Fatal Ally

by Tim Sebastian

  There was absolute silence in the room. Silence outside. For a moment it seemed to Arkady as though the rest of the world had simply died and the six of them were the only survivors.

  ‘I can’t do it any longer, my friends.’ Fyodor Ivanovich got up and reached for his coat, draped over the back of the chair. ‘I strongly suggest that we end this practice before someone finds out about it … but that is your choice.’ He nodded. ‘I’ve made mine.’

  Another four steps and he would have made it to the front door, from there onto the dark stone landing, down the three flights and out to his car, a tatty Volvo that sat rusty and inconspicuous in the parking lot.

  But he took only one.

  Arkady didn’t remember who moved first; didn’t remember who tripped the man, sending him crashing to the ground; who hammered his head on the bare boards; didn’t remember who produced the wire flex or who pulled it tight around the big, fat neck; who sat on his body as it jerked wildly or who shoved a rag into his mouth to stop him screaming.

  But he did remember the eyes looking up at him, shot with blood, pleading for help.

  He remembered the coins falling out of the man’s trouser pocket and clattering noisily on the floor, the blood congealed around the wire flex, glistening in the naked light.

  And he remembered how the little smile had returned to the deputy mayor’s face. How he’d picked up the phone, his hand rock steady, and spoken of a terrible accident requiring the immediate despatch of a team to take care of it all and make it go away.

  He remembered the man’s calm and confidence – the certainty of a regular, practised killer.

  It was dark when the five of them had trouped out into the car park.

  Still dark when Arkady had returned to collect the black and white film that a KGB unit had carefully installed in the ceiling, to use or not to use, depending on who ended up in power.

  The way it was always done in Russia.

  Arkady sat up and rubbed his eyes.

  That film from Leningrad would, he was certain, buy him his ticket to London and ensure he was treated with the respect his talents deserved.

  Not because the British would be interested in a sordid murder thirty years before in Russia’s second city – but because the deputy mayor, pictured in that film, had done so surprisingly well in his subsequent career.

  He’d exceeded all expectations. Really, the man had been a marvel.

  And now, his photo had been shown around the world, and he was about to take the most ambitious step of his life.

  Arkady could hardly believe it himself.

  If Russia’s elections went as planned in three months’ time – and why wouldn’t they? – the former deputy mayor of Leningrad – would acquire nothing less than the ultimate political prize in the Russian Federation.

  Just one rung left on the ladder – one step away from the Kremlin.

  In the kitchen Arkady’s dog Vasya snorted himself awake in his basket, shuffled into the living room and slumped down across his feet. He wondered what would become of the animal. Perhaps he could take him to Yelena, who would scream and protest that she had never wanted a dog even when they were married, and certainly didn’t want one now.

  He stroked the dog’s head and Vasya shut his eyes, trusting, at peace. Normally Arkady would whisper to him, a few words of nonsense, soothing and affectionate. But suddenly he felt embarrassed. He didn’t know what to say to the creature, whose trust he would soon betray.

  LONDON

  Dean Anderson had reached the age where he was irritated by most things. Irritated by the ‘kids’ at the CIA station in London, irritated that his advice to them was apparently of such little value, irritated that his pension, due in six months’ time, was considerably less than he had hoped. Irritated that day, because MI6 wanted to meet in some ‘fucked-up country house park’ in North London, instead of the secure embassy room, where you could get your drinks with ice and didn’t have to sit in traffic for half a day to get there.

  Why did Brits always play games?

  He shivered a little as he made his way over the gravel to the grand, white house. It reminded him of parts of Virginia – the old estate, home of the once-landed British gentry, with its wide lawns, dipping down to the lake, shrouded in forest.

  He’d read the blurb before coming. A century earlier, they were fighting duels out here, killing each other before breakfast because their honour had been slighted.

  Honour? To Anderson, no one got killed anymore for honour. You got killed because you might have seen or heard something – and you weren’t clever enough to forget it.

  Honour was a flag on your coffin.

  As he walked, a cold easterly wind shook the bare branches of the trees and the soft rain settled over him. Not an American cold – not that block of ice that slammed into you when you walked outside. But something more gentle, more insidious.

  Be careful of Britain, they had always said, back at Langley. It’s never what you think.

  He passed a woman being pulled along by an impatient dog; a pensioner, wrapped in an old college scarf; two guilty lovers, hand in hand, dressed for the office where they should have been.

  Around them, the dying light of a winter afternoon.

  Margo Lane was waiting for him at one of the tea tables in the corner of the old converted kitchen. He had met her a handful of times, thought her offhand and socially inept, but he couldn’t help admiring her instant recall, the clear blue eyes and the look of innocence so totally at odds with the mind inside.

  ‘Dean.’

  ‘Margo.’ He put his coat over the back of the chair and sat down opposite her. A quick glance round the room confirmed that the elderly of London were out for tea. He waved a hand in their direction. ‘Friends of yours?’

  She smiled. ‘All ex-KGB. We look after theirs, they look after ours.’

  He laughed for the first time in two days.

  ‘That fellow Manson still throwing his weight around at your office?’

  ‘If he didn’t, it’d be someone else. Office life.’ She picked up her purse and stood up. ‘You protect the table while I’m gone – and I’ll bring tea. I take it you’re armed.’

  He watched her join the queue and suddenly remembered he was still smiling. She returned with a tea tray and poured him a cup. ‘In fact I wanted to talk to you about Russia …’

  ‘Still there last time I looked.’

  ‘An old Moscow friend is coming out in a week or so. He did good service for us over a number of years. Retired from the Russian Security Service five years ago. Now he says he’s had enough and it’s time to leave.’

  ‘High-level?’

  ‘He was once.’ Margo leaned forward. ‘We just want him to get safely to New York and we’ll take him from there. I’d be grateful if you didn’t lay on a reception committee. Fewer people who know about it, the better.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Idea is that he attends a leaving party for one of his old colleagues at the UN. They were close many years ago. Party is going to be in two weeks’ time.’

  Anderson sipped his tea and replaced the cup carefully on the table. ‘If he was high-level, our people are going to want to get a crack at him. Forty-eight hours minimum.’ He saw her eyebrows rise. ‘For Chrissake Margo, there’s a lot of loose ends going back over the years.’

  Margo shook her head. ‘We gutted him when he left. Gave him a holiday in Germany, spent two weeks getting everything he knew. We passed the file to you … you’ve had it all.’

  Anderson bit into his bottom lip. ‘There’s always more. Depends how you ask for it.’ He could see her wince.

  ‘Then you can have another go at him when he’s here. Give the man a break, Dean. He wants to get out in a hurry, he’ll be fragile, probably in a lousy mood and he won’t be very cooperative. We’ll spoil him for a couple of weeks and then the conversations will be more productive. You can have some time with him then.’

  ‘Listen to
me, I know the way Langley thinks and if a fish this size swims into our waters – even a former fish – they’ll reel him in. That much I can tell you for free.’

  ‘So you won’t oblige us on this one?’

  ‘Help, yes. Oblige no.’

  ‘You owe us, Dean. You know that … three years since you fucked us over in New York …’

  ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute …’

  Around them, the elderly men and women were getting ready to leave, hunting for gloves and sticks, pulling on their hats. Margo wished she could go with them.

  She pushed away her cup. ‘I’ll tell the office what you said – they’re not going to like it. Maybe we’ll find another way.’

  Anderson stood up and struggled into his coat. ‘Up to you. And as for what happened three years ago … we did our best. Your guy got caught in a terrible situation …’

  ‘Of your making?’

  ‘Think what you like.’ He took a note from his wallet and threw it on the table. ‘By the way, what the hell did you bring me all the way out here for? We could have had this conversation in the centre of town.’

  She stayed where she was. ‘It’s a beautiful place, Dean. Peace, quiet, a little classic British architecture. Look around. I hoped some of it might rub off and we could behave like civilized human beings.’ She stood up abruptly. ‘Seems it was a waste of time.’

  WASHINGTON DC

  Vitaly Yanayev was proud of his wife. The thick chestnut hair that she’d had since he’d first known her, the tall, statuesque figure, her easy manner at receptions and the quick sense of humour.

  She was, he realized, quite unlike the normal Russian dumptruck that most of his colleagues squired on the diplomatic circuit. Which in turn led to jealousies and malicious gossip.

  But he wasn’t worried. Lydia was pure gold – the only person in his life whom he had ever trusted completely.

  She was already eating breakfast when he arrived in the panelled dining room of the Residence – and she instantly spotted his frown.

  ‘What is it, my dear? You look concerned.’

  Yanayev sat down and poured himself coffee. ‘Right now I’ve no reason to be concerned, but that could change.’

  She said nothing, not wishing to push him.

  ‘The Americans want a favour from us – and it’s one that Moscow will be reluctant to give them. That’s fine … it’s their decision. But the favour would buy me a useful lever. If the White House can give us a downpayment of some kind … it would strengthen my argument.’

  Lydia smiled, got up and went over to her husband. She kissed him on the forehead. ‘You’ll do what’s right. You always do. Now I shall be late for my music lesson. I’ll see you tonight.’

  Yanayev was right in assuming his wife had inspired jealousy within the embassy. Some of the other wives bitched about her handbags and shoes and joked that her hair made her look like a bear who’d just woken up after the winter.

  And then there was the fact that she was Jewish. Among Russians, that always brought with it another complex prism through which to be judged and criticized.

  Some Jews, of course, did well in Russia. After all, Stalin’s security apparatus had been headed by one. But the country’s latent xenophobia and bigotry always meant that Jews had to try harder than everyone else.

  And Lydia had tried very hard indeed.

  At school she had excelled as a Pioneer, showed calm and resourcefulness, obedience to authority. Her teacher’s first grudging report to the local Party hack had commented on her knowledge of Communist doctrine which, he added cattily, ‘had gone some way to counteracting the negative aspects of her family background’.

  It had indeed. She rocketed up through the Komsomol – the Communist youth movement – securing minor positions of authority and getting noticed by some of the bigger local players.

  All the same, at any point in her trajectory, the State could have marked her card – a question mark would have sufficed – and shunted her off into a provincial Party siding to die of boredom.

  But it didn’t. Was it the playful manner, the quick wit or the young woman’s irrepressible enthusiasm for life – or was it that someone had spotted a use for her?

  After all, a reliable Communist – from a respectable – and so far spotless, Jewish family was a rare commodity among cadres. No doubt there were things she knew and things she could find out. Whatever the case, someone in a position of responsibility and blessed with half a brain, had decided Lydia had potential.

  And that was why they began to watch her. But they weren’t the only ones.

  Not long after she had been accepted into the Engineering Faculty at Moscow State University, she had been befriended by Sam who was short with tight curly hair and talked like an express train.

  The first time they were alone in the student canteen he told her he was Jewish and that his father owned a furniture shop.

  ‘That’s nice,’ she had said.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ he replied. ‘The problem is, you don’t know “fuck” about the country you live in. First of all it’s a piece of crap. Everyone spying on everyone else. The second thing is, if you have any talent at all, then they want it. Look at all the special schools: one for skiing, one for German, one for knitting, one for chess, or carpentry. They’re only just realizing that in the 1920s and 30s they shot everyone who knew anything. So now they’re fucked and they know it. Gotta find some talents. You could be one of them.’

  She looked at him contemptuously. ‘I am one of them.’

  He downed his tea in a hurry and took a quick glance over his shoulder. Sam did everything in a hurry.

  ‘I know that. And you’re pretty pleased with yourself as well.’ He chuckled.

  She frowned back. ‘You shouldn’t be speaking like this. And I shouldn’t be listening to you.’ She got up, but he touched her arm, not roughly, and yet with sufficient pressure to make her hesitate.

  ‘How many Jews do you know here in Moscow?’ he asked.

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Just curious.’

  ‘My family, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, now you know one more. You see, we’re already a little community. You help me and I’ll help you.’

  ‘And supposing I don’t want to help you?’

  He laughed. ‘Why would you not help your own people? You’re a Jew … I’m a Jew. We rise or fall together. We’re a package deal. That’s why we’ve lasted thousands of years. You’ll see.’ He patted her arm. ‘One day I’ll buy you a glass of tea in Jerusalem.’

  When she thought back, years later, Lydia remembered that this was the first time she had really thought about the Jews – least of all being one of them. Her parents never talked about it – ‘Luchay net,’ said her father. ‘Better not to.’

  ‘Nye nado,’ said her mother. ‘It’s not necessary.’

  So for many years being Jewish had seemed like wearing secret underwear. You knew it was there, but you hoped no one else did. You didn’t flaunt it, didn’t advertise it – and eventually you stopped thinking about it all together.

  Life lived in watertight compartments, the Soviet way.

  Only Sam changed that. Sam and the friendship he had given her.

  And his little community.

  It was 1983, the year before Gorbachev came to power and Lydia remembered a hot afternoon in Park Dubki, near her parents’ apartment. She was in her final year at university and had gone there to read one of her engineering books before an exam. But when she glanced up after an hour Sam had appeared from nowhere, whispering her name, beckoning her from the shadow of a tree.

  ‘What is it, Sam?’ Even as she looked at him, she could see something was desperately wrong. He was sweating heavily, there was dirt on his chin and one of his cheeks. His hands were shaking.

  ‘Sam, talk to me.’

  ‘I don’t have time. I’m finished.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They raided
my dorm this morning, found some Jewish literature – bit of politics, bit of religion – nothing important but it’s illegal. Someone tipped me off that they’re waiting to arrest me. But there’s nowhere to run. In an hour or two I’ll have to go back and face them. No choice.’

  Lydia felt the colour draining from her face, a stab of fear deep down in the stomach. ‘I’ll talk to the Komsomol people I know. We’ll sort it out. Don’t worry, some of them are friends of mine …’

  But he didn’t want to hear it. ‘Listen to me very carefully. You can’t afford to speak on my behalf. You need to denounce me and you need to do it today. Say you always had doubts about me. Say I was always weird and talking nonsense, but you took no notice. And when they tell you about the leaflets, say you’re horrified and that it’s a serious crime against the State, and you hope I’ll be put away for years.’ He grabbed her hand. ‘You have to do this. Promise me … please …’

  ‘But why, Sam? I don’t understand. Why do you want me to say these things?’

  ‘I have to go. They may be close by. I don’t have any more time. You need to do this because you’re going places in this system, you’ve been noticed, they’re going to put you on a fast track, who knows where. But don’t spoil it. We need you in an important place. For once we need one of our people to rise up through this fucked-up system. You’ll be contacted one day. Someone will mention my name and you will understand. Help us, Lydia. Now and in the future. Don’t forget. Please do as I say – for our people. For Israel.’

  She tried to hold him, embrace him, but he was already running away. In a moment, he was out of sight. And she couldn’t help sinking to her knees, couldn’t help the tears that began flooding onto the summer grass beside her, the nausea that rose in her throat. She didn’t know how to stop crying. Even when she returned to her parents’ flat, the tears kept coming. But she wouldn’t tell them what had happened. It was far too dangerous for them to know.