Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 09 (7 page)

 
          
Kazakov’s
legs were chained to the back of the command car. and the rebels dragged the
colonel’s body through the streets of Prizren, firing into the sky in
jubilation. Kazakov remained conscious for several blocks until his head hit
the debris of a destroyed truck and he was mercifully knocked unconscious. His
last thought was of his wife and his three sons. He had not seen them in so
many months, and now he knew they would never see him again: they would never
permit the family to see a corpse as bad as he knew his was going to look.

 
          
At
the front gate to the Russian security zone, the colonel was hung upside down
over the entry control point road, stripped naked, then riddled with
machine-gun fire until his body could no longer be recognized as human. The
rebels were long gone before United Nations reinforcements arrived.

Zhukovsky Flight Research Center, near
Bykovo, Russian Federation

The next evening

 
          
Even
with many high-intensity lights ringing the area, it was almost impossible to
see the big transport plane through the darkness and driving snowstorm as it
taxied over to its parking spot. Its port-side turboprop engines, the ones
facing the terminal building, the honor guard, a small band, and a group of
waiting people, had already been shut down, and as soon as the plane was
stopped by ground crews with lighted wands, the other two engines were also
shut down. The ramp suddenly became eerily quiet, the only sound that of a long
line of hearses’ wheels crunching on snow. On one side of the transport plane’s
tail, seventeen hearses waited; on the other side were seventeen limousines for
the family members, plus several officiallooking government vehicles. From the
official vehicles, two men surrounded by security guards alighted and took
places beside the honor guard.

 
          
The
transport’s cargo ramp under the tall tail motored down, and the receiving
detail marched over and stepped up the ramp, as the first limousine pulled out
of line and maneuvered over to receive its passenger. The band began to play a
solemn funeral march. A few moments later, the receiving detail slowly wheeled
out the first casket, draped with the flag of the
Russian Federation
. As the honor guard and officials saluted
and lowered flags in respect, a woman clothed all in black, wearing a black
veil under her black beaver pelt hat, stepped forward from the line of
limousines and reached out with both hands to gently touch the casket in silent
greeting, as if wishing to not to disturb its occupant but to welcome him home.

 
          
Then,
suddenly, her grief turned to anger. She cried aloud in anguish, piercing the
frigid, snowy evening like a gunshot. She pushed the attendants aside, then
grasped the
Russian Federation
flag in her gloved hands, pulled it off the
casket, flung it to the ground, and rested her right cheek on the smooth gray
surface of the casket’s lid, sobbing loudly. A young man, tall and clothed in
black as well, held her shaking shoulders, eventually pulling her away from the
casket as it was escorted to the waiting hearse. The young man tried to comfort
and support the woman as he led her to her own waiting limousine, where other
family members were waiting, but she pushed him away. The limousine drove off,
leaving the young man behind. The commander of the escort detail picked the
flag up off the snow- covered ramp, quickly folded it, and gave it to one of
the limousine attendants, as if unsure of what to do with it now.

 
          
The
young man remained behind. He watched silently as the remaining sixteen caskets
were escorted out of the big transport plane and placed into their hearses, and
he remained, ignoring the snow falling heavier and heavier, after all the
limousines, the escort detail, and the color guard had departed. None of the
other family members spoke to the officials, and they did not attempt to speak
with the family members. The officials returned to their limousines as soon as
the last hearse drove away.

 
          
The
young man saw he was not alone. A tall, distinguished- looking older gentleman,
also in a black fur beaver-pelt hat and rich-looking sealskin coat, stood
nearby, tears running unabashedly down his cheeks. They looked at each other
across the snow-obscured ramp. The older man approached the younger and nodded
politely.
“Spakoyniy nochyee, bratam
, ” he said in greeting.
“K
sazhalyeneeyoo. Kak deela?”

 
          
“I’ve
been better,” the younger man replied. He did not offer his hand in greeting.

 
          
“I’m
sorry for your loss,” the older man said. “I am Dr. Pyotr Viktorievich
Fursenko. I lost my son, Gennadi Pi- otrievich, in Kosovo.”

           
“I am sorry,” the young man
murmured. There was a glimmer of recognition in his eyes.

 
          
“Thank
you. He was a lieutenant, one of the security officers. He had been in the army
only eight months, and in Kosovo only two weeks.” No other comment from the
young man, so Fursenko went on: “I assume the unit commander, Colonel Kazakov,
was your father?” The young man nodded. Dr. Fursenko paused, looked at the
younger man, waiting for an introduction, but none was forthcoming. “And that
was your mother, I assume?” Again, nothing. “I am sorry for her as well. I must
tell you, I can't help but agree with her sentiments.” “Her sentiments?”

 
          
“Her
anger at
Russia
, at the Central Military Committee, at the general state of our country
in general,” Fursenko said. “We can’t seem to do anything right, even help our
comrades hold on to a tiny republic in the backwaters of the Balkans.” The
younger man glanced over at Fursenko. “How do you know I’m not an internal
security officer or MVD, Doctor?” he asked. The MVD, or Ministry of Internal
Affairs, conducted most government intelligence, counterintelligence, and
national police activities inside the
Russian Federation
. “You could be investigated for what you
just said.”

 
          
“I
don’t care—let them investigate me, imprison me, kill me,” Fursenko said, his
voice filled with despair. ‘They are undoubtedly better at killing their own
people than protecting their soldiers in Kosovo or
Chechnya
.” The young man smiled at that comment. “My
research center was tom down, my industry that I have worked in for twenty-five
years has all but closed down, my parents are gone, my wife died a few years
ago, and my two daughters are somewhere in North America. My son was all I had
left.” He paused, looking the younger man up and down. “I would say that you
could be MVD or SVR as well.” The SVR was the new name for the KGB, which
conducted most foreign intelligence activities for
Russia
but was free to act inside the country as
well. “Except I think you are dressed a little too well.”

 
          
“You
are a very observant man,” the young man said. He regarded Fursenko for a
moment, then extended a hand, and Fursenko accepted it. “Pavel Gregorievich
Kazakov.”

           
"Pleased to meet—” Fursenko
stopped suddenly, then squinted his eyes. “Pavel Kazakov?
The
Pavel
Kazakov?”

 
          
"I
am very impressed by what you are doing at Metyor, Doctor Fursenko,'"
Kazakov remarked, his voice deep and insistent as if silently urging Fursenko
not to dwell on what he had just figured out.

 
          
"I.
. . I.. .” Fursenko took a moment to regain his composure. then went on. “Thank
you. sir. It is all due to you. of course.”

 
          
“Not
at all. Doctor,” Kazakov said. "Metyor is a fine group.” Most large
privatized companies in the Commonwealth of Independent States belonged to
organizations called IIGs, or Industrial Investment Groups, similar to
corporations in the United States IIG members were usually banks, other IIGs.
some foreign investors, and a few wealthy indiv iduals, but the primary member
of any IIG w as the Russian government, which controlled at least twenty
percent but sometimes as much as ninety percent of any v enture, and therefore
had ultimate control. Metyor was one of the lucky ones: only thirty percent of
the IIG was owned by the government. "And I am familiar with your old
venture, the Soviet aircraft design bureau in
Lithuania
called Fisikous,”

 
          
It
was Fursenko's turn to look uncomfortable, which pleased and intrigued Kazakov.
In conducting his due-diligence before investing in any new company, especially
a troubled but high-tech concern like Metyor. Kazakov always put his extensive
private intelligence operatives, most of them former KGB. to work learning all
there was to learn about the previous holdings of the IIG, w hich in this case
was a research and development institute called Fisikous. What he had found out
was nothing short of astounding.

 
          
The
Fisikous Institute of Technology had been an adv anced aircraft and technology
research facility in
Vilnius
, in what was then the
Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic
, now the independent
Republic
of
Lithuania
on the eastern end of the
Baltic Sea
. Fisikous had been on the cutting edge of
Soviet aircraft design, attracting the brightest engineers from all over the
Soviet Union
and the non-aligned nations. The big name
at Fisikous had been a young scientist named Ivan Ozerov, who'd been the
resident low observable technology—stealth—expert. No one knew anything about
Ozerov, except that in a short time at Fisikous, under the direct supervision
of the chief of the facility, Pyotr Fursenko, and another man who most
suspected was KGB, he’d become the number-one design expert in all of the
Soviet Union. Ozerov was brilliant, but weird and unpredictable, occasionally
launching into wild tirades in English at the slightest provocation or
agitation. Scientists there had long suspected Ozerov of being either on LSD or
simply psychotic—he was far more than just eccentric. But there was no question
that his work, especially on the incredible Fi-170 stealth bomber, had been
nothing short of genius.

 
          
But
there had been problems at Fisikous. The Baltic
republic
of
Lithuania
was dri ving toward independence from the
Soviet Union
, and Fisikous represented all that was bad
about life under Soviet rule. Ivan Ozerov had disappeared during some kind of
military action. Some said the American CIA or Special Forces had kidnapped
Ozerov. Others said Ozerov had not been Russian but a captured American
scientist, codenamed “Redtail Hawk,” brainwashed right there at Fisikous by the
KGB, and that the military action had really been a rescue mission. Even the
Fisikous-170 stealth bomber, a one- hundred-and-twenty-thousand kilo warplane,
had been stolen.

 
          
“When
the
Union
collapsed, I went back to
Russia
to head up some other aerospace design
bureaus,” Fursenko went on. “I was going to retire or emigrate to the West,
because the industry had all but disappeared in the Commonwealth. But when my
wife died, I... I stayed on .., well, mostly just to have something to do.”

 
          
“I
understand,” Kazakov said sincerely. “I think that’s important.”

 
          
“They
had better
kofye
and
romavaya babas
in the labs than I could
afford as a pensioner anyway,” Fursenko admitted with a faint smile. “There’s
not much money in Metyor, but we’re doing important work, incredible things. I
didn’t mind not getting paid as long as I could keep on working and get real
coffee. No offense, sir. It is rewarding work, but the pay is terrible.”

 
          
“No
offense taken. My mother made the best
romovaya
babas
when I was
a kid!" Kazakov said. He sighed. “Now I think she would use a handful of
them to choke me if she had the chance.”

 
          
Fursenko
didn't know what to say or do—he was afraid to smile, nod, or even move. He was
very surprised and a bit wary after hearing the apparent warmth in Kazakov’s
voice— not something he had ever expected to hear at all. “I couldn’t help but
notice, your mother .. . seemed rather upset at... well ..

 
          
“At
me, yes,” Kazakov admitted. “She does not approve of what I do.”

 
          
“And
at
Russia
also.”

 
          
“She
blames the Russian government for the sloppy way it supports our troops
overseas,” Kazakov said. “She blames me for everything else.”

 
          
Fursenko
definitely did not feel comfortable discussing
this
man’s personal
life—-that was an area he had no desire whatsoever to explore. He extended his
hand, and Kazakov took it warmly. “It was a pleasure to meet you,
Gaspadeen
—”
Fursenko had used the more modem post-Union breakup, more “politically correct”
term for “mister,” but he automatically stopped himself, then said,
“Tovarisch
Kazakov.” That was what most Russians had called each other back when there was
a strong, fearsome, proud empire: Comrade.