The Falstaff Enigma (23 page)

The sedan had traveled only two blocks when Borskov and his two KGB men went into action. The colonel had opened a box on the corner of the intersection that controlled the stoplights mounted on lampposts located at each corner. He pressed two buttons simultaneously, altering the rhythmic cycle and insuring that Leonid Sorovin had to stop at this intersection.

One of Borskov's men waited in an office on the second floor immediately above and to the right of the stopped sedan. Time was now very limited. The KGB marksman raised his rifle, an SKS carbine with a foot-long suppressor attached to the muzzle. His cheek rested on the butt, his body relaxing, in its natural element. Time was running short, the light would soon turn green.

The other man was busy at his post, which was across the street, inside the filthy bathroom of an aging boot factory. He was on the first floor and had a direct line of sight on the excommando named Sorovin. He used his position well, his hands manipulating a silent Nikon camera that was shooting two frames per second as an unsuspecting quarry waited through a tampered light.

The marksman lined his crosshairs on his target. He squeezed the trigger and within a fraction of a second the bullet round hit the desired spot, making some noise, but nothing that could penetrate the inadequate ability of the
Chaika’s exhaust system to muffle its 220 horsepower V8. The desired spot was the pavement one inch from where the rear right tire rested. The bullet was made of lead but had been hollowed out by the technical experts at the KGB. In the hollow interior, a plastic capsule had been inserted. The lead exterior and its plastic interior easily burst on impact, producing a mist of microscopic paint droplets that splattered the tire wall and chrome hub. It represented the Scarlet Letter for Mr. Sorovin.

The paint contained a fine powder of Iridium 192, a radioactive isotope with a half life of 74 days. The amount of Iridium dust was minute, less than 150 milligrams. As the isotope decayed, it emitted a large amount of beta radiation. In his trunk, Borskov had a directional Geiger counter ready for use. Even within the KGB, this tracking technique was so controversial that very few were aware of this capability. In sufficient amount, Iridium 192 is deadly if inhaled or ingested. But in the Soviet Union
, environmental and health issues took a backseat to the immediate needs of the State.

The light changed to green and Sorovin continued, unaware of what had happened. The car left of trail of rapidly decaying Iridium each time the right rear tire made a revolution.

"Nevsky dva, return to base," ordered the colonel.

"Were you successful?" Austin
asked as the Mossad agent turned on his radio unit to listen in.

"Yes, w
e will meet you soon," the KGB officer replied.

"I want to be in on the chase," broke in David, suddenly unwilling to leave Sorovin to
Borskov. "You'll need the extra car."

"No. This is non-visual; the fewer the participants, the better."

Austin placed his hand on David's shoulder and shook his head, communicating to David to back down on this point. "See you at the base," David said reluctantly.

The analyst turned off his transmitter. "The man has earned our trust on this one,"
Austin said quietly. "Anyway, we don't have much choice."

Borskov's two men were already in their car and idling by the curb as the
colonel's driver pulled up. Borskov opened the trunk and pulled out what looked like a small gray suitcase. He got into the passenger side and the car swerved onto the street, headed in the direction of Sorovin. The driver thought they were chasing a potential defector. Borskov's two trusted agents followed closely.

The chase lasted thirty minutes. It had been very easy, since Sorovin did not stop
anywhere on the way home. Borskov was certain that the commando suspected nothing. Sorovin's building was three stories tall and in a fashionable neighborhood off Mira Prospekt close to Sokolniki Park. It was a favorite area for Party officials and high-ranking military officers and certainly too expensive for an Army lieutenant. Borskov was excited because he was positive that Sorovin had to be there visiting one of his superiors. But the colonel passed by twice and realized that Sorovin had parked in a very small one-car garage, a rare luxury in Moscow and an unmistakable mark of the privileged status of its owner. Sorovin was obviously on a payroll far exceeding official standards. The four KGB professionals would spend the night watching this flat. By morning they would know for sure where Sorovin was living.

"We've got him," said the
colonel. It was noon of the next day and Anatoly Borskov had just returned home. He had slept only two hours during the previous night. His wife was out shopping for food, a process that took half a day, even when one's husband was in the top ranks of the KGB.

"This morning we were able to find an empty flat right across from his place. He is on the top floor of a building near Sokolniki Park
and apparently is living alone. At nine hundred hours he left and returned to Patriot's Park. He is still there." Borskov sat down and yawned.

"Your eyes look terrible.
You should get some sleep," Austin said.

"What about surveillance?" interjected David, angered slightly that Robert would concern himself with Borskov's health at this time.

Actually, the colonel was more in the frame of mind of the Mossad agent. "I have set up three teams of two. You two will have to split. Mr. Austin, your shift will be from noon until twenty hundred. Mr. Margolis, you will go from four hundred hours until noon. Each of you will be with one of my two men. I have two more men who will handle the midnight shift."

"Do I start now?" asked the analyst.

"Your partner is waiting outside. His name is Arkady. He's good."

It was
three in the morning when David’s alarm clock went off. It took several seconds for the buzzing device to penetrate the veil of deep sleep. The spy awoke, remembering the task he had to perform for the next eight hours. His thoughts were of the man who was leading a team of killers, a man who was responsible for the murder of an old Jewish physicist, a man who would be within a bullet's range in sixty minutes.

Just as suddenly, his thoughts turned to the beautiful woman who was sleeping now with a man she hated, a woman who was only fifteen feet away, yet a nation apart.
They had made love a second time the previous afternoon, sneaking off to a hotel while the colonel slept. They had to sneak.
I hate to hide
.

He rushed through a shower and waited in the living room. A light knock came within a few minutes. David opened the door.

"Mikhail Kutuzov?" asked the man in the hallway.

"Yes," David
replied.

"I am Nikolai. We must hurry."

The room was darkened except for a small, covered tube light that emitted an insufficient glow on the floor. Nikolai walked over to two men that David had not seen before. One man was asleep on the couch but still sitting upright, his head tilted forward. David's new partner shook the man's shoulder.

"Wake up," Nikolai
said. "You can go home now.” Then he spoke to the other man, who was gazing out the window between an opening in the drapes. "How's our man?"

"Sound as
leep. He's all yours." The man and his partner left abruptly, neither saying goodbye nor acknowledging David's presence.

"Mikhail, come here for a minute," said Nikol
ai, parting the drapes slightly. David stepped over to his side. "That is Sorovin's flat." He pointed straight across from their third floor window. "And that is his front door and garage," he continued as he pointed to each respective item.

David moved back a foot. "What is this?" he asked. Next to him was a rectangular metal box about four feet long, lying on top of a metal frame stand. One end of the box was pressed against the drapes and thick wires ran from the box to a reel-
toreel tape recorder sitting on the floor against a wall.

"That is a low-density argon gas laser. It reads sound vibrations from windows the same way that microwaves do, except that it is better and almost no one has a laser detection device, whereas everyone picks up microwaves."

"Amazing," said David under his breath.

Nikolai reached down for a camera bag. He pulled out a Nikon camera with a
telephoto lens attached. "Unfortunately, this part of the surveillance isn't automated yet," he said. "I assume you know how to use this."

"Yes," David
replied. "It's a beautiful camera."

"You may also need this." Nikolai pulled another huge lens from the bag. "This is a nighttime light-magnification lens." He put it on the camera.
"Please rest. I will wake you when I'm tired."

"Thanks."

Colonel Anatoly Borskov opened the front door after knocking three times. He was right on time, punctuality being one of his strongest assets.

Nikolai lowered his AKM rifle as Borskov entered
the room with Arkady following. David relaxed his muscles and took his hand off his pistol, still in its holster. It was six o'clock in the morning. Three days had passed since this team had begun its surveillance of Leonid Sorovin. It had been easy. Each morning Sorovin left for Patriots' Park at 9 a.m. and returned about 4 p.m. Only a few people had visited him and all conversations had been vague. But there were many hours of tape recorded between 8 p.m. and 4 a.m. that were still being reviewed by Austin, who was busy sifting for clues.

"How is Mr. Sorovin?"
asked the colonel.

"All normal except for a phone call about fifteen minutes ago," replied Nikolai as he turned up the audio receiver on the laser device.

"What did he say?" Borskov asked.

"Just a short series of 'yes' and ‘no
’ answers. Then he apparently went back to sleep." Everyone in the room cursed the fact that they could not risk bugging Sorovin's phone, since he swept the lines daily.

"We will have to be very careful," replied Borskov. "Is everyone clear on what to do?" Nikolai and Arkady nodded. David didn't bother
to respond because Borskov didn't look at him.

The wall between them had grown larger during the past three days. David's indiscretion was acknowledged by Borskov in ever
y way except open confrontation. David had sensed a hurt in Borskov, as if the Mossad agent had betrayed an old friend. And David felt some guilt for the first time, a guilt somewhat tempered by his feelings of sorrow for the predicament of the beautiful woman the two men were sharing. The thought of taking her back to Israel after this was over had entered his mind. But he was not naive enough to believe she would want to leave Russia, certainly not to go to Israel.

"It will only be the four of us on this one," continued the colonel, "so be sure of your action before you take it. I want him alive, but do not hesitate to kill him if anyone is in danger. Arkady, you will stay in the building and block his rear exit. When you see him, alert us and then follow him out carefully, at a distance and with your weapon drawn. We will take him just outside the front door. Questions?"

"What if we kill him?" Arkady asked.

"Then Mikhail and I will leave and you will call Peter Gushkin in the militia and he will handle it for you. Now let's get into position."

David waited in the surveillance room, earphones keeping him aware of the sounds emanating from the room of Leonid Sorovin. Arkady was in the rear of the lobby of Sorovin's building, sitting in the hall that led to the rear door. Borskov and Nikolai waited in a sedan close to the building.

The assassin had taken a bath and now David could hear miscellaneous sounds such as the refrigerator door clicking shut and a chair being moved across a wooden floor.
Sorovin usually occupied twenty more minutes before leaving.

Suddenly David heard the front door open and close. Then silence. "
Greenlight, greenlight," he said into the microphone under his collar. Leonid Sorovin was early. David listened a few more seconds, then removed the earphones and headed for the street below to take his assigned position.

The three KGB professionals stiffened. Nikolai checked his pistol and removed the safety. Arkady opened the newspaper sitting on his lap and crossed one knee. He was on a bench about seven feet from the rear door. From his vantage point he could just see the bottom of the staircase, which was right by the front door, about thirty feet from Arkady. The aging lobby was small and the oak floors creaked. Nobody else was around.

Arkady heard a noise. He thought quickly.
A door
. A door had opened on the edge of the hallway somewhere between the KGB man and where the stairs met the floor, but he could not see because of an arched partition wall that jutted into the hall on each side a few feet down from his bench. Steps. The floor had creaked.
What did I miss? A service  elevator! Oh, hell
. Many of Moscow's pre-war buildings had elevators just large enough for a waiter carrying a tray of champagne.

A man emerged  into
Arkady's view. He shifted his eyes to the open page in front of him, hoping the man would walk by. He thought about pulling out his pistol but decided to wait.

The creaks in the floor roared like thunder in
Arkady's ears as the man headed for the rear door. Then there was sudden calm. Arkady lowered the paper slightly and looked into the face of a man standing in front of him. He recognized Leonid Sorovin immediately despite the slight smile that formed on his lips. He was wearing his glasses and a dark gray pin-striped suit. A small overnight case dangled from his left hand, while an overcoat was draped over his right forearm. But the overcoat extended too far out from the arm. Something had to be supporting it.
No! No!

The bullet blew into
Arkady's brain, leaving a perfectly circular hole in his forehead, as bits of brain and blood exploded onto the wall behind. He slumped forward and to the right, his open eyes capturing the final realization of horror.

Leonid Sorovin walked calmly out the back door and
stepped into a taxi waiting  for him at the curb.

"What was that?"
asked Nikolai, his words running into each other.

"Go in now
!" the colonel said. David had reached the front door of his building and immediately threw it open and bolted across the street. Nikolai reached the door of Sorovin's building first, his weapon drawn. David followed him into the lobby as the overweight and aging colonel struggled to maintain a jog up the building's front walkway.

"Watch the stairs," shouted Nikolai as he ran down the hallway.
The words were still ringing in David's ears when a stillness fell on the lobby. He knew instinctively what Nikolai had found. Death was an all too common reality in Israel. He traced Nikolai's path quickly.

The three men ransacked Sorovin's room as Peter Gushkin and his men "handled" the murder scene in the lobby
– another Moscow crime destined to become a statistical non-event; records kept and then mysteriously misplaced. The room had been saturated in a smell of burnt matches when they broke in the door. They had quickly found why: a metal wastebasket contained the newly created ashes of several documents. Sorovin clearly had known that this was his last morning in this unit.

They found nothing of value.

"What about fingerprints?" David asked.

"I will send over a man this afternoon, but we may have destroyed any good prints by our search," the
colonel replied. Ironically, Arkady's death had eased some of the tension between the pair. "Now we will go to my house and regroup. This will be our only defeat."

The
colonel had Peter Gushkin leave one of his men on guard outside Sorovin's room. He was not to let anyone enter unless he used the codeword "Falstaff."

They drove to the
colonel's flat. It took twenty minutes. They had left the laser equipment and cameras where they were, resetting the tape to record automatically until the early evening.