In June, Khrushchev won the support of Malenkov. The end of the ‘Caucasians’ was not far off.
When Khrushchev gave the order to arrest Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria, on charges of ‘moral decadence’ and ‘espionage in the service of foreign powers’, the Moscow police rose up in his defence. Marshal Zhukov sent armoured cars into the city to restore order. That day civil war broke out. The general stayed in his office at the Ministry, waiting for events to run their course.
The traitor Beria was sentenced, and it was clear to the general that within a few months Khrushchev would make a clean sweep. The day after Beria’s elimination, Khrushchev handed the Ministry to Kruglov: a reward for doing over the boss.
Kruglov was an arriviste bureaucrat, put there to keep the Services quiet while the cards were being dealt again. The general could tell that this was his big opportunity. At the age of only forty-nine he would be able to make it to the top. Take it or leave it. He had to take a gamble.
Discrediting Kruglov was the riskiest manoeuvre of his career.
As a man in a position of trust, the general had access to information about the spy network abroad. He needed only to spread the news of a coming purge of the agents in the ‘hot’ countries. The Yankees, diligent as ever, would do the rest.
In January, the Tokyo resident defected; in February, so did the one in Vienna; in the same month, the agent in charge of an important mission in West Germany went over to the CIA the moment he crossed the border from the Eastern Zone.
Kruglov found himself being pensioned off without even knowing what had happened.
The rest followed of its own accord. Recent history.
In early March, after the commemorations for the first anniversary of Stalin’s death, Malenkov had severed the Services from the Minister of the Interior, to reconstitute them as an autonomous organ directly dependent on the Council of Ministers: The Committee for State Security. The man in charge would be the loyal and incorruptible General Serov.
He had reached the top.
Sitting at his desk, in absolute solitude, he was willing to bet that sooner or later that fat muzhik Khrushchev would oust Malenkov too.
Better to concentrate on the task at hand. He opened his folder: the headed paper on which the documents were written was fresh off the press. The coat of arms stood out clearly: the shield, to defend the revolution, and the sword, to strike the enemies of the country. The three letters at the top of the page, solid, crisp capitals, in perfect harmony with his vision of things.
KGB.
The photograph showed a young man, almost bald, pointed chin and strong jaw. The general read the data carefully.
Andrei Vassilyevich Zhulianov; born in Kiev in 1924, into a family of shopkeepers; marked out at secondary school as a student with a particular gift for languages and sent to the Foreign Languages Faculty in Kiev; military service in the Second Desanniki division from 1942 to 1945; reached the rank of sergeant-major; medal of honour for merit on the field; joined the Soviet Communist Party in 1945; active in the Military Information Service with the rank of captain from 1945 to 1948; special praise for three undercover operations in West Berlin between 1946 and 1948; admitted to the Higher Political School of the Ministry of the Interior in 1948; perfect knowledge of English, German, French and Serbo-Croat; partial knowledge of Italian; joined the Ministry for State Security in 1953. Personal characteristics: higher than average intelligence; exceptional dedication to the party; good general knowledge; excellent knowledge of the classics of scientific socialism; unmarried; judo, wrestling and pistol-shooting.
An interesting candidate, without a doubt.
Andrei Vassilyevich Zhulianov looked at himself in the bathroom mirror, to check every detail. Six foot one, fourteen stone, square shoulders, broad chest. He checked that his nails were clean. He was wearing a woollen jacket and matching tie. He had been told that the general was a scrupulous observer, he had to be neat and tidy, and there must be nothing superfluous. The only detail allowed him was the Party badge on the lapel of his jacket. He polished the gilded hammer and sickle with his sleeve, gave a long sigh and went out into the corridor.
Being called in by the head of the newly born KGB was not something that happened every day. There had been a few changes at the top levels over the past few weeks, and the wind of change was in the air for everyone. Some people had already disappeared, to end up shuffling paper in obscure and marginal offices. Others had been given the opportunity to put long years of study to the test. The few women working in the Ministry had been excluded from operational duties. It had been the first order from the head of the Committee. The women’s action in the field would be limited to the role of ‘bait’, to extort information and unmask infiltrators or double agents. But no network would place any trust in agents of the female sex. The general’s mistrust of women was well known. Jews received similar treatment.
As he climbed the stairs of the building, banal phrases came to his mind, to be dismissed immediately: ‘If my mother could see me now. ’
Everyone in the Ministry knew that a personal summons from the President of the Committee meant a big job was a possibility. The department’s director had given him to understand promotion was in the air.
After the end of the war, opportunities to shine had been few and far between. He had exploited them to the best of his ability. In Berlin, when the fame of General Serov instilled reverential fear in him, he had won the praise of his colonel. Military counterespionage was satisfied with the way he had behaved on several occasions at least. But his gifts for learning languages had removed him from active service and transferred him to the Ministry’s Higher Political School. Six years had passed, during which he had devoted himself chiefly to study, perfected his knowledge of languages and improved his memory.
His memory. As he had been able to understand since he had been transferred there, the bulk of the Ministry’s activity was devoted to the accumulation of information. Hundreds of thousands of files, cards, profiles, personal data. On everyone and everything. Obtaining and storing information, that was the real power of the Ministry, now the KGB.
The secretary admitted him without a smile, checked his card and told him to wait in the antechamber, after which she slipped behind a door and left him on his own.
He waited five minutes before the secretary appeared and told him to go in.
A wide, rather gloomy room. Heavy curtains kept the light out. At first he could discern only a black outline behind the black mahogany desk. A table lamp lit a man’s hands.
General Serov said, ‘Step forward, comrade.’
Zhulianov walked over to the desk, clicked his heels and gave the military salute in homage to their old times in Berlin.
The general did not reciprocate. ‘Sit down.’
From close up he was frightening. A young-looking fifty, skinny physique, slightly grizzled air, hard features, as though sculpted from rock. But the most striking thing about him was his eyes. Grey and impassive, they stared into his own. He remembered the advice of the head of department, and he did not look down.
The two men said nothing for several long seconds. Zhulianov was motionless, not making a single gesture, not even swallowing. The test had begun.
Then the general said, ‘Comrade Zhulianov, from this moment you are transferred to the First Central Directorate, Subdirectorate S.’
The ‘illegals’, thought Zhulianov, containing his emotion.
‘You’ve been chosen for a level-4 mission. On the basis of your curriculum vitae I think you are the most suited to the kind of work required. It is an extremely high-risk job, and one of very great importance. You are not obliged to accept, but your dedication to the Party and the country lead me to suppose that you will not let us down.’