by Stuart Woods
“What are you doing?” Sokolov nearly shouted. “You’re headed toward Stockholm!”
“I know that, Sokolov,” Helder replied through clenched teeth. “I’m not going back into that channel until we’re clear. We can’t afford to be caught in confined waters. Now shut up and relax. Your job is over; it’s up to me to get us back in one piece.”
“You’re crazy!” she said; louder this time. “We’ve deployed the buoy, now let’s get out of here and back to the mother sub!”
Helder tried to concentrate on driving the sub as quietly as possible. “Godammit, Sokolov, shut up! That’s an order! Get back on the sonar and give me some reports!”
There was a moment’s silence, then Sokolov spoke again. “Now they’re coming from behind! They must have gone over us and are coming back!”
Oh, Jesus, Helder thought, they’ve bracketed us.
“We’ve got to turn back toward the mother sub!” Sokolov shouted.
We’ve got to get as far away from that buoy as possible and into open water, Helder thought. “Silence except for reports,” he said, and made a hard turn to starboard.
“What are you …”
Sokolov’s cry was cut by an incredibly loud roar and the sudden, sideways thrust of the minisub. “That was a depth charge,” Helder said. “Strap in and hold on!”
“You fool!” Sokolov screamed, clearly out of control, now. “You’ll get us killed!”
“Shut up!” Helder screamed, and started to say it again, when an arm came from behind his seat and came tight against his throat. Sokolov’s cries were unintelligible, now, and Helder, choking could say nothing. He let go of the controls and grabbed the arm with both hands; the sub dived and struck the bottom at a shallow angle. He let go the arm with one hand and tried to manage the controls, while keeping Sokolov from choking him with the other hand. Sokolov was making infuriated little shrieks, but Helder could still hear the patrol boat’s engines above them. He was having trouble breathing and turned his head to one side. That gave him some breathing space, but now the arm was pressing on the artery in his neck. Christ, the woman was stronger than most men!
He let go the controls again to devote both hands to Sokolov, but the sub dived and bounced another time, and he had to grab at the joystick. Suddenly, Helder felt weaker, and he knew he was going to pass out unless he did something quickly. He freed his right hand and groped along the sub’s side to where the tools rested in brackets, ready to hand. He got hold of something, he wasn’t sure what, and jabbed backwards, toward where he thought her face must be.
Everything seemed to happen at once, then. In his last moment of consciousness, he struck something behind him and the arm’s grip relaxed; then the loudest noise he had ever heard burst upon him, and the sub seemed to go berserk. His last sensation was of something cutting painfully into both shoulders. Then he passed out.
21
RULE found herself on a small landing, four or five steps above a long, narrow room, perhaps twenty-five feet by half that width. Light came from a row of highly placed windows that would be just above ground level on the outside. To her right there was a bin containing a dozen pairs of skis and poles. The place had probably been a storeroom in the past, when the schoolhouse was still a school. It was now, apparently, a ski lodge. There was a row of half a dozen steel army cots along each side of the room, and on one of them a man sat quietly.
She walked slowly toward him and took in his appearance. He was greatly changed. She remembered photographs of a tallish, slender man of about sixty with dark hair coming to a widow’s peak, bushy eyebrows, and an aquiline nose that gave him a hawkish appearance. He looked ten years older. He had gained at least thirty pounds, the hair was now completely gray and had thinned enough to obliterate the widow’s peak, and the eyebrows had been artfully plucked. The nose had been broken, not painfully, she hoped, and had not been cosmetically repaired. It was now flat, broad, and crooked. The mother of Major General Georgi Abramovich Malakhov would pass him on the street and not recognize him.
She sat down on the bunk opposite him. “Good afternoon, General Malakhov,” she said.
“Please do not call me that,” he said. “I am now … someone else, and I am certainly no longer a general.” There was no regret in his voice.
“Of course,” she said. “My name is Kirkland; I have come to ask you some questions about a man you knew in the Soviet Union.”
“Have you a Christian name, Miss Kirkland?” he asked smoothly. “And might I call you by it?”
It was the sort of thing that a man might say to a woman at a cocktail party, and it disconcerted her in the circumstances until she remembered that he had not been around women for some time. She crossed her legs, leaned forward on her hands and smiled. “I would be pleased if you would call me Brooke,” she said, feeling sure that her old college roommate would not mind the appropriation of her name, in the circumstances.
“Good. A good name. Brooke. It has a cool, clear ring to it, like its owner.”
She laughed. “I must try and live up to it.” She was surprised at the accuracy of his American accent. He pronounced his Rs very hard, as many Russians did in English, and the effect was mid western, Illinois or Ohio, perhaps. Still, his phrasing was not completely American. It seemed more European.
“So, Brooke. About whom have you come to ask me questions?”
“Viktor Majorov.”
The eyebrows went up. “Aha! Viktor Sergeivich interests you, does he?”
She shrugged. “In passing. Can you remember the first time you met Majorov?”
Malakhov smiled. “Of course. Like yesterday. It was in 1959, in the office of Yuri Andropov. He was, at that time, secretary to the Central Committee. Andropov, not Majorov. Viktor Sergeivich was …” He paused and looked thoughtful. “I knew his parents. Would you like me to tell you of his background? It is quite interesting.”
Would she? Oh, Christ, yes. “Please do,” she said.
“Well, we must go back to the Revolution. Sergei Ivanovich Majorov was from a prominent, if not aristocratic family of Leningrad merchants. At the time of the storming of the Winter Palace, he was a captain in the household calvary, and he delivered his unit to the revolution, gaining the personal attention of Lenin. A short time later, he became a bodyguard to Lenin. He was an attractive and charming man with a good education, and Lenin seemed to enjoy the contrast between him and some of the peasants surrounding him at the time. Lenin called him his favorite czarist.”
Malakhov found a pack of small cigars in his shirt pocket and lit one while Rule tried to be patient. This was great stuff; she loved hearing it.
“He remained with Lenin until the great man had his first stroke, in the spring of 1922. After that, Lenin had less need of him, and he was approached by Dzerzhinsky, who was head of the Cheka, our first security police, but then you would know all about that, wouldn’t you, being a Kremlinologist?”
“Please go on,” she said, ignoring his curiosity.
“Sergei Ivanovich thrived under Dzerzhinsky, and later, under Beria. In about 1930, he met a young woman, a girl, really, named Natalia. Firsova, who had been born in England to expatriate Russian parents, Bolsheviks who were fugitives from the czar. Stalin had invited Russians with technical skills to repatriate to help build the new motherland, and her father was an engineer. The girl had been trained as a dancer in London, and she very quickly auditioned for and was asked to join the Bolshoi Ballet. Majorov was in his early forties by this time, and she was eighteen or nineteen, I suppose, but it was a good match. They married, and she continued her career, becoming a principal dancer with the Bolshoi, until nineteen thirty-six or ‘thirty-seven, when she became pregnant. Then things turned bad for Sergei Ivanovich.”
“Stalin’s purges?”
Malakhov nodded. “I forget what his offense was, but it hardly matters. Men were being executed daily on almost any pretext. There was an interesting rumor, though, that Stalin himself shot Ser
gei. I’ve often wondered if it were true.”
“So what happened to Natalia and the baby?”
“There was no baby, yet,” Malakhov said. “Sergei Ivanovich had many friends of long standing, and some of them were apparently brave enough to help her. I don’t know quite how it was done, but she managed to get to Leningrad, and someone got her a job teaching the young dancers with the Kirov Ballet there. When the child was born, she gave him her name, Firsov, and called him Roy, after her father. Since it was important that nobody know who he was, he had to contend with being known as a bastard, a difficult thing for a boy in a puritanical, Communist society, I suppose. Still, I think he always knew who his father was.”
“Did that inhibit his progress in the system?” she asked.
“It seems not,” Malakhov replied. “I think his father’s old friends looked after him. He got into Moscow University, where he excelled in languages and in Party activities. He was, in fact, chairman of Komsomol, the Young Communist League, at the university, and that is how he met Andropov. Yuri went to the university to address the Komsomol, and Viktor Sergeivich introduced him. Andropov was impressed with the young man and made some inquiries—Yuri always researched everything and everybody extremely well. While young Majorov was still at the university, Andropov offered him part-time employment.”
“Doing what?”
“Teaching Andropov English,” Malakhov replied. “Yuri Andropov had the widest-ranging mind of any man I ever knew. He was not well-educated like many of his contemporaries, and I think he suffered from something of an inferiority complex in that regard. He wanted to read everything, know about everything, and much of what he wanted to know was written in English and not translated. Majorov, of course, having been brought up speaking English by his mother, spoke the language perfectly and was an ideal tutor for Yuri. When I knew Andropov during this period, he would clear his desk and his calendar three mornings a week for English lessons, and although his accent was never very good, he read the language fluently, without abridgments or translation help. It was one of his great personal strengths, I think, and he was always grateful to Majorov.”
“And it was 1959 when you met Majorov in Andropov’s office.”
Malakhov nodded. “At Central Committee headquarters. I believe Viktor Sergeivich was about to graduate from the university, and he had expressed an interest in the KGB. Andropov asked me to come for lunch and meet the young man, and I was very impressed indeed. His skill with languages would have been reason enough to recruit him—apart from English, he spoke French, German, and Swedish fluently, and he got along in other Scandinavian languages, as well—but he clearly had an acute mind, and he seemed much older than his years, a serious young man. I marked him immediately for the First Chief Directorate, my own assignment. He was perfect for foreign espionage, absolutely perfect.”
“So you recruited him that day?”
Malakhov smiled. “I think he recruited me, he and Yuri. He graduated near the top of his class, and within a week, we had him at the KGB foreign service school.”
“Did you keep track of him during his training?”
“No, I was sent abroad soon after that, but on leave at home, I would always hear rumors around Moscow Central about his progress. He was dazzling, from all I heard. His skill with languages shortened his training time greatly, since much time is usually spent perfecting a candidate’s language skills, and he was posted to Stockholm after only two years. I had no further direct contact with him until 1978, when he was made head of First Chief Directorate. I had a number of long meetings with him, sometimes alone, and he chose me for the UN assignment.”
“Andropov made him head of First, then?”
“Of course. During the time when Yuri was studying English with Viktor Sergeivich, they developed almost a father-son relationship, although Andropov was only fortyish at the time. He was always Majorov’s chief patron after that time, although Viktor Sergeivich took pains to ingratiate himself with others he thought to be on their way up.”
“Who in particular?”
“Gorbachev, principally, who was a few years older than Majorov, but also a protege of Andropov, and during his time at the UN I heard that he got along particularly well with Gromyko, not an easy thing to do.”
“He did well with both generations, then?”
“Yes, indeed. He had the ambition of the younger generation to change things, but the cold hardness of the older. He could identify with both.”
“It would sound as though, under the present leadership, he would have been in line to head the KGB.”
Malakhov gave a massive shrug. “Who knows? I thought he was in line to succeed Andropov as head of the KGB when he moved up to the chairmanship; he certainly had Yuri’s favor, but it didn’t happen. It would have been the most natural thing in the world, given their relationship, but it didn’t happen.”
“Why not, do you think?”
“I have a theory, but I could be wrong.”
Rule was anxious to hear this. “What is your theory?”
“I think he got something better.”
Now her own theory was getting support. Her next question might advance it another stage. “What could be better than head of the KGB?”
“I think Majorov invented something for himself; nothing else could be better for him. He always liked freedom of movement.”
“What could he invent for himself that would be better than head of the KGB.”
“I don’t know, but it would have to be big; grandiose, even. Yes, grandiose, that would suit Viktor Sergeivich. It would have to be something big enough that if it were successful, it would catapult him into the Politburo, perhaps even into the leader’s chair.”
“He thinks as big as that, does he? Pretty risky thinking.”
“Majorov revels in risk, my dear Brooke. He is the sort of man who will either achieve everything, or destroy himself trying. He is not without his faults, if the rumors mean anything.”
Rule tensed a little. “Tell me about the rumors.”
“Well, on trips back to Moscow, I heard more than once that Viktor Sergeivich had … certain proclivities, sexual proclivities.”
“You mean he’s homosexual?”
“Indeed not. To the contrary, he was a consumer of women, often in twos and threes, that was common knowledge.”
“What proclivities, then.”
Malakhov squirmed a bit. “I am an old puritan, I suppose, and these things make me uncomfortable, even to talk about them.”
Rule leaned forward. “Please,” she said.
“Well, the rumor was that things sometimes went too far, that he sometimes killed.”
“Killed his sexual partners?”
Malakhov nodded. “That was the rumor, that it happened … more than once. And I must tell you, than when I heard this rumor, I did not have difficulty believing it.”
“Why not? What in your experience with Majorov made you think he might be capable of sexual murder?”
“Murder is not hard,” Malakhov said, somewhat sadly. “I have murdered. If you are in the KGB for very long, you will soon murder, one way or another. But not every murderer is capable of wielding the knife himself. But some men enjoy that. I saw Majorov enjoy it, once.”
“Tell me about the occasion.”
Malakhov looked at the floor. “Do you know how a military execution is carried out in the Soviet Union?”
“Firing squad, I suppose.”
Malakhov shook his head. “No, for crimes that incur the death penalty, a firing squad is too good, too dignified for this sort of criminal. He is led to believe this is what will happen, though. A firing squad is selected, and the victim is marched out to meet them. Then, while the firing squad appears to be readying itself, a single officer with a pistol quietly approaches the victim from behind and shoots him in the head.”
Rule said nothing.
“I saw Majorov perform such an execution, once,” Malakhov said, st
ill looking at the floor. “The victim was a KGB officer who had been found guilty of attempting to defect to the West. A firing squad was assembled, and as the officer chosen to perform the execution was about to approach the victim from behind, Majorov suddenly appeared and took the pistol from him. He walked slowly, crablike toward the victim, and the expression on his face … he was very excited. He waited for a moment, then another, until the victim began to wonder what was happening, why the firing squad was not proceeding. Majorov held the pistol close to his head and waited … waited until the man thought he sensed something and began to turn toward him. Majorov waited until the instant the man caught sight of him, out of the corner of his eye, and then he fired, catching the man in the temple. Then he walked away and left him lying there, not dead. It remained for another officer to administer the coup de grace. It was a terrible thing to see … a terrible thing to see a man enjoy the killing of another.”
Rule still said nothing.
“I will tell you this, Brooke Kirkland,” Malakhov leaned forward and spat the words. “In the more than thirty years I spent in the KGB, Viktor Sergeivich Majorov was the cruelest, most ruthless man I ever encountered. It frightened me to be around him.”
The door behind Rule opened, and she turned to see Ed Rawls standing in the doorway. “You’ve got to get going,” he said.
Rule tried desperately to think of what she should ask. She had sat there, entranced, and let this old General control the conversation, spin his tales, and use up her time. Some interrogator she was! She stood up. “Coming, Ed.” She turned to Malakhov. “Is Viktor Majorov capable of committing Soviet forces to a land war in Europe, if he could get the support of the Politburo?”
Malakhov stood, too. “You have not been listening to me, Brooke Kirkland,” he said, shaking his head. “Viktor Sergeivich Majorov is capable of anything—any act that will further his personal ends. No man, no group, no nation is safe that stands between him and what he wants, and I do not exclude the Soviet Union herself from that assessment.”
