‘Let’s accept for a moment that Shelenkov did have an exceptional source and that Dzerzhinsky Square were prepared to operate in the unusual way you’ve described,’ explored Norris. ‘You haven’t so far given us any indication why that source should be CIA.’
‘Moscow identify the CIA by the same name by which you call yourselves,’ disclosed Levin. ‘The Company…’ He smiled apologetically. ‘It amuses them, I think. On every occasion when material was carried through UN personnel, Shelenkov used that phrase. “Company business” or “Secrets from the Company”.’
‘You told us he was regarded as a good operative,’ reminded Myers. ‘Number three in the rezidentura, you said. A good operative would not have been as indiscreet as that.’
Levin appeared to hesitate, before responding. ‘Shelenkov had a problem,’ he said. ‘He drank too much. The story that filtered back to us at the UN was that Moscow specifically moved him because they were frightened by his indiscretions: that he might reveal his source, through carelessness.’
‘You’re saying that he used the expression about the Company when he was drunk?’
‘Yes.’ It was all coming out more quickly than intended and they’d missed something upon which Levin had expected them – wanted them – to pick up. He shifted laboriously in his chair, to give the impression of discomfort.
‘UN personnel?’ said Crookshank.
Levin was sure he concealed his relief. ‘I am sorry?’ he encouraged.
‘A while back you identified…’ The lawyer paused, consulting the legal pad. ‘… Someone called Vadim Dolya as the courier. Then you used an expression about UN personnel, as if more than one man were involved.’
‘There were,’ said Levin. He spoke simply, as if surprised at Crookshank’s confusion, glad it was this man who had initiated the questioning.
This isn’t coming easily, is it, Mr Levin?’ demanded the lawyer.
‘I have promised to help,’ reminded the Russian. ‘I am responding as best I can to what I am asked, how I am asked it. I do not have a prepared statement: there was no way I could anticipate what you were going to ask me, apart perhaps from the first, obvious question.’
‘I’m sure my colleague was not trying to sound critical,’ said Myers, soothing again. ‘It’s all going to come out in time.’
From the look that Crookshank gave the unkempt man it was clear he had very much intended to sound critical, but Levin only gave that impression passing thought. He was more intent upon what Myers had said, indicating further sessions: at last! Levin thought, further relieved.
‘Did you ever have any direct contact with Shelenkov?’ asked Norris.
‘Yes,’ said Levin, conscious once more of the looks that went between the three men he was facing.
‘Maybe you’d better describe the system, so that this stops coming out like we’re pulling teeth,’ said Crookshank.
‘As I thought I’d already made clear, the primary consideration was to avoid Shelenkov’s activities being compromised in any way. Which meant, naturally, the use of cut-outs.’
‘You acted as a cut-out?’ pressed Norris.
‘Yes.’
‘How often?’
Levin hesitated, seeming to give the question consideration. ‘Maybe three or four times.’
‘You know the importance of what we’re asking!’ erupted Crookshank at once. ‘So how many times was it? Three? Or four?’
‘Four,’ said Levin.
‘How?’
‘Dolya was the courier to Moscow. So the break had to be between him and Shelenkov, minimizing the risk of any connection if the FBI targeted either of them,’ recounted Levin. ‘I had to travel down here from New York, on some pretext, make the pick-up and then transfer it to Dolya in the complete security of our mission when I got back.’
‘Did you ever know what you were carrying?’ said Myers.
‘Of course not.’
‘ How did you carry?’
‘Once a specification catalogue, about a tractor… the sort of thing always available at agricultural shows,’ said Levin. ‘Twice sealed letters. The last time it was a holiday postcard.’
‘Microdots,’ said Norris, a remark more to himself than anyone else in the room. ‘Somewhere on material absolutely ordinary and unremarkable in itself.’
Levin was about to respond, confirming the man’s guess, but Proctor spoke across him. ‘I’m curious, Yevgennie,’ said the FBI man. ‘How come you never told me any of this before?’
The Russian was grateful there had been so much preparation before he left the Soviet Union. Turning to the man who had acted as his control, Levin said: ‘Don’t you remember what I said, the day I asked to come across?’
‘Remind me,’ urged Proctor.
‘Insurance,’ said Levin. ‘I regarded it as my insurance, to ensure my acceptance by you.’
‘I think we’ve got a lot to talk about,’ said Myers. ‘That this has only been the start: the absolute start.’
The satisfaction flowed through Levin. He said: ‘I believe there is much to talk about, certainly.’
‘Enough for today,’ concluded Myers. ‘There is more than enough for us to think about.’
And check, guessed Levin.
The CIA committee remained in the room after the others left for the return flight to Connecticut, momentarily unspeaking. Then Myers said: ‘Well?’
‘Looks good enough to me,’ said Norris.
‘I’m not sure the presentation is properly disjointed,’ disputed the lawyer, whose early career had included courtroom cross examination.
‘What the hell’s that mean?’ demanded Myers, who’d found some difficulty curbing his language during the encounter with the Russian.
‘There were occasions when I thought he responded in a rehearsed manner.’
‘He would have rehearsed some responses, wouldn’t he?’ said Norris. ‘He knew what he was here for.’
‘He said he didn’t have a prepared statement,’ reminded the lawyer.
‘He would have anticipated some things… thought them through,’ insisted the Soviet expert.
‘We’ve obviously got to take it further,’ judged Myers. ‘It’s too soon to make an assessment one way or the other yet.’
‘What if he’s a plant?’ demanded Crookshank.
‘We’ve checked out Kapalet in Paris,’ said Norris. ‘We know he’s one hundred per cent and we got Shelenkov’s name from him, first.’
‘And through Kapalet we might still have some sort of link to Shelenkov,’ said Myers. ‘Levin would look pretty kosher if we managed to get confirmation of the courier system, wouldn’t he?’
‘ If we could get confirmation,’ agreed Crookshank reluctantly.
Alexandr Bogaty tapped and patted all the expert evidence assembled at the scene of Malik’s killing into an orderly pile and replaced it on the desk in front of him, nodding at what he’d spent three hours reading and digesting. He had not had any doubt, from his initial impression, but this was positive confirmation that once having been knocked down, the man had been intentionally run over a second time by the reversing vehicle. The medical evidence was the most positive, two separate points of impact, the first which had broken Malik’s back; the second when the car had come back and gone over the chest, crushing the chest wall. And the photographs were corroboration of what Bogaty had discerned that night: no brake marks which there should have been, just before the collision, but heavily bloodstained tyre impressions showing the reversing pattern. Bogaty looked to the specimen envelopes, separate from the reports. The paint scrapings – fawn – by themselves would have proved the vehicle to be a Lada saloon, but there was additional corroboration from the recovered headlamp glass, practically enough to recreate the entire light assembly.
Bogaty sighed, regretting it was all being taken away from him. How many garages would that arrogant prick of a KGB colonel have checked out, by now? He was surprised the demand had not come for the evidence tha
t lay on the desk in front of him. Perhaps, reflected Bogaty, he was being infantile in withholding it until the request was made. But what the hell? They were arrogant. All of them. So they could wait.
The sigh of regret was more heartfelt the second time, as Bogaty stood to leave his office. Not straight home, he decided. A drink or two on the way, partially to numb himself against Lydia.
25
By the time Yuri entered Victor Kazin’s office suite at the First Directorate headquarters he had studied his father’s dossier so closely that there were long tracts – particularly of the encounter with Panchenko set against the conflicting interview with the major – that he had memorized verbatim. So he was well prepared for the confrontation. And not just from his knowledge of the secret and unknown file: further prepared by the arduous and painstaking psychological instruction at those KGB training centres in Metrostroevskaya Street and Turnaninski Pereulok, always to be able to conceal his true feelings or emotions from anyone with whom he came into contact. There weren’t going to be any mistakes this afternoon: the determination somehow to expose Kazin and the security chief obsessed him to the exclusion of everything else. He just wished he could take that determination beyond more than an amorphous resolve.
Kazin remained seated, finding easy the reserve from superior to subordinate. He thought – as he had at the cemetery – how different the man was from his father. But only in appearance: once more Kazin reminded himself that this was the person directly responsible for what had occurred in Afghanistan. So he had to be just as devious and just as cunning. An enemy, like his father had been. Kazin said: ‘I would like to express my personal condolences over this tragic affair.’
There were several available chairs in the room but Kazin did not indicate any of them. Yuri acknowledged the refusal as demeaning but was unaffected by it: smallman behaviour, like the rezident’s similar stupidity in Kabul had been small-man behaviour. In direct contradiction to the intended effect, it gave Yuri a feeling of superiority. He said: ‘Thank you, Comrade First Deputy.’
‘He was a brilliant and much admired colleague,’ said Kazin. He wanted to protract his enjoyment of power over this helpless man he was going to destroy. A pawn, he thought, remembering his chess analogy: a sacrificial pawn to be played in an unbeatable game.
‘I appreciate your condolences,’ replied Yuri. What the hell was there behind this graveside summons! He tried to think of what the other man reminded him, strangely but obviously vibrating beneath the desk from what he guessed to be some nervous mannerism, that part that was visible above the table swarthily fat, chins puddled on chins, polished with sweat. A toad seemed somehow too trite but that was the impression Yuri had. How could his mother have done what she did!
‘I have studied your personal file. It is impressive.’
And the most impressive endorsement of all the commendation from an inquiry which got you censured, thought Yuri. It was a nonsensical remark for the man to have made: so he was sure of himself to the extent of open contempt. It was an important realization. Conscious before he spoke of the cant, Yuri said: ‘It is my hope always to be of service to the Committee for State Security.’
The younger man was a conceited, pedantic prig, concluded Kazin. It was almost going to be too easy; time to move you, little pawn. He said: ‘I have a function for you to fulfil.’
‘Which I will do to the best of my ability,’ responded Yuri, in apparent eagerness. It’s going to be more difficult to destroy me that it was my father, you bastard, he thought.
‘You replaced Yevgennie Pavlovich Levin at our mission to the United Nations?’ demanded Kazin.
‘Yes.’ said Yuri, intrigued. Even posed rhetorically it was a fatuous question.
‘The man is a traitor to his country,’ declared Kazin.
Yuri was unsure how to keep his side of the conversation going. ‘I understand that,’ he said. But little else so far.
‘I want him found,’ announced Kazin. But you detected first, he added, mentally. One little pawn exposed to the knights and kings of America’s counter-intelligence.
Yuri was well enough aware of the attitude towards defectors – there had been several warning lectures on retribution at Turnaninski Pereulok – but seeking out and punishing members of the service who went across to the West was not the responsibility of his department. Those who chased defectors were attached to that most secret of divisions, the Executive Action Department. Not to challenge would indicate his suspicion of the other man and at the moment his foreknowledge was the only protection he had. Cautiously Yuri said: ‘That would be a corrective assignment?’
‘It is a particular assignment with which you are being entrusted,’ said Kazin: the game plan did not allow any escape.
Necessary to protest further, decided Yuri: but clumsily. He said: ‘Throughout my training I was instructed to refrain from physical violence.’ Which was true and Kazin would know it: physical violence attracted attention, always the most essential thing to avoid.
Was this man really as devious and cunning as he suspected from the Afghanistan episode? It was difficult to believe from these responses. Kazin said: ‘I was not aware of any discussion of physical violence.’
‘I apologize, Comrade First Deputy, but I am having difficulty in understanding what it is you wish me to do,’ said Yuri. Would he be able to prolong this apparent briefing sufficiently to guess the tripwires, anticipate the trap? He had to try.
‘I wish you, with the ability which you have to move freely around the United States, to find where the Americans have hidden Yevgennie Levin,’ said Kazin, a teacher spelling out an instruction to a dull pupil. ‘Having done so, I want you to report directly to me.’
‘Having discovered the location, report directly back to you? Nothing more?’
Did the fool want it spelled out on paper in words that his lips could move, to follow! Kazin said: ‘Precisely that.
Your part in the operation will cease, from then on…’ He smiled patronizingly. ‘No physical violence.’
Maybe not exactly a tripwire, but an indication that they were being laid with some carelessness. What Kazin was ordering was still not something in which he should become involved, despite the apparent qualification. So the man was underestimating him. Good, thought Yuri. Time to attempt erecting hazards of his own. He said: ‘The Americans will have put Levin under deep cover.’
Frightened and apologizing in advance for failure, decided Kazin: a chance to frighten him further. He said: ‘I do not regard it as an easy assignment. Nor one, however, upon which I expect you to fail.’
‘There’d been enough assurances of dedication to the service, Yuri decided. Instead he said: ‘There will have been an investigation into Levin’s defection?’
‘Of course.’
‘It will be made available to me?’ As he asked the question, Yuri wondered suddenly and for the first time why – having destroyed his father as he was sure Kazin and Panchenko had – they had not carried out some search of Kutuzovsky Prospekt or the dacha, seeking any private, incriminating file the man might have maintained. That he might have done so would have been a reasonable surmise. And then Yuri remembered his own reaction that day, to his father’s revelation that he was copying official documents. To do such a thing was criminally forbidden by every regulation and edict governing the KGB. Not a reasonable surmise then, for men whose lives were constantly governed by those regulations and edicts.
In answer to Yuri’s question, Kazin patted the folders already laying on his desk and said: ‘Correspondence has also been permitted, between Levin and his daughter.’
‘There is a relation still in Russia?’
‘In Moscow.’
‘I should see her,’ said Yuri. It would have been a reaction the other man would expect.
Kazin touched the file again, ‘The address is here. Copies of all the letters, too.’
Yuri decided upon another snare. He said: ‘I am to communicate direc
tly to you?’
‘Only to me: this is an absolutely restricted operation,’ said Kazin at once.
Kazin had become entangled in it, Yuri judged. The reply had been too quick, almost urgent, and the insistence meant the cutting out of Vladislav Belov, the Director of the American Department, through whom all traffic should normally have been channelled. Another inconsistency. No, corrected Yuri at once. Not at inconsistency. A further indication, if he needed one at all, that this was not the operation it was being made out to be. He said: ‘How is that communication to be conducted?’
‘Diplomatic bag,’ instructed Kazin.
Was there anything else upon which Kazin would snag himself? At once Yuri thought he saw a chance and said: ‘Regulations are that any communication in the diplomatic bag should be authorized and vetted by the on-base rezident… Comrade Granov, in my case.’
Kazin pressed down upon his twitching knee, unsure if he had been right in doubting the other man’s deviousness, realizing the implication of the question. He said: ‘I will issue special instructions to Comrade Granov in New York.’
So there would be some formal record that he was involved in a specific operation masterminded by the head of the First Chief Directorate, acknowledged Yuri. Insurance of a sort, he supposed. Against what? He decided to prod in a more positive direction. He said: ‘Has the driver involved in the accident with my father been found?’
No reason for apprehension, thought Kazin. They were absolutely safe. This was nothing more than a natural, predictable question. He said: ‘No. But I assure you he will be. The investigation has been taken over from the civilian militia by our own Directorate security.’
Re-introducing his father’s death into the conversation had been throwing a stone into a pool, hoping to make ripples, and Yuri decided there had been a tidal wave. Until that moment he had not known of any civilian involvement in the investigations into his father’s death. He said: ‘Thank you, for the assurance’ And for more, much more.
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