Turalin was silent. That the First Secretary admitted weakness was disappointing.
The First Secretary spoke again. “What is it exactly that you hope to accomplish?”
“I don’t understand, comrade.”
“Come, Vadim Leonid, let us not play games. Please. It is late and I am tired. I want to know what you are up to in your dark building. What are you doing? What is your operational goal?”
“Revolution on the North American continent,” Turalin replied.
“You are either incredibly naive, or you have something up your sleeve. Something that you have omitted from your daily summaries. Something even that ferret Shumayev cannot discover.”
“Yes, comrade,” Turalin said.
The First Secretary sat forward and very carefully set his glass down on the table. His hand shook as if he had a slight palsy.
“You have stetched many rules, Vadim Leonid. That in itself is no mean feat. You have been a difficult man to watch. But watch we have.”
Turalin found that he was becoming angry with this old fool who obviously was on his way out. Angry that something might be going wrong and a scapegoat being chosen.
He had worked so hard, these past twenty-four months, with a dozen bureaucracies in a dozen regions, each of them independent of the others; with a hundred ministries; with a thousand factories and distribution networks for cover; and with thousands of people who all were made to feel that Turalin’s ideas were their own.
He started to speak, but the First Secretary held him off with a gesture.
“It may take us years to come to a complete knowledge of how you have operated, so that such a thing cannot happen again. From what I understand, you have single-handedly created at least three hundred conduits for Western funds.”
“It is for the Party, Comrade First Secretary. Certainly not for personal gain.”
“Nothing you have caused by your ingenious manipuations has occurred without the tacit approval and cooperation of your chairman, of the Politburo, and, indeed, of me. But, Vadim Lenoid, you failed us. You neglected to reveal your ultimate goal.”
The First Secretary looking longingly at his unfinished drink. He shook his head. “The American workers shall rise and a new socialism will sweep the land, all because of the Soviet farmers’ willingness to believe a new promise.”
“No, comrade, nothing like that.”
The First Secretary’s eyebrows rose. “You do surprise me. What then?”
“An economic revolt of the consumer.”
“And how will this come about?”
“When American food prices rise, as oil and gasoline prices have risen, there will be a revolt of the American people that will demand a change in their government. A change in their government’s basic structure.”
“Nonsense.”
“No, comrade, not nonsense. Hard, true fact. We almost accomplished it in the early seventies, when my predecessor manipulated the grain market. There was chaos worldwide.”
“Is that what you desire? Chaos?”
“The breeding ground for revolution.”
“Explain then to me. Explain it well, because you have caused us to embark on a path that is fraught with danger.”
“There are three vital elements to my operational plan, Comrade First Secretary. The first is the creation of a surplus of wheat and corn.”
“Such a mundane beginning,” the First Secretary said with some sarcasm.
“Yes, comrade. The second is a surplus of Western currencies. We will have the grain and the money.”
“Certainly nothing in comparison to the wheatfields of Kansas or the pampas of Argentina.”
“By the time we are finished, perhaps.”
“And the third?” the First Secretary asked.
Turalin had to smile inwardly. Even now he would not reveal the third corner of the triangle. He had his deceptive answer ready.
“And the third is the ruination of the American farmer by the manipulation of the market.”
For a long time the room was silent, except for the music still playing somewhere in the house and the crackling fire on the grate.
The First Secretary reached out for his cognac and drank it in one swallow. He slammed the glass back on the table, then got to his feet.
“Rubbish, Turalin. Pure rubbish! You are maneuvering us into madness.”
Turalin looked up at the man. At that moment he felt very much alone. There was no one to turn to.
“I’m giving you a choice, now, of either abandoning your scheme, or returning here within forty-eight hours with the details for its implementation.”
Turalin got to his feet. “I will return in forty-eight hours, Comrade Secretary.”
“See that you do. And the next time we meet, there will be no lies. No half-truths. Nor will we be alone.”
Outside, alone as he waited for Shumayev’s car to take him back into the city, Turalin tried to think out his next moves. It seemed almost chilly outside after the oppressive heat in the study, and he shivered.
He had done well over the past two years, and would probably have continued to do well if not for Shumayev’s snooping. There were leaks within his own directorate that would have to be plugged. And yet the next phase of the operation would of necessity have to be expanded outward. More people would have to be included. More resources committed.
He turned and looked back at the house. Had he underestimated the First Secretary?
The car came, and the driver jumped out and opened the rear door. “Comrade?” he said respectfully.
Turalin looked at him, then shook his head. “I will not be returning just yet,” he said. He went back to the house and let himself in, just as Shumayev was coming from the parlor.
“Vadim Leonid. You forgot something, perhaps?”
Turalin nodded. “Will the First Secretary see me again?”
“Of course. I’ll just tell him you’ve returned.”
The truth, Turalin thought. Or at least enough of it to insure Brezhnev’s cooperation.
2
Delos Fedor Dybrovik closed the file he had been staring at for the last hour, lit an American cigarette with shaking hands, and got up from behind his desk. He went to the window and looked out across the dark rear gardens to the Polytechnic Museum, which was brightly lit from the front. It was very late.
He shook his head in sadness. The spring had been lovely and the summer, less than a week away, promised to be wonderful. But the fall. The glorious fall harvests were only four months away, and then Exportkhleb would shine as it hadn’t since the seventies.
There were some who would call him poetic. Others would classify him as a maudlin fool.
Dybrovik was unlike most Russians, in that although he was a large man, almost fat, his hands and especially the features of his face were light and delicate. Western, his closest friends called him, a remark that pleased him greatly, because he loved the West.
The Soviet Union was, in his estimation, a magnificent country — from sea to shining sea, as the Americans might say. From the awesome steppes of Siberia, to the Ural Mountains, and finally European Russia, the Soviet Union was as varied as her people.
But once a man traveled outside of the country, to the gaiety of Paris, the hustle of New York, the charm of New Orleans, the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Rome or Montreal or Buenos Aires, Moscow paled to a dark insignificance.
He had been born in Leningrad, and he should never have been given schooling or promotion. His father, a carpenter, had spent more time criticizing the Revolution than building cabinets. And it was rumored that his mother, a white Russian, had been more of a lady of the evening than a wife.