Nearly nine thousand feet above the town, Sergei Borzov of SMERSH Otdyel II, the Operations and Executions branch of the murder apparat of the Russian KGB, lay with his mouth open and watched his blood melting a hole in the snow. It would not be melting it for much longer. Already a long shadow was falling across the slope and the cold reached out ahead of it. He would never see her again, or the hotel on the Black Sea, or the children playing on the beach. All that he had consigned to memory before turning and funnelling his soul into her eyes. The room had been cool and dark and deep like a grave. The curtains stirring in a dying wind. The sheet above her breasts white as snow. White as snow.
The black shadow passed over the man and he closed his eyes and died.
Death to Spies
Anya Amasova felt uneasy as the nondescript ZIS saloon approached the familiar drabness of the Sretenka Ulitsa. Why did they want her at such short notice? Why had no reasons been given? What had she done wrong? The last was the most persistent and worrying consideration. Nobody who worked for the KGB or any other branch of the Soviet bureaucracy could afford to believe that they were beyond blame. Original sin was as much a tenet of the Communist faith as of the Christian. Perhaps they had found out about her affair with Sergei - she interrupted her train of thought to scold herself. Not affair, that was one of their words. Cheap and shoddy. Transitory. She must find a better way to describe what had happened. Perhaps they had found out that she and Sergei had fallen in love. The room was almost certainly bugged and there might even have been a concealed camera. Such things were not unknown.
But could they object to her falling in love? Yes, they could object to anything. The state was your only lover and the penalties for unfaithfulness were severe.
‘Comrade-Major.’ The driver had turned round and was looking at her with deadpan eyes. They had arrived. Number 13 Sretenka Ulitsa, headquarters of SMERSH.
Anya glanced up and caught a glimpse of her eyes in the driver’s mirror. It is at such offguard moments that you really see yourself and Anya was disturbed by the look of fear in her eyes. The open, vulnerable wariness. Not for the first time, she wondered if she was cut out for the work the state had chosen for her. Perhaps her superiors at Otdyel 4 had come to the same conclusion.
SMERSH is a contraction of Smiert Spionam, which means ‘Death to Spies’. The organization currently employs a total of 60,000 men, women and transvestites, although the number changes continuously as a result of operational losses and the elimination of weak and unreliable elements.
Anya Amasova’s progress within Otdyel 4 of SMERSH - the section responsible for internal security in the armed forces - had been steady rather than spectacular. She had been the youngest of four children born to the wife of a country doctor. With his death in a car accident, Anya’s mother had been grateful for the suggestion from the headmistress of the local school that Anya was a bright girl who might qualify for training at a special ‘Technical College’ near Leningrad. Anya had passed the examination with flying colours and was soon attending classes in ‘General Political Knowledge’ and ‘Tactics, Agitation and Propaganda’. In her third year she moved on to ‘Technical Subjects’ and became proficient in the use of codes and ciphers. She was marked ‘satisfactory’ in Communications and became conversant with the intricacies of Contacts, Cutouts, Couriers and Post Boxes. Her Fieldwork was also deemed satisfactory. In tests she received high marks for Vigilance, Presence of Mind, Courage and Coolness. Her mark for Discretion was average.
After Leningrad came the School for Terror and Diversion at Kuchino, outside Moscow. Anya’s marks in judo and athletics were high and she became a capable wireless operator and excellent photographer. She also had her first lover, her small-arms instructor who was runner up in the Soviet Rifle Championships. Anya became an excellent pistol shot.
Up to now, all her training had been in the Soviet Union. But with the termination of her course at STD she was sent to work at an Avanpost in Czechoslovakia. These mobile operation groups were engaged in surveying and, where necessary, liquidating Russian spies and party workers in the satellite countries. Anya’s work in this sector had been beyond reproach although it was noted on her zapiska that she had always delegated the act of execution.
Upon recall to Moscow, Anya had been given the rank of Major and assigned to Military Records where she was granted access to the files on all military personnel below the rank of General or equivalent. In conjunction with other departments of SMERSH she was responsible for the vital character assessment that preceded any promotion or demotion. She had written copious and highly detailed reports and as a result of her conscientiousness - although she was unaware of it - three men and a woman had been hanged with fine wire. A death for traitors that Stalin had borrowed from Hitler.
The bizarre course from which she had just been summoned was one that united several branches of the ever-expanding octopus of SMERSH, and it was here that she had met Sergei Borzov for the first time. He had been reticent about his role in the organization, as had she. It was never wise to talk too much) and dangerous to ask questions.
One of the two sentries outside Number 13 bent down to open the door of the car and his sub-machine gun banged against it clumsily. The driver began to protest about his paintwork and then stopped abruptly when the sentry looked at him. Anybody involved with SMERSH was to be feared. Anya left the car and walked up the broad flight of steps leading to the big iron double door. She continued to feel uneasy.
At first glance the large olive-green room on the second floor could have been mistaken for a government office anywhere in the world. The floor was fitted with finest quality carpet and a large oak desk dominated one end of the room. Two spacious windows gave on to a courtyard at the back of the building and were fringed by heavy brocade curtains. On one wall was a large portrait of Brezhnev surrounded by a thin border of faded wallpaper which indicated where an even larger portrait of Stalin had once hung.
On the desk were two wire-frame baskets marked IN and OUT, a heavy glass ashtray, a carafe of water and tumblers and four telephones. One of the telephones was marked in white with the letters V. Ch. These letters stood for Vysoko-Chastoty, or High Frequency. Only fifty supreme officials were connected to the V.Ch. switchboard, and all were Ministers of State or Heads of selected Departments. It was served by a small exchange in the Kremlin operated by professional security officers. They could not overhear conversations on it, but every word spoken over its lines was automatically recorded. It was this telephone that had summoned Major Anya Amasova.
‘Ah, Major Amasova. Come and sit down.’ The warmth in the man’s voice surprised Anya. She had only met him on three occasions when answering questions about reports she had submitted.
Colonel-General Nikitin, the Head of SMERSH, was standing behind his desk and extending a hand towards a straight- backed red leather chair. He was a tall man dressed in a crisply pressed khaki tunic with a high collar, and dark blue cavalry trousers with two thin red stripes down the side. The trousers disappeared into riding boots of black, highly polished leather. On the breast of the tunic were three rows of medal ribbons - two Orders of Lenin, Order of Alexander Nevsky, Order of the Red Banner, two Orders of the Red Star, the Twenty Years* Service Medal and a ribbon that Anya did not recognize. It must belong to the newly struck Sino-Soviet Friendship Medal. Anya remembered the colours so that she could look it up when she got back to Military Records. Above the rows of ribbons hung the gold star of a Hero of the Soviet Union.