Birth of an Assassin Page 9

  And he wouldn’t be able to find out from his unit commander, Captain Isakov: the captain was about to be transferred. His replacement was someone called Mitrokhin. Jez had to be positive. He’d give the new captain time to settle in, and make an appointment. The frustration of this job couldn’t be allowed to take control. There’d been times in his past when he’d waited days for a target to show, virtually without moving. He had to act like that now, stay calm and be patient; carry on with the job, and if in the long term Mitrokhin didn’t help develop his career, he’d put in for a move back to Spetsnaz.

  *

  “Not a lot of sunshine, but my head is baking,” Otto Mitrokhin said. He brushed a hand over his thick blond flat-top haircut and crossed Dzerzhinski Square with his sergeant, Adrik Mayakovski.

  “You look like an American GI with your hair like that,” Adrik said, admiringly.

  His own pate suggested he had dark hair, but he’d shaven it so close to the skin only a feint shadow remained visible. Otto smiled: Adrik copied everything he did, but he couldn’t copy the haircut.

  “Maybe,” he replied, “but mine looks better.”

  “Modesty is your only imperfection,” Adrik laughed – Otto didn’t.

  They passed the statue of Iron Felix and drove forward with menace. Otto got a buzz from unsettling people. Both men were large, very large, and even in a busy military area they dwarfed all others.

  Otto wore his olive-green tunic shirt with a stand-up collar and darker green shoulder boards, the green of the boards complementing his dark breeches. New uniforms – because he and Adrik had moved in from Spetsnaz: a move instigated by General Irishkov, the director behind Otto’s money-making ventures.

  He’d had Adrik by his side for longer than he could clearly remember. Always there, he mimicked every move Otto made. Even now, he carried his cap under his arm in the same way as him, held his shoulders and head back yet kept his gaze fixed downward, same way as him, and marched alongside as if keeping in step on the parade ground. Otto’s size measured more than height and width: his muscles had muscles, and because of that Adrik trained enough so he would look the same. A case of good old-fashioned hero worship, and Otto couldn’t have found the situation more appealing.

  Otto had decided earlier that this would be a lazy day for him. He usually liked the pomp of full uniform, but today battledress would do. After all, this was only a fleeting visit to look over his new office.

  The throng in the square hustled and bumped as the two soldiers strode across. But natural intimidation radiated and a pathway opened without one passerby so much as brushing against either of them.

  “I still don’t know why we needed to transfer to the capital, Otto. We were doing all right where we were.”

  Otto frowned. “Always one step ahead, Adrik. How many times do I need to tell you?”

  “I know, I know, but there wasn’t any sign of danger in the set-up.”

  Otto brushed an irritated hand over his flat-top. “For Christ’s sake, Adrik, the scam is in place. We leave others to run it and get out. If they’re caught, they fall alone. That’s how our organizational tiers work, and that’s how they’ll always work.”

  “Yes, but I was just…”

  “Adrik, do not make me go through this again or we’re going to fall out in a big way – trust me.”

  Stillness filled the air.

  Adrik had a terrific memory for faces and detail, which helped in their little enterprises, but why he needed to go over ground already familiar …

  Otto gazed around the entrance hall in Lubyanka as a corporal goose-stepped towards them. “Can I help you, Captain?” he asked, in a manner Otto thought more appropriate for subordinates.

  “I’m Captain Isakov’s replacement,” he said. “Do you know the whereabouts of his office?”

  The corporal retrieved the office directory from a table pushed up against a sidewall and fingered through the pages. “Yes, sir,” he said and gave detailed directions.

  “In future, show respect to rank,” Otto said.

  The corporal began to answer, but Otto cut him off. “Fucking idiot,” he cursed, and stormed off to his office on the fourth floor.

  Inside, he brightened. “Not bad,” he said, and ran a finger over a desktop that had been warmed by the few sunbeams breaking through a clouded sky, “in fact, one of our better postings.”

  He slid a hand from desk to bookcase, stopped, leaned against the windowsill and took in the rest of the room. Oak filing cabinets butted up in the corner; he went to them and swished the empty drawers in and out, carried on to the studded leather-bound chair behind the desk and dropped into it, indulging in its luxury. If his father could see him now!

  “Yes, I think we’ll be very comfortable here. And I’ll be able to visit my mother regularly.”

  Adrik nodded without expression.

  “Make sure you take the office next door, Adrik. I want you at hand. When you’ve settled, you can run through the usual routine, get the files on each of the grunts under my control and a list of the local people working for us in our private endeavors.”

  “Right, Otto. But what if somebody’s using next door?”

  “If they’re lower rank than me – move them. Otherwise get a room as close as you can.”

  Otto smiled warmly at his sergeant. Adrik had a multitude of small scars on face and scalp that issued themselves as even whiter lines on an already too white skin. He had a round but predatory face, injected with dark menacing eyes. But for all that, Otto didn’t see an ugly man.

  *

  “You’re getting too important for my liking, Otto,” Adrik said, as he shuffled into the office with a precarious pile of files. “Another rank would mean more people, and I would have to make two trips like this.”

  That will never happen, Otto thought, but said, “Two days it took you to get them together; another rank and I’ll want another sergeant.”

  Adrik laughed weakly.

  When he left, Otto casually studied the profiles of the people in his unit. One file came to the surface and in annoyance, he brushed a hand over his flat-top.

  “Well,” he said, “a fucking Jew in Special Forces. What next?”

  How had he made it into the elitist ranks? Otto couldn’t fathom it. Medium height and lightweight, in fact so light he had to be skinny, and how the fuck… lieutenant. He browsed the rest of the file and frustration grew. Spetsnaz had been the Jew’s first duty after initial training. Now that made no sense at all.

  His active duties to date determined that he’d been to almost everywhere that the Soviet Union had an interest. Responsible for more than his share of killing and weaponry skills outstanding, no arguing, he was a good operative. Admiration swiftly moved to loathing. A good soldier or not didn’t make a difference. How the fuck was he spotted in the first place? He hadn’t even done regular service. This just didn’t look right.

  The fact the man was a fucking Jew had Otto reeling; he never liked the bastards at the best of times. He snorted… Jews… The report blurred and recollections wandered to his father, a White Army officer who’d proudly told him drunken stories of the glory of the pogroms he’d organized and executed.

  “That’s all finished nowadays, young Otto,” he’d say. “Now, you’ll never experience the wonderment of a mounted cavalry charge, sabers drawn and cutting down Jews at will. Fucking revolution… the worst thing that ever happened to us. Gone… too soon… gone.”

  The old man always seemed to complete his revelations with these words before he fell into a drunken stupor.

  Otto listened intently, but there were things he hadn’t agreed with. His father told him “Jew” stories and he nodded, approved enthusiastically, because it was easy to go along with it. But his father also hated queers, as he called them, and for reasons Otto couldn’t fathom, conflict gnawed. He still nodded agreeably, but withheld the eagerness. While sex had never motivated him, he’d always preferred men’s company. He never c
onsidered himself effeminate, not in any way, but he could understand why a man might “like” another man.

  The daydream dissolved and Otto’s face split into a broad grin. “All the same, my father really knew how to come the ‘Old Soldier’,” he mumbled. “He may have been against the insurgency, but it didn’t stop him pre-empting the situation.”

  By the time the October revolution came in 1917, he’d already switched to marching alongside the workers and eventually became an officer in the Red Army.

  Otto smirked, turned his focus back to Kornfeld’s report and compared his own career against it.

  His had begun like a firework display: fast tracked through the ranks, from a regular squad to an elite unit. The youngest in the division’s history to make the rank of captain. There seemed no limit to what he might achieve. But then, for some inexplicable reason, he fell from favor.

  After years of not knowing why, he teamed up with General Irishkov, his silent partner in the Kremlin. He asked him to pull the reports. Find out what had happened.

  “As you know, Otto, because you moved through the ranks so quickly, a number of psychological profiles were made.”

  Otto remembered with distaste.

  “One report flatly states that you don’t meet the criteria for becoming a high-ranking officer.”

  “But why not?” Otto had asked, already fuming at the audacity of the evaluation.

  “The file suggests that while things go in your favor you excel, but that if the odds are turned against you, you will fold.”

  “I can’t believe that. It’s bullshit.”

  “The interviewer even declared that you could be treacherous and would let your men down. In other words, he thought you were a coward.” Irishkov had annoyed him further when he laughed, and Otto pulled the file from his grasp.

  “No wonder,” he said; “the profiler was a fucking Jew.”

  Otto dwelled on the assessment. “Fucking idiot,” he said, overlaying the memory and bringing Kornfeld’s paperwork back into view. Clearly, Kornfeld wasn’t just a fucking Jew – he was a Jew getting preferential treatment.

  Chapter 16

  Otto spent the whole day reading and rereading Kornfeld’s file. He hardly saw the words, just imagined what the little shit might look like. Already, he hated the idea of meeting with him. But then something in the report caught his attention. Obvious, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember why. An official continuation stamp. He’d seen it before, but what did it mean? Adrik, he’s the one with the memory, he’d know.

  “A minute, Sergeant,” he said, interrupting a conversation.

  “Yes, Captain,” he replied. “I’ll finish this with you later, Corporal.”

  Otto led him back to his office, and the file.

  “Do you recognize this symbol? And be sure your answer is yes.”

  Adrik stared at it – forever.

  “C’mon.”

  “I have seen that, yes… Oh, that’s right, there’s a high security file somewhere.”

  “Of course – fool,” he cuffed his own forehead. “And, as it’s a Special Forces file and we’re in Moscow, it has to be in the Kremlin. Have we got anybody in records?”

  “We have more than one in records in Moscow. Whether they’re in the Kremlin, I’m not sure. Just a minute.”

  He nipped back to his office and returned with a notebook. “As luck has it, we do have one.”

  “Excellent. Here – take these details and see if you can get a copy of the file.”

  “It could take a while.”

  “No hurry, this afternoon will do.” He laughed, but the impatience of not knowing Kornfeld’s secret already had the better of him. If it turned out he was a covert hero, hatred would drive him to distraction. But if he’d done something wrong; yes, if he’d done something wrong, he would take the greatest of pleasure in using it to set the bastard up. Have him turned out of the unit in disgrace. No, worse – yes, worse, it should be much worse than just getting rid of him.

  It took Adrik two days to get a copy of the report and hand it over. Otto eagerly snatched it from his hand.

  “Whoa, steady on, Otto, it’s not going anywhere.”

  “Wha– oh right,” he answered, but his attention had already turned to scanning the file. “Well… I don’t know what I expected, but this wasn’t it. Seems he was a protégé of General Michel Petrichov, but last year he knocked together a route and smuggled three women out of the country. Look at this, he got away with it. What is it with that little shit? ‘No further action.’ Can you believe that?” He sighed.

  A route… suddenly his brain went into overdrive and excitement kicked in. There had to be a new venture hidden in this.

  Adrik had long since lost interest. He sat opposite, looking bored and irritatingly twiddling the gooseneck lamp on the corner of the desk. But Otto had become too engrossed to berate him about it – then suddenly, “That’s it,” he said, as if he’d stumbled onto the theory of relativity. “Looks like getting rid of Kornfeld has moved onto a backburner.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because if we set him up, this file might bubble to the surface and the lack of security will be highlighted and dealt with. The path he’s worked out is totally overlooked by the authorities. And to make it more interesting, it goes through a military city – Saratov. They would never have expected him to smuggle women through there. A touch of brilliance – and we can use it.”

  “For what?”

  “Come on, Adrik, how many smuggling enterprises have we left in our tracks? That’s what it’ll be, some kind of import–export project. I’m not sure exactly what yet, but I’m sure I’ll think of it.”

  *

  Late that next afternoon, Otto summoned Adrik. “Come in, come in. I’ve been throwing it around and I’ve come up with an idea. And, if I may say so, it’s nothing short of genius.” Before he could answer, Otto hushed Adrik with a finger and motioned him to sit. “Right, we have Stefan Polanski in the North Port area of Moscow. He runs girls there – yes?” Adrik nodded. “Well, as I remember, he has some handsome young men working for him.”

  He grinned. “So, you like pretty boys. What about your idea?”

  “Yes… funny. I thought we might move several of them down to the south-east Moscow area, not too far from Kazansky railway station.”

  “To do what?” Adrik asked, suddenly interested.

  “Rural peasants will be easy prey for Stefan’s crew. They will use their charms to seduce the farm fodder into thinking a better life is waiting for them outside Russia. And there are plenty of good-looking girls out there. The pimps will be spoilt for choice. They’ll be taken down the safe route, four, five, maybe six at a time. From Rostov, they’ll be shipped to Turkey. We already have Beyrek Ozel running a club on the coast in Icmeler.”

  “What, and we work the girls from there?”

  “Yes and no. We’ll groom them, but make sure they keep that peasant innocence. When they’re ready, we simply sell them on. There’ll be no limit on price for young virginal types, especially with Beyrek’s rich Arab contacts. What do you think?”

  “I think we should take a trip to the North Port and sort out the pretty boys.”

  “Yes, well, we can have a word with Stefan anyway… Too late now and that Jew has made an appointment with me tomorrow morning. Let me get the little fuck out the way and we’ll go together up to the North Port. Oh, yes, I ought to visit my mother. We’ll stop there while we’re out.”

  “Oh.”

  *

  Confidence wasn’t brimming. As second-in-command, Jez thought Captain Mitrokhin should’ve shown a little courtesy and introduced himself by now. Already a week gone and the only reason he had this meeting was because he’d asked for it. He took the steps two at time as he hurried up the staircase to the fourth floor. He tried to feel hopeful. Perhaps the lack of an introduction had been an oversight, yes, that would be it. Trembling with nervous anticipation, he knocked.r />
  “Come in.”

  Jez entered and came to attention.

  “At ease, Lieutenant, you asked to see me. What can I do for you?”

  No introductions, no “pleased to meet you” – nothing.

  “Good morning, Captain Mitrokhin, I’d hoped you might spare me some time to discuss my career path. I’m in need of guidance with regard to my next steps.”

  “Career path, what career path?”

  Without the consideration of a glance, he pulled paperwork from a top drawer and read it.

  “As far as I can see, you’ve achieved a position higher than you should have expected at your age. I pull the files on everyone in my command, and looking at yours you’ve been a good enough soldier, no doubt. But quite frankly I fail to see how you managed to make lieutenant when you did.”

  Hopes dented. Now puzzlement. The words, the way he spoke them, felt almost like an attack.

  “Well, Captain, the officers who bestowed the honor on me had no such reservations. May I say, sir, your clear lack of belief in my ability indicates there will be no career options under your command?” Hasty, maybe, but passive had worn out. “Please, sir, I would like to make formal application for transfer back to a Spetsnaz unit. With my credentials, I know I can make a case… There seems little point continuing with this meeting, so, with your permission, sir, I would like to withdraw.”

  “Whoa, whoa, calm down, Lieutenant Kornfeld, just testing the steel of your ambition. Let me look into your records again and we’ll see what it will take to put you on the right path to go forward. Unfortunately, you’ll need to be patient with me. I have covert commitments that I must give priority to – they are the reasons we haven’t met earlier.” He lifted his head from the paperwork and sat back in his chair. His lips curled into a smile, but his eyes remained cold. “Just bear with me for a while and I’ll get back to you.”

  An odd turn around, but still a turnaround; to argue now would appear churlish. “Yes, sir, I’ll wait until your covert matters are behind you. Thank you for your time, Captain.”