Rostov lowers his voice to the guard. “The Hound is where I requested?” The guard gives a tight, anxious nod. “Well done.”
Rostov marches away with Misha, leaving me with Masha, Sergei, and the soldier. “Sit,” the soldier says, gesturing to the corrugated metal floor. He pulls out a pack of cigarettes and pats them against his palm while Sergei and Masha sink into their visions.
“We’re … we’re inside the KGB headquarters,” Masha says, eyebrows wrinkled in confusion. “They’re headed into the directorate chiefs’ offices.” Her closed eyelids twitch. “Taking the elevator to the top floor.”
“Why are we conducting a mission in our own headquarters?” I ask. “Shouldn’t we be hunting the Veter 1 traitors?” But my questions hang thick, unanswered.
Somewhere above us, a KGB general is banishing a dissident to a gulag labor camp deep in Siberia. Perhaps another is conducting a raid on an apartment block, one like Aunt Nadia’s, to round up more people whose neighbors have reported on them for sneaking extra rations or trading at the market. Another chief plans the death of American spies in East Berlin who do not yet know they’ve been compromised. And one more toasts to Secretary Khruschev’s health as they look down from the Kremlin onto Red Square and smile at the snow whipping against the workers’ sooty faces.
I hate these men. But I cannot shake the creeping suspicion that Rostov means them harm—why else would he be conducting an operation against his own people, the KaGeBezniks?—and I would not wish his toxic, jagged thoughts upon anyone.
“Misha’s keeping watch outside one of the offices,” Masha says. “It looks like he’s reading thoughts to see if anyone notices them, while the colonel turns away the thoughts of anyone who does.”
Sergei joins hands with Masha, and reaches out for mine. “Come on, Yul. You heard the orders.” He looks tired; bored, even. Like this is one of countless such operations he’s done. But this mission feels different to me. We’re missing our usual entourage of guards, Kruzenko chirping at us about our progress, heavy documentation, and reporting.
“Why isn’t Kruzenko here?” I ask. “We weren’t given a specific objective.” The soldier’s cigarette smoke gusts away from me as I exhale.
Masha groans. “Rostov does this sometimes. The Soviet Union does not always function perfectly, but it’s the duty of men like him to correct its course.”
Something rattles in my thoughts at that; a broken thought jarred loose. Perhaps Natalya Gruzova thought it her duty to correct the Soviet Union’s course by evening the playing field between America and the USSR in the space race. Perhaps Stalin thought killing several million dissidents was correcting the course. And Khruschev, with his erratic but softer touch, is correcting us once more. What does it make Rostov, to defy Khruschev’s will? A patriot? A dissident himself?
“Yul.” Sergei reaches for my hand. “We have to do this.”
“Something is wrong,” I say. I’m not Larissa, but I know the taste of foreboding, like bile on my tongue.
“Did you hear something, Seryozha? All I hear is a ration rat going squeak, squeak, squeak,” Masha says.
I grit my teeth. “Better than screaming my ass off. Do you still check your sheets every night?”
Sergei snatches my hand and yanks me toward him. “Shut up, both of you.” His lax shoulders still look bored, but a shadow of fear crosses his face. I reluctantly lace my fingers in Sergei’s clammy grasp.
I plunge through the surface of Sergei’s and Masha’s viewing. The image is so much sharper than when I just viewed through Masha’s when we practiced; everything is overfocused. The slate gray walls look like impending storm clouds. I could slice myself on Misha’s scowl as he guards the First Directorate Chief’s door. I am standing in the doorway, an apparition, a wraith. I cannot see my hands but I can feel with them through Masha’s and Sergei’s sight.
You are just in time, Yulia Andreevna. Rostov’s voice slithers through the weeds of my thoughts as he appears in the doorway, standing over the chief’s desk. Come. Sit in this chair.
What am I looking for? I ask. The words teeter on the edge between Shostakovich’s symphony, and the untouched, unfenced parts of my mind where Rostov waits, watching, from the shadows.
Rostov taps his fingertips against a thick folder. Who typed this? he asks. I shuffle forward and run my fingers over the folder’s cover.
Someone’s coming, Misha says.
Then you must hurry, Yulia. Show me who wrote the document.