“Dionna, what we seem to have here is the first major terrorist incident in the history of the Soviet Union—”
“Since the bastards set themselves up,” Toland snorted.
“We know for certain—at least we’ve been told—that a bomb was detonated in the Council of Ministers building. They’re certain it was a bomb, not some kind of accident. And we know for sure that three, possibly more people were killed, and perhaps as many as forty or fifty wounded.
“Now the really interesting thing about this is that the Politburo had been scheduled to hold a meeting here at about that time.”
“Holy shit!” Toland set the aerosol can on the night table, one hand still covered in shaving cream.
“Can you tell us if any of them were among the dead or wounded?” Dionna asked at once.
“No, Dionna. You see, we’re more than a quarter of a mile away, and the senior Kremlin officials arrive by car—when they do, that is, they come in from the other side of the fortress, through another gate. So, we never even knew that they were here, but the militia captain with our team did, and he kind of blurted it out. His exact words were, ‘My God, the Politburo’s in there!”’
“Rich, can you tell us what the reaction in Moscow has been like?”
“It’s still pretty hard for us to gauge, Dionna, since we’ve been right here covering the story as it unfolds. The Kremlin Guards’ reaction is just what you might imagine—just like American Secret Service people would react, I suppose—a mixture of horror and rage, but I want to make it clear that that rage is not being directed against anyone, certainly not against Americans. I told the militia officer who’s been with us that I was in the U.S. Capitol building when the Weathermen’s bomb was set off, back in 1970, and he replied rather disgustedly that Communism was indeed catching up with capitalism, that the Soviet Union was growing a bumper crop of hooligans. It’s a measure of how seriously they’re taking this that a Soviet police officer would comment so openly on a subject that they’re not all that willing to discuss normally. So, if I had to pick one word to describe the reaction here, that word would be ‘shock.’
“So, to summarize what we know to this point, there has been a bombing incident within the Kremlin walls, possibly an attempt to eliminate the Soviet Politburo, though I must emphasize we are not certain of that. We have had it confirmed by police at the scene that at least three people are dead, with forty or so other wounded, those wounded being evacuated to nearby hospitals. We will be reporting throughout the day as more information becomes available. This is Rich Suddler, CNN, coming to you live from the Kremlin.” The scene shifted back to the anchor desk.
“And there you have it, another exclusive report from Cable Network News.” Dionna the anchorperson smiled, and the screen faded again, this time to a commercial for Lite Beer from Miller. Marty stood up and put on a robe.
“I’ll get the coffee going.”
“Holy shit,” Toland said again. He took longer than usual to shave, nicking himself twice as he kept looking in the mirror at his own eyes rather than his jawline. He dressed quickly, then looked in on his sleeping children. He decided against waking them.
Forty minutes later, he was in his car heading south, down U.S. 301, with his windows open, allowing cool night air to wash over him, and the car radio tuned to an all-news station. It was clear enough what was happening in the U.S. military. A bomb had been set off—probably a bomb in the Kremlin. Toland reminded himself that reporters hard up against deadlines, or TV types trying to score an instant scoop, often did not have the time to check things out. Maybe it was a gas main? Did Moscow have gas mains? If it were a bomb, he was sure the Soviets would instinctively think that the West had something to do with it, regardless of what that Suddler fellow thought, and go to higher alert status. The West would automatically do the same in anticipation of possible Soviet action. Nothing too obvious, nothing to provoke them further, mainly an exercise conducted by intelligence and surveillance types. The Soviets would understand that. That’s how the game was played, more from their side than from ours, Toland reflected, remembering assassination attempts against American presidents.
What if they really
do
think?
Toland wondered. No, he decided, they had to know that no one was that crazy. Didn’t they?
NORFOLK, VIRGINIA
He drove for another three hours, wishing that he’d drunk more coffee and less wine, and listening to his car radio to stay awake. He arrived just after seven, the normal beginning of the day’s work. He was surprised to find Colonel Lowe at his desk.
“I don’t report to Lejeune until Tuesday, so I decided to come in and take a look at this. How was the drive?”
“I made it alive—that’s about all I can say. What’s happening?”
“You’ll love it.” Lowe held up a telex sheet. “We pirated this off the Reuters wire half an hour ago, and CIA confirms—meaning they probably stole it, too—that the KGB has arrested one Gerhardt Falken, a West German national, and accused him of setting off a bomb in the fuckin’ Kremlin!” The Marine let out a long breath. “He missed the big shots, but now they’re saying that among the victims are six Young Octobrists—from Pskov, by God!—who were making a presentation to the Politburo. Kids. There’s going to be hell to pay.”
Toland shook his head. It couldn’t get much worse than that. “And they say a German did it?”
“A West German,” Lowe corrected. “NATO intel services are already going ape trying to run him down. The official Soviet statement gives his name and address—some suburb of Bremen—and business, a small import-export house. Nothing else yet on that subject, but the Russian Foreign Ministry did go on to say that they expect ‘this despicable act of international terrorism’ to have no effect on the Vienna Arms Talks, that while they do not believe at this time that Falken was acting on his own, they ’have no wish’ to believe that we had anything to do with it.”
“Cute. It’s going to be a shame to lose you back to your regiment, Chuck. You have such a nice way of finding the important quotes.”
“Commander, we just might need that regiment soon. This whole thing smells like dead fish to me. Last night: the final film in the Eisenstein film festival,
Alexander Nevsky
, a new digitalized print, a new soundtrack—and what’s the message? ‘Arise, ye Russian people,’ the Germans are coming! This morning, we have six dead Russian kids,
from Pskov!
and a German is supposed to have planted the bomb. The only thing that doesn’t fit is that it ain’t exactly subtle.”
“Maybe,” Toland said speculatively. He spoke like a halfhearted devil’s advocate. “You think we could sell this combination of factors to the papers or anybody in Washington? It’s too crazy, too coincidental—what if it is subtle, but backwards subtle? Besides, the object of the exercise wouldn’t be to convince us, it would be to convince their own citizens. You could say it works both ways. That make sense, Chuck?”
Lowe nodded. “Enough to check out. Let’s do some sniffing around. First thing, I want you to call CNN in Atlanta and find out how long this Suddler guy’s been trying to tape his story about the Kremlin. How much lead time did he have, when was this approved, who he worked through to get it, and if someone other than his regular press contact finally did approve it.”
“Setup.” Toland said it out loud. He wondered if they were being clever—or clinically paranoid. He knew what most people would think.
“You can’t smuggle a
Penthouse
into Russia without using the diplomatic bag, and now we’re supposed to believe a German smuggled a bomb in? Then tries to blow up the Politburo?”
“Could we do it?” Toland wondered aloud.
“If CIA was crazy enough to try it? God, that’s more than just crazy.” Lowe shook his head. “I don’t think anybody could do it, even the Russians themselves. It’s got to be a layered defense. X-ray machines. Sniffer dogs. A couple of hundred guards, all from three different commands, the Army, KGB, MVD, probably their militia, too. Hell, Bob, you know how paranoid they are against their own people. How do you suppose they feel about Germans?”
“So they can’t say he was a crazy operating on his own.”
“Which leaves . . .”
“Yeah.” Toland reached for his phone to call CNN.
KIEV, THE UKRAINE
“Children!”
Alekseyev barely said aloud. “For our
maskirovka
the Party murders children!
Our own children. What have we come to?”
What have I come to? If I can rationalize the judicial murder of four colonels and some privates, why shouldn’t the Politburo blow up a few children . . . ?
Alekseyev told himself there was a difference.
His General was also pale as he switched off the television set. “ ‘Arise, ye Russian people.’ We must set these thoughts aside, Pasha. It is hard, but we must. The State is not perfect, but it is the State we must serve.”
Alekseyev eyed his commander closely. The General had almost choked on those words; he was already practicing how to use them on the crucial few who would know of this outrage, yet had to perform their duties as though it never existed. There will come a day of reckoning, Pasha told himself, a day of reckoning for all the crimes committed in the name of Socialist Progress. He wondered if he’d live to see it and decided he probably wouldn’t.
MOSCOW, R.S.F.S.R.
The Revolution has come to this,
he thought. Sergetov was staring into the rubble. The sun was still high, even this late in the afternoon. The firefighters and soldiers were almost finished sorting through the wreckage, heaving the loose pieces into trucks a few meters from where he stood. There was dust on his suit.
I’ll have to have it cleaned,
he thought, watching the seventh small body being lifted with a gentleness all too late and obscenely out of place. One more child was still unaccounted for, and there was still some lingering hope. A uniformed Army medic stood nearby, unwrapped dressings in his quivering hands. To his left a major of infantry was weeping with rage. A man with a family, no doubt.
The television cameras were there, of course.
A lesson learned from the American media
, Sergetov thought, the crews poking their way into the action to record every horrible scene for the evening news. He was surprised to see an American crew with their Soviet counterparts. So, we have made mass murder an international spectator sport.
Sergetov was far too angry for visible emotion.
That could have been me,
he thought.
I always show up early for the Thursday meetings. Everyone knows it. The guards, the clerical staff, and certainly my Comrades on the Politburo. So this is the penultimate segment of the
maskirovka.
To motivate, to lead our people, we must do this. Was there supposed to be a Politburo member in the rubble? he
wondered.
A junior member, of course.
Surely I am wrong,
Sergetov told himself. One part of his mind examined the question with chilling objectivity while another considered his personal friendships with some of the senior Politburo members. He didn’t know what to think. An odd position for a leader of the Party.
NORFOLK, VIRGINIA
“I am Gerhardt Falken,” the man said. “I entered the Soviet Union six days ago through the port of Odessa. I have been for ten years an agent of the
Bundesnachrichtendienst
, the intelligence apparat of the government of West Germany. My assignment was to kill the Politburo at its Thursday-morning session by means of a bomb placed in a storage room directly beneath the fourth-floor conference room in which they meet.” Lowe and Toland watched their televisions in total fascination. It was perfect. “Falken” spoke perfect Russian, with the precise syntax and diction that schoolteachers in the Soviet Union sought to achieve. His accent was that of Leningrad.
“I have run an import-export business in Bremen for many years, and I have specialized in trade with the Soviet Union. I have traveled into the Soviet Union many times, and on many of these occasions I have used my business identity to run agents whose mission was to weaken and spy upon the Soviet Party and military infrastructures.”
The camera closed in. “Falken” was reading in a monotone from a script, his eyes seldom rising to the cameras. Behind the glasses on one side was a large bruise. His hands shook slightly when he changed pages of the script.
“Looks like they beat up on him some,” Lowe observed.
“Interesting,” Toland replied. “They’re letting us know that they work people over.”
Lowe snorted. “A guy who blows little kids up? You can burn the bastard at the stake, and who’ll give a good Goddamn? Some serious thought went into this, my friend.”
“I wish to make it clear,” Falken went on in a firmer voice, “that I had no intention of injuring children. The Politburo was a legitimate political target, but my country does not make war on children.”
A howl of disgust came from off-camera. As though on cue, the camera backed away to reveal a pair of uniformed KGB officers flanking the speaker, their faces impassive. The audience was composed of about twenty people in civilian clothes.
“Why did you come into our country?” demanded one of them.
“I have told you this.”
“Why does your country wish to kill the leaders of our Soviet Party?”
“I am a spy,” Falken replied. “I carry out assignments. I do not ask such questions. I follow my orders.”
“How were you captured?”
“I was arrested at the Kiev Railroad Station. How I was caught they have not told me.”
“Cute,” Lowe commented.
“He called himself a spy,” Toland objected. “You don’t say that. You call yourself an ‘officer.’ An ‘agent’ is a foreigner who works for you, and a ‘spy’ is a bad guy. They use the same terms that we do.”
The CIA/DIA report arrived on the telex printer an hour later. Gerhardt Eugen Falken. Age forty-four. Born in Bonn. Educated in public schools, good marks on his records—but his picture was missing from his high school yearbook. Military service as a draftee in a transport battalion whose records had been destroyed in a barracks fire twelve years before, honorable discharge found in his personal effects. University degree in liberal arts, good marks, but again no picture, and three professors who gave him B grades can’t seem to recall him. A small import-export business. Where did the money come from to start it? Nobody could answer that one. Lived in Bremen quietly, modestly, and alone. Friendly man, after a fashion. Always nodded to his neighbors, but never socialized with them. A good—“very correct,” his elderly secretary said—boss to his employees. Traveled a lot. In short, many people knew he existed, quite a few did business with his firm, but nobody really knew a thing about him.