Button Zone [antikvár]

Author's NoteThe places and institutions cited in Button Zone are real. The story and all the characters are fictitious, particularly the namesboth British and Americanon Yuri Kharkov's list and also the members of the President's Executive Committee (Excom), all of which are pure figments of my imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, either living or dead, is wholly unintended and will be purely coincidental.Wilfred Greatorex1P|Phe murk was at one with the fears that had kept him H awake most of the night. He still had the headlamps M on, and the wipers arcing against the sleet, as he steered the black Volga sedan off the Ring Road towards the gate outside HQ. Even at this hour7:30 a.m. the snow had been churned to slush by the traffic which had already gone through. The KGB normally began work at nine. Some workers would make it earlier, but they were mainly the rank and tile who came for the low-priced bacon-and-egg breakfasts in the canteens. And they used the pedestrian gates. On a normal day at this time the snow would have been marked only by footprints. But this day, he knew, was far from normal. He stopped at the barrier, wound down the window, and routinely offered his ID card to one of the uniformed men from the Guards Directorate, alert in the slush."Comrade Kharkov," the guard said, without even taking the card, and briskly nodded him through.In the mirror, Yuri saw the cause of the guard's haste. A Chaika limousine, black and bulky, was drawing in. He could make out the chauffeur and bodyguard in the front seats, but not the VIP behind them. He had guessed there would be bosses about. Summons meetings were called no more than six times a year, and this was the third in as many days. And ominously this latest summons demanded RSRsReadiness Situation Reports.Yuri drove on, stealing another look in the mirror at the following Chaika without being able to see the passenger. The Chaika turned off into the special car park hard by the VIP entrance to the elongated multistory palace of glass and concrete now housing several of the KGB Directorates formerly in Dzerzhinsky Square. 7