The Quiet Dogs: 3 (The Herbie Kruger Novels)

by John Gardner

  The Quiet Dogs

  A Herbie Kruger Novel

  John Gardner

  For all my friends at Hodder & Stoughton

  Beyond the dark on a rock

  Stands a tall house.

  Birds are nesting on the rock,

  But the house is empty.

  But the house is empty.

  The fire in the hearth has gone out long ago.

  No voices are heard,

  And only the wind, a wild guest,

  Alarms the quiet dogs;

  He has brought news from afar,

  That the master has disappeared;

  —Shostakovich: The King Lear

  Ballet (source untraced)

  Contents

  Part One - Trust

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Part Two - Moscow Tourist

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Part Three - The Main Event

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Preview: Maestro

  Part One

  Trust

  1

  MICHAEL GOLD HAD SPORTED his oak, as the slang of centuries had it. In plain language Michael Gold had closed the outer door to his rooms in New Court, St. John’s College, Cambridge, as a sign that he was engaged.

  The young woman’s name was Hilde, and Michael had met her casually the previous evening. Tonight, remembering the elderly undergraduate joke, ‘Never make love on an empty stomach—always give her dinner first,’ he had provided a meal at the Bath Hotel.

  They would not be disturbed; for young Michael Gold, in his last post-graduate year, had a good understanding with his bedder, a Mrs. Florence, who knew all about the goings-on among undergraduates and graduates. She would turn a blind eye in the morning. But morning was a long way off. He leaned against the inner door, smiling at blonde and plump Hilde.

  “So here we are.” He briefly reflected on the inanity of his own remark.

  “Yes.” She had already indicated her willingness, over dinner, and came towards him—predatory, eager, arms encircling his neck, and lips closing on his as though she might devour him. An Amazon cannibal. A female spider hungry to consummate and then consume.

  They reached first base on the old settee, and it crossed Michael Gold’s mind that this particular piece of furniture, which must have served several generations of undergraduates, probably could have recounted a multitude of tales—love granted and received; troths plighted; lies believed; deceptions carried through; lust slaked. Tonight, Michael and Hilde would satisfy each other’s lust. There could not be much about in Tunbridge Wells, he considered. Hilde was from Tunbridge Wells—an au pair.

  He turned her slightly, lying almost across the settee, one hand reaching for a breast, the other falling, classically, into a casual caress of the right knee.

  She moaned, and her tongue lashed at the inside of his mouth. Then came the pounding on the outer door, and the voice calling—“Mr. Gold? Mr. Gold, sir?”

  Gold muttered a curse, motioning the girl into his small bedroom as the voice chanted its litany: “Mr. Gold, are you there, sir? It’s urgent. Very urgent, the party says.”

  Still swearing softly, Michael Gold tucked his shirt into his trousers, smoothed his hair, opened the inner door, then unlocked the oak, to reveal one of the college porters.

  “Very sorry to disturb you, sir.” The man was out of breath, his face crimson. “The telephone, Mr. Gold. Said she was your mother. On the line in the Porters’ Lodge. Unusual, sir, but the lady sounded, well...well, she has to speak with you, sir.”

  Heaven save me from possessive mothers, Gold thought, grabbing his jacket. Yes, he would come. He would be there in a minute.

  The porter departed, giving Michael Gold time to slip into the bedroom. Hilde was lying, half naked, on the bed. “Sorry. Back in a minute.” He smiled, loath to tear his eyes from her: the body good as he expected. Better maybe.

  Down the stone stairs, and out into the chilly damp March air; running, just to get it over with. Along the cloister of New Court—the Wedding Cake as they called it, this great Victorian Gothic addition to the college. Over the Bridge of Sighs, footsteps echoing. On through the Courts to the Porters’ Lodge at the main gate.

  The Head Porter was on duty. “’Evening, Mr. Gold. That telephone there,” indicating the instrument with some distaste. It was not usual for members of college to receive calls at the Porters’ Lodge.

  Michael shrugged his apologies and picked up the phone. “Mother? Yes?”

  His mother’s voice was distinct in his ear. Michael Gold listened, incredulous. “What?”

  The tone of his query made the Head Porter look up. He saw a look of stricken grief cross the young man’s face—grief and shock and disbelief, all rolled into one. The Head Porter, a man of great experience, had seen that look many times, and knew exactly what it meant.

  “I really came to see your gaffer. To see Old Soap.”

  “Soap?” Tony Worboys scowled his incomprehension. Superintendent Vernon-Smith, of the Branch, gave a small, superior, smirk. “Cloak and dagger name with us. Kruger’s cloak, and Kruger’s dagger. Soap. Joke we had. Jest with your DG actually. It was him who gave us the name—Soap. Comes from a bit of doggerel: Boer War, I understand:

  Poor old Kruger’s dead;

  He died last night in bed;

  Cut his throat on a bar of soap;

  Poor old Kruger’s dead.

  Soap, you see. Good, what? Haven’t we met before?”

  “Once.” Young Worboys’ mind ticked off the options. As far as he knew, the security blanket on Big Herbie’s Berlin debacle (or cover-up as the Press would undoubtedly call it), had worked amazingly well. Now he had a senior officer of Special Branch—their sister service, MI5’s, executive arm—asking questions. “Oh.” He sounded genuinely surprised. “Oh, Herbie Kruger. My gaffer. Yes.” Bland as unseasoned white sauce, allowing the light to dawn slowly on the youthful face, which was the main reason for everyone calling him young Worboys. “Gaffer. That’s what threw me a bit. Yes, I’m sorry. Fact is he’s been off sick for quite a time.”

  “Sick?” Vernon-Smith looked peeved. “Soap sick? Never heard of such a thing. Nobody bothered to tell me ...”

  “Well, with respect, sir, you do work with Five most of the time.”

  Vernon-Smith made a harrumphing noise. “Sure he’s off sick? Not on some murky jaunt? Or in disgrace? You people wouldn’t tell me though, would you? Wouldn’t tell each other, let alone me.”

  “Ah, er. He’s fine again now. Back soon in fact.” Worboys sounded, and looked, brighter.

  Vernon-Smith was staring at him, a V crease between the eyebrows. “Yes, we did meet, didn’t we? Few years ago. Some East German woman. Shooting, wasn’t it? Herbie’s crowd tried to get their noses in. Got ’em in as well. Quite a party at the end. Remember you now.”

  “Yes.” Worboys was non-committal; even though he remembered it all with perfect clarity: the Nostradamus business. After all Worboys had been holding the fort since the night they had taken Big Herbie off to Warminster. The DG had dragged him over the coals. All things to be reported to those on high.

  “Give Herb
ie a message if you like, sir. Unless it’s very urgent of course.”

  “Well,” Vernon-Smith looked down his nose. “It’s a small matter.” From the tip of his nose he could see his wristwatch, and thought he might just as well have saved himself the trouble and gone straight home. “No I’m here. Only a small matter. Information might be useful to Herbie: need-to-know and all that.” Lord, it was past six-thirty already. He’d be lucky to make the seven-five from Waterloo. “Street accident this afternoon.” He spoke briskly, barking out the information as though giving orders. “One poor devil dead. Run down by a taxi. No Georgi Markov stuff. Nothing funny. Straightforward. Fellow’s own fault. Wasn’t looking, and stepped out right in front of the cab. Worked for the BBC’s Russian Department. Bush House. Know the firm? Live above the Inland Revenue Mafia, eh?”

  Worboys knew all about BBC Overseas, and Bush House.

  Vernon-Smith took out a neatly-typed five-by-three card, holding it halfway towards Worboys. “Victim, name of Gold,” he said. “Alexander Gold. Lived out Catford way. Address on this.” With a certain reluctance he parted with the card; like someone giving up his season rail ticket for the last time.

  “And Big Herb...Mr. Kruger, should know?”

  “Does already; or so it would seem. Not the death, of course, but the corpse. Fellow had Herbie Kruger’s name in his address book—open and clear for the whole world to see. Name. Address; and both telephone numbers.” He gave a small, petulant, sigh. “This number—here—is written backwards. A shade clumsy I thought. So...er...”

  “Worboys, sir. Tony Worboys.”

  “Yes. So, Worboys, we ran him through the magic machines for luck. That’s how we came up with the BBC’s Russian Department. Already had Bush House, and BBC Overseas, of course. Thought he might be one of old Herbie’s contacts. Seems he was lucky. Until today. Slipped the Yalta halter; got here with his young wife in ’47. We took him in. Reason not clear yet. Anglicised his name. Model British citizen. Alexei Zolotoy. Zolotoy’s Russian for Gold. Thought Herbie should know—his involvement does not show on the machines, by the way. Wife’s in a state, naturally. Thought Herbie might be a friend in need. We’ve got nothing on Gold, by the by. Clean and sanitised. Not a whisper on him, nor the wife and son for that matter. Wife’s name, Nataly; son called Michael—post-graduate work at Cambridge. Modern languages.”

  Worboys slipped the card into his pocket, saying he would give it all to Mr. Kruger. “When he gets in.” The Special Branch man nodded; anxious to be away.

  Alone, Tony Worboys sat, silent, for a moment. Then reached for the telephone. Ten minutes later he left the Annexe, walking fast towards Westminster Bridge. The Director General was expecting him; and other people besides.

  2

  THE CHAIRMAN OF THE KGB, the Committee for State Security, arrived in Dzerzhinsky Square, Moscow, at a little before eight o’clock in the morning. This is his usual practice.

  The sleek black Zil limousine—custom-built, with darkened windows and luxury interior—avoided the crammed pedestrian entrances to the large greystone building, known as Number Two Dzerzhinsky Square, and quickly negotiated the main vehicle entrance. The uniformed guards took little time in checking the Chairman’s credentials, together with those of his driver and two bodyguards, before waving the Zil into the inner square and parking area.

  The car was driven to the place reserved for the Chairman: close by the nearest entrance to his office. Then, flanked by the burly personal guards, the head of Russia’s Intelligence Service and secret police, walked briskly into the building: across uncarpeted parquet floors, along the main corridors—with their decor of unremitting light green—and so into the elevator, which quickly carried them to the third floor.

  Outside, snow still lay on the roofs, in parks, gardens, and by roadsides, though the sun shone, for the first time this year, with a startling brilliance, but little warmth. Perhaps the winter was at last ending, a few weeks early. There was a definite taste of spring in the air—even in the building that houses the executive and secretarial staffs of the KGB’s Directorates.

  There is some irony in the fact that the large structure of Number Two Dzerzhinsky Square was once the All-Russian Insurance Company’s head office. It has gone through a number of changes in the years since the Revolution; and, like all bureaucratic offices, has long since become too small for the growing staff, let alone the needs of the Russian Intelligence Service.

  Towards the end of the Great Patriotic War, the place was extended and enlarged: by German prisoners-of-war. But even with this new building, Moscow Centre—as it is known, both popularly and officially, within Intelligence communities the world over—is now the Centre in name only.

  The Chairman’s office, with its ante-room and secretariat, is situated in the bridge joining the original building to the extension: the suites of offices there being huge and well furnished.

  Here, the parquet floor gives way to rich oriental carpeting, large armchairs and sofas. At one end of the Chairman’s spacious inner sanctum stands a huge desk (“Big enough,” he always joked with his children, “to land a Yak-36.” The Yakovlev 36 being the Russian VTOL jump-jet, similar to the Harrier).

  On the wall, directly opposite the desk, hangs the only picture in the room—the grim photograph of Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky: his face set and hard; eyes narrowed; tufts of dark hair showing on the inner sides of his thin eyebrows, and an irregular crop of hair forming beard and moustache around almost invisible thin lips. ‘Iron Felix’, founder of the Cheka which was now, after many transformations, the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti—The Committee for State Security, known the world over as the KGB, though still spoken of by most Russians as the Cheka.

  The Chairman, left alone by the bodyguards, crossed to his desk, scanned the day’s engagements, and the brief intelligence résumé. On his way to the Centre he had thought about the first appointment: the meeting with General Vascovsky; remembering also that the day was particularly important, being the last Wednesday of the month. The last Wednesday of each month was the day set aside for the meeting of the First Directorate’s Standing Committee for Forward Planning. Today the Standing Committee would have an extra member, and it was important that he—as head of the KGB—should give Vascovsky the final briefing.

  The Chairman took two paces towards the window, standing to look down into the square on Marx Prospekt. Yes, he thought, it was right that Jacob Vascovsky should do the job. For a man of Vascovsky’s rank and experience, it had been a terrible failure—to lure one of the British Service’s most senior officers into East Berlin; trap him, and then, after only a few days, let the man slip through the net. In the bad old days, in the times of terror—and under a chief like Beria—Jacob Vascovsky would have been recalled, and shot out of hand. The Chairman hoped they were more sensible now. If they had not brought Vascovsky back to a lengthy, friendly, interrogation, the truth might never have emerged. Now they had trawled his mind and gleaned facts. The few days which the General had spent with the man Kruger, proved to have brought forth a vital, and disturbing, piece of information. Instead of a bullet, or even a reprimand, the carrot of promotion had been offered. From Colonel-General to full General in one move.

  Who better than Vascovsky to go in, now, to find the original source of Kruger’s knowledge. The General was unlikely to talk, as it would only spread his own failure to a wider audience. Before Vascovsky left to start his crucial work, then, the Chairman had a duty to place the officer under a discipline of silence. Just to make certain. He turned again, glancing around the room, with its high ceiling, and walls, changed from the familiar green—which abounds through the rest of the building—to fine, sturdy, mahogany panelling.

  For a second, the burden of power, and its attendant responsibilities, tripped across his mind—for the Chairman of the KGB, Member of the Politburo, and Central Committee of the Communist Party, is, arguably, the most important and powerful man in Russia—next, of course,
to the Premier of the USSR and First Secretary of the Party.

  The Premier was aware of the facts concerning Vascovsky. The case had, naturally, been discussed with the Chairman’s deputies, and the Politburo; though the files remained heavily restricted. The final, and worrying, facts—together with the decision—had been withheld from the deputies; but the seventeen members of the Politburo, who were conversant with everything, had unanimously agreed to the KGB Chairman’s recommendation.

  Now, seated at his desk, with its battery of telephones—including the famous Kremlevka and Vertushka phones, linking him directly with the Kremlin and Politburo members respectively—the Chairman pressed the small button to summon his adjutant. General Vascovsky was already waiting, he was informed. Also two senior First Directorate officers were standing by, to take Vascovsky to the First Chief Directorate headquarters: the true Moscow Centre.

  The Chairman nodded, signifying he would interview the General immediately.

  Vascovsky had not seen his chief for almost two years. Now, as he entered the office, he quickly reflected on the manner in which the Chairman had aged. He had always thought the man looked more like an academic than an Intelligence officer; but, in two years, this mien was even more apparent—the large head and broad shoulders further stooped; hair greyer; and demeanour increasingly reflective.

  “Jacob, my old friend.” The Chairman rose to greet Vascovsky—telling him to sit down, that it was good to see him again, asking after his wife.

  “There was a moment,” Vascovsky said, once the two men were settled, “when I thought your greeting might be more harsh than this.”

  The Chairman laughed: dry, without real mirth. Every man was entitled to one mistake. As long as he was not discovered in the million others he might make. “For your error you got promotion, anyway.”

  Vascovsky spread his hands, palms upwards. “I am a lucky man.” The gesture had a French, rather than Russian flavour. Many remarked on the fact that Jacob Vascovsky always seemed more Gallic than Russian—a happy accident of birth which had been well used during his career. “I have no doubt as to the pure chance which led Kruger to give me a couple of interesting exhibits during the few days I had him.”