The Kremlin Letter

by Behn, Noel;

  Fingerprints were obtained from the second body. They corresponded to those in Kosnov’s file on Charles Rone. So did the dental chart. The dental work was either British or American.

  Kosnov decided that they should spend the rest of the night in Vorkuta and leave for Moscow early the next morning. He slept fitfully. Most of the time he lay in bed smoking and thinking about Erika. A final resolution was needed. He had two choices. Marry her or do away with her. In either case their relationship would be finalized. Marriage would be complicated. The legal problems alone were almost insurmountable, not to mention the political and social reactions. He would have to make up his mind. He could not continue as he had.

  Kosnov was able to relax on the plane to Moscow. As they passed over Kotlos he managed to fall asleep. After several hours he awoke.

  “Do you think those are our men?” he asked Grodin.

  “It seems so.”

  “You feel they might not be, eh?”

  “No, I think they are the men we were looking for. It’s just why they would come in through Kara that puzzles me.”

  “Forget that. What I want to know is, do you think we can prove they are the agents? Could we prove that those two burned bodies are the men we were looking for?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Then we have no worries. Our department is secure from—shall we say—official Kremlin observers who are interested in the Polakov case. We should congratulate each other. We are no longer in the middle. We have done our job efficiently. When we get back you can call off the search for foreign agents. Send official commendations to the area chiefs and single out Potkin for some special award or other.”

  “Will we now concentrate on Polakov’s contact?” asked Grodin casually.

  Kosnov laughed. “Tell your father-in-law not to worry. We won’t go into that for a while. When we do, I won’t start with him. No, Grodin, our immediate worries are over. I haven’t felt this good since I was twenty.”

  25

  The Fourth Grave

  “So you think this brings Kosnov further into the picture, do you?” asked Ward as they reviewed Janis’ report on their walk.

  “It’s possible. We know that Polakov and Kosnov met in Paris just after the letter was delivered. Now there is the chance that they had known each other since 1956. When the narcotics business Polakov and Chang were running in Russia was broken by Kosnov, only the Chinese was caught. Uncle Morris said that Polakov got away because the French helped him out. Maybe they did, and maybe they didn’t. Maybe Kosnov let him off. Maybe they were cooking something up even then.”

  “Mighty interesting thought, Nephew,” Ward said pensively. “It would explain how Kosnov found those two agents sent from England so easily—they were supposed to see him in the first place.”

  “And it could also explain why Polakov was afraid to make the last trip into Moscow. It’s not too easy to avoid your contact when he has the entire counterespionage department at his disposal.”

  “Well, we just better put him on the probable list until we find out a little more.”

  Ward led Rone along a line of vending stands beside the exhibition hall. He checked his watch and purchased two sodas.

  “Sip slowly,” he said, handing a bottle to Rone.

  “Why?”

  “Because we got a visitor. I decided to take some of your advice.”

  The doors of the building opened and a mass of men and women, each wearing a white identification card, swarmed out onto the street.

  Rone spotted Professor Buley pushing his way toward them with an ice-cream bar in his hand. His lapel card read:

  INTERNATIONAL NON-VIOLENCE CONVENTION

  J. W. Booth

  Observer—Canada

  The Puppet Maker stopped a foot or two beyond Rone and Ward, turned his back to them and began eating his ice cream.

  “The Whore’s in business again,” Ward said softly. “He needs clients from the embassies. He needs them fast. Get Uncle Morris off her fat tweed ass in Prague. Nephew’s got a brain-buster too.”

  Rone felt Buley back into him as he began talking. “Get a movement check on the top four or five hundred Moscow politicos. Match it against Polakov’s travel record. See if anything corresponds.”

  Buley, still licking his ice cream, moved back toward the convention hall.

  “Button our top button,” he whispered to Rone as he passed. “Russians seldom leave their top shirt button undone.”

  Ward and Rone finished their drinks and headed up the street.

  “Well, Nephew, feel better now?”

  “I think it was a good idea,” Rone answered.

  “You got lots of good ideas. I’m even going to use another one of ’em. Janis is moving in with Madame Sophie and the Warlock’s bunking down with that instructor friend who picked him up. You and me will stay on at Potkin’s for the time being.”

  “What about B.A.?”

  “She goes in with the pickpocket.”

  Rone tried to hide his grimace.

  “Leave that morality of yours back in New England, Nephew, it gets in the way out here. The girl goes where we need her the most. Now run on home. I got to get a Good Humor route started.”

  “Good Humor?”

  “I’m pushing dope for Janis.”

  B.A. would not talk or look at him. Rone could think of nothing to say. They walked more than two miles through the cold, cloudy night before reaching the cemetery and slipping through a break in the wooden fence. The gray cement-block office building was unattended. Rone jimmied the window and boosted B.A. through. Time passed slowly.

  “Four plots are listed under the name of Polakov,” she told him when she came out. “There were no first names or dates, but the ink looked fresh. The cards were probably written in the last few months.”

  They made their way cautiously along the funereal arbored paths until finding the sites. There were only three graves. The mounds were fresh. A simple wooden marker on each read: Polakov. Rone examined the fourth plot alongside the last grave. It looked as if digging had been started and then the dirt replaced and tramped firm.

  He was still kneeling and absently rubbing the soil between his fingers when B.A. gently put her hands on his back.

  “I don’t care what they make me do or who I have to live with, I only love you.”

  Rone turned to her in time to see the solitary tear slide down her cheek. He pulled her to him.

  The Warlock had moved into the instructor’s apartment as an out-of-town colleague. All he could report was that the instructor’s wife was a good cook and his children were rather precocious. Everything else was slow. The homosexual society of Moscow was cautious.

  Ward’s area was the most difficult. The addict does not like the pusher; he or she simply needs him. Confidences are not exchanged. Yet the addict has one overriding weakness—when his need grows great enough he will do almost anything to satisfy the appetite. Ward would have to wait and watch.

  The Warlock accompanied the instructor to a dinner party at the apartment of a secretary to one of the cultural ministries. The Warlock was not allowed to know just what ministry, since discretion, at least job discretion, was uppermost in the minds of this particular group of Russian men. It was here that Polakov was mentioned.

  “They say that Kosnov has married,” Dmitri said confidentially. He turned to his host. “They say that his wife was once married to the traitor Polakov.”

  “Ilyushka Polakov?” asked the host. He was a thin young man in his mid-thirties. A pair of rimless glasses perched on his fragile nose.

  “Yes, did you know him?”

  “Why—why yes. I’d met him. I mean I really didn’t know him, but I’d seen him.”

  “Don’t hide anything naughty from us, Rudolf. As I recall, you were questioned when he was caught.”

  “That is very unfair of you, Dmitri. Very, very unfair,” said Rudolf nervously. “You know quite well everyone in my department was questioned�
��not just me. This Polakov creature had come to certain lectures at the University—that’s where I met him. Everyone was questioned about him. It was a—a most hideous experience.” The host rubbed his forehead tensely.

  “You shouldn’t tease Rudolf so,” said the instructor. “We all know what he went through at the time. We can’t be held accountable for everyone we might casually come in contact with.”

  The others agreed. They felt ashamed. They apologized to Rudolf.

  “Anyway,” Rudolf pointed out, “I doubt if it could be the same man. I mean the traitor, Ilya Polakov. The man they questioned me about wasn’t supposed to be married.”

  There was something about the way Rudolf pronounced the name “Ilya” that caught the Warlock’s attention. The party continued with a literary discussion on current Soviet writers.

  “I tell you that Osip Mandelstam is our greatest contemporary poet,” one of the guests asserted dogmatically.

  “Then why don’t we see any of his new work? I admit he was brilliant in the thirties. What has he done since?”

  “Only written some of the greatest poetry ever to come from a Russian.”

  “You’ve read them?” asked the instructor in awe.

  “Certainly I’ve read them. And it’s silly to ask why they don’t publish him. Who knows why the officials do or don’t publish anything? But Mandelstam will not go unheard. Like Isaac Babel, he’ll be printed on the black market if nowhere else.”

  As the discussion turned to the recent publication of Franz Kafka’s Penal Colony, the Warlock noticed that Rudolf was paying no attention. He seemed preoccupied. A look of despair covered his face. He moistened his lips and fidgeted with his glasses. Finally he excused himself.

  The Warlock found his host sitting in the kitchen with tears streaming down his face.

  “Is there anything I can do?” he asked.

  “Only answer me this question. Why are the truly good people of this world maligned and eventually destroyed? Why? Why? Why?”

  The next evening B.A. and Rone rigged a time-lapse camera and hid it in a tree opposite Kosnov’s house. They recovered it the following day and hastily developed the film. Nothing was on it. The following night two cameras were planted, without results. The next night a third was added. Four photographs came out. The first was the back of a woman’s head standing at the upstairs window. Her hair was blond and her back was bare. A second photograph showed a profile of the woman. Her mouth was curled back as if in anger and there seemed to be tears or water on her cheek. The third photograph was of a man’s back. The final picture was of the girl again, her head thrown back in laughter. Rone recognized her. It was the woman Sweet Alice had identified as Erika Boeck Polakov.

  That night B.A. and Mikhail made their way into a radio shop, ostensibly to fill an order B.A. had received at the free market. They took three radios and a television set. While Mikhail was not looking B.A. clipped some transistors and other small equipment into her pocket.

  Four nights later it rained. B.A. made her way onto Kosnov’s roof from an adjoining building. She lowered a rope and slid down it headfirst until she was beside the bedroom window. The room was empty. She lowered the upper frame just enough to get her hands through. She reached in cautiously and lifted one end of the curtain rod from its bracket and slid the curtain rings to the other end. Then she took a duplicate rod from inside her jacket and deftly slid it through the bunched rings. She lifted the old rod out of the wall brackets and put in the new one. Then she adjusted it so that the imperceptible microphone holes were pointing into the room. She silently raised the window shut and pulled herself back up the rope.

  Janis reported that business was good and little else. The new trade had given the girls confidence in Madame Sophie, and requests for employment were starting to trickle in. Janis approved only the prettiest and the most addicted prostitutes.

  Ward was making little headway with the addicts. A young couple, both engineers at the same plant, were becoming his most dependent customers. They had offered any services either could perform in order to keep the heroin coming. Ward was toying with the idea of letting them be subpushers so he could have more free time.

  Rone now spent almost all of his time at the apartment. When he wasn’t listening to a report he was at the radio set waiting for contact with Kosnov’s house. The colonel and his bride didn’t seem to be at home for the first two days—either that or they were using the back bedroom of the house. When no word was heard on the set after five days, Rone talked to B.A. about putting another curtain rod or two in the house. While B.A. was out gathering more material voices finally came through on the receiving set.

  “But you said we could stay for two weeks. What happened? Four days and we’re back,” said the woman’s voice.

  “It couldn’t be helped, my darling,” said a man.

  “Couldn’t be helped. Couldn’t be helped. That’s all I hear from you. Aren’t you in charge of your department? Aren’t you the one who gives the orders?”

  “Something has come up.”

  “Something always comes up. What is it this time?”

  “You know I can’t discuss it with you.”

  “Then why did you marry me? You could sleep with me without marriage whether I liked it or not. Why did you marry me if you won’t tell me anything?” screamed the woman.

  “You of all people should know there are certain things that can’t be discussed, even with a wife.”

  “Why should I know that?”

  “I’m sure Polakov didn’t discuss his work with you.”

  “Are you?”

  “That’s what you told me.”

  “Well, I lied.”

  “Then or now?”

  “Then.” The woman laughed. “There’s that stupid look on your face again. You’re not sure now, are you? Well, he did tell me things, because he trusted me.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “Oh, things. If you take me dancing maybe I’ll tell you.”

  “Erika, what did he tell you?”

  “I’d like to go dancing and then I think I’d like to smoke some of those cigarettes.”

  “Erika!”

  “Come make love to me upside down. Look. This all belongs to you officially now. How does it look upside down? This is what I was known for in the Berlin houses.”

  Rone heard the door slam. The woman shrieked with laughter. Then she began to sob.

  26

  The Dinner Party

  “But I don’t want to go to dinner with people I’ve never met before,” protested Erika as the car drove along Novinski Boulevard.

  “I would rather not be going myself,” Kosnov admitted.

  “Then why can’t we go dancing instead, like you promised last week?”

  “If we finish early I’ll take you.”

  “Russians never finish eating early. They stuff their fat faces for hours and hours. You all eat like pigs anyway.”

  “I want no talk like that tonight,” Kosnov said menacingly. He grabbed Erika’s arm and squeezed it tightly. “And I want you to remember the story. I want you to repeat it, just as I told you.”

  “I will, I will. Now let go. You’re hurting me.”

  “If they like you tonight then you’ll be accepted by the others. That means we can get out more often. Go more places. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’ll believe it when I see it,” Erika said with irritation. “Who is this Bretavitch that we have to come running when he calls?”

  “Bresnavitch. Aleksei I. Bresnavitch. Say it.”

  “I’ll remember.”

  “Say it,” demanded Kosnov.

  “Aleksei I. Bresnavitch. Satisfied?”

  “Just remember it and do not drink too much.”

  “If I embarrass you why did you marry me?”

  “Because I love you.”

  “I’ll make you sorry for that.”

  “It had better not be tonight,” Kosnov told h
er coldly. Erika believed him.

  “Well, who is this Bresnavitch, anyway?”

  “He is a very powerful man in Moscow.”

  “Is he your boss?”

  “In a way.”

  “Then I’ll sleep with him so you can get a promotion.”

  Kosnov, slapped her across the face before he realized it. Erika took the blow cheerfully. She smiled at her husband and began rearranging her hair.

  Seven people sat around the dinner table: Bresnavitch himself; his daughter and her husband, Grodin; Kosnov and Erika; and Gregori Kazar, a high-ranking Kremlin adviser, and his wife.

  Bresnavitch proposed a toast to the newlyweds. Erika sat to his right, Kosnov to his left.

  “You are as beautiful as they say,” Bresnavitch said.

  “Thank you.”

  “We understand you were one of Colonel Kosnov’s agents in Germany,” Kazar’s wife said inquisitively.

  “Yes.”

  “That must be very dangerous work for a woman,” she commented.

  “There is no danger when you believe in a cause.”

  “Well spoken,” Bresnavitch interjected. “And how do you find Moscow?”

  “It is a beautiful city,” Erika answered.

  “I would not have the courage to be a spy,” said Kazar’s wife. “I would not have the duplicity required. It is rumored that you married an enemy agent and lured him into Russia to be captured.”

  Erika felt a sharp chill race through her body. “I married the man Polakov on orders from Colonel Kosnov. My mission was to stay with him and learn of his activities. I led him nowhere. He came to Moscow on his own. I accompanied him as any wife would.”

  Kosnov watched Bresnavitch. The remark did not seem to effect him.

  “Why did he come here?” asked the woman.

  “I am afraid that is classified information,” Erika said.

  “Oh,” said the woman, at a loss. “I do so much like to hear about spies. Can’t you make her tell us?” She appealed to Bresnavitch.