But that was ages ago. Another lifetime. A different Petrovina Bulganin.
She stopped the Thunderbird at the gate. Her pass card got her through. She waved to the woman at the security window as she drove into the first-floor garage.
There were a few other cars inside. Not very many for a building this size.
The size of the building did strike Petrovina as odd. There never seemed to be very many people there. On that first day more than a year and a half earlier, she had not asked why so large a building was needed for so small a staff. She was too busy absorbing new information.
On that day she had been ushered into a basement office. A honey-blond-haired woman of about forty sat waiting patiently behind a small desk. The woman's name, Petrovina learned, was Anna Chutesov. She was director of an agency so secret that few outside a tight circle knew of its existence.
"We are called the Institute," Director Chutesov had explained. "I act as an adviser to our president. But I am understaffed." She seemed puzzled at the admission. As if she had worked there for many years, never having noticed that she was, alone in the drafty concrete building. "There have been a few instances during my tenure here where simple advising has not been sufficient. But I have no field agents. That has changed. I have recently gotten permission and funding to increase Institute staff."
"So I am to be transferred from the SVR?" Petrovina asked, confused. She was a nervous little thing back then. So timid, so fearful. The big building was cold. She hugged herself for warmth.
"You have already been transferred," Director Chutesov had said blandly. "You work for the Institute now. For me. Give me your personnel file."
Petrovina still held the manila folder she had been given back at Pavel Zatsyrko's office. Her clenching hand had made a wet imprint on the light cardboard. She gave the file to Director Anna Chutesov.
The Institute head opened the file and began feeding it piece by piece through the shredder beside her desk. The confetti curls of Petrovina Bulganin's life whirred out the far end.
"You are dead to the SVR," Director Chutesov said. "They have expunged your files. You never worked for them. Nor do you work for me. At least as far as the world knows." She offered a mirthless smile. "Welcome to the world of espionage, Agent Dvah."
In Russian, dvah was two; adeen was one. Bewildered, Petrovina asked if Director Chutesov was Agent Adeen.
"No," Director Chutesov had replied. "And never ask that question again."
Petrovina thought there was some sort of dreadful mistake. She was not a spy. Even when she began her training, she expressed doubts to all her instructors.
No one listened to her protests. Eventually, as the months wore on, she stopped protesting, due mainly to the fact that the training began to draw out elements of her personality that she had not even known existed.
Marksmanship and limited martial-arts training weren't a problem. Petrovina had taken several self-defense courses while at the SVR. A single girl in Moscow couldn't be too careful. She had a good eye with weapons and had always had an athletic bent. So said her SVR file.
But as her skills increased, so, too, did her coldness. A veneer of icy confidence slowly emerged from the shell of the timid little language expert. By the end, Petrovina was the ugly duckling that became the beautiful, deadly swan.
In under a year's time Agent Dvah was on assignment, becoming the Institute's first official field agent, answerable only to Director Chutesov herself. It was a life Petrovina Bulganin had been born to live and that, but for the intervention of the Institute's director, she would never have discovered.
Now, months since that first assignment and already in her mind a seasoned pro, Petrovina danced through the labyrinthine hallways of the Institute building.
The scattered workers she passed were all women. There was not a single male face among them.
She found her way downstairs to the special room in the private corridor. There was no secretary. She knocked on the door. Petrovina heard the sound of a bolt clicking back. She pushed the door open.
Director Chutesov sat behind her desk. There was a computer monitor sitting on the corner near the shredder. Her vacant ice-blue eyes watched the pulses of the screen without really seeing them. She said not a word as her finger retreated from the switch that had unlocked the door.
After an awkward moment, Agent Bulganin cleared her throat. "I came as quickly as I could." Director Chutesov didn't stir from her trance. She continued to stare at the monitor. One hand rose above desk level, waving Petrovina to a chair. Petrovina watched the director of the Institute, unsure if she should speak again.
"This building is an odd thing, Petrovina," Director Chutesov said after another long moment. "You thought so yourself many months ago. It is large, isn't it? Too large, it seems, for the needs of the Institute."
Director Chutesov looked up from her monitor. There was a glint of deep intelligence in her blue eyes.
"There are rumors that ghosts once lived here," she continued. "The people in the area swear this building was haunted. Do you believe in ghosts, Agent Bulganin?"
Petrovina admitted that she did not. "I believe in what I can see, Director," she said.
"As you are, I once was. And yet there are things that neither you nor I can see. For instance, why would an individual empty a building of furniture-give every last scrap of it away-and then forget they had done so?"
It was an odd question. Director Chutesov seemed very serious asking it. As if she desperately wanted an answer.
"Madness?" Petrovina suggested. "Drugs or alcohol?"
"I do not take drugs. I drink alcohol rarely, and then only lightly. And I am not mad."
Petrovina blinked. She hadn't realized they were discussing Director Chutesov herself.
"There are outdoor markets near here," Director Chutesov explained. "Perhaps you've been to them. No? Well, I have. A few months ago I went one afternoon looking for antiques." She dropped her voice knowingly. "Some of these sellers are idiots. They would not know good furniture if it fell on their heads. The parents or grandparents die, and the children immediately race off to sell hundred-year-old antiques for kopecks at market. As I was looking for bargains at a particular stall, I caught the eye of the seller. Before I knew what was happening, he began to argue with me. He told me that I had given everything to him fair and square and that I could not have it back."
Petrovina frowned. "Did you know this man?"
"No. He was a complete stranger to me."
"Then I do not understand."
"Nor did I. Nor do I still. But he was adamant that the items for sale at his stand were from me. He claimed that I had allowed him and others like him into this very building. They are the ones who emptied it of furnishings."
"He mistook you for someone else," Petrovina said. "That is, assuming you did not give away Institute furniture." She laughed a tinkling little laugh. Director Chutesov's face was deadly serious.
"I did not. Not that I can remember. But there were a few others at the market who made the same claim. I could not believe that they were all insane. When I pressed them, they were able to give a fairly detailed description of the interior of this supposedly secret building."
Petrovina was intrigued. "Thieves," she said. "They somehow got in here and stole whatever they were selling. What is it they had for sale, by the way?"
"Blankets, cots, storage bins. The Institute was apparently home to some secret garrison. And, no, Petrovina, they were not simple thieves. If there was a break-in, I would have known of it. Or should have. No, the likeliest, if most disturbing conclusion to be reached is that I did indeed open the doors of the Institute and allowed strangers inside to empty it out."
Petrovina was at a loss. "Forgive me, Director Chutesov, but what does it mean?"
Anna Chutesov tapped a slender finger to her own forehead. There were care lines in the perfect porcelain skin. They had appeared only recently.
"I think, Agent Bulganin, that there is a piece of something missing," Director Chutesov said. "Up here. One day I will find out what was taken and how. And when that day comes, woe to the man who took it from me."
Petrovina understood. Director Chutesov believed that some invisible someone had stolen parts of her memory. That it was a man was a given. Agent Bulganin had learned early on that her superior at the Institute was a staunch feminist. This was why no men worked in the big concrete building.
"That is why you called me here," Petrovina said confidently. "To look into this matter."
Director Chutesov shook her head. "There is not enough information at the moment. I will continue to investigate this myself. We will address it when the time comes. You are here for another reason. The usual reason, in my experience. To clean up a mess the men have left for us."
The Institute director reached inside her top drawer. She tossed a file across her desk.
Petrovina noted that there were old Red Army codes on the flap. Inside was data on a shipyard in Latvia, as well as detailed personnel information on several former Russian navy men. Agent Dvah scanned the old photograph of a Captain Gennady Zhilnikov. The picture was ten years out of date.