The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

Chapter 42

Fifteen years earlier, and a few centuries later, and Pietrok-112 reminded me of that farm in Israel. Silence in the night, long, low sheds of bunks for its workers, a fence to cut it off from the rest of the world–a hostile, frightening world of darkness and things that rattled in the night. Where the Golan Heights had stood above us as a monument to the god of another tribe, in Pietrok-112 the mountains were of unmarked concrete, temples to a new, rational deity of atoms and numbers.

I walked at the self-important speed of all managers visiting an insubordinate. There were more guards on duty by the first gate into that concrete canyon, which extended as far down into the earth as it did up. They looked at me with suspicion, but the deference of my escort gave me a certain credibility, and they asked no more.

Corridors of concrete beneath white strip lights; signs gave no more indication of which way to go than B1 or G2. Notices on the wall advised that radiation badges must be worn at all times, but it was no nuclear testing site. A poster showing the triad of scientist, soldier and happy industrial worker leading the way across golden fields, the sun glowing at their backs, reminded all passers-by of the bigger picture. Civilians were plentiful, mixed in among the guards. Lab coats were out, heavy quilted jackets were in, but the place was no industrial warehouse. Heavy shutters isolated the more sensitive areas, or access to them, with giant warnings proclaiming, NO UNAUTHORISED ACCESS.

The commander’s office was a small raised room overlooking a delivery platform that led to the outside world. A black and white picture on the desk showed a man holding a very large machine gun, strings of bullets slung across his shoulders like a gangster’s fashion prize. The radio was playing greatest communist hits of the 1940s, songs with refrains such as “We march through our brother’s blood, raise our children to the sun” or “In the motherland we work for our loved ones and our comrades” and other poetic statements of intent. The commander himself was a man who’d been compressed to thinness–a protruding nose and squashed face sat on a matchstick frame that could only have been achieved through some horrific medical accident. His brown eyes flashed up from a bank of telephones as we entered, and at the sight of me he barked, “What is this?”

Having begun boldly, I decided to continue so, and reaching into my pocket for my papers, making a show of having a hard time finding them, I barked, “Mikhail Kamin, comrade, state security. My office rang.”

“Never heard of you.”

“Then you should get a better secretary,” I barked, “because I’ve been travelling for eight fucking hours to get here and I’m damned if I’m going to waste another second on some bloody memo. Have you received the latest description?”

The commander’s eyes flashed from me to the private. This was a man paid to think, a man who really should not have permitted anyone to talk to him with less than suitable rifle-point deference. I could see his mind heading in a direction I didn’t want it to go, so slammed my fist hard on to the tabletop to drag it back and snapped, “For Christ’s sake, man, do you think the mole is going to sit around waiting for you to sort the paperwork out? We need to move now before he receives the warning.”

Tyranny can do marvellous things for a person’s independent will. The commander’s eyes flashed to sudden, focused attention. “A mole? I’ve heard nothing of this. Who are you again?”

I rolled my eyes with a little too much drama, turned to the private and barked, “You–out!”

He obeyed with the shuffle of a man not quite sure where his loyalty lies, mind going one way, legs taking him the other. I waited for the door to close, leaned forward on the table, looked the commander deep in the eye and said, “Get on the phone, and get me Karpenko.”

Hesitation resolved itself into action.

“I don’t know you,” he repeated firmly. “You come in here, making these accusations…”

I pulled the gun from my pocket. The Mikhail Kamin papers came too, unprofessionally tangled up in the depths of my coat, but as they tumbled on to the table they only mildly undermined the emphasis of the moment. “Vitali Karpenko,” I repeated softly. “Get on the phone and bring him here.”

Heroism fought with pragmatism.

To my relief, pragmatism won. I really had no idea what I was going to do if it hadn’t.