Kremlin Conspiracy

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘If you let me have a list, showing how you intend to move, I’ll warn them in advance of your arrival….’ He smiled. ‘They must know you have the full authority of the Soviet government. We’ll make it delegate strength, in fact.’

  ‘Yes, that’s important,’ Lydia agreed. Even within the supposed equality of communist societies there were disadvantages in being a woman. ‘And make an enquiry about their deferred loan, to worry them.’

  ‘You must feel elated,’ said Malik.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Elated.’ There was another far more important elation she wanted from this man. Why couldn’t he see it!

  The telephone sounded within minutes of Jane entering her room at the Jefferson. Burnham didn’t speak, only wanting to confirm that she was back; he was at her door almost immediately and as he entered Jane saw he was flushed with anger.

  ‘Where the hell have you been!’

  ‘Out.’

  ‘Out! What do you mean, out! I’d planned for us to be together this evening.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say?’

  ‘Did I need to?’

  ‘It might have been an idea.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Where what?’

  ‘Where have you been out to?’

  ‘Dinner.’

  ‘Who with?’ He was pacing the room, too annoyed to sit.

  Jane lowered herself with a forced casualness into the only easy chair. So Daniels hadn’t told him: she was glad. She said, ‘Someone I met at the reception tonight.’

  He stopped pacing. ‘Who?’ he repeated.

  Damn him, she thought. ‘Just someone I met.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me who?’

  ‘Why is it important?’

  ‘Because it is.’ He was being petulant in his anger.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to tell you.’

  ‘Why not? What’s there to hide?’

  ‘There’s nothing to hide,’ she said. ‘I just don’t choose to.’

  ‘You might have told me you were going,’ he repeated.

  ‘You might have told me what you had in mind this evening,’ she fought back.

  ‘There was a meeting after the reception,’ said Burnham. ‘I wasn’t sure until the last minute.’

  ‘About what: the meeting, I mean?’

  ‘The world debt: what else?’

  ‘I would have thought there’d been enough meetings about that.’

  ‘There have been,’ he said. ‘It was a waste of time, like they usually are. And I don’t want to talk about banking now.’ Burnham had started pacing again. Now he stopped in front of the chair and looked down at her. ‘It worked,’ he said.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Your little demonstration of independence,’ said the man. ‘I was jealous: bloody jealous.’ He held out both his hands towards her invitingly. Jane hesitated momentarily, then stretched up towards him, letting herself be pulled up by him, wanting it to happen. He started kissing her: small, pecking kisses and at last the fragile reserve went and she started kissing him back, eager for him. The love was good this time, better than it had been for weeks, and afterwards they stayed wetly together. Jane felt exultant. She’d enjoyed her evening and she’d won a tactical victory with Paul.

  Chapter 4

  Lydia Kirov was conscious of the confusion as soon as she disembarked from the Aeroflot flight at Warsaw and saw the disarray among the waiting Poles: she hoped the careful preparations would continue to unsettle them. The Soviet Finance Ministry officials within her party were purposely too minor to require the protocol, but she immediately recognized Florian Moczar, the deputy Polish finance minister, and guessed he was leading the reception party. He was a florid-faced, roly-poly man whom she had encountered in London during the rescheduling of the Polish debt commitment. She’d been aware of his nervousness then and noticed it again now as he stared at the arriving Russians, trying to determine the priority. Like skirmishers in some medieval encounter, the aides from the respective groups scurried out to make the initial contact and Lydia saw Moczar turn curiously towards her as she was identified as the leader of the Russian group. Further confusion, she decided.

  The Pole approached, smiling, and said, ‘It is a great pleasure to meet you yet again, Comrade Kirov.’

  ‘And you, Comrade Moczar,’ she said. Moczar spoke good Russian and she wondered how much interpretation the rest of his group would need: it was important there was no misunderstanding.

  ‘This is an unexpected pleasure,’ said the man, at once trying to discover the reason for the visit.

  Lydia decided the man was a bad negotiator to let his concern be so easily visible. Instead of replying to the implied question she said, ‘All the bank representatives are here?’

  Moczar gestured to the group standing behind him and said, ‘Permit me to introduce you.’

  ‘Later,’ said Lydia curtly. ‘Let’s keep the formalities to a minimum and begin the discussion as soon as possible.’

  The rudeness was intentional, to feed Moczar’s nervousness, but he hesitated and she felt a momentary uncertainty of her own at having forced the pace too fast. Then the man nodded and said, ‘Of course,’ and she knew she was all right.

  Moczar began to lead the way from the terminal building and said, ‘You’ll want to refresh yourself first at the hotel?’

  Sure of her control now, Lydia said, ‘No. I’d like to begin the conference at once.’

  ‘Of course,’ acquiesced the man again. He was obviously flustered.

  Lydia purposely retreated into the Soviet delegation during the delay over the car allocation, wanting to give the uncertain Moczar the opportunity to return to his own people and convey to them her attitude, which she guessed he would presume to reflect that of the whole Russian party: the apprehension had to be stoked so that the gratitude would be that much greater, overwhelming any doubt. She had climbed a high mountain and now she was confronting the sheer face to the ultimate peak.

  She accepted his invitation at last into the lead car, with their respective but unnecessary interpreters sitting on the jump seats facing them. There was an army as well as police escort and the traffic control was operated in their favour.

  ‘I didn’t imagine that we would meet again so soon after London,’ said Moczar, trying again.

  ‘I thought it possible,’ said Lydia: every remark the man made seemed to make it easy for her. There was a grease of perspiration upon Moczar’s upper lip.

  ‘I thought the resolve in London was very satisfactory,’ he said.

  Lydia turned to face the man. ‘It’s because of London’, she said, ‘that I have come here from Moscow today.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked Moczar.

  ‘I think it best that we wait until the conference proper, don’t you?’ said Lydia. There would be another hiatus before the meeting began, giving Moczar further contact with the rest of the Polish bankers.

  She turned pointedly away, staring out at the approach to Warsaw. Few other capitals in Europe could have suffered worse destruction in the Second World War and Lydia didn’t think she liked the redevelopment. The planners had taken all the opportunities to provide open parklands; the multi-lane highways were assembled on an easily understandable grid; and the public buildings appeared properly spacious. Lydia decided that it was precisely because everything in the new part of the city was so planned that the attempt had failed. To her Warsaw seemed too practical, too clinical – like a cage or a pen – not a place in which people could be expected to live and make homes. They crossed the Vistula from Praga into Warsaw on the Dganski bridge, than turned parallel to the river. They went briefly along Krakowskie Przedmiescie with its surviving palaces and churches and Lydia thought briefly how much she preferred the ancient to the modern and then, as if in contrast, they connected with Nowy Swiat and she was back among the regimented boxes.

  They stopped at one of the
largest and Lydia recognized at once the headquarters of the National Bank of Poland. A message had obviously been relayed from the airport or from one of the escort cars, but the preparations were still being made in the conference room when they enterred, clerks and secretaries hurriedly arranging seat settings and identification plaques, with engineers trying to make the wires to the translation headsets and microphones as inconspicuous as possible.

  It was a formalized assembly, two long tables arranged facing each other, with smaller, linking benches at either end for minor members of each party. Behind each of the main tables individual desks were positioned, for immediate advisers and secretaries.

  Moczar was directly opposite Lydia. To his right sat Zofia Opalko, chairman of the National Bank, the central financial authority for the country. Next to him was Stanislaw Madej, chairman of the Rolny Bank, responsible for financing all agricultural development. His neighbour was Jerzy Siwicki, representing the Powszechna Kasa Oszczednosci, the general savings bank whose authority included the activities of the workers’ co-operative banks. To Moczar’s left sat representatives from the three banks with authority for foreign exchange dealings: the Bank for National Economy, the Polish Welfare Bank and the Commercial Bank of Warsaw.

  Moscow’s instructions had been dutifully obeyed, Lydia realized: everyone whom she had wanted to attend was here.

  There was a moment of immediate embarrassment, the Polish side uncertain whether they were conducting the meeting or attending it. Lydia remained silent and finally Moczar said, ‘I would like to repeat what I said privately to Comrade Kirov at the airport, that we welcome the Soviet delegation here today.’

  ‘And for our part,’ responded Lydia, ‘I would like to say how useful I think it will be for me to talk to you all, at one conference session.’ She paused, and then added, ‘I would like to say, also, that I bring fraternal greetings from my country.’

  The smiles from across the table were as perfunctory as the empty message. Lydia wondered how much traditional open hostility she would encounter, from Pole to Russian. Not that their attitude mattered.

  Moczar continued. ‘A difficulty in making any preparation for this meeting was our uncertainty as to its purpose …’ Now he paused, emboldened in his approach by having others around him. ‘… a most unusual and difficult procedure,’ he finished.

  Lydia made much of spreading papers and graphs on the table in front of her, wanting to choose her moment. When she finally looked up it was directly at Moczar. ‘I was a member of a delegation from socialist countries which had to negotiate standby credit and re-loan financing in London to the extent of $52,000,000, against failed interest payments and a total foreign debt figure of practically $29,000,000,000.’

  Her abrupt halt surprised the Polish delegation. Opalko, chairman of the National Bank, broke the silence. ‘We are all of us completely aware of the terms. And the reason for them,’ he said. He had a thick, phlegmy voice.

  ‘No discussion was gone into during that London meeting of the scheduled repayments of credits allowed by the USSR to Poland between 1976 and 1980, under the Council for Mutual Economic Aid.’

  ‘Because any such discussion would have been completely irrelevant and because agreement has already been concluded between our two countries for a deferment of those payments until 1985,’ said Moczar.

  ‘Which is a little over a year away and which represents a further indebtedness of $120,000,000,000,’ said Lydia. Her query had clearly worried the Poles.

  ‘A further repetition of history,’ said Opalko forcefully.

  He was a stronger man than Moczar, Lydia recognized. Opalko wouldn’t have accepted the charade at the airport or in the car on the way into the capital.

  ‘It was said about the bourgeois kings of France they they had forgotten nothing of their history yet learned nothing from it either,’ said Lydia, using a favourite quotation. She allowed a few moments to elapse, then said heavily, ‘They lost the throne.’

  ‘The rescheduling and additional loan facilities have given us a breathing space,’ said Moczar.

  ‘In a race from which you’re already panting and can’t possibly win,’ insisted Lydia, picking up the cliché. ‘It hasn’t stopped with rescheduling and borrowing more money to pay interest on money borrowed earlier. The US government has had to pay almost $100,000,000 on guaranteed agricultural and farm imports; France, too. You’re running a trade deficit of $3,100,000,000 with collapsing world demand, collapsing exports and a hostile workforce.’

  ‘The Solidarity movement was the problem,’ insisted Madej, the spokesman for the farmers’ bank. ‘That’s over now.’

  ‘It was not the problem,’ rejected Lydia at once. ‘The problem is that previous governments used unassigned foreign loans to boost a consumer society to achieve popularity, like some spoiled child squandering an inheritance. Poland attempted to industrialize without spending sufficient on the necessary infrastructure; there was inefficient planning and agriculture was neglected.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ demanded Opalko.

  ‘That your country is absolutely bankrupt, without any hope or possibility of meeting its commitments,’ declared Lydia. They were sufficiently bruised from the sledgehammer: soon it would be time to start tending the wounds.

  ‘That is an extreme view,’ protested Moczar.

  ‘It is the proper, objective view, unclouded by polite gatherings where bankers and financiers from both the East and the West refuse to admit the mistakes they have made and agree instead to postponements and deferments and reschedules, all of which mean nothing more or nothing less than putting off the inevitable day of reckoning.’

  ‘Which you have come here today to announce?’ anticipated Opalko.

  Lydia recognized the perfect opening. ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I suppose I have.’ For the first time since the meeting began she went to her graphs and figures, more for effect than necessity. ‘Because of the lack of demand, your coalmines and coke-producing facilities are showing, against 1979, an underproduction of something like twelve per cent. Steel, both crude and rolled, shows the figure of fifteen per cent and rising, over the same period …’ She glanced up, looking at Madej, the man who was supposed to be familiar with the problems of the farmers. ‘… and your agricultural production is in chaos,’ she said.

  ‘Aren’t you repeating yourself?’ said Opalko.

  ‘Emphasizing points,’ qualified Lydia. ‘Without exception every export facility this country possesses is under-utilized and under-productive. The purpose of my coming here today, with a delegation capable of subsequent discussion with your relevant ministries, is to offer your government a programme to expand every one of those capacities not simply to the 1979 level but beyond it.’

  Lydia sat back, knowing they would need time to assimilate what she had said. For several moments there was hardly any movement from the men facing her. Then there were curious sideways glances and finally snatched, head-together conversations, the background advisers huddled forward in consultation.

  ‘Increased trade between us?’ queried Moczar, determined to avoid any misunderstanding.

  ‘Predominantly in exports, from this country into the Soviet Union,’ said Lydia. Producing the carrot she wanted them all blindly to pursue, shewenton, ‘Paid for in foreign currency, which will enable you first to service and then, when the volume of trade is sufficient, to reduce your presently impossible debts. And to make that possible, I am empowered today to make it clear that providing strict guarantees are agreed upon between us, there will be a further extension, beyond 1985, of the credits owed to my country.’

  ‘Extended for how long?’ demanded Moczar. He was flushed redder than usual and Lydia decided it was excitement.

  ‘Until 1990,’ she said. ‘And even here a scale will be agreed, rather than insistence upon a single payment.’

  ‘Why?’ demanded Opalko, predictably the most suspicious of the group.

  The beginning was going
to be easy, thought Lydia. ‘For several years we have been studying and monitoring the financial structure of the West,’ she said. ‘It is a study in which I have been exclusively involved. The conclusion is almost inescapable: capitalism, however hard the effort may be to disguise the fact, is collapsing. It is collapsing through greed and over-commitment.’ Again she consulted her figures. ‘In Latin America alone, the current Western bank involvement is more than $250,000,000,000.’

  ‘How does this affect us in the Eastern bloc?’ persisted Opalko.

  ‘That is precisely why we are making this offer to you,’ said Lydia. ‘To avoid it affecting the Eastern bloc. At the moment you are hopelessly, desperately in debt, with no possible way of extricating yourselves. The financial future of Poland will be a series of crises, each one lurching on to the other, always with more borrowing to pay for money already borrowed. Our proposal is to offer you a chance of getting out of that indebtedness, restore your factories and farms and mines to proper capacity and gradually create the structure demanded by your work-force, a high-wage, consumer-orientated society.’

  ‘That sounds too simple,’ said Siwicki, the man into whose banks the workers made their deposits.

  Lydia was aware of this and it worried her: it had even sounded, at the end, like an argument contrary to communist doctrine. ‘We’re not making you any gifts,’ she insisted. ‘We’re not even offering you an easy way out: rather, it’s the only one which is practical. From the London meeting, I know that at the moment the majority of your debts are funded at half a per cent above the London Inter-bank Offered Rate. We would require one and a half per cent over LIBOR on all the purchase credits allowed you.’

  ‘That’s usury … ludicrous,’ protested Moczar. ‘You’re suggesting we borrow at a high rate to expunge a debt obtained at a lower one!’

  ‘That’s ludicrous,’ said Lydia. ‘Sixty-five per cent of your debts are short-term, which is what makes the interest payments and the maturity impossible for you to meet. Under the proposals which the people with me will detail to your government, the minimum loan period will be ten years.’