---2100 Moscow Time 29.VIII.1994
'Our rivers are shallow and weak.
In our windows the day's still unseen.
Our morning looks like night.
And the night is for me.'
Svetlana Yevgenievna Savitskaya had managed to get some batteries from the back of the truck before the technicians at the garage had stolen them, along with whisking away dear Father Lenin. They took him through a curtain of hanging, thick polythene and into the mortuary at the facility hospital. After getting a clipboard of signed papers and being told that Borodin would debrief her in the next couple of hours, they had drifted out into the street. The emptiness of the place belied the activity going on in each concrete building, but there was no movement except for sentries who lurked in doorways smoking cigarettes and the occasional trolleybus that came through the streets, clanging as it lurched through the ever present potholes that peppered any stretch of asphalt in the Soviet Union and discharged a few passengers who rushed into their workplaces. Limply, a few Soviet flags fluttered in the breeze above the squat, looming architecture that spoke more of industrial efficiency than Stalin-Gothic. Savitskaya was used to the efficiency, and eeriness of the secret cities like Vladimir-8, having lived in the secured Zvezdagrad near Baikonur for several years but it obviously unsettled Lugovoi and she began to wonder how long he'd been hiding in the Metro to avoid confronting the devastation above.
'Looking at watery mirrors of pools,
At the flag which has been kissed to holes
For half a century the clock has been stopped.
I'll give my kingdom away for a horse.'
That had been several hours ago, and she'd taken him to a canteen for a meal at least that was depressingly familiar. After picking through the stringy boiled cabbage and managing to trade on her name for a couple of meat dumplings that she wasn't sure contained meat, they had trekked up to Borodin's office, only to be told he was extremely busy and that they would have to wait. Savitskaya tried to intimidate the secretary, but she was unflappable. So they waited, camping in the foyer and Svetlana hassling the woman behind the desk periodically whilst Lugovoi seemed more interested in looking at the map on the wall, that didn't reflect political reality at all, and staring at the framed portraits of Marx, Lenin, Che Guevara and Albert Makashov that were on the walls of the room. He would perambulate slowly from one to the next, staring at each of them and then at the secretary in a mildly unnerving fashion, though Svetlana was certain it was unintended, unlike her momentary murmurs of incredulity. Finally they gained access to the inner sanctum.
'Go on...
Sadly my song continues to play...
Go on...
Go on...'
Borodin was no idiot, he at least had the sense or wherewithal to have another entrance into his office and whoever had been ever so busy in there with him had slipped out of it sight unseen before they could be admitted to speak with such an important man. Behind the desk sat a lean looking man of perhaps forty years, his hair cropped short like a conscript, despite a uniform that said KGB Major, six telephones on his desk and the office of the facility controller for Vladimir-8. He looked over his desk at them before standing with a smile and gesturing that they take seats. Borodin leant back in his seat once they had sat, peered superciliously at Savitskaya but couldn't help staring at Lugovoi.
'When we try to command our years,
We keep losing our days in the fight.
And once we managed to make a fire,
The rain came and put out its light'
The lone survivor of the Kremlin Regiment, who had performed such a duty to the Soviet Motherland was to be a hero. He was to meet Makashov at Vladimir immediately. Savitskaya was too going to receive another medal to the chest full of useless metal she owned, and a financial reward, but Lugovoi was going to be promoted as a simple of dogged determination, steadfast belief in the Soviet principle. Svetlana tuned out a little of it, since it was old hat, but Andrei Konstantinovich responded to it, as the three years of terrible penance in the necropolis that Vladimir-8 hung on the edge of seemed to pay off. There was no real debrief, no telling him that the Soviet government worked it's people to death, that the city outside was full of whores and alcoholics who couldn't even leave and find somewhere less miserable to die than the mosquito-ridden outskirts of a nuclear cremated Moscow or that whilst Makashov spent endless amounts on rebuilding industrial capacity and arms, the dedovshchina practically ruled most lives, even after conscription ended. The USSR didn't even have a seat at the UNSC any more, as squabbles over legitimacy meant that the former Soviet space drifted in an void of international isolation.
'We are sitting near broken dreams.
We tell our future by the compass rose
Then when it's time for us to stand up,
We sit, and we wait.'
Savitskaya snapped out of her reverie, the Kino song that had been in her head all day was still silent and forever present on the magnetic tape in her pocket. Those things were worth their weight in gold, and things like Kino were even more valued than a simple blank, since the band had always been samizdat to a degree. Borodin was looking at her and she smiled a little.
"So, who is to debrief our new hero?"
"I figured you could be trusted to do that on the train, Major Savitskaya. We want to transfer you both to Vladimir for parades, and so on. Word has it that the Generalissimo is most pleased... and is going to use this opportunity to launch a new campaign."
Savitskaya tried to keep her eyebrows where they were. She managed, barely, a faint twitch that Borodin picked up on as he leered at her for a moment, enjoying the hint of surprise that she betrayed as he turned to Lugovoi.
"Comrade Lugovoi, whilst Major Savitskaya will provide you with your debrief on the train to Vladimir, I have to debrief her now. An apartment has been provided for your use at Building Number 28 on Seversky Prospekt. My secretary will make sure that the officials of the competent organs will speed you on your way."