Chapter 5 - Going International
December 7
th
, 1998 - KGB headquarters, Moscow, Level 2 Debriefing Room
A swaying incandescent bulb lit up the thick haze of cigarette smoke floating through the room. It lent an otherworldly atmosphere to the proceedings. KGB Agent Sofiya Sokolov tried not to let her exhaustion show outwardly.
The door opened. An older man with a jacket full of military honours entered. Sofiya stood and saluted. He returned the gesture, then leaned in for a kiss with a GRU liaison officer sitting on the other side of the table, then another with one of the Generals. He turned to look at Sofiya.
"Chairman Tokarev," Sofiya said. "It is an honour to meet you."
The Chairman of the KGB had been engaged in a fighting retreat against male-pattern baldness, but was not prepared to surrender yet. A combover was valiantly making it's last stand near his ears.
"If what I'm being told about your operation is true,
tovarish
Sokolov, the honour is all mine," he said.
Behind the table of old men, a studious middle aged woman took notes on a typewriter.
"I have only performed that which was expected of me," said Sofiya.
"Your humility does you great credit. Not many field agents could have made it back across the border with so many people hunting for you. I know that you've been here for a long time already, but if you'll humour an old man like me, there are still some points I would like further clarification on."
"Of course, Sir," she said.
He was understating it. She'd sat through nine cumulative hours of debriefing and interrogation in the preceding eighteen hours.
"I am having trouble wrapping my head around some parts of the initial report. In particular, how the different parties in this foul plot against the proletariat of the world relate to one another."
"I'd be happy to explain," she said.
Sofiya took a
very
deep breath.
"Sometime around the 1760s, the British Crown - realising that it was making too many enemies around the world - fostered a revolutionary movement in their own colonies, which they secretly controlled. After briefly fighting a sham 'war' against themselves, the American and British empires separately pursued plans to dominate more and more of the globe. They created the League of Nations and later the United Nations, whose institutions were used as tools to steer global financial policy and coordinate their vast conspiracy. The only thing standing in their way, of course, was the Soviet Union. Having first choked off revolutionary movements the world over, they then focused their attention on the states of Europe, secretly contacting counter-revolutionary nationalist movements and supporting them in their efforts to oust the universally beloved, democratically elected communist governments of Central, Eastern and Southern Europe. By using the IMF to transform these nations into exploitative capitalist economies based on free-trade and free-market principles, they seek to concentrate all power and wealth inside these nations in the hands of a small number of elites, who are in league with the
Anglosaksy
and loyal to the British Crown. Then, they would need to deal with the USSR itself. Since bourgeois nationalism does not exist in the enlightened, post-national USSR, they have been researching various methods of mind control and brainwashing to corrupt the faithful Marxist-Leninists citizens of the Union into betraying their own kind. Firstly, by encouraging the spread of Catholicism to undermine Russian Orthodox Christianity and Marxist Scientific Atheism. Secondly, by inventing and encouraging the spread of completely fake regional identities like "Ukrainian" through propaganda and corrupted Polish-Lithuanian blood. Thirdly, by creating alternatives to Communist Internationalism by inventing an entirely synthetic pan-European identity, a unified European currency, and expanding the eligibility criteria for participation in the 'Eurovision' Song Contest. Should their plans succeed and the USSR becomes weak enough, then they would pounce - shattering the sacred and inviolable territorial integrity of the birthplace of the Revolution by forcing all of the Soviet Socialist Republics to split apart from one another. This would greatly diminish the power of the central committee in Moscow, transforming the USSR from the largest country on earth to still the largest country on earth but by a smaller margin. And then, most disturbingly, by overthrowing the government in Moscow directly, they could then restore the Romanov monarchy under the reign of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, who is somehow still alive and who would enter into a patrilineal marriage with the heir to the throne of the United Kingdom, setting the stage for a personal union between the two countries with a single British monarch ruling over both once the thrones passed to their children.
The senior officials all nodded along with a horrified look on their faces. The stenographer strained to keep up.
"Thank you," said Chairman Tokarev. "When you lay it all out like that, it makes perfect sense. I have no further questions on that subject."
The GRU colonel exhaled a long drag of his cigarette, but remained silent.
"Will there be anything else,
tovarish
Chairman?"
He paused for a moment, then thumbed through some pages on the report.
"I was hoping that you could elaborate on the fates of Agents Nevsky and Abrasimov. You have extensively chronicled your stay inside the facility, but the section on your extraction is quite brief."
Sofiya looked down at an empty spot on the table and tried to conceal her emotions. Images flashed through her mind, and she struggled not to think about them.
"You mentioned that they both perished during the escape," he continued.
She nodded slowly. She had something in her eyes all of a sudden.
"
Da
," she said.
"I understand this may be difficult. But it's important for us to have a full record of the events. What exactly happened after the you rendezvoused with Agent Abrasimov and reached the surface?"
* * *
The gunfire had begun within seconds of the elevator doors opening. The same alarm she'd triggered the first day was blaring, probably the result of the explosions and fire raging on the lower levels. If they were lucky, the whole facility would be out of action - for a while at least.
Yevgeniy slid his Kalashnikov across the bottom of the elevator to Sofiya. It was a locally produced Polish copy - presumably pilfered from whomever he stole his guard disguise - but the basics were universally applicable.
"Three, two, one, covering!" she shouted. She fired two short, controlled bursts from a blind position, and hoped they would land close enough to force their heads down.
Agent Yevgeniy Abrasimov rolled out of the elevator and sought a more favourable position. Sofiya fired a few more times for good measure.
She heard his dart gun fire, and a body fell to the ground. The elevator doors started to shut, causing her to finger the 'open door' button like an electrically powered woodpecker. A second dart fired. A second body dropped.
"Clear!" he shouted.
She stepped out past the doors and performed a three-hundred and sixty degree spin, rifle at the ready, her razor sharp eyes scanning the perimeter like an insufficiently fat socialist bear in search of dangerous counterrevolutionary rifle-armed salmon.
Though it was the warmest part of the day, the winter air still gave her goosebumps. She ignored it, and looked out into the distance.
Her previous assessment had been correct - they were close enough to the airfield to actually see the small private jet on the runway. She couldn't see any tall bearskin hats, nor was anybody loading anything into it yet. Were she a decadent westerner with a gambling addiction, she'd bet money that he hadn't boarded yet. They might have fifteen or twenty minutes if they were lucky.
"That's the Prince's jet," she said. "We have to stop him from escaping!"
"That is not our primary objective, Agent Sokolov. We must focus on extracting you safely with the information you've gathered."
Sofiya closed the distance between their bodies, and looked up into his beautiful eyes - blue in colour, but red in spirit.
"You haven't seen what I've seen here. You have to believe me - if he escapes, there's no telling how much damage he could do to the motherland!"
