Sekret (25 page)

Misha and Masha look at each other; I don’t need psychic powers to tell they’re communicating in a language all their own. “They are … indisposed,” Misha says. “Important business.”

“The others have more important matters to attend to,” Rostov snarls. “It’s time you learned to take care of yourselves.” Behind his jagged expression, though, white rings his eyes. Is he himself afraid of the scrubber’s power? “Comrade Major.” He nods at Kruzenko. “I must return to headquarters.”

Kruzenko salutes him, and he turns away. His boot heels click away down the hall.

I reach out for the strands of Valentin’s thoughts—they’re there, tangled up in his jazz music, in our Tchaikovsky song, in the Beatles.
What’s happened to the other psychics?
I ask, trying to bundle the thought in the same knot of notes.

Not now.
A new song slams around him, locking me out.

But fire is crackling in my mind as the possibilities stoke it on. The idea that I am not a wildling, that my parents have known what I am has smoldered in me for a while. But I fear it’s only the smoke of a much bigger fire. A memory, or perhaps just a dream, flashes through my mind, but it is gone in a cloud of cigarette smoke.

“Misha.” Kruzenko sits back down. “Will you please report on what you
did
manage to find at the hotel?”

That fire is eating at my thoughts; its crackle conceals all sound. Beneath the table, Valentin’s hand falls onto my knee. Perhaps he means it to be comforting, steadying. But I only feel caged.

We are an experiment, I know this. The second wave of what started under Stalin; young, untrained psychics like Kruzenko and Rostov summoned forth to defeat the Nazi threat. But there is a vital component in the experiment that’s eluding me, hovering just on the periphery of my thoughts, darting from sight as I try to look at it dead on.

“One of the hotel guests did overhear some of the CIA team members discussing the meeting with the last wildling that they have scheduled for tomorrow,” Misha says. “But we couldn’t find anything that indicates they’ve made contact with any other members of the
Veter 1
engineers. We don’t know if they’ve already stolen all the information they need, or—”

“Or the whole
Veter 1
mission was only bait.” My heart sinks as I say it. “A secondary scheme to draw in their primary target—us.”

The table falls silent again. Silence tugs at us like gravity tonight, trapping our words in its atmosphere. It slumps Kruzenko forward, dulls her one-word answer. “Maybe.” Her uniform is too tight; the folds of fat under her jaw have grown more pronounced, and black bags swell under her eyes.

“What will happen to Ivan now?” I ask.

“If he awakens, then we will have to be very careful. We will need to determine whether the Amerikanski poisoned his thought process before scrubbing him blank. If so, then even if he is healed, he could be completely—I don’t know, rewired, perhaps, to act as an agent for the CIA.”

“
If
he awakens,” I echo.

Kruzenko nods. “The best thing we can do for Ivan right now is finish what we have begun.”

“I’ll go to Gorky Park tomorrow,” I say. “We have to stop the scrubber from wiping the factory boy, too.”

Valentin’s fingers tighten against my knee. “Yulia, please, no.”

“It is much too dangerous,” Kruzenko agrees. Masha stares at me wide-eyed, almost impressed.

“Please. We can’t let it happen again, even if it is to a wildling. Have our teams had any luck finding him?” I ask. Kruzenko doesn’t answer. “That’s what I thought. If we know exactly where he’ll be—if we have this one chance to stop the scrubber…”

Kruzenko meets my eyes, and I know she doesn’t need psychic powers to know how determined I am. “It will not be easy.” She grimaces. “At the slightest hint of trouble, I will end the operation immediately.”

“Whatever we have to do. Bring whatever backup we need,” I say. “Please. For Ivan.”

CHAPTER 32

“HE’S WAITING ON
the park bench. No signs of the CIA team yet.” Masha’s brow wrinkles, shifting on the metal bench built into the inside of the van. “He’s very antsy. He has a suitcase with him…”

Kruzenko glances at Rostov, who nods. She leans back from the heavy microphone kit. “Continue monitoring. We cannot move in until we’ve located the scrubber.”

Valentin runs his finger down my arm. I flush and scan the truck to make sure no one else saw. “You’re certain you want to do this?” he asks.

“We owe it to this wildling,” I say.

Rostov’s grin oozes across his face. “We owe it to the Motherland to stop this threat.” There’s a dark glint to his eyes; I’m sure he’s hungry to add another medal to his uniform after today.

Masha jerks forward. “Someone’s coming. Down the hill, off the main sidewalk … I think he’s coming from the skating rink, though it could be the carnival rides.”

Kruzenko presses the thick button on the microphone’s base. “Agents, stand by. Comrade Rostov is moving in.”

“Do those poor agents have any idea what they’re up against?” Valentin mutters.

Rostov shrugs into his leather military long coat and tucks his radio into the breast pocket. “They know it’s their duty to do whatever I ask of them.” He climbs out of the back of the van and slams the door shut behind him.

Masha takes a deep breath, then shakes out her hands. “Rostov is on the right path. There should be a clump of trees that’ll give him cover from the bench. The scrubber is—” Here Masha shudders. “He’s in a heavy coat, fur hat, and … well, I can’t get a good look at him…”

Major Kruzenko relays the information over the microphone, then adds, “Agents, prepare to intercept.”

Masha’s face flushes with strain. “It’s hard to see right now. The air is too—crackly. I’m not sure where Rostov went, but the scrubber is reaching the bench now…” She winces. “I’m not feeling so good.”

“What do you mean? Where is Rostov?” Kruzenko mashes the microphone button. “Agents! Report in!”

“I can’t focus on their conversation, and Rostov is—”

Major Kruzenko shrieks as static overwhelms her headphones—I can hear it from the other side of the van. She yanks the headset off and leaps up. “Masha? What do you see?”

“I can’t look at the conversation, Comrade Major. I’m sorry. Rostov is—he’s just standing there, his back turned, and…”

I cover my mouth as a drop of blood rolls from Masha’s nose. “She needs to rest, Major. He’s hurting her.”

“No!” Masha cries. “I can do this, I swear.”

I shrug and slump back on the bench, trying my best to look relaxed, though my heart is beating out a distress call. Valentin’s thigh presses against mine. The Beatles sway back and forth between us. He’s trying to slow the spinning centrifuge of thoughts in my head, but it’s not much help.

“All right, I can see the bench again. But they’re gone—the scrubber, the wildling. Rostov, too. I’m so sorry, there was just too much noise for me to see through—”

Kruzenko looks us over, and as her gaze crosses me, my stomach drops out from under me. “You.” She points at me. “Probe the bench. See if you can replay their conversation. Valentin, go with her to find Rostov.”

Valentin swallows hard. “I’m not sure I could do very much against the scrubber, if he finds us before Rostov does…”

“You’ll be fine!” Hysteria curls at the edge of her voice. “Just hurry—please!”

As Valentin helps me out of the back of the van, we hear Kruzenko calling frantically for the agents to report in. “Stay close to me,” he says, latching the door behind us. I chew at my lower lip as we wade into the snowy park.

The leafless branches overhead are glazed in ice; the frozen path fractures beneath our boots. Children whirl on the skating rink beside us while their Party mothers chatter nearby. The fresh-fallen snow adds a sense of stillness and beauty all around.

But I feel the scrubber’s chaos, crackling in the thin winter air.

Neither of us speaks, as if we fear disturbing the eerie feeling slinking around us. We draw closer to the frozen riverbed lined by empty benches. The carousel’s music washes over us; the shadow of the Ferris wheel spins across our path. Valentin raises one hand like a hunting dog and tilts his head, listening. Slowly, the pressure of the scrubber’s noise fades.

“He’s gone. Headed north, I think—out of the park. You should be safe to check the bench.”

“What about the wildling?” I ask.

Valentin’s Adam’s apple quavers against his tight scarf. “I only sensed one person.”

The wind stings at my eyes as we crest the hill and scan the park benches. Only one has been freshly cleared of snow. We trudge down the bank as Red Army trucks rumble past on the frozen surface of the Moskva River. “Not flesh nor feathers,” I mumble, peeling off one glove, and press my hand against the bench.

I am greeted, not by a memory, but a message.

Yulia Andreevna
. Crisp, glittering sunlight thaws me from the inside out.
You want to visit the Ferris wheel.

I smile and stifle a childish giggle. I had not admitted it until now, but yes! I
do
want to ride the Ferris wheel. How could I not? It’s the most sensible thing in the world. One cannot visit Gorky Park without riding it.

But you must go alone.

But what about Valentin? He won’t let me out of his sight, not with the scrubber still on the loose. I sigh, two primal needs warring within me. I have to stay safe with Valentin, but horrible things will surely happen if I don’t visit the Ferris wheel—

Alone.

No, the voice is absolutely right. Valentin would worry too much. Everyone tries so hard to protect me. No sense in troubling him. I’ll just slip away …

I will distract your partner, but you must hurry.

I pull back from the bench and re-glove my chapped red hand. Valentin is transfixed by the Red Army procession; by the truck beds laden with covered cylinders. Missiles of some kind, or test rockets, perhaps.

Go.

I charge up the hill. Valentin doesn’t even stir. I glimpse Rostov in the trees, but he, too, is lost in a daydream. The crowd shifts around me; no one complains when I push to the front of the line for the Ferris wheel. I press some kopecks into the operator’s palm. He opens the door to help me in—

—and as I jolt out of my reverie, the scrubber climbs into the car with me, and the metal door slams shut.

CHAPTER 33

THE COILED CONFUSION LOOSENS
around my brain, and I find myself caged into the Ferris wheel car with a burning star. I scramble back against the far wall, but I can’t escape his heat, his blinding light. He turns toward me with an awful metallic scrape. I wish it was only the sound of the Ferris wheel tearing apart around us.

I pile one song on top of the other. Every American pop song Valya’s shared with me. Mama and Papa’s Tchaikovsky records, their Shostakovich, their Bartok. Zhenya’s symphony. The national anthem, plodding and grim. But the scraping continues, chipping away at the melodies, chiseling straight for my brain.

And then, just as painfully, his brilliance dims into a silence that leaves me hollow and aching.

“You are Chernin’s daughter,” the scrubber says.

The Ferris wheel lurches forward and we begin our slow rise into the Moscow sky.

“You are not safe here,” he tells me.

“Of course not. You’re going to scoop out my brains like you did to Ivan.”

He chuckles. I can almost look at him from the corner of my eye; speckled black hair, not onyx like Valentin’s but like a shirt left too long in the sun. No, wait—is it golden? A blazing red? Trying to pin down this man’s substance is like trying to catch a firefly in your hand. As soon as I think I’ve caught him, I open up to find him gone.

“The foolish boy? He was too close to seeing me. I couldn’t have him tattle. No, Yulia, I’m here to help you.”

I shake my head. “Please, if you’re going to kill me, get it over with. I don’t want to suffer like he’s suffering.” The car’s cold metal seeps through my coat; the wind outside lashes at us through the bars.

He laughs like crinkling foil. “I’m offering you a way out.”

The spokes of Moscow’s streets branch out before us, pinned to the city center by the Kremlin and Lenin’s tomb. White and gray slush, split open by drab buildings, dead trees. “Out of what? The KGB, the mansion? Moscow?” I swallow hard.

“You don’t want to be trapped forever.” He leans toward me. His face is tan somehow in the dead of winter. No, that’s not right; it is ashen, post-mortem gray. “You’re tasked with protecting the
Veter 1
lunar mission design, yes?”

I nod. My mouth has frozen over.

“They will launch the
Veter 1
in secret just outside of Berlin in a few weeks. Your team will be in attendance—ostensibly to protect the launch and the high-ranking Party members in attendance from dangerous men. Like me.”

“Will we?” I ask.

He nods. “You
will
.” Sunlight glints off his smooth teeth. I must comply.

“Rostov is a dangerous man,” I say. “He will do whatever it takes to stop you. His powers, they’re just like yours—”

“But I am better.” The scrubber grins again.

“Why Berlin?” I ask. “If you really mean to offer me a—a way out.”
A way out.
Three words focusing my thoughts like a lens.

He shifts, jostling the seat; our car crests the top of the Ferris wheel with a lurch. “Because even I am not that good. Besides, there is still much more fun to be had.”

He leans forward and pushes his ungloved thumb against my forehead. Metal screams all around me, as if the Ferris wheel is pulling off its axis and our car will go tumbling into the frozen Moskva. There is something inside my brain—slivers of ice. The man that was the scrubber has flared into molten whiteness once more.

“Chernin,” I say. “You knew my last name.” I can hardly think around this new presence in my mind, but I’m replaying his words, desperate for meaning.

He doesn’t answer. I don’t know if my head can carry all this weight.