“For the moment, however . . . ?” He’d think about that, but not in a helicopter.
“We’re looking at the mirror and computer plans the Americans are using. The chief of our mirror group thinks he can adapt their designs to our hardware. It will take about a year to come up with the plans, he says, but he doesn’t know about the actual engineering. Meanwhile we’re assembling some reserve lasers and trying to simplify the design to make maintenance easier.”
“That’s another two years’ work,” Bondarenko observed.
“At least,” General Pokryshkin agreed. “This program will not come to fruition before I leave. That’s inevitable. If we have one more major test success, I will be recalled to Moscow to head the Ministry office, and at best the system will not be deployed before I retire.” He shook his head sadly. “It’s a hard thing to accept, how long these projects take now. That’s why I want you here. I need a young man who will carry this project all the way through. I’ve looked at a score of officers. You’re the best of them, Gennady Iosefovich. I want you here to take over from me when the time comes.”
Bondarenko was stunned. Pokryshkin had selected him, doubtless in preference to men from his own service branch. “But you hardly know me—”
“I did not get to be a general officer by being ignorant of people. You have the qualities that I look for, and you are at just the right part of your career—ready for an independent command. Your uniform is less important than the type of man you are. I’ve already telexed the Minister to this effect.”
Well. Bondarenko was still too surprised to be pleased. And all because Old Misha decided that I was the best man to make an inspection tour. I hope he’s not too ill.
“He’s been going over nine hours now,” one of the officers said almost accusingly to Vatutin. The Colonel bent to look in the fiber-optic tube and watched the man for several minutes. He was lying down at first, tossing and turning fitfully as he tried willing himself to sleep, but that effort was doomed to failure. After that came the nausea and diarrhea from the caffeine that denied him sleep. Next he rose and resumed the pacing he’d been doing for hours, trying to tire himself into the sleep that part of his body demanded while the remainder objected.
“Get him up here in twenty minutes.” The KGB Colonel looked at his subordinate with amusement. He’d slept only seven hours and spent the last two making sure that the orders he’d given before turning in had been carried out in full. Then he’d showered and shaved. A messenger had fetched a fresh uniform from his apartment while an orderly had polished his boots to a mirrorlike luster. Vatutin finished off his own breakfast and treated himself to an extra cup of coffee brought down from the senior-officers’ mess. He ignored the looks he was getting from the other members of his interrogation team, not even giving them a cryptic smile to indicate that he knew what he was doing. If they didn’t know that by now, then the hell with them. Finished, he wiped his mouth with the napkin and walked to the interrogation room.
Like most such rooms, the bare table it held was more than it appeared to be. Under the lip where the tabletop overlapped the supporting frame were several buttons that he could press without anyone’s noticing. Several microphones were set in the apparently blank walls, and the single adornment on them, a mirror, was actually two-way, so that the subject could be observed and photographed from the next room.
Vatutin sat down and got out the folder that he’d be putting away when Filitov arrived. His mind went over what he’d do. He already had it fully planned, of course, including the wording of his verbal report to Chairman Gerasimov. He checked his watch, nodded to the mirror, and spent the next several minutes composing himself for what was to come. Filitov arrived right on time.
He looked strong, Vatutin saw. Strong but haggard. That was the caffeine with which his last meal had been laced. The facade he projected was hard, but brittle and thin. Filitov showed irritation now. Before, he’d shown only resolve.
“Good morning, Filitov,” Vatutin said, hardly looking up.
“Colonel Filitov to you. Tell me, when will this charade be over?”
He probably believes that, too, Vatutin told himself. The subject had so often repeated the story of how Vatutin had placed the film cassette in his hand that he might have halfway believed it now. That was not unusual. He took his chair without asking permission, and Vatutin waved the turnkey out of the room.
“When did you decide to betray the Motherland?” Vatutin asked.
“When did you decide to stop buggering little boys?” the old man replied angrily.
“Filitov—excuse me, Colonel Filitov—you know that you were arrested with a microfilm cassette in your hand, only two meters from an American intelligence officer. On that microfilm cassette was information about a highly secret State defense-research installation, which information you have been giving for years to the Americans. There is no question of this, in case you have forgotten,” Vatutin explained patiently. “What 1 am asking is, how long you have been doing this?”
“Go bugger yourself,” Misha suggested. Vatutin noticed a slight tremor in his hands. “I am three times Hero of the Soviet Union. I was killing the enemies of this country while you were an ache in your father’s crotch, and you have the balls to call me traitor?”
“You know, when I was in grammar school, I read books about you. Misha, driving the fascisti back from the gates of Moscow. Misha, the demon tankist. Misha, the Hero of Stalingrad. Misha, killer of Germans. Misha, leading the counterattack at the Kursk Bulge. Misha,” Vatutin said finally, “traitor to the Motherland.”
Misha waved his hand, looking in annoyance at the way it shook. “I have never had much respect for the chekisti. When 1 was leading my men, they were there—behind us. They were very efficient at shooting prisoners—prisoners that real soldiers had taken. They were also rather good at murdering people who’d been forced to retreat. I even remember one case where a chekist lieutenant took command of a tank troop and led it into a fucking swamp. At least the Germans I killed were men, fighting men. I hated them, but I could respect them for the soldiers they were. Your kind, on the other hand . . . perhaps we simple soldiers never really understood who the enemy was. Sometimes I wonder who has killed more Russians, the Germans—or people like you?”
Vatutin was unmoved. “The traitor Penkovskiy recruited you, didn’t he?”
“Rubbish! I reported Penkovskiy myself.” Filitov shrugged. He was surprised at the way he felt, but was unable to control it. “I suppose your kind does have its use. Oleg Penkovskiy was a sad, confused man who paid the price that such men have to pay.”
“As will you,” Vatutin said.
“I cannot prevent you from killing me, but I have seen death too many times. Death has taken my wife and my sons. Death has taken so many of my comrades—and death has tried to take me often enough. Sooner or later death will win, whether from you or someone else. I have forgotten how to fear that.”
“Tell me, what do you fear?”
“Not you.” This was delivered not with a smile, but with a cold, challenging glare.
“But all men fear something,” Vatutin observed. “Did you fear combat?” Ah, Misha, you’re talking too much now. Do you even know that?
“Yes, at first. The first time a shell hit my T-34,1 wet my pants. But only that first time. After that I knew that the armor would stop most hits. A man can get accustomed to physical danger, and as an officer you are often too busy to realize that you’re supposed to be afraid. You fear for the men under your command. You fear failure in a combat assignment, because others depend on you. You always fear pain—not death, but pain.” Filitov surprised himself by talking this much, but he’d had enough of this KGB slug. It was almost like the frenetic excitement of combat, sitting here and dueling with this man.
“I have read that all men fear combat, but that what sustains them is their self-image. They know that they cannot let their comrades perceive them to be less than what they are supposed to be. Men, therefore, fear cowardice more than danger. They fear betraying their manhood, and their fellow soldiers.” Misha nodded slightly. Vatutin pressed one of the buttons under the table. “Filitov, you have betrayed your men. Can’t you see that? Don’t you understand that in giving defense secrets to the enemy, you have betrayed all the men who served with you?”