Kremlin Conspiracy

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘But we feel you’ve proved yourself more than capable.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said again.

  ‘I would like to offer you my personal congratulations. I think you are a valuable asset to the bank.’

  ‘You’re very kind.’

  ‘It will involve a commitment that might intrude into your personal life.’

  ‘I recognize that,’ she said. Without a personal life, there wouldn’t be much to commit.

  ‘And are prepared for it to happen?’

  ‘Quite prepared,’ assured Jane.

  ‘I’m delighted to hear it,’ said the man.

  Soured spinster, she thought.

  It wasn’t until she returned to her own office and sat, head bent at her desk, that Jane fully appreciated what the promotion meant. She’d have staff now: practically a division of her own. The euphoria spread through her, a physical feeling of warmth. She wanted to tell somebody, to boast. But there wasn’t anybody, she realized. Only Ann. And Ann did parochial committee work most afternoons: she’d call her tonight, from her flat. Jane wished there were somebody else. She supposed she could telephone Paul. The promotion was reason enough. And there was no reason why he should imagine she’d changed her mind since last time. If he asked, she’d refuse again. Or would she? She was reaching out towards the telephone when it rang, startling her.

  ‘Sorry to call you during office time but I didn’t have any other number,’ said a voice.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Tom Pike.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Washington, remember? I bought dinner and you lectured on equality.’

  ‘Hello,’ she said, recalling him now.

  ‘I’m on atrip,’ he said. ‘Thought I’d say hello.’

  ‘London?’ she said, frowning at the echoing line.

  ‘Paris at the moment, then Germany. I get to England at the end of the week.’ He paused and said, ‘I wondered if there was a chance of my seeing you again.’

  ‘The end of the week?’ she said.

  ‘I’m due in on Friday,’ he said.

  And after Friday came Saturday and after Saturday came Sunday, she thought.

  When she didn’t respond at once, Pike said, ‘Can I call, when I get in?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you call?’

  Chapter 13

  The immediate period after her confirmation within the Soviet Finance Ministry was the busiest Lydia could remember. In the first month she spent only two nights in her Moscow apartment; the remainder of the time she travelled. She headed a delegation first to Prague, for the trade and finance talks, leaving behind a negotiating group when the outline agreement was reached and going directly from Czechoslovakia to Hungary. The conferences in Budapest took longer, because of the stronger Hungarian financial position, but after a week she had negotiated almost all the provisional terms she wanted. She left a second team of officials in the Hungarian capital and flew to Bucharest. The Romanian discussions were the easiest of the three sessions, because of their financial desperation. She stressed the advantages of strengthening their financial dependence upon the Soviet Union, citing the action of the International Monetary Fund in putting them into suspension over their $13,000,000,000 international debt and, as she had with Argentina, she offered oil and in addition directly cabled electricity to ease the country’s energy demands without any drain upon foreign reserves. From Bucharest she returned to Prague to check and confirm the final details, then to Budapest. This proved to be a wise precaution because she discovered the Hungarians had attempted to include some of their existing debts into the sum they were negotiating for additional uncommitted aid and this necessitated another week’s renegotiations. The Romanians, she found, had complied with every term with which she had left them after the initial sessions, so she spent only two further days in Bucharest.

  Lydia travelled in an Aeroflot aircraft assigned specifically for her convenience and with officials responsible for making all arrangements and appointments for her but she still ached with fatigue when she arrived back in Moscow. The chauffeured Zil was at the aircraft steps when she landed at Sheremetyevo and as she drove into the Soviet capital Lydia idly pushed back the rear curtaining to look out at the straggled pines lining the immediate roadway. There was a scattering of early snow, the first dust of winter, the landscape flat and grey and the sky leaden, threatening more. She shivered, despite the warmth of the car. She had never been to Siberia or to that part of Russia beyond the Arctic Circle, the places of permanent snow and sub-zero temperatures. Nor did she want to. Yet in those regions were concentrated most of the minerals and the deposits with which she had been bargaining, across comfortable conference tables in warm, centrally heated rooms. She thought how terrible it must be to have to work where the tundra was permanently frozen, rock hard: where metal was so cold the flesh stuck to it and tore off, and oil froze so that machinery had to be lubricated with graphite.

  The reflection made her angry at herself. What right had she to feel as resentful and as unsettled as she did, at something she couldn’t even identify to her own complete satisfaction? She enjoyed as many concessions and approved comforts as any Western financier or capitalist: more, in some cases. And prestige now, since her official appointment. Was the lack of someone to share it with the cause of her uncertainty? If it was, then it was an immature attitude. She had known the commitment she was making, how total her involvement would have to be, from the first weeks of making her proposal and of the reaction to it, all those years ago. To get precisely what she had now, a luxury apartment and chauffeured cars, a personal aircraft and a staff of secretaries and officials, she had knowingly and consciously abandoned any thoughts of a private life. She was part of an elite in the country in which there was supposed to be no elitism. So she had achieved her ambition. Perhaps, when it was over and she had fully succeeded, she would be able to fill in the social gaps and become completely happy.

  The apartment of which she had recently seen so little was as pristine and orderly as always. She dumped her cases in the bedroom, for the maid to unpack the following day, brewed tea and sat drinking it at the kitchen table. The tiredness surprised her, because she hadn’t anticipated it. How much was real fatigue, and how much tension, the nervousness that one link in her carefully fashioned chain might slip from the position in which she wanted it to be? Quite a lot, she conceded to herself. And so far unjustified. So far the pieces had fitted into shape like the simplest of children’s puzzles. Maybe she could afford to relax a little. She hoped so. The hardest part was yet to come. It was too early to become exhausted.

  She bathed, to try to ease the physical ache from her body, got gratefully into bed and after an hour decided that over-tiredness was keeping proper sleep from her. A lie, she thought. Not overtiredness. She slipped her hand down, a practised movement, luxuriating in her own familiar touch but wishing it were someone else’s. Why hadn’t he responded to her invitation? She’d been clear enough, surely! She made it last, unhurried, prolonging the final warmth of relief. Afterwards she drifted into a half consciousness, neither fully awake nor fully asleep, recognizing the dreams as dreams, knowing she could wake up when she wanted to. They came to her as disjointed pictures, like rippling rapidly through a selection of photographs in a book. There were a lot of rooms, all crowded with men, not dressed like Russians. They were shouting at her and then they began to chase her and she could feel the breath tightening in her chest, even though she knew it was a dream and there wasn’t any need to run. She kept looking behind her and she saw that one of the pursuers was Paramov and he wasn’t dressed like the rest; he was quilted in protective clothing, with a fur-lined hood, the sort of dress she imagined people wore in the frigid north.

  There were hands snatching at her, at her dress, and she felt her clothes being pulled from her as she ran. She shouted for help and saw Malik in one of the rooms. Then she realized it was the last, which meant she couldn’t r
un any more.

  She was pleading with Malik to help but he just stood against the wall, smiling at what was happening to her. They were stripping her, lots of men whose faces she couldn’t see, plucking her clothing away. She tried to cover her nakedness, clutching a hand between her legs again and putting her arm across her breasts but she recognized that she wasn’t in any sexual danger. They were laughing at her, not molesting her and one by one they turned and walked away, leaving her untouched but feeling violated. The last to go was Malik, still smiling.

  Lydia forced herself awake at last, conscious as she did so that her hand was actually between her legs. She got out of bed and put on a robe and went to the window, staring out over the sleeping capital.

  ‘We should show life neither as it is nor as it ought to be, but as we see it in our dreams,’ she quoted to herself.

  It was easy to understand Chekhov’s play and what he meant by those words. But what did her dreams mean? Nothing, she decided irritably: certainly nothing about which she ought to feel ashamed. She was sure other women felt like she did, as often as she did.

  She went back to bed finally, willing sleep to come. When it did it was as fitful as before, so she finally awoke unrested and the tiredness was still with her when she reached the Kremlin complex.

  The meeting was arranged for ten but Malik entered her room fifteen minutes early. She rose to meet him, accepting the customary impersonal embrace. But was it impersonal? Fleetingly she imagined he had held her slightly longer than usual. She hurried the thought away, as a mother might jostle aside an awkward child. She had presented the opportunity and he had ignored it.

  ‘Welcome back, Comrade Kirov.’

  ‘It’s good to be back.’

  ‘You look tired.’

  ‘It’s been a strenuous tour.’

  ‘But successful,’ said the Finance Minister. ‘I’ve studied the progress reports: you’ve achieved everything, as always.’

  ‘The Hungarians were difficult.’

  ‘But you got what you wanted: what we all wanted.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed.

  Malik sat easily in the chair opposite her desk, crossing his legs and carefully lighting the tubed Russian cigarette he seemed to enjoy. ‘There were developments here, while you were travelling.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘A special sub-committee has been formed by the Politburo, to consider every aspect of what’s happening.’ Seeing the look upon her face, Malik said, ‘That is no reflection upon you. Or me, for that matter. You must accept their feeling about control for something as important as this.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Lydia reluctantly. ‘What does it mean?’

  Malik shrugged, smiling. ‘Bureaucracy, like these things always mean,’ he said. ‘Meetings, at which we’ll both have to report.’

  ‘What about this trip?’

  ‘Convened for two o’clock this afternoon.’

  ‘That doesn’t give me time to prepare a report!’

  ‘I assured them you didn’t need time: that you could make a verbal presentation and that they would be fully briefed.’

  ‘That was confident of you!’

  ‘You don’t need any proof of the confidence I have in you, Comrade Kirov.’

  Lydia thought there was almost a mockery in the way he insisted upon the formal address to her. But a friendly, almost intimate mockery. ‘What else has happened?’ she demanded.

  ‘All our international loans were met on the due date,’ said Malik. ‘In addition, we advanced payment on $35,000,000, not due for another three months to various European consortia. I decided it would be good cosmetics for the Bank of International Settlements meeting that’s starting in Basel: we’re obviously going to be the prime subject of discussion.’

  ‘That was clever,’ agreed Lydia. ‘What about the wheat?’

  ‘We asked for and got 8,000,000 tonnes from America in addition to the existing agreements. And 2,000,000 from Argentina. We picked up small amounts from Australia and Canada.’

  ‘So what’s our storage figure at the moment?’

  ‘A total of 35,000,000 tonnes: only eight silos still empty.’

  ‘The American satellite reconnaissance worries me,’ conceded Lydia. ‘The photographs will show that our harvest isn’t as bad as we’ve complained it was.’

  ‘I’ve anticipated that,’ said Malik.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Medvedev is going to be charged officially with falsifying agricultural returns. It will serve two purposes: it will satisfy any doubt in the American minds about the disparity in the figures, and provide the reason for his being purged. It makes the need for a lot of the additional grain unnecessary, of course. But we’re going to prove ourselves responsible businessmen and honour a signed agreement.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Lydia, genuinely impressed. ‘That’s very good.’

  Malik smiled, pleased at the praise. ‘With our sharing agreement, the Western banks are falling over themselves to advance more money to Argentina to tool-up and construct warehouses for our wheat deal.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘The latest figures for the additional loans were $350,000,000.’

  ‘Short- or long-term?’ asked Lydia at once.

  Malik smiled. ‘Very short!’ he said. ‘A third three months, the remainder six.’

  ‘What about Poland?’

  ‘Almost a mirror image,’ said Malik. ‘With our declared backing, Poland is suddenly acceptable again. There are three European consortia and two from the United States. Total amount runs to $450,000,000, and there’s been further rescheduling agreements on $150,000,000.’

  ‘I’d estimated more,’ admitted Lydia.

  ‘It’s enough,’ said the Soviet Finance Minister. ‘What will the figures be for the rest?’

  ‘They’re estimates, you understand?’ said Lydia cautiously.

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘I would expect that with the expansion necessary because of the trade agreements with Czechoslovakia they’ll get $500,000,000 from the West: maybe a little higher, as much as $700,000,000. Hungary has a good financial record anyway, even before our support. I calculate $1,500,000,000. Romania is classic chicken and egg: with the need to recover what they’ve already got invested, I’d say the advance there could be as high as $1,000,000,000.’

  ‘Which leaves us …’ said Malik.

  ‘With the agreed pledges to the bloc, with the wheat and with the trade deals we’ve negotiated with the West since this whole operation properly began, eight years ago, I would calculate the need to raise through Western banks loans of $600,000,000,000.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful to make the bait short-term?’

  ‘Wonderful but impractical,’ said Lydia, business-like. ‘I think we should seek $200,000,000,000 short-term, which should be bait enough. The rest long.’

  ‘I was joking,’ emphasized Malik. ‘Don’t you think $200,000,000,000 is too high short-term? I don’t want to choke the fish.’

  It was time to defer, Lydia recognized. ‘What figure would you consider right?’

  ‘One hundred and fifty billion,’ suggested Malik. ‘And allow ourselves to be negotiated into $200,000,000,000. It must always appear to be going their way.’

  It was a good economic argument, Lydia realized. ‘I agree,’ she said at once.

  ‘What’s the computation?’ asked Malik.

  ‘Slightly short of $604,000,000,000,’ said Lydia, the figure already prepared.

  ‘In addition to the $29,000,000,000 owed by Poland and the $13,000,000,000 by Romania?’

  ‘Argentina’s $40,000,000,000 will be linked as well,’ reminded Lydia. ‘With some minor debts held by the Czechs and ourselves.’

  ‘So what’s the overall figure?’

  ‘Something only a computer could accept,’ said the woman. ‘With existing world debt it would be over $1,000,000,000,000.’

  Malik let his breath out at a whistle. ‘This afte
rnoon’s committee won’t be able to comprehend it,’ he forecast. ‘They’ll ask for a written report and pass an interim vote of confidence in your outstanding ability.’

  Which was exactly what happened. Afterwards Malik said, ‘I thought we might celebrate.’

  ‘Celebrate what?’ said Lydia, momentarily careless.

  ‘Our success so far.’

  ‘That would be nice,’ she said hesitantly. At last!

  Dining out in Moscow is a frustrating experience, a three- or four-hour agony of unregistered table reservations and wrongly recorded orders that take an interminable time to be served, cold when they should be hot, by truculent, unwilling waiters. Except for the élite. It was a privilege that Lydia had not properly explored and she was impressed, as Malik hoped she would be.

  He took her to the Russkiy Zal restaurant at the National Hotel, but not to the main, crowded chamber. They ate instead in a tiny room, furnished despite its smallness with heavily flocked crimson wallpaper and heavy furniture, sufficient space for just two voluminous chairs in which they sat in awkward, unfamiliar familiarity for aperitifs and with a miniscule table, with a two-place setting, fresh flowered centrepiece and crisp, rigid-starched napkins. There was Russian champagne to begin with and pale red Georgian wine at the table.

  Just as he ordered the wine without reference to her, Malik selected the meal as well. He avoided caviare, even Beluga, for which she was grateful because she didn’t like it. Instead they started with fillets of some white fish she couldn’t identify, with dill pickle and beet, and afterwards wild boar, for which there was a heavier red wine. They were attended by three waiters, who came immediately Malik summoned them by bell and left the room the moment their function was over.

  ‘There’s a name for places like this,’ he said. ‘Salon particulier.’

  ‘I know,’ said Lydia. She added hurriedly, ‘From books: I didn’t know they existed here.’

  He laughed. ‘In Paris every year the Prix Goncourt, the literary prize, is presented at a restaurant at which the mirror of the salon particulier above the main restaurant is decorated around its edge with the initials of the lady visitors, inscribed into the reflected glass with the diamonds they were given for their favours.’