Disorderly Elements (16 page)

BOOK: Disorderly Elements
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“It would seem that Bulgakov is a very bright chap. Thanks to his ability, and his parental connections, he became a favourite of Yuri Andropov, who of course ran the KGB at that time.

“Originally, Bulgakov trained with Department A of the First Directorate—the disinformation crowd. He was also given tuition by the Executive Action Department where, apparently, he graduated with honours.”

“So we have a first-class killer on our hands,” Owen remarked.

“Indeed,” Wyman said. “It would seem that Bulgakov is quite exceptional, even by KGB standards. Clearly, the extent and variety of his tasks imply that he was being groomed for a special position. That position isn't reflected in his rank; apparently he's still only a Major. His importance lies in his ability to function with almost no reference to Moscow Centre. Most of that crowd have to obtain approval from Dzerzhinsky Square before they can do so much as break wind. Not so with our friend Bulgakov: he's completely autonomous.”

“What else do we know about him?”

“We first hear of Bulgakov in 1971. At the time he was working for the Second Department in South America—Chile, to be precise.

“The details are somewhat blurred here, but it seems that Bulgakov was helping Allende's government with counterespionage against the CIA, as well as with disinformation and propaganda. When Allende was ousted in late 1973, the military junta expelled Bulgakov, along with every Russian in sight.

“We hear no more of him until 1975 when Bulgakov turned up here in London. Evidently he had been transferred to the Third Department, and they placed him in the British-Soviet Chamber of Commerce.”

“What does he do here?”

“A very good question,” Wyman said. “The MI5 people are guessing, I think, but this is what they believe. You may recall that in '74 Wilson's Labour Government concluded a trade deal with the USSR, in which the Russians were given a multi-million-pound credit allowance.

“The Russians asked for their own inspectors to be allowed into the factories that were supplying goods to them—Rolls Royce, Ferranti, International Computers, Vickers, Wilkinson Sword, and several others.

“For reasons I still cannot fathom, Wilson and Co. granted that request. Hence the Russians had a golden opportunity to plant KGB men deep into British industry. Needless to say, they took it.

“MI5 think that Bulgakov's job is to supervise and co-ordinate these so-called inspectors. They also think he's responsible for suborning trade union leaders and other people in industry. The point was driven home by the British Security Commission in May '82. Their findings named Bulgakov as a potential security threat.

“But there's no concrete evidence against Bulgakov, and there's no point in sending him home. As far as anyone knows, his role at the Chamber of Commerce is purely administrative, and so he could easily be replaced by somebody else.”

“Mmmm.” Owen stroked his moustache with an HB pencil. “Do you think that's what Bulgakov is up to?”

“Of course not,” Wyman said. “His visit to me last night proves that he's involved in something completely different. Besides, the KGB wouldn't waste someone of Bulgakov's proven ability by giving him a desk job, would they?”

He lit a cigarette and watched Owen struggle to comprehend all the new information being thrown at him. Owen's perplexity, he noted, was directly proportional to the number of nervous habits Owen displayed. At the moment, Owen's HB pencil was doing the grand tour of Owen's face, his fingers strummed uneasily on Owen's desk, and his rubber-soled shoes shuffled nervously over Owen's nylon carpet.

“What I don't understand, Wyman, is why Bulgakov should visit you in person. What did he think he could gain by it?”

“I should imagine that he wanted to find out what sort of a person I am,” Wyman said. “If I turned out to be a cybernetic ice-man like Rawls, Bulgakov might surmise that we were onto something.”

“Possibly. And how did you present yourself, out of interest?”

“It was getting late,” Wyman smiled. “I tend to become a little vague at that time of day.”

“It doesn't make sense,” Owen said. “Doesn't the man realize that by warning us off he's simply inviting us to go in? Perhaps he wants us to go in.”

“Perhaps. He mentioned the Geneva arms talks, but I don't think he's particularly bothered about them one way or the other. It has occurred to me, however, that he might be setting up some sort of trap.”

“A trap? What do you mean?”

“It's a little involved,” Wyman said, “But please be patient. Bulgakov assured me that anyone we sent into the DDR would be immediately picked up. The fact is, the KGB know very little about how we get people in and out of the satellite states. We're actually quite good at it. It's one of the few areas in which we are notably more successful than the Americans; for some reason, the Company's failure rate in infiltration is very high.”

“So?”

“So just suppose we did send someone in. If Bulgakov does have a ferret working here, the whole procedure could be reported back to him in detail. Bulgakov could grab our man, and he would also learn about our infiltration system. Hence, it's to Bulgakov's advantage that we send someone in.

“On the other hand, if we don't send someone in, if we just sit back and forget about the whole thing as Bulgakov suggests, then our KGB ferret will remain happily undetected. Either way suits Bulgakov fine.”

“This assumes, of course, that someone here really is a KGB plant.”

“Of course. But I think we must assume that.”

“Why?”

“Because none of this would have arisen had it not been for our suspicions regarding Grünbaum's demise. Anyway, the plot thickens here. It would seem that we have two alternative courses of action, and both of them are to Bulgakov's advantage. Either we send someone in, and Bulgakov grabs them, or we ignore the whole thing, and Bulgakov's ferret lives happily ever after. This is the situation Bulgakov presented me with, and that, I think, is why he visited me in person.”

“I still don't understand,” Owen said.

“Please bear with me,” Wyman said. “Bulgakov is a realist, is he not? He knows that we suspect a plant, and he knows that unless he's careful, we'll find out who that plant is. Therefore, the best thing, from his point of view, would be for us to abandon the search. But as I say, he's a realist. He can't conceive that we might give up the hunt for the sake of a few pennies.”

“There's no need to be snide,” Owen said.

“It's the truth, isn't it? Could Bulgakov really conceive of that happening? Of course not. So Bulgakov must assume that we will pursue inquiries. And if we must conduct an inquiry, Bulgakov would like us to do it in the way that suits him best, namely, by sending a man into Germany.

“And so he posits the two alternatives as if they're the only two, and that's what he wants us to believe. But of course they aren't. We don't need to send people into Germany: we could make exhaustive internal inquiries, or, better still, we could use a contact like Plato. That sort of thing must worry Bulgakov enormously.”

“I see,” Owen said. “An incredibly tortuous piece of reasoning, but I take your point. Nevertheless, you're making one big assumption here.”

“What's that?”

“You assume that Bulgakov's mind is as complex and duplicitous as the average don's.”

“The Russians do produce good chess players,” Wyman said.

“It doesn't occur to you that Bulgakov might have been telling the truth? That he really does want to avert a scandal? That Grünbaum really was a nobody? And, by implication, that there is no Soviet plant in this department?”

“It has occurred to me,” Wyman said. “But I'm not inclined to take the words of a KGB officer at their face value. If KGB men spoke the truth, people like us would be out of a job, wouldn't we?”

Owen coughed in embarrassment.

Chapter Thirty-four

O
N THE AFTERNOON of May 28, Rawls flew to Schönefeld airport in Berlin. There he changed onto an
Interflug
service, and he arrived at Erfurt shortly afterwards. He was travelling as Thompson Clarke, an American businessman specializing in the buying and selling of flowers.

Rawls had chosen his cover well: the
Internationale Gartenbauausstellung
, Erfurt's horticultural show, spans 250 acres and is open all the year round. It attracts specialists and dealers from all over the world, and provides an excellent cover for the traveller who is clearly no tourist.

A taxi took Rawls to the vast new Interhotel Kosmos on the Krämpferstrasse. The Kosmos is a luxurious four-star megalith in the very heart of Erfurt, and it suited Rawls' needs admirably. He was shown to a room on the twelfth floor, and after a quick shower and shave he persuaded the restaurant staff to give him an early meal. The evening menu had not yet been prepared, so Rawls had to content himself with a cold plate of
Thüringer Kesselfleisch
, one of the local sausage dishes.

Having finished his meal, Rawls left the hotel and went for an early evening stroll. He walked through the Anger Boulevard, Erfurt's main shopping street, and passed by the heavy grey-brown Kaufmann church, where Luther said mass in 1522. He then turned into Hermann-Jahn Strasse and crossed over the river Gera.

Had he bothered to look over to the right, Rawls would have seen the brightly coloured Krämerbrücke or Grocer's Bridge, one of Erfurt's main tourist attractions. The bridge dates back to 1325 and consists of a row of three-storey houses painted red, yellow and white stretching right across the river, held above the water by wooden rafters and brick columns. But Rawls did not bother to look to the right, and he would have ignored the bridge even if he had seen it.

Once he was over the river, Rawls walked down to the end of Hermann-Jahn Strasse, and turned left into a maze of narrow side-streets. He consulted his pocket-map and walked around until he found a small bar called Der Satz. He entered it and saw that there were no customers.

A plump little barman with no hair and the complexion of a dead fish was drying some beer glasses behind the bar.

“I'm afraid we're closed,” the barman said.

“I'm glad to hear it,” Rawls said. “I'd like a beer, please.”

The barman's expression did not change. His little blue eyes gazed calmly at Rawls as he continued to dry the glasses.

“What beer would you like?” he asked.

“Do you serve American beers? Pabst, Michelob, anything like that?”

“You come to Germany and ask for American beer? That's a little strange, isn't it?”

“I get homesick, Herr Schlick.”

The barman went over to the door and locked it. He then drew the blinds down over the entrance and returned to the bar, where he pulled out two bottles and opened them.

“You can't get American beer in this country,” he said. “Welcome to Erfurt, Mr Rawls.”

“Thank you,” Rawls said. He took a large mouthful of the cold amber lager and sat down on a stool.

“What can I do for you?” Herr Schlick said.

“Didn't they tell you?”

“Tell me again.”

“Still not convinced?” Rawls grinned.

“Certain convictions can be very costly in the DDR, Mr Rawls.”

“Okay. I want to find out about Neumann, and, if possible, to meet him. Can that be arranged?”

“Perhaps, but it won't be easy. Nobody knows anything about Neumann, and his present condition is anybody's guess.”

“You mean he could be dead?”

“It's possible. All we know for certain is that if he's alive, he's definitely in the hospital.”

“Can I get in there?”

“Very difficult,” said Schlick. He wiped a finger across his chin to remove a small dribble of lager. He licked the finger pensively and gazed down at his glass. “You can imagine what kind of a place it is. Heavily guarded.”

“So what do I do?”

Schlick smiled thinly.

“If I were you, I'd go home,” he said. “I don't know what you're after, but it can't be worth this sort of trouble.”

“I'll be the judge of that.”

“Judge, jury and executioner,” Schlick observed. “Very well. We once managed to get somebody in there. His motives were no doubt less worthy than yours: he wanted to steal some drugs. But the basic difficulty was the same.”

“What did you do?”

“One of the doctors at the hospital is having an affair with a local girl. He usually calls round at her place for a quickie while he's supposed to be on the early evening shift. His movements are easy to time because she doesn't get home from work until quarter to six, and he can only be absent from work between half-five and seven. Before then the afternoon staff would notice his absence, and the night staff are all there by seven o'clock. So, allowing for driving time, we can usually count on him turning up at about six o'clock and leaving half an hour later.”

“That's definitely a quickie. What does this do for me?”

“The doctor drives a clapped-out old Trabant. I'll give you the registration number. When nobody's looking, it's very easy to open the boot and climb in— you know how to do such things?”

“Yes,” Rawls said.

“Good. The Trabant boot is easier to open than most. If you can manage that, the rest should be quite straightforward. Just wait until the good doctor has finished his lovemaking, and he will drive you right into the hospital.”

“How about getting out of the place?”

“The doctor finishes his shift at about eight-thirty. If you haven't got what you want by then, you will have to hide until the morning and repeat the performance with one of the night-workers' cars. Remember, the whole building is heavily patrolled. Don't even contemplate breaking out of it—that would be far too dangerous.”

BOOK: Disorderly Elements
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