скачать книгу бесплатно
He got up and held out his hand to Ivan, which turned out to be wide, like a shovel. Ivan also stood opposite, habitually shook it, and it felt as if his fingers were in a steel grip. Kotov was trying to determine how long the student could resist his vice-like grip, which was probably developed over many years of training.
Ivan strained his hand as best he could, sweat beaded on his forehead from the pain. This did not escape the attention of Sergey Vladimirovich, but he only smirked and did not loosen his grip. Ivan noticed he did not resort to underhanded tricks, like some of his strong wrestling partners. For example, he did not press his thumb on a certain dimple of his opponent’s hand, nor did he try to crush his fingers. Kotov played fair, and Ivan muttered honestly after half a minute:
“That's it, I'm done. I give up!”
Kotov released his grip, patted his shoulder with his palm:
“Well done. Few would have stood against me. Strong, young man.”
Kotov took his seat again.
“Thank you.” Ivan stood opposite and rubbed his throbbing hand for some time.
“Not at all. Let's get down to business. You study in the Spanish department, don't you?”
Ivan nodded, trying to predict the next question. What Kotov followed up with was unexpected.
“¿Te gustaría practicar el idioma en el país del idioma que estás estudiando?”
“Por supuesto, ¡y quién no querría esto!“
Ivan answered reflexively and suddenly froze. Kotov watched him mockingly. Then he nodded curtly at the wide sofa, where the dean usually offered a place to distinguished guests. Ivan sat down on edge and asked cautiously:
“So, you speak Spanish?”
“Have you noticed?” asked Sergey Vladimirovich, mischievous notes in his voice.
“On the contrary, you have excellent pronunciation,” Ivan said, encouraged by a delay in his punishment for absenteeism. “The real Español Castellano!”
“I know,” the guest replied with unexpected sadness. “This is bad.”
“Why?” snapped Sarmatov.
“Because, my dear Ivan Petrovich, should you meet all the requirements our service makes of candidates and we end up working together, we’ll need to go exactly where my ‘Castellano’ is poorly understood. Well, I can see in your eyes you’re astonished. I’ll repeat the approach, as our pilots say. Let me introduce myself: Sergey Vladimirovich Kotov, Major of State Security. Glad to meet you. And I came here precisely for your undoubtedly immortal soul, Ivan-sunshine-Petrovich. To make you one most interesting proposal, from my point of view. I want to invite you to serve with us.”
Ivan was incredulous. He looked at Kotov as if expecting a trick:
“I don't understand. For the authorities, or what?”
The major nodded.
“Exactly. At the MGB. Ministry of State Security. Just let's make a reservation right away,” he raised his hand, stopping Ivan, who was ready to jump up from his overwhelming feelings. “If you agree to cooperate with us, then immediately after passing your state exams, you’ll go to our school to take a special course. If, after what you have heard here and now, you refuse – wait, don’t interrupt your elders! – then, you’ll immediately forget about our conversation forever and ever. As they say, we talked and went our separate ways without consequences. I will ask you to sign the corresponding papers later. So?”
“I agree.” Ivan nodded quickly and caught Kotov's mocking glance. “What now? Did I say the wrong thing again? Was it necessary to sign an oath in blood or something?”
Kotov suddenly became serious.
“Don’t talk nonsense. I don’t care about your blood. Somehow, we’ll manage without it. But you have to sign something.”
He took out from somewhere from under the chair a voluminous briefcase, clanked the copper clasps, and pulled out a thin folder from its voluminous interior. It contained only one sheet of paper with neatly printed text. He took it, stared at it for a while as if it was a window. He then put it on the coffee table, which was next to the sofa, and pushed it over to Ivan.
“Read and sign. Do you have a pen, student?”
Ivan took out of his inner jacket pocket a fancy 'Parker' – a gift from his father and an object of his classmates’ envy. Without reading it, he signed the document with a flourish. Kotov grunted and took the paper. He looked with regret at the fresh signature, and with a sharp movement, tore it up.
Ivan jumped up:
“What are you doing! I signed that document!”
“But you haven't read it.” Metal rumbled in the Major's voice, which made Ivan's nose seem to freeze like the Arctic suddenly rose.
“You broke two commandments of the Chekist at once,” Sergey Vladimirovich continued, “you didn't follow my orders and didn't read what you were signing. You can consult your friends at the Moscow University Law School about the perniciousness of the latter fact, even in everyday life. They’ll explain everything to you.”
“But I…”
“I understand. You trusted me. Flattering, but it doesn’t absolve you of responsibility for your actions. Seems I have to do everything with you more than once.”
From somewhere, the major took out a second sheet of the same kind – the twin brother of the first – and handed it to Ivan.
“Read and sign.”
Sarmatov nodded and read the paper, which turned out to be a statement that he undertakes to keep state secrets, not to communicate with foreign citizens or inform the relevant services about inevitable contacts, and so on, and so on. After reading to the end, he looked up at the grinning Kotov.
“All clear?” he asked sarcastically. Ivan nodded.
“It seems like it, yes. Can I sign?”
“Go ahead,” the major said as he nodded. “The most important thing is that you have no questions now. Questions that arise, we’ll answer elsewhere.”
From the face of Sarmatov, who signed the paper, it was clear that he had a lot of questions, but they were all irrelevant. After handing the sheet to the major, Ivan asked anyway.
“And where am I going to work? You hinted at a Hispanic country.”
Kotov put the sheet into a folder, the folder into the briefcase. He snapped the locks shut and, putting the leather monster aside, said:
“The hot Spaniards will be both mulattos and creole. In the meantime, we will assign you to Bureau № 1, kid. This is your main workplace, after you pass the exams, of course. And any outstanding tests, by the way. I can’t cancel your ninety-four hours of truancy, so I’ll have to correct the situation myself. In terms of study, of course, if we find you skipping out, so be it, we’ll write you off.”
Ivan nodded once.
“Thank you. But at the bureau, I’ll shift papers or do translations there, right? Bureaucracy, in a word.”
“Whatever the authorities say, you will do.” Kotov raised his finger instructively. “And to the point. From now on, you don’t belong to yourself. By the way, how will the venerable Pyotr Alekseevich, your old man, react to your choice? Will he approve?”
Ivan shuddered: in this mess, he forgot about the attitude of the venerable academician to the gloomy service, which was supervised by Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria himself. Sarmatov senior was extremely disloyal to the authorities. Well, he’ll have to face it, and he will have nowhere to go. Ivan is already an adult, and he has almost graduated from the institute, so it will all be figured out somehow.
Ivan expressed himself in a similar vein. Kotov just shrugged his shoulders, as if saying, do as you know. Picking up his briefcase from the floor, he remarked to Sarmatov:
“Sarmatov is from the word…”
“The Sarmatians were a Scythian tribe in antiquity,” Ivan hastened to explain.
He was already rather tired of explaining the origin of his surname to everyone, as many strove to find some Tatar or Uzbek trace in him, even though Ivan had no external resemblance to these peoples. Even though he had somewhat darker skin and dark hair, he looked more like an Italian or a Greek. The blood of his ancestors, of course, had an effect. Some of them lived in the foothills of the Caucasus, like his maternal great-grandfather, the wise Vakha, about whom legends circulated in the Sarmatian family.
“Scythians, you say,” the major muttered to himself, then smiled. “And what a glorious tribe. How did Blok put it? 'Millions of you, we are darkness, and darkness, and darkness! Try it, fight with us!’ It’s decided: you will be Skiff from now on, forever and ever. Amen, as they say, kid. See you in another life.”
“What is it like?” Ivan did not understand. The major shrugged his shoulders.
“You will see in due time. Greetings to Yakov Naumovich.”
The young man watched in amazement as the high door inched shut behind this mysterious man. Then the dean entered it, and Ivan lost all his sentimentality.
As predicted, a storm broke out at home. Sarmatov the elder, perching like a granite block behind his desk and raising an academic beard to the portraits of leaders hung on the walls of his study, shook the air with tirades that would have done honor even to the great orators of antiquity, like Lysias and Demosthenes.
He recalled his ancestors, who laid their heads on the altar of science, refusing, however, the modest offer of his wife, dearest Olga Arsenovna, to list them. And to her remark that the great-grandfather of the great academician and the beacon of anthropological thought was, in fact, a Yaitsk Cossack, he only blushed more and walked the Bolshoi Petrovsky Bend throughout his dynasty from the twelfth generation, who did not realize at one time the greatness of the victory of the Great October Revolution and that's why it was nearly the end of his, Pyotr Alekseevich's, career, almost ruined by their non-proletarian origin.
Ivan sat on a sofa upholstered in striped fabric and took in his father's dressing down in silence. Things were going the way he thought they would, so he was not too upset. Dad was predictable, like the seasons changing, but he did not need to make any more waves. That could have caused unwanted complications. And so far…
In the meantime, dear Olga Arsenovna moved to intercede for her son. At forty-five, she kept almost all the charm of youth thanks to her complaisant character and natural intelligence. She had a grace worthy of a royal maid of honor. She pulled out from the corner cabinet the cherished tray with the silver chalice, a green glass decanter, and lemon slices. After pouring some 'Shustov', as she called the Armenian brandy, she put all this beauty in front of the bright-eyed Pyotr Alekseevich. The academician's beard changed vector toward the chalice. He stared furiously at his wife for a second. Then, suddenly limp, plopped down on his carved back chair and burst out laughing.
“Well, Olenka, respect! As usual! You will always find a 'valid argument' in a dispute…”
The wife humbly lowered her eyes and, sitting down on the sofa next to her son, whispered:
“How do you think the wife of an academician should react to such escapades? Just look for another ‘valid argument'.”
The professor shook his head, then swept the chalice away with his hand, which was worthy of a port bumpkin, and, with a grunt, knocked it away in one gulp.
“This is cognac, Petya. Armenian, as you like it,” Olga Arsenovna said reproachfully. The academician looked in bewilderment at the bottom of the empty chalice:
“Yes? That's bad luck, and I haven't tasted it in my heart. Well, let’s fix that.”
He filled the second cup himself, and it soon followed the first. Pyotr Alekseevich froze, savoring the bouquet of the fine drink, and then, softening, he cast a now interested glance at his son.
“Now tell us, poor son, why… Why did you have to play this game with the state? For example, do you yearn to be a translator at an embassy? That’s worse than being a desk jockey! Or am I missing something?”
Finally, after waiting for the opportunity to get a word in, Ivan explained:
“Father, you have always taught me dignity and patriotism concerning our motherland. As I understand it, they are giving me the opportunity here and now to show my patriotism in full measure.”
The father took a hard look at his son.
“I guess you don’t understand the structure that took you for a zugunder suddenly. Although, how could you? You didn’t live in the thirties. A car in the courtyard at midnight, the rumble of boots on the stairs, the dampness of the Lubyanka cells. You do not know what it’s like to live in constant fear, awaiting arrest, camera, a summary execution!”
Ivan had his father's blood in his veins: he also could not stand it when someone opposed him.
“And Uncle Misha, your own brother, did he also shoot and torture innocents?”
“What’s Mishka got to do with it?” This took professor aback. “He… He was doing a whole other thing.”
“Yeah, he caught spies on the front line and liquidated the bandit underground in Western Ukraine after the war. I remember very well. That’s where he laid down his head, by the way. And you spent the entire war at the university, sitting in the subway, hiding from the bombing. Do you think I forgot those years?”
“I had a reservation!” the professor jumped up, insulted. “Someone had to prepare for the future, too!”
“Aha.” Now Ivan suffered somewhat, as even his anxious mother put her hand on his. “Anthropologists, of course, are the backbone of modern troops! And a low bow to you for that!”
“What do you know, brat!” The venerable scientist’s voice flew into a soaring falsetto, glaring into the eyes of his son. He then turned and went limp. In Ivan’s eyes was something beyond all reason.
Ivan took his mother's hand from his and, grabbing his jacket from the back of a chair, rushed out of the room, slamming the door.
The professor exhaled and sat down. His wife went up to him, put her hands on his shoulders from behind, and kissed the incipient bald spot on the powerful back of his head.
“Oh, Petyunya, Petyunya. But our boy has grown, and you didn't notice during your lectures and seminars.”
“Yes,” was the only answer Pyotr Alekseevich could find. “And now, what I can do?”
“What can you do?” the wife laughed. “Live, dear, live on. Let's go to the kitchen. I'll make your favorite pancakes.”
June 14, 1950
17:55
Two kilometers northeast of the village of Nakhabino
The first building of the Higher Intelligence School of the USSR Ministry of State Security was a compact two-story affair. In intradepartmental correspondence, it was simply referred to as ‘the 101
School’, and was nestled under the canopy of an enormous stand of pine trees. Even with aerial photography using the most modern equipment, it would be problematic to determine what was hidden under the continuous green carpet of the Khlebnikovsky Park forest.
An entire complex of buildings, several obstacle courses, its shooting range. All this was reliably hidden from prying eyes by a forest that stretched towards Balashikha for many kilometers. Several specially prepared security ‘secrets’ protected this top-secret installation from the overly curious.
Even though it was evening time and the classes had already ended, the meeting in the office of the head of the school, Major General Svetlov, continued. Extracurricular and operational. Besides Yuri Borisovich himself, there were also Lieutenant General Sudoplatov, Svetlov's old colleague and long-time friend, as well as Major Kotov himself.
A mountain of cigarette butts already decorated the crystal ashtray. The angled, small handwriting of the 'father of the scouts', as his cadets called the Major General among themselves, covered the table. Pieces of paper, some diagrams only comprehensible to those present, and several folders of personal files of actual cadets of the school.
Svetlov threw his tunic, decorated with many awards, over the back of a chair. The others also unbuttoned their tunics. Sweat had already appeared on Sudoplatov's forehead from the tense discussion, and judging by the flushed face of the Cat, he was having a hard time holding back his emotions. After rereading what he had written, Yuri Borisovich nodded in satisfaction:
“Well, colleagues, I think we’ve come to a compromise, haven't we?”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Sudoplatov shook his head. Kotov glanced at him but said nothing. Svetlov raised his eyebrows in surprise:
“What’s wrong with you now, my good Pavel Anatolyevich?”
Sudoplatov got up from the table, strode across the office and stopped at a large window overlooking the parade ground, along which a platoon of cadets from the last set was marching at random. They were recently students from purely civilian universities, who still did not understand the science of army marching, even when guided by the elderly sergeant who was decorated with the Order of the Red Banner.
Without looking away from this picture of local everyday life, he said:
“Yura, let's not fool each other. Comrade Beria has set before us an almost impossible task to find a group of people in a foreign and hostile country in the shortest possible time. Thanks to the 'efforts' of Comrade Abakumov, we have lost almost all of our residency there, and it stranded who remained without communication and the opportunity to work effectively. We have to create a new structure from scratch, which will deal with very sensitive matters far beyond the borders of our motherland. And that’s just the start. But…”
He turned and raised his index finger to the ceiling.
