Mazurka (45 page)

“And the girl,” Epishev said.

“Of course.” Iverson walked across the room, putting a little distance between himself and the microphone he knew was planted in the vent above the kitchen stove. It would pick up his voice anyhow, but he enjoyed the idea of Galbraith straining to listen. What he didn't know, but on one level of awareness suspected, was that the entire apartment was one enormous eavesdropping device. The walls had been specially treated with a chemical that amplified any sound and relayed it to a series of hypersensitive pick-ups lodged in the ceiling. A sigh, a whisper, the touch of a handkerchief to a lip, a quiet fart – Galbraith heard it all in Fredericksburg.

Iverson leaned against the wall, arms folded. He had no way of knowing how much he had in common with Viktor Epishev of the KGB, how they both served masters given to authoritarian whim, strong-willed men who guarded their dominions jealously, who resented intrusions and meddlesome outsiders, and who found trust difficult. Iverson and Epishev – both obedient and yet at times capable of some mild straining at the leashes that held them in place, both loyal, both patriots, both pedestrians in the hall of bevelled mirrors that was international political ambition and intrigue.

Iverson said, “According to our information, Pagan and the girl are staying at the Warwick Hotel here in Manhattan. Pagan – presumably because of information given to him by the girl, and because he's come to some understanding of the coded
meaning
in Romanenko's message – has started to drift very dose to the Brotherhood. Only this afternoon we were forced to intervene in a situation …”
In a situation I might have foreseen but didn't
, he thought.

Gary Iverson, turning the word ‘coded' around in his mind, admiring Galbraith's cunning, glanced at his wristwatch and went on, “I don't have to tell you how disastrous it would be at this stage if Pagan and Kristina Vaska interfered with things. There's a third person in the picture as well, a New York policeman called Max Klein, who's been assisting Pagan. It's a sensitive situation, as you can well understand.”

Epishev said, “But the solution is very simple, Iverson.”

Iverson hesitated. “As you say, Colonel, it's very simple.”

“Then what's holding you back?”

Iverson paced the floor, stopping at a place where sunlight slicing through the windows. struck his face and made him blink his eyes. “We need your help, Colonel Epishev.”

Epishev was hardly surprised by the request. He hadn't been issued a quick visa and flown first-class to the United States on the first available plane just to play tourist. He'd known his help was needed from the start, from the moment when Gunther had stamped his passport in his offices in the US Embassy and told him that Pagan and the girl were now in New York City – ‘pursuing investigations' was how Gunther had phrased it, his face rather mysterious, as if there were more he wanted to say but didn't have the authority to say. Epishev knew what the Americans wanted of him. He wanted the same thing for himself.

“You need to keep your own hands clean,” Epishev said.

“The situation's delicate,” Iverson replied.

Epishev gazed back out over the river. A tugboat came in view, a small dirty vessel spewing out dark smoke.

Iverson went on, “Killing a New York policeman – to say nothing of a man from Scotland Yard – isn't something we do with great enthusiasm. You, on the other hand, don't have …” Iverson let his sentence hang unfinished.

“Killing isn't anything I relish myself,” Epishev said quietly.

“Nobody relishes it,” Iverson said.

Epishev smiled. “And your superiors have qualms.”

“Qualms, sure,” Iverson remarked. “But it's more than that. They're afraid of unwanted complications. They don't like the idea of this triple elimination coming back on them, sullying their good name, if you understand what I'm saying.”

“They're afraid of ghosts,” Epishev said, a slight scoffing note in his voice.

“You might say. Congressional ghosts. Journalistic ghosts. We're a country of inquisitive spectres, Colonel. It's part of the price we pay for freedom and democracy, you see.” Scoring a point, Iverson thought, and why the hell not? He hated Communism. He hated Communists. He didn't like this character Epishev coming to the USA with such ease, and he was unhappy with the idea of any collusion between America and the Soviet Union. But he wasn't the scriptwriter, Galbraith was the creator when it came to situations and scenes, Iverson was merely an actor in the drama. At least he had the advantage of knowing how this particular drama was going to end, and it pleased him to think of the small aircraft floating in darkness with all the density of the Adirondacks lying mysteriously below … He derailed this train of thought. Anticipation might be amusing and enjoyable, but as Galbraith was constantly saying,
The future is the province of soothsayers, Gary. We mere mortals have to make do with the moment
.

Epishev said, “Your superiors don't have much power, if the killing of three insignificant people causes them such worry.”

“Oh, they have power, Colonel. But they also believe that discretion is one sure way of holding on to it.”

“Why do dirty work if they can get somebody else to do it for them?”

Iverson nodded. “You were given an order from your own superior, Colonel. As far as I understand it, your mandate was to eliminate any threat to the plan. That's all you've come to America to do. Your duty. Plain and simple. Everything you need will be supplied to you. Immediately after the success of your undertaking, you'll be flown from New York to Germany. You'll re-enter Russia, your orders will have been carried out, people will be pleased on both sides. You'll have all the help we can place at your disposal. You can even have the use of our personnel – up to a point.”

“And what point is that?”

“The point where their culpability might be established.”

“By the ghosts you fear so much?”

“Exactly,” Iverson said.

Epishev watched the old tug boat vanish from his sight. Then the yellowy river was empty and the sun hung behind factory stacks on the opposite bank. Greshko's face floated up before him, the smell of the sick-room, the aroma of death that clung to the walls with the certainty of dampness.

“I have guarantees?” he asked.

“Cast-iron,” Iverson replied. “Remember. If General Greshko trusted us enough to enter into this partnership, well…”

Epishev considered this. If Greshko had trusted these people, then Epishev had no reason to feel otherwise. Greshko's trust, as he well knew, was given only sparingly, and then never completely – but if he'd made an important compact with the Americans, then it was because the advantages in it for him were too attractive to refuse. There was a long silence in the room, broken finally by Iverson, who looked solemn as he said, “You can count on our backing all the way.”

“You have Pagan and the girl under surveillance?” Epishev asked.

“Constantly,” Iverson answered. “We never sleep.”

Moscow

“Tea, General?” Volovich asked, but his tongue was heavy in his mouth. He watched Stefan Olsky cross the floor to one of the armchairs, where he sat, crossing his legs and removing his cap.

“I don't think so,” Olsky said.

“It's no trouble –”

Olsky held one hand up, palm outward. “I said no, Dimitri.”

Volovich hovered in the doorway to the kitchen. Pain throbbed behind his eyes.

Olsky said, “I like this apartment. I imagine you're fond of it too. Convenient location. Pleasant rooms.”

“It's comfortable, General.”

Stefan Olsky was quiet a moment. “You were going somewhere when I arrived.”

Volovich, whose mind suddenly had the texture of an ice-skating rink, a thing of slippery surfaces and frozen depths, nodded his head imperceptibly. “A stroll, a late-night stroll,” he forced himself to say.

Olsky said nothing for a moment. “You took a call from Viktor Epishev a few minutes ago. The call was patched here through a KGB switchboard in East Berlin. It originated in the United States. My listeners are located in the basement of this building – does that surprise you?”

A tapped telephone
. It was a nightmare and Volovich was hurled into it and, as in all nightmares, no immediate escape was apparent, no relief forthcoming.

Olsky said, “Viktor Epishev mentioned a threat to the plan, Dimitri. What is the nature of the plan?”

“Plan?”

“Don't play games with me. I hate games.”

Volovich shook his head. Being stubborn would finally prove futile, but there were old loyalties and they would sustain him, if only briefly. “I don't understand what you're talking about, General.”

“I know you and Epishev visited Greshko last Saturday. I know Epishev left the country the next day. I know you're all involved in some kind of Baltic conspiracy – don't waste my time or insult my intelligence, Lieutenant.”

“I have nothing to say.”

Stefan Olsky stood up and strolled around the apartment. “You have a comfortable life here, Dimitri. A good apartment, a car, a job that isn't terribly taxing. And yet you risk throwing it all away – for what? Why do you feel you have to protect Greshko and Epishev? Do you imagine they'd protect you if the situation were reversed?”

Volovich, who saw the logic of the question, didn't answer it. He looked down at the floor like a scolded schoolboy. He heard General Olsky move around the apartment, but he didn't look. Once, Olsky passed just behind him, so close Volovich could feel the General's breath on the back of his neck and smell his sweet aftershave lotion.

“I admire your loyalty, Dimitri. I understand your need to protect your superiors.”

Volovich still didn't speak.

“But sometimes old loyalties have to give way to new ones, Dimitri. Just as old systems have to yield to new ones, if there's going to be progress.” Olsky was quiet a moment. “I don't approve of some of the methods used by my predecessor. I admit they got quick results, but the cellars of Lubianka are damp and they don't feel quite right to me any more. Too medieval. Too crude. This is the late 20th century and Greshko's barbarism is outmoded. I much prefer the idea of solving this business between us in a civilised way …”

Stefan Olsky sat down again. He looked at the darkness upon the window, the slight light cast there by a streetlamp. A faint wind rustled the thin young trees outside. He turned his eyes back to the wretched Volovich. He felt an odd little sense of pity for the man.

“Tell me the nature of this plot.”

“I don't know,” Volovich said, raising his face to look at the General.

“Nobody told you, Dimitri? Am I to believe that?”

“Nobody told me. Correct.”

Olsky said, “I understand you have a mother, Dimitri.”

“Yes.”

“You were able to use your influence to have her admitted to a KGB-operated rest home on the Black Sea.”

“I only did what a great many people do.”

“I'm not quibbling with that. But you used your influence in the wrong way, didn't you? Some people might construe it as misuse of privilege. Even a form of bribery.”

“Bribery?”

“In which case your mother would be obliged to move.”

“She's sick, General.”

“There are hospitals.”

“If she were in a hospital, she'd be dead now.”

Volovich glanced inside the kitchen where a kettle had begun to boil. He pictured his mother, who suffered from incurable emphysema, being moved from her light, airy room in the sanitarium and taken to some dreary state hospital in a small drab suburban town, where care would be minimal and medication unavailable and nurses rude.

“Make your tea, Dimitri. You need it.”

With hands that wouldn't stop shaking, Dimitri brewed tea, then stood inside the living-room and sipped it. He was quiet for a very long time, struggling with himself, seeing the sheer hopelessness of his situation. He said, “I don't want her moved, General. She's comfortable where she is.”

“I imagine she is,” Olsky said.

Volovich swallowed hard. He might have had a pebble in his throat. “I'd tell you if I knew, General. But I don't know. They kept me in the dark.”

“You must have some knowledge.”

“I understood Romanenko was delivering a message to a contact in Britain. Then Romanenko was shot, the delivery didn't happen and Epishev was sent to make sure nothing else would go wrong.”

Olsky felt a little flicker of fatigue go through him. All afternoon long and throughout the evening, he'd been dispatching KGB agents to the major cities in the Baltic countries, to Riga, and Vilnius, and Tallinn, hundreds of agents, under strict orders to act with stealth and the appropriate discretion in their inquiries. Dissidents, refuseniks, political deviants – these had been rounded up quietly and taken from their homes and questioned, then returned as swiftly as possible. Apartments were ransacked, files removed, documents studied. The operation brought forth a number of unexpected prizes, although none of them was related to the Baltic plot. A musician in Vilnius had an illegal mimeograph machine, a Jewish writer in Tallinn was in possession of a large amount of foreign currency, a cache of heroin had been discovered in the apartment of a physician in Riga, and in the Latvian city of Valmiera a professor of physics had a collection of several hundred precious icons. At any other time, Olsky would have been pleased with these results, but not now. They brought him no closer to the truth he really wanted.

“You must have gathered
some
impressions, Lieutenant.”

Greshko and Epishev, who sometimes seemed to share a common language Volovich couldn't penetrate, had never really made him an intimate part of the plan. “A few,” Volovich said. “The truth is,
I really didn't want to know
.”