“You don't strap on a seat belt,” she said, “just to warm up the car, and you don't call in a SWAT team every time you feel like getting some air.”
He could offer no argument that did not sound paranoid.
By the fourth or fifth Sunday, he had even stopped slipping a pistol into the folds of his newspaper.
4
General Vadim Borovik's mood had darkened again.
He stood, hugging himself, at the tall arched window of his fourth-floor office which looked out upon Dzerzhinski Square. The pleasure of Kerensky's Armenian had not lasted.
He was a small man, of Stalin's height. Like Stalin, he wore lifts in his boots. He had even practiced Stalin's manner of speech. Soft voice, quiet menace. But the angrier Stalin got, the quieter he became. Borovik could never quite manage that. These days, he was angry more often than not. Also, when Stalin spoke softly, everyone leaned close to listen. With Borovik, they just pretended not to hear.
For a while he wore a mustache like Stalin's and he smoked the same kind of pipe. But then the changes came. People who once fell silent when he passed began to point and whisper. Some laughed behind his back. One day, a young girl, a tourist, approached him in a restaurant and asked him if he was an actor in a movie. There were other KGB officers in this restaurant. They hid their faces, snickering. Borovik still seethed at the memory. .
After that, he had shaved the mustache. Without it, he realized, the resemblance suffered. Stalin was a Georgian whose blood had mostly Greek while Borovik's was mostly Tartar. A warrior's blood. But one day he would grow that mustache again. One day there would be order again. Let them laugh while they can.
Borovik's eyes grew hard. Across the square, peeking at him from behind the Detsky Mir department store, as if taunting him, stood still another insult. The Savoy Hotel. Belkin and his companions would be staying there.
Of all the hotels in Moscow, Leo Belkin had chosen the Savoy. A hotel for foreigners, managed by foreigners. One need not ask why. Belkin had selected the one hotel which stood practically in front of Number 2 Dzerzhinski. Facing this window. The choice could only have been deliberate. A thumbing of the nose.
Their rooms had been readied for them. Every whisper would be recorded. Belkin, of course, would expect nothing less. He would caution the American and his new Swiss wife to guard their words, leave no notebooks, no address books. But the American would probably forget. Americans are children about such things.
A movement, off to Borovik's right, caught his eye. There, below him, on a corner outside Detsky Mir, Borovik spied an old woman who was aiming a camera in his direction. Now he saw the reason for it. A small group stood in the square, waiting for a lull in traffic so that they could pose for a souvenir photograph with Moscow Center in the background. The old mother was clearly ill at ease.
From her gestures, Borovik knew that she was telling the others to arrange themselves quickly so that she could be done with it. The others were trying to calm her, chiding her for her timidity. One of them, a young man, now sought to provoke her by striking a pose that Borovik recognized at once. He was aping the posture of Feliks Dzerzhinski's statue, now gone, melted down for scrap.
Borovik had been at his window that night as well, his office darkened, when they took it away. Thousands out there, cheering and mocking, scrawling slogans on the statue's base. Painting swastikas on Moscow Center itself. And what did the so-called authorities do when they tried to pull the statue down? Did they move to prevent this desecration? No. The mayor of Moscow sent cranes and trucks. He showed them how to commit this sacrilege more efficiently.
They had even erased his name. No more Dzerzhinski Square. Today it was Lubyanka Square. Tomorrow, the wind
will change again and they will call it something else. But to Borovik, it would always be Dzerzhinski.
At last, the old woman snapped her picture. She quickly lowered the camera, concealing it against her thigh, and blessed herself. Ten years ago, she would have been arrested for taking a picture of this building. It is good that she remembers.
Ten years ago, Borovik reflected, not many would even have walked along the sidewalk in front. Every Muscovite claimed to know of someone who did so and heard the sounds of torture coming from the barred ground-floor windows. Some said that the shrieking and wailing caused the hair of this man or that woman to turn white in just one day. Others say that this or that pedestrian stopped to listen at one of the windows and was dragged inside, never to be seen again. Not his wife or husband, either. His grandparents soon vanished as well.
None of this was true, of course. Nothing can be heard from the street. The interrogation rooms were soundproofed and they were two floors further down.
Even for two years after the back-stabber Gorbachev started his glasnost, if foreign tourists would ride past in their buses and ask, “What was that big yellow building back there?” the Intourist guide would pretend not to hear. Or she would say that it is just an office building. An insurance company. Which it was before Lenin. She would never say that it is KGB headquarters. If she had, she might have seen those rooms firsthand.
Now, he thought disgustedly, we have guided tours. The tourists come right into the building. Not just into the KGB museum. They are taken everywhere. Even to parts of the basement.
In every group there is a bumpkin who says, “Tell me confidentially. Is Wallenberg, the Swede, still down below?” or, “Can I see my father's old cell? Perhaps he wrote a forwarding address on the wall.”
Under Gorbachev, suddenly we had a KGB museum where children could touch pieces of the American U-2 and see weapons of assassination taken from agents of the CIA. We gave them KGB comic books and we sold them KGB T-shirts which they wore not with respect but with impudence. To show that they are not afraid. They wear them even to their disco clubs and to rock concerts. Once, at such a concert, with his own eyes he saw a Russian girl pull off her KGB shirt, exposing herself, to trade it for a T-shirt of the Oakland Raiders, an American football team which, even in its own country, is known to be a pack of thugs. So bad, he'd heard on good authority, that even Oakland threw them out.
This is the new Soviet Union ... what is left of it. This is what has become of Socialist values. Now the KGB has a chairman who denounces all who came before him as criminals. He brings reporters with their cameras into the courtyard where tens of thousands had their last look at the sky before they got a bullet in the head. He shows them the cells of the Lubyanka itself. He appears on their television programs and permits the most impertinent questions to be asked, even taking calls from those who are watching.
It is good that he knows so little.
Borovik could not imagine exposing himself to such nonsense. Not that he was ever asked. The Chairman would not allow it in any case. Television is not for you, Vadim Yakovich. It is only for handsome officers who look European and have good teeth. Perhaps this is not exactly what he said, but it is what he meant. No short, squat officers with Tartar blood. No brutish faces. No Stalin impersonators. Only those who fit the benevolent image of the new KGB. You would embarrass us, Vadim Yakovich. You would scare the children.
So, thought Borovik, we endure the insults. We smile. We wait. Meanwhile, we write down the names. We write down all their names. And his is very near the top.
“General Borovik? Sir?”
Major Podolsk's voice. Borovik had not heard his knock.
He raised a hand to show that he was deep in contemplation. Let the young fop cool his heels awhile.
He was a reliable enough officer, Borovik supposed. Another of the new breed but more pragmatic than most. Knows where his bread is buttered. But should he ever forget, Borovik would remind him that his alternative is twenty years in Lefortovo prison.
Drinks daiquiris, however. What Russian drinks daiquiris and reads Agatha Christie? He must be homosexual. For him, Lefortovo might be paradise.
“What do you have for me, Major?” Borovik did not turn from the wind
ow.
Nor, he noticed, did Podolsk answer at once. There was always that little delay. A slow filling of the lungs. The merest hint of insolence.
“There is quite a lot, actually,” Podolsk said at last.
Borovik heard the sound of file folders being slapped against his desk.
“Here is a list of the wedding guests.” Another slap. “Profiles on about half of them. The computers are working on the rest.”
“Any surprises?”
”A great many.” Viktor Podolsk added a stack of photographs to the other documents. “The American State Department was represented by the undersecretary for foreign affairs. The Drug Enforcement Administration by its deputy chief of operations. This was no ordinary wedding.”
Borovik sniffed. Also Mama's Boy, that butcher, that murdering bastard, with a small army of his criminals. Also the Bruggs with all their millions, and two KGB officers who should long ago have been shot. No ordinary wedding, he says. How very perceptive. ‘“What have you learned from Yasenevo?”
The reference was to the headquarters of the First Chief Directorate—now called the Foreign Intelligence Service— at Yasenevo on Moscow's Outer Ring Road.
“They say . . . that it is none of our affair.”
Borovik heard the hesitation. He could imagine the actual language they used. “Tell that twisted little toady . . ” His color rose.
“Comrade General,” Podolsk said these words through a grimace. “You realize that they are technically correct.”
Borovik cleared his throat and spat toward the sidewalk, watching the phlegm tumble until it struck. He was right about this one. The glamor boys insult him and he defends them. Definitely a pansy.
As for Yasenevo being technically correct... that was true only while those three remained outside these borders. “They are in Moscow now, Podolsk. In Moscow, they are mine.”
“General...” The major tried again. “Have you looked at their itinerary?”
“What about it?”
“Except for a few special courtesies, it is a very full, very ordinary tourist itinerary. A different restaurant every night, the Bolshoi, the circus, and the Pushkin. There is simply no reason to suspect that they are—”
Borovik turned at last, his expression pained. “If you lived in the West, Podolsk, would you honeymoon in Moscow?”
“Perhaps. If I had never been here. If a friend invited me.”
“This friend. Would you want him with you on your wedding trip? Answer as if you were normal, Major.”
With effort, Viktor Podolsk ignored this last. “He is ... more of a host, actually. The trip was his gift to them.”
Borovik snorted. “Belkin's pay is less than mine. How does he afford such a gift?”
Perhaps he is a greater thief than you are, thought Podolsk, but he knew this to be unlikely. “Yasenevo has clearly authorized the expense,” he answered.
“Obviously. But to what purpose?”
Podolsk spread his hands. This discussion would get nowhere. Point out to this hack that any intelligence organization worth the name would leap at the chance to cultivate the Bruggs and he will call you a fool. How can you not see, Podolsk, what they intend? Right here in Moscow. Right under this window.
Borovik snorted again. He stepped to his desk and began sorting through the enlarged photographs. He took his time, staring thoughtfully at some, pausing to scowl at others. He came to one of Mama's Boy. With the nail of his thumb, he scored a line across Bannerman's throat. And another across his eyes. The nail pushed through the paper.
Podolsk cleared his throat. Borovik turned away, gathering himself.
“How many did we have at this wedding?” he asked. “Two?”
“Only one. Barca.”
“Why not the Sicilian?”
“He might have been recognized. There was no need to risk it. Barca was there as an invited guest, right in the thick of everything.”
“Ah, yes. Barca.” Borovik saw him in one of the photographs, a drink in his hand, working his charm on a group of older ladies. And, in a second photo, there he was with Belkin himself, this time with a champagne glass in his hand. Borovik frowned. He had told him not to drink. “Do we have his report?” he asked.
Podolsk had been dreading this. “He ... is withholding it. He wishes to discuss a new arrangement with you.”
Borovik stiffened. His eyes grew cold. “He bargains with me?”
“He ... acknowledges that terms have been agreed upon. But he asks—and these are his words— ‘What is it worth to the general to be able to penetrate Mama's Boy's inner circle?’ The question, however, is rhetorical. What he wants is a contact to broker all heroin shipments through—”
Borovik's eyes became glazed. “He can do this? Penetrate Bannerman?”
“He claims to have found a way.”
Borovik's fingers were at his temples. “Penetrate means what? Earn his trust? Get close to him?”
“Apparently. But what use is it? If Bannerman is retired
“What did he promise? Quote him exactly.”
Podolsk gritted his teeth. “That you can have your own man in this private town of Bannerman's, fully accepted, and eventually trusted. When the time is right, he will kill him for you.”
Borovik could only stare.
“Remember, General, this is Barca talking. He is hardly the man one would choose for such a .. .”
The shorter man was not listening. His expression had become strangely distant. The fingers of his left hand drummed against the desk. They began to walk in the direction of another photograph, expensively framed, that of his mother, but he stopped them halfway.
“When does Barca report again?” he asked.
The major checked his watch. “He's overdue, actually.”
Borovik sorted through the wedding pictures. He found another shot of Mama's Boy. An enlargement. Bannerman chatting amiably with Roger Clew. He held it up to the light. Podolsk watched his eyes, hoping to read them, the better to anticipate what this stupid man might do. What Podolsk saw startled him. Borovik's eyes had become moist. They were welling with tears.
“Make the agreement,” said Borovik quietly, his voice slightly thickened. “Promise him what you must, but make the agreement.”
Podolsk took a breath. “Ah . . . may I ask what this Mama's Boy is to us? By all reports, he is retired and wants nothing more than—”
“Do it, Podolsk.”
“But what use is it? Besides, we need Barca where he is.”
A low growl began in Borovik's stomach. He raised one hand as if to strike a blow. Podolsk stood his ground. The hand slammed against his desk, then swept the files to the floor.
Podolsk said nothing. He turned to leave.
“This other business,” Borovik said to his back. “Does he know why General Belkin has come to this country with an American policeman and a born-again drug trafficker?”
The younger man turned. “Barca tends to agree with my assessment but he expects to know more today. However, regardless of what he thinks .. ”
“Enough, Podolsk.”
The major closed his eyes.
”I want voice contact with Barca.”
“Voice contact?”
Börovik gestured toward an olive-colored phone, one of five on his desk along with three different pictures of his mother. The other phones were black.
“Signal the Sicilian on his communicator, tell him to have Barca call. When he does, put him through to my green line.”
“But voice contact is ...”
Borovik waved him off. “Decoding, last time, took four hours. My line is secure.”
Podolsk wanted to laugh. “General.. ”
“Do it, Podolsk.”
“But you might as well—”
“Do it,” he rasped.
”—stick your head out your window and shout his name.” But Podolsk did not finish his thought. He chewed his lip, then nodded.
Borovik turned once more
to his window, this time to conceal his emotions. The pain was leaving him. Excitement was taking its place. He could feel himself swelling. He gestured toward the Savoy with his chin. “Kerensky's people, meantime. They are in place?”
“Yes, General.” For what they're worth.
Borovik tossed a hand, dismissing Podolsk. As an afterthought, he snapped his fingers and gestured toward the mess on the floor. He knew that Podolsk saw the gesture, because he heard a hesitation in his step. But Podolsk continued on. The door clicked shut before Borovik could speak.
He resisted the urge to call that pansy back, make him kneel down, pick up those files. Putting Podolsk in his place could wait. Right now, what he needed was to think. Borovik stepped to his desk and took, from the bottom drawer, a bottle of peppered vodka. He drank deeply.
Bannerman.
Oh, to have just three days with him. Just the two of them alone. And a good pair of pliers.
The vodka seemed to ease the pressure in his groin. But soon he would need stronger relief.
There was once a house nearby where whores could be bound and beaten. It was also the place where Beria kept his young girls, sometimes for weeks. He would drive through the streets, they say, pointing out the ones he wanted. He should have stuck with the whores. It was for all those girls, as much as anything, that the prudes in the Politburo lynched him.
But even the whores were gone now. They would no longer work there, and ever since Gorbachev, you couldn't make them stay. More money was to be made at the tourist hotels, where rich foreigners pay ten times as much and do not make them scream.
Perhaps he would go down to the basement. There, if one concentrated, the screams can still be heard.
5
Bannerman had returned to his task of sorting pictures. He was now on those of the wedding reception. He wished that Susan was in more of these. She'd been too busy taking them.
Here she was, however, in a shot with Yuri Rykov, Leo Belkin's aide. They were dancing. Yuri was looking at her feet as she demonstrated a step. In another, she was grinning at the camera, one arm around Irwin Kaplan and the other around Belkin. Belkin was sucking on his pipe, a mischievous glint in his eye. Kaplan's expression was more of a blush. Belkin seemed to be enjoying the DEA man's discomfort at being photographed with a KGB general.
Bannerman's Promise Page 5