Zhulianov absorbed the information while trying to remain calm. This was his big opportunity.
The general continued without taking his eyes off his face, his every reaction would be recorded: ‘Level 4 provides for the possibility of losing your freedom and your life. The same risks that you have already run while fighting against the German invaders, and infiltrating yourself into West Berlin after the war. The mission’s success will contribute to the preservation of peace and the defence of the Soviet Union against its enemies.’ A pause. ‘I don’t think you need any further information in order to make a decision.’
Silence again. Zhulianov waited. The general’s expression did not change. He added, ‘You have twenty-four hours to make your mind up.’
Zhulianov understood what he had to say.
‘That will not be necessary, Comrade General. I accept without reservation the task that you wish to assign to me, in the interest of the Soviet Union.’
‘Very good. The details of the job are contained in the folder that will be handed to you at the end of this meeting. You will have to learn them by heart. Meanwhile bear in mind that you will have to travel to a hostile country to kidnap a subject against his will. The subject’s safety will have to be guaranteed at the risk of your own life. If conditions appear too risky for the safety of the subject, you will have to consider the mission suspended. But the Committee will do its best to ensure that this does not occur.’
Silence again. Zhulianov felt pride swelling his chest, but made an effort to give no sign of it.
The head of the KGB handed him a blue folder.
‘We will meet again next Tuesday. By then you will have to have memorised the contents of this dossier.’ No gesture of farewell. ‘The Committee places its trust in you, Comrade Zhulianov. You may go.’
Chapter 32
Bologna, 2 April
The grey Crombie came to just below his knees, and distinguished him from all the Bolognese who were out walking in long overcoats or wrapped up in double-breasted mackintoshes with very tight belts. There were also old men in black cloaks, but they didn’t count.
Fanti wore black leather gloves and a characteristic, very English bowler hat. Grey corduroy trousers and a pair of low-sided boots. No one else in the city dressed like the professor, although that in itself did not make him look like an eccentric, at least not in the eyes of people unfamiliar with his way of life. You would have mistaken him for a distinguished foreigner passing through, perhaps an Allied officer in civilian clothes. But when he went up to the pigeon-house dressed like that, and you saw him on the roof, from the street or from the building opposite, going into the cage in his English coat, exposing his expensive hat to the birdshit, and plunging his hand into the grain box wearing those gloves that must have cost at least 5,000 lire, well, you’d have thought, this really is an odd geezer, a very peculiar character indeed.
Winter was over, he no longer had to break the layer of ice to give the pigeons something to drink. The professor lifted the birds out of their little rooms and into the cage, opened the shutter, liberated the flock and started waving his banner around to send them into the sky, like a conductor performing an andante maestoso.
What a sight! As they wheel, each pigeon displays first its back, then its belly, a completely different colour. Multiply the effect by several dozen, and you end up with a shifting wave, the light breaking on it and fragments shooting off in a thousand different directions.
In the flock there were pure and piebald plumages, black, dun, powder-blue, almond, bronze.
Fanti was a pigeon-fancier, one of 3,000 in Emilia Romagna. He had fifty individuals, from triganini modenesi to pedigree doves (chosen by Manifardi and Corradini) and homing pigeons. Every day he fed them a kilo of vetch mixed with corn, maize and millet.
He had been a pigeon-fancier since he was a boy. When he moved to England, he had not given up his hobby, and had in fact become an important member of the International Federation of Homing Pigeon Fanciers, founded in 1881.
He had gone mad at the last fair and market held in Bologna, spending 300,000 lire on a slender female, with a bright-grey back tending to indigo, sgurafosso. Very elegant. Her name was Eloisa, and she had made the journey from Indochina to Italy in two months. Two hundred kilometres a day, ‘a remarkable accomplishment’. That had happened on 6 February — the purchase, not the flight, which had occurred some months before. Fanti was in correspondence via homing pigeon with various friends in England, France and Ireland, but he had not yet put Eloisa to the test.
When he was in his pigeon loft, Fanti fell into a sort of trance. Standing beside him, on the roof, was Robespierre Capponi. A promising, restless pupil. He was saying something to him. Zara. bicycle. To Zara on a bicycle? No, can’t be that. the watch. 10,000. Fanti nodded, said ‘mhm’ from time to time, but his mind was elsewhere: his eyes narrowing slightly, he stared at a tiny black dot to the north-west, in the middle of a patch of sky not occupied by the flock. A small object with a globular outline, then, as it got closer, bigger and arch-shaped. Lend me. The approaching object was Bertram, one his homing pigeons. Pierre broke off. Fanti stretched out his hands, and the bird allowed itself to be caught.
How do pigeons find their way home? Many people think they somehow take their bearings from the sun in some way, but they make their way home without any difficulties on foggy or cloudy days. According to some people, pigeons are sensitive to geomagnetic fields, taking their bearings from those when the sky is overcast. An interesting hypothesis. It was probably a combination of magnetism, the position of the sun and familiar landscapes. ‘Pretty impressive for such a small bird, don’t you think?’
A message from his friend McCullock, who was inviting him to spend the summer at his home in Arklow on St George’s Channel.
Pierre started talking again, a couple of phrases, then silence once more. Fanti became aware that Pierre had hooked a question mark into the Celtic fantasies in which he was about to lose himself.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I said, since you agree, and since you’re even encouraging me to leave, will you lend me the 30,000 lire? I’ll pay you back little by little, but I will pay you back.’
‘I’ve encouraged you to do what?’ Fanti thought he must have been speaking out loud, and perhaps Pierre had misunderstood his stream of consciousness, imagining that it was somehow connected to what he was saying himself.
‘What do you mean, do what, professore? Set off for Yugoslavia in search of my father! You were just saying it was important to take risks, to go, to free yourself, break through the mist to reach your destination. I’ve sold my bicycle and my watch, I have 10,000 lire set aside. All I need is 30,000 to get across the Adriatic. But have you heard a word I’ve said to you?’
Fanti sighed, took off his bowler and smoothed his hair. Having called back the pigeons and lowered the shutter of the cage, he turned towards Pierre, with his hands in his pockets and a thoughtful expression on his face. ‘Be patient, my boy. You’ll have to tell me everything all over again. Let’s go down to the house. Fancy a cup of tea?’
Chapter 33
Moscow, General Headquarters of the First Central Directorate of the KGB, 3 April
Information always reached the Ministry first hand. The Committee had inherited the entire network.