Warning: profanity
December 20, 1919
Since it happened at upper levels, the change in oversight of his mission barely affected him, but for the first time since they had set out from Perm in March, perhaps for the first time in his whole life, Yuryev became afraid. He could not recall ever having experienced the same feeling before. Not in the army, not during the Great War, not while he was being trained, and not while he was working as an ordinary agent. Not even during the mission, until the middle of October. Of course, he had always known what it was like to be tense or startled. Or scared. But the feeling he began experiencing in October was entirely different. It wasn’t a fleeting rush of adrenalin, a sensation of his heart beating in his throat for a few seconds, a sudden pang that would never outlast the immediate cause that gave rise to it. This new feeling was a quiet, low, nagging anxiety that would not leave him for days at a time, regardless of what he was doing. He could be eating his chicken in a canteen and the feeling would still be there.
Sometimes it was like a dull pain, sometimes like a solid lump. Fear.
At first Yuryev actually thought it might be something he ate.
When he recognized it as fear, and he soon did, he became resentful and ashamed. For a while he was mortified at the thought that the others might recognize it in him, and as far as Yuryev was concerned that would have been worse than anything. To counteract it he found himself saying, “Fellows, I’m scared,” and “Fellows, I’m worried,” at every turn. This, of course, was braggadocio army-style, in the only form permissible, proclaiming courage by protesting the opposite too much. But he must have overdone it, because one day Zakhar said to him, very quietly, when they were alone:
“I know. I’m pretty worried myself.”
He spoke in a tone that caused Yuryev to stop pretending.
“Oh shit,” he said. “You too? I wonder why.”
But Zakhar only shook his head. They never talked about it again.
Soon afterwards, the answer came to Yuryev in a flash. Why it was affecting them now, after seven months, after five successful assassinations. The reason was very logical, very simple.
Having done it, they were beginning to realize how little trouble it was to set up a hit. How easy it was for a few people, with some money and a little determination, to find and kill a man. With impunity. And if it was so easy for them, it would be equally easy for others. If they could kill with such little trouble, they could be killed with just as little. Without any doubt, someone would by now be out there, gunning for Yuryev and his partners. It made good sense for them to be afraid.
It did not help matters that just then an incident occurred which, though totally insignificant, shook the partners’ nerves. One Sunday morning around 1000 hours, in a safe house in Lipetsk, just as Yuryev and Zakhar were sitting over the remnants of their breakfast, there was a knock on the door—unusual, since visitors were supposed to ring the bell from the lobby—and, tiptoeing to the spy-hole, Yuryev could see two well-dressed strangers waiting in the hallway. With Zakhar covering him from the bedroom doorway, Yuryev turned the key in the lock, resting the ball of his foot against the lower part of the door.
The strangers turned out to be postal inspectors, investigating some theft from the mail. Apparently the concierge had let them into the building, where they were going from door to door asking the tenants if any of them had any letters missing. “What a dangerous job,” said Zakhar wryly, after putting his Browning away.
“For two nights after that, Yuryev had the greatest difficulty falling asleep.
At the same time, Yuryev’s own character was such that all the things that might deter others—fear, opposition, difficulties, disapproval—would only serve to spur him on. Without knowing it, without ever dreaming of analyzing it in any way, he belonged to that very small minority of human beings who are fueled by adversity. It was almost as if, because of some quirk of nature, the wiring in his brain had been reversed. He would function as a car might if some prankster switched around the accelerator and the brake. In a sense, being afraid would probably be the last thing to stop him.