by John Gardner
It also struck Big Herbie that they probably had the listeners on him today—the team working very close, because there would not have been time to set up any directional microphones, or similar electronic legerdemain.
He started to walk again, urging Michael to keep at his pace. “Yes, you should see it all. I gather you could easily pass for a Russian; that your accent is Ukrainian.”
“So?” Young Gold frowned. “What’s this about, Herbie?”
“A favour, Michael. Something you could do.”
“For whom?”
“Think of it as repayment for your father and mother. If they’d gone back ...”
“Yes”—slightly irritated—“yes, I’ve heard the story till I’m sick of it. You got them to England. If they’d been sent back, the buggers would’ve killed them.”
“You have no sympathy with the régime, I know that.”
“Here,” Michael lifted an arm in a gesture which took in the whole university, “it’s not an altogether fashionable view. The Socialists flourish; the Communist ideal is just around the corner. A load of crap.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure.” Herbie stopped walking again. “So-called Western democracy is the best, and easiest, target for Soviet propaganda—especially at times of political crisis: when there’s a recession—or unemployment; or constant trouble with the Unions. In the West it’s always propaganda time; and nearly always infiltration time. Wherever there’s freedom—and the Left can call the police fascist pigs, just for keeping law and order—the Communist seed flourishes, because it’s so easy to plant.”
“I’ll go along with that.” They were pacing comfortably towards St. John’s now, the huge Gothic ‘Wedding Cake’, that was New Court, ahead of them. “You didn’t answer my question. The favour? Who’s it for?”
“The people who pay my wages.” Herbie gave him an on-and-off grin. Not so stupid this time.
“Dad said you worked for the Foreign Office.”
“I’m playing at being a recruiting officer, today. Not for keeps, Michael. One job. In my trade they call it a quick in-and-out. Maybe two quick in-and-outs.”
“You’re ... ?”
Big Herbie nodded. Yes, he told Michael. He was with the big bad wolves. “MI6. SIS. Call it what you will. We say that we work for the Firm.”
“Like the Americans call it the Company?”
“So I’m told.” Herbie backed off, becoming business-like. “This isn’t our usual way of doing business, I promise you. But we have a small problem.”
Michael still frowned. “And you want me to go to Russia for you? To do what? Act as a courier? Then get caught, and slung into the Lubianka where they’ll probably unearth my parents’ records, and bury me for good. I’m told they’ve got very long memories.”
Herbie’s large head moved up and down. “Very long. This is more complicated than just acting as a courier. We need someone who’ll pass as Russian, born and bred ...”
“I thought you had people—or have they all come under the defence cuts?”
“Michael.” Soft, but sharp as a scythe. “Listen to me. Of course we have people. But, in the current circumstances, it would not be safe to use them: so we use a ‘mystery’. A ‘mystery’ is someone brought in for one job—one operation, if you prefer it. You see, if we used somebody already in circulation, there’s no way of knowing if they have the finger on him. This way we do it clean. We have control of our man; we trust him. You would be trusted.”
Michael took two paces forward, stopped, and turned. “It’s all a bit dramatic, isn’t it? Would the job be dangerous?”
Herbie laughed, “Only if you’re caught. It isn’t likely; and if you did run into trouble ...”
“You’d disown me. That’s what I’ve always read.”
“A cargo of old rabbits,” Herbie muttered, almost to himself. “In this case we’d own up, and get you out. No question. Wouldn’t you like to see Russia, Michael?”
“When?”
“About a couple of weeks time.”
“And do what?”
“See a man. Talk to him. Maybe come back and tell us what he says. Possibly go in again, and bring him out.”
Michael shook his head. “You’re joking.”
Herbie did not joke about the important things of life. This was important, and, he was very sorry, but if Michael said no, they would take him away—now, this very afternoon—and keep him until the job had been done by someone else. “In the lap of luxury, of course. Not an incarceration in some damp cell.”
“But don’t you have to go through special training; codes and all... ?”
“Just a very little. Already you have most of the training—you look Russian, speak Russian so nobody could detect...”
“But why me, Herbie?”
“Why not?”
Slowly, they walked back into New Court, and Michael’s rooms. Herbie still did not relish talking within the confines of four walls. He urged Michael to stroll around the court with him—arguing; persuading; cajoling; trying to make sense out of the nonsense he was putting to this, very normal, young man.
“It’s like something out of Buchan.” Gold was amused. “Like 1930s’ spy fiction, Herbie. You come to John’s, and invite me to take on a clandestine job, for Queen and country presumably...”
“No.” Herbie restrained him with one large hand. “No. Not for Queen and country, Michael. For what we call democracy—not that it means all that much any more. For all the oppressed; the people you know about—those in Siberia; in the labour camps; in the mental hospitals. For the people who want to say what they feel about life, but can only whisper it. If you’re religious, for Christ, or Mohammed or Krishna. For the sun even. No, it’s not like Buchan, either. I’ve been given a job, and I cannot safely use the tools of my trade. So, like any other workman, I’ve got to go out and buy a new tool...”
“You offer me money... ?”
“If I did, I hope you’d spit in my face.”
“You’ve almost convinced me.”
It took nearly another hour. Herbie was at his persuasive best. Still Michael Gold could not take it seriously. After all, it was preposterous. Then, just as Herbie prepared himself for a really long siege, Michael capitulated.
“When do we leave?”
“I leave now.” Herbie did not even stop to savour what little relief was afforded by victory. “You go back to your rooms. You tell nobody. We will arrange for you to send letters to your tutor, or Dean, or whoever. In a short time someone will come for you. Do what he says: whatever he says. His name’s Curry, by the way. Curry Shepherd.” For a moment Herbie did pause. Yes, it was ludicrous. Curry kept him under surveillance—because there were still people in the Firm who could not trust E. L. Kruger. At the same time, Curry had set up an elaborate series of moves, to take Michael Gold to Warminster that night. It was all mad. Especially using Gold.
At Warminster, the pair of ringmasters, laid on by the Director, could take over for a couple of days. It was time for Herbie to visit his old colleague Martha Adler—now in retirement, playing the German widow. Martha, with the ash blonde hair, long legs, and ways which coaxed information out of people, as a pickpocket will coax a man’s wallet.
At the door of Michael’s rooms, the young man asked, “Who is it I have to see in Russia anyway?”
“Oh nobody in particular.” Herbie grinned: daft, peasant leering. “Only a senior officer in the KGB.”
“Jesus Christ. You’re crazy.”
As he lumbered away from the court, Herbie glimpsed a loping figure scuffing its way towards Gold’s stairway.
Part Two
Moscow Tourist
9
“TALK ABOUT FOOD, THE weather, the usual grumbles you women share: but, I beg you, do not discuss my work.” So Stentor to his wife, before they left for the arranged dinner with the Vascovskys.
“I know nothing of your work,” his wife snapped. “You tell me nothing; you come in at all hours
; you cancel arrangements at the last moment; you change holiday dates; but I know nothing of your work. Except you are KGB. For all I know, you keep a mistress.”
“At my age, I keep a mistress? My mistress is my work. Well you know it.”
“Then I shall say that if I wish.”
“If you wish.” Stentor nodded, with a great sigh. He should not have cautioned her.
“You say this man, Vascovsky, is powerful?” Stentor’s wife asked, in the car as they headed towards Kalinin Prospekt, where the General had a luxury penthouse.
“Exceptionally powerful.”
“Then, perhaps, he can arrange for your retirement. Some nice place in the country where I can see more of you.”
“You’d be bored. You’d want to move back to Moscow within a year.”
“Never.”
“Well, I would.” Stentor, with a sickening realisation, knew this was true: not just of Moscow, but Russia as a whole. He closed his eyes, and a blur of coloured lights formed, then re-formed, in the darkness. The art of living a double life was to believe it, down to the smallest detail. It was the first time he had even given his nationality a thought; which showed how deep his cover ran. For a few seconds, these reflections mixed together with the knowledge that Vascovsky was a wolf, and Stentor the prey. He was tiring, and had few doubts who would be the loser. To lose meant leaving Moscow, and Russia.
A trough of depression swallowed him for a moment. Then he broke through the surface again, as though gulping air: pulling himself into the present, wrapping the shroud of his cover around him, so that he could face the General head on. It mattered little that Stentor was the ranking senior by several years. Power, not dates of promotion, was what counted.
Vascovsky’s penthouse apartment made Stentor’s own comfortable place look like a slum—and he lived in the same area as the KGB Chairman himself. The furnishings were Swedish; the decor like the pictures you saw in American or English magazines. Almost everything you looked at, or touched, was imported.
Vascovsky must travel a great deal, thought Stentor. He must also have access to the very best elite stores, a high nomenklatura rating. Vascovsky probably got the kremlevsky payok as well—enough food to feed himself, in luxury, each month: free food—the Kremlin Ration. If he travelled abroad on service business, he would also have access to the Beryozka shops, where you paid with certificate rubles, obtained in exchange for hard currency earned or collected abroad.
The main room of the penthouse contained a huge picture window, through which you could look out on the great spread of lights that was Moscow. The penthouse faced away from Kalinin Prospekt, thereby giving a magnificent view across to the golden domes of illuminated Cathedral Square, within the Kremlin Walls, in the distance. You could even just see the red star glowing bright on its tower above the Spasskaya—Saviours Gate, the main Kremlin entrance.
Vascovsky—like Stentor—was not in uniform. Also like Stentor, he wore immaculate clothes, tailored to exaggerate his slim build. He could easily have been a Western diplomat, as he came forward to greet them; paying a great deal of attention to Stentor’s wife; playing host in an easy, relaxed style.
Stentor examined the rows of books which lined one wall: many superbly bound, and some in English. “You read a great deal?” he asked.
“When I have time. It improves one’s knowledge of other languages. I read English, French and German—but you are also an expert in languages, Comrade General. Or so they tell me.”
Stentor allowed his fingertips to touch the tooled binding of a book, by Graham Greene, and realised it was one of a whole set, similarly bound.
Vascovsky smiled. “You like the work of Mr. Greene? That is the Bodley Head collected edition. When a new one is added, I have it bound by a man I know in Berlin. But is it true, Comrade General, that you are also an expert in languages?”
“A little.” Stentor gave a modest grimace.
“He’s always reading.” Stentor’s wife: her voice far more good humoured than usual. “Always has his nose in a book.”
“Yes. From what I hear, he is fluent in French, German and English. Ah.” Vascovsky looked up as his wife entered—a woman much younger than the General: tall, dark-haired, with fine features, high cheekbones; and a mouth, which just stopped short of being too large, but, with a thick bottom lip, that gave her whole attractive face the look of uninhibited sensuality.
She wore a heavy brocade evening gown which had never seen the inside of any Russian shop, or tailor’s workroom. Her manner was friendly, calm, warm, and very confident. Vascovsky introduced her as Yekaterina, adding that she had taken a new name when she became a citizen of the USSR.
“And before that?” Stentor asked.
It seemed a cliché to define her laugh as tinkling; yet there was no other description—high, melodious, like a little cluster of bells: a Christmas decoration. “Oh, I have a most secret history.” She turned to her husband and spoke in French, “Can I tell all my secrets, chéri?”
“The Comrade General is in our line of business, darling.” Vascovsky moved towards the glass-topped table, picking up a bottle, eyebrows raised towards Stentor, inviting him to name his drink. Both Stentor and his wife took vodka; as did the Vascovskys.
“So what is your secret, Madame Vascovsky?” Stentor asked in perfect French.
“Ah.” She laughed again. “Caught. Well, Comrade General, I am a traitor. I came over—a long time ago now. Fifteen years?” A query to her husband who made a give-a-little-take-a-little gesture, saying it was almost sixteen years. “I defected.” The calm smile stayed in place. “From France.”
“Yekaterina held a very high post with the SDECE. Codes and ciphers. Her name in that life was Catherine. Her saving grace is she worked for us—how long? Almost two years, before things got warm, and she came out. Happily for me, she arrived via Berlin, where I worked. I even had the luck to carry out the first debriefing.”
Yekaterina laughed again, still speaking French, “Translate into English, chéri. That gives a most dubious meaning.”
They all laughed, except Stentor’s wife, who spoke neither French nor English. Stentor had to explain the joke in Russian—not easy, and not really appreciated when she finally understood.
“You speak excellent French, General.” Yekaterina took Stentor’s arm, leading him from the large salon into an equally elegant dining room. General Vascovsky took Stentor’s wife, as the young military servant, complete with white jacket and gloves, announced that dinner was served.
“I’ve had a lot of practice with French.” Stentor thought the ploy was really quite subtle. Each of the Quiet Dogs would be subjected to an evening with the Vascovskys. He wondered if they always played it this way—Madame Vascovsky probing the subject, while her husband chatted to the wife.
Indeed, Stentor had fleeting doubts about Yekaterina’s authenticity. Possibly there was a different partner for each dinner. While dismissing the idea, almost immediately, Stentor could not but admire Vascovsky’s methods. Pairing his French defector wife with the subject was machiavellian mischief.
Yekaterina explained that the servant—provided because of her husband’s rank—only waited at table. She was the one who slaved in the kitchen. “Just like any other good Party wife.”
Stentor admitted she had slaved to perfection. Aloud he did not voice the opinion that she probably had the best possible food with which to work. The meal, he later told her, was—“a hymn in praise of the French culinary arts,” adding hastily that this did not mean the USSR was without its particular flair for menus, and dishes.
They ate a rough pâté, bringing back many memories for Stentor; followed by trout in a pepper sauce; and, for the main dish, thin slices of veal, marinated in crushed juniper berries and thyme, then fried in onion and carrot. To complete the meal, Yekaterina announced her favourite pudding—Tarte des Demoiselles Tatin: an apple tart, in which the apples, sugar and butter were thoroughly caramelised.
&nb
sp; At the outset of dinner, she continued to tax Stentor’s French. He told her about being bilingual; and having been brought up as the butler’s son in the Anashkov household. “But how fascinating, yet you cannot have mastered that perfect Parisian accent as a young boy?”
“No,” Stentor admitted. That was part of the training.
“And the English, and German also?”
“I had a very small amount of English. But after they made me into an officer, and discovered I had a flair for languages, the Cheka claimed me, and trained me. That was in 1930. They called it the OGPU then. Later I was transferred to the GRU,”—the Chief Intelligence Directorate, concerned with military intelligence. There had always been a rivalry between the Cheka and the GRU. “It was with the GRU that I had field experience.” He gave a chuckle, knowing it would be all too easy to make mistakes with this lady; perhaps drop some tiny morsel, out of character: a morsel upon which Vascovsky would no doubt chew until he had extracted all the juice.
It was also difficult not to be distracted, and try to hear what was going on between Vascovsky and his own wife; but he simply had to blot out their conversation from his head. The General was constantly filling her glass, and they both laughed a great deal. Stentor’s wife—who knew nothing of his other life—was a liability. There were so many small things she could mention: tiny pieces of wool, at which Vascovsky might grab, pull, and so unravel his life.
“Why do you laugh?” Stentor caught the faint hint of an expensive scent, as Yekaterina bent close to him. Should a man, seventy years of age, still lust after young flesh, and feel the need? He had heard that the senses of lust, and desire, diminished with age. It had never seemed to change for Stentor.
“I laugh because you are French; and my first field work was done in France. For several years I ran French agents in, and around, Paris. I even had a job with the SNCF. Working on the railways, eh?”
She laughed also; and to get it over and done with Stentor went on, as though rambling about his life. “While I was away there were the purges. Stalin—as you very well know—became periodically paranoid about his senior officers. Before the Great Patriotic War the best of his General Staff were purged. He had a go at the GRU also. I suppose it was luck. They recalled me from France—there was word that someone had sold me out anyway. I came back expecting a reception committee with a machine gun. Instead, they brushed up my German. I spent some of the war with the German Army.”