by John Lawton
“We’re in a neutral country Kostya. Eat your neutral eggs and your neutral toast. Drink your neutral coffee. I don’t know how you got here, but if you’ve just nipped across for a decent meal, tuck in.”
Over poached eggs Wilderness managed to wheedle out of him that he was based just across the border at Rayakoski and had driven over, via the narrow isthmus of Norway, swapping the plates on his car and his Russian passport for a German one between countries. As far as the Finns were concerned, he was a German. A commercial traveller.
“In … in … Вот дерьмо … oh shit …”
“If our dodgy trade has any rules, fairly high on the list has to be ‘get your cover down pat.’ ”
“Machine … machine parts. That’s it. I am traveller in machine parts.”
“Good one. Nicely vague. That should cover you for anything from a pencil sharpener to a tractor engine.”
On his second coffee Kostya seemed to relax a little. His look around the room took no more than five seconds, then he said, blurting it out all too rapidly, “I hear you have cornered the market in vodka.”
“Really Kostya—how do you know this?”
“The flyers. The pilots. Your pilots. We took down one. We could have taken down all three. We preferred instead to keep track of them. It was possible they were more use to us alive than dead.”
“And how do you keep track?”
Kostya shrugged.
“We have people on the ground. People here.”
“A network?”
“No. Nothing so structured. The odd person willing to sell us gossip. Nothing more than that.”
“Not the local Communist Party?”
“What local Communist Party? The Finns are like everyone else. They just want to be Americans. Bonanza, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, Dick van Dyke and peanut butter.”
“Don’t you dare mention peanut butter to me.”
“Of course. Sorry. No, it’s strictly a cash deal. No ideology whatsoever. Capitalism at its most basic. ‘You sell us the rope with which we will hang you.’ ”
“Lenin?”
“Correct.”
“And this … person … told you I was running vodka?”
“No. I was told it was an Englishman. That’s all. I didn’t get a name. It never occurred to me it might be an MI6 operation. I paid extra for a photograph. Not even a good photograph, but enough for me to know it was you. I learnt your nom-de-guerre-froide less than half an hour ago, Mr. Young.”
“And you are?”
Kostya slid a passport across the table.
“Pohl,” Wilderness read. “Gertan Pohl. From Munich?”
“One place was as good as another. Just so long as it’s in the Bundesrepublik not the DDR. I have plates on the car to match.”
“It’s a good fake. Almost Erno standard.”
Kostya blinked first.
“You fucker! It is an Erno fake, isn’t it? I don’t even remember introducing you.”
“You didn’t. Nell did.”
Nell had taken a shine to Kostya. At least two years younger than he was, she’d treated him like a little brother and all but combed his hair and scrubbed his cheeks with a spit-hanky.
Wilderness pushed the passport back.
“Let’s stick to our new names, shall we, Herr Pohl?”
“You think I want it known I’m Russian? I’d get lynched.”
“I’m sure you would. I heard it said not that long ago that Finns can smell a Russian. But, backtrack a minute. This isn’t an MI6 operation. And I don’t think you ever thought it was. It’s private enterprise … why would your lot be interested in it?”
“Private enterprise? Just like Berlin?”
“Just like Berlin.”
Kostya seemed to lose his voice. For a minute he said nothing, would not meet Wilderness’s gaze. And when he spoke it was scarcely more than a whisper.
“I am here to buy.”
A dozen thoughts collided in Wilderness’s mind. That Kostya was in Lapland to buy moonshine vodka was but one. And all the others told him not to believe it.
“You want me to sell vodka to Russia? Ездить в Тулу со своим самоваром?”
“Yes. That is it. Are we … are we back in business?”
“We might be,” Wilderness replied.
§48
They took a mid-morning stroll through Persereiikkä, down to the river once more. It always seemed to Wilderness that the town smelled of sawdust. It was odd that he never heard the sound of a chainsaw.
It wasn’t a pretty town—it was a town in permanent transition. Rising from its own ashes again and again. Twenty years on it could not lose the smell of burning, that ever-present hint of charcoal left over from when the Germans razed the entire town.
He could see a reaction in Kostya. He could smell burning too.
“Your first visit?”
“Yes. I arrived in darkness last night.”
“And?”
“I tell myself we did not do this. The Nazis destroyed Persereiikkä.”
“Don’t pat yourself on the back. There’s an awful lot more you have to answer for.”
“Could we not discuss the sins of the Soviet Union? If we do I might have to lecture you on the Murmansk Expedition of 1919. All those frozen Tommies stranded at the end of the world. Great Britain’s futile attempt to nip Communism in the bud?”
“Fine by me. Let’s get down to business. Vodka.”
“We have a national shortage.”
“What?”
“We are short of everything. I don’t think that’s any secret. Your Moscow watchers in London are a waste of money if they don’t know that. The cost of defence, the cost of the space programme—President Kennedy knew exactly what he was doing when he promised a man on the moon … a challenge we could not refuse, but a race we could not win. Add two successive low-yield harvests and Brezhnev’s Russia is as poor as it was under the Tsars.”
They stopped. Kostya, with fewer nerves than he usually displayed, looked Wilderness in the eye.
“You don’t believe me, do you?”
“I’m sceptical.”
“Joe … two months ago I approved an order for the reuse of every piece of paper on the base. Do you know what for? For lavatory paper. The Soviet Union has run out of bog roll. That soft stuff you used to sell to us in Berlin is now as highly prized as fresh fruit or Scotch whisky. We wipe our arses on documents marked Classified, Secret and sometimes even Top Secret. And the damn stuff won’t flush. So once a week a surly corporal lights a bonfire of Soviet secrets and Russian shit.”
Wilderness hoped he wasn’t reacting visibly to this.
“And vodka? Surely there are illicit stills on your side of the border.”
“There were, but we’re a controlled country—”
“You mean a police state.”
“We have rules. We enforce rules. Eighteen months ago the militia raided over a hundred illegal distilleries in Karelia and Murmansk Oblasts and put them out of business. All perfectly legal.”
“Legal but stupid.”
“Legal but very stupid. Can you imagine how difficult it is to control the average Russian soldier if he can’t get a drink? We simmer at the point of mutiny day after day. I’d rather break the rules and have slightly tipsy and obedient men.”
“How much would you want?”
“Not a lot. Half a dozen cases a week.”
“And you’d take them back with you?”
“No. I’m taking no risk with my own people. But … I have to pass through Finnish and Norwegian customs. One random search and I’m blown. The flyers also have an amphibian, do they not? It’s a short flight for them. Completely below radar. Only a matter of minutes. We’d open up a leak in the fence. Somewhere on the far side of the lake. North of Nellim. I’ve picked out a suitable place. You’ll be less than five kilometres from the border and maybe twenty from Rayakoski. And it’s a place impossible to reach by roa
d. Your men cannot be followed, and nor can we. Two of my men will meet them. The day of each flight I will come over ahead of it as Gertan Pohl with cash payment. Up front.”
“In what currency?”
“In Berlin you would deal only in dollars. So … dollars.”
None of this added up. Flying the vodka across the lake did, Kostya continuing to drive across didn’t. Keeping up the Gertan Pohl disguise didn’t make any sense. Perhaps he didn’t trust a couple of Russian grunts with the money, perhaps he didn’t trust the Aussies. Paying in dollars? It wasn’t that he’d agreed too readily—Wilderness hadn’t even asked.
“These pilots aren’t working for me. They’re my partners. I will have to discuss this with them. I can’t give orders. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“They’re based up at Joeerämaa—but you know that. I’ll go up there later this morning. They often finish any flying by noon and once the cap comes off the beer they’re home for the rest of the day. I’ll come back to you with an answer in the morning. Meet me at breakfast as you did today.”
“Another night in Persereiikkä?”
“You have a problem with that?”
“Not really. I should not be in Finland too long, but the only person with a right to ask about my absence from the base is the Political Commissar.”
“Which just happens to be you?”
“Of course.”
Kostya smiled. Perhaps for the first time. A hint of the boy he’d been when they first met.
And he hadn’t even asked the price.
§49
At the lakeside, they were in deck chairs again. Judging by the half dozen empties tossed onto the grass, just short of their ever-growing pile, they’d been home at least half an hour.
“What load of shite have you brought us this time, Joe? I’ve a yen to see that Alfie thing with Michael Caine.”
“No films. This is strictly a business trip. Where’s Niilo?”
“Taking a piss in the woods.”
But Niilo had come up right behind them. An open beer in each hand.
“Nothing will disguise the sound of your Mog, Joe. I heard you coming several minutes ago.”
Wilderness took the proffered bottle.
“Forgive me if I’m cynical,” said Pastorius. “But unexpected visits are almost never good news.”
“You may well be right. A while back you told me there were no KGB on your patch.”
Pastorius said nothing.
“Yet … I had breakfast with a KGB agent this morning at the White Nights.”
Pastorius wasn’t visibly rattled.
“Someone new to Persereiikkä?”
“Yes. So he said. But not new to me. I met him in Berlin back in ’48.”
“And he got here … how?”
“Drove in from Norway on a fake West German passport. A fake good enough to fool anyone.”
“Well … that seems plausible. What does he want?”
“Vodka. He wants us to sell him vodka.”
The gurgling noise puzzled Wilderness for a moment. Then he recognised it for what it was. Two Australians laughing so much they had choked on their beer.
“Vodka to the fuckin’ Russians? Gold nuggets to fuckin’ Kalgoorlie, mate!”
“It appears,” said Wilderness with a straight face, “that there’s a national shortage of vodka in the Soviet Union.”
Momo laughed and rocked with such force the deck chair collapsed under him.
Bruce tried to pick him up. Wilderness was certain he’d seen this act on the halls before the war—how to disentangle a drunk from a deck chair. It was the sort of thing the Crazy Gang might do … or Mr. Pastry.
“Seriously, mate … seriously …”
Pastorius spoke. “Yes, Joe. Seriously, what would you have us do?”
Wilderness pulled up a wooden beer crate and sat down.
“When I’m sure I’ve got your attention.”
“Yeah. Sorry, Joe … it’s just so bloody absurd.”
“I agree. But we’re going to do it anyway.”
“Really?” said Pastorius.
“We need to string him out until I find out why he’s really here.”
Bruce said, “You’re kidding, right? Just tell him to fuck off.”
“Not kidding at all. He’s here to buy vodka as a cover for something else. So in the meantime we sell him vodka.”
“Are we back in the spook game then?”
“Sort of. But all you have to do is fly the Beaver to the other side of the lake, perhaps once a week.”
“And what? Meet Russkis?”
“I think that’s inevitable.”
“Don’t like Russkis, mate.”
“This time they won’t be shooting at you. You drop down this side of the border.”
“Still don’t like it.”
Pastorius said, “Joe, may I have a word with you in private?”
“Don’t mind us,” Momo said. “The less I know about spook stuff, the more I like it.”
They walked along the lakeshore, neither speaking until Pastorius was sure of privacy. Wilderness heard the clink of another empty bottle landing on the pile, then nothing but the lapping of water.
“Joe, I have to report this.”
“No, you don’t. Play the Schieber a while longer. If you tell Helsinki … well for one thing there’s already an American agent sniffing around. He’s too lazy to come up here on a whim. He gets wind of KGB activity … the CIA will be all over this, just like they were in ’62 when your government had to kick them out en masse. And then there’ll be no more vodka profits for anyone.”
“String him out, you said. How?”
“He’s in Persereiikkä now. I left him cooling his heels. I won’t go back until the morning. Get on to one of your men and put a watch on him. Where he goes. Who he sees. He’s at the White Nights under the name of Gertan Pohl.”
“I don’t have the manpower to follow him. In fact, the man in manpower is me.”
“Niilo, find someone. Bribe someone.”
“Alright. I’ll make a few phone calls. But I promise nothing.”
“Thank you. Now, can we talk these two into going along with us or are we stuck at the ‘spook’ thing?”
“Gavin’s death hit them hard. Don’t think that they’re too rough-and-ready not to care. They cared greatly. That they don’t know what really happened to him burns.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“They shot him down. The Russians had been onto your ferreting for a while. They could have shot down Momo and Bruce as well, but chose to let them escape and keep tabs on them.”
“And … and that’s how they found us?”
“Yes.”
“Do they know about me?”
“Your name hasn’t come up yet. But they knew an Englishman was involved. I imagine that rang a few alarm bells—and somehow they managed to photograph me. That’s what brought Kostya Zolotukhin across.”
“And he told you about Gavin?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t tell Bruce or Momo. They’ll kill him if they get the chance.”
“I wasn’t going to. The risk is obvious.”
“Will they meet him if they take on this run across the lake?”
“Probably not. Kostya plans to pay us in advance in person. He’ll drive in from Norway and pay us in cash. No reason they have to meet him.”
“Cash? Markka?”
“Dollars.”
Pastorius pulled a face. Wilderness knew why and spoke for both of them.
“It doesn’t ring true, does it? American dollars? Sounds like a seduction. Visiting in person when he could run all this from Russia, and if not from Russia then from some spot only metres from his hole in the fence? He may well want the vodka, but it’s a handy cover for what he’s really after.”
“I agree. Now, we should go back to the Aussies, have a beer, get them on board, change the subject, show a f
ilm in Joeerämaa … create the illusion of a normality we are about to fuck up so royally.”
§50
Wilderness let Momo pick the film. Momo chose Doctor in the House. Twenty-five Joeerämaaans laughed themselves silly at a hospital romp in which English actors ten and twenty years too old for the roles played medical students—beer, bottom jokes, nurses and stethoscopes. In the war of words, the battle for the soul of Finland, Marx-Engels-Leninism took yet another pasting. One more point to Mr. Farr.
Early the next morning Momo and Bruce, although somewhat hungover, shuffled out to their Bedouin camp by the lake and grunted their continued assent.
“Just don’t get us shot, right?”
Walking back to the Mog, Pastorius said, “I managed to put a tail on your man. He ate alone at the hotel. Took a stroll around town. That takes all of ten minutes. Looked at his watch a lot, as though willing time to pass more quickly. Picked a couple of English language magazines off the rack in the lobby and went to bed early. He spoke to no one except waitresses and the concierge. Made no phone calls.”
Less than two hours later Wilderness was back in Persereiikkä. The dot of nine. An impatient Kostya, sitting in the booth they’d occupied yesterday.
“What kept you? I’ve been sitting here half an hour. I’m beginning to think Siberia is more fun than Finland.”
“And you might be right,” Wilderness replied. “I’m here because the British are punishing me. Why are you here?”
“You mean in Rayakoski?”
Wilderness said nothing. He meant whatever Kostya took it to mean.
“I’m not being punished. There’s no stick. Just a carrot.”
“And what’s the carrot?”
“Promotion to major with my next posting. All I have to do is stick it out at Rayakoski till next winter.”
“I don’t suppose you remember Frank asking you if everyone in the KGB is a major?”
“I try not to remember Frank at all.”
“Well, good luck with that. Eddie’s been trying for twenty years.”
Then the all-too-furtive glance around the room. Wilderness supposed Kostya might make major. But it was a miracle he’d ever made captain.