by John Gardner
“Minister I — - I.” tripping over his own tongue. “I was only aware of one missing… er..
“Two.” The Minister sounded as though he were a teacher catching out some pupil in a lie.
“But, I.
Mishkin held up a hand to silence the general, then looked down at his papers. “Our people have searched through the rubble. Bodies have been identified - which was not a difficult task for they were all trapped in an enclosed area. Apart from the military guards, of course.”
“Of course, Minister. But.
“Everyone is accounted for except one technician.
Boris..
“Grishenko, Minister. I have his name here.
Mishkin glanced up, giving Ourumov a withering look.
“Boris Grishenko, and one other. A woman, it appears.
A very talented Level Two computer scientist Natalya Fyodorovna Simonova.
“Simonova?” Mishkin nodded. “As I say, a very talented young woman. Conversant in French, Italian, German and English….
“Would have made a good opera singer…” Ourumov sounded angry now.
“Also fluent in four different computer languages.
“Simonova?” Ourumov repeated.
“That is what the body count shows.” Ourumov took in a deep breath. “This is news to me, Minister, but I’ll investigate the matter personally and immediately.”
“Good.” Mishkin’s silky voice became a shade more threatening. “It would, I think, be presumptuous, General, to blame this incident on Siberian Separatists before the whereabouts of your own people are determined. Do you not agree?”
“Of course, Minister. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.” Half-an-hour later, Ourumov sat in his office in the Winter Palace, once the show place of St. Petersburg. He spoke urgently on the telephone. Already he had alerted security forces, the police who controlled the area around Severnaya, plus the agency heads in all major cities. He had even managed to get a photograph of Natalya from the data base which he kept for his personal use. Now, he spoke to someone else, his voice dropping to a purring whisper.
“Her name is Natalya Simonova the one. You know her?” The voice at the other end of the line acknowledged that he knew the girl.
“If we run her to earth, I want you to keep her under control.
Kill her if necessary. You can do that for me?”
“Do it? It would be a pleasure, General.”
“Keep in touch. Remember this is very important to all of us.”
“I’m starting the hunt this very moment, General. It’s the kind of task I enjoy.” Yes. Yes,
that’s Wade’s Ten Cent Tour James Bond had visited St. Petersburg only once before, but that was in the middle of the Cold War when it was still Leningrad, and his memories of the city remained very clear. He recalled its beauty, the sense of history, for this place was founded by Peter the Great, had become Russia’s centerpiece, its “window on Europe’. It was also the cradle of the October Revolution, something a lot of people would now prefer to forget.
On his last visit he had come as an enemy; he knew the score and was aware that anyone could betray him. This time, on arriving at St. Petersburg’s international airport, he could almost smell the decay and the lack of direction which had come with the downfall of communism.
Like many others, he felt that had the changes come from within the Communist Party, Russia would not have been in the freefall, crime and drug infested bankruptcy which stemmed from the sudden collapse of a ruling government.
Instead of surveillance teams, Bond now kept a wary eye out for criminals.
The queue for taxis was made up mainly of well-dressed businessmen - the Western captains of industry trying to cash in on the needs of this emerging new Russia, and make themselves an honest penny on the way.
He spotted his contact just to the right, away from the queue: big, burly and reading a Russian gardening magazine.
As he walked up to the man, Bond smiled and spoke the contact phrase. “In London, April is a spring month.” The American accent was almost too obvious. “What are you? The weatherman?” Bond scowled, and the American continued. “Codes, cloak and dagger. That’s all gone, pal. C’mon, the car’s over there.” He led the way to a piece of scrap metal that had once been a Moskovich, but it was Bond who leaped to open the door with an “Allow me.
The American began to slide into the driver’s seat, a broad grin on his face until Bond trapped him between seat and door, his pistol carried onto the aircraft in the special briefcase which shielded it from the magic eyes and metal detectors - jammed into the man’s side.
“Now, talk to me.” His face had taken on the granite look of anger.
There was a long silence, then, “OK. In London, April is a spring month, while in St. Petersburg we’re freezing our asses off. That near enough?” Bond shook his head. “No. Show me a rose.
“Aw, Jesus H. Christ” He undid his belt and, while Bond shielded him from onlookers, the bulky American showed him a small tattoo of a rose on his right hip. Under the rose there was one word - Muffy.
“Muffy?” Bond asked, then went to the passenger door and slid in beside the American.
“Yeah, Muffy. Third wife.” The American stuck out his hand.
“Jack Wade. CIA.”
“Bond. James Bond, and you know where I’m from.”
“If I didn’t know, I would now. You guys never change.
Cold War’s over, yet you still go around with your codes, your cloaks, your daggers.”
“The idea is to remain as safe as possible. I thought the CIA still understood the meaning of tradecraft, and the fact that we’re all still in business.” Wade started the engine, which coughed and spluttered, then fired properly. It sounded like an old two-stroke lawnmower. “We do,’ he laughed. “I knew who you were.
Thought I’d have some fun.”
“Well, I wouldn’t advise it. Keep to the rules and regulations or you might just find yourself sharing a cell with your nice Mr. Ames, or worse. I understand the KGB have merely changed their name. With the instability around here, we could all find ourselves back in the business as usual game.
“Ah, the Great Game as you Brits call it.” He slowly eased the car out into the traffic.
“I haven’t heard anyone call it the Great Game recently - except melodramatic authors and journalists.” Wade lifted his eyebrows. “OK, Jim “James,’ Bond snapped. “Never Jim, and certainly not Jimbo.”
“OK, sorry. I thought I’d just drive you around so that we can talk. Show you the sights as it were.
“The car’s clean?”
“Except for the exterior and a few Snicker wrappers.
He threw the magazine he had been reading into the back seats.
“You do any gardening?”
“Not if I can help it. Now, you’re the local expert so let me hear your words of wisdom.
“Wisdom isn’t really in fashion over here at the moment.
They told me you wanted information, I’ve been ordered to give it to you. So “So what do you know about Janus?”
“Hey, look at those buildings, isn’t this the most wonderful city you’ve ever seen? Look, the Winter Palace, and there’s the Alexander column. You got one like that in London, yes? Some sailor.”
“Admiral Lord Nelson, yes. Mr. Wade, don’t play the goofy Yank with me. Now, Janus.
“You could write what I know about Janus on a pin head, James. In a word, zilch, zipsky.”
“That’s two words, let’s have some more.
“Seriously, there are very few on the subject of Janus.
Nobody claims to have seen him. That’s because they’d be admitting they knew him, but there’s no doubt that he’s connected. He has lines into government, the military, even the Russian Intelligence Service - a rose by any other name: KGB. Also, the rumour is that he lives on an armoured train.”
“An armoured train? Like the ones so popular with the leaders of
the Revolution?”
“I wouldn’t know about the Revolution, but that’s the story.”
“Where the devil would he get an armoured train?’ “Easy. You can get almost anything if you can afford it.
As you’re taking Jack Wade’s ten cent tour of Petersburg, let me show you a couple of things, before you check in to your luxury five star hotel.” Wade drove them down the Nevsky Prospekt, across one of the many bridges and onto the aptly named Accross the Neva Avenue.
From there he headed out into suburban St. Petersburg, making occasional comments -“See that decaying pile of buildings?” Flapping a hand in the direction of a series of large block-like structures.
“That was one of the largest military barracks in this city. It just got left when the Sovs were still in power, and it’s gone to pieces since the communists were outlawed, because there isn’t enough money.
When the boys came back from Afghanistan there were just not enough barracks or housing for them - veterans home from the war. That place could have kept a regiment. They just let it fall apart.” Later, he told Bond that the Hermitage - the world famous museum of art: part of the Winter Palace - had grave problems, not the least of which was serious rising damp.
“They’ve also got the Germans and the French demanding their paintings back,’ Bond nodded. “And most of the stuff didn’t belong to Germany anyway. All plundered from Nazi-occupied Europe and then plundered by the Red Army when they moved into Berlin.” Finally, almost out into the country, Wade stopped his ancient car and led Bond over to the top of a high embankment from where they could look down on a huge railway siding.
The buildings, loading bays and platforms were in a state of decay, but the actual railway lines seemed clean and clear of debris.
“A military depot, Wade explained. “This was the Petersburg area marshalling yard: the place where they loaded those intercontinental ballistic missiles that used to have us worried - the ones they ran around the country on trains so they were rarely in the same place twice. They also took them out to silos from here as well.”
“This where Janus gets his armoured train?” Bond’s voice took on a serious tone.
“There’s a lot of old rolling stock around, yes. Most of the moving missile trains were heavily armoured. They also had armoured carriages for important military and political figures, they could travel in the proverbial lap of luxury.
During the return journey, back to the centre of the city, Wade gave him a huge grin. “Show you something else, Jimb. I mean James.
Little place they call Statue Park.” Like the railway depot, it was on the outskirts of the city: a park in name only. Yes, there were trees, and at one time the place had probably been a small park, for there were also a couple of benches, but no formal paths.
At first, Bond thought it could be an exhibition of modern sculpture, but as they left the car, he saw that the sculpture was not modern, nor was it in its finished state.
Strewn between the trees, scattered around the more open spaces he saw statue upon statue, symbol upon symbol, ruined, broken, ripped from plinths, dragged from original sites, carted here and dumped like trash thrown into a land fill. The statues were of people like Marx, Lenin there were a lot of Lenins - and great metal or stone hammer and sickle emblems. They came in different sizes, from very large to medium. He thought that any active communist could pick up anything from a small to extra large Lenin.
On one of the medium Lenin statues - done in bronze - someone had spray painted an instruction in Russian.
Even if Vladimir Ilyich Lenin had been alive, it would have been anatomically impossible for him to obey that particular order.
“You see, James,’ Wade grinned, “when Yeltsin outlawed the communist party, people could not go out and shoot or beat up the old communist leaders. So they were forced to do the next best thing.
“They toppled all the icons of the communist regime.
Lenin, Marx, even the odd Stalin who should have been moved long ago anyway. Statues in stone and metal. The people went out and threw them down - pushed, pulled, used bulldozers or tow trucks. It was a real mess. Then the city began to clear things up. They dumped all the statues in this crummy little park close to the municipal land fill. The trees here were to shield visitors from the fetid horror of the City Dump Number Four. Now they’re not bothered by people seeing this stuff.”
“It certainly wouldn’t bother me.” Wade grinned again.
“You know what’s funny, James?
Real funny. There are people in this very city who think the current administration stinks. People who will not walk past this place, because there are some old statues of Stalin buried here, even though he was condemned after his death. I’ve heard people say about Boris Yeltsin’s regime, that things were better under Stalin.” Bond shrugged. “I’ve heard people in England say they were happier in World War II than they are now under incompetent government. - They say, “In the war, we at least knew where we stood.” I know what they mean.
“Strange life, James. Strange old life.” Wade flapped his hand at a swarm of flies that were gathering.
Back in the car, driving to the hotel, Bond dragged him back to the subject of Janus.
“You want to hear what else I know about Janus?”
“Zilch,’ you said.
“Sure, well the truth is that you don’t find this guy. He finds you. The only thing I can do is point you in the general direction of his main competition. Nowadays they got one of those keep-your-friends~close~and~your enemies-closer kind of things going.
Jeez, it really is like the old style Mafia here. I sometimes think they’ve all seen Brando doing his Godfather bit.”
“OK, who’s Janus’ main competition?”
“A real old KGB guy. Got a bad limp. Right leg. Name of Zukovsky.”
“Valentin Dimitreveych Zukovsky?”
“You know the guy?’ “I gave him the limp.
Natalya risked the first hard currency store she could find.
At least, she thought, I’ll know if they have the dogs really close on my heels or if it’s only the militia, the police, and the intelligence people.
She had used the public bathrooms at the Moskovsky Vokzal Railway Station as soon as she arrived and the soap she had been given was not quite as bad as she expected, but that was probably because she had tipped the bath lady one precious green dollar.
With her body clean and hair washed, she had eaten at the little cafeteria near the station exit. The coffee was like dishwater, but at least it was hot, and the sandwich of black bread and goat’s cheese was tasty. After the meagre meal, she had headed straight out for the hard currency store. She needed a good thick skirt, changes of stockings and underwear, a couple of pairs of jeans, some warm shirts, toiletries, an airline carry-on bag and a large leather shoulder bag.
Natalya had no idea where she was going to spend the night, but that could wait. She had thought of getting a train to Novgorod, then a local to where her parents still lived on the shore of Lake Ilmen, but she knew that it could put her father and mother at risk. If they were looking for her, the first thing they would have done was to put a team of surveillance people onto the house. Better to stay away than risk the rest of her family.
In the women’s crowded changing room, she put on new clothes. Her fur coat, hat, gloves and the leather boots were acceptable, but she carefully checked her papers, moving them into the shoulder bag, together with things she would need. The remainder of her clothes, including those she had been wearing, went into the carry-on. As she was checking her papers, she remembered the official-looking document she had been given over a year ago when she had gone on special assignment to collect computer hardware. Until now, she had forgotten its existence. This could be useful.
She tied her hair back into a severe bun and looked at the general effect. It would work, she thought, as she was jostled by a couple of other women in front of the one long mirror. This pair was safe e
nough - fat officials’ wives out on a spending spree. They had eyed her too closely to be surveillance people, and she had caught the jealous look one of them had flashed at her when she stood half naked, revealing her slim firm figure.
Out on the streets again, in the Gostiny Dvor arcade the Merchants’ Arcade, St. Petersburg’s main shopping area - she window-shopped until she found a store selling computers. The window-dressing did not bode well. Out of date IBM’s and Apple Macs, with tiny hard drives, obsolete chips and a minimum of RAM took pride of place.
Natalya breathed deeply and walked into the store.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the manager looking her over and not putting her very high on the food chain. He hesitated as she looked at the primitive machines, then, as she moved a pace towards the door, he came up to her and asked “Yes?” in a tone he almost certainly reserved for menials.
She wrinkled her nose, as though indicating that both the manager and the wares on show were giving off the scent of spoiled fish. “Are these all you have?” she asked.
Sarcastically, the manager raised his eyebrows. “How many do you want?’ She dug her hand into the big shoulder bag, consulted the influential-looking document. “Well, twenty-four for the American school, eleven for the Swedish. They must be IBM compatible, with at least 500 megabite hard drives, CD-ROM and 14-4 modems. We have to keep them in line with the ones they already use.
The manager’s attitude switched from disdainful to fawning. “We are talking hard currency here, yes?”
“What other kind is there?”
“If madam requires a demonstration..
“Madam requires one demonstration model, and a quiet place to test it for an hour or so.
“Of course.” He snapped his fingers at a junior salesman and together they led her through to the back of the store where an up-to-date 486 was set up on a spacious desk.
“Just leave me alone. The order will depend on what I find here.
I need peace,’ booting up the machine as she spoke.
Almost before they were out of the room, her fingers started to fly over the keys. She was on-line and typing in TO [email protected] - URGENT YOU CALL NATALYA @ 3422-589836.
