Comrade Stalin swung his legs off the table and stood up. Immediately he knew this was not how he remembered his body to be. He turned to Dr. Andropov.
“Who are you?”
“I am Dr. Sergei Ivanovich Andropov, scientist in your service master.”
“Scientist? I have never trusted the intelligencia. Knowledge is a dangerous thing. It ferments dissent.”
He grabbed Andropov by the throat and held him in the air, enjoying his newfound strength.
“What happened to me? I was at the dacha. I had fallen asleep,” said Stalin, voice trailing off.
“Comrade Stalin!” gasped Andropov, face turning purple.
Stalin then noticed the skin on his hand with its golden cast. He let go of Andropov who fell back on a lab table holding his neck and trying to gather air.
“My skin,” said Stalin in amazement. At the same time, he had a feeling of fear also. It was almost as if that fear was not his own.
“An unforeseen side effect of the re-animation process,” said Andropov.
“The re-animation process?” Stalin glowered at Andropov, “What do you mean?”
“There’s no time. We must get you back to Moscow. A plane is waiting.”
“A plane? Where am I now?”
“It takes too long to explain. Your people need you.”
Stalin narrowed his eyes and said, “Betray me Andropov and I will kill you. How do we get out of here?”
Mariana heard Commissar Stroganov through the paneled door of the formal reception room across the hall. Whomever he was talking to, they were being told they were going to die. The scream she heard must be this Savchenko they were referring to. It sent a shiver through her. She was not sure what to do. The feelings of evil were at once terrifying her and drawing her to its source. She put her back to the door, adjusted the her bag strap over her shoulders and glanced in both directions down the carpeted hallway, warmly lit by sconces. She could see a door down the hallway to the right that was set under stairs that went above. She spied the other direction, the front desk where the consulate official had questioned her. She could see the dim black and white monitor with glowing a view of the front gate. She wondered if it could be any easier than that. A panel on the desk had the correct button to open the gate. She could get out and have Sol call the police. She started to move towards the desk when the door at the other end of the hallway burst open. A cold wind shot down the hallway and she gasped.
Two men struggled to the top of the stairs and through the doorway, one smaller, helping the larger, whose head was turned down.
Dr. Andropov saw her and barked, “Get over here and help me.”
A scream did not come out of Mariana as hard as she wanted to. Almost robotically, she stumbled over to help the men. She could not seem to restrain herself. As she came to the side of the larger, weaker man, his head lolled up. She gasped again. The evil was in this man and she recognized him. That face that she had first seen in a statue on a winter’s day, in a park when she was very little. She had sworn to her mother it had talked to her. It asked her to help it. Her superstitious mother made the sign of the cross and whisked her away from it. It talked to her again.
“Help me,” she heard in her mind and then another voice said, “Help me.”
The loud disturbance in the hallway was the distraction Silas had hoped for. Stroganov and his men glanced in the direction of the door. Silas leaped towards Stroganov and Nell made the move on one guard. Halley leapt towards the other. Nell was a trained fighter from her time in intelligence operations and had managed to knock the gun out of her combatant’s hand. Silas struggled with Stroganov for his gun. Halley did not win. The other guard whipped her body around as a shield in front of him.
“Ok, that’s enough! Or I kill the woman!”
Like a freeze frame of video, the struggles stopped. Then they unfroze and backed away from each other. Stroganov recovered control of his gun.
“Cover him,” said Stroganov to his other associate and gesturing to Silas with his gun. He then opened the doors to the hallway. Looking at the man of gold, who once again lolled his head up at the sound of the door opening, the Commissar exclaimed, “The Master!”
“We must get him to the Mermaid,” said Andropov.
Stroganov gained his wits about him and went to the phone at the front desk. He spun the rotary dial around in the moment he had fantasized about so many times.
“Pearl to mermaid,” he said, “return from Luna. I repeat, return from Luna.”
Down on the Ohio River between the Roebling Suspension Bridge and New Crozley Field sat the "Mermaid," a Beriev X-42, seaplane. Dim amber light from the streets and exterior stadium lights lit the bluish gray Mermaid to a greenish hue. From out of the cockpit side windows flew small a Soviet Naval flag and a Soviet diplomatic flag. After the phone call from the Commissar, four men who had been sleeping inside were now busy, doing pre-flight checks. The pilot furiously set the navigation computer, destination Moscow.
Comments