The Kremlin Letter (20 page)

“I still don't understand it.”

“That could be what makes it plausible. Even if the Highwayman is on his last legs he could still be a useful guide. He could get the Navy man into Moscow and tell him where to go from there. Two half-good men often add up to one excellent agent.”

“But why land near the Kara Sea? There are easier ways to get into the country.” Grodin was still unconvinced.

“How many agents do we have in or around Vorkuta?” asked Kosnov.

“I think only one—and he isn't there half of the time.”

“And where else do we have men in the north?”

“The nearest place is Archangel.”

“Three men covering a thousand miles of coastline.”

“But even so, that's very difficult country. It's easier to find someone there than in Moscow.”

“Then is it your suggestion that we ignore this report?”

“No. But—”

“But what?”

“I will take proper precautions Comrade Colonel,” Grodin said in resignation. “And what about the Highwayman? Shall I go to the files for a photograph?”

“You won't find anything. He came from an age when espionage was an art. I doubt if a photograph of him exists anywhere in the world.”

It had been a slow drive out of Vorkuta. The sleet and snow had kept the driver's speed under twenty miles an hour. He was now on the coast road, and the wind from the sea hit the large Diesel truck in rapid gusts, rocking it back and forth. He decreased the speed, but even so he did not see the flare until he was almost on it. A man lay beside it on his back. He eased the truck to a stop and jumped down. The man was lying with his eyes open; he looked frozen, probably dead. The driver had been in the north a long time. He had seen many men freeze and many men die. This man looked as if he had been dead for a long time. Not hours, not days—even longer. Then who had lit the flare?

The question was answered by the gun thrust into his neck. He raised his hands and saw two men move past him and pick up the frozen body. They placed it in the front seat. Then one of them jumped in beside it. He had silver hair and looked very old. The truck pulled away, leaving the driver alone on the frozen road with the two remaining men. They took him down the embankment to the sea. They walked carefully across the ice to a small motor-boat. He got inside as they shoved the boat into the water and started through the heavy ocean toward a blinking light in the dark. Half an hour later he was aboard a fishing trawler being given food and hot coffee.

Rone and Janis walked through Tiflis at dawn. Old women, with crude brushes were sweeping the streets. They waited half an hour for a bus to Batum. Rone checked his watch. They were right on schedule; they would go by boat across the Black Sea to Odessa, then take a train to Moscow. There was a shorter route bypassing Batum and going to Sukhum and then from Sukhum to Moscow by train. This was an emergency route and would have been used only if the arrival in Tiflis had been delayed.

The Georgians on the bus were friendly and cheerful. They laughed at Rone and Janis for carrying baskets of fruit, tea and fish, but apparently it was not uncommon. Many Muscovites made the long trip for just the same reason. Since the free market had opened in Moscow, merchants from that city were constantly traveling to the south to buy fruit and tea. Petty traders from Georgia also made the trip. Their bus companions told them they should take back champagne as well.

They boarded the five-class boat at Batum, making sure to travel in the lowest class. The Puppet Maker had wanted them to go by boat because he felt they would have extra contact with people that they would not get on a train. This, he concluded, would give them even more opportunity to perfect their Georgian accents.

It was growing colder in Leningrad. Ward was spending the day as any tourist might. From the Hermitage Museum he crossed the Neva and walked up Red Dawn Street to inspect the Peter-Paul Fortress and the Arsenal. He recrossed the river and did some shopping along the Nevsky Prospekt. In the late afternoon he stood looking at the Aleksandroskaya Column in the middle of Palace Square. A passerby told him it was over one hundred and fifty feet high and was the tallest monolithic stone monument in the world. Ward already knew it commemorated Russia's victory over Napoleon in 1812.

It was almost time. Ward walked briskly along the Twenty-fifth of Oktober Avenue until he reached the Oktober Station. The Moscow Express was late.

21

Moscow

Rone and Janis moved into the apartment without incident. Potkin had notified the caretaker to expect his “nephews” from Georgia. They would be visiting the capital for a month, maybe more. Some friends would be joining them. There was nothing suspicious in this. Living space was at a premium in Moscow. Relatives were expected to take in other relatives. The caretaker did, however, notice something. There was a strong resemblance between Janis and Potkin. His wife vociferously disagreed. It was obvious to her that Rone, not Janis, possessed the family features.

B.A. reached the Central Market by two-thirty. She strolled aimlessly among the open-air stands. Ukrainians, Armenians, Georgians, Latvians and others from every corner of Russia displayed their goods. Although fruits, vegetables and meats had been the original attractions of the market, other items were quick to appear. If you had the necessary rubles, the newly established “petty bourgeois” would sell you anything you wanted. When an item was not on display, arrangements for its procurement could always be made. The price for staples was reasonable, for luxury items excessive.'

B.A. stopped to buy some limes. She reached inside her purse, brought out a worn leather wallet and paid the required kopeks. She put back the wallet and pushed her way through a crowd gathered in front of an adjoining stall. French and American phonograph records were on sale for approximately seven dollars apiece. She waited in line before an ice-cream stand which advertised twenty-five flavors. Once again she withdrew her wallet, paid out the kopeks and put it back in her purse.

The man who was following B.A. was scarcely more than twenty-two. He kept close behind. He waited while B.A. finished a bottle of soda and moved into a crowd gazing down at Japanese transistor radios. The man slid into the crowd, brushed into her, deftly lifted the wallet and weaved his way into the open. The thief moved rapidly across the market and stepped behind a truck. He took out the money, stuffed it into his trouser pocket, threw away the wallet, moved back into the crowds and began looking for another victim.

It wasn't long before a Ukrainian merchant with a large roll of rubles caught his eye. The man had sold all his goods and was now buying presents before his return trip home. The pickpocket trailed at a distance. When the time was right he moved in, made his kill and retired to add more money to his growing cache.

He was having a good day. Both his pockets were filled. He struck twice more within the hour. He was about to leave for the day when he spotted a housewife buying oranges. She walked the perimeter of a group clustered around the record stand. As she strained to see over their heads the thief moved in, reached down, opened her purse and took out the money. He shoved his way out of the mass of shoppers and returned behind the truck to count his take. Fifteen rubles. He pushed them, into his pocket only to find his other money was gone. He reached into his other pocket. It too was empty. He spun around. B.A. was leaning against the front fender of the truck displaying a thick wad or rubles.

“Is this what you're looking for?” she asked the thief. The pickpocket stepped back and glared at her. B.A. threw him the bills. “I'm new in Moscow. I wouldn't want to fall in with the wrong people.”

The thief caught the roll and held it. Then he smiled. He tossed the money back to B.A. “My name is Mikhail,” said the boy. “Come, citizeness, let me buy you vodka—only you'll have to pay. Some bastard has made off with my earnings.”

Ward reached the apartment at four o'clock. Rone was waiting for him. He was pleased to hear the men were already in the field. He washed, had some cold chicken, black bread and a glass of tea.

“And now, Nephew, it's time you found out just what you're doing here. Unless you'd rather go sightseeing first?”

“I had it in mind, but it can wait.”

“That's mighty considerate of you. Mighty considerate indeed.”

They walked along Gorki, Street toward the Kremlin and Red Square. It was a brisk afternoon. The streets were exceptionally clean, cleaner than any Rone had seen in the West. Muscovites came and went with an air of dispatch, and relaxation. If it had not been for the Russian printing in the shops and the cleanliness Rone could have mistaken the avenue for one in a dozen other cities.

“Way back when we first met up,” Ward began, “you asked why we chose you. As I remember, I gave you some kind of answer or other at the time.”

“You said I had the ability to let someone else die in my place and not give a good goddam,” Rone reminded him.

“Is that what I said?”

“To the word.”

“Looks like you've got yourself one fancy memory.”

“I remember what I want to.”

“Total recall, isn't that what they call it?”

“It's not total, recall,” Rone answered with irritation.

“Well, it sure as hell impressed us, whatever it is. Back in New York you were given three or four times as much information to learn as the rest of us put together just so we could see. You remembered every last word that was told you. And you remembered it the first time you read or heard it. You gotta admit, Nephew Yorgi, there ain't many men can go around doing things like that in broad daylight.”

“Could you get to the point?”

“I thought I was, or does it take some kinda extrasensory perception to realize we're locked in Moscow? Our boys will be gathering a good bit of information. Now just what are we going to do with it? We can't type it, 'cause we have no typewriters. We can't tape-record it, 'cause we have no tape recorders. And we can't scratch it out with pencil and paper, 'cause the Russians might find it. So you know what we're going to do, Nephew? We're going to tell it to you. You're going to be our walking diary.”

“In other words, I'm a glorified clerk?”

“I wouldn't exactly say that I kind of see you as a two-legged computer.”

“No, things have not been good,” said Madame Sophie with a sigh.

She brushed the henna curls back from her ancient brow and sipped a cup of tea. Her overabundant torso was draped in a bright-blue velvet dressing gown with gold military-type braiding. Her bulbous toes were crowded into open-end gold mules. The nails were painted blue. “I am down to one girl. That thing there,” she told Janis as she pointed an elbow at a skeletal young woman in a faded red housecoat. “If I were a man,” she continued, “I would pay to keep something like that out of my bed, not in it. There is no more culture. There is no more love. Tenderness is dead. What's worse, the girls have to work in factories, ten hours a day in factories. When they get back here and lie beside a man they are as romantic as a tin of sardines. Tell me, how is Dimitri?”

“They hung him,” answered Janis.

“My God,” shouted Madame Sophie, “he sent me some of my finest girls—and best customers. But of course that was in the old days, the golden days. He died with honor?”

“They had to hang him twice to kill him.”

“Ahh,” said Madame Sophie with pride.

“They didn't have the rope on tight enough before they opened the trap. Old Dimitri was so thin he slid right out and bounced on his heels.”

“Great snakes, did he hurt himself?”

“Not badly. He was well enough to go right back and get hung properly.”

“Did you, did you see him—after?”

“Oh yes.”

“How did he look—all stretched out and lifeless?”

“Much better than I had expected. The hanging put a little color in his face. His nose was slightly skinned from the rope slipping over it the first time, but all in all he looked better than I'd seen him in a long time.”

“Younger?”

“Fifteen years younger.”

“I see,” Madame Sophie said in relief. “What did they hang him for?”

“Nothing specific. Just on general principles.”

“The poor good soul,” lamented the old woman. “Did he have any last word for me?”

“You were all he talked of. He said to me, ‘If ever you are in Moscow run to my little Grushenka.'”

“Grushenka? My name is not Grushenka.”

“He did a great deal of reading in prison. He usually referred to you as Grushenka or Sonia. He once even called you Yerma.”

“Old Dimitri said that?”

“Indeed he did,” Janis reassured her with ardor. “He said, ‘If ever you get back to Moscow run to my Grushenka and give her my share.”

“Share of what?”

“Share of the business.”

“What business?”

“Old Dimitri was my silent partner. It is true he had only a small share but it made him a very wealthy man. Here, this is for you.” Janis handed her two thousand rubles. “That's the first part of it. I'll give you the rest when I return from Prague again.”

Madame Sophie's vast body trembled as she counted the notes.

“What business are you in?” she finally managed to ask.

“The same as yours.”

“Whores?”

“Ladies of the evening,” Janis corrected. “The most noble industry ever conceived. Also the most profitable.”

“I didn't realize they had lifted the restrictions in Prague.”

“They haven't. Things are even more difficult than in Moscow.”

“Then how do you manage it? How do you get girls out of the factories? Where do you find clients who can pay so much?”

“Ah my dear Grushenka—I can call you Grushenka, can't I?”