Stroika

by Mark Blair

  Terentev cast a sideways glance at Gaidar, hoping that his relief did not show.

  They did not have long to wait; a soldier led them down a narrow stone staircase. In the basement a wide corridor with cell doors extending either side reached to the corner of the building. Two plain-clothes officers emerged from one and walked past them. Terentev caught the sound of moaning from inside. They took the corner and stopped at a section protected by a steel-studded door.

  ‘General… prisoner… ’ he corrected himself, ‘Marov is being kept in isolation,’ the private said by way of explanation.

  He stopped at the end door and flicked through the keys on his belt until he found the corresponding number to the cell door – 107 – inserted it in the lock and pushed.

  ***

  Yuri looked up at the door as it opened and watched his friend and Gaidar walk in. The two of them were the last people he had been expecting to see. Terentev’s and Gaidar’s unsmiling faces warned him not to jump to his feet and grab them in a bear hug. Yuri noted the two soldiers standing behind Ilya and the prison guard.

  ‘A bit cramped in here, Major,’ he said, addressing Gaidar, ignoring Terentev.

  ‘We have orders to transfer you, General, to Lefortovo.’

  ‘Lefortovo? Am I a political prisoner now?’

  Yuri had no idea about what was happening; he just had to trust in his friend.

  ‘General, I am Colonel Ilya Terentev, is there anything you need to take with you?’

  Were they really going to try and just walk out of here? Yuri thought. Was that the plan? Yuri stood up.

  ‘I’m ready.’

  With the prison guard leading the way, Yuri marched with Terentev and Gaidar directly in front of him and the two soldiers immediately behind. From their uniforms he assumed they were both Major Gaidar’s men. Twenty metres down the main corridor they passed two prison officers leading a smartly dressed man in a charcoal-grey suit and tie. He glanced up from the floor as they walked by and looked directly at Yuri. He had blood on his white shirt and his lip had been split; above his left eye a large livid swelling had begun to emerge.

  Yuri wondered what had befallen Derevenko and Stephan. Were they buried somewhere in this hellhole? He wanted to stop and insist they found them, but he would only be putting other lives at risk. Ilya had managed to bluff his way in and presumably was about to bluff his way out. Stopping for passengers was not going to work.

  Only the sound of their heavy footsteps marked the military procession. Yuri followed Terentev and Gaidar up the narrow staircase to the main floor. As they rounded the final corner and emerged into daylight, Yuri took a deep breath and slowly let the air out of his lungs.

  A young lieutenant approached them. Terentev signed the release paper and they were through into the main corridor. Men and women in plain clothes and uniform bustled back and forth, throwing the occasional glance in his direction. Yuri wondered if anyone recognised him.

  ‘We are leaving by the east entrance,’ said Terentev over his shoulder. They took the next right down a service corridor and soon came out on the main corridor again but on the other side of the building. This was much less trafficked. Twenty metres along, three guards manned the exit onto a side street. They were deep in conversation. One of them noticed their detail approach and tapped his colleague on the arm.

  ‘Colonel,’ said the senior NCO. He saluted Terentev, clearly recognising him.

  Terentev produced a duplicate of the release note.

  The NCO was in the process of handing the note back when the wall phone rang. A private behind the NCO lifted the receiver from its cradle when the deafening wail of an alarm suddenly broke above them. Yuri looked up at the flashing box and back down again at the face of the soldier struggling to hear what was being said to him. Yuri could guess. The private’s eyes darted from him to Terentev. Terentev stepped forward, ripped the phone out of his hand and kneed him in the groin. Gaidar and the two soldiers grabbed the other two, forcing them to the ground. They ejected their magazines and lobbed them and the AKs in opposite directions.

  ‘Let’s go!’ Terentev shouted.

  Gaidar pointed his revolver at the prone soldiers as two cars pulled up in front of the entrance. Terentev was the first to make it to the car door and fling it open.

  ‘Get in!’ he shouted to Yuri.

  Yuri did not need any encouragement. He threw himself into the back seat, followed by Terentev and one of Gaidar’s men. Out of the back window he saw the other two soldiers jump into the second car. His car lurched forward. Yuri turned towards the front and the balaclava-covered heads of the driver and front passenger. They took the first corner at speed and accelerated around the next.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  The figure next to the driver turned to face him. All he could see through the mask’s visor were piercing icy-blue eyes and the twinkle of a smile around their edges.

  ‘So glad you could make it, General. We’re switching cars in two blocks,’ said the now familiar female voice.

  Chapter 65

  Yuri gazed out of the Leningrad Freight first-floor window over the yard towards the gate, where armed security guards monitored traffic in and out. Terentev, Gaidar and Viktoriya sat expectantly across the table.

  ‘So we have the general secretary under house arrest, the same for Ghukov, the Emergency Committee with the deputy general secretary in charge, and the defence minister, KGB chair and Volkov in support. No overt military support for the coup… but they are taking orders from Volkov,’ reiterated Yuri. He had already established that Derevenko and Stephan were relatively safe for now inside a military prison on the outskirts of Moscow; the intelligence service had shown no interest in either of them.

  ‘Yes, except, of course, the Emergency Committee is not painting this as a coup, but a necessary step given the condition of the general secretary,’ chipped in Terentev, ‘whose condition might turn fatal at any second.’

  ‘Yes, and from what Federov has told you, Vika, the other government ministers are keeping their heads down seeing which way the wind blows.’

  ‘Federov is certainly not going to stand up and be counted, not as things are,’ said Viktoriya. ‘The KGB and the army are going to be looking for you now. I can get you out of Moscow over the border in twenty-four hours if you want… that goes for all of you.’

  ‘And you?’ Yuri asked her.

  ‘I’m staying put – at least in Leningrad with Misha.’

  ‘What time is the Emergency Committee meeting?’

  ‘Five this evening at the Ministry of Defence,’ said Terentev. ‘They are going on TV at seven.’

  Silence descended again.

  ‘Sergei,’ Yuri said, turning to Gaidar, ‘do you think you can get someone over to my apartment and smuggle out my uniform and a change of clothes. I need to get out of these,’ he said, pointing at his jeans and soiled parka jacket. ‘I don’t think this will impress anyone.’

  ‘I’ll see to it straight away, General.’

  He caught the flash of a smile on Viktoriya’s lips.

  ‘So, you are going to stay?’

  ‘Do I really have a choice? These photos, Terentev, how important do you think they are?’

  Terentev shrugged.

  ‘And you say they are of the KGB chair, twelve years ago. What was he then?’

  ‘A KGB colonel, foreign intelligence, spent time between East Germany and Moscow.’

  Clearly, the photo is compromising one or both of the subjects. How many possibilities could there be? Yuri thought. Was the other man a KGB mole inside one of the Soviet ministries – an informer? But what was so unusual in that?

  Gaidar re-entered the room and took his seat.

  ‘Thirty men?’ Yuri said, looking in the major’s direction.

  Gaidar nodded.

  �
��Well that should be enough. Is there anywhere I can take a shower, preferably hot, while I wait for my uniform?’

  Chapter 66

  Volkov received the news from the KGB chair in stony silence. How could someone just walk in and escort Marov out? But he wasn’t just someone. Terentev was a KGB colonel. Karzhov had assured him that Terentev and Marov were friends and that they went back a long way; he did not suspect dissent went deeper. But how could he tell? Maybe it didn’t matter; they had figured on opposition, planned for it and if this was the sum total of the remainder, it was an irritant and nothing else. Hadn’t everyone important already fallen in line: the Politburo and the district generals… admittedly some with less enthusiasm than others. Besides, as soon as the deputy was confirmed as general secretary that would all change. The current general secretary would either resign, through reasons of ill health, or fall on his sword… or be pushed onto it.

  After this evening, Marov and his merry men would be a mere side-story. Indeed, if Marov had any sense, any sense of self-preservation, he would be on his way out of the Soviet Union by now. General Marov – defector. It had a good ring about it.

  There were more important things to worry about than General Marov… or the wellbeing of the general secretary. The Western Army had been brought to full strength. The Americans could posture how they liked, but when the arrests started in East Germany, their promise of intervention would ring hollow. The US was not about to risk war.

  Three o’clock… the car would collect him from GSHQ at four thirty and, at seven, perestroika and all the chaos that it had brought would be history.

  Chapter 67

  Yuri fastened the last button of his military jacket and looked at himself in the small dust-covered mirror balanced on the mantelpiece. The shower had been anything but hot, but he wasn’t complaining. His hair and clothing had reeked of his Lubyanka cell, the odour of stale urine and mould. He hadn’t been able to banish the smell, not until he had stood under running water for five minutes.

  A knock on the door made him turn round. Terentev stepped into the room and gave him a mock salute.

  ‘General Marov,’ he said, looking him up and down. ‘Quite a difference from when we picked you up, Yuri.’

  Yuri could sense his friend was bursting to say something.

  ‘What?’ Yuri said.

  Terentev placed one of the black-and-white photos on the desk.

  ‘I think my man has had a breakthrough; it’s only conjecture. He talked to one or two colleagues on the East German desk and they pointed him at a retired officer. He worked with Karzhov, didn’t like him much apparently. This man said that at that time – 1978 – there was talk of someone on the inside high up in Soviet intelligence feeding information to the Americans. We also know from our own double agent at the time that the Americans had no idea who their agent’s contact was on our side. An investigation drew a blank. One of the officers involved met an untimely end, found drowned in the Moskva. No one has sought to follow up since.’

  ‘And the photo?’

  ‘The retired officer recognised the other man in the photo – we only have his word; we can’t run it through Lubyanka for now, for obvious reasons. He was an American CIA officer, a Tom Banner, arrested by us in the early eighties on spying charges, sentenced to life imprisonment but died in jail before he could be put up for one of our regular prisoner exchanges with the Americans – heart attack… if you want to believe that.’

  ‘So you think it was Karzhov who was feeding the Americans?’

  ‘It’s certainly a possibility, working both sides for his own ends. Banner either never revealed his Soviet source or the CIA has chosen not to.’

  ‘You mean he could be a sleeper.’

  ‘Perhaps… or simply that they do not want to undermine other assets they might have in the Soviet Union… and they’ll have them… best let him off the hook. Who’s going to sell them information if there’s a treason charge at the end of it?’

  ‘And you think Karzhov engineered Banner’s death to protect himself.’

  Terentev nodded.

  ‘Again a probability… he was frightened that Banner might give away his identity in return for freedom… maybe Banner was becoming impatient.’

  ‘Okay… How about Peredelkino?’ said Yuri. They only had hours before the Emergency Committee went on the air waves.

  ‘Half an hour by the M1.’

  ‘What about the back road – Michurinskiy Prospect – and you approach from the south? If you are stopped on the motorway there’s nowhere else to go; I’m guessing you don’t want a return trip to Lubyanka? Might take fifteen minutes longer… Does Viktoriya still insist on going?’

  ‘No stopping her,’ replied Terentev. ‘They’re her men too.’

  ‘Okay, but I have to talk with her first. She needs to make a call.’

  Chapter 68

  The truck was more comfortable than she had imagined. Closeted behind boxes stacked to the roof, Viktoriya sat with ten soldiers in the back of an LF freighter. She stood up and looked through the clear oval plastic pane into the driver’s cab where two other soldiers, in dark grey overalls, posed as LF crew. Outside, endless rows of anonymous red-brick tower blocks with white bay windows and covered balconies raced by in the fading light.

  A car drove past them and tucked in between the two vehicles before pulling out again and overtaking. Military jeeps parked to the side of intersections on wide grass verges watched them go by. She counted three in as many blocks, ready to shut down one of the city’s main arteries at a second’s notice.

  She sat back down again on the cold corrugated aluminium floor, took off her jacket and folded it under her. Nobody spoke. This wasn’t what her security force had signed up for at RUI, but from the occasional smiles on their broad faces she guessed that this meant more than the solid pay cheques and bonuses they had been receiving. Besides, weren’t all their interests in the new Russia perfectly aligned. If the Emergency Committee succeeded in turning back the clock, most of them would likely find themselves back where they started – in the real army on no pay and no future, stuck in some backwater or attempting to put down restive East Europeans.

  Gaidar cast a glance in her direction and at Terentev sat next to her. Until now, Viktoriya had not had much to do with him. Ivan handled security. But she could see why Yuri had placed so much confidence in him. Around her age, she guessed, maybe a little older, he had not let his rapidly growing private army atrophy. From what Ivan told her, it was better trained and armed than most regular units.

  She looked at her watch. Fifteen minutes past five, sunset just after five thirty. Was it only this morning she had arrived in Moscow and this afternoon Terentev had managed to march Yuri out of Lubyanka? With a little luck and Kostya’s reluctant support, the authorities might still think her barricaded in Malaya Morskaya.

  Without any warning, the truck braked sharply, pulled left into a side street and abruptly stopped. Viktoriya stood up again and warily peaked out of the trailer window. A military jeep blocked their way. She immediately sat back down again and raised a finger to her lips, pointing to the outside. One of the soldiers flipped the safety catch on his Kalashnikov. Gaidar shook his head. Starting a firefight in the back of a truck would be as good as suicide, she thought. Viktoriya held her breath as the rear door creaked open and light flooded into the wagon. Someone shifted boxes, sliding them this way and that. No one moved. Terentev looked at her, unblinking, and squeezed her arm. It would all be over before it started, she thought, if they were discovered now.

  The soldier shifting the boxes stopped and shouted the all-clear to another. The rear doors banged closed and the truck pulled out and turned once again onto the main road.

  Viktoriya looked at her watch in the dim interior light. In fifteen to twenty minutes, roadblocks willing, they would be there.

  Chapter 69
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br />   No one stopped him when Yuri entered by the main doors of GSHQ. Whether it was an inbuilt deference to uniform or tacit support he wasn’t clear, but one thing he did know was confidence was everything… well almost… carpe diem, you either did or you didn’t.

  Suppressing the urge to break into a run, Yuri increased his stride, his metal-edged heels ringing out loudly along the flagstone passage as he hurried towards the communication room. His arrival was greeted with a frantic pushing back of chairs as soldiers and officers jumped to attention.

  ‘At ease, men,’ said Yuri, returning their salutes and turning to the duty officer.

  ‘Lieutenant, put me through to the duty officer at Central District command.’

  The lieutenant stared at him, frozen.

  ‘General Marov, we thought you were under arrest.’

  ‘I was… Lieutenant… didn’t you serve under me at Smolensk – communications?’

  ‘Yes, General, you recommended me for promotion to Moscow.’

  It was coming back to him now.

  ‘Yekaterinburg… you are from Yekaterinburg, my home city?’

  The officer nodded. ‘Yes, sir, well remembered.’

  ‘Well, Lieutenant, I need your services now, and I haven’t got time to explain.’

  Yuri could see the officer hesitate before making up his mind.

  ‘Yes, General.’

  The lieutenant saluted him again before retaking his seat. The duty sergeant cast a wary glance in Yuri’s direction and rotated the radio dial to the appropriate frequency.

  ‘This is General Yuri Marov from the general staff,’ said Yuri when the duty officer, a Lieutenant Orlov, responded. ‘I wish to speak with General Alyabyev. Please put him on the line.’

  ‘General Alyabyev is in a meeting, General. I have orders he is not to be disturbed.’

  ‘Lieutenant, this is an emergency.’