Case:Black - 2. Chapter 2

GRU Headquarters

Moscow, USSR

Dec. 20, 1989

At 2am the phone on GRU Colonel Bonderenko’s desk rang.

Bonderenko glared at it. Only a third of the bottle of vodka on his desk was left. For days it had been happening and now there was no turning back. The Soviet Union was going to fall. What would become of his beloved Rodina(motherland)?

He answered the phone with a terse, “Daa?”

“Misha. They’re going to do it. They are really going to do it.” His oldest friends voice sounded near tears.

“Anatoliy, what madness is this?”

The voice at the other end of the line paused. Misha could hear his old friend take a drag from a cigarette. “It is the Supreme Soviet. They will release a document on the 26^th formally dissolving the Soviet Union. It’s not going to be reforms Misha. They are going to burn down the whole house.”

Bonderenko sighed heavily and said, “If we are honest with ourselves, we have seen this coming for weeks now. Maybe months.”

Anatoliy choked. He might have been weeping. “We thought that there would be a new 5 year plan, perhaps some reforms. But this Misha? Is this why we bled in Afghanistan? All of those boys that we lead there…” Now he was sobbing.

Bonderenko said, “We must act fast Anatoliy. Do you still have your contacts in the Uzbek Republics?”

“Yes Misha. There is a listening post there where we monitor Pakistan and Afghanistan. The base commander was my aide during the war.”

“Good Anatoliy. You still have that dacha near Kuybyshev (now called Samara)?”

“Yes Misha.”

“Meet me there at dusk it two days. Bring your family.”