CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
BONN-BAD GODESBERG, KGB RESIDENCY
Even in his cover identity as Second Secretary of the Soviet embassy, the chief resident of the KGB in West Germany rarely received Western visitors, let alone American ones. The residency in the West German capital was a KGB backwater. The most important intel on NATO and the West was extracted in Bonn-not by the KGB, but by the Stasi. The Stasi had penetrated Bonn from the train station toilets to the Chancellor’s office, and it freely handed the flood of information over to the KGB. To the Berlin-Karlshorst residency. The Bonn residency was in the center of Warsaw Treaty Organization intelligence activity in Western Europe, but was cut out of the loop. At least tonight the Americans remembered that they were still in the game.
Aleksei Voronin straightened his tie, wondering why the CIA station had been so bold as to tap into his secret direct line and to demand an immediate meeting on a Friday evening. He gulped down the contents of his glass and dropped his half-empty bottle of vodka into a drawer. As he waited for his assistant to escort the American cultural attaché to his office, he began talking to himself in English: “I am very pleased to meet you. To which do I owe the honour?”
The American pranced into his office. The striking woman had fine, delicate features that were rare among the hearty Slavs. Her petite body was poured into evening attire, a French designer dress with a plunging neckline. Her supple breasts begged to be touched. Voronin was pleased they’d sent a woman, and he hoped the CIA had sent her to seduce him. He would have to play along-anything for the Motherland. He didn’t bother to force his eyes away from her chest when he took her hand and kissed it. Stumbling over the English words, he said, “It is very pleased to meet you.”
“I can see that.” She glanced down, then rolled her eyes.
“To which do I owe the honour? You like a drink with me?” Her perfume intoxicated.
“I’ve only got a minute. Obviously there’s somewhere else I’d rather be-and will you please quit staring at my boobs?”
“I was looking at your necklace. It’s charoite from Russia, is it not?” He jerked his eyes away, but stepped closer to her and fingered the deep purple beads of her necklace.
She swatted his hand. “I don’t have time for bullshit, and you sure don’t. I know who you are and you know who I am, so let’s cut the introductory crap. Your government’s in danger.”
He pulled out a chair for her. “Please sit.”
She ignored him. “We’ve picked up chatter-a lot of it. Someone is planning a terrorist attack against your government.”
“Terrorists are going to attack the embassy?”
“Are you crazy? Do you think I’d be here with you? There’s some kind of plot against Gorbachev.” She walked over to his desk and fished a piece of hard candy from a crystal bowl. “All I can tell you is that we’re reasonably confident the terrorists and their weapons are being channeled through West Germany.”
Voronin swallowed hard. “The CIA warns me that terrorists soon attack the Soviet government?” He backed toward his desk chair, staring into space as he lowered himself into his seat and reached for a drawer. Without looking at what he was doing, he pulled out a bottle of vodka and dumped it into his glass, spilling some. He downed it and poured more. “You want?” He raised his eyebrows and tipped the glass toward the American.
She shook her head as she slowly pulled on the ends of the candy wrapper.
“Who are they? Where are intercepts come from?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Even if I could tell you that, I don’t know. You know as well as I do that we can’t reveal sources.”
“We know you listen.”
“You have no idea. A drunk can’t call his mother from a pay phone in Pinsk without us on the other end.” She was careful to keep the candy from touching her ruby lipstick as she popped it into her mouth.
“Tell me more. When is it happening?”
“All we know is that a terrorist or terrorists are attempting to move some kind of weapon from here to Moscow. We don’t know what it is, but we believe it’s highly mobile-most likely no larger than a suitcase.”
“Suitcase? You saying an American suitcase atomic weapon is missing and terrorists are taking it to Moscow?”
“I honestly don’t know. But today the chatter spiked. Our analysts believe that it’s going down within the next twenty-four hours. And I’ll give you a tip, Aleksei. Don’t trust the Germans-either flavor.” She turned to leave, her stilettos clicking on the hardwood floor. She stopped and looked back at him. “And I wouldn’t be so sure about everyone in your home office either, if you get my drift.”
Major Natalia Nariskii slammed down the phone, dropped the stolen copy of The Detonator magazine onto the bed and quickly dressed. Voronin had slurred his words on the phone. He was plastered again, but he wasn’t going to get away with it this time. Just like before, it was Friday night. And, just like before, he demanded she come to his office at once without notifying anyone. She stopped to slip her prized Chechen dagger into her pocket. Fool me once, shame on you. Try to fool me twice, you lose your balls.
She dragged herself into the chief resident’s office. Voronin sat at his desk in a stupor. He looked up at her, his eyes bloodshot and glassy. She would’ve sworn he’d been up all night on a binge, but it was only ten-thirty. “Reporting to duty as ordered, sir.”
“Sit, major.”
She preferred not to restrict her movements. “I prefer to stand, sir.”
“No, you won’t.” He shoved the bottle away. “I’ve had a visit from the CIA. About half an hour ago. Sometime within the next twenty-four hours a terrorist is taking a nuclear suitcase from the FRG to Moscow. The plan is to take out our leadership. The agent wouldn’t come right out and say it, but she implied that the Germans are working with some of our people.”
Nariskii pulled out a chair and sat down. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying the CIA is telling me there’s a German-KGB conspiracy to assassinate Gorbachev.”
“Disinformation.”
“I think not.”
“Which Germans?”
“Does it matter? They’re all Nazis. I remember the day when they rolled through my village.” He poured more vodka, but only drops came out. He tossed the bottle into the wastepaper basket and glass clinked, betraying the other empty bottles. Voronin stood and stumbled over to his bookshelves and reached behind a row of the blue and red volumes of the collected works of V. I. Lenin. He pulled out a fresh bottle. It wasn’t dusty. The stash definitely had high turnover.
“Sir, with all due respect, you shouldn’t be drinking.” She walked over to him and grabbed his arm. “Not now.”
Voronin slumped over his glass. “There is no better time. I’m facing the greatest crisis of my career and I don’t know what to do or who to trust.”
“If it’s imminent, Moscow couldn’t help anyway. Cut them out. I’d like West German assistance, but I don’t trust them. I’ll leak a story to a leftist reporter for the TAZ who we use from time to time. I’ll tell him the Americans are trying to cover up the loss of a nuclear suitcase and that the Russian mafia is trying to get it out of Germany. As soon as it’s on the wires, the BKA and BND will be screening everything moving East. If it’s their op, it’s blown. I’ll activate every network we have-even sleepers-but I’ll avoid any shared assets.”
He inhaled deeply. “You’re a good officer, Nariskii.”
“I serve the Motherland.” And I regret that it sometimes means saving your ass. “I assume I’m authorized to use any force necessary.”
“Do what you must.” He shoved aside the bottle. “Nariskii, if you were tying to get a nuclear suitcase from here to Moscow, how would you do it?”