The technical name was Perimeter, but some called it Mertvaya Ruka, Dead Hand. The technical name was Perimeter, but some called it Mertvaya Ruka, Dead Hand. Illustration: Ryan Kelly Valery Yarynich glances nervously over his shoulder. Clad in a brown leather jacket, the 72-year-old former Soviet colonel is hunkered in the back of the dimly lit Iron Gate restaurant in Washington, DC. It's March 20