to the first two questions should be obvious by now. As for the last, I want you."

There was a terrible look of icy fear on Stalin's face, as if the alcoholic haze had suddenly lifted, everything becoming perfectly clear.

Stanski smiled chillingly. "But first, comrade, I'm going to tell you a story."

Lukin opened his eyes in the freezing blackness of the air-raid shelter and shivered violently.

Icy cold seeped into his bones and his brain throbbed. He shook his head and a million stars exploded inside his skull.

He sat there groggily for several moments, rubbing his neck, before he found the strength to stagger to his feet.

He found a damp, cold wall to support him, and as he stood shakily he smelled the garbage and saw the snow falling be yond an open door. It took several moments before the throbbing in his skull ebbed away, and then he staggered out of the door and up the steps of the shelter, blinking in pain and taking deep breaths, the air steaming in front of his face.

He realized where he was and what had happened.

Then all hell broke loose inside his head and his heart raced wildly. How long had he been unconscious? He looked at his watch and tried to focus in the poor light.

One-twenty A.M. He must have been out cold for over five minutes.

He suddenly remembered the van. Half a kilometer away. Five minutes if he ran. Nadia's face flashed before his eyes. His grief returned, but he forced the image and the emotion away, letting only anger in, a powerful anger and a terrible Just for revenge, knowing what he had to do, that he wasn't going to be cheated of this moment.

He could still make it to Stalin's villa.

He fumbled madly for the keys, found them, then staggered through the trees toward the road.

"My father's name was lilia Ivan Stefanovitch. Do you remember him?"

Stalin shook his head.

"No."

"wrong again."

A clock ticked softly somewhere and beyond the oak doors came faint sounds, distant voices; the click of heels on wood approached and faded. Stalin's nervous eyes flicked to the door, then back.

"I don't remember him."

Stanski pressed the Na gant hard into his temple.

"Think.

"I ... I don't know who you're talking about."

"Yuri Lukin is my brother. Illia Ivan Stefanovitch was our father. You killed him. You killed his wife. And his daughter. Our sister. You killed them all. Our family."

Stanski stared hard into Stalin's frightened eyes. "And you haven't stopped trying to kill us. You pitted my brother against me.

"No ... you're mistaken. Who told you this? Who told you I was responsible? Lies!"

The old man ran a trembling hand around his tunic collar. Stanski wrenched it away.

"Move again and I'll tear your heart out."

A wind gusted flurries of snow outside, rattling the windows. Beads of sweat glistened on Stalin's face. His breathing came in short gasps.

"Please, some water ..."

A crystal water decanter stood on the drinks cart opposite but Stanski ignored it.

"Then let me remind you of the lies you speak of. My father was a village doctor. We lived near Smolensk. One day the secret police came to our village. They demanded the summer harvest. It was the time of the kulak wars and there was a famine raging. A famine deliberately caused by you. The villagers barely had enough to feed their children. Already they were starving. Men, women and children thin as corpses and dying by the dozens. So the people refused. Half the men of the village were shot in reprisal and their grain stolen. There was nothing to eat. Women and children starved. My father was spared but he couldn't believe Comrade Stalin would allow such a thing to happen to his village. So he decided to do something." Stanski removed the file from his tunic and placed it on the table. "Open it. Look and read," When Stalin hesitated, Stanski said again, "Open it!"

Stalin opened the file with shaking hands. He glanced at the pages, the photographs, then looked up, "I don't remember this man."

"What you see was in my file. You read all this before you sent my brother to find me."

Stalin swallowed, ashen-faced.

Stanski said, "I want you to remember what happened to my family. Let me remind you. Illia Ivan Stefanovitch, my father, called on the local commissar and told him he wanted to speak to Stalin, to condemn what had happened in his village in Stalin's name. It was his right as a citizen. He was given a pen and paper and told to write his grievance and it would be passed to Moscow. He wrote about what had happened in his village. He expressed his revulsion and resigned from the Party. You read the letter, but the reply wasn't what my father expected.

"You sentenced him to death as a traitor. The secret police came to his surgery. They thought they'd make this troublesome doctor's death a little more interesting than merely shooting him. So they made his wife watch while they held him down and injected him with a lethal dose of one of his drug-" Adrenalin. Do you know the effect such an amount of Adrenalin has on a body? It's not a pleasant way to die. The heart races, the body weakens and trembles, the lungs swell, the stomach vomits. A fatal dosage can cause the blood vessels in the brain to burst, but death may still come slowly. My father's did.

"They made my mother watch every moment. And then they raped her. All of them raped her. Until one of them had the pity to put a bullet in her head. Only it didn't kill her. They left her lying there, bleeding to death, slowly, for hours. I heard it happen because one of the men held me in the next room. I heard her screams and later I saw her die. Everything that happened after that is in the file. But then you know that, don't you? You knew when you selected Yuri Lukin. You chose him because having him kill me would be another of your sick jokes. One more laugh at your victims' expense."

Stanski leaned in close, his eyes wet, his voice almost a whisper. "You say you don't remember my father, but you will. Illia Ivan Stefanovitch. Remember that name. It's the last name you're going to hear before you go screaming to hell."

Stanski placed the Na gant on the table and removed a bypodcrmic from his pocket. With one finger he flipped off the metal sheath and exposed the needle. The glass was full of clear liquid.

"Pure Adrenalin. And now I'm going to kill you the way you killed my father."

As Stanski moved in, the old man rose and lunged at him like a bull.

NO! "

Stalin grabbed at the Na gant and the weapon exploded. As the shot rang around the room Stanski struck him a hard blow to the neck and he slumped back in the chair.

Then everything seemed to happen at once.

The dacha went mad, screams and voices everywhere.

The doors burst open and the big colonel was the first in, crashing into the room like an enraged animal, staring at the scene in horror.

Stanski stabbed the needle into Stalin's neck and the plunger sank.

"For my father."

Then the Na gant came up smartly and pressed against Stalin's temple.

"And this for my mother ... and sister..

The Na gant exploded and Stalin's head was flung back.

As the colonel frantically wrenched out his weapon, he watched in disbelief as the major smiled in certain death, turn ing the Na gant toward himself, slipping the barrel into his mouth.

The weapon exploded again.

The Emka's wipers brushed away the snow but it was ceaseless.

A hundred meters from the dacha entrance Lukin heard the sirens going off and his heart jolted. The shrill noise erupted through the woodland air like the shrieks of a thousand wild animals in pain.

Klieg lamps sprang to life, illuminating the woods, beams of powerful light sweeping through the darkness, casting a silver wash over the snowy birch trees. Dogs barked; voices screamed orders. The forest seemed to come alive with light and noise.

Through the windshield, in the distance, Lukin could make out the dacha's green-painted gates, searchlights sweeping wildly through the trees as the sirens wailed ceaselessly.

He slowed the Emka. There was a rutted lane off to the right and he pulled in and switched off the engine. His body was shaking violently, and his heart was racing.

He was too late.

He felt a lump rise in his throat and it almost choked him. He stumbled out of the car and filled his lungs with air, then he fell to his knees and vomited.

For a long time he knelt in the frozen woods, no longer hearin– the wailing sirens and the noises in the forest, only his own sobbing and the wild thumping of his heart in his ears as a painful anguish flooded him, almost physical in its intensity.

There was a timelessness to everything, and then it seemed as if a dam burst inside his head, and when the scream finally came, it came from deep inside him.

"Mischa!

The scream seemed to go on forever in the white darkness.

It had started to rain again.

The sky over Moscow darkened like twilight, then a flash of forked lightning lit up the clouds and thunder cracked and the heavens opened. Anna Khorev stood at the window and stared out through the sheeting rain toward the distant red walls of the Kremlin. When she finally turned back she smiled, a brief sad smile.

"And there you have your story, Mr. Massey. Not entirely a happy ending, but then life rarely surprises us with happy endings."

"It's a remarkable story."

She lit a cigarette. "Not only remarkable, but true. You're one of the few people to know what happened that night at Kuntsevo. It took almost four days for Stalin to die, but die he did. The drug caused him to have a hemorrhage, the bullet made sure he'd die. And there was nothing his doctors could do to save him. Of course, the irony was they were too afraid to lift a finger after what happened to their Kremlin colleagues."

"So the official version of how Stalin died was a lie."

"The Kremlin claimed he died naturally, of a cerebral hemorrhage. But you'll also read in some history books that the bodies of two men were taken from the dacha grounds the night Stalin fell fatally ill. It's not a widely known fact, but it's the one small grain of truth that hints at something unusual happening that night. The bodies were those of Alex and your father. But of course, there was never any mention of that. Some secrets are best kept just that-secret." I didn't answer for a moment, then I said, "Why did you tell me your story? Was it because you had to?"

Anna Khorev smiled back. "Partly that, I suppose. But perhaps I needed to tell someone and I'm glad we finally met. What happened all those years ago has been such a secret part of my life. Perhaps too big a secret to keep all to myself until the day I die. And to be honest, now that I've told you I feel quite relieved."

She smiled again, and then a distant, sad look appeared on her face.

"What about afterwards?" I said.

She sat down. "You mean what happened to everyone? Oh, Beria I'm sure you know about. After Stalin's death he made his play for power and failed. He was accused, ironically, of having been an agent for the West. But really he had made too many enemies who wanted him dead. He was arrested in the Kremlin and shot soon afterwards. So he got his just reward in the end. Some even said he was killed because he knew what had really happened to Stalin, and his comrades in the Kremlin wanted to cover it up."

"So what happened after you escaped from Moscow?"

"Russia was in chaos for days afterwards. With Romulka dead, our escape wasn't that difficult. We made it to Finland but there were problems, of course. The CIA, naturally, thought I and the others might be an embarrassment if the mission was ever leaked or discovered. And Henri Lebel was fearful for his life when he realized he had been in a small way party to Stalin's death. But Henri had been rather clever. After your father had first struck a deal with him in Paris he had transcribed all the details and sent them in a sealed envelope to his lawyer, with instructions that the contents be made public if Henri ordered it, or if he or Irena were ever harmed. That way, he was insuring himself against the CIA ever trying to blackmail him into working for them again, or double-crossing him. So the CIA kept your father's promise. They arranged secretly through Mossad for myself and Sasha, along with Henri and frena, to live in Israel under new identities. They thought we'd all be safer there and out of harm's way, if ever the KGB wanted to exact revenge on us, but thankfully that never happened."

She looked away, toward the window. "Mossad was quite happy with things as they turned out. With Stalin dead, the purge of the Jews stopped, the camps were never completed, and the surviving doctors were released. The Americans arranged a nice apartment for Sasha and me in Tel Aviv and looked after us financially. I was warned never to disclose my real identity or divulge anything about the mission because it might put our lives in danger. But the new rulers in the Kremlin never made public the fact that the mission succeeded, or even that it had ever existed. That would have been an embarrassment for them and would perhaps have caused a war nobody really wanted, least of all the Soviets, who were without a leader, and that suited Washington completely. Khrushchev eventually succeeded Stalin, and later denounced him for his crimes. No one went entirely unpunished for his death, however. Not long after, the KGB systematically and brutally assassinated a number of extremist Russian and Ukrainian immigrant leaders in Europe, probably in the mistaken belief that they were )n some way partly responsible. But whether the CIA pointed a finger at them or not, I've no way of knowing."