The first thing I could do was pick up the massive tire lying on the floor.
It was a discarded truck tire, and I hauled it up, pushed it over as hard as I could, then heaved it up again. One or two reps were enough to make me sweaty and get me breathing hard, but that was just proof that I was using my body. I gritted my teeth and grabbed the tire again as if it were a fun toy.
This was one of the most important things I could do if I was going to run around carrying a submachine gun and shooting people to death. When I couldn’t run anymore, then I would die. If I got tired from carrying my gun, I would die. That’s what the dead old man had taught me. Now that I thought about it, maybe that old junk dealer had been a veteran himself.
And as a matter of fact, he’d fallen down by the roadside and died when he’d gotten so drunk he couldn’t run anymore. I guess what I’m saying is, at least he practiced what he preached. It was worth heeding his advice myself.
I’m sure if some guy who’d been through the wringer at one of Moscow University’s PE classes saw me, he would have laughed. I was doing it all wrong, he would say. I wasn’t efficient. I was stupid. There were better ways. And on and on.
Like I cared.
He wasn’t the one who would be risking his life—I was. The only guy who could complain about Danila Kragin’s training regimen was Danila Kragin.
If our hypothetical poindexter could go toe to toe with a spetsnaz cyborg and beat the other guy to death, then it might be worth listening to him.
If you were working on a given muscle, what was the difference between doing three sets of ten and just doing it thirty times?
If you got so caught up in those little details that you didn’t focus on your training, then there was no point.
As I worked my body, pouring sweat, I glowered at the heating pipe.
Doma steny pomogayut <At home, even the walls help you>. But right now they weren’t doing me much good.
Airforce Major (VSS) Lieutenant Adam Adrova.
I thought about the phototelegraph in the materials I had wheedled out of Mariya.
That’s right: a telegraph. Not a telex. Wouldn’t do me any good if I didn’t know what he looked like.
What he looked like, it turned out, was handsome, almost like an actor. Even from the photo, I could see his pearly white smile and pale hair—and I could tell that under the military uniform, he was well built.
The ideal soldier, no question. A hero. Cosmonaut candidate. Not to mention a spy in covert communication with the capitalists.
—And he was a friend of Stasia’s.
I didn’t care what face he made when he was getting friendly with Stasia—but what about her? I thought about it for all of one second, then shoved the tire over with renewed vigor. It crashed to the ground, and I grabbed it and hauled it up again.
I heard there had been a similar situation one or two hundred years ago. The officer involved had boarded one of the latest aircraft, flown through the air defense net, and escaped to the Far East, or something like that.
He’d been from Air Defense, I guess, but anyway, apparently there was something about people doing stupid things right before the Olympics.
My job, as I understood it, was to reach Lieutenant Adam and wipe him out before he could escape with the motherland’s secrets.
“But this lieutenant isn’t really the enemy, is he?” The tire lay on the ground where I had slammed it down; I leaned against it to catch my breath, mopping my brow.
Organ was keen to stop Lieutenant Adam from being the idiot he planned to be. And Aquarium was circling around, hoping Organ would screw up so they could take advantage. Well, internecine conflict was nothing new. I might as well get on board.
Unfortunately, thanks to Adam’s extensive network of friendships, this mission was getting out of hand before it even started: MI6 and the CIA were both after his secrets, too.
GRU, of course, wanted to stop them and catch the KGB with its pants down.
And as its own representative, who was the KGB sending into the fray?
“Janitor extraordinaire Danila Kragin…”
Suma sashol <It was insane>. Absolutely nuts. If it had been someone else doing it, I would have pointed and laughed.
—All right, let’s review the situation.
First, the major premise: Organ would never bet everything on me and me alone. Of course not. They weren’t in a position to leave it all to one Janitor and just watch what happened.
That meant I had a sliver of hope that they were going at it with Aquarium behind the scenes.
At least, I would tell myself I did. Because otherwise, this was a trap Organ was laying down to get rid of me.
As for the CIA… Honestly, they didn’t scare me. I mean, it wasn’t like a Janitor could ignore them like some small fry—but that was if they said hello to your face and then came at you. I had bad manners that way. But if the question was whether the CIA had the balls, the answer, frankly, was no. They could have their scope trained on their target and still not be able to shoot thanks to civilian bureaucracy.
They sent sunglass-wearing tough guys after you, sure, but you could find hulks like those anywhere. It wasn’t like Organ and Aquarium and their black suits. Scaring the shit out of us was their job. Not so the CIA’s.
Besides, for all the mischief they did in people’s gardens, they were quaking in their boots at Uncle Sam in his “white house.”
All of which meant…
“Mne povezlo. If it’s only MI6, I might have a chance.” I laughed out loud. Damn… What a thing to say. I might have a chance if it was only MI6?
Who did I think I was, Captain Ilya Murometz?
My thoughts were interrupted by Valery’s easygoing yell. “Heeey, Big Bro! About ready to eat?”
“Sure,” I called back, wiping my face with a piece of cloth I used in lieu of a towel. “You were on cooking duty tonight? What’s for dinner?”
“Sturgeon soup. Nora wouldn’t leave me alone about serving something that was good for a cold.”
“She’s obsessed with her doctor. Figure it out already,” I said, and Valery grinned.
When you mention sturgeon, everyone thinks of its roe, but the meat is pretty tasty, too. Yes, they have anything you want in Moscow.
When Valery walked up beside me as I stood there with the “towel” hanging around my neck, I realized he was almost as tall as I was. He’d always been lanky, but I guess a boy does grow. Well, so do girls like Mariya and Nora.
“What’s Mariya doing?” I asked.
“Sis? She won’t come out of her room, so I sent Nora in to get her.”
“Ah.”
“Big Bro…,” Valery said. “This next job. Is it gonna be a rough one?”
“Just the usual,” I said with a smile. “So hurry up and get me some dinner. I’m starving.”
“You got it! Coming right up!”
Valery went back to the kitchen, and I sat at the table, relaxing in my chair and listening to the household.
A whining voice: “Mariya! Sis!”
An annoyed answer: “Nora!”
Nora must’ve stepped on a cable or something.
I didn’t blame Mariya for not quite wanting to see me—after our conversation, it would have to be awkward. I wondered what kind of look she would give me. Uncomfortable, or upset, or pouty. Or all of those at once.
She herself would no doubt believe she appeared calm and controlled, but I would know immediately. We would know. Valery and Nora and Mariya and Stasia: We knew our family.
A few minutes later, Nora appeared, dragging Mariya by the hand.
We all sat down around the meal Valery had made us and ate, all talking together.
Mariya was prickly, Valery would say something nice and easy, and Nora would stir the pot.
Once the meal was over, I would get down to work. Get my stuff ready and start cleaning.
Then I would go see Stasia.
Nothing would change. I had only one thing to do.
—Better brace yourself, MI6.