Dark Benediction

“Tactical A-missile,” the colonel hissed. “Another of them! If they keep it up, they’ll drive us to use Lucifer. This is a mad dog war. Neither side uses the H-bomb, but in the end one side or the other will have to use it. If the Kremlin sees certain defeat, we’ll use it. So would Washington. If you’re being murdered, you might as well take your killer with you if you can. Bah! It is a madness. I, Porphiry Grigoryevich, am as mad as the rest. Listen to me, Marya Dmitriyevna, I met you an hour ago, and now I am madly in love with you, do you hear? Look at you! Only a day after a bomb fragment dashed the life out of your baby, your bosom still swelled with unclaimed milk and dumb grief, and yet I dare stand here and say I am in love with you, and in another breath ask you to go and kill yourself by killing an Ami general! Ah, ah! What insane apes we are! Forget the Ami general. Let us both desert, let us run away to Africa together, to Africa where apes are simpler. There! I’ve made you cry. What a brute is Phorphiry, what a brute!”

The girl breathed in gasps. “Please, Tovarish Polkovnik! Please say nothing more! I will go and do what you ask, if it is possible.”

“I only ask it, dushka, I cannot command it. I advise you to refuse.”

“I will go and kill him. Tell me how! There is a plan? There must be a plan. How shall I pass the lines? How shall I get to him? What is the weapon? How can I kill him?”

“The weapon, you mean? The medical officer will explain that. Of course, you’ll be too thoroughly searched to get even a stickpin past the lines. They often use fluoroscopy, so you couldn’t even swallow a weapon and get it past them. But there’s a way, there’s a way—I’ll let the vrach explain it. I can only tell you how to get captured, and how to get taken to MacAmsward after your capture. As for the rest of it, you will be directed by post-hypnotic suggestion. Tell me, you were an officer in the Woman’s Defense Corps, the home guard, were you not?”

“Yes, but when Nikki was born, they asked for my resignation.”

“Yes, of course, but the enemy needn’t find out you’re inactive. You have your uniform still?… Good! Wear it. Your former company is in action right now. You will join them briefly.”

“And he captured?”

“Yes. Bring nothing but your ID tags. We shall supply the rest. You will carry in your pocket a certain memorandum addressed to all home guard unit commanders. It is in a code the Ami have already broken: It contains the phrase: ‘Tactical bacteriological weapons immediately in use.’ Nothing else of any importance. It is enough. It will drive them frantic. They will question you. Since you know nothing, they can torture nothing out of you.

“In another pocket, you will be carrying a hook of love poetry. Tucked in the book will be a photograph of General Rufus MacAmsward, plus two or three religious ikons. Their Intelligence will certainly send the memorandum to MacAmsward; both sides are that nervous about germ weapons. It is most probably that they will send him the book and the picture—for reasons both humorous and practical. The rest will take care of itself. MacAmsward is all ego. Do you understand?”

She nodded. Porphiry Grigoryevich reached for the phone.

“Now I am going to call the surgeon,” he said. “He will give you several injections. Eventually, the injections will be fatal, but for some weeks, you will feel nothing from them. Post-hypnotic urges will direct you. If your plan works, you will not kill MacAmsward in the literal sense. Literally, he will kill himself. If the plan fails, you’ll kill him another way if you can. You were an actress. I believe?”

“For a time. I never got to the Bolshoi.”

“But excellent! His mother was an actress. You speak English. You are beautiful, and full of grief. It is enough. You are the one. But do you really love the Fatherland enough to carry it out?”

Her eyes burned. “I hate the killers of my son!” she whispered.

The colonel cleared his throat. “Yes, of course. Very well, Marya Dmitriyevna, it is death I am giving you. But you will be sung in our legends for a thousand years. And by the way—” He cocked his head and looked at her oddly. “I believe I really do love you, dushka.”

With that, he picked up the phone.