Bernau itself might have been festering, but the now-Soviet military base in the woods outside it was full of life and activity. Red Army soldiers had been moved into its barracks; stylised murals of their comrades standing proudly under hammers, sickles, and stars had been painted over the outstretched wings of the Reichsadler eagle and wreathed swastika; and Line Z had requisitioned one of the compound’s large halls as its own private training ground.

Anna slept, ate, and honed her killing skills in the cavernous building along with the rest of Line Z’s early initiates. Conditions were tough, lessons hard, and punishments for disobedience severe. The trainees shivered in winter, sweated in summer, and any of them who baulked at the orders they were given or started to question the morality of their instructions would quietly vanish from the hall overnight.

Anna thrived under Egorov’s strict rules, much to the surprise of the KGB psychologists, who had believed she would never succumb to any kind of authority. What the people who tried to analyse her had failed to appreciate was that Anna was more than happy to relinquish responsibility for such trivial matters as who she must kill and why they must die, and focus simply on how she was going to execute them. She didn’t care if her victim was a homeless German accused of stealing food for his family, or a Red Army soldier who had been caught acting unpatriotically, she obeyed her commands without question.

She became the first graduate of Line Z’s Bernau academy, and then a founding agent of the Volk programme. Twenty years later, she was still its most effective assassin. She had finally lost count of how many lives she’d brought to abrupt ends. But the KGB hadn’t. In two decades she’d murdered nearly three hundred people under orders from Line Z—orders that had almost entirely been followed to the letter.

On rare occasions, Anna hadn’t restricted her creativity solely to killing and had taken it upon herself to change certain minor parameters of a mission. For any other agent such behaviour would have brought about their own execution, but Anna had earned a little length on her leash.

And, as she unwrapped the large square book the porter had delivered, which had a set of architectural blueprints and a gilt-edged invitation card tucked inside its cover, and looked again at the gauzy dress and thick envelope of money, she decided that this mission would be one of those times.

Chapter 40

Chapter 40

Rykov stood in the small triangle of weak sunlight that was still managing to penetrate the courtyard in front of the columned dome of the Kremlin senate building. He didn’t like waiting for anyone, but he had a standing appointment at this time every week that he made an exception for.