Victory Square Read Free

the demonstrators “imperialist-financed counterrevolutionary agitators” and never report the reason for their gathering—to protest the recent arrest of a priest, Father Eduard Meyr. But also like the rest of ours, Gavra’s time was strained enough with his job, his friends, and himself. All he could do, sitting on an American motel bed, was focus on what he’d come to do: find a man and make a telephone call.
    He found a fat telephone directory under the bedside table and flipped through it looking for “firearms.” There they were, amazingly, five gun stores. The closest was Bob Moates Gun Shop, on Hull Street. He marked it on his rental car map.
    He dressed as he knew the Americans dressed: casually. A pair of Levi’s he’d picked up in a private Ministry store last year and a black polo shirt. He took out the NY baseball cap from La Guardia but was already too appalled by his outfit to add it.
    The turnpike was busy with morning traffic. It took twenty minutes to find the windowless brick building with a steel door. The inside was lined with glass cases full of armaments. A fat man with a T-shirt and tattoos up his arms ate Ruffles potato chips behind the cases. “Morning.”
    “Morning,” said Gavra.
    “What can I do you for?”
    “I’m looking for a gun.”
    “Well, I’d say you came to the right place.”
    “I suppose I did.”
    “Rifle, maybe? Just got in two AK-47s. Russian, you know.”
    “A little smaller, I think.”
    In the end he settled for a Polish P-83 with twenty rounds of 9mm cartridges, then bought three rolls of quarters. The clerk placed the pistol and ammunition into a paper sack and wished him a good day.
    One more thing to do, then he could sleep.
    He drove back, past the motel, to where, on the right, a ring of stores spread. At the entrance, a large wooden sign proclaimed BRAN-DERMILL, and beyond it were more trees—it was more like a forest than the “housing project” he’d imagined. Another right placed him inside the paved ring of parked cars and shops. A plaza, they called it.
    At the far end was a massive Safeway grocery store. Its windows were decorated with fake white snow and a cardboard Santa Claus leading twelve reindeer into the sky. Near its front door was a telephone booth. At this hour—noon—he had to avoid running over brightly dressed shoppers while searching for a parking spot.
    He shoved coins into the pay phone, shivering as he dialed the long number. After ten rings he gave up, cupping his hand to catch the money the phone returned.
    It was six in the evening back home, so the Lieutenant General had probably left for the day. He shoved in the coins again and tried the Ministry switchboard’s international access line. An operator picked up. “Welcome to Eastern Expressions, the world through the beauty of icon paintings.”
    The cover always made Gavra smile, but he cleared his throat and gave his ten-digit identification number, then his real name, and asked for Lieutenant General Yuri Kolev’s home number. The operator paused, her voice wavering as she said, “You
do
know about Comrade Kolev, right?”
    “What about him?”
    “He’s dead.”
    The line wasn’t so clear that he could believe he’d heard her right, so he made her repeat it. “He had a heart attack this morning, right in the office. We’re all in shock.”
    “Who’s taking care of it?”
    “What?”
    “Who’s doing the paperwork on his death?”
    “It’s been handed to the Militia,” she told him. “I think Emil Brod’s working it personally.”
    “Why the Militia?”
    “You think anyone explained it to me?”
    When he hung up, the Virginia cold seemed a little harsher, the colors on the American shoppers that much more intense. He returned to his Toyota, which felt stuffy. He’d been sent here with no information, knowing only that he should capture a particular man and then get in touch with Kolev. And now …
    He didn’t like it, but Kolev had spelled it out