“I am here to do whatever you wish, Pavel—”

“I am Comrade Kazakov to you, Major,” he corrected her. “And there should be no doubt in your mind that you are here to do whatever I wish, or else your fate would be the same as your last boss, General Zhurbenko—thirty years at hard labor in Siberia. But you are a highly trained soldier and a keen tactician, not a zblidavattsa. If I ever get another indication that you fancy yourself as anything else but my chief of security and my aide-de-camp, you will find yourself digging coal in Siberia beside Zhurbenko— or at the bottom of an Icelandic fjord ”

“Yes, Comrade Kazakov,” Vasilyeva said. But her eyes blazed as she went on, “But now I wish to tell you something”

“You do so at your own peril, Major.”

“Very well,” she said. She took a bold step forward; Kazakov’s eyes warned her away, but he knew it would take more than a stare to make this woman back off. “You say you chose me, Comrade. But now I tell you this: I chose you as well ”

“Zasrat mazgi? Oh, really?”

“Yes, Comrade,” Vasilyeva said confidently, with only a , hint of a smile on her beautiful but army-hardened face. “I chose General Zhurbenko the same way: He was a man that could get me the things I wanted—power, prestige, money, land, and status. If I had to let the old bastard feel me up or be his min ’etka every now and then, it was all part of my plan to get what I wanted.

“I feel the same way about you, Comrade—you are a man that can get me what I want. You have the power— you still have the power, even here, in exile in Iceland. I can dedicate myself to a man such as you.”

“Frankly, Major, I was not too impressed with how well you protected your other mentor.”

“I noticed your power the moment I first met you in the general’s car. I knew you were the one for me, the man with even more power than Zhurbenko, the one who could get me the things I want,” Vasilyeva said. “Besides, he gave me to you—it was clear he no longer needed me. It was easy to switch loyalties. If the general showed the same loyalty to me when your plan started to become exposed, I would have used my powers to protect him as well—but he decided to be a good soldier and take his punishment, protecting his wife instead of me. That will cost him his life.” She stepped closer to him again, and this time he saw something more sinister in her expression—not just confidence, but a warning as well. “I have given myself to you, Comrade. I am yours. Betray me, and I will bring you down like I brought down Zhurbenko. Remain loyal to me, and you can do with me as you want—anything you want—and I will do anything for you.”