by Craig Thomas
If it was unlocked, folded back — it would take one small push to tumble him out over the Yablonovny Mountains, or Lake Baikal. A shudder went through him.
He had rehearsed what he knew in his own mind in the early moments, or minutes — not hours? — before the sense of his isolation pressed down on him. There was the faintly creaking silence of the baggage compartment and nothing more for a long time, before the voice began to speak to him. The handcuffs had hurt then. Now, he could not feel his hands. They might have rotted on the ends of his wrists for all he knew. His stomach churned at the thought, and he hated the weakness that allowed such ridiculous imaginings to take root.
He knew some things, but not all. What could he tell them, what keep back? If he told them, would it help them, or himself?
It was the blindfold, of course. And the numbing cold. Deprivation of sense; so easy to achieve. He had lost the ability to know his surroundings, and the space around him expanded and contracted like something malleable. He could retain no firm hold on his environment. It was, at the worst moments, like falling from the plane.
They would not kill him, they would not kill him.
'You are a brave man, Boris. Many would have already broken. But not you.' He dung to the voice, now at his other ear, pathetically. It told him he was not alone, that he was still in the baggage compartment. Then someone moved a heavy weight across the floor, a deep scraping noise. He twitched, as if the door had opened and the sub-zero air outside had flowed over him. 'I don't think you will tell me what I want to know.' He felt proud of that. 'I shall dispose of you, then. You can be of no use to me.'
Then, silence.
He wanted to cry out, but they had gagged him as well with an evil-tasting woollen scarf. It filled his nostrils with the smell of cheap hair-oil. He wanted to cry out — it was too late, he realised. He shook his head, then nodded it stupidly, like a moving doll, and tried to wriggle his numb limbs about. To show them he was alive.
He could not tell them, if they didn't take off the gag! Desperately, he worked his mouth on the gag, trying to chew at it, his mouth full of the strands of wool. He couldn't get his teeth outside the great wrap of the scarf — if only he could do that. He tried to pull his arms back to his face, but he must have been tied in such a way that he wouldn't — couldn't move them…
His one chance lay in getting the gag off, crying out. They could not see his eyes, he could not move his arms. He could not show them how much he wanted to talk — that he did not want to die.
Someone laughed, a distance away. So disorientated was he, that it could have come from beneath him. He moaned, and could not even hear the noise he made.
Cold air — he swore it. The click of a lock — he bent his body towards the sound, straining to hear it. Then the arms round him, moving him so that he was against the bulkhead. Gratefully he pressed his head against its solidity. Then the door slid back — he was against the door! The air — freezing. The wind, terrible. He screamed, and screamed. He was falling, he knew he was falling..
At that moment, some sensation at the back of his head.
The blindfold was coming off! He passed out, gratefully. He did not want to see the jagged mountains, the endless lake towards which he was falling.
Vorontsyev stood against the luggage, securely strapped except for the one chest they had used to make a noise, just before opening the hatch. He was smoking a cigarette, the feeling just returning to his hands and feet and face, despite the fact that he had worn gloves, and wrapped his scarf around his cheeks when they opened the hatch. The gale that had blown on them had terrified him, and he understood a little of what Vassiliev had undergone.
He had no pity for him; he had had to break him, and quickly. They were half-way to Moscow, possibly, and due to refuel at Novosibirsk before very long. That respite in his agony would have given Vassiliev the strength to hold out, perhaps.
Besides which, Vorontsyev knew and accepted without qualm that he was avenging his private betrayal on the steward who was also a courier. It served the man right. They had used his own wife against him.
He drew deeply on the cigarette, watching the KGB man — Tikhon — as he revived Vassiliev. The trick now was too appear friendly, reconciled. The heavy coat was loosely buttoned around Vassiliev, and the handcuffs and the strap had disappeared. There was vodka in a flask. Tikhon poured some against Vassiliev's blue lips, the man spluttered, and his eyelids echoed the movement.
Then he was staring at Vorontsyev, who smiled at him, took out his cigarette case, and offered Vassiliev a cigarette. They had moved the steward so that he was sitting on a strapped pile of luggage, Tikhon holding him almost in his arms, the vodka flask tilted towards the man's lips. It was as if two other people had come and rescued Vassiliev.
'Well, Boris?' Vorontsyev said, coming to sit beside him, so that all three sat like children on a wall, legs dangling free. Vassiliev coughed on the cigarette smoke. 'Tell me about it.'
It was important not to mention what he had been through, or to indicate that it might recur. He would remember vividly and know.
'I–I wanted to, didn't want to…' Vassiliev stuttered, his eyes rolling in his head.
'I know, I know. But that is over now. Just tell me. Shall I ask you questions? Will that make it simpler?'
Vassiliev stared in silence at the closed cargo hatch, checking minutely that the locks were fully shut. He drew on the cigarette — a bout of nausea gripped him, lurching his stomach sideways. He gagged on the vomit, then lay back, the sharp edges of a case digging into his spine. When Tikhon offered him the vodka, he guzzled at the narrow neck of the flask, and the liquor burned down into his stomach.
It seemed to settle him. He sat up again, and nodded. 'Yes. Ask me.'
Vorontsyev knew he could not take long. Vassiliev, after his experience, would retreat progressively into a grudging silence. There would be some recovery of the will, enough to lead to lying and prevarication. The truth would come only at first.
'Who is your superior? Who recruited you? Who is behind Group 1917?' Vassiliev appeared disappointed that he could not answer the question. He said: 'I — don't know…'
'You've never met him?'
'A few times — to report directly to him.'
'And?'
'It was always at night. He kept his face away from the light. Just an old man, with a dog.'
'Where were these meetings?'
'Usually in the "Field of Virgins", near the Tolstoy statue. You know it?'
Vorontsyev nodded. He did not consider the information. He said, 'What is his code-name?'
'Kutuzov,' Vassiliev replied, still at the point of being eager to help.
Vorontsyev smiled. 'A liking for heroic figures,' he commented. 'So have you, no doubt. How many are there like you?'
'Perhaps thirty — no more than that.'
'You will write down all the names you know, when we have finished talking. Now — Ossipov is the dry-run for the invasion, is he not?' Vassiliev nodded. Vorontsyev stifled his sigh of relief. 'Who will command the invasion?'
'Praporovich himself.'
Vorontsyev had known, of course. It had to be the Commander of Soviet Forces North. Nevertheless, the information was like a blow that expelled breath, left him winded. He was silent for a time, then he said, 'His entire staff is involved?'
Vassiliev nodded. Vorontsyev forebore to call them traitors. 'What do his staff know?'
'Some of them have the complete picture, but most believe it is — sanctioned by the Kremlin.' There was a contempt in the voice. 'Dolohov is involved, too,' Vassiliev offered confidingly.
'Yes, he would have to be.' He lit another cigarette, then said: 'When is it to happen?'
Vassiliev was silent. Vorontsyev wondered whether he was already becoming truculent, considering evasion and lies. Then: 'I have been relieved of my job as a courier. It must be close.'
'How are they communicating now?'
'Secure telephones.'
/>
'Kutuzov is in Moscow?'
'I suppose so.'
'What of the coup?' It was difficult to keep the excitement from his voice.
'To co-incide with the invasion of Norway and Finland. Exactly.'
'Who is involved? When does it take place?'
The cold silence of the baggage-compartment seemed interminable, seemed to press upon them. Then Vassiliev said, 'I do not know. It is the truth. I carried messages concerning Finland Station, but not the coup. I do not know how, or when.'
There was hesitation in the voice, but Vorontsyev did not think he was lying. With a nauseous certainty, he knew that Andropov knew as much already as he was able to tell him — the 24th. It had to be. He forced himself to consider only the interrogation. In an attempt to enlarge the innocence of the atmosphere, so that Vassiliev might volunteer any remaining information, Vorontsyev said, 'We should be at normal cruising height and speed by now — unless we are already descending to Novosibirsk.'
It was the observation of a seasoned passenger, nothing more, but it affected Vassiliev. He felt an inexplicable rush of gratitude to his interrogator. He said eagerly, 'There is an Englishman, in Leningrad. At the safe house. He was captured in Finland.'
It was not what Vorontsyev had expected; nothing like. He drew on his cigarette, then asked, 'What use would he be?'
'He spoke to Kutuzov, I was told.'
Vorontsyev stubbed out his cigarette on the metal of the floor, and stood up. He looked at Vassiliev, then said to Tikhon, 'When he has given you the names — every name he knows, take him back to first class.' Tikhon nodded. Vassiliev looked grateful, and dog-like. But the eyes were staring, and tired. He would be little more use. Tikhon had already taken out a notebook, and pen, offering them to Vassiliev. The numb hands hung from the swollen wrists, apparently useless.
'He will write for you,' Vorontsyev said kindly, and went out, closing the door behind him.
When he entered the flight-deck again, the captain turned his head, and scowled. Yet there was a gleam in his eyes. He evidently did not care what had happened to Vassiliev, but his dislike for Vorontsyev was unmistakable.
He said, 'It's snowing in Moscow. We refuel at Novosibirsk, then fly on to Sverdlovsk. We'll hold there until it clears.' He knew the information would anger Vorontsyev.
'You'll hold at Novosibirsk until I've talked to Moscow!' he snapped. 'Radio ahead. I want to talk to the KGB man in the Tower. I want to arrange a secure channel to Moscow Centre.'
The snow was thickening outside the window of the restaurant. Kutuzov had watched it throughout his meal. When he had finished his coffee and a glass of Ghorilka spertsem, Ukrainian vodka with peppers in it, he went to the telephone booth — it had been checked for security that afternoon by someone posing as a KGB telephone engineer — and dialled Valenkov. When the man came on the line, Kutuzov said, 'What if it is snowing on the morning of the 24th, Dmitri?'
Valenkov seemed surprised, even insulted, by the question. His voice was testy as he said: 'We have contingency plans for that eventuality, sir. A special airborne detachment will travel by APC to the Kremlin. A plan I personally prefer — except that you seemed always to favour the Blitzkrieg of airborne assault.'
It was a just rebuke. Kutuzov laughed, and again: 'Forgive me, Dmitri. I am in your hands. Goodbye.'
When he came out of the booth, he was shaking with anger at himself. A stupid, nerveless old man! That was all he was becoming. All through his meal the falling snow had nagged at his stomach like indigestion.
He went back to his table. One of the GRU men in the restaurant, as his special guard, settled back in his seat as Kutuzov ordered another Ukrainian vodka. He felt cold. There was no word from Novosibirsk concerning Vorontsyev, who should be dead by now. He would have to make a call from secure line four later if there was no message.
He swallowed gaggingly at the peppered vodka.
Vorontsyev stared up at a street map of Novosibirsk as Kapustin, at the other end of the radio-link, digested his first bout of information. He was in the KGB duty-room at the airport. He had never been to Novosibirsk before, the third largest town in the Soviet Union, a vast industrial complex spurred to enlarge its industrial capacity ten times after the evacuation of industry from European Russia to Siberia during the war against the Fascists.
There were more than a million people in Novosibirsk. Vorontsyev cared about none of them. The map of the city' that lay to the south of the airport, divided by the River Ob, was simply a distraction. It bore no relation even to the sprawling mass of lights he had seen beneath the wing as they made their descent.
The temperature outside the plane had been minus five degrees centigrade. Mild for the time of year, milder than Moscow at that moment. Already he had been told that the weather was closing in outside the windows of Kapustin's office, where he and Andropov listened to the tinny, strange voice with its apocalyptic messages. Vorontsyev knew he would be unlikely to get into Cheremetievo or any other Moscow airport that day, or night.
He felt impotent and frustrated.
'How were these men recruited, Vorontsyev?' It was Kapustin again.
Vorontsyev felt unreasonably angry, as if his superior was simply tinkering with unimportant parts of the machine instead of ripping out its wiring, stopping it.
'My assistant was told by Vassiliev that he was an army reject — though there was no reason given at the time he applied for a commission. Then, after a time, an approach was made to him. He believes all of them were recruited in the same way — high-grade officer material rejected, then picked up for this special work…'
He was interrupted by Andropov's dry tones. He was surprised that he could catch the full acid superiority of the voice, even at this distance on a satellite radio-link.
Andropov said, 'Read me the full list of names again.' Vorontsyev did so, slowly, spelling out many of them. There were seventeen in all. When he had finished, he said, 'What will you do now, sir?'
'Aeroflot will be informed. KGB men inflight will make immediate arrests — the others will be collected on arrival at destination. From them we will build up the complete picture.'
Vorontsyev said urgently, 'Sir, you don't seem to understand the urgency…'
'I understand, Vorontsyev. What would you have me do — order the KGB Resident in Vladivostok to go and arrest Ossipov?'
'No, sir — I simply…'
'What else have you for us, Vorontsyev?'
'There is an Englishman at the Leningrad safe house they've been using. He can identify Kutuzov — at least, he is supposed to have seen him!'
'An Englishman?'
'A soldier — sent to Finland to verify some infra-red photographs. He is, apparently, still alive.'
'Then we shall have him.' There was a silence, as if Andropov had turned and looked out of the window. Then: 'Can we trust anyone in the Leningrad KGB? The address of the safe house is an address used by the KGB. What is your opinion?'
'I don't know, sir. It seems to be mainly GRU — Vassiliev is vague. He doesn't know very much of the whole picture.'
Another silence, then: 'We can't fly in a team from outside. At least, not from here. You will do it from there. Understand? I will speak to the Resident at Novosibirsk, and place you in charge. Can we trust them, do you think?'
'Again, sir — I don't know. But it's a risk we have to take…'
'I agree. Select a team, and brief it to take the safe house. Then catch the first available flight to Leningrad. The weather is fine there, I believe.' Vorontsyev sensed the irony, even thousands of miles from the grey face, the thin lips that would have been slightly curled as the words were spoken. Someone had once called Andropov a demonic bank-clerk; Vorontsyev could not be sure now whether it was a notorious dissident or someone in SID.
He shook his head slightly, and said, 'Sir, is the object to get the Englishman, or everyone we can?'
'Everyone — but the Englishman most importantly.'
'What
about Praporovich, sir?' He was nervous of reminding the Chairman; yet it seemed encumbent upon him. There was an arid vagueness about the conversation, akin to the atmosphere of an academic exercise.
'Yes. There is one man in Leningrad we can trust absolutely.' Vorontsyev knew that would be the department 'V operative, a man unconnected with the official hierarchy of the Resident and his staff. He would have a job, a family, a normal civilian life. The KGB assassin in Leningrad. 'The man will be briefed to report to you before you take the safe house — after the accident has occurred.'
'Sir.' Vorontsyev thought, then: 'Will that stop it, sir? The invasion, I mean?'
A silence, as if he had gone too far, enquired too nearly into matters beyond him. Then, as if admitting his right to know, a reward of unprecedented confidence for the man who had broken Vassiliev, Andropov said, 'I do not know. Dolohov in Murmansk is a different matter. He cannot be got at so readily. However, the same kind of operation is necessary there. I — will come back to you on that, Vorontsyev. Meanwhile…' Andropov went on as if talking to himself.'… we need time, Vorontsyev, time in which to assure loyalties. We have no time left!'
'No, sir. Sir — don't you think — I mean, it has to be the Moscow Garrison, doesn't it? If they're going to make the coup effective…'
'I agree. What do you suggest?' Again the trace of irony, distinct as the odour of tobacco. 'We arrest the whole Garrison?'
'Sorry.'
'No. Your task is to get a team to Leningrad before tomorrow morning — find the Englishman, and identify Kutuzov. If we have him, and Praporovich and Dolohov are dead — then there will be no order for the invasion, and none for the coup. Do I make myself clear?' Andropov was without pleasantry or obligation now. Simply efficient. 'Kutuzov is the key. We must have him!'
When he had broken the radio link, Vorontsyev sat in the swivel chair before the set for a while. In his mind he could see, quite clearly, a picture of an old man in the park known as the 'Field of Virgins', walking a dog. In only one respect did the picture differ from anything conjured by Vassiliev's information. In the image in Vorontsyev's mind, the old man and the dog were accompanied by a child.