“I thought you were, I don’t know, a burglar,” he said. “I’m Kiss.”
“You left your side door open, Mr Kiss.”
Mikhail Kiss stood up, sipped his drink, smiled. “I grow careless with age, Mr Pagan. Do me a small favour. Put the gun away.”
Pagan returned the Bernardelli to his holster. “A precaution,” he said.
“Sure. I might have pulled a gun and fired on you. After all, we live in an age of guns,” Kiss remarked, still smiling, running one large hand through his white hair.
Pagan glanced a moment through the glass walls, seeing the ghostly shape of the gazebo out there in the darkness. Then he turned to look back at Mikhail Kiss, who seemed completely at ease now, and hostlike, as if he were wondering what kind of treats he could find to force upon his visitor.
Pagan had an uncomfortable moment suddenly, a light-headed sensation, a flashback to the sight of Max Klein in the burning car, and he wondered if this image was going to recur, if it was going to come into his head when he didn’t want it, or enter his sleep when he didn’t need nightmares. He pushed the picture from his mind and looked at Kiss, wondering if the big man had noticed his discomfort.
“You’ve come a long way,” Kiss said. “What can I possibly do for a man from Scotland Yard?”
Pagan needed to sit down. He moved to one of the wicker chairs. He studied Kiss’s face, thinking it was good-natured, and cheerful, the face of a man who doesn’t come to subterfuge easily. Where to begin? Where to make the first incision? Start with the car. Start with something simple. Go slowly at first.
“I’m trying to trace the driver of a certain Jaguar,” Pagan said.
“A Jaguar?” Mikhail Kiss asked.
“The car was leased to a company called Rikkad, of which you’re the financial Vice President.”
“Rikkad,” and Kiss looked like a man ransacking his memory, a man who hears a faint bell ring at the end of a long corridor.
“Rikkad is one of your business ventures with Carl Sundbach,” Pagan said in the manner of a theatrical prompter. There was an act going on here, and Kiss had slipped into some kind of amnesiac role, but Pagan wasn’t in the mood to be a gullible onlooker in the balcony.
Mikhail Kiss drained his scotch, set his empty glass down. “We’ve had so many business ventures, sometimes I forget,” he said. Why in the name of God was an English cop interested in the Jaguar? Only Andres ever drove it, and he’d returned it to the offices of the leasing company late that afternoon, so why was Pagan asking questions about it?
“But you remember now,” Pagan said. “And you remember the Jaguar.”
“Yes, of course, it comes back to me.”
“Did you drive it?”
Mikhail Kiss shook his head. “Too sporty for me, Mr Pagan.”
“Who used it then?”
“My nephew mostly. Andres Kiss.”
Pagan sat back in his chair, and the wicker creaked under his weight. Andres Kiss, Superboy. “I’d like to talk to him.”
“Unfortunately, that isn’t going to be possible.”
“Why not?”
“He just left on vacation.”
“When?”
“Tonight,” Kiss said.
“Where did he go?”
Mikhail Kiss shrugged. “Europe,” he answered.
That, Pagan thought, was fucking useful information. “Where exactly?” he asked.
“He said he was touring. You know the young, Mr Pagan. They don’t make plans.”
“He flew, did he?”
Mikhail Kiss nodded. He had a tight, claustrophobic feeling, and it made his chest ache. What did an English policeman want with Andres, for Christ’s sake?
“Where did he fly to?” Pagan asked.
Kiss laughed. “I’m only the boy’s uncle, Mr Pagan. He tells me nothing.” He lit a cigarette. “Why are you asking these questions about Andres?”
Pagan didn’t answer at once. He liked the silence, the way it built, the suspense that lay at the heart of quietness. He got out of the wicker chair and looked across the darkened gardens. The gazebo was no longer visible, the sky moonless.
“Carl Sundbach was murdered this afternoon,” Pagan said, and he turned to look at Mikhail Kiss’s reaction.
Kiss was waxy suddenly, and pale. “Murdered?”
Pagan nodded. It was obvious that Kiss, unless he was more talented an actor than Pagan imagined, hadn’t heard this news before.
“And you suspect my nephew? Is that why you’re here?” Kiss asked. He had to fight the blackness that was inside him now, the sense of inner control receding, the wave of nausea that rolled through him. He remembered the unexpected way Andres had gone out, the moodiness of the boy later at the airport, he remembered aloofness and ice.
Pagan said, “A young man drove a Jaguar to Sundbach’s street. He parked it, went up to Sundbach’s apartment. Twenty minutes later Sundbach was found murdered. The young man and the Jaguar had gone.”
Kiss asked his question again. And you suspect my nephew?
“Yes,” Pagan said.
“Why would he kill Sundbach, for God’s sake?”
Pagan had a small enjoyable moment, like the kind a conjurer might savour before pulling a multitude of things out of a hat he has shown the audience to be empty. Silks, rabbits, doves, pineapples, an unexpected world.
“My guess is he learned that Sundbach had arranged the murder of Aleksis Romanenko,” and here Pagan took one of the photographs from his pocket and tossed it into Kiss’s lap. It was done with flair and great aplomb and the timing was a joy. Three faces stared up from the photograph – Sundbach, Romanenko and Mikhail Kiss, three young warriors fighting on behalf of a lost cause.
Kiss shut his eyes and laid one hand over the picture and he thought You old fool, Carl. Of course there had been pictures, and he remembered the bravado of the day when they’d been taken, and how they’d gone out that morning – four of them, the nucleus of the group – and ambushed a Russian patrol, a successful enterprise, and how Sundbach, who was never without his pre-war Kodak, had insisted on photographs. Souvenirs, he’d said. Mälestusesemed, things of remembrance. Something to show our grandchildren, he’d said. Now, after all this time, the pictures, which Kiss had told him several times to destroy, had resurfaced and a prying Englishman had seen them. It was strange, almost mystical, the way the past clung to the present. And it was there in the old photo, a connection that couldn’t be denied.
Mikhail Kiss looked down at the picture. He could smell the dampness of the forest, he could feel the wet earth against his face as he lay in a hollow while the tiblad patrolled nearby. Now what was this Englishman telling him? what nonsense was this about Sundbach arranging the death of Romanenko? and Andres killing old Carl?
“I think you’re mistaken, Mr Pagan. I can’t believe Sundbach would have anything to do with the death of Romanenko.”
Pagan, glad that Kiss wasn’t going to dispute the authenticity of the photograph and deny it was his own younger image there, reached down, picked the photograph up, looked at it. “Quite the opposite. I think there’s a strong possibility Sundbach arranged it because he discovered Romanenko was controlled by a certain faction within the KGB.”
“Controlled by the KGB? You’re out of your mind.”
“I don’t think there’s any doubt, Kiss. The KGB knew what Aleksis was carrying to Edinburgh, but they didn’t stop him leaving the Soviet Union. And you want to know why they didn’t? Because they want the Brotherhood’s plan to work.”
The Brotherhood. Mikhail Kiss, who had a stricken look on his face, walked quickly into the kitchen. Pagan followed, watching the big man make himself a second drink. Ice-cubes slid from his hand and fell to the tiled floor and cracked like glass. Kiss kicked the broken cubes aside and looked at Frank Pagan and wondered how this Englishman had heard about the Brotherhood. He sipped his drink and tried to remain calm. He said, “I think you’ve made a grave error. Especially in your suspici
on about Andres.”
Pagan admired Kiss’s control, even though he sensed it was superficial. The man’s manner was cool, smooth, and there was something of perplexed innocence in his expression.
Pagan said, “I suppose I could always put the matter beyond any doubt by looking at a picture of your nephew. Do you have a photo?”
Mikhail Kiss stared at the Englishman, who had one of those faces that can be deceptive, a mask drawn across true feelings. But Kiss saw it in Frank Pagan’s eyes, a core of conviction that what the Englishman was saying was the truth. Kiss turned away, fighting a chill he felt. He heard himself ask how Carl had been murdered, and Pagan replied with the single word strangulation and Kiss remembered the cut on Andres’s forehead, which perhaps Carl, the old fighter, the vöitleja, had managed to inflict at the end of his life. Something dark raced across Kiss’s heart when he thought of this boy he’d raised, this killer of old men. He shut his eyes tightly. He wondered if he could deny the boy’s existence, if he could deny the very thing he’d created.
“I don’t have a photograph,” he said.
“I didn’t think you would.” Pagan poured himself a glass of water from the faucet and drank it quickly. He could still taste smoke in his mouth. “What is the Brotherhood’s plan, Mikhail?”
Kiss turned to the Englishman. “Plan? What plan?”
“The one the KGB seems to like,” Pagan replied. “The one the KGB has found some use for.”
Mikhail Kiss shook his head. There were edges here, boundaries he couldn’t chart, as if the landscape Pagan described were too chaotic to grasp. There was no way in the world that the KGB could have controlled Romanenko. There was no way the KGB would encourage the scheme. They’d destroy it, not use it. Everyone connected with it, himself included, would have been disposed of in some way.
“When you talk about the Brotherhood, you seem to ascribe to it a sinister quality it doesn’t have. I admit we’re a group of loosely-organised patriots who regret the seizure of our country – but we’re not planning anything, you understand. And if we did, it wouldn’t be anything the KGB would approve of, I can tell you.”
Pagan folded his arms, leaned against the sink. There was a flatness in the way Kiss talked, a lack of vigour. It was as if his understanding of his nephew’s crime had diminished him in an important way, and now he was simply going through the motions of concealing the Brotherhood’s scheme.
“Too many people have died,” Pagan said. “Too many people have died for me to buy your bullshit. Is it terrorism? Is it political assassination? What the hell is it?”
Mikhail Kiss walked out of the kitchen and back into the sun-room, the glass walls of which were pitch black now. Pagan followed him, frustrated by the big man’s evasiveness. What was he supposed to do? Pull a gun and force Kiss to tell the truth? Pagan had the distinct feeling that guns wouldn’t convince Mikhail Kiss to do anything he didn’t want to do.
“How do you feel, Kiss, about the fact that your plan is being put to use by the KGB? How do you feel about serving up something useful for your enemies?”
Mikhail Kiss sat down, looked sadly at Frank Pagan. “Please, Mr Pagan. No more. No more questions. I’m tired now.”
Goading wasn’t much of a strategy either, Pagan decided. He moved a little closer to Kiss and said, “Romanenko is dead. Carl Sundbach is dead. Two London policemen are dead. A young English diplomat was killed. And tonight a New York cop was burned to death inside his car. This plan of yours is running up quite a total, Kiss. Somebody gets in the way of it and whoops – the fucking KGB makes sure they’re not around to do any more interference. You make a great team. The Brotherhood and the KGB.”
Kiss said nothing. He wasn’t really listening to Pagan. He was thinking of Andres Kiss killing Carl Sundbach. He was trying to imagine that, seeing pictures, Sundbach perhaps rolling on the floor while Andres tied the cord tighter and tighter still, the old man struggling, fighting, gasping at the end of it all.
Pagan brought his face close to Kiss’s ear. “Is Andres part of it, Mikhail? I understand he’s a hot-shot flyer. Is he part of the scheme? Is he going to fly a plane for you? Is that it? A bomb, Mikhail? Is he going to drop a bomb?”
“For God’s sake.”
Pagan was trying to come in from all angles here, as if this buckshot approach might confuse Kiss, might draw an answer out of him that he didn’t want to give, but Kiss was too quick for this tactic.
Kiss rose from his chair, brushing Pagan aside. “You bark up the wrong tree, Pagan. Go home. Go back to London. Let it be. It doesn’t concern you. Countries you know nothing about, countries occupied by the Soviets, why should you interfere with them? The British had their chance in the 1940s, Pagan, and sold the Baltic cheaply to Stalin. I’m telling you now, it’s too late to sit up and take a fresh interest in my people. Forget it. Go home. Leave it to people who care, people who understand. What the hell do you understand about it? Mind your own damned business.”
“It’s become my fucking business, Kiss!”
Kiss stepped into the hallway, and Pagan went after him. There, under the hall light, Mikhail Kiss stopped moving, and stood very still. Pagan, surprised to the point of silence, felt an odd tension at the back of his throat.
She was standing by the front door. She wore a plain white t-shirt and blue jeans and her shoulderbag hung at her side. There was very little make-up on her face. When she smiled at Pagan she did so in a thin way, and he thought she looked beautiful, but in some way changed, except he couldn’t define it.
“Frank Pagan’s right,” Kristina Vaska said. “This whole thing has become his business, Mr Kiss.”
Moscow
General Olsky went to the window of his office and parted the slats of the blind, seeing a strange red sun in the morning sky which, in a theatrical manner, lit the old women sweeping the street below, so that they had the appearance of a Greek chorus keeping itself busy. Then he closed the slats and turned to look at Deputy Minister Tikunov, who sat on the other side of the desk.
Ever since the meeting with the General Secretary, Olsky had despatched hundreds of additional agents into the field, in Moscow and Leningrad and Kiev. He’d ordered them to enter the offices of the Defence Ministry and examine the files of personnel deployed in sensitive positions at radar installations, which he considered a logical place to start if Greshko’s scheme involved the flight of a plane into Soviet airspace. It wasn’t a decision Olsky had taken lightly, and it infuriated Tikunov.
Tikunov, Deputy Minister of Defence, was also Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Air Defence Forces. He was a squat man who bore an uncanny resemblance to the late Nikita Khrushchev. To Tikunov’s way of thinking, the KGB had too much influence, both in civilian and military life, and he frequently found himself hoping that if genuine reforms were to be made in the Soviet Union they would first of all be applied to the kind of authority commanded by the organs of State Security.
Tikunov said, “I assume, comrade General, you can explain the swarms of your men in my headquarters? I assume you can explain the nature of your business?”
Olsky regarded Tikunov’s large red face, a peasant face given to Slavic volatility, extremes of emotion not easily hidden. His face was an accurate barometer of his feelings at all times. Olsky didn’t feel obliged to give an immediate explanation. There were delicate and rather ambiguous questions of rank at issue here, and Olsky was conscious of the fact that Tikunov had been Commander-in-Chief of Air Defences for a longer time than he, Olsky, had run the KGB. Olsky, though, was a candidate member of the Politburo, and closer to the General Secretary than Tikunov, which compensated for the matter of longevity.
“I’m operating with the full authority of the General Secretary,” Olsky said, which was stretching a truth slightly. The General Secretary had simply said Deal with it as you think fit, Stefan.
Deputy Minister Tikunov wondered if he should ask to see some kind of written authorisation. He had every right to do so, of
course, but the Chairman of the KGB, no matter who occupied the position, was never a man one questioned lightly. And so he hesitated a moment, considering his options and trying to bring his temper under control.
“Let me ask you a question, Minister,” Olsky said. “How difficult is it these days for an aeroplane to penetrate our airspace undetected, Minister?”
“What the hell kind of question is that?” Tikunov asked.
“A simple one.”
Tikunov bristled a little. He hadn’t come here to discuss hypothetical matters with the Chairman of the KGB. He simply wanted all those bloody snoops, those supercilious upstarts, those fucking gangsters, out of his buildings and out of his domain. “It’s possible. Hardly likely.”
“In what circumstances is it possible, Minister?”
Tikunov raised a hand and counted on his fingers. “One, if the plane flies beneath our radar. And two, if the radar is malfunctioning. In the former circumstances visual contact would be made sooner or later.”
“Are any of your radar installations malfunctioning?”
“To my knowledge, absolutely not. If such a thing happened I’d know about it.”
“Automatically?”
Tikunov nodded. He wondered where this was leading. He had the feeling he’d allowed Olsky to take control, and he didn’t like it.
“Are there circumstances, aside from malfunctions, when a radar installation would be inoperative?” Olsky asked.
“During routine maintenance, of course.”
“And is there any such maintenance presently going on?”
“There’s nothing scheduled.”
“Could maintenance take place without your knowledge?”
“Hardly. Only the smallest of jobs could be done without my permission. Anything that affected the grid as a whole would need my approval.”
“Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that certain men under your command decided to render radar inoperable and didn’t want you to know? Is that possible?”
Tikunov, who liked to think he treated his officers with respect and believed he was respected by them in turn, was shocked by the suggestion. “I’d have such men shot, General. Are you questioning the loyalty of my officers?”
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