He saw his man after twenty minutes. Dutifully he followed the guide and Kruglov trailed along behind. There was no tail; he was convinced of it by the time he headed for the cafeteria.
Like most Moscow museums the Oriental Art has a large café, and cafés have lavatories. They took their coffee separately but Monk caught Kruglov’s eye. If the man had been taken by the KGB and tortured into submission, there would be something in the eyes. Fear. Desperation. Warning. Kruglov’s eyes crinkled with pleasure. Either he was the greatest double the world had ever seen, or he was clean. Monk rose and went to the men’s room. Kruglov followed. They waited till the single hand washer left, then embraced.
“How are you, my friend?”
“I am good. I have my own apartment now. It is so wonderful to have privacy. My children can visit and I can put them up for the night.”
“No one suspected anything? I mean, the money?”
“No, I had been away too long. Everyone is on the take nowadays. All senior diplomats have many things brought back from abroad. I was too naïve.”
“Then things really are changing, and we are helping them change,” said Monk. “Soon the dictatorship will be over and you will live free. Not long now.”
Some schoolboys came in, piddled noisily, and left. The two men washed their hands until they were gone. Monk had in any case kept the water running. It was an old trick, but unless the mike was very close or the speaker raised his voice, the sound of rushing water usually worked.
They talked for ten more minutes and Kruglov handed over the package he had brought. Real documents, hard copies, taken from Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze’s office.
They embraced again and left separately. Monk rejoined his group and flew back with them two days later. Before he left, he dropped the package with the CIA station inside the embassy.
Back home the documents revealed the USSR was pulling back on just about every Third World foreign aid program including Cuba. The economy was cracking up and the end was in sight. The Third World could no longer be used as a lever to blackmail the West. The State Department loved it.
It was Monk’s second visit to the USSR on a black mission. When he returned home it was to learn he had secured a further promotion. Also that Nikolai Turkin, agent Lysander, was moving to East Berlin as commander of the whole Directorate K operation inside the KGB complex there. It was a prime position, the only one giving access to every single Soviet agent in West Germany.
¯
THE hotel manager and the British Head of Station arrived at the Botkin within seconds of each other and were shown into a small ward where the draped body of the dead man awaited them with Inspector Lopatin. Introductions were made. Macdonald simply said, “From the embassy.”
Lopatin’s first concern was a positive identification. That was not a problem. Svenson had brought the dead man’s passport and the picture in it was a perfect match. He completed the formality with a glance at the face.
“Cause of death?” asked Macdonald.
“A single bullet through the heart,” said Lopatin.
Macdonald examined the jacket.
“There are two bullet holes here,” he remarked mildly.
They all examined the jacket again. Two bullet holes. But only one in the shirt. Lopatin had a second look at the body. Only one in the chest.
“The other bullet must have hit his wallet, and stopped there,” he said. He gave a grim smile. “At least the bastards won’t be able to use all those credit cards.”
“I should get back to the hotel,” said Svenson. He was visibly badly shaken. If only the man had taken the proffered hotel limousine. Macdonald accompanied him to the hospital door.
“This must be terrible for you,” he said sympathetically. The Swede nodded. “So let us clear things up as fast as we can. I presume there will be a wife in London. The personal effects. Perhaps you could clear his room, pack his suitcase? I’ll send a car for it in the morning. Thank you so much.”
Back in the private ward Macdonald had a word with Lopatin.
“We have a problem here, my friend. This is a bad business. The man was quite famous in his way. A journalist. There will be publicity. His newspaper has an office in this city. They will carry a big story. So will all the other foreign press. Why not let the embassy handle that side of things? The facts are clear, are they not? A tragic mugging that went wrong. Almost certainly the muggers called on him in Russian, but he did not understand. Thinking he was resisting, they fired. Truly tragic. But that must have been the way it was, don’t you think?”
Lopatin grasped at it.
“Of course, a mugging that went wrong.”
“So you will seek to find the killers, though between us, as professionals, we know you will have a hard task. Leave the matter of the repatriation of the body to our consular people. Leave the British press to us also. Agreed?”
“Yes, that seems sensible.”
“I will just need the personal effects. They have no bearing on the case anymore. It’s the wallet that will be the key, if ever it is found. And the credit cards, if anyone attempts to use them, which I doubt.”
Lopatin looked at the kidney dish with its meager array of contents.
“You’ll have to sign for them,” he said.
“Of course. Prepare the release form.”
The hospital produced an envelope and into it were tipped one signet ring, one gold watch with crocodile strap, one folded handkerchief, and a small plastic bag with contents. Macdonald signed for them and took them back to the embassy.
What neither man knew was that the killers had carried out their instructions but made two inadvertent mistakes. They were told to remove the wallet containing all identifying documents, including ID card, the pazport, and to recover the tape recorder at all costs.
They did not know that the British do not have to carry ID cards on their person inside Britain and only use the full passport for foreign travel. The old-style British passport is a stiff booklet with hard blue covers that ill fits in an inside pocket, and Jefferson had left his behind with the reception clerk at the hotel. They also missed the slim plastic room key in the top pocket. The two together had provided complete identification within two hours of the killing.
The second mistake they could not be blamed for. One of the two bullets had not hit the wallet at all. It had struck the tape recorder hanging over the chest inside the jacket. The bullet destroyed the sensitive mechanism and tore the tiny tape to pieces so that it could never be replayed.
¯
INSPECTOR Novikov had secured his interview with the director of staff and personnel at the party headquarters for ten o’clock on the morning of August 10. He was somewhat nervous, expecting to be treated with blank amazement and given short shrift.
Mr. Zhilin affected a three-piece dark gray suit and a precise manner, accentuated by a toothbrush moustache and rimless glasses. He gave the appearance of a bureaucrat from an earlier age, which in fact he was.
“My time is short, Inspector. Please state your business.”
“Certainly, sir. I am investigating the death of a man we think may have been a criminal. A burglar. One of our witnesses believes she saw the man lurking close to these premises. Naturally, I am concerned that he might have been attempting to make an entry by night.”
Zhilin smiled thinly.
“I doubt it. These are troubled times, Inspector, and the security of this building has to be very tight.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Have you ever seen this man before?”
Zhilin stared at the photograph for less than a second.
“Good God, Zaitsev.”
“Who?”
“Zaitsev, the old cleaner. A burglar you say? Impossible.”
“Would you tell me about Zaitsev, please.”
“Nothing to tell. Engaged about a year ago. Ex-army. Seemed reliable. Came every night, Monday to Friday, to clean the offices.”
“But not rece
ntly?”
“No, failed to show up. After two nights I had to engage a replacement. A war widow. Very thorough.”
“When would this be, when he failed to show up?”
Zhilin went to a cabinet and extracted a file. He gave the impression there was a file for everything.
“Here we are. Work sheets. He came as usual on the night of July 15. Cleaned as usual. Left as usual sometime before dawn. Failed to appear the following night, never been seen since. That witness of yours must have seen him leaving in the small hours. Quite usual. He wasn’t burgling, he was cleaning.”
“That explains it all,” said Novikov.
“Not quite,” snapped Zhilin. “You said he was a burglar.”
“Two nights after he left here he was apparently involved in a break-in at a flat on Kutuzovsky Prospekt. The householder identified him. A week later he was found dead.”
“Disgraceful,” said Zhilin. “This crime wave is an outrage. You people should do something about it.”
Novikov shrugged.
“We try. But they are many and we are few. We want to do the job, but we get no support from on high.”
“That will change, Inspector, that will change.” Zhilin had a messianic light in his eye. “Six months from now Mr. Komarov will be our president. Then you will see some changes made. You have read his speeches? Crackdown on crime, that is what he is always calling for. A great man. I hope we can count on your vote.”
“That goes without saying. Er, do you have a private address for this cleaner?”
Zhilin scribbled it on a scrap of paper and handed it over.
The daughter was tearful but resigned. She looked at the photo and nodded. Then she glanced at the cot along the sitting room wall. At least there would be a bit more space.
Novikov left. He would tell Volsky, but there was clearly no money here for a funeral. Better let the City of Moscow take care of it. As in the flat, the problem at the mortuary was one of space.
At least Volsky could close a file. As for Homicide, the Zaitsev murder would just pile up with the other ninety-seven percent.
Langley, September 1988
THE list of the Soviet delegation members was passed to the CIA by the State Department as a matter of routine. When the Silicon Valley conference on theoretical physics was first mooted and the notion of inviting the USSR to send a delegation was made, little chance had been given of an acceptance.
But by late 1987 the Gorbachev reforms were beginning to take effect and a distinct relaxation of official attitudes in Moscow was discernible. To the surprise of the seminar organizers, Moscow agreed to send a small participant group.
The names and details had to go to Immigration, who asked State to check them out. So secretive had the USSR been about matters scientific up to that point that the names and contributions to science of only a handful of Soviet stars were known in the West.
When the list hit Langley it went to SE Division and was given to Monk. He happened to be available. His two agents in Moscow were contributing nicely through dead drops and Colonel Turkin was in East Berlin supplying a complete breakdown of KGB activities in West Germany.
Monk ran the list of the names of the eight Soviet scientists due to attend the November conference in California through the usual checks and came up with blanks. No one on the list had even been heard of by the CIA, let alone approached or recruited.
Because he was a terrier when presented with a problem, he tried one last tack. Although relations between the CIA and its domestic counterpart, the counterintelligence wing of the FBI, had always been strained and sometimes poisonous, and since the Howard affair more the latter, he decided to approach the Bureau anyway.
It was a long shot, but he knew the Bureau had a far more comprehensive list of Soviet nationals who had sought and been granted asylum in the United States than had the CIA. The long shot was not whether the FBI would help, but whether the Soviets would ever let a scientist with a relative in America leave the USSR at all. The chances were they never would, because family in the States was considered by the KGB to be a major security flaw.
Of the eight names on the list, two appeared again on the FBI record of asylum seekers. A check revealed one name was a coincidence; the family in Baltimore had nothing whatsoever to do with the arriving Russian scientist.
The other name was odd. A Russian-Jewish refugee who had sought asylum via the U.S. Embassy in Vienna when she was in a transit camp in Austria, and been granted it, had given birth while in America, yet registered her son under a different name.
Ms. Yevgenia Rozina, now of New York, had registered her son under the name of Ivan Ivanovitch Blinov. Monk knew that meant Ivan Son-of-Ivan. Clearly the boy had been born out of wedlock. The result of a union inside the States, in the transit camp in Austria, or earlier? One of the names on the list of Soviet scientists was Professor Doctor Ivan Y. Blinov. It was an unusual name, one Monk had never seen before. He took Amtrak to New York and sought out Ms. Rozina.
¯
INSPECTOR Novikov thought he would break the good news to his colleague Volsky over a beer after work. Again, the canteen was the place; the beer was cheap.
“Guess where I spent the morning.”
“In bed with a nymphomaniac ballerina.”
“Chance would be a fine thing. At the headquarters of the UPF.”
“What, that dunghill they keep in Fish Alley?”
“No, that’s just for show. Komarov has his real HQ in a very tasty villa up near the Boulevard Ring. By the way, the beer’s on you. I solved your case for you.”
“Which one?”
“The old boy found in the woods out by the Minsk Highway. He was the office cleaner at the UPF headquarters, until he turned to burglary to make a bit on the side. Here are the details.”
Volsky ran his eye over the single sheet Novikov had given him.
“They’re not having much luck at the UPF these days,” he said.
“How so?”
“Komarov’s personal secretary went and drowned himself last month too.”
“Suicide?”
“No. Nothing like that. Went swimming, never came out. Well, not ‘never.’ They fished him out last week downstream. We have a smart pathologist. Found a wedding ring with his name on the inside.”
“When does this smart pathologist say he went in the water?”
“About the middle of July.”
Novikov reflected. He really should have bought the beer. After all, he was due to collect a thousand sterling pounds from the Englishman. Now he could give him a bit extra. On the house.
New York, September 1988
SHE was about forty, dark, vital, and pretty. He was waiting in the lobby of her apartment house when she arrived home after picking up her son from school. The boy was a lively lad of seven.
The laughter went out of her face when he introduced himself as an officer of the Immigration Service. For any non-American-born immigrant, even with papers in perfect order, the word Immigration is enough to inspire worry if not fear. She had no choice but to let him in.
When her son was absorbed in his homework at the kitchen table of her small but extremely clean apartment, they talked in the living room. She was defensive and on guard.
But Monk was unlike the abrupt, unsmiling officials she had met before during her struggle to be accepted into the United States eight years earlier. He had charm and a winning smile and she began to relax.
“You know how it is with us civil servants, Ms. Rozina. Files, files, always files. If they are complete, the boss is happy. Then what happens? Nothing. They gather dust in some archive. But when they’re not, the boss gets fretful. So some small cog like me is sent out to complete the details.”
“What do you want to know?” she asked. “My papers are in order. I work as an economist and translator. I pay my way, I pay my taxes. I cost nothing to the U.S.A.”
“We know that, ma’am. There’s no question of any irregular
ity in your papers. You are a citizen, naturalized. Everything in order. It’s just that you registered little Ivan there under a different name. Why did you do that?”
“I gave him his father’s name.”
“Of course. Look, this is 1988. The son of a couple who did not marry is no problem to us. But files are files. Could you just give me his father’s name? Please.”
“Ivan Yevdokimovich Blinov,” she said.
Bingo. The name on the list. There could hardly be two such names in all Russia.
“You loved him very much, didn’t you?”
A faraway look came into her eyes, as of someone gazing at a memory of long ago.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Please tell me about Ivan.”
Among his several talents Jason Monk had a peculiar ability to persuade people to talk to him. Over two hours, until the boy came out with his arithmetic homework in perfect order, she told him about her son’s father.
Born in Leningrad in 1938, he was the son of a university teacher of physics, his mother a schoolteacher in mathematics. By a miracle the father survived waves of Stalinist purges before the war, but died during the German blockade in 1942. The mother, with five-year-old Vanya in her arms, was rescued, escaping the starving city in a convoy of trucks across the ice of Lake Ladoga in the winter of 1942. They were resettled in a small town in the Urals, where the boy grew up, his mother devoted to the idea that he would one day be as brilliant as his father.
At eighteen he went to Moscow to seek entry into the most prestigious technical establishment of higher education in the USSR, the Physics/Technological Institute. To his surprise he was accepted. Despite his humble circumstances, the father’s fame, the mother’s dedication, maybe the genes, and certainly his personal efforts had tipped the balance. Behind its modest name, the institute was the forge of the most sophisticated designers of nuclear weapons.
Six years later, still a young man, Blinov was offered a job in a scientific city so secret that it was years before the West even heard of it. Arzamas-16 became for the young prodigy at once a privileged home and a prison.