by John Gardner
Gold said he would do it. “They’ll know before morning.”
“Good, but you have a further problem. I am in no doubt that this place is being watched. My own Service, naturally, wishes to speak with you. I also had to play along with the Militia. They could pick you up as you leave.”
As he packed away the tapes, photographs and documents into a floor safe, Stentor quickly suggested what should be done.
Outside, in the car, the driver and bodyguard were to see the play. First, the General emerged, pushing his nephew in front of him. The nephew tried to argue, almost in tears. They even heard the words—“You understand, Piotr,” the General shouted. “Never again. We do not wish to see you. You’ve abused our hospitality, so you’re no nephew of mine. Understand? Now return to the hole out of which you crawled, and don’t ever come back.” He made for the car, the nephew following at a distance, still pleading.
The General’s bodyguard was out, swiftly, as the nephew tried to pull at the General’s greatcoat. “Get away. Out. Out. Out of my sight.”
The large, young bodyguard came between them, making sure his General was back in the car. “I should do as he says.” The bodyguard spoke quietly but with the heavy firmness of his calling. “Really I should. Otherwise I shall have to hit you—and you wouldn’t like that.” He gave the nephew a small push, sending him backwards, in a series of little steps, ending up against the wall.
They watched the scene from the MVD car; and also from the surveillance room across the street. The curtain came down. End of Act One. The General’s car drove away, leaving the lone and pathetic figure in his anorak, peaked cap, and glinting spectacles, standing on the pavement, clutching the little plastic bag. It was then that the radio in the surveillance room came to life. Badim’s voice through the speaker, almost hysterical in its pitch—“Pick him up. General Vascovsky says you are to pick him up now. This minute.” The two KGB watchers almost collided with each other, as they made for the door.
Major Badim had suffered agonies. It was almost twenty minutes before he got through to the Kremlin extension number General Vascovsky had left for him. Then there was a long wait, while they went to get the General. His reaction had been immediate. “Don’t let him go. Not at any price. And don’t let the MVD get at him. You hear?”
The two men in the Militia car had no orders; so they just sat and watched, as the downcast figure walked, stoop-shouldered, down the street, turning off into the nearest intersection—a narrow alley leading to the rear of the apartment building.
When the two KGB men reached the street, they were hampered, first by the traffic, and next by the complete disappearance of their quarry. The bird had flown. He could have just walked away, or taken a cab—anything.
One of the men went into the building, to question the night guards. Yes, there had been a tremendous row. The General had disinherited his nephew. The nephew had to get a train back to his post in the Urals. He had gone that way—they pointed to the first turning along the street.
The two KGB officers gave chase—late in the day. The alley was deserted, but for a smartly-dressed foreigner in a heavy overcoat and fur hat.
Michael Gold was pleased with himself. The trappings of Piotr Kashvar had gone into one of the great rubbish bins behind the apartment block. True he now had no papers, as his passport was still at the National. But he was Michael Gold again. It seemed certain to him that the pair of heavily-built men, who bumped into him as he emerged on to Kutuzovsky Prospekt, were after Kashvar. He had beaten them.
At peace with the world; satisfied that the drop had been made, as instructed, Michael Gold hailed a taxi, ordering the driver to take him to the National Hotel. From there he would work out the next step. The message had to get to London. Whatever their plans, Stentor would be waiting. Big Herbie would be pleased with him. Just pray Irina had stayed asleep. No more worries.
The taxi pulled up at the main entrance, and he paid the man—overtipping him: what the hell, it was government money anyway.
As he entered the vaulted marble lobby, so two men detached themselves from the long reception desk, at a word from one of the clerks. Michael took two paces forward, then sensed the danger before even seeing it. He did not consider it might be Irina’s doing. Logic said they were on to him. Blown, so run for cover. Take a dive.
The two men bore down on him, one calling in English, “Michael Gold?”
Gold looked to left and right. In a moment, all his confidence drained away. He backed off, then turned, running for the exit. There was a loud shout in English—“Stop. Gold; stop.”
In the doorway stood a Militiaman in uniform, pistol drawn; but Michael swerved, made a feint to the left, then shoulder-barged the uniformed man, who was caught off balance, and shoved to one side.
Gold followed through, heading out of the main entrance at speed, the shouts still echoing from behind. Once in the street he could not stop—running, gathering momentum, like some missile projected from a gun.
Before he knew it, Michael Gold was at the edge of the pavement. Another shout; lights, traffic; a few people, some of them recoiling from him. Then his foot hit the rock-hard snow, in the gutter, on a level with the pavement. He felt his legs slide, and his body take off, out of control.
He did not see the truck, only a great light, and a blaring of horns, mixed up with shouts, and a scream. Then a feeling of movement through the air; pain, and a numbness; a great crash; more light. Silence.
He knew who he was; and that he was looking upwards, towards darkness, speckled with a sea of faces; but there was no sensation. He could not move. Christ, he thought, I’ve got to get the message to London. “Irina,” he said, only the words would not come out of his throat. Then he remembered the poem. Of course. He had done the book in the original Russian. It was one of Zhivago’s poems. Wasn’t he going somewhere, in Moscow, in winter? Didn’t he see a candle behind a window, and try to make some sense out of a line which came into his head? The candle in the window—or words like that?
One of the disembodied faces was now close above him. The lips moved, but Gold could not hear a thing. Not a bloody thing, he thought. Cambridge, that was where he should be. It was safe there;—the grey stone, and the courts. Books, pubs, good company. He wanted to take Irina there. She would enjoy Cambridge.
The face faded, and he was in the Senior Common Room. People looked at him oddly; and why was he reciting this aloud, in Russian?
Snow swept over the earth,
Swept it from end to end.
Christ, it was cold tonight, and getting very dark.
The candle on the table burned,
The candle burned.
For Michael Gold; Troilus; Piotr Kashvar, the candle went out for the last time, and the darkness swallowed him up.
22
BY SIX IN THE MORNING, GENERAL Glubodkin had not got to his bed. When they finally arrived back at the apartment, he felt it was neither timely nor necessary to mention the retirement news to his wife. She was well away, in any case—bouncing off the walls on her short journey to the bedroom. Stentor’s wife and hard liquor did not mix.
In his private study, the General went carefully through the material brought to him by Piotr Kashvar. He listened to the tapes, sitting back, still in uniform, smiling to himself as the whole dirty business came into focus. Then he examined the photographs. No expert would dare refute them. Together with the other documents, the pile of evidence was damning. Vascovsky would simply cease.
Last, he deciphered the blue flimsy of instructions. These were not requests, but instructions: orders. They also gave precise details of where Vascovsky would be on one night of the following week—probably in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Stentor’s first duty was to be sure that General Vascovsky’s phones—private and office—were wired so that the exact date, and time, could be confirmed. All this had to be done quickly. It would be wise—his instructions advised—for Stentor to hand everything over to another off
icer, and stay well clear.
By six o’clock he knew the way it should be done. It was Sunday, but that made little difference here. They took a day off, but his driver was on a constant twenty-four hour alert. General Andrei Tserkov would be out of town; but, for something as important as this, the Head of Department V would not really worry about being disturbed.
Stentor picked up the telephone, dialling the motor pool at Dzerzhinsky Square; giving orders for his driver, and bodyguard, to be at the apartment for nine o’clock. That would give him time to bath, shave, change and take a little breakfast.
The telephone would not stop ringing, dragging Herbie Kruger out of the very deep and dreamless dark. He caught sight of his digital alarm, with the greenish figures, as he reached for the phone. Five in the morning.
Curry Shepherd, sounding as tired as Herbie, spoke in a low voice, as though he had someone with him, and did not wish to disturb them. “The boss,” he whispered. “Wants us up at HQ this minute. There seems to be a flap on.”
An hour or so later, in the strange, early-morning, depression of the Director General’s office, the magnitude of ‘the flap’ was made clear. Moscow Embassy had sent a Flash signal to the Foreign Office. Presumably their own resident in the Embassy had put names together; for the signal contained the day’s codeword for information to be passed to the Secret Intelligence Service.
A British citizen, on holiday in Moscow, had been accused of raping an Intourist girl at the National Hotel. The DG did not have to spell out the man’s name; but, when apprehended, Michael Gold had made a run for it, slipped, and fallen in front of a truck. The report said he was DOA.
“Can we be certain?” Herbie asked, above Curry’s loud curse. Curry then expressed concern for the girl. “Sod the girl,” Big Herbie’s venom seemed to explode into the room. “Mike was young. Inexperienced. Rush-trained. A mystery of mysteries. I warned you; and I doubt if there was any rape. That’s a cover-up. A snow job.”
A cipher signal had gone off to the Moscow resident. They expected a Flash reply, the DG said. “But that will take time, I simply want the facts. I also need to know how you feel about continuation, now young Gold’s been taken out.”
“We’re sure he’s dead?” Herbie realised, with a certain amount of horror, that he would be called upon to break the news to Nataly. There was also the question of being sure that Michael had been killed. In situations like this it could be to the Soviet’s advantage to have a faked death in the family. Herbie summed it up—“If he’s definitely dead; if it’s confirmed; then there’s no problem. We had his signal. He carried out the drop; so Stentor’s primed. I had planned to leave the final telephone call, from Martha to Vascovsky, until Moscow time, Monday morning. Then we go ahead: if he is dead—confirmed, with reliable witnesses—there is no problem.”
“Yes.” Curry yawned. “If he is dead; and if he managed to stash the Kashvar documents, and the clothes—so there’s no come-back—we’re home and dry; and I see no way of us getting all that cleared up before we start running. If not...”
“If not, then we have to abort.” The Director General did not even look at them. “So, the decision is up to us. We have to decide, on whatever information comes through, whether the Main Event is on or off.”
“We go.” Herbie was adamant. “As long as there’s certainty about Gold’s death, we go. Stentor got the drop. Everything else—the Kashvar documents and all that—must be put to one side. We go. If it’s been washed out at the other end, we shall soon know about it.”
The DG was equally firm. “At the moment, Herbie, we wait. We wait for whatever information is available.” He creased his brow, stood up and looked down from the window on London, beginning its new day.
After a while Curry suggested breakfast. The Director nodded, then seemed to change his mind. “If you’d go ahead, Curry. I’d like a word with Herbie.”
Alone with Big Herbie, the Director hummed and hawed; taking his time in getting to the point.
At last—“Look, Herbie, the other day... Well, you sort of blew up in our faces. Talked about going private after this. All that kind of thing.”
“Yes?” Herbie showed no reaction.
For a little longer, the Director remained embarrassed. Then he plunged. He wanted to know—needed to know—Herbie’s true intentions.
Big Herbie spread his hands wide. Until last year’s bit of bother; until he did something very stupid, and disobeyed orders, he had served the Firm to the best of his ability.
“You’ve done that, Herbie. We all know it; and respect you.”
“Respect?” Herbie smiled. This time no stupidity showed through. Here was the real Herbie: the strong, professional, craftsman, who knew his trade through and through. “Respect’s no good any more, sir. You remember George—George Thomas?”
Who could forget him. George Thomas had played a major part in the history of the Firm, and Herbie had spent many hours with him, during the Nostradamus investigation some years ago.
“George used to quote T. S. Eliot to me. ‘We are the hollow men. We are the stuffed men.’ I find poets like him difficult. But in this game we do become hollow and stuffed...”
To Herbie’s surprise, the Director muttered some other lines from the poem. Herbie had never thought of his Director as a man with leanings towards poetry.
... Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dried grass...
The Director understood. “You meant what you said, then?”
Herbie nodded. “This is the last one. It is necessary, because... well, because it’s Vascovsky.”
“I don’t want you involved emotionally.” The Director did not snap, or speak sharply.
Herbie shook his head. Emotion did not enter into it. This was a dirty operation: unpleasant. “It’s really a matter of putting the record straight. You understand?”
The Director saw the point. “Not revenge?”
“Revenge? Gets you nowhere.”
“Good.” A long silence. “So, when it’s over, you’ll go private?”
That was what Herbie intended.
“And you’ll do...?”
The daft smile this time. “Grow roses; read; listen to music; get married; live. Sorry, but this one’s the end.”
Some twenty-five miles west of the centre of Moscow, lies the unprepossessing village of Zhukovka. It is a small village. Maybe a collective, people might say, passing through. From the road you see the usual peasant huts, built of logs; and small clapboard outhouses. The place is a roadside clutter, and the rustic surroundings can be glimpsed through thick forests, which straddle the road.
What nobody sees lies past the peasant huts, which are only a front to something very different. Just before entering the hamlet of Zhukovka, a wide metalled track leads off into the forests, on the right hand side.
This track turns into a road, which eventually leads to the real Zhukovka; and the real Zhukovka is, in truth, two elaborate, and luxurious, villages—Zhukovka One and Two.
People who live locally, talk of Zhukovka Two as Academic Zhukovka; Zhukovka One is known as Sovmin—Soviet Ministrov. Here live important ministry officials; Cabinet ministers; deputies, and ranking officers of the security forces. In turn, Sovmin is two villages, so finely tuned is it to rank and position. Behind brick and iron fences, the rulers of the Soviet Union live in modern, or old, houses of style and beauty.
It was down this road, to Sovmin, that Stentor’s car travelled at around ten o’clock on the Sunday morning. The General wore civilian clothes; as did his driver and bodyguard. No pennant flew from the car; but a telephone call, ahead, made certain that the way was open to them. So the car slid quietly through the thick blockades of trees, broken, at intervals, by iron gates, or sweeping drives.
At last, Stentor’s car turned left, through an elaborate archway, up a short, hard
, drive and then—pausing for identification—past great wrought-iron gates, which clanged shut in their wake as they purred upwards, tyres crunching on gravel, the shrouding trees giving way to well kept, and watered, lawns.
At the top of a slight incline stood the house—a great rambling wooden structure, rising on three tiers, like a giant wedding cake, and topped with a circular cupolated tower. A veranda encircled the house; enclosed, with its wooden awning held in place by spiral carved pillars, their distances joined, along the top, by fretted decoration.
The whole was painted a gleaming white; immaculate, as if straight out of some fairytale illustration. Stentor picked up the heavy briefcase, brought with him from Moscow, and left the car, to be greeted by General Tserkov who embraced him beaming genially. Even the driver and bodyguard shuddered slightly at the sight of this pleasant old man—the eternal cigarette in one hand—who had power, in secret, over so many.
“Thank you for seeing me with such little notice, Andrei.” Glubodkin followed the Head of Department V up the steps, into a wide, panelled, hall.
“It’s nothing.” Tserkov gave a dry cough. “Though you will not find much activity. Not after last night. To be truthful with you, I do not feel over-well myself. What a party.”
“Yes. Quite something. I did not relish the idea of leaving Moscow, but needs must, Andrei.”
The elderly man nodded. “This is business then? Important?”
“Very.”
“Then we had better climb to my little castle.” He gestured, leading the way up a broad staircase, soft underfoot with heavy carpet, the walls hung with priceless paintings, and Daghestan rugs, old, and worth a ransom.