Matarese circle, p.33
Matarese Circle, page 33
Turin. Paravacini.
“Have you thought of something?” asked Antonia.
“Something else,” he replied. “Ibis Paravacini. He runs the Scozzi-Paravacini companies in Turin?” “He did once. And in Rome and Milan, New York and Paris, as well. All over. He married the Scozzi daughter and as time went on her brother, the count, assumed more and more control. The counCs the one who ran the companies. At least, that’s what the newspapers said.” “It’s what Paravacini wanted them to say. It wasn!t true. Scozzi was a well-put-together figurehead.” “Then he wasn’t part of the Matarese?” “Oh, he was part of it all right, in some ways the most important part.
Unless I’m wrong, he brought it with him. He and his mother, the contessa, presented it to Paravacini along with his blueblooded new wife. But now we come to the real question. Why would a man like Paravacini even listen? Men like Paravacini need, above all things… political stability. They pour fortunes into governments that have it and candidates who promise itbecause they lose fortunes when it isn’t there. They look for strong authoritarian regimes, capable of stamping out a Red Brigades or a Baader-Meinhof no matter how indiscriminate the process, or how much legitimate dissent goes down with them.” “That government does not exist in Italy,” interrupted Antonia.
“And in not many other places, either. That’s what doesn’t make sense. The Paravacinis of this world thrive on law and order. They have nothing to gain by, or nothing to substitute for its breakdown. Yet the Matarese is against all that. It wants to paralyze governments; it feeds the terrorists, funnels money to them, spreads the paralysis as quickly as possible.” Scofield drew on his cigarette. The clearer some things became, the more obscure did others.
“You’re contradicting yourself, Bray.” Antonia touched his arm; it had become a perfectly natural gesture during the past twenty-four hours. “You say Paravacini is the Matarese. Or part of it.” “He is. That’s what’s missing. The reason.” “Where do you look for it?” “Not here any longer. I’ll ask the doctor to pick up our things at the Excelsior. We’re getting out.” ‘We?” Scofield took her hand. ‘Tonight changed a lot of things. La bella signorina can’t stay in Rome now.” “Then I can go with you.” “As far as Paris,” said Bray hesitantly, the hesitation not born of doubt, only of how to arrange the avenues of communication in Paris. “You’ll stay there. I’ll work out the procedures and get you a place to stay.” “Where will you go?” “London. We know about Paravacini now; he’s the Scozzi factor. London’s next.” “Why therer’ “Paravacini said Turin was to cable ‘the eagles, the cat.’ With what your grandmother told us in Corsica, that code isn’t hard to figure out. One eagle is my country, the other Taleniekov’s.” “It doesn’t follow,” disagreed Antonia. “Russia is the bear.
“Not in this case. The Russian bear is Bolshevik, the Russian eagle, Tzarist. The third guest at Villa Matarese in April of nineteen eleven was a man named Voroshin. Prince Andrei Voroshin. From St. Petersburg.
That’s Leningrad now. Taleniekov’s on his way there.” “And the ‘cat’r’ ‘qbe British lion. The second guest, Sir John Waverly. A descendant, David Waverly, is England’s Foreign Secretary.” “A very high position.” “Too high, too visible. It doesn’t make sense for him to be involved, either. Any more than the man in Washington, a senator who will probably be President next year. And because it doesn7t make sense, it scares the bell out of me.” Scofield released her hand, and reached for the ignition. ‘We’re getting closer. Whatever there is to be found under the two eagles and the cat may be harder to dig out, but it’s there.
Paravacini made that clear. He said the ‘burials’ had to be ‘absolute.’ He meant that all the connections had to be re-examined, put farther out of reach.” “You’ll be in a great deal of danger.” She touched his, arm again.
“Nowhere near as much as Taleniekov. As far as the Matarese is concerned, I’m dead, remember? He’s not. Which is why we’re going to send our first cable. To Helsinki. We’ve got to warn him.” “About what?” ‘That anyone prowling around Leningrad looking for information about an illustrious old St. Petersburg family named Voroshin will probably get his head blown off.” Bray started the car. “It’s wild,” he said. “We’re going after the inheritors—or we think we are-because we’ve got their names. But there’s someone else, and I don’t think any of them mean much without him.” “Who is that?” “A shepherd boy. He’s the one we’ve really got to find, and I don’t have the vaguest idea of how to do it.”
Taleniekov walked to the middle of the block on Helsinki’s Itli Kaivopuisto, noting the lights of the American Embassy down the street.
The sight of the building was appropriate; he had been thinking of Beowulf Agate off and on for most of the day.
It had taken him most of the day to absorb the news in Scofield’s cable.
The words themselves were innocuous, a salesman’s report to an executive of a home office regarding Italian imports of Finnish crystal, but the new information was startling and complex. Scofield had made extraordinary progress in a very short time.
He had found the first connection; it was a Scozd-the first name on the guest list of Guillaume de Matareseand the man was dead, killed by those who controlled him. Therefore, the American’s assumption in Corsica that the members of the Matarese council were not born, but selected, proved accurate. The Matarese had been taken over, a mixture of descendants and usurpers. It was consistent with the dying words of Aleksie Krupskaya in Moscow.
The Matarese was dormant for years. No one could make contact. Then It came back, but it was not the same. Killings… without clients, senseless butchery without a pattern… governments paralyzed.
This was, indeed, a new Matarese and infinitely more deadly than a cult of fanatics dedicated to paid political assassination. And Beowulf had added a warning in his cable. The Matarese now assumed that the guest list had been found; the stalking of the Voroshin family in Leningrad was infinitely more complicated than it might have been only days ago.
Men were waiting in Leningrad for someone to ask questions about the Voroshins. But not the men–or man -he would reach, thought Taleniekov, stamping his feet against the cold, looking for a sign of the automobile and the man who was to meet him and drive him east along the coast past Hamina toward the Soviet border.
Scofield was on his way to Paris with the girl, the American to continue on to England after setting up procedures in France. The Corsican woman had passed whatever tests Beowulf Agate had created; she would live and be their conduit. But, as Vasili was beginning to learn, Scofield rarely operated on a simple line; there was a third party, the manager of the Tavastian Hotel in Helsinki.
Once in Leningrad, Taleniekov was to cable the manager with whatever particulars he could put into ciphers and the man, in turn, would wait for direct telephone calls from Paris and relate the codes received from Leningrad. It was then up to the woman to reach Scofield in England. Vasili knew that monitoring cable traffic was a particular talent of the KGB; the only sure way to eliminate it was to use KGB equipmenL Somehow, he would find a way to do that.
An automobile pulled up to the curb, the headlights dimming once, the driver wearing a red muffler, one end draped over a dark leather jacket.
Taleniekov crossed the pavement and got in the front seat beside the driver. He was on his way back to Russia.
The town of Vainikala was on the northwest shore of the lake; across the water was the Soviet Union, the southeast banks patroled by teams of soldiers and dogs plagued more often by ennui than by threats of penetration or escape. When the KGB first knew about it, prolonged exposure to the freezing winds during winter months made it simply too dangerous to use as an escape route; and in summer the interminable flow of tourist visas in and out of Tallin and Riga, to say nothing of Leningrad itself, made those cities the easiest avenues to freedom. As a result the northwest garrisons along the Finnish border were staffed by the least motivated Russian military personnel, often a collection of misfits and drunks commanded by men being punished for errors of judgment. Checkpoint Vainikala was a logical place to cross into Russia; even the dogs were third rate.
The Finns, however, were not, nor had they ever lost their hatred of the Soviet invaders who had lunged into their country in ‘39. As they had been masters of the lakes and the forests then, repulsing whole divisions with brilliantly executed traps, so they were masters forty years later, avoiding others. It was not until Taleniekov had been escorted across an inlet of ice and brought up beyond the patrols above the snow-clogged banks that he realized Checkpoint Vainikala had become an escape route of considerable magnitude. It was no longer minor.
“If ever,” said the Finn who bad taken him on his last leg of the journey, “any of you men from Washington want to get beyond these Bolshevik bastards, remember us. Because we do not forget.” The irony was not lost on Vasili Vasilovich Taleniekov, former master strategist for the KGB. “You should be careful with such offers,” he replied. “How do you know rm not a Soviet plant?” Finn smiled. “We traced you to the Tavastian and made our own inquiries. You were sent by the best there is. He has used us in a dozen different Baltic operations. Give the quiet one our regards.” The man extended his hand. “Arrangements have been made to drive you south through Vyborg into Zelenogorsk,” continued the escort.
“What?” Taleniekov had made no such request; he had made it clear that once inside the Soviet Union, he preferred to be on his own. “I didn’t ask you to do that. I didn’t pay for it.” The Finn smiled condescendingly. “We thought it best; it will be quicker for you. Walk two kilometers down this road. Youll find a car parked by the snowbank. Ask the man inside for the time, saying your car has broken down-but speak Russian; they say you can do so passably well. If the man answers, then begins winding his watch, that’s your ride.” “I really don’t think this is necessary,” objected Vasili. “I expected to make my own arrangements-for both our sakes.” “Whatever you might arrange, this is better; it will be daybreak soon and the roads are watched. You have nothing to worry abouL The man you’re meeting has been on Washington’s payroll for a long time.” ne Finn smiled again. “He is second-in-command, KGBVyborg.” Taleniekov returned the smile. Whatever annoyance he had felt evaporated.
In one sentence his escort had provided the answers to several problems. If stealing from a thief was the safest form of larceny, a “defector” com-promising a traitor was even safer.
“You’re a remarkable people,” he said to the Finn. “I’m sure we’ll do business again.” “Why not? Geography keeps us occupied. We have scores to settle.” Taleniekov had to ask. “Still? After so many years?” “It never ends. You are fortunate, my friend, you don’t live with a wild, unpredictable bear in your backyard. Try it sometime, it’s depressing.
Haven’t you heard? We drink too much.”
Vasili saw the car in the distance, a black shadow among other shadows surrounded by the snow on the road. It was dawn; in an hour the sun would throw its yellow shafts across the Arctic mists and the mists would disappear. As a child, he had been warmed by that sun.
He was home. It had been many years, but there was no sense of return, no joy at the prospect of seeing familiar sights, perhaps a familiar face..
. grown much older, as he had grown older.
There was no elation at all, only purpose. Too much had hanpened; he was cold and the winter sun would bring no warmth on this trip. There was only a family named Voroshin. He approached the car, staying as far to the right as possible, in the blind spot, his Graz-Burya in his gloved right hand. He stepped through the shoulder of snow, keeping his body low, until he was parallel with the front window. He raised his head and looked at the man inside.
The glow of a cigarette partially illuminated the vaguely familiar face.
Taleniekov had seen it before, in a dossier photograph, or perhaps during a brief interview in Riga too insignificant to be remembered. He even remembered the man’s name, and that name triggered his memory of the facts.
Maletkin. Pietre Maletkin. From Grodro, just north of the Polish border. He was in his early fifties-the face confirmed that-considered a sound if uninspired professional, someone who did his work quietly, by roteefficiency, but with little else. Through seniority he had risen in the KGB, but his lack of initiative had relegated him to a post in Vyborg.
The Americans had made a perceptive choice in his recruitment. Here was a man doomed to insignificance by his own insignificance, yet privy to ciphers and schedules because of accumulated rank. A second-in-command at Vyborg knew the end of a rather inglorious road had been reached.
Resentments could be played upon; promises of a richer life were powerful inducements. He could always be shot crossing the ice on a final trip to Vainikala. No one would miss him, a minor success for the Americans, a minor embarrassment to the KGB. But all that was changed now. Pictre Maletkin was about to become a very important person. He himself would know it the instant Vasili walked up to the window, for if the traitoes face was vaguely familiar to Taleniekov, the “defectoes” would be completely known to Maletkin. Every KGB station in the world was after Vasili Vasilovich Taleniekov.
Sheltered by the bank of snow, he crept back some twenty meters behind the automobile, then walked out on the road. Maletkin was either deep in thought or half asleep; he gave no indication that he saw anyone, no turn of the head, no crushing out of the cigarette. It was not until Vasili was within ten feet of the window that the traitor jerked his shoulders around, his face turned to the glass. Taleniekov angled his head away as if checking the road behind him as he walked; he did not want his face seen until the window was rolled down. He stood directly by the door, his head hidden above the roof.
He heard the cranking of the handle, felt the brief swell of heat from inside the car. As he expected, the beam of a flashlight shot out from the seat; he bent over and showed his face, the Graz-Burya shoved through the open window.
“Good morning, Comrade Maletkin. It is Maletkin, isn’t it?” “My God! You!” With his left hand, Taleniekov reached in and held the flashlight, turning it slowly away, no urgency in the act. “Don’t upset yourself,” he said. “We have something in common now, haven’t we? Why don’t you give me the keys?” “What what?” Maletkin was paralyzed; he could notspeak.
“Let me have the keys, please,” continued Vasili. “I’ll give them back to you as soon as I’m inside. You’re nervous, comrade, and nervous people do nervous things. I don’t want you driving away -without me. The keys, please.” The ominous barrel of the Graz-Burya was inches from Maletkin’s face, his eyes shifting rapidly between the gun and Taleniekov, he fumbled for the ignition switch and removed the keys. “Here,” he whispered.
“Thank you, comrade. And we are comrades, you know that, don’t you? There’d be no point in either of us trying to take advantage of the other’s predicament. We’d both lose.” Taleniekov walked around the hood of the car, stepped through the snowbank, and climbed in the front seat beside the morose traitor.
“Come now, Colonel Maletkin-it is colonel by now, isn’t 0-there’s no reason for this hostility. I want to hear all the news.” “I’m a temporary colonel; the rank has not been made permanent.” “A shame. We never did appreciate you, did we? Well, we were certainly mistaken. Look what you’ve accomplished right under our noses. You must tell me how you did it. In Leningrad.” “Leningrad?” “A few hour’s ride from Zelenogorsk. It’s not so much, and I’m sure Vyborg’s second-in-command can come up with a reasonable explanation for the trip. I’ll help you. I’m very good at that sort of thing.” Maletkin swallowed, his eyes apprehensively on Vasili. “I am to be back in Vyborg tomorrow morning. To hold a briefing with the patrols.” “Delegate it, ColoneIl Everyone loves to have responsibility delegated to them. It shows they’re appreciated.” “It was delegated to me,” said Maletkin.
“See what I mean? By the way, where are your bank accounts? Norway? Sweden?
New York? Certainly not in Finland; that would be foolish.”
“In the city of Atlanta. A bank owned by Arabs.” “Good thinking.” Taleniekov handed him the keys. “Shall we get started, comrade?” “This is crazy,” said Maletkin. “We’re dead men.” “Not for a while. We have business in Leningrad.”
It was noon when they drove over the Kirov Bridge, past the summer gardens wrapped in burlap, and south to the enormous boulevard that was the Nevsky Prospeckt. Taleniekov fell silent as he looked out the window at the monuments of Leningrad. The blood of millions had been sacrificed to turn the freezing mud and marshland of the Neva River into Petees window-on-Europe.
They reached the end of the Prospeckt under the gleaming spire of the Admiralty Building and turned right into the Quay. There along the banks of the river stood the Winter Palace; its effect on Vasili was the same as it had always been. It made him think about the Russia that once had been and ended here.
There was no time for such reflections, nor was this the Leningrad he would roam for the next several days-although, ironically, it was this Leningrad, that Russia, that brought him here. Prince Andrei Voroshin had been part of both.
“Drive over the Anichov Bridge and turn left,” he said. “Head into the old housing development district. I’ll tell you where to stop.” “What’s down there?” asked Maletkin, his apprehension growing with each block they traveled, each bridge they crossed, into the heart of the city.
“I’m surprised you don’t know; you should. A string of illegal boarding nouses, and equally illegal cheap hotels that seem to have a colleet.,e;y revisionist attitude regarding official papers.” “In Leningrad?” “You don’t know, do you?” said Taleniekov. “And no one ever told you. You were overlooked, comrade. When I was stationed in Riga, those of us who were area leaders frequently came up here and used the district for conferences we wished to keep secret, the ones that concerned our own people throughout the sector. It’s where I first heard your name, I believe.” “Me? I was brought up?” “Don’t worry, I threw them off and protected you. You and the other man in Vyborg.” “Vyborg?” Maletkin lost his grip on the wheel; the car swerved, narrowly avoiding an oncoming truck.
“Have you thought of something?” asked Antonia.
“Something else,” he replied. “Ibis Paravacini. He runs the Scozzi-Paravacini companies in Turin?” “He did once. And in Rome and Milan, New York and Paris, as well. All over. He married the Scozzi daughter and as time went on her brother, the count, assumed more and more control. The counCs the one who ran the companies. At least, that’s what the newspapers said.” “It’s what Paravacini wanted them to say. It wasn!t true. Scozzi was a well-put-together figurehead.” “Then he wasn’t part of the Matarese?” “Oh, he was part of it all right, in some ways the most important part.
Unless I’m wrong, he brought it with him. He and his mother, the contessa, presented it to Paravacini along with his blueblooded new wife. But now we come to the real question. Why would a man like Paravacini even listen? Men like Paravacini need, above all things… political stability. They pour fortunes into governments that have it and candidates who promise itbecause they lose fortunes when it isn’t there. They look for strong authoritarian regimes, capable of stamping out a Red Brigades or a Baader-Meinhof no matter how indiscriminate the process, or how much legitimate dissent goes down with them.” “That government does not exist in Italy,” interrupted Antonia.
“And in not many other places, either. That’s what doesn’t make sense. The Paravacinis of this world thrive on law and order. They have nothing to gain by, or nothing to substitute for its breakdown. Yet the Matarese is against all that. It wants to paralyze governments; it feeds the terrorists, funnels money to them, spreads the paralysis as quickly as possible.” Scofield drew on his cigarette. The clearer some things became, the more obscure did others.
“You’re contradicting yourself, Bray.” Antonia touched his arm; it had become a perfectly natural gesture during the past twenty-four hours. “You say Paravacini is the Matarese. Or part of it.” “He is. That’s what’s missing. The reason.” “Where do you look for it?” “Not here any longer. I’ll ask the doctor to pick up our things at the Excelsior. We’re getting out.” ‘We?” Scofield took her hand. ‘Tonight changed a lot of things. La bella signorina can’t stay in Rome now.” “Then I can go with you.” “As far as Paris,” said Bray hesitantly, the hesitation not born of doubt, only of how to arrange the avenues of communication in Paris. “You’ll stay there. I’ll work out the procedures and get you a place to stay.” “Where will you go?” “London. We know about Paravacini now; he’s the Scozzi factor. London’s next.” “Why therer’ “Paravacini said Turin was to cable ‘the eagles, the cat.’ With what your grandmother told us in Corsica, that code isn’t hard to figure out. One eagle is my country, the other Taleniekov’s.” “It doesn’t follow,” disagreed Antonia. “Russia is the bear.
“Not in this case. The Russian bear is Bolshevik, the Russian eagle, Tzarist. The third guest at Villa Matarese in April of nineteen eleven was a man named Voroshin. Prince Andrei Voroshin. From St. Petersburg.
That’s Leningrad now. Taleniekov’s on his way there.” “And the ‘cat’r’ ‘qbe British lion. The second guest, Sir John Waverly. A descendant, David Waverly, is England’s Foreign Secretary.” “A very high position.” “Too high, too visible. It doesn’t make sense for him to be involved, either. Any more than the man in Washington, a senator who will probably be President next year. And because it doesn7t make sense, it scares the bell out of me.” Scofield released her hand, and reached for the ignition. ‘We’re getting closer. Whatever there is to be found under the two eagles and the cat may be harder to dig out, but it’s there.
Paravacini made that clear. He said the ‘burials’ had to be ‘absolute.’ He meant that all the connections had to be re-examined, put farther out of reach.” “You’ll be in a great deal of danger.” She touched his, arm again.
“Nowhere near as much as Taleniekov. As far as the Matarese is concerned, I’m dead, remember? He’s not. Which is why we’re going to send our first cable. To Helsinki. We’ve got to warn him.” “About what?” ‘That anyone prowling around Leningrad looking for information about an illustrious old St. Petersburg family named Voroshin will probably get his head blown off.” Bray started the car. “It’s wild,” he said. “We’re going after the inheritors—or we think we are-because we’ve got their names. But there’s someone else, and I don’t think any of them mean much without him.” “Who is that?” “A shepherd boy. He’s the one we’ve really got to find, and I don’t have the vaguest idea of how to do it.”
Taleniekov walked to the middle of the block on Helsinki’s Itli Kaivopuisto, noting the lights of the American Embassy down the street.
The sight of the building was appropriate; he had been thinking of Beowulf Agate off and on for most of the day.
It had taken him most of the day to absorb the news in Scofield’s cable.
The words themselves were innocuous, a salesman’s report to an executive of a home office regarding Italian imports of Finnish crystal, but the new information was startling and complex. Scofield had made extraordinary progress in a very short time.
He had found the first connection; it was a Scozd-the first name on the guest list of Guillaume de Matareseand the man was dead, killed by those who controlled him. Therefore, the American’s assumption in Corsica that the members of the Matarese council were not born, but selected, proved accurate. The Matarese had been taken over, a mixture of descendants and usurpers. It was consistent with the dying words of Aleksie Krupskaya in Moscow.
The Matarese was dormant for years. No one could make contact. Then It came back, but it was not the same. Killings… without clients, senseless butchery without a pattern… governments paralyzed.
This was, indeed, a new Matarese and infinitely more deadly than a cult of fanatics dedicated to paid political assassination. And Beowulf had added a warning in his cable. The Matarese now assumed that the guest list had been found; the stalking of the Voroshin family in Leningrad was infinitely more complicated than it might have been only days ago.
Men were waiting in Leningrad for someone to ask questions about the Voroshins. But not the men–or man -he would reach, thought Taleniekov, stamping his feet against the cold, looking for a sign of the automobile and the man who was to meet him and drive him east along the coast past Hamina toward the Soviet border.
Scofield was on his way to Paris with the girl, the American to continue on to England after setting up procedures in France. The Corsican woman had passed whatever tests Beowulf Agate had created; she would live and be their conduit. But, as Vasili was beginning to learn, Scofield rarely operated on a simple line; there was a third party, the manager of the Tavastian Hotel in Helsinki.
Once in Leningrad, Taleniekov was to cable the manager with whatever particulars he could put into ciphers and the man, in turn, would wait for direct telephone calls from Paris and relate the codes received from Leningrad. It was then up to the woman to reach Scofield in England. Vasili knew that monitoring cable traffic was a particular talent of the KGB; the only sure way to eliminate it was to use KGB equipmenL Somehow, he would find a way to do that.
An automobile pulled up to the curb, the headlights dimming once, the driver wearing a red muffler, one end draped over a dark leather jacket.
Taleniekov crossed the pavement and got in the front seat beside the driver. He was on his way back to Russia.
The town of Vainikala was on the northwest shore of the lake; across the water was the Soviet Union, the southeast banks patroled by teams of soldiers and dogs plagued more often by ennui than by threats of penetration or escape. When the KGB first knew about it, prolonged exposure to the freezing winds during winter months made it simply too dangerous to use as an escape route; and in summer the interminable flow of tourist visas in and out of Tallin and Riga, to say nothing of Leningrad itself, made those cities the easiest avenues to freedom. As a result the northwest garrisons along the Finnish border were staffed by the least motivated Russian military personnel, often a collection of misfits and drunks commanded by men being punished for errors of judgment. Checkpoint Vainikala was a logical place to cross into Russia; even the dogs were third rate.
The Finns, however, were not, nor had they ever lost their hatred of the Soviet invaders who had lunged into their country in ‘39. As they had been masters of the lakes and the forests then, repulsing whole divisions with brilliantly executed traps, so they were masters forty years later, avoiding others. It was not until Taleniekov had been escorted across an inlet of ice and brought up beyond the patrols above the snow-clogged banks that he realized Checkpoint Vainikala had become an escape route of considerable magnitude. It was no longer minor.
“If ever,” said the Finn who bad taken him on his last leg of the journey, “any of you men from Washington want to get beyond these Bolshevik bastards, remember us. Because we do not forget.” The irony was not lost on Vasili Vasilovich Taleniekov, former master strategist for the KGB. “You should be careful with such offers,” he replied. “How do you know rm not a Soviet plant?” Finn smiled. “We traced you to the Tavastian and made our own inquiries. You were sent by the best there is. He has used us in a dozen different Baltic operations. Give the quiet one our regards.” The man extended his hand. “Arrangements have been made to drive you south through Vyborg into Zelenogorsk,” continued the escort.
“What?” Taleniekov had made no such request; he had made it clear that once inside the Soviet Union, he preferred to be on his own. “I didn’t ask you to do that. I didn’t pay for it.” The Finn smiled condescendingly. “We thought it best; it will be quicker for you. Walk two kilometers down this road. Youll find a car parked by the snowbank. Ask the man inside for the time, saying your car has broken down-but speak Russian; they say you can do so passably well. If the man answers, then begins winding his watch, that’s your ride.” “I really don’t think this is necessary,” objected Vasili. “I expected to make my own arrangements-for both our sakes.” “Whatever you might arrange, this is better; it will be daybreak soon and the roads are watched. You have nothing to worry abouL The man you’re meeting has been on Washington’s payroll for a long time.” ne Finn smiled again. “He is second-in-command, KGBVyborg.” Taleniekov returned the smile. Whatever annoyance he had felt evaporated.
In one sentence his escort had provided the answers to several problems. If stealing from a thief was the safest form of larceny, a “defector” com-promising a traitor was even safer.
“You’re a remarkable people,” he said to the Finn. “I’m sure we’ll do business again.” “Why not? Geography keeps us occupied. We have scores to settle.” Taleniekov had to ask. “Still? After so many years?” “It never ends. You are fortunate, my friend, you don’t live with a wild, unpredictable bear in your backyard. Try it sometime, it’s depressing.
Haven’t you heard? We drink too much.”
Vasili saw the car in the distance, a black shadow among other shadows surrounded by the snow on the road. It was dawn; in an hour the sun would throw its yellow shafts across the Arctic mists and the mists would disappear. As a child, he had been warmed by that sun.
He was home. It had been many years, but there was no sense of return, no joy at the prospect of seeing familiar sights, perhaps a familiar face..
. grown much older, as he had grown older.
There was no elation at all, only purpose. Too much had hanpened; he was cold and the winter sun would bring no warmth on this trip. There was only a family named Voroshin. He approached the car, staying as far to the right as possible, in the blind spot, his Graz-Burya in his gloved right hand. He stepped through the shoulder of snow, keeping his body low, until he was parallel with the front window. He raised his head and looked at the man inside.
The glow of a cigarette partially illuminated the vaguely familiar face.
Taleniekov had seen it before, in a dossier photograph, or perhaps during a brief interview in Riga too insignificant to be remembered. He even remembered the man’s name, and that name triggered his memory of the facts.
Maletkin. Pietre Maletkin. From Grodro, just north of the Polish border. He was in his early fifties-the face confirmed that-considered a sound if uninspired professional, someone who did his work quietly, by roteefficiency, but with little else. Through seniority he had risen in the KGB, but his lack of initiative had relegated him to a post in Vyborg.
The Americans had made a perceptive choice in his recruitment. Here was a man doomed to insignificance by his own insignificance, yet privy to ciphers and schedules because of accumulated rank. A second-in-command at Vyborg knew the end of a rather inglorious road had been reached.
Resentments could be played upon; promises of a richer life were powerful inducements. He could always be shot crossing the ice on a final trip to Vainikala. No one would miss him, a minor success for the Americans, a minor embarrassment to the KGB. But all that was changed now. Pictre Maletkin was about to become a very important person. He himself would know it the instant Vasili walked up to the window, for if the traitoes face was vaguely familiar to Taleniekov, the “defectoes” would be completely known to Maletkin. Every KGB station in the world was after Vasili Vasilovich Taleniekov.
Sheltered by the bank of snow, he crept back some twenty meters behind the automobile, then walked out on the road. Maletkin was either deep in thought or half asleep; he gave no indication that he saw anyone, no turn of the head, no crushing out of the cigarette. It was not until Vasili was within ten feet of the window that the traitor jerked his shoulders around, his face turned to the glass. Taleniekov angled his head away as if checking the road behind him as he walked; he did not want his face seen until the window was rolled down. He stood directly by the door, his head hidden above the roof.
He heard the cranking of the handle, felt the brief swell of heat from inside the car. As he expected, the beam of a flashlight shot out from the seat; he bent over and showed his face, the Graz-Burya shoved through the open window.
“Good morning, Comrade Maletkin. It is Maletkin, isn’t it?” “My God! You!” With his left hand, Taleniekov reached in and held the flashlight, turning it slowly away, no urgency in the act. “Don’t upset yourself,” he said. “We have something in common now, haven’t we? Why don’t you give me the keys?” “What what?” Maletkin was paralyzed; he could notspeak.
“Let me have the keys, please,” continued Vasili. “I’ll give them back to you as soon as I’m inside. You’re nervous, comrade, and nervous people do nervous things. I don’t want you driving away -without me. The keys, please.” The ominous barrel of the Graz-Burya was inches from Maletkin’s face, his eyes shifting rapidly between the gun and Taleniekov, he fumbled for the ignition switch and removed the keys. “Here,” he whispered.
“Thank you, comrade. And we are comrades, you know that, don’t you? There’d be no point in either of us trying to take advantage of the other’s predicament. We’d both lose.” Taleniekov walked around the hood of the car, stepped through the snowbank, and climbed in the front seat beside the morose traitor.
“Come now, Colonel Maletkin-it is colonel by now, isn’t 0-there’s no reason for this hostility. I want to hear all the news.” “I’m a temporary colonel; the rank has not been made permanent.” “A shame. We never did appreciate you, did we? Well, we were certainly mistaken. Look what you’ve accomplished right under our noses. You must tell me how you did it. In Leningrad.” “Leningrad?” “A few hour’s ride from Zelenogorsk. It’s not so much, and I’m sure Vyborg’s second-in-command can come up with a reasonable explanation for the trip. I’ll help you. I’m very good at that sort of thing.” Maletkin swallowed, his eyes apprehensively on Vasili. “I am to be back in Vyborg tomorrow morning. To hold a briefing with the patrols.” “Delegate it, ColoneIl Everyone loves to have responsibility delegated to them. It shows they’re appreciated.” “It was delegated to me,” said Maletkin.
“See what I mean? By the way, where are your bank accounts? Norway? Sweden?
New York? Certainly not in Finland; that would be foolish.”
“In the city of Atlanta. A bank owned by Arabs.” “Good thinking.” Taleniekov handed him the keys. “Shall we get started, comrade?” “This is crazy,” said Maletkin. “We’re dead men.” “Not for a while. We have business in Leningrad.”
It was noon when they drove over the Kirov Bridge, past the summer gardens wrapped in burlap, and south to the enormous boulevard that was the Nevsky Prospeckt. Taleniekov fell silent as he looked out the window at the monuments of Leningrad. The blood of millions had been sacrificed to turn the freezing mud and marshland of the Neva River into Petees window-on-Europe.
They reached the end of the Prospeckt under the gleaming spire of the Admiralty Building and turned right into the Quay. There along the banks of the river stood the Winter Palace; its effect on Vasili was the same as it had always been. It made him think about the Russia that once had been and ended here.
There was no time for such reflections, nor was this the Leningrad he would roam for the next several days-although, ironically, it was this Leningrad, that Russia, that brought him here. Prince Andrei Voroshin had been part of both.
“Drive over the Anichov Bridge and turn left,” he said. “Head into the old housing development district. I’ll tell you where to stop.” “What’s down there?” asked Maletkin, his apprehension growing with each block they traveled, each bridge they crossed, into the heart of the city.
“I’m surprised you don’t know; you should. A string of illegal boarding nouses, and equally illegal cheap hotels that seem to have a colleet.,e;y revisionist attitude regarding official papers.” “In Leningrad?” “You don’t know, do you?” said Taleniekov. “And no one ever told you. You were overlooked, comrade. When I was stationed in Riga, those of us who were area leaders frequently came up here and used the district for conferences we wished to keep secret, the ones that concerned our own people throughout the sector. It’s where I first heard your name, I believe.” “Me? I was brought up?” “Don’t worry, I threw them off and protected you. You and the other man in Vyborg.” “Vyborg?” Maletkin lost his grip on the wheel; the car swerved, narrowly avoiding an oncoming truck.
