Patriots

by Kevin Doherty

  ‘Everything seems to be in good shape in London,’ Serov told him.

  Valyukev’s response was a dry little cough. ‘That’s what I want to speak to you about, comrade General.’

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘Lyulkin just called me. Viktor Kunaev – the cipher clerk that you said had to be recalled now that he has no surviving family here –’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘Lyulkin told Kunaev on Friday.’ Valyukev paused. ‘The clerk hasn’t been seen since.’

  Serov drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘Exactly what are you telling me, Major-General?’

  ‘Kunaev was last seen by Lyulkin on Friday afternoon.’ Valyukev sounded like he was reading directly from notes; which he probably was. ‘On Saturday morning the watch detail on duty at his living quarters recorded him setting out with his wife and child. On Sunday morning the watch officer made his routine daily check of the log and noted that they still hadn’t been recorded returning home. He phoned their apartment but received no answer. He alerted Lyulkin and was authorised by him to enter the apartment. There was no sign of them although all their belongings were still there.’ Valyukev was taking shelter in minutiae.

  ‘Has anyone checked hospitals and police stations?’ Serov asked wearily; often these people overlooked the most obvious things.

  ‘Lyulkin checked those in the vicinity of the Kunaevs’ home, without coming up with anything. He didn’t want to put out more extensive enquiries for fear of raising British suspicions.’

  ‘We have a problem, comrade.’

  ‘I’ve left Lyulkin in no doubt about my views on his responsibility in this matter, comrade General.’

  ‘I expect they’ll be much the same as mine about yours. Have we started damage assessment?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Serov heard him breathing heavily. ‘There’s a number of papers –’

  ‘Get up here. Bring a list of the papers with you. Get a gloss of them from Depository.’

  ‘Yes, comrade General. At once.’

  Serov put the phone down and took a cigar from the open packet on the desk. He peeled off the wrapper and dropped it in the bin.

  ‘What a surprising young man you are, Viktor Kunaev,’ he said. He put the cigar between his teeth, flicked his lighter and studied its flame. ‘Almost as surprising as your father.’ He lit the cigar and called Sergei to tell him to show Valyukev in as soon as he arrived.

  *

  It took them an hour and a half to go through the checklist of missing papers; Valyukev brought copies of some and the glossary summation of the remainder.

  ‘Things could be worse,’ Serov admitted, rising to his feet. ‘At least as far as this material is concerned.’

  Valyukev relaxed visibly but still looked wary; he knew he wasn’t yet out of danger.

  ‘You briefed Lyulkin about the Spetznaz unit?’ Serov asked.

  Valyukev nodded. ‘I didn’t refer to it in my report because you said there was to be nothing on the record.’

  ‘You stressed that to Lyulkin?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘And told him to keep it to himself?’

  Valyukev looked slightly indignant. ‘Of course, comrade General.’ He realised the import of Serov’s question and added, ‘I’m certain he wouldn’t have mentioned anything to Kunaev.’

  Serov nodded, looking thoughtfully at Valyukev. ‘You may go now, Major-General.’

  Serov returned to his desk and, still standing, began leafing through a document. Valyukev’s gaze slid to the side, as if he were looking for an ambush of some sort. He rose uncertainly and saluted. Serov returned the salute casually and Valyukev made for the door. But as he opened it Serov spoke.

  ‘Comrade Major-General.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Make arrangements for Colonel Lyulkin’s recall to Moscow for full interrogation as soon as possible.’

  Valyukev breathed a quiet little sigh of relief. ‘Yes, comrade General.’ He turned back to the door.

  ‘And let me have a set of personnel transfer papers when it’s convenient for you to do so. After you’ve sorted out Lyulkin’s recall will do. There’s no hurry. Have the papers completed except for the destination. I’ll see to that.’

  ‘Transfer papers, sir? For Lyulkin?’

  Serov was engrossed in the document he was reading. He flicked a page and didn’t bother looking up again.

  ‘No,’ he muttered absently. ‘For yourself. That’ll be all, Major-General.’

  *

  Kunaev didn’t seem to pose any significant risk. He knew nothing of the Spetznaz unit. His defection was no more than irritating as far as his work in the rezidentura was concerned. The materials he’d taken with him would provide confirmation of some minor operations in which the rezidentura had been engaged. They could be aborted without disastrous consequences. The British, assuming that was who he’d run to, probably suspected their existence anyway. Meanwhile, nothing major had been put in jeopardy. A few transmission codes would become obsolete.

  That was it. That was the most damage Viktor Kunaev could bring about.

  Serov puffed lazily on his cigar and wondered where would be a good place to send Valyukev.

  *

  Vladimir Chernavin, senior special inspector in the Second Chief Directorate’s Department for Struggle Against Embezzlement of Socialist Property and Speculation, was a broken man.

  Standing inside the front door of his apartment, he opened his dressing gown and scratched absently at his soft paunch, unable to take in the meaning of the letter that had come for him.

  It was signed personally by the director of the Second Chief Directorate and copied to that individual’s immediate superior, the KGB’s first deputy chairman; which meant that it had been written at the latter’s instigation. Which meant that it had probably been the idea of Chairman Viktor Chebrikov himself.

  Chernavin read it three times before he even understood it. Even then, he wasn’t convinced that he’d got it right and went back to the start again.

  ‘Put the Yeliseyev investigation in abeyance?’ he said at last, addressing the letter as if it were its author. ‘Food Shop Number One? When we’re so close? Even if we did lose Gulyaev. There were killings as well – the body in the church, the one in the river, the bombed car! Now I should shelve the whole thing? You can’t mean that! Surely not!’

  So he read the letter through for a fifth time; and in the end he was left with no option but to conclude that that was precisely what the director did mean.

  Oh yes, there were a few complimentary words for his handling of the investigation to date, and reassurances that no criticism attached to his or his team’s efforts and skills. But the director’s view, after the most careful consideration and consultation with other senior colleagues – ‘Aha!’ cried Chernavin, ‘There! I knew it! Chebrikov!’ – was that other cases on the comrade senior special inspector’s files seemed more likely to bear fruit at present. And, after all, the resources of the department were not limitless and had to be focused in a disciplined manner. Besides, the director suggested consolingly, it might be that some of the other cases on the comrade senior special inspector’s files would, in the end, connect back to the Food Shop Number One affair. The director finished by wishing him luck with these cases and looked forward to seeing his customary outstanding results in due course.

  Chernavin crumpled the letter in his hand and returned to the bedroom. Nina’s ample frame waited for him in the bed, her red hair spread over his pillow. She sat up as he entered.

  ‘They can’t stop writing to you even when you take a day’s leave?’ she said. ‘What an important man you are. Come back here quickly. You’re mine today, important man.’

  He walked to the bed in a daze; the letter fell from his fingers and she snatched it up.

  ‘Anything interesting?’ She started to unfold the letter, spreading it on the coverlet and running her hand over it to smooth the creases.

 
‘I’ve been muzzled,’ he said quietly, still dazed. ‘Like an old borzoi hound that’s had his day.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ She scanned the note thoughtfully. Then she grinned, patted the bed and tugged at his dressing gown. ‘Come here and I’ll make it up to you. Woof woof.’

  *

  ‘Come and see, Galina.’

  Ogarkin laid the large package on the chair and began tearing off the paper. He paused as a sneeze overwhelmed him and afterwards crammed the tissue into the pocket of his white coat; it already bulged with a collection of used tissues.

  She stayed where she was, motionless on the bed, but her eyes followed his fingers as he pulled the string aside and the contents spilled out.

  ‘Oil paints,’ he said, picking out the dark wooden case and presenting it open before her. He was like a little excited magician. The case held two rows of paint tubes, brushes, jars of linseed oil and spirit, a box of charcoal and a palette knife; there was a palette board clipped inside the lid. It was the kind of beginner’s case that might be given to a child but her heart lifted at the sight of it.

  ‘And an easel.’ He struggled to unfold it but gave up and leant it against the chair.

  ‘Canvasses.’ They were canvas boards in fact, second best by a long way, but she was gladdened to see them nonetheless.

  ‘Sketch pad. Pencils. Apron. Everything you need.’ He flung the apron over the chair and stood back to survey his booty triumphantly, his gaze flicking back and forth to her face.

  She looked at the display in silence for a few moments.

  ‘Cleaning rags,’ she said under her breath.

  He jumped as if she’d shrieked at him. ‘What?’ His face was a mixture of incomprehension at her words and delight to hear her say something at last. ‘Cleaning rags – what do you mean?’ He stopped starting at her for a moment and looked again at the array of items.

  ‘Ah!’ he exclaimed. ‘Now I see it. I forgot cleaning rags! Idiot! I’ll send someone around the wards straightaway. We must be stuffed full of old rags.’

  He turned for the door but stopped abruptly as he reached it, and came back to her. He dived a hand into the coat pocket, not the one the used tissues had gone into, and pulled out a clutch of clean ones. He dropped them on the bed.

  ‘Here! Here! These’ll get you started.’

  Then he was gone, leaving her staring at the ridiculous handful of tissues. As his footsteps faded she heard him sneeze again. The footsteps stopped and there was a moment of silence; she imagined him reaching for the tissues that were no longer there. Then she heard him swear and snort loudly. The footsteps hurried away.

  *

  That night, Serov found Gramin in the Armenian’s, at his usual corner table. For once he was alone.

  ‘The night’s young, comrade,’ Gramin explained, waving a stubby hand at his surroundings to illustrate the point.

  Serov looked; by its usual standards, the shebeen was underpopulated. A few blowsy prostitutes sat yawning on bar stools, spinning out their half litres of beer until a client or two might arrive to offer them something better. A group of elderly men, out-of-towners by the sound of their accents and exaggerated laughter, were drinking too much too quickly in a booth in the corner along from Gramin’s. Their eyes wandered often towards the hookers, and they muttered and laughed some more. Some younger types were engaged in serious, whispered conversation on the other side. Serov’s guess was that their purpose was business: a deal of some sort was being thrashed out. They’d probably move on when they’d concluded it. Little profit for the Armenian there.

  ‘One day soon this place will be raided,’ Serov remarked.

  ‘Raided?’ Gramin shook his head. ‘Never. The Armenian’s too well connected. Safest place in Moscow, this. That’s why I like it. Health!’

  Serov watched as a tumblerful of vodka vanished.

  ‘Remember young Viktor Kunaev?’ he asked when the glass was back on the table.

  ‘Of course. His old papa handed in his card last month. Viktor came over to see him off. I kept an eye on him for a few days for you.’

  ‘He didn’t seem to do much with his time.’

  ‘That’s right. Hung about the hospital, mostly.’

  ‘There was one afternoon when he went to his father’s apartment.’

  Gramin nodded. ‘And fetched some pyjamas.’

  ‘But you said at the time you couldn’t be certain if that was all he collected.’

  ‘I remember. He might’ve been getting something else. That’s what you said when I told you he had a briefcase with him.’

  ‘I want you to tell me everything you saw that day. Was he carrying anything else, for example?’

  ‘Well,’ Gramin said slowly, ‘I even went so far as to talk my way into the old boy’s apartment. I had a good nose around after the son had gone. I was still none the wiser, though.’

  ‘Tell me everything anyway.’

  *

  The car park was starting to fill up by the time Serov was leaving. The luxurious Chaika looked almost second rate among the Saabs, BMWs, Renaults and Volvos that were arriving. You could drive around Moscow for months and see nothing better than a Moskvich, but if you knew where to look it was a different picture. He didn’t mind; one day his turn would come.

  One day soon.

  He got on to the forest road out of Scholkovo and headed back to town, still pondering Gramin’s account. There were no clues in what he’d been able to remember. If Kunaev had taken anything, it was small enough to fit into a pocket or that briefcase, and sufficiently innocuous to take through security and customs at Sheremetyevo and London without raising any eyebrows. According to FCD Administration, Kunaev had made no special baggage exemption arrangements before leaving, which, as embassy staff and particularly as an embassy rezident, he could easily have done.

  Serov shifted restlessly in his seat and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Maybe he was seeing danger where none existed. Like his scepticism about the Armenian’s ability to survive the present purges.

  The road widened and its crust of snow thinned as he passed the ring motorway, marking the city limits. A huge illuminated sign swept past overhead; one of the words on it caught his eye.

  Izmaylovo.

  He smiled. Why not take a look? Idle curiosity, nothing else. The past was never far behind. In Moscow, sometimes, it was never far away either.

  He took the car right up to the gates of the mansion and climbed out. Most of the street lamps had failed but the Chaika’s headlights showed him as much as he wanted to see.

  It was a sorry sight: sandstone walls that now were stained and discoloured with damp, windows long since boarded up, a jumble of Virginia creeper, leafless in this bitter season, that threatened to engulf the entire hulk of the place.

  He gripped the bars of the gates and shook them to see if they were locked. Rust flaked off in his hands.

  He turned away. Standing there in the snow, which was deep enough in that forsaken road to have piled itself into man-high drifts against the walls of the old academy, he closed his eyes and remembered.

  It was summer again and he was – what? – twenty-four? twenty-three? Sunshine glinted on the arched windows, he felt the warm coarseness of the sandstone under his hand. Overhead, chevrons of geese thirty or forty strong made for the lakes of Izmaylovo Park; the crack of their wings against the hot air seemed the loudest sound that was likely to disturb the stillness of those walled grounds.

  Inside, in the coolness of the mansion’s great rooms, sat Major Genrikh Kunaev, in an office cluttered with books and mementos: a dry old man in a dusty room.

  Old? He seemed old even then, with his shiny, bald skull and those pebble glasses. Peevish and dried up.

  Somewhere in another room a voice droned on: a lecture. The clatter of a typewriter escaped through an open window to the gardens. And old Kunaev looked up as Captain Nikolai Serov was shown into the dusty room to meet him for the first time.

  *


  ‘Your academic qualifications are a little thinner than I would have wished, Captain.’

  ‘I’m sorry, comrade Major. Where I grew up there weren’t that many schools and colleges left standing after the Germans had been through. And I was too busy worrying where my next meal was coming from to have much time for book learning.’

  ‘Those days were hard for all of us, Captain. I see you made time to get yourself full party membership, though. That’s an unusual accomplishment at your age, even without having to combine it with a military career.’

  ‘I’ve never thought about whether or not it’s unusual. It just seems to me that willingness to serve the party should rank high in the priorities of all young people with energy.’

  ‘Indeed, Captain? Well, I’m sure you’re right. You’ll pardon my comments regarding your modest educational attainments. I don’t mean to give offence.’

  ‘None taken.’

  ‘It’s just that the young people who attend this academy are … rather special, intellectually. I’d like my captain adjutant to be able to relate directly to them.’

  ‘I understand, comrade Major. I’ll make special efforts.’

  ‘You will. Good.’

  *

  Serov’s eyes snapped open and the wintry night returned.

  ‘Damn you to hell, Genrikh Kunaev,’ he said. ‘If you’re not there already.’

  He shivered as he felt the cold suddenly penetrate, and drew the leather greatcoat closer about him.

  Lunacy, he thought; lunacy and pointless, to stand there cursing an old man’s ghost. He had much to do tonight. Far wiser to be off and see to the needs of the living. He climbed back into the car and turned the heater to full.

  The mansion’s boarded-up windows, like blank, empty eyes, stared unwavering into the night as he drove off.

  *

  ‘She was only a child, Georgi.’

  Zavarov shook his head. ‘She was a grown woman, Olga. Nineteen years old. I was shooting Germans in the Ukraine when I was nineteen.’

  He took the silver-framed photograph gently from Olga’s hands and stood up to return it to the piano. He still wore his heavy outer coat and overshoes; he hadn’t made time to take them off when he’d come in and heard her sobbing.