Bolan and the woman climbed into the cab of the Rumanian-built truck. She gave him a knowing grin, rolled the vehicle smoothly onto the concrete and began to accelerate.
"That pig policeman's always on the take!" She spat out the window. "He just bothers us enough to make sure we don't forget him."
"Thanks," said Bolan. "I owe you one."
She glanced at him long enough to study his face. She liked what she saw. "Are you truly Romany?"
So it was the boar's-tooth carving she'd noticed back there, not the ring! Bolan touched the tiny talisman. The old man had said it would bring him good fortune.
"No. But I am their friend. It was given to me." Bolan watched her expression and for the first time he fully understood what an honor had been bestowed upon him. Treasured amulets were a Gypsy's most prized possessions. He looked again at her dark skin. "You're Romany yourself?"
She nodded. She was pleased to be recognized for what she was without jeers, insults or abuse. She was glad she had trusted her instincts about this man.
"Zara." She stretched her hand across in friendship. "My name is Zara."
"And I'm... Karl. Karl Kelsen."
"You're heading for Moscow?"
"Yes. Are you going that far?"
"All the way."
"Where are you from, Zara?"
"Near Krichovka. They barred the Romanies from traveling as we always have done. Forced us onto collective farms. But I've got this old truck. I'm as free as my ancestors. There's always a way around the system."
They crossed over a sluggish, muddy river. There was a neatly kept battle shrine on their right. Bolan watched two children at play, using their fingers as pistols as they chased each other around the steps of a statue of the local partisan leader.
The road signs were no longer posted in both Ukrainian and Russian, as the kilometer markers clicked off the distance to Moscow.
"Know what I've got back there?"
Bolan shrugged. He'd noticed the outline of several small crates under the torn canvas sheet.
"Paperwork. Five years of records must be taken to the central office. Meaningless! No one will ever look at them. But I'm also taking the best of our vegetables to the Sunday market. And some homemade liquor, too."
Without the private produce stalls and thriving black market, she told him, citizens in the big centers like Moscow would starve. Then she asked him, "Where are you from, Karl?"
Bolan tugged the papers from his inside pocket just far enough to show her he had the right documents. "I've got a permit to travel as a consulting engineer."
Zara suppressed a wry grin. Both of them knew it wasn't the answer to her question.
"And what are you really here for?"
"Oh, to trade," he replied. "Buying, selling — that sort of thing."
"Blue jeans... music tapes... transistor radios?"
"Whatever people really want," Bolan said, "whatever turns a profit."
"Now that I understand. I've got a lot of contacts in the city. Maybe there's some business there for you. Do you have a place to stay?"
'"Not yet."
"You do now. I stay with friends, and they'll let you stay there, too."
Bolan returned her smile. Perhaps he wished it could be that way; perhaps in his need he was beginning to like this pretty young rebel.
But… He fingered the ring on his chain.
33
Strakhov switched on the desk lamp and tried to focus his attention on the chart spread out before him. In two days he had to submit his summarized report to the chairman. He was trying to ensure that the typewritten synopsis matched the details of the organizational diagram. There were bound to be searching questions. Strakhov also wanted to be certain he had such a firm grasp of the complex worldwide operations of the KGB that he could react to any suggestions the chairman might put forward, perhaps even to counter them if necessary.
He pushed aside the saucer of lemon rinds he'd been using to weigh down the edge of the paper and studied his work. They still had no confirmation of a kill...
Strakhov sat back in the leather chair. Phoenix could run, but he couldn't hide. Nowhere was safe. Every field agent on both sides was against him. So where had he gone to earth?
It was possible the chairman himself might ask an awkward question about the killing in Zubrovna.
The story was already old news; it had been replaced on the from pages of the world's newspapers by an earthquake in Turkey and the latest airliner crash. And the major general had advance knowledge of a coming flare-up in Central America that would push the Macek assassination to the back of the foreign-news sections.
But what was he to do with Boldin? Until Phoenix had his wings clipped, there still might be a use for his double — Yet Boldin's continued existence was a potential threat. They couldn't keep him at Akinova much longer. The risk was no less within the KGB itself than from without. How long would it be before other Chekists, those rivals outside the Thirteenth Section, knew of Boldin and the Janus Plan? Someone with ambition might seek to use it against him...
Damn Phoenix!
The shrill jangling of the phone irritated him even further. He picked it up.
"What is it?" he growled.
"I have Comrade Niktov on the line," the operator told him. "Do you wish to speak to him?"
"Yes, put him on. Hello, Niktov, what have you got this time?"
"Just some news that I thought you should hear, General. It's about a burglary in Paris..."
* * *
The air was thick with the smoke of Russian tobacco. In one corner of the room a pale young man dodging compulsory military service was chatting with a blond "actress" whose talents were in truth confined to faking an orgasm for her elderly clients.
Earlier, Zara had introduced Bolan to the group. Now she was listening closely to a business proposition from Yan the Fixer, while an escapee from internal exile in Siberia was being brought up to date on the local gossip by Quickfingers, the head of a pickpocket gang that worked the Moscow subway system. The man Zara had pointed out as Gregor Panov, and his companion, a well-known surgeon, were in animated discussion.
Bolan nursed his vodka. So this was the heartland of the socialist workers' paradise, the hidden face of the Soviet Union.
They were in a cavernous apartment over the restaurant run by Masha Shukina. The size of the place alone was sufficient testimony to the Widow Shukina's criminal connections. No one on the straight and narrow could have ever acquired a private apartment this large. As Bolan was learning, everything in Russia required a bribe.
The currency was always negotiable: it could be anything from a pair of imported boots or Levi's to sex or a seat at the Bolshoi. But no matter what, the wheels had to be greased. In a country where leverage was required just to get on the waiting list for a telephone, Zara's friend Masha must have called in a lot of favors.
Antonov, Bolan's drinking partner, pushed the vodka bottle toward the foreign guest. Bolan declined. He was keeping the drinking ratio at about one to five with the sad-eyed Antonov. He'd already found out that the other man was a special guide for Intourist. He made his own profit from fingering the weaknesses of foreign visitors for many of the specialists who were in the room tonight. Bolan had arranged for Antonov to give him a private guided tour of some selected areas of the city the next day.
"You're from Germany, right?" slurred Antonov. It was the third time he'd tried that question.
"Nein," Bolan replied, only adding to Antonov's befuddlement.
"Nyet? Austria, then?"
Bolan shrugged.
"No matter. You are a friend of Zara's, and that is good enough," announced Antonov as he poured himself another shot. "You're all right."
Bolan lifted his half-empty glass in reply to Antonov's toast with an unspoken wish of his own.
This was the shadow world, the dirty underside of the Communist dream; a twilight realm where a man like Greb Strakhov could never afford to venture.
To have survived this long, to have risen to his powerful position, the KGB boss must have kept his hands very clean of any civil corruption all these years.
He could never have allowed anyone, not even a close friend, if he had any, to get hold of anything that could one day be used against him.
Bolan had the private satisfaction of knowing he was just about to tempt the major general to stray over the line.
The American warrior looked across at Zara, who was still listening to the burly Yan. Her eyes were alive with laughter. It had taken him a while to figure her out. Zara's friendship was not based simply on Romany loyalty, though that was part of it. Nor was it just sexual attraction. And it certainly wasn't a question of money. Bolan had offered her none.
It was that she recognized part of herself in him. They were both loners. Outsiders. Survivors. She defined her own personality, the very worth of her own being, only in constant opposition to the malignant, murderous state.
Yan was suggesting she could make a handsome profit if only Zara would drive a truckload of handcrafted Estonian furniture down to a minister's dacha. Yan had all the paperwork. The minister couldn't keep the goods in a Moscow warehouse any longer. Zara caught Bolan's glance and shook her head. No, she wanted to stay in the city for a few more days.
Antonov staggered off to the toilet. Gregor Panov slipped into the seat he'd vacated.
"I deal with all these gentlemen at one time or another," he explained to Bolan, nodding toward the men in the room. "I'm a sort of clearing house..."
"A fence," Bolan stated baldly.
Panov ignored the directness of the remark. "Zara tells me you're in, er, trade. What do you trade in, my friend?"
"Eggs," said Bolan. "Rare eggs."
"Then I'm sure we can do business," replied Panov. He understood precisely what was required. "I take it you wish to purchase a Faberge fake for an unwitting client in the West."
"No, I have an original for sale here."
Panov licked his lips. This was out of his league, but he wanted to stay in the game.
"I have a customer in mind," Bolan continued quietly. "I just have to get in touch with him."
"Of course." Panov smiled agreeably. The role of middleman was something he could play.
"I'm sure I can make any connections you want."
"I think Major General Strakhov will be most interested in the egg."
Panov winced. "Greb Strakhov?"
Bolan nodded. "You know him?"
"No. I'm glad to say that I don't; at least not personally. But I am in contact with someone who does know him. Leave it to me."
* * *
The limpid blue skies of morning gave way to a gray afternoon. Bolan found Moscow a depressingly colorless city, probably because it lacked the familiar distractions of even a small American town.
Antonov did not appear to be suffering from any ill effects after his drinking bout of the night before. He knew the capital intimately — and people even better. He did not ask why the big foreigner wanted to be taken to the Kazan railway station, then the International Post Office and on to the Botanical Gardens, rather than seeing Red Square or Gorky Park.
The guide openly admired the digital chronometer that Bolan glanced at throughout their tour. "Got to watch the time," explained Bolan. "Said I'd meet Zara when she's finished at the rynok." The Romany woman had gone to make arrangements for selling off her produce at the peasant market. Actually, Bolan was making exact timings between each of a series of mental checkpoints.
Antonov explained that he, too, had to go on to another appointment. Bolan thanked the Muscovite for his help and bade him farewell outside the grandiose Exhibition of Economic Achievement.
He reviewed the events he had set in motion. The only way to clear his name was to find his own double, the man he had seen in the window at Zubrovna. The KGB could have hidden him anywhere in the vast area of the Soviet Union — if indeed he was still alive. And that was something Bolan doubted.
But if Professor Farson was right, then Strakhov was the one man who would certainly know the whereabouts or the fate of the Phoenix impostor.
And if he was dead, then Bolan would make Strakhov provide a signed confession.
That morning Zara had driven him past the KGB headquarters in Dzerzhinsky Square and Strakhov's apartment on Petushka Street. It was no use simply getting close enough to put a gun to his head and demanding the information. Greb Strakhov wouldn't scare that easy.
No, he had to be looking down the barrel of a real threat; such as being stripped of his power and privileges, of interrogation in the Lubyanka at the hands of his erstwhile colleagues, of a show trial for corruption, and a life sentence in the Gulag with all those other prisoners he'd helped send there himself. Then, maybe then, he'd talk.
Bolan was mulling over the possibilities as he strolled toward Mira Prospekt, keeping his face hidden by his collar.
He was so engrossed in his thoughts he did not see the black car that cruised quietly to the curb behind him.
34
Two men got out and fell in on either side of the foreigner.
They weren't the talkative type. The guy in the brown hat nodded at the car. Bolan was to get in. Quickly. The fellow in the leather coat shoved him through the door in case he didn't understand.
"I thought you guys would never show up," said Bolan.
They weren't cops. They did not exude that overconfident immunity afforded by the backing of the law. These were two hardmen who made the play stick with their muscles and the weapons concealed beneath their ill-fitting coats. Despite his offhand comment, Bolan was impressed at the speed with which word of his mission had spread through the underworld network.
The driver, in a chauffeur's peaked cap, did not look in the mirror as the two men frisked the foreigner in the back seat. The one in the leather coat relieved Bolan of the Beretta and examined it covetously.
They sped around the wide inner circle of the Sadovoye Ring, over the river, down Valivov Street and cut across into the Lenin Hills. The driver honked his horn at a couple of students running toward the ornate complex of the university, then pulled into the parking lot of a small chapel at the back of the bluffs.
The car that was waiting for them there would have drawn admiring glances anywhere in the world, but in Moscow the vintage Rolls-Royce must have been the object of envy. Leathercoat prodded Bolan with the Beretta to indicate he should walk over to the other vehicle.
The man in the back seat of the Rolls sat with two clawlike hands resting on a silver-topped walking cane. His pronounced forehead was framed with swooping waves of thinning hair, rather obviously dyed raven black. A pair of rimless glasses were balanced on his beaky nose. And despite the fact that he wore a dark green bow tie, he had the air of an elderly schoolteacher.
"Mr. Kelsen... my name is Niktov."
It was like shaking hands with water. Ice-cold water.
The Russian art expert gave not the slightest sign of recognizing Bolan. Niktov's rheumy eyes simply stared right through him. He was a man who existed exclusively in a world of beautiful objects and the fancy dealing that surrounded them.
"I understand you have something you wish to dispose of... privately."
"Yes. Are you speaking on behalf of a client?"
Niktov nodded sharply. Once. "In a manner of speaking. It has been suggested, Mr. Kelsen, that you might have two items that are of interest."
"An egg and a book."
"So you have the diary, then?"
"It's a package deal. I'd say the Faberge is worth two hundred thousand U.S. dollars. Large bills will do."
"That's a great deal of hard currency."
"I'm sure your client has access to, what shall we call them, 'special funds'?" Bolan looked at the collector. "Or a friend who could lend him the difference."
Niktov had to play his hand very carefully. So far he had told Strakhov little of what he knew of Karl Kelsen. The art dealer did not want to be froze
n out of the deal. "And what are you asking for the duchess's diary?"
"Oh, that's not for sale," Bolan replied flippantly. "Anyone who buys the egg gets the diary for nothing."
Those were the terms. Niktov had been in the game long enough to know that the arrangement offered was beyond haggling.
"I'll only deal with the purchaser on a face-to-face basis," added Bolan. "He brings the cash, and I'll deliver the goods. Tell your client to be next to the public telephones at the Sverdlova metro station. Eleven-thirty. Tonight. And he'd better bring the money."
"That's not very long to raise..."
"It's all the time he's got."
The man's bones shone white through the translucent skin of his knuckles as he gripped the cane tightly. He beckoned for Leathercoat to come over, and with a flick of his eyelids indicated that his henchman should hand back the Beretta.
"Take Mr. Kelsen wherever he wishes to go," Niktov instructed. For a fleeting moment his eyes focused on the tall Westerner. "And a word of warning: guns are against the law of this country."
* * *
Vichinsky could scarcely suppress a gasp of surprise. He had never seen so many American dollars before in his life. But to Strakhov they were nothing more than bits of colored paper. He was more interested in the man — this mysterious contact Niktov had made and was keeping to himself — than the money. But more than anything he wanted the diary.
The head of the Thirteenth Section counted the last bundle, laid it in the fiberglass briefcase and snapped the lid shut. "There's a contact bringing us a valuable object and some even more valuable information. I want you to collect it personally."
"Of course, Comrade General." Vichinsky nodded slowly, but his mind was racing. Was this really official business? Surely it must be, since the major general had received such immense funds from the administration department. And yet he had the nagging suspicion that there was more to it than met the eye. Strakhov seemed distracted by private concerns.
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