“That’s all right, I’ll have plenty of cover.”
“Be sure Belsky doesn’t spot it.”
“You’re never sure of anything in this kind of business,” Spode said, and reached for the ignition key.
Chapter Fifteen
The Gaz military vehicle rolled to a quiet stop near the end of the runway and Andrei waited inside until he saw the plane’s lights describe a low turn at the far end of the strip. Then he got out and stood in the night wind wrapped in a trench coat cluttered with pockets, flaps, buttons, epaulets. The khaki belt was cleated tight against his belly and he wore a brown trilby hat with the brim turned down both back and front. The jet’s landing lights picked him up and his face had a gray tired look.
When the plane stopped Andrei walked out to meet it. The starboard jet had been left idling and it made a whistle and stench. The door near the tail swung open, hinged at the bottom, becoming stairs, and Andrei waited on the tarmac while the man in the raincoat made his way down the stairs. The man in the raincoat stood on the bottommost step and the two of them spoke in Chinese.
After fifteen minutes’ conversation the man in the raincoat climbed back into the airplane and by the time Andrei had walked to his vehicle the plane was already taxiing forward to make its takeoff run.
When it was airborne Andrei climbed into the Gaz and let in the clutch. The Gaz leaped spryly across the tarmac toward the service road.
On the way to the ring road he passed somnolent daschas nestled in stands of fir and birch. The countryside was carpeted with snow and it was temptingly easy to believe in the myth of the communal serenity of the peoples of the USSR but Andrei had memories of famines, peasants feeding roof thatch to the stock, cattle dying: Andrei was far away from his boyhood but his roots were in the land.
He played games on one of the cloverleaf intersections of the ring road until he was certain there was no one following him; drove past tall buildings under construction on the outskirts of Moscow, open steel frames festooned with cranes and scaffolds; drove into the city past a crowd of Old Believers gathered in front of a church for a midnight service; made his way along Tsvetnoy Boulevard into the Arbat and into the military garage where the dozing attendant nodded vaguely; and walked around the corner to the KGB building.
The night sentries cleared him up to the fifth floor and he sat down in his office with a bright light shining directly down on the top of his desk, the only light in the room. He picked up the phone and dialed slowly, his thick fingers hardly fitting into the holes in the dial, methodically picking out each digit—G3-92-01.
He leaned back in the chair and that was when he saw the shadowy figure in the open connecting doorway to Rykov’s office. It was Rykov, leaning on his cane. Andrei showed his surprise but not his chagrin; he gave Rykov a smile and a hand gesture and when a voice answered the telephone Andrei said into the mouthpiece, “Yes, is this G2-71-08? … Forgive me, I must have dialed improperly.” He cradled the telephone and Rykov came away from the doorway and approached one of the leather chairs near Andrei’s desk. Rykov’s limp seemed very pronounced.
Rykov settled into the chair before he spoke. “Go ahead, complete your call—I’m in no hurry.” His voice was as thick as if he had been drinking.
“I can take care of it later. A matter of no importance.”
Rykov nodded vaguely, dismissing it. “In The Brothers Karamazov Dostoyevsky has one brother say to another, ‘Sometimes it is very unwise to be a Russian.’”
Andrei smiled.
“You don’t need to humor me,” Rykov said. “I am not senile.”
“What sort of talk is this?”
“Only a fool without humility can get through hours like these without misgivings. I have set things in motion without the troika’s permission. If I fail I’ll be purged, liquidated, but that doesn’t matter. What stings is the knowledge that I’ll be charged with treason against the state when in fact I am a patriot if I am anything at all.”
Andrei said nothing and after a moment Rykov mused, “The Japanese proverb has it that great villainy is often called loyalty. Of course any war is proper and just if you win it and get to write the history books.” He lit one of his Pamirs and held it nervously, lifting it to his lips every few seconds with a jagged motion. “If Belsky fails, it will destroy me and there is nothing I can do about it.”
“Belsky has never failed,” Andrei said politely.
“The fate of us all has never rested on Belsky’s shoulders before,” Rykov replied.
Ticking silence, and then Rykov continued, “I spoke again with Yashin tonight.”
Andrei started. “And?”
“The same. He accuses me of desiring a Wagnerian glory, a Pyrrhic victory. Once again I showed him our evidence and once again he shrugged it off—he has the audacity to quote Stalin to me: ‘Paper will put up with anything printed on it.’ To him either the Chineseare too cleven to risk war with us or they are stupid enough to be bluffing.”
“That’s only rhetoric,” Andrei said. “It fails to take the facts into account.”
“Exactly what I said to Yashin. But as always it is Grigo-renko who has Yashin’s ear and the GRU is persuaded it is all a Chinese bluff to make us give ground.”
Andrei drew breath; he made his voice reluctant: “The GRU could be right.”
“Right?” Rykov spat the word out as if it were an insect that had flown into his mouth. He stabbed his cigarette into the tray on the corner of the desk and immediately lit another. Andrei could not recall having seen him so angry; it was a bleak chill that came off Rykov like death and Andrei, who had been ready to speak, held his tongue.
“What does it matter if the are right or wrong? China has thrown down the gauntlet, bluff or not. We must accept the challenge or back away from it. The troika means to back away and we cannot have that. Khrushehev’s regime was toppled in the end because Khrashchev backed away when Kennedy rattled a saber. And Cuba was far away across the world. What must happen if we give ground before the Chinese on our own borders? Is there any question? Another debacle on our part and there will be nothing left of Russian resolve, Russian will, Russian courage. Stalin sought to appease Hitler and we know what came off that, and still the troika carries on. To preserve the illusion of peace they will give away our Far Eastern lands and they will give away Russian dignity. ‘We must hold up our heads among the civilized nations of the world,’ Yashin says. As if the opinion of the rest of the world mattered more than Russia’s opinion of herself.”
Andrei spoke carefully. “Naturally I agree that peace is not the sole objective—not at the expense of Soviet territory or as you say Soviet dignity. But possibly war is not the only available alternative.”
Rykov’s thick lips rolled around the cigarette. “Strategy is not your strong point, Andrei. It is China, not the Soviet Union, which has offered the ultimatum. N’est-ce pas?”
“Yes, I think we all agree on that.”
“And Yashin insists it is a bluff, and you are not certain but that Yashin is right.”
“Intending no disloyalty, I must concede the truth of that.”
Rykov continued the dialectic: “Whether it is a bluff or not China is shaking the mailed fist at us. What are the options? Only two. Accept the challenge and fight back—by hitting them before they hit us. It’s elementary but the troika remains stubbornly blind to it and that is why we have had to take these extraordinary clandestine measures.”
“It is a logic with a weakness,” Andrei replied, willing to say it now because Rykov had calmed down. “The weakness is that yours are not the only alternatives.”
“I see no others.”
“But of course there is another,” Andrei said mildly. “We simply ignore the challenge. Act as if we know nothing of their war preparations. Continue as before, giving no ground yet starting no hostilities. After a while the Chinese will have to recognize the foolishness of their fruitless threat and they’ll dismantle it.”