The Volga swept past the security gate and around to a rear entrance-another good sign.
Batenin was marched in. His feet were glad. The oppressive weight of Democracy seemed to be lifted from his square shoulders with every stumbling step.
He was taken into an office with only the modest legend SHCHIT on the pebbled-glass door.
"There is that word again, 'Shield'," Batenin muttered.
A hard truncheon jabbed him close enough to the kidney area to get his attention, but not near enough to cause blood in the urine.
His grimace did not look like a smile, but he recognized the blow with pleasure. A good old-fashioned KGB blow. Not like the sissies in the new Federal Security Agency, a toothless organization designed to sound like the American FBI in a stupid compromise between national pride and good PR. It disgusted Batenin, the way the new leadership aped everything American.
The door came open. Batenin was urged in.
Seated at a substantial desk was a dour, thick-set man in a jet-black uniform he had never before seen. The man looked like a Khazakh. It surprised Batenin. Since the breakup, most ethnics had returned to their homelands-there to await the coming civil war, in Yuli Batenin's pessimistic opinion.
"Sit," he was told.
Yuli Batenin sat.
"Batenin," said the officer-a colonel, according to his silver shoulderboards. The man looked like a Nazi, there was so much silver in his black uniform.
"Yes, Tovarich Colonel?"
"I am not your comrade," the colonel spat.
And former Major Yuli Batenin's face fell. Since the failed coup, the term "comrade" had fallen into disfavor. But to Batenin, it spoke of the days of pride in the motherland, now shattered and fighting amongst itself.
"You will address me as 'Colonel,' " the black colonel said. His desk was T-shaped, and bare but for a phalanx of offyellow official telephones.
"Yes, Colonel."
The colonel in black shoved a manila folder across the green felt blotter.
Batenin recognized the KGB seal and the stark words, in Cyrillic letters, that were stenciled on the front.
UTMOST SECRET TO BE STORED FOREVER
"It is the file of which I attempted to warn the Kremlin," Batenin said.
"You mean the White House," said the colonel.
"Yes. Excuse me. The White House. I had forgotten."
It was another public relations humiliation. In order to appeal to rich Americans, the Russian Parliament had renamed the parliament building "the White House." With all the bronze Lenins being torn down, Batenin half expected statues of Washington and Jefferson to one day sprout in their place.
The colonel in black went on speaking.
"This file contains report on Operation Nimble Spirit. What do you know of this?"
"I was case officer," admitted Yuli Batenin.
"It was your assignment to see that the agent in the field . . ." The colonel consulted the file. ". . . Brashnikov, fulfilled his duties to the motherland." The use of the honored phrase made Yuli Batenin blink. These men sounded genuine. But who were they? And what was meant by "Shield"?
"I performed my duty to the best of my ability," Batenin said stiffly.
"Which is why you were exiled to Gorky," the colonel said contemptuously.
"You mean, Nizhni Novgorod," Batenin corrected.
"If Shield fulfills its mission, it will be Gorky once more. And St. Petersburg will again be Leningrad, and the people will eat once again," the colonel said flatly.
Yuli Batenin's eyes became startled coins. "You are KGB?"
"No, Major Batenin."
Major! They were calling him "major"! Why?
"We are Cheka," the colonel said flatly.
"Cheka?"
"Then, VCheka. After that, OGPU, NKVD, NKGB, MGB, MVD and more recently, KGB. Now we are simply Shield. The name is no more than the fashion of the day. Our purpose remains the same: Protection of the Motherland, Holy Russia."
"You are good communist?"
The colonel only glared with his narrow black Khazakh eyes.
"I am Colonel Radomir Rushenko, and I offer you an opportunity to be reinstated at your former rank with your former pay, in our organization."
Major Batenin almost leaped to his feet with joy. In fact his knees started to straighten, and the patched seat of his pants actually left the hard oak chair for a moment.
Then he remembered an important detail.
"A hummingbird could not live on my former salary, today."
"We pay in dollars, not rubles," said Colonel Rushenko.
"If you paid in nickels it would be better than rubles," Batenin admitted sadly. "But why me?"
"We have watched the same newscast as you did, Batenin," Colonel Ruskeno said firmly. He extracted a number of color photographs from the folder and slid them to Batenin's side of the desk.
Batenin took them up. They showed a manlike creature, all in white, with a smooth, bulbous head. A white cable looped up from sockets mounted on each shoulder, to disappear behind the creature's back.
The last photograph showed a black-haired Georgian, with shifty bright eyes and the sharp face of a ferret.
"This is Captain Rair Nicolaivitch Brashnikov, a special operative for KGB," the colonel said flatly.