Duel of Assassins (13 page)

“Because it’s funny, that’s why. Last year I tried every way
I could think of to get into
Spetsnaz
, or even apply, and I was told to
stop making a nuisance of myself.”

“Whom did you talk to?”

“Major Kornelyuk.”

“Who’s he? Never heard of him.”

“Some officer over on Peoples Militia Street. He gave me two
minutes, then told me to forget the whole thing.”

“Govnyuk!
You were sticking it up the wrong hole,
that’s all. Believe me, Taras, I can get you an appointment with somebody much
higher than that.”

“Who?”

“Me. I’m a lieutenant colonel in
Spetsnaz
. And last
time I checked, that outranked a major. You want to talk, go ahead, I’m
listening.”

“This is a joke—sir?”

“Forget the ‘sir,’ since you just whipped my ass. And no
joke, Taras. Do you still want to join
Spetsnaz
?”

“Sure I do, unless everybody’s like that major.”

“Forget that prick-twister. If you want in, you’re in. It’ll
take a couple weeks to clear away all the
mudistika—
bureaucratic
bullshit—between the sports club and your school, but I’ll start shoveling the
manure tomorrow. And before those two weeks are past, I promise, you’ll be
training here full time.”

Taras shook his head in disbelief. “How can you do this?
Nothing moves that fast.”

“Hey, where have you been all your life? The Olympics are
coming, my young friend, maybe you heard of them? The biggest invasion of
Moscow since the
Wehrmacht
or Napoleon’s
Grande Armée
? Comrade
Brezhnev is spending a billion and a half rubles on construction in Moscow
alone. You’ve seen the Olympic Village they’re building off Vernadsky
Prospekt.” It was hard to miss—eighteen high-rise housing blocks sprawling over
nearly three hundred acres of southwest Moscow. “I understand they’re already
in a panic down there. They’ve got army battalions and Komsomol ‘volunteers’
working around the clock just to be ready by next July.”

The fencing competition would be held right at the ZSKA
complex, Dokuchayev went on, at a five-thousand-seat hall under current
renovation. “You’re good enough to be there, Taras. And with the right
training, you could not only make the team. You could medal.”

“What am I supposed to say?” Taras had always known he had
talent, but knew as well he would never have the time or proper coaching to
develop his potential. Now he was being told it could all be arranged—in time
for next summer’s Olympics!

“What you say, my little idiot, is yes!”

And so he did.

Lieutenant Colonel Dokuchayev was true to his word. Within
two weeks Cadet Arensky of the Supreme Soviet Military Academy had become
Sergeant Arensky of the Central Army Sports Club, with a full sergeant’s pay
and special allowances for sports clothing, equipment and diet.

And Oleg performed his own
stunning about-face. Far from being upset at this peremptory and unauthorized
career change, his father couldn’t have been more proud. He spent a good deal
of his daily shift on the factory floor keeping his workers apprised of the
latest developments in his son’s life, even telephoned members of his wife’s
family he hadn’t spoken to in years. As more than one captive listener was
told, the demands of fatherhood had kept him from fulfilling his own potential
as a football midfielder. So it was only fitting that the Arensky prowess would
shine through in his boy. And who knew what glories lay ahead? An Olympic
medal—even gold—was not out of the question. Sportsmen were, after all,
national heroes, like cosmonauts.

The older Arensky even
spruced up his son’s old room and offered to let him move back in, for a
nominal rent. But young Sergeant Arensky was now billeted with two other ZSKA
fencers—both lured away by Dokuchayev from other local clubs—in a four-room
flat in a refurbished pre-Revolutionary building just off Leningrad Prospekt
near the Aeroflot Hotel. He was given full access to all the ZSKA facilities,
including trainer, sports medicine clinic and fitness coaches, plus entrée into
the master classes of Dokuchayev’s own teacher, the Hungarian Takacs, twice
world champion.

Also as promised, Taras was made a member of the
Spetsnaz
.
But, Dokuchayev stressed, he was to divulge this to no one—not even his
roommates, neither of whom had been accorded the same distinction. And in
practice, the
Spetsnaz
connection meant little, for Sergeant Arensky’s
military training was, for the time being, almost nonexistent, so as not to interfere
with an intensive athletic regimen. A third of his day was spent on overall
conditioning—increasing stamina, speed, strength and flexibility, by squatting,
stair-climbing, sprinting, jogging backward, stretching, and high-repetition
abdominal exercises; another third was devoted to specific fencing
movments—barbell lunges, endless blade and footwork drills; and the final third
was actual combat practice.

Only three times in the first two months was he spirited
away for weekend
Spetsnaz
training, at a GRU complex near the village of
Sezhodnya twenty-five miles northwest of Moscow. And this was not
intensive—some paramilitary sports (competitive shooting and martial arts),
topography, radio communications and, most of all, language work. For Taras was
expected to perfect a foreign language—he chose English—as rapidly as possible
to colloquial level. After one year he would receive his commission as a
lieutenant—or higher, depending on his placement in the Olympics and subsequent
international competition.

He was, it turned out, in a special branch of
Spetsnaz
constituted entirely of professional sportsmen (though, for the purposes of
international athletic competition, they were all considered “amateurs”). There
were two other parts of
Spetsnaz
: networks of intelligence agents and
actual fighting units—the elite cadre which Marcus had joined and in which
Taras imagined him by now totally immersed. But Taras did not really know; he
had heard nothing from his friend in nearly ten months.

The Cowboy’s last letter had been from Odessa, just before
he was set to leave for jump school in Ryazan, a hundred and seventy-five
kilometers southeast of Moscow on the Oka River. Taras could only hope Marcus
was still alive; for Taras had heard from his military instructors that
Spetsnaz
combat training was the most rigorous in the world, involving such
character-building stunts as swimming icy rivers and parachuting onto
mountaintops or into craters.

But if anyone could survive such gung-ho fanaticism, even
thrive on it, surely Marcus Jolly was the man. Probably he was just too swamped
with Ryazan’s superhuman curriculum—and actual combat exercises—to put pen to
paper. Certainly there was no point in worrying about the intrepid American, or
in envying him. Besides, Taras was totally immersed in his own regimen—and
Olympic dream.

And he was making substantial progress. There was no
question about his ability to hold his own with his teammates, and he was
winning more and more matches. His most dramatic improvement had been in the
crucial area of tactics—in feeling out, and then deceiving, his opponent; in
staying always a move ahead in the constant mental chess of competition; in
varying his foot- and handwork patterns, his tempo and rhythm and attack
combinations. In the process he had become tremendously fit. As hard as
Spetsnaz
officers pushed their combat units, it was difficult to imagine them equaling
the standards of Olympic fitness reached by Taras and his clubmates.

In late December of 1979, Taras and selected members of his
ZSKA fencing squad—specifically the
Spetsnaz
contingent—were told by
Lieutenant Colonel Dokuchayev they would be visiting the Olympic Village the
next day. This puzzled them, as the training facilities were still being laid
out at the huge athlete-housing complex a dozen kilometers to the south, and
even when completed would not be on a par with those available at their own
club. Dokuchayev smiled. This “Village,” he explained, was not in Moscow, or
even in the RSFSR, the Russian Republic, but in the Ukraine. “Olympic Village”
was the nickname for the principal
Spetsnaz
training center in
Kirovograd, southeast of Kiev.

It seemed an irregular outing—half-a-day by An-26 turboprop,
troop train and ZIL 8x8 army trucks, to be deposited in the middle of a godforsaken
compound somewhere on the southern steppe, then marching through the slush
toward a dismal, cement-block recreation hall—all just to match blades with
some intermediate-grade fencers. But Taras and his mates were soldiers, after
all, and Dokuchayev definitely hadn’t asked their opinions.

Taras had hoped perhaps to glimpse some real
Spetsnaz
combat
training in the process, but all he saw was the dark tracery of parachute
towers against the early winter twilight. Then they were inside the big, bright-as-day,
overheated sport hall, surrounded by the echoing cacophony of half-court
basketball, box-and-kick martial arts and several fencing bouts all proceeding
at once.

Taras was directed toward the saber strip, where a tall,
undisciplined left-hander was leaping to and fro, swinging wildly, immediately
confirming Taras’ suspicions about the level of skill he should expect. He
passed a glance to Dokuchayev.

“Are we supposed to critique them?” he asked.

“No, just fight. That’s what they asked for, and that’s what
they’ll get. I’ve put you in the next round.”

Taras moved off to begin his warmups, but kept an eye on the
saber strip. He was fascinated by the southpaw, who, despite his excessive
movements and being assessed a point for hard slashing, was scoring repeatedly.
Of course, his more orthodox opponent wasn’t showing much aggression.

The six-minute bout ended with the left-hander winning
five-two. They saluted—the left-hander excessively, according to strict saber
etiquette—and came away together as they stripped off their mesh masks and
shook hands.

Taras gasped. The victor, now twenty meters away and
striding directly toward him with a wide grin of recognition, was none other
than Marcus Jolly.

“What the hell are you doing here, Cossack?” Marcus asked
after releasing Taras from a bear hug.

“What does it look like? I joined special forces to track
you down, Cowboy. I had to. You never write.”

“I was going to get around to it. Trouble is, I’ve been
doing all this classified shit. I’m not even supposed to tell myself what I’ve
been up to. But hey, are you really in
Spetsnaz
, or just fencing with
the Central Army club?”

“Both. By the way, your Russian is very good, Marcus. You
need to work on your
zh
’s, though. They should be more guttural, more from
the chest.”

“Idi v’zhopu!—
Kiss my ass!”

“That’s a little better.”

“And fuck your mother. Come on, Cossack, you can answer all
my dumb questions later. Right now I want to show you off.”

Marcus put his arm around Taras and escorted him to every
part of the large hall, even walking through the middle of a basketball game to
introduce him around and interrupting a kick-boxing match so Taras could shake
hands with the referee. There were some young women as well, a quartet of
moderately attractive foilists doing their intensive pre-bout stretching.

“I got to warn you about this guy,” Marcus said, after
introducing Taras as his best buddy. “A good-looking devil and a real
swordsman, if you know what I mean, but he’s got a twisted mind.”

Taras laughed along with the girls, but wondered at the odd
joke. Could the Cowboy, whose rugged handsomeness Taras had always envied,
possibly feel jealousy toward him?

Finally they worked their way back to the fencing strip,
where Taras met Marcus’ coach, Captain Merab Balavadze, a stocky Georgian with
a grisly scar furrowing his right cheek from ear to corner of mouth. A saber
slash, undoubtedly. Balavadze put out a big paw and grinned—or tried to, but,
with severed facial muscles on one side, the result was a lopsided grimace.
Dark, heavily lashed Georgian eyes, however, retained their good humor.

“In case you’re wondering,” Marcus joked, “Merab is not a
graduate of Heidelberg University. Says his fencing teacher used to make him
practice saber without a mask. Says he’s going to make all of us try it one of
these days.”

The captain’s eyes sparkled. “You’d be surprised how it
encourages students to pay close attention to their parries.”

“I bet it does, sir. Pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise. My old friend Ossip has been telling me very good
things about you, lad. Olympic material, certainly in team saber, maybe even
individual.”

“No bullshit, Cossack?” Marcus said. “Are you that good?”

“Win your next match,” said Captain Balavadze, “and maybe
you will find out just how good Sergeant Arensky is.”

Until that moment neither Taras nor Marcus had bothered to
check the pairings. A glance at the chalkboard showed them that Balavadze was
correct. If Marcus won another bout, and Taras his first two, they would meet
in the semifinal round.

“I’ve never actually seen you fight, Taras. But you’ve just
seen me. Do I stand a chance against you, or are you going to kick my butt?”

“It’s hard to say. You’re pretty... damn unorthodox, Marcus.
What are you doing fencing anyway? You’re supposed to be jumping out of
airplanes.”

“I do plenty of that. I don’t even bother wearing a
parachute anymore, I’m that good. Fencing is just a hobby.”

“Why saber? It’s not a beginner’s weapon.”

“Who you calling a fucking beginner? I’ve been doing this
six months, Cossack, and so far I’m beating everybody here, including Merab
once or twice. You forget, I studied Japanese-style sword-fighting—
kendo,
kenjutsu, bojutsu
, all that shit. Saber isn’t so different.”

“I’m sorry, Marcus. I didn’t mean—”

“Forget it. There’s another reason, if you want to know the
truth. You mentioned your skill at saber to Eva way back, and it kind of stuck
in my mind. What do you think? Maybe I secretly want to be like you, huh,
Cossack?”

“Very funny.”

“I might be serious.”

“You might be full of crap. If anyone has been a copycat,
it’s me. And I
am
serious. Why do you think I tried to get into
Spetsnaz?”

“I was wondering. You seemed pretty well grooved in out
there at that officer factory.”

Taras put his hand lightly on Marcus’ knee. “Oh, I
was
,
Cowboy—till I saw that absolutely
adorable
little powder-blue beret you
had on that day in the park. And suddenly I just wanted one—so
much!”

Marcus flicked Taras’ hand away. “
Zhopachnik!
Did I
pronounce that right?”

“Not bad. Anyway, it turned out
Spetsnaz
had no
interest in me as a real soldier, only as a fencer. And if I don’t make the
Olympics, who knows? I may be out on my ass.”

“No, my friend, once you’re in the brotherhood—sportsman,
commando, makes no difference—it’s for life. We stay in touch now, Cossack, no
matter what. One for all, all for one, all that musketeer shit. But we’ll talk
later, or what do they say—‘converse in steel’? Right now you got a bout coming
up.”

Taras, in fact, had left it a bit late, and didn’t have time
to properly warm up. It didn’t matter. His first contest, with a brawny and
energetic young soldier, took less than half the allotted six minutes. Taras
scored a clean sweep, five-zero, scarcely breaking a sweat. In fact, it might
have been quicker yet, had Taras really wished, for his opponent had no notion
of defense. At one point Arensky had scored three consecutive head touches, and
won when his opponent was penalized for retreating a second time off the end of
the strip.

The young athlete smiled ruefully when it was over, and
challenged Taras playfully to a duel with any other weapon in the entire world,
from AK-47s to the Soviet Army’s legendary small spade.

“Sure,” Taras said. “But I’m betting on you.”

After a short tea break he dispatched his second opponent
with only slightly more fuss, yielding but two touches. Taras was beginning to
suspect that he and his Moscow mates had been transported all this way to
administer an object lesson to the local brigade of
Spetsnaz
supermen—a
surmise Captain Dokuchayev stubbornly refused to confirm or deny.

But Taras was informed, moments after his second victory,
that Marcus had just narrowly upset one of their better team members, a man who
had almost gone to the last European championships. And Marcus had managed to
do it again despite losing a penalty point.

Taras experienced a strange feeling at this startling
news—but it wasn’t surprise. On the contrary, he was filled with a sense of
inevitability, as though it had all happened before. Yet he and Marcus had
never competed directly in anything. Oh, there had been the brief rivalry over
Eva Sorokina. And the friendly contests they’d staged to break the monotony of
their Trans-Siberian rail trip. Like arm wrestling, in which the older Marcus
had usually prevailed. And chess, which was strictly no contest, with Taras
winning easily even after retracting his best moves. But the two had never
seriously measured themselves against each other. And now they were about to
match swords. Six minutes, five touches, no draws allowed. Taras turned around.

Marcus was standing right behind him, grinning.

“Looks like we’re on.”

“Yes, it does, doesn’t it?”

“Give me your best, Cossack. Don’t do me any fucking
favors.”

“I won’t.”

Taras walked away to a far corner of the sport hall, lay
back on a tumbling mat, legs elevated against the wall, willed himself to
relax. He felt oddly nervous, as though it were suddenly the Olympics.

The truth was, he thought, he really didn’t want to fight
Marcus. Their friendship seemed poised, all these years, on a knife-edge of
rivalry, had been born of rivalry—and the sudden, devastating loss of the dear
girl they had both desired. Their camaraderie, then, was Eva’s only legacy to
them. And it was that precious, intangible thing that Taras felt now in
jeopardy.

He tried to tell himself he was making too much of what was,
after all, only a simple duel. But it wouldn’t work. Fear persisted, fear of
loss—of
something
, dammit, something that he prized—enough apprehension,
at any rate, to make a shambles of his usual pre-bout preparation. When he
tried to visualize the match and moves ahead—which he often was able to do in
surprising detail—he drew a complete blank. He could not see himself winning,
as was certainly expected of him. Yet neither did he see himself losing to
Marcus. There was only an impending void—caused by his mind’s refusal to
grapple with an insoluble problem.

Suddenly a teammate was calling his name. It was time. Taras
returned to the fencing area.

His opponent was bouncing up and down on the end of the
strip and grinning as Taras walked up. “Let’s boogie,” Marcus called out in
English, showing no apparent reluctance for the coming duel.

So what’s the matter with me, then?
Taras thought
suddenly.
Let’s just go for it—give the cocky bastard a fencing lesson!

They faced off in the center of the two-meter by
fourteen-meter-long strip, lightly tapped each other’s chest, then stepped back
to salute—a quick flourish, in which weapons were pointed at each other, lifted
with guards brought to chin, then whipped downward.

Marcus kept smiling as he slid his mesh mask forward, and
Taras smiled right back, for whatever it was worth. Then he helmeted and
crouched balletically on-guard—keeping heels light, rear fist on hip, fighting
arm forward, blade vertical, inviting
tierce
. Poised on the sidelines,
the president of the jury—one of the senior ZSKA members—shouted “Go!”

They engaged blades in
tierce
, and Taras felt his
opponent’s considerable strength at once, as Marcus attempted to beat Taras’
blade outside with sheer force of steel, in order to uncover a larger target.
Behind his mask Taras figuratively shook his head. Did the crazy Cowboy really
imagine that sort of thing would work against an experienced fencer? Taras
simply slid his weapon around Marcus’, gliding metal on metal. But Marcus
pressed blades again, and the saber dance continued, like two boxers circling,
jabbing, feeling each other out, measuring each other’s reach, speed and power.

Taras suffered the time-wasting rigmarole, mainly because it
afforded a moment to assess the peculiar problems of a left-handed opponent.
Certain differences were obvious—a narrower opening to the chest, for instance,
and reduced effectiveness of point attacks. Dokuchayev had promised to recruit
more left-handers—perhaps Marcus was a candidate—but as it was, the top-echelon
ZSKA club fencers were mostly righties, and Taras had had to rely on mirror
practice to simulate facing an opposite-handed opponent. Marcus, of course,
would have fenced almost exclusively right-handers.

Well, Taras thought, the Cowboy would need a larger
advantage than that in the next six minutes—if the bout lasted that long.

But Taras decided not to rush matters, to let Marcus make
the play. He didn’t have long to wait. The Cowboy exploded forward, slashing to
head, then to chest. Taras parried, moving smoothly out of range, while
mentally inventorying the numerous flaws in Marcus’ technique. The footwork,
for instance, was more appropriate to a boxer; the Cowboy bounced loosely
forward and back on the balls of his feet rather than employing the rapid,
floor-skimming steps Taras and his teammates had spent hours perfecting. And
Marcus’ parries were too large, uneconomical, taking him again and again out of
sound defensive position.

But Marcus’ recoveries were startlingly fast, and his
bladework remarkable. Marcus had already handled dozens of Taras’ ripostes.
Undoubtedly, Taras thought, the Westerner’s very erraticism tended to confuse
some opponents. Besides, fencing was a fight, not an exhibition of style;
points were awarded for hits, not good form.

The tempo of the duel quickened, the rhythmic cymbal-clash
of steel coming in bursts, longer or shorter, with fleeting rests between,
accompanied by the stamp and squeal of shoes on the rubberized strip and the
incessant gasps and grunts of combat, sibilant, guttural, plosive. The
right-of-way flashed back and forth between them several times a second, as
each attack was initiated, blocked and countered, riposted and
counter-riposted.

From a parry, Marcus made a half-lunge, then
flèched
,
sprinting forward with a feint toward the head. As Taras parried in
quinte
,
Marcus, with full extension and lightning twist of wrist and forearm, slashed
at Taras’ open flank.

Taras had seen it coming, but the sheer explosiveness of the
move carried the day, and Marcus scored a touch.

“Yes!” cried the referee, throwing up his hand to indicate a
successful hit.

It was one-zero as they resumed play.

Taras had seen enough. He lunged, Marcus parried in
tierce
,
but Taras whipped his blade over and caught Marcus’ arm. Marcus’ riposte hit an
instant later, and halt was called.

After quick deliberation, Marcus’ riposte was adjudged
delayed and the point was awarded to Taras on the continuation.

One-all.

Taras was beginning to enjoy himself. Marcus was certainly a
challenging opponent. And he was seeming suddenly a little less idiosyncratic
than in his earlier bouts—maintaining better distance, tightening up his hand-
and footwork, making fewer meaningless foot and head feints, using less steel.
And, Taras noted, his opponent had also learned the correct lesson from the
last point and was now taking care to cover the elbow of his fighting arm.

Was the Cowboy, perhaps, growing a little wary of the
Cossack?           

The answer came an instant later, as Marcus exploded catlike
again,
flèching
forward—making a running attack, which Taras neatly
avoided. As Marcus’ momentum carried him off the two-meter-wide strip, a halt
was called, and Marcus penalized two meters backward.