At last he heard them coming. For maximum advantage he would have to wait until the last moment when they were about to climb into the van. Now.
The sight of the heavy gun in Rust’s hand surprised them. “Silence,” he whispered. He noted with a slight smile that his voice must have sounded convincing, for the sergeant dropped his gun without being told. Rust motioned them with only his head toward the inside of the van.
“Turn around.” He knocked down the killer with the butt of the gun. He felt like shooting him for Holly’s sake, but it wouldn’t have been practical. The driver might or might not be alone, and the last thing he wanted was a gunfight.
“How do you signal them to go?” The sergeant hesitated. Rust pushed the barrel into his mouth, and the man’s reaction was too slow. The crunch of broken teeth made his stomach turn. ‘Tell me.”
The sergeant spat out some blood and pointed at a switch on the wall. The question was, would the driver know what was going on in the back? Was there a spyhole? Rust could not see any. It was no good to ask — the sergeant would probably lie. If he gave the signal to go and there was no reaction, he would know that they were ready for him outside. He could then try to trade off his hostages. He quickly went through the men’s pockets. The knife man had a 6.35mm Tula-Korovin. That he took, then flicked the switch. An immediate short hoot of the horn answered it. Then nothing. What were they waiting for? Perhaps they had a warning light telling them that the door was open. There was only one way to find out.
He checked the men on the floor. All were unconscious. Two of them bleeding. He signaled once more, jumped out and rolled under the van to present a minimal target. No shots, nobody in sight. He crawled out, locked the door — and the van started. For a few seconds he would be covered, but then he would become visible in the driver’s large side mirrors. He dived into the canal before he could be spotted. As the van followed the track away from the water, he caught just half a glimpse of a jovial fat face next to the driver.
He swam across the canal and ran. Well-kept paths of gravel led him to an ornamental pond. A few statues. He was shivering. There was no way to keep warm. He threw the large gun into the pond, dried the toylike Tula-Korovin — a KGB special — with some grass, then ran on. As he climbed over a high fence, he came to a bridge spanning a narrow river. The distant silhouettes of two towers to the right and one to the left with brighter lights in between suggested to him that he was on the east side of the town. The Yauza River. He crossed the bridge and ran along deserted streets.
A railway station. One of the places to be checked automatically when the alert went out for him. He recrossed the river and stopped for a breather on the embankment. The only people he saw were horizontal. Drunks.
First it was just a rumble. Then the crude firing of a heavy vehicle’s engine. A water wagon came into view. The sort that sprayed and cleaned Moscow’s thoroughfares every night. The sort that always seemed to have right of way, even on the wide pavements. Vehicles and pedestrians were sprayed mercilessly every time they were not quick enough to get out of the way. The drivers had their norms, and norms had to be fulfilled. There was no time to stop, slow down, show courtesy.
Rust waited until it was quite close, than ran out on the road, stumbled, and fell. He hoped the driver was good. Brakes groaned hoarsely. Rust stayed down and began to hum. When he looked up, the massive bumper was only a few inches from him.
“Fucking drunks!” The voice approached but did not sound unduly angry. “Get up, you idiot.”
Rust did not move. The man bent down to lift him, and he pushed the gun into the thin, tired face.
“Don’t shoot, comrade. Please. I did nothing wrong.” His protests of innocence would already convict him if Rust was a policeman. “I only used the short cut because — ”
“Shut up.” Rust got up. “Come on. Show me how the thing works.”
The driver moved without asking questions but noted Rust’s wet clothes and the blood on his face, and decided that whoever the man with the gun was, police he was not. “You’d be better off if I drove,” he said quietly. “Just tell me where you want to go.” He was trembling as he climbed into the driving compartment.
“Don’t worry,” said Rust. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You must be Estonian.”
Rust nodded.
“I’m from Riga,” said the man and held out his hand, offering the comradeship of another suppressed minority from Latvia. “I’ll help you. And no questions.”
“Just show me how it works.” Rust felt ashamed. The driver was most probably sincere and took a risk with his friendly attitude, but Rust could not trust him. Or anyone. He was already infected by the nationwide disease: fear and suspicion.
It was simple. A handle on the left controlled the water, on and off, and the strength of the spray, too. Rust drove and ordered the man to lie on the floor. “If we’re stopped and you say a word, you’re dead.” Like me, he could have added, but did not. He began to think about his next move. He must try to contact his father and Yelena. It would be hard to tell her that she was right about the embassy. Perhaps she could help him to get to Odessa and into that crocodile tank. But perhaps he ought to call Washington and talk to his brother first. If he rattled off the essence of the news about the missiles, the operator might not have a chance to disconnect them in time. Elliott would be puzzled, even suspicious — after all, they had not talked to each other for just about five years — but would be bound to look into it. If then …
Two motorbikes at the side of the road. Uniformed men at the curbside. Rust stepped on the brakes.
“Roadblock?” whispered the Latvian.
“Could be.”
“Don’t stop. Go up on the curb and spray them if they don’t jump fast enough.”
The engine roared, the body heaved, the speed hardly increased, but the nozzles played their part well. The militiamen failed to jump fast enough.
“Nedoyobysh!” somebody yelled, calling Rust a by-product of sex, just a spoonful scraped off the sheet of his parents’ bed.
“Which makes us blood brothers,” the Latvian said and laughed.
*
Boychenko looked forward to some rest when the van left the park. It was only a fifteen-minute drive to the Lubyanka. They had just rounded Dzerzhinsky’s statue, passing the heavily barred ground-floor windows on the right, when a buzzer sounded above the driver’s head.
“What’s that?”
“They want us to stop.”
“What, here? They can’t even guess where we are.”
The driver shrugged his shoulders. “Do we stop or not?”
“Go on. We’re there.”
The scenario instructed them to bring in Rust via the club entrance. They only had to pass the main building and the huge car compound behind it. The driver flashed his lights and the first set of gates at No. 12 Dzerzhinsky ulitsa were opened for them. The KGB club and special store for secret-police personnel were housed in an eighteenth-century building which retained its pretty facade of azure with white icing.
The van rolled through a couple of internal gates and courtyards. It halted in a small enclosure surrounded by high walls. From there, the prisoner would be taken to an interrogation room in the main building via underground passages. Boychenko yawned. The job was done. It was odd why the men in the back did not climb out. The driver went to investigate, and found the door locked from the outside. When it was opened and the sergeant stumbled out crying blue murder, Boychenko knew that his son, daughter and relatives would have to wait for favors for a long, long time, and even then he could help only if his own skin was saved by some miracle. But Boychenko, despite his secret religious belief, had no faith in miracles. For no matter what the scenario said, scapegoats would be wanted and found at all levels. And who could be a more obvious scapegoat than “that incompetent man” from the Tourist Department who had lost Rust twice before? Unless, of course,
that incompetent man came up trumps, recaptured the fugitive and made him talk.
Thursday, September 20
Kennedy fights to restore cuts in foreign aid program. Crews of two Italian ships refuse to sail for Cuba. Pundits predict: if Nixon fails to win governorship of California, his political career will end in November. U.S. helicopters are used in Vietnam raid: “153 terrorists are killed.” Soviet delegate reveals manic fear that mutual nuclear test inspections would amount to espionage.
*
ELLIOTT REPSON TURNED HIS CHAIR AWAY FROM HIS DESK and wheeled himself to the window. Staring at treetops and scanning the Washington horizon always helped him to concentrate. He had just finished plowing through the current Lloyd’s Shipping Index Voyage Supplement. The mass of Cuba-bound traffic was ominous. The Omsk and Poltava, two of the apparent regulars, had been to Havana yet again. Lots of other sightings were reported from the port of Cienfuegos. The Ilya Mechnikov, Nikolay Burdenko, Admiral Nachimov, Simferopol, Deputat Lutski — all arriving from or sailing for Odessa, Leningrad, Riga, Gdynia, Rostock. No specific report on their cargo. And these were just the Russian ships. Then there were all the charters from so-called friendly countries. Arms were carried, no doubt, but who should and who should not be alerted to bits of news about cohetes? Rockets? Fireworks? Missiles? What sorts? Some Congressmen were pressing for specific answers. They ought to be told to keep things in perspective and remember the vividity and power of Cuban imagination.
He pushed himself back to the telephone. The wheels of the chair squeaked. He ought to get one of the maintenance men to look at it, because oiling did not help at all. But to get anything done had become a nightmare of paperwork these days. He hated Langley, the $46 million complex the Company had moved into only a year ago. But, admittedly, some services, like communications, were much better here than in his old office of delightful obscurity behind that Navy medical outfit on 23rd NW.
Cohetes. That odd message on the phone from some Cuban kid. Almost made them late for dinner. Something about playing soccer. A few locations. The sort of message that would only confuse Washington and should never be taken seriously. He had almost completely forgotten it. Only the word cohetes reminded him.
Anna was already at home and answered the phone at once. “Will you be late, honey?”
“Only ten minutes and I’m off. Just a quick question, and don’t say I’m out of my mind.”
“You are and I love you for it. What’s the question?”
“Can you remember which dinner jacket I wore at Bobby’s staff dinner?”
“The new one, I’m sure. You look like a waiter in both the old ones, and — ”
“And if you wanted to be seen with a third-rate waiter, you’d have married one, okay, I know. Now could you have a look to see if I left a short note in its pocket?”
A few minutes later she told him there was no note.
“Are you sure?”
“Sure I’m sure.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t be late.”
He rang off. The note was not really important. Except that it was another of those unsubstantiated cohete sightings, and he had a more than reasonable guess who the source could have been. Rust ought to be told to stop meddling in politics and concentrate on his smuggling. He had not talked to his brother for about five years, since Helm had left not only the Company but also all outward signs of normalcy. Yes, it was possible that he was still picking up bits of intelligence purely by chance. He would not want to see it wasted, so he would use his brother as a channel for it. An outlet. Elliott reassured himself that he would have certainly refused to accept any communication if it was just to help him. Yes, some of the information was useful to him, but he preferred to believe that those minute contributions to intelligence had a much more important purpose: Helm’s preservation of self-respect.
On an impulse, he decided to call the Upstairs. The phone rang and rang. No answer. He could try it later again from home. No, Anna would not like that. Pity she disliked Helm so much. Though perhaps it was mutual. Perhaps it was one of the reasons why Helm had disappeared from their life. Had he once made a pass at her? She would have found it outrageous. But no, he would not have done it.
Elliott locked away his papers and started toward the door, then changed his mind and returned to the phone to try to get through just once more. This time his call was answered without delay. “No, Helm is away, this is Hal here.”
Oh yes. Elliott knew who Hal “Jus’-juice” Sheridan was. Schramm, who reported to him on Helm from time to time, had mentioned Sheridan. Elliott blamed Sheridan at least partly for Helm’s smuggling and irresponsible way of life.
“Who’s calling?”
“Do you know where Helm is?”
“No. Who’s calling?”
“When will he be back?”
“Didn’t say nothin’ to me. Who the hell is that? … Any messages? … Fuck yourself.” Hal slammed the phone down.
Some hotel, thought Elliott. Potential guests must love it. He called Schramm, but he knew no more than Hal.
*
The alert had gone out, KGB investigators, special agents, the huge regular network of informers, all the police and militia were now looking for Rust. Boychenko had to sit back and wait. Being the case officer, he was in charge of the hunt — well, at least nominally. In fact, it was the formal manifestation of his past and future responsibility. There was no question of Rust’s getting away. But the time element was essential. The longer he evaded the hunters the greater the chance that he could establish contact with someone from an embassy or the western press. Boychenko found it a miracle that the man had not yet been captured by dawn. A miracle? He reprimanded himself for thinking in such loose terms. There were no miracles. If Helm was not caught, he must have some refuge. Helpers. Someone to turn to. A contact provided by whoever had sent him on this mission, or some friend from the time of his press job here in 1956.
Boychenko remembered Rust’s faded-green file quite clearly. It was a slim one, so slim that it must have been depleted deliberately. By whom? Why? No visitor to the Soviet Union — let alone a journalist or others arousing the slightest KGB interest — would ever be allowed to leave behind such a shallow footprint.
He sent for the file again. It had last been seen by someone from the military neighbors. The initials and a number should have identified the person. But they did not. Highly irregular. Damn them. Amateurs. He had heard on the grapevine that the powers and finances of the GRU were being slowly but radically curtailed. High time, too. It was pointless to let them have their own Residents abroad, their own agents, networks, facilities and the rest of wasteful duplication. Centralized in one hand, in the KGB’s, of course, both results and security could be improved. He took the file to the colonel of the Spetsburo.
“It could be useful to know what interest the military neighbors had in Rust only a month ago,” said Boychenko.
“And to discover who the actual person was,” added the colonel. He filled in a Form M-17, marked urgent, requesting the answers and full details. They would do it for the Spetsburo with minimal delay. Meanwhile he instituted disciplinary procedures against the clerk in Records who had failed to ensure the appearance of proper codes and initials on the file returning from GRU HQ in August. It would be no excuse that such irregularities were the norm rather than the exception, that the Spetsburo was particularly notorious in that respect, and that the colonel himself would have heaped abuse on the busybody good-for-nothing clerk who tried to tell him what and what not to do.
Boychenko returned to his office and hoped to snatch a couple of hours’ sleep at his desk, but found that he was much too worried even to close his eyes. He rechecked all factors of the general alert. Special teams at hotels used by foreigners, all western embassies and press offices, railway stations, airports, ports including those handling “Moscow from the river” tours, all roads leading out of Moscow, and
main post offices from where long-distance phone calls could be made. Patrols were out in strength to scour the streets and raid restaurants. Individual officers had been assigned to watch the homes of foreign correspondents and other westerners reported at regular intervals. Telephone tapper units had received warnings and reinforcements. There was nothing else the major could do, nothing except try to guess what loophole in the unchartable bureaucratic labyrinth could be used by someone who must have help. Help. What help? That was what bugged him. That and the information withheld from him. For the colonel had still not specified why Rust was wanted so badly and why Holly had to be eliminated.
*
Rust stayed in the water wagon until the heavy early-morning traffic had begun to build up. The Latvian offered to drive him anywhere, but he could not risk that. Although the man promised not to report him to the authorities at all, he disbelieved him. He caught a bus, got off at the next stop, and wandered into narrow, neglected streets behind the Paveletsky railway station. He picked his way through courtyards and stopped to rummage in huge rubbish dumps in which the little that was really unwanted by the local residents had accumulated. He dug up some old and filthy rags to cover his fine tweed jacket, and buried his raincoat. Some fellow hopefully would strike gold one day. He now felt much less conspicuous to make the journey to the church. At the entrance, one of the beggars looked at him with knowing eyes, but Rust could not be sure that he had been recognized. If the beggar was not a snoop, he would be safe. But … there was always the but. He could be a stukach, one of the millions of informers, or even a seksoty, a collaborator in direct pay of the KGB.
Rust had decided not to follow his father from the house this time, so now he stopped at the church door and watched the old man’s descent in the glass cage. He then went inside to wait behind a pillar, burying his face in the icon that seemed to be the least venerated by the regulars. Can’t you deliver miracles? he asked the Virgin.
In the Company of Spies Page 10
