The Soviet Comeback

by Jamie Smith

  “So where have we gotten to?” he asked, surveying them through his wire-rimmed glasses.

  His campaign manager Ed Sheen, a young man with dark blond hair and a weak chin, sat back with an arrogant confidence, and pulling the cigarette out of his mouth, blew out smoke and smiled at him. “We are good to go, boss,” he said in a voice tinged with Georgian drawl. He handed over a sheet of paper that had been scribbled all over. Peering over his glasses, Gerald Phillips was able to discern the makings of his speech, the speech that would announce his intention to seek the Republican nomination for the presidency.

  “Your handwriting is horseshit, Ed, but you guys have put together a good-looking speech,” he said with a wry smile and looked at each of the four-strong team one by one.

  “Lisa, type this thing up for me and let’s get this show on the road,” he said, looking at his assistant, a prim young woman with dark hair who clearly had eyes for Ed. “I want to run through it a few times before the press conference tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, taking the paper back from him.

  “What time have you booked the press for, Terry?” he asked Terry O’Connor, his press secretary.

  “At sixteen hundred hours, Mr Vice President. The president can’t be seen to endorse you so it’s best that we don’t hold it at the White House. As it stands, we’re set up to do it on the steps of the Capitol, but I could get them here if you would prefer. It’s already the worst kept secret in Washington that you’re going to run, so no reporter is going to miss it. You will have the headlines tomorrow night, sir.” Little did Terry know how prophetic his words would be.

  “If there is one thing politics has taught me, Terry, it is that nothing is ever certain. It would be just our luck that the Berlin Wall falls over this afternoon,” he said and his team laughed uncertainly. It was rare that Gerald Phillips made a joke, and rarer still that he would deal in hypotheticals. A serious man with a serious face and a serious history covering everything from US naval aviator to director of the CIA and on to the vice presidency, he dealt only in fact. Humour was for those with something to hide.

  “I advise we keep it at the Capitol,” said Ed. “It will be a good reminder of the great work you’ve done as vice president in these last two terms of office. You should be able to ride the goodwill people have for Callahan all the way to the Oval Office.”

  “That’s President Callahan, Ed. He deserves our respect, as does the office.” He reprimanded his campaign manager, but he knew that Ed Sheen had not enjoyed the rapid rise he had by being respectful or nice. He was a master of the dark arts, and the vice president knew he would need all of those tricks if he was to secure the Republican nomination, let alone the presidency. He was not so naïve as to think he could get there on good faith and honesty; politics was a dirty world, and he had no qualms about playing dirty to meet his ambitions.

  “Ah yes, of course, Mr Vice President. No offence intended,” said Ed with thinly disguised impatience.

  “None taken, young man. I agree, the Capitol reminds people that I am their vice president, a man they can trust to lead. We will only irritate reporters if we move the goalposts now, and we don’t want to start off the campaign with irritating the very people we need on our side.” He glanced at his watch. “Let’s keep going; there’s a lot more we need to plan and prepare still.”

  Ed clapped his hands. “You heard the VP, let’s crack on. Terry, I need to know your recommended press campaign schedule by the end of today,” he barked. “What have you got so far?”

  There was a lot of scrambling around for papers and cursing, and Gerald Phillips stepped out of the room once more. He hoped the Oval Office was quiet.

  ***

  Across town, KGB Agent Taras Brishnov was ready. Nothing had been left to chance; it would be so easy. Tingles of excitement were running through his body as he looked out over Capitol Hill. This would be his pièce de résistance; after years lurking in the shadows, he would be thrust into the spotlight and be the most celebrated KGB agent the USSR had ever known. Finally, he would get the adulation his years of service deserved; finally, there would be true fear in the heart of the capitalist west.

  ***

  Nikita twiddled his thumbs before leaning forwards on his desk and resting his head in his hands. He wasn’t used to being caught in indecision, a state that he had been trained to avoid, a state that got spies killed.

  This was a turn of events that he had not foreseen.

  On the desk in front of him sat the telegram that had just been delivered from one of his few remaining legitimate US spies in the USSR.

  YERIN REMOVED. COL KLITCHKOV NEW KGB HEAD. HIS CURRENT LOCATION UNKNOWN.

  Not for the first time, Nikita wondered who the CIA agent in the Soviet Union was. Despite Yerin’s systematic removal of almost every single agent they had behind the iron curtain, a few still remained, providing valuable intelligence. Not being trusted with the identity of those remaining agents was something Nikita was grateful for as it meant he was supplied solid intelligence without being questioned on how he had obtained it, and meant that he would have no further blood on his hands.

  Since Yerin’s dismantling of the CIA spy network, the identity of any remaining had been kept highly classified and a closely guarded secret known only to the very highest echelons of the agency. So far, the CIA continued to believe their spies had been caught due to intercepted communications and it had barely been floated as an idea that there might be a mole in their ranks. Whoever ZB was, he had done astonishing work.

  With Yerin gone, he considered what it might mean for the agency and his own position. His greatest fear was that his own identity would be revealed by a Russian defector, and with Yerin ousted he might be tempted to leak state secrets.

  Then he thought of Chairman Klitchkov and realised that he would never allow Yerin or his cronies to live. The Kremlin had no room for an opposition.

  He picked up the telegram and walked over to Sykes’ office. Knocking on the door, he heard the chief’s voice say, “Enter.”

  Sykes was sitting at his desk on the phone, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and his eyes looking more bloodshot than ever. He looked up and waved Nikita into the chair opposite him.

  “… Still looking into it. Yes, Mr Secretary, as soon as there is any more information, you’ll be the first to know,” he said and rolled his eyes at Nikita. “Of course, sir, you have my word,” he said again before putting the phone down heavily. “The secretary of state is all over my ass since the FBI told him about the White Russian — blames us for letting him go to the president with it without any facts.”

  “Never mind that, sir, this is bigger, and this is fact,” said Nikita and thrust the telegram onto the desk in front of his boss.

  The chief took a drag on his cigarette, picked up the telegram and immediately began coughing and spluttering fitfully. He put a tissue to his mouth and after some time the coughing abated.

  “Jesus, Marshall, give me some warning before you give me news like that. Yerin gone? I thought he was infallible. God knows he did a good enough job killing all of our agents. Do you know any more?”

  “Nothing yet, sir — this just came in from one of our agents in Moscow. I expect it will be on the news tomorrow but it doesn’t lessen the shock of his replacement being Chairman Klitchkov.”

  Sykes grunted. “Nothing surprises me any more about the communists. What do we know about Klitchkov?”

  “A fair amount, sir; I built up a file on him.”

  “Give me the highlights.”

  “Sure thing. Andrei Klitchkov was born in the city of Volgograd, then called Stalingrad - a little shout out to Stalin’s arrogance - in 1927 and his mother died at birth. For this his father blamed him, drinking heavily and beating him regularly. He grew up on the fringes at school, always poorly dressed and bullied and shunned by his peers for being different. It’s then I believe he developed his cruel streak, by retreating into his own v
icious fantasies and dreamt of being a ruler himself, which was all he had known in a world that had shown him little kindness—”

  “Jacob, I want the career highlights, not his therapy session analysis,” interrupted Sykes.

  “Of course, sir. KGB psychological profiling is very thorough; you’d be amazed at how—”

  “Marshall!”

  “Sorry, sir. When the USSR entered World War Two in 1941, his father was conscripted into the Red Army, but died in one of the first battles of Operation Barbarossa; I’m not clear exactly how or where. I wonder did he shed a tear for his departed old man?”

  “This is your last warning,” snapped Sykes.

  “By this point Andrei, only fourteen, showed early signs of his cold determination and found a way into the army despite being significantly underage. There he fought valiantly, gaining great fame for his exploits during the Battle of Stalingrad. He won the medal for the defense of the city, as well as the Medal of Courage. Due to the incredibly high death toll, he, quite incredibly, became a captain by the age of fifteen and was awarded the Order of Suvorov for his leadership against a numerically superior force. However, he became better known for his cold ruthlessness and detachment from the atrocities he was both surrounded by, and more often than not committing. He would personally shoot anyone in his company who turned away from the field of battle, and famously never allowed his men to retreat even in the face of certain failure.

  “From there, his career is easier to follow. He stayed with the Soviet Army for another decade after the war before being recruited by the KGB in 1956 and led the more clandestine charge against the leaders of the Hungarian Revolution. Since then, he has been a key player within the KGB, but has never got close to a position of clear leadership due to his coldness, even by Soviet standards, and a tendency to go off-piste a little too often.”

  “You have done your research on him,” said Sykes. “How worried should we be?”

  “He’s an interesting character,” acknowledged Nikita. “But he has never been under consideration for the KGB secretariat, nowhere near. He was second chief directorate of the KGB for counter-intelligence, but there were several other candidates well ahead of him, and it was generally accepted that Oleg Livenko was next in line.”

  “His deputy?”

  “Yes, sir. Like Yerin he was a Brezhnev fan and a hard liner, but Klitchkov is far more unpredictable. If the general secretary doesn’t keep him on a tight leash, it’s not unreasonable to say he could light the touch paper on the Cold War. He’s a lifelong servant to the USSR; the one thing we know is that patriotism runs to his core. But it’s the equivalent of jumping from colonel to general, which he probably will get now too. It’s a real curve ball of an appointment and smacks of a scandal involving Yerin, as they’re obviously wanting someone not too affiliated with him. I suspect Yerin’s days are numbered.”

  The phone on Sykes’ desk began to ring, startling them both. “Find out more about why he was removed; we need more intelligence. I want to know what game Petrenko is playing here, and what sort of leader of the KGB Klitchkov is going to be,” he said before picking up the phone and waving Nikita away.

  Nikita picked up the telegram and stalked back to his desk. His head was spinning; had Klitchkov known when he saw him only days ago that he was in line for a promotion? He couldn’t imagine that to be the case; the chairman of the KGB did not, and could not, visit assets on foreign soil.

  As he got to his desk, he saw a large envelope. He sat down and opened it and inside found a number of photographs.

  The first showed the unmistakable figure of Agent Brishnov walking away from the photographer down a dingy alleyway.

  The next showed a gory image of a woman lying on blood-drenched sheets, still tied up and naked; little was left of the back of her head.

  Nikita noticed there was a slight bulge at the bottom of the envelope and in it he found a cartridge casing of a .50 AE Magnum bullet, one of the largest cartridges you could get in a handgun. Nikita only knew of one gun that could hold the bullets — the new Israeli-manufactured Desert Eagle.

  Not many places in Washington DC would sell such cartridges. And the KGB definitely did not provide its agents with Desert Eagles.

  “Hey, Lahart, did you see who brought this envelope in?”

  “Yeah, some guy, about twenty minutes ago,” replied Blaine distractedly, not looking up from his work.

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “I wasn’t paying attention; I’m right in the middle of something. I think he had a moustache.”

  “A moustache? That’s it?”

  “Yeah, a toothbrush moustache.”

  “Like Hitler?” replied Nikita incredulously.

  “I was thinking like Charlie Chaplin, but I guess I’m not as judgy as you,” said Blaine, now looking up and smiling.

  “Forget it,” said Nikita, turning back to the documents in front of him. He turned over the photos. On the back it said, ‘Taken at Oldham St, Baltimore MD. ZB’.

  Those initials again. He walked over to Chang and showed her the pictures. “Looks like I have a lead to go on. You going to come with me?”

  “We’re analysts, not field agents, Jake,” she replied sternly.

  “Today I think we’re both. Come on, we’re not taking him down, just trying to find him,” he said in response to her look of incredulity. “That’s what analysts do, the research.”

  “Fine,” she said, grabbing her coat. “But a visit to Baltimore was not what I had planned for my day.”

  It was a sixty-minute drive from the CIA headquarters on McLean to their destination in East Baltimore and Nikita fought the urge to accelerate. Sarah sat chain-smoking with the window down and saying little, both of them aware of how much was not being said.

  He slowed to a stop as they pulled into Oldham Street outside a Greek Orthodox church. It was a visibly run-down street with flat roofed buildings, many of which had once been warehouses, lining either side. He pulled out the photograph from the envelope on the back seat and they put their heads together to examine it. He could smell her perfume and tobacco blend and found it distracting.

  He had to resist the temptation to kiss her. She must have sensed it as she looked at him sharply. “Come on man, we’re on the job; focus.”

  He was taken aback but didn’t know why; this was Sarah’s way. At least you always knew where you stood. Except, he thought, he actually had no idea where he stood with her.

  “Sure. Now where is this alleyway? It isn’t a long street; it shouldn’t be hard to find. We might find a clue,” said Nikita, although privately he couldn’t picture a world in which Brishnov would leave any trace behind. But then, he had already been more careless than he could have imagined, like he was a man with nothing to lose. “Don’t forget your gun,” he said to Sarah, handing her the High Standard HDM pistol that had fallen onto the floor of the car by her feet. Inwardly he squirmed at the thought of being so careless with a government-issue firearm. Denisov would have put him in the cold box for such an offence. His own was firmly clipped into the holster at his waist.

  “You take this side of the road, and I’ll take that one,” said Sarah, and they dispersed. Within a minute, Nikita had found the spot. A narrow alleyway at the side of a low concrete building, casting it in gloom despite it being the middle of the day. He could see the window that his comrade had clearly jumped out of following his crime.

  He walked along it, eyes everywhere. The alleyway was bare, with the only signs of life the occasional cigarette butt.

  He walked back and called Chang over, but she also was unable to see any sign of Brishnov’s presence.

  “I didn’t expect any trace. This guy has gone under our radar for years. I’m just astounded he blew the brains out of a prostitute; it’s like he wanted us to find him,” said Nikita.

  “Unless this is a different guy. I mean all we can see is the back of his head in this photo,” Sarah replied.

&n
bsp; “It’s the only lead we have,” Nikita replied flatly, getting irritated with her constant negativity. “What gun stores are there around here?”

  “Damned if I know,” she shrugged.

  He bit his lip. “OK, well let’s scatter and find out.”

  “You mean separate?” she said, looking suddenly nervous.

  “Well… yeah,” he responded. “How did you get into the CIA?” he asked sarcastically.

  “Say that again and I won’t let you in when you come round after drinking too much at the bar tonight,” she said with a straight face.

  “Now who’s being unprofessional?” Nikita replied acerbically. “Do your job.” He turned and walked up the street. He didn’t fear for Sarah; they had all done basic field training, she could take care of herself.

  He glanced over his shoulder and saw that she had crossed to the other side of the street and was making her way in the opposite direction.

  He absorbed it all as he had been trained to do. So much of his training had to lie dormant for long stretches of time, ready and waiting for the day he would need to call upon the skill he had spent years finessing. Within seconds he knew the location of every car, where every potential enemy hiding place was and every camera, though there were not many.

  After ten minutes of walking through largely residential streets, he came across a short high street, with a Greek bakery, greengrocers, hairdressers and a smattering of cafes and restaurants. It felt like an old-fashioned street from a different era. Shop signs were painted on the brickwork and people of all ages sat outside the cafes chatting. As he passed them, he arrived at a quiet crossroads, and looking down to his left he saw what he was looking for.

  A gun shop stood out, newer and shinier than the faded old shops of the high street. Mellor’s Firearms was printed in block white on a black background, and an A-board outside boasted that ammo could be bought by the bucket.