The SEV building is sited at a place where the slow-moving Moskva river loops towards the city and back again. From its higher floors there are magnificent views across the city, and away to the south where the gigantic-and hideously ugly-university sprawls across the Lenin Hills. But not many of General Shumuk’s staff of nearly 400 spent much time admiring the view. These floors, occupied by specially selected KGB employees, are noted for cleanliness, industry and silence. Even the telephones are specially muted.
General Shumuk’s office was large, its size emphasized by the lack of furniture. There was only a metal desk, swivel chair and a high-back wooden visitor’s chair with uneven feet which, rumour said, Shumuk himself had designed to cause concern and discomfort to anyone sitting in it. The new linoleum had already cracked around the places where the hot water radiators were let into the floor. On the desk there were two trays, three telephones and a concealed button for calling his secretary. The only picture on the wall was a cheap lithograph of Peter the Great. Shumuk had always been careful not to identify himself with any of the more modern residents of the Kremlin; it was too dangerous. Behind the picture there was the standard steel safe provided for all senior KGB officials. Each evening it was ceremoniously sealed with red wax.
There was a knock at the door and the duty cipher clerk entered. Without a word the clerk put a red folder on General Shumuk’s desk and passed to him the timed receipt. Shumuk initialled it without looking up, and started reading the telex decodes. It was the one from the Soviet embassy in Washington which spoiled his even temper. It was a long message: four pages of text largely concerned with low-grade trivia which should not have been sent on the signature of Yuriy Grechko, the senior KGB man in the embassy. It should have been consigned to the weekly summary. Shumuk read on hurriedly. He had once been an embassy legal himself; he too had learnt how to wrap up bad news.
When he came to the paragraph in which Grechko reported that Wilhelm Kleiber had phoned the embassy asking for an urgent meeting, Shumuk put down the telex sheets. He took off his steel-rimmed spectacles and laid them on his desk while he placed the palms of both hands over his face. Long, long ago such mannerisms had been mistaken for grief, alarm or anxiety, but by now everyone knew that it was just a way in which Shumuk was able to concentrate his thoughts. If there was a way in which he manifested grief, alarm or anxiety-or any strong emotion other than anger-no one working with him had yet discovered it.
Kleiber had failed to obtain the Hitler Minutes, that much was obvious. An agent did not make contact in this reckless, unprofessional manner to report success. If Kleiber had secured the Hitler Minutes in the way that the popinjay Grechko and his sleepy-eyed friend Parker had promised, then by now they would be here on Shumuk’s desk instead of this long telex cluttered with nothing better than gossip culled from Aviation Week. He read the paragraph again.
para eight task POGONI 982 [Grechko’s submission numeral]
SUGGEST MEETING KLEIBER ROUSILL ON BEACH MOTEL
VERNON FAIRFAX COUNTY ++ 2200 HOURS TUESDAY
TWENTY FIRST AUGUST STOP CONSENT REQUEST
TWO END PARA
General Stanislav Shumuk could not think about Task Pogoni without seeing in his mind’s eye the two men upon whom he had relied for its success. Shumuk had no confidence in either Parker or Grechko. He had been a member of the promotions board that had selected Grechko for his present KGB appointment in the Washington embassy. Needless to say, Shumuk had strenuously argued against giving Grechko such responsibility, but he went unheeded. Shumuk was over six feet tall and he could never reconcile himself to the fact that Grechko habitually wore elevator shoes which gave this over-confident little man a sorely needed increase in height. Stanislav Shumuk believed that the elevator shoes revealed the fundamental flaw in Grechko’s personality; his desire for elevation-literally and figuratively-characterized his attitude to his job, to his family and to the women with whom he wasted so much time. Several times Shumuk had made formal complaints about Grechko’s womanizing, but on every occasion Grechko had been able to ‘prove’ that the ladies in question-who included the wives of foreign diplomats-were a valuable source of intelligence material.
Shumuk put on his spectacles, got up and looked out of the window. Across the street the COMECON annex building was in the course of construction; work continued all round the clock-when darkness came, the construction workers toiled under floodlights. Many of the labourers were women. A line of people waiting for a bus were watching a brawny peasant woman mixing cement. There were long bus lines. A militiaman and some Young Pioneers in their green uniforms were waiting for the special bus that would take them down the Minsk Highway to the battlefield of Borodino. It was a necessary pilgrimage for all the party faithful. Here they would see the place where the might of Napoleon was broken, and where in a later war the Soviet Guards halted the Nazis and stood outnumbered for five long days and nights. Borodino never failed to inspire new faith in the onlookers. Perhaps Shumuk now needed such an infusion of fervour to help him endure the machinations of his colleagues in the Political Bureau. There was little doubt that they had prepared their enthusiastic report about the propaganda value of the Hitler Minutes as a way of putting Shumuk on the spot. Now there were memos, reports and inquiries coming every day, some of them from the Central Secretariat. All could be summarized as ‘How much longer?’ Shumuk sighed. It was time, he reluctantly decided, for drastic action.
Essentially, Parker must be brought out of danger-that was the code of Moscow Centre. None of its professional Russian-born agents were ever abandoned to their fate. It was imbecilic of Parker to involve himself with the man who had committed the murders in Los Angeles and London, but that did not change matters. On the contrary, it made it even more vital to get Parker home for, if he was taken into custody by the Americans, he would be facing charges of first-degree murder.
And yet to pull Parker out would mean that Grechko would come back to Moscow with his reputation unimpaired. Grechko would be able to blame the collapse of Task Pogoni on Moscow ’s decision to move Parker. Knowing the way that Grechko could always muster support and sympathy from certain highly placed enemies of Shumuk’s, one could easily envisage Shumuk himself being blamed for the failure of Task Pogoni. That was something he was determined to avoid.
Shumuk always kept a pair of high-powered binoculars on his windowsill. He found it interesting and instructive to study the people in the streets below. The Red Square bus arrived, and the line of passengers began to board. There was not enough room for everyone. One woman stepped out to hail a passing taxi and a man in a bright blue woollen hat shouted angrily at the bus driver as the bus pulled away. It was unseemly and un-Russian, and the others, although equally angry, turned away to pretend it had not happened. But after the bus had gone the anger of those left behind abated. Shoulders hunched, they turned their backs against the wind and watched the big blonde girl mixing cement. Shumuk put his binoculars down. The bus for Borodino still had not arrived.