He recalled that almost his first words to the girl had been a speech of condolence, and he would never forget her outburst, nor his own sense of shock, when she revealed to him what she had already told the GRU. Her parents were doubles. They always had been and they were not dead. Indeed she had only recently discovered their true cause and their extraordinary resurrection.
All her life, Nina had believed her parents to have been heroes of the Supreme Soviet. She had even tried to emulate them by following in their footsteps. She had mourned them, like any other good daughter. Then, with unexpected suddenness, they had reappeared in her life. First, a note asking for a clandestine meeting at a charming villa on the Black Sea. She had been taking her vacation at Sochi with her friend, one of the few other women members of KGB.
She went to the villa and the trauma almost destroyed her. There they were, Misha and Emerald, as large as life. They felt, she was told, that she should now know the truth, and they foolishly told her the whole story – the tale of how they had duped the Soviet Union for decades and that, at the end, they simply wanted to drop out of sight. Their deaths were staged and being the experienced people they were the Bibikovas had provided themselves with new identities. Now, in the early years of their old age, they were indulging themselves in their other great passion, the theatre. These two old spies were with a small theatre company based in Leningrad. With this troupe they travelled Russia performing the great classics. Never had they intended Nina to know the truth, but the company was playing in the Black Sea resort – The Cherry Orchard, as it happened – and they had seen her in a café.
The girl, Yuskovich considered, was amazing. She had kept her true emotions in check, had shown only joy in being reunited with her father and mother, had even told them that she despised the old regime and was hoping for better days under the emerging restructuring of Mother Russia. She had then kept the knowledge to herself, not sharing it with anyone until she went to the GRU.
Why the GRU? he had asked her, and she had replied in a sensible manner. She was with the most secret internal department of the KGB, so secret that her director only answered to the General Secretary and the KGB Chairman. She spoke, of course, of Stepakov’s Banda – the counterterrorist department. Her ties to the KGB were tight. She did not desire to damage her own career by turning in her parents. ‘You know how KGB can work,’ she said. ‘Sometimes the paranoia reaches back generations. I could lose my job. My life even.’
The next piece of information had come almost accidentally. He asked if she was satisfied with the kind of work she was doing? It was interesting, but, she told him, at the moment it was also stupid. Idiot’s work. Then Nina Bibikova laid out their present target. She had called them a bunch of madmen. ‘Personally, I’m convinced there are only a half-dozen of them. They have some wild plan to embarrass the Kremlin establishment.’ These people called themselves the Scales of Justice – Chushi Pravosudia or Moshch Pravosudia – and the wild plan had been to focus public attention on the Kremlin’s reluctance to show any real sympathy for Russian Jews. She said their argument was that the Kremlin was allowing many Jewish people out, but that was not enough. Never had the Soviet Union held a war crimes trial which accused a single Russian of anti-Semitic behaviour. She had laughed. ‘They even seem to have a candidate. A Ukrainian called Josif Vorontsov who, they say, became a member of the Nazi SS and was partly responsible for Babi Yar and other horrors. It’s absurd to try and embarrass the Kremlin with something like that.’
But Yuskovich was alerted. His stomach had turned over, he nearest he ever came to fear, when Vorontsov’s name was mentioned. In any case, he did not really feel it was such a crazy idea. The Kremlin had been embarrassed by smaller things than a Russian war criminal.
He liked to think it was not just his desire to save his own skin that prompted him to recruit Nina Bibikova there and then. Later, he revealed much more to her, but her reaction was immediate. Yes, she would act as Yuskovich’s agent within Stepakov’s Banda. Yes, she would do whatever he asked. Later, when she was told the scope of the military coup to put Yuskovich in total power, she had leaped up and down with joy. On that night he remembered vividly how she had come to him without pretence. Her love-making had proved ferocious, and she had done all the things his wife had strictly barred from their bedroom. Some day, Nina could well become the Russian equivalent of what the Americans called the First Lady. Already he had plans to put his wife aside. It was easy for a man with power.
One thing finally led to another. They had removed the original handful of Chushi Pravosudia, and in their place set up a whole network of notional agents, shadows, an entire cult of Chushi Pravosudia which did not even exist.
They had run the foolish Professor Vladimir Lyko within Stepakov’s Banda. Eventually, when Lyko had served his purpose, his handler, a skilled Spetsnaz officer, was ordered to kill him, and before this they had snatched their old GRU sleeper, Penderek, from New Jersey.
Parallel to the Scales of Justice operation, they were also now committed to events outside the Soviet Union which appeared to be reshaping the world. America, with a strong backing from other countries and a United Nations’ sanction, was preparing to lock horns with Iraq over the Kuwait question. It was time for the future leader of the Soviet Union to play his trump card.
Throughout the years he had been in command of Rocket Forces, Yuskovich had been a hoarder. While the SALT talks made slow progress, he had often disobeyed orders. In secret bunkers he retained weapons, even mass-destruction weapons. While certain missiles were phased out, Yuskovich made certain some of those he considered to be still viable were hidden and maintained by trusted people who knew how to keep their mouths closed.
The final plan was simple, yet so ingenious that the future leader of all the Soviet Republics was dizzy at his own brilliance. The whole thing fitted together like a giant jigsaw puzzle which some divine being had placed in front of him to show that he was the chosen one.
The pinpricks of Chushi Pravosudia’s absurd daring, and their demands, simply goaded everybody into the killing field. By setting up the taped trial, he had been able to bring essential elements to work. Nina’s suggestions to Stepakov had brought about the snatching of his dark-horse cousin, Vorontsov. It had also put two French agents into his hands. The whole conception of his terrorists, his Chushi Pravosudia, had called for people from London to do the taping. Suggestion, via Nina, had prompted Stepakov to call upon the British Secret Intelligence Service to provide the camera crew and, even here, fate had taken a hand and brought him the godsent opportunity to add Nina to the British team.
Then there was the question of actors to play the roles of witnesses. Naturally, it was almost too easy for Nina to ensure that her mother and father came without a second thought to the Red Army Senior Officers’ Centre where, with a little pushing here and there, they were allowed to find the secret tunnel all the General Staff had known about for years.