Текст книги "Snow Wolf"

Автор книги: Glenn Meade

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A flood of anger registered again on Massey's face and he stood and crossed to the window. "Why did they have to murder the girl, Karl? She was only ten years old."

"Because we both know the people who did it are ruthless bastards. Simple as that."

"Have you any idea who murdered them?"

"Why'? You got revenge on your mind?"

"A year ago Max Simon moved out of my operation in Munich to work for Washington. Now he's dead and I'd like to know why."

"Who did it I can tell you pretty much with certainty. A man named Borovik. Gregori Borovik. We think he followed Max from this country and was ordered to kill him in Switzerland. Borovik's not his real name. He uses a whole lot of aliases. Kurt Braun is one. Kurt Linhoff is another. I could go on but you get the picture."

"Who is he?"

"A hired killer the Soviets use. He belongs to one of their hit squads. The guys Moscow take from prisons and put on the payroll to do their dirty work in return for their freedom. He is a German national, speaks English and Russian fluently. Operates all over the goddamned place. Europe and Stateside, and a mean son-of-a-bitch if ever there was one. We've got at least three murders put down to him. But I'd get revenge out of your mind. Besides, we've got other plans for you."

"What plans?"

Branigan smiled. "All in good time. And it's revenge of E kind if you care to look at it that way."

Massey sat down. "Then tell me what it was Max was doing for you that cost the lives of him and his daughter."

Branigan shrugged. "I guess I can tell you that. He'd been buying information from the Soviet embassy official I told YOU about, information important to Washington. Only someone in Moscow got to hear about it and didn't like it one little bit. That official was called back home. What happened to him you can guess."

"What sort of information?"

"Pretty high-grade stuff out of the Kremlin. Some of it pretty hot."

"How hot?"

Branigan smiled thinly. "On a scale of red hot to boiling, I would probably bust the fucking thermometer."

"Has this got something to do with why I was recalled?"

Branigan shifted his heavy bulk in the chair. "We knew you'd want to see the bodies. You and Max went way back. heard you knew each other as kids in the streets of Little Russia. I remember Max told me once you were kind of like brothers. But you're right, that's not the real reason you're here There's something I want you to see. I guess it'll explain every thing."

Branigan unlocked a drawer with a key he kept on a ring in his pocket. He slid out a buff-colored file and placed it on the table. Stamped along the top in red letters was "For President's Eyes only." He looked at Massey.

"Needless to say, the classification says it all. But it seems you're a special case."

He slipped his jacket from the back of the chair and pulled it on, smiling thinly as a hint of aggression crept into his voice.

,,Only get this straight. You tell nobody about the contents of that file unless you're cleared to do so. Which I guarantee you won't be–ever, not in a million years. I'm going to leave you alone for say fifteen minutes. That ought to be enough time to read what's inside and prime you for what you're going to hear later. When I come back I'm taking you to see Wallace. He's expecting us at his place. Another thing. If you need to use the john, use it now."

"Why?"

Branigan found another key on the ring. "Because I'm going to lock the door after me while I go get a coffee and let you read that in peace. No one else in this building gets to see what's in the file except you and me. And I've given orders no one's to knock so you won't be disturbed. You need to use the john?"

"I guess not."

Branigan stood. "OK, just two more instructions you ought to know. One, this meeting never happened. Two, as of today you're officially on indefinite leave on health grounds and you're about to take it on full pay. For the records, you're depressed, and you need a break from intelligence work."

Massey frowned. "Do you mind telling me what the hell's going on?"

There was an edge of irritation in Branigan's voice. "It's all in the file. And between those pages you'll find the reason why Max Simon and his kid were murdered, and it doesn't make pleasant reading."

When he saw Massey stare at him, Branigan shrugged his shoulders. "The instructions ain't mine." He pointed a finger to the ceiling. "They come from high above."

"How high?"

"The President.@'

Washington, D.C. January 22nd, 4 Pm.

The white-painted house in Georgetown looked as imposing as any in the select neighborhood that housed Washington's elite.

Built of wood, the clapboard three-story colonial property sat secure in a vast walled private garden of cherry and pear trees, and although it was winter the three men sat out on the back patio in wrought-iron garden seats.

The Assistant Director, William G. Wallace, was a Yale man, silver-haired and in his late fifties, and his tanned face bore the vestiges of a recent winter vacation in Miami.

When the small talk was over the Assistant Director looked over at Massey, smiled faintly and said, "You read the file, Jake?"

"I read it." Massey nodded.

"Have you any questions?"

"One, who knows about this?"

"Besides you, Branigan and me? Only the President and the Director." The Assistant Director smiled. "There is one other I should mention, who's aware, shall we say, of our intentions, and not what you've read, but we'll come to that later."

Branigan interrupted. "Maybe I better fill in the gaps, sir?"

The Assistant Director nodded. "I guess you better, Karl. I want Jake to be crystal clear about what he's read."

Branigan ran a hand through his cropped hair and looked at Massey.

"Jake, what you saw back in the office was a confidential report written by Joseph Stalin's private physicians. It was the last report we received from Max Simon a month before he was murdered. You know the contents but I'll go over them again to clear up any points. Number one, Stalin has had two strokes in the last six months and as a result his speech and movement are impaired.

"Number two, his medical people all agree that either as a result of the strokes or another medical condition, he's become mentally unstable. He's displaying signs of paranoid schizophrenia. Put simply, the man's going crazy."

Branigan smiled. "Now we and the world know he's already a certifiable nut, but this report confirms it and puts it in perspective. Something else you ought to know. The doctors in the Kremlin who wrote the medical report were arrested on a charge of trying to poison Stalin. Whether it's true or not we don't know, but we do know they were taken to the Lubyanka prison. We've got no information on their fate, but I'd guess it ain't exactly rosy. Most of the doctors were Jews. Stalin's made no secret of the fact he hates the Jews, Purges have already started in Russia. And something you should know about-our intelligence people have confirmed Stalin's already building concentration camps in Siberia and the Urals. He intends to finish what the Nazis started. Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it? A buildup to another situation like the one we had with Adolf Hitler."

Massey stared at Branigan. "What exactly are you saying?"

The Assistant Director interrupted. "Jake, we know Max Simon was receiving those reports from a highly placed and reliable Russian contact in the Berne Embassy. He was a Jew. I say was because I doubt he's still alive. But he was worried, like some of his Kremlin friends, not all of them Jews, about the direction Moscow's going in. Jake, let me put it simply. Stalin is a danger. And I don't mean only to America but the whole damned world, including his own people. Everybody from Congress to the man in the street believes there's another war on the horizon. And this one won't be like the last-but it may well be the last. The potential for worldwide destruction is enormous. Stalin has set his sights on completing his hydrogen bomb program before we do and we know for sure that's going to happen. And that's a mighty dangerous scenario.

"Hell, we're building fallout shelters all over this country as fast as we can but that's pretty much all we can do-we're not prepared for war. But Uncle Joe has made it pretty plain in the past what his intentions are. He sees a war with us as inevitable. I guess it's an obsession with him. A death wish. And a crazy old man with an obsession is pretty likely to want that wish satisfied."

Massey looked impatiently from Branigan to the Assistant Director. "Will someone kindly tell me just what in the hell all this is leading to?"

"Jake, the President believes Stalin's going to use that bomb just as soon as it's ready. We're talking months, not years. Now we can either sit on the fence and wait for the worst to happen or we can come up with a solution to remove the problem. A solution that's much better for everyone in the circumstances. It calls for a pretty special operation. And I want you to head it." Massey said, "And what solution is that?"

It was Branigan who answered. "We kill Stalin."

The silence went on for several long moments. The Assistant Director looked out at the bare winter trees, then back at Massey.

"You don't look happy, Jake. I thought you'd be impressed."

"Whose idea was it?"

"It was a decision made at the highest Lebel."

"Meaning?"

The Assistant Director smiled. "Meaning the answer to that question is classified."

Massey frowned and pushed himself up from the chair "With respect, sir, what you're suggesting is impossible. it would be suicide for whoever goes in."

"And that's exactly why it would work. Moscow would never expect it. Stalin is seventy-three. He's an old man in poor health. You could say why don't we simply wait until he dies?' The Assistant Director shook his head. "Jake, he could liv another five, ten years. We can't take that risk. We've got to fight dirty on this one. And in a barroom brawl you can't fight by the Marquess of Queensberry rules. Short of a pre-emptive war, which we're not prepared for on that scale, it's the only sensible solution we've got. We're not prepared to sit back an let another Pearl Harbor happen. Not ever. Naturally, it's solution not without its risks. That's why the mission will b limited to a small number of personnel operating externally. one we would disassociate ourselves from if it went wrong. The operation would be yours and yours alone. This is not an order to accept, Jake. But I guess if it comes to it, I could make it one."

"Why me?"

The Assistant Director smiled. "Easy. I can't think of anyone more qualified or experienced. Damn it, Jake, you've sent more men across the curtain than anyone I can think of."

Massey crossed to the end of the patio and looked back at the Assistant Director and shook his head. "It's a crazy idea."

"Crazier ideas have worked for us before. And if we'd done something like this some time back, someone like Hitler would never have started a war."

Massey shook his head. "You don't understand. Getting someone close enough to Stalin to kill him is impossible. People have tried before and failed. Immigrant groups. The Nazis. Remember the NTS report?"

Massey saw the Assistant Director nod, a look like distaste on his face. "Sure I remember."

The NTS, or Narodny Trudovoy Soyuz, was a group of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians in Europe and America, controlled by the CIA, who were devoted to the destruction of the Soviet regime. Many of its members had volunteered to be parachuted onto Soviet soil on CIA reconnaissance missions after the war. Many had also paid with their lives, both inside Russia and without, victims of Stalin's murder squads, dispatched to Europe and America to kill any prominent Soviet immigrants who actively opposed Moscow. Two years after the war, determined to step up their campaign, NTS had set about evaluating an assassination attempt to kill Stalin in Moscow.

Massey looked back at the Assistant Director. "Their report speaks for itself. For one, Stalin's quarters in the Kremlin are impregnable. Walls twenty-four feet high and five feet thick. Even thicker and higher in places. Then there's the security measures Stalin employs. Over five hundred guards are stationed in the Kremlin Armory, all hand-picked, " fanatically loyal to Stalin. Less than a half-kilometer away there's a reserve of three thousand Kremlin troops in case they're needed. And those are only the visible deterrents.

"You both know that inside the Kremlin there are secret entrances and exits that go back to the time of the Tsars, ready to be used if needed. And at his villa at Kuntsevo his personal security is impossible to breach. A twelve-foot-high fence. Guards with dogs stationed all around the perimeter. You enter that area of forest and come within a mile of the place without a special pass and you're dead, shot or chewed to death.

"And it doesn't end there. Every morsel of food Stalin takes, every sip of liquid that passes his lips, is first tasted to prevent someone trying to poison him. He even has a woman assigned solely to serve him tea. Each sachet is kept in a locked safe before it's served. Once, a sachet was found not fully sealed.

You know what happened? The woman got sent to the cellars of the Lubyanka to be shot."

Branigan interrupted. "Jake, every suit of armor has its chink. It's a matter of finding the right chink. You know that."

Massey shook his head firmly. "In Stalin's case, there are no chinks. His security is airtight. Some people thought there were chinks and tried to kill him, but they all failed. Even the Germans failed. And if crack Nazi troops could fail, what hope have we?"

The Assistant Director sat forward. "Jake, what if I told you we have a plan? Ways to get close enough to Stalin to kill him. Right now, it's only a rough blueprint, if you like, but with your experience you could fill in the details of getting our man into Moscow and make it work."

"Then I'd like to hear it. But who's going to carry out the plan?"

"You are."

"That wasn't what I meant, Who had you in mind to send to Moscow?"

Branigan smiled. "We all know there's only one man capable of pulling this off. Alex Stanski. He can play a Russian to the hilt and he'd have no hesitation in putting a bullet in Stalin's head."

Massey thought a moment. "You're right about Stanski. But what makes you think he'll agree to do it?"

The Assistant stood up. "He already has, in principle. He's the one other person I told you about who knows of our plan, but not the details, and he hasn't seen the file you read. But we can rectify that."

Massey sat back and shook his head. "Sir, sending Stanski into Moscow alone would be suicide. He's an American, born in Russia, but he hasn't been in Moscow since he was a kid."

The Assistant Director smiled. "We've been thinking about that. He'll need help. Someone to act as his wife on the journey until he reaches Moscow and help him get his bearings. There's a woman named Anna Khorev. Border-crosser. I believe you met her in Helsinki. She's been in America almost three months."

Massey frowned. "She's a Russian."

The Assistant Director smiled again. "I would have thought that was perfect for what we had in mind. She seems just the type we need and besides, she's about the only suitable candidate we have. She knows Moscow. For the purpose of the mission she won't even know what Stanski is after. And once she helps him get to Moscow we take her back. But I have to ask you a question, Jake. Are you still certain about her? I read in her file that even though we accepted her story, one of the senior Finnish officers who interrogated her claimed we'd been sold down the river. He didn't trust the lady one bit."

"I trusted her then, and I'd still trust her now." Massey hesitated, doubt clouding his face. "But you're assuming she'll help you in the first place. Why should she? She's already been to hell and back."

"So I read. But I guess we'll have to take your word about her being trustworthy-I trust your judgment, Jake. In regard to why she'd do it, she'll have a motive. Or at least we'll give her one."

"What motive?"

The Assistant Director smiled broadly and turned to Branigan. "Karl, why don't you go get us all a drink while I explain to Jake. I think we're going to need one after this."

It was two hours later when Massey reached his house east of Georgetown.

He called the boarding school in Richmond and made arrangements to see his son the next day. He was looking forward to seeing the boy and he knew he had been less of a father than he should but he felt that somehow the boy understood.

Then he went into the bathroom and ran the cold-water tap and splashed the icy liquid on his face.

He seldom looked at himself in the mirror but that evening he was aware that he looked older than his forty-one years. He had seen a lot of unpleasant things in his life, but the image of the frozen bodies that came into his mind, white, lying in the morgue, the holes drilled in their heads, their flesh chewed away by rats, disturbed him.

He had known and respected Max Simon for many years. They had grown up together, joined OSS together, been friends all their lives. A Jewish kid who lost his father to the Reds and had made it to America on a tough winter crossing like Massey and his father.

Massey looked down as he rolled up his sleeve.

There was a small tattoo on his wrist, of a white dove. Two urchin kids up in Coney Island for a day's fun and chasing girls, and Max had wanted the tattoos to cement their friendship. He had been a gentle soul, Max, who only wanted to do his best for his adopted country, and the little girl had been the only family he had. Massey shook his head and felt the anger rise inside him again, then toweled his face dry and went into his study.

He made the phone calls he needed to make and then he poured himself a large Scotch and took a pad and pen and went over the plan again, looking for flaws.

The Assistant Director was right about one thing; the plan was something Massey could work with. But there were innumerable dangers. For starters, Stalin's Moscow was an alien place and few Westerners were allowed to enter the city.

He thought of Anna Khorev as he sat there sipping the Scotch and making notes. The details of the plan would be up . to him, and even though her background was ideal for the mission he disliked having to use her. According to Branigan, the latest report by her case officer had been favorable and she had settled into her new life and was making good progress. But Massey really wondered if she would be up to such a mission mentally and physically after barely three months since her escape. He also knew he was sending her to certain death if it failed.

And something worried him about sending her in with Stanski.

He had the file Branigan had given him and although Massey knew Alex Stanski's background it still made interesting reading.

He was a naturalized American citizen, but Russian-born, aged thirty-five. They had worked together during the war when Stanski was one of a small group of highly trained assassins OSS ran into occupied France and Yugoslavia to help the resistance groups operating against the Germans. Stanski had worked under the code name Wolf. If a German commander or Nazi official in the occupied countries became particularly unpleasant to the resistance, OSS sometimes sent in an assassin to kill him. But it had to appear like an accident so the Germans wouldn't suspect partisan involvement and exact reprisals against the civilian population. Stanski was one of their top agents and expert at making the deaths look a mishap.

Concerning his past, Massey knew there would be very little in the file, except to indicate a determined but lone character.

As a boy, Alex Stanski had escaped from a state orphanage in Moscow, He had managed to get aboard a train for Riga and eventually stowed away on a Norwegian frigate bound for Boston.

When the American authorities were landed with him they didn't quite know what to do with an obviously disturbed twelve-year-old. They guessed something distressing had happened to the child because of his psychological state-he was withdrawn and rebellious and behaved like a wildcat-and he told them virtually nothing about his past, despite the best efforts of the psychologists.

Eventually, someone had the idea to send him to stay with a Russian-speaking imigrant living in New Hampshire, a trapper and hunter, who agreed to take the boy for a time. The forests up near the Canadian border had once teemed with Russian immigrants. It was remote, wild territory where the long cold winters and the snow made their exile seem less alien.

Somehow the boy settled in and everyone gladly washed their hands of the matter. There he remained until he joined OSS in 1941.

No one ever learned what happened to his family and parents but everyone who worked with Stanski in OSS guessed it was something pretty bad. One look at those cold blue eyes of his told you that something disturbing had once happened to him.

Long ago Massey thought he had guessed the truth. There was a sick joke Stalin had devised. If anyone opposed him, he as often as not had them killed. If the victim was a man with a family, his wife and any children above the age of twelve were also put to death. But if the children were younger than twelve they were sent to a state orphanage and brought up like good communists, turned into the one thing their parents probably despised.

He guessed that had been Alex Stanski's fate.

Another thing-the KGB had the pick of the orphanage crop. They ran every state orphanage in Russia, and many of their recruits came from those same institutions. Massey always reckoned they probably lost the best killer they ever could have had in Stanski.

He spoke fluent German and Russian and could kill ruthlessly and in cold blood. The most recent assassination had been of a senior KGB officer visiting East Berlin, which Stanski had carried out for the CIA at the request of the immigrant group, NTS.

Massey removed an envelope from the file and slid out a photograph of the colonel named Grenady Kraskin. It showed a hard-faced man with thin lips and small, evil eyes.

Assassinated was too nice a word. Kraskin had his penis cut off and stuffed in his mouth. It wasn't a calling card Stanski inflicted on his prey, but according to the file Kraskin had liked to perform that particular kind of brutal mutilation on his male victims. Stanski liked to make the punishment fit the crime, ignoring orders to desist from such behavior. But Branigan and Wallace had been right; there was no one more suitable Massey could think of to carry out the mission.

He slid the photograph back into the envelope. He had a 7 A.M, start and it was a long drive to Kingdom Lake in New Hampshire.

The grim sight of the bodies of Max and Nina lying in the morgue kept coming into his mind, and Massey knew that no matter what Branigan had said, he personally couldn't let the matter rest there. Whoever was responsible for what had happened to Max Simon was going to pay the price, even if it meant stepping outside the bounds, something Massey rarely if ever did.

But this was personal.

It was almost an hour later when he looked up and heard distant bells chime in the church of the Holy Trinity. He stood and went down to the basement and selected the key from the ring in his pocket and unlocked the door.

The two loose firebricks were above the cellar door, a safe hiding place he used whenever he was working at home, rather than leave any notes or files lying around or in locked drawers or a safe that could be broken into. He placed the yellow pad with his notes and the manila folder inside the recess and replaced the bricks. Stanski's file he would return to Branigan.

It was just after 5 P.m. on the afternoon of Thursday, 22 January, two days after the inauguration of Dwight D. Eisenhower as President of the United States.

New Hampshire. January 23rd The New England towns and villages with their brightly painted clapboard houses looked pretty in the light dusting of snow.

Jake Massey crossed the Massachusetts state line into New Hampshire in the late afternoon and took the road northwest to Concord. There was hardly any traffic on the road and half an hour later he drove the Buick down through a thickly forested track that led to Kingdom Lake. He saw the snow-capped mountains in the distance and a signboard at the track entrance proclaimed, "Trespassers Keep Out!"

Massey switched off the engine and climbed out of the Buick. There was a narrow wooden veranda at the front of the cabin and he went up the steps. The front door was unlocked and the room he stepped into was empty.

Massey called out "Anybody home?" but there was no reply.

The room looked neat and tidy but he thought the place could have done with a woman's touch. It was barely furnished with a scratched pinewood table and two chairs set in the center, and several pairs of deer antlers hung on the Walls. There was a tiny kitchen in the back, the utensils and plates neatly stored on the spotless wooden shelves. Massey noticed a rifle storage rack in a corner. Two of the weapons were missing.

There were some books on a shelf and a photograph in a wooden frame on the wall over the fireplace. A very old family photograph, the image cracked and worn, of a man and a woman and three small children; two boys and a blond little girl.

Massey guessed Stanski and the old man had probably gone hunting. He decided to walk down to the lake.

The water was choppy and rain clouds were gathering overhead. A razor-sharp icy wind suddenly whipped across the lake, and as Massey stood beside the boat he said aloud, "Jesus, that's cold. He heard the barely audible click of a weapon behind him and the voice a split second later.

"You'll be a damned sight colder, mister, if you don't take those hands out of your pockets. Keep them in the air and turn around very slowly. Otherwise you're going to be crawling around on stumps."

Massey turned and saw the man. There was a thin crazy smile on his unshaven face and he looked thoroughly dangerous and unpredictable. He was of medium height, blond, and carried a canvas bag slung over his shoulder. He wore a heavily padded windbreaker over his sweater, and his corduroy trousers were tucked into knee-length Russian boots. He held the butt of a Browning shotgun lightly against his waist, the barrel pointed at Massey.

The man's face creased in a grin. "Jake Massey. For a second there I thought you were a trespasser up to no good. You almost got yourself peppered."

"I guess I got here earlier than expected." Massey smiled and nodded to the shotgun. "You planning on using that thing, Alex?"

The man grinned and lowered the shotgun as he stepped forward and shook Massey's hand. "Good to see you, Jake. No problem finding us, then?"

"I saw the sign at the entrance road. Talk about wanting privacy. Who in the hell's going to bother coming up to this godforsaken place?"

Stanski smiled. "Poachers, for one. The land and water all around here belong to Vassily and he doesn't take warmly to strangers stealing from his traps."

"Then one man's meat must be another man's poison. Me, I'd go crazy up here."

"If you've got time later I'll give you the guided tour. We've even got bears in the woods."

There was a brief look of alarm on Massey's face.

Stanski laughed. "Relax, Jake. It's still a lot safer than New York."

Massey suddenly noticed the old man standing in the woods fifty yards away, a deer carcass slung over his shoulders.

He carried a Winchester rifle and his long black hair was tied back from a weathered face that looked as brown and deeply wrinkled as a walnut. He looked like an Indian from a distance, but Massey recognized something familiar in the features. It was a face that had the same look as the Russians who live north of the Arctic Circle; dark hair and features not unlike the Laplanders.

Stanski waved over at him, the merest of gestures, and when Massey glanced back the old man had disappeared into the woods.

Suddenly it started to rain, a heavy, drenching downpour, and a squall of wind threw freezing water in their faces.

Stanski smiled. "How about we go up to the house? I've got a bottle of bourbon put by that'll warm that old Russian heart of yours.

They sat at the pinewood table and Stanski opened the bottle and poured bourbon into two shot glasses.

He was lean but well built, and he moved stealthily. A strange combination of restless energy and measured control, as if he was in command of every muscle in his body. As Stanski sat, Massey noticed the man's eyes. Deep, slate blue. There was more than a hint of torment in them, but the strange smile hardly left his face.

Stanski raised his glass. "Za zdorovye."

"Za zdorovye." Massey sipped his drink, stood and crossed to the bookshelf in the corner and picked up a book.

"Dostoevsky. Last time it was Tolstoy. Whatever are we going to do with you, Alex? An assassin as well as a scholar. Quite a dangerous combination."

Stanski smiled. "He appeals to the darker side of my Russian nature."

:"Where's Vassily disappeared to?"

"He's in the woods someplace. Don't worry about him."

Massey swallowed the bourbon and pushed forward the glass. As Stanski refilled it he said, "You want to talk?" Massey said, "What did Branigan tell you exactly?"

" Enough to get me interested. But seeing as you're going to be running the show, I want to hear it from the horse's mouth."

Massey undid the security lock on the briefcase he had taken from the car, removed the file marked "For President's Eyes Only" and handed it across.

"Inside you'll see two reports. One is the result of almost two years' work. Highly secret intelligence work carried out for the CIA by the Moscow contacts of some of the antistalinist immigrant groups. It gives details of the old Tsarist escape tunnels in the Kremlin that date back hundreds of years. One tunnel in particular is interesting. It leads from the basement of the Bolshoi Theater to the third floor of the Kremlin and comes out in a room next to Stalin's quarters. We also learned there's a secret underground train line that runs from the Kremlin to Stalin's villa at kuntsevo, just outside Moscow. Stalin's got several villas; however, that's the one he uses most often. But the underground line is only ever used when he needs to travel in haste or in an emergency. We discovered it can be easily breached two blocks from the Kremlin, and leads right under the Kuntsevo villa. Both tunnels, like all the others, are checked at weekly intervals by the Guards Directorate, visual checks and using mine detection equipment and dogs, but normally they're not guarded, except at the entrances and exits, as you'd expect. But you wouldn't be going in through a regular entrance. And a man of your abilities would find a way of getting past the guards. The Kremlin and the Kuntsevo villa are the most likely places Stalin is going to be. Those are your ways in and out of both, whichever should be necessary to use."