by Jack Higgins
“And now with this strange business of his disappearance, she’s seriously worried about her misdeeds, whatever they are, surfacing.”
“Then it’s time to find out what they are.” Lermov took the Putin letter from his pocket and passed it to him. “Go down to the cell block, order the commanding officer to provide you with two military police sergeants, women, but the type who look like prison officers. Proceed to Lieutenant Greta Bikov’s home. You will remind her she is still an officer in the GRU and that duty calls. The sergeants will assist her into her uniform, if necessary.”
There was a kind of admiration on Ivanov’s face. “Of course, Colonel.”
“I’ll give you an hour, then I’ll present myself in the cell block and start her interrogation. So get on with it.”
Ivanov went away, almost running, and the old tea woman came back along the walkway. She paused, “Another tea, Colonel, you look stressed. What’s wrong?”
“It’s the acting, babushka, it always takes it out of me playing somebody I’m not,” Lermov told her.
“What you need is another glass of tea.”
“I don’t think so.” He smiled. “But you can give me one of those cigarettes, if you like.”
The house overlooking the river was definitely tsarist in origin, as Ivanov had expected. The Bikov apartment was on the top floor and served by an ancient lift with a metal lattice door. Before going up, Ivanov gave his two forbidding-looking women police sergeants instructions.
“I doubt if you will ever handle a matter of greater importance than this.” He produced the Putin letter, opened it, and held it before them. “We are here at our Prime Minister’s bidding to arrest a serving officer of the GRU who needs to answer grave charges, one Greta Bikov.”
Neither woman showed any emotion, not a flicker on the face. The senior said, “How do we handle the matter, Captain?”
“No need to get too physical, Sergeant Stransky. Let’s just frighten the hell out of her, put her in the right frame of mind for her interrogation.”
The bell sounded like a distant echo from another time, but the maid who answered it was young, dressed in jeans and a smock, rubber gloves on her hands, obviously engaged in cleaning. A look of dismay appeared on her face.
Sergeant Stransky barked with infinite menace, “Lieutenant Greta Bikov.” She moved straight past the girl and led the way along a short corridor. Which opened into an arched entrance with drapes on either side and, beyond, a large sitting room.
There was a piano, a fine carpet, too much old-fashioned furniture, and wingback chairs. Having studied Greta Bikov’s service record, Ivanov knew that the woman in the wheelchair beside the fire was the mother, crippled with rheumatoid arthritis in spite of being only fifty years of age. Greta was sitting opposite her, wearing a bathrobe and what looked like pajama bottoms. She’d been holding a cup in both hands and, in scrambling to her feet, spilled some of its contents. Her face was wild with fear.
Her mother cried out, “Who are you? What do you want?”
Peter Ivanov saluted with infinite courtesy. “You must excuse the intrusion, madam, but your daughter must return to duty.”
“This is nonsense,” Mrs. Bikov told him. “She is ill.”
To Greta, confronted by Ivanov in that magnificent uniform with all the medals, it was as if the Devil himself had come to fetch her.
She said desperately, “I’m on indefinite sick leave.”
“Terminated on the orders of Colonel Josef Lermov, now Head of Station for the GRU in London.”
“No, surely it cannot be?” she said faintly.
Ivanov took out the Putin letter, unfolded it, and held it up in front of her. “The Prime Minister himself requests your presence.”
She seemed to stagger, clutching at the back of her chair. Ivanov nodded to Stransky and her partner, who came forward and took an arm each. “Don’t be alarmed. These women are simply here to assist you to dress. You must make your appearance in uniform. Go with them now.”
They took her away to her bedroom. Her mother had started to weep, holding a handkerchief to her mouth. She said brokenly, “But what has she done?”
“That is not for me to say, madam, it is what a military inquiry will decide.”
She buried her face in her hands, crying even more, but he ignored her. There were various bottles and glasses on the sideboard. He selected a bottle of vodka and poured one, drank it, then beckoned to the maid.
“Does she drink?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Do you live in?”
“Yes, I have a room upstairs.”
“Excellent. Make sure you keep the vodka flowing and look after her. See to her now. I’m going to make a call.”
He went into the kitchen, closed the door, called Lermov on his mobile, and described what had happened. “So what’s your opinion of her state of mind?” Lermov asked.
“Very fragile and frightened to death. There’s something worrying her, I’m sure of that, it just needs the right shove.”
“Well, let’s see if we can’t give it to her. I’ll see you soon.” Ivanov noticed another bottle of vodka on the side by the sink, obviously the maid’s, and poured another, thinking about Greta. It wouldn’t be necessary to get physical with her. From what he’d seen, she would break very quickly.
There was a knock on the door, and Stransky looked in. “We’re ready for you.”
“Excellent,” Ivanov told her, and went out.
6
What Lermov found when he went downstairs to the cell block was pure theater. The two female police sergeants were supremely menacing as they stood on each side of the door, Ivanov had a look of the SS about him, and Greta Bikov seemed terrified as he walked in.
Ivanov saluted. “Reporting as ordered, Colonel,” he barked. “With Lieutenant Greta Bikov.” He turned to her. “On your feet.”
She managed to stand, trembling with fear, pretty enough, with tightly bound blond hair, undeniably attractive in uniform. One could understand her appeal to most men. Luzhkov had probably found her irresistible. Her face told it all, a touch of the Slav to it.
She sat there, shaking a little, confronted by this highly unusual man, someone with the gravitas of a scholar, a university professor perhaps, the world-weary face of a man who had seen most things that life had to offer and had long since ceased to be amazed.
She took a deep breath, which seemed to steady her a little. My God, she’s assessing him, Ivanov thought, trying to make sense of what kind of man he is, but it’s his rank that’s giving her pause for thought. Full colonel. Then the medals, including the one for bravery under fire when he volunteered for that Spetsnaz job in Iraq. Nothing comes higher than that. She tried a shy smile, and Ivanov felt like smiling, too, his thoughts confirmed. Silly girl, this one isn’t another Luzhkov to be charmed by you crossing one silk knee over the other and allowing your skirt to slide a little.
Lermov sat opposite her, Ivanov leaned against the wall to the left side, arms folded. Lermov started, “Lieutenant Bikov, there is no specific charge against you, but I am under orders from Prime Minister Putin to investigate the disappearance of Colonel Boris Luzhkov and his second-in-command, Major Yuri Bounine. Captain Ivanov has shown you the warrant signed by the Prime Minister, indicating that I operate with his full authority?”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“To business. You were posted to London nine months ago, which was when you first met Colonel Luzhkov?”
“Yes, Colonel.”
There was a kind of impatience in her voice. Lermov made eye contact with Ivanov, who moved in. “And Major Bounine, what about him?”
“He only appeared a few weeks ago, a posting from Dublin.” Her impatience broke through, obviously fueled by anxiety. “I’ve been asked these questions before, Colonel, by Major Chelek. He was very thorough and appeared perfectly satisfied that I had no idea what happened to either of them.”
Ivanov, playing the bad guy to
the hilt, homed in on her harshly. “If you think that Major Chelek is perfectly satisfied with you, you’re very much mistaken, not when he discovered that most of your colleagues were of the opinion that you were having an affair with Colonel Luzhkov.”
Her face became very pale. She hammered on the table with a clenched fist, but it was unconvincing, and her voice was weak when she said, “I protest, Colonel. Malicious lies and rumors put about by those who envied my friendship with Colonel Luzhkov. He was the kindest of men.”
“Leaving all that to one side, let’s have a look at one of your dealings with Colonel Luzhkov. Now, your main duties were as an intelligence assistant in the code room where your expertise was necessary to handle transcripts, encrypted material, and so on.”
“That’s what I was trained for at GRU headquarters.”
“And you acted as Colonel Luzhkov’s personal secretary some of the time?” Lermov asked patiently.
“Quite frequently, but much of the work in the code room tends to come in at night, so I often operated the night shift. I was the highest-rated code expert on staff.” There was a touch of defiance there.
Lermov took a sheet from the pile in front of him and passed it across. “Do you recall receiving that transcript? It has your name and also Luzhkov’s signature of receipt.”
She glanced at it. “I remember very well. Do you want me to read it out?”
“No, just tell us the gist of it.” He leaned back and waited.
“It came in minutes before midnight on a Sunday, and I was on the night shift. It was a most-secret from the Paris Embassy. The American Vice President was in Paris for a UN thing and was flying back to Washington on Monday morning, next day. Once in the air, the plan was to divert to London for a meeting with the British Prime Minister, the Israeli Prime Minister, and the President of Palestine to try and broker a deal for peace in Gaza.”
“And you took it straight to Luzhkov?”
“I knew he was in his office with Major Bounine, having a drink.”
“And what did he say?”
“He couldn’t believe it, asked me if I was sure it was true, but I pointed out that, as you can see in the second half of the transcript, the information came from a highly regarded asset in French intelligence who was on the GRU payroll in Paris. It also said the word was that the meeting was going to take place on a riverboat on the Thames for security reasons, but the source didn’t know which boat.”
“And what was his reaction to all this?”
Greta paused for a long moment, as if suddenly realizing where things were going, and it was Ivanov who jumped in.
“You heard the Colonel. It’s a simple enough question.”
“He was very excited. He . . . he said what a sensation the death of the four of them would make. It would rock the world.”
The silence was so heavy it filled the room, and then Lermov said, “And Major Bounine’s reaction?”
“He said surely you’re not thinking of something like that, and Luzhkov cut him off and made an amazing speech about the Wall coming down and the death of Communism and the evils of Capitalism. He kept saying things like ‘the Communist order must be restored.’ He was quite drunk.”
“And you were still there listening?” Ivanov asked.
“I felt as if I’d been forgotten and asked what he wanted me to do, and he said the moment we knew which riverboat was being used, I had to notify him at once. I got the impression that Major Bounine wasn’t very happy, but he told me to go and get on with it. On my way out of the door, I heard Luzhkov say to Bounine, ‘We need a man to deal with our problem satisfactorily,’ but that was as the door was closing.” She sat there, strangely composed, that edge of defiance again. “So there you are.”
Lermov turned and raised his eyebrows to Ivanov, who came and put both hands on the table, his face only a couple of feet away from her. “What do you mean, ‘there you are’? That’s total nonsense. There isn’t a human being in the world who, having heard what Luzhkov was beginning to say, could have resisted holding on for a few seconds to hear the rest. So don’t be stupid, and tell the Colonel what it was.”
She came apart, tears starting. “All right, then. He said we need a man to deal with our problem satisfactorily, a bad man who is also a madman, something like that. It sounded crazy, but, like I said, he was drunk.”
She paused, and Ivanov pushed her again. “Go on.”
“Bounine said, ‘Do you know of such a man?’ and Colonel Luzhkov said that he did, and he told Bounine to go get his coat and put a pistol in his pocket and he would introduce him to the man. I closed the door at once and hurried away to the code room. I was worked up by the whole business, so I opened the door to a small balcony by one of the code-room windows and lit a cigarette, and I saw them go down to the staff car park, get in Luzhkov’s Mercedes, and drive away.”
“And that was that?”
“No, actually, you should have another transcript in the file. It came in about an hour and a half later from the same source, saying that the riverboat was called the Garden of Eden and they would be boarding her at the Cadogan Pier, Chelsea, have the meeting, go downriver and disembark at Westminster Pier, and that preparations were already in hand to prepare the boat at Chelsea.”
“And you forwarded it to Luzhkov?”
“I called him on my mobile but Bounine answered, and I gave him the information.”
“And you’ve no idea where they were?”
“I swear on my life, I don’t know. There wasn’t even traffic noises. It had started to rain incredibly that night and continued for twenty-four hours. The whole thing the following day was bedeviled by rain and heavy mist. You couldn’t see across the river.”
“And you didn’t see them again?” Lermov asked.
“I’d worked the whole night shift, remember, I needed sleep. I went to my room in the staff block down the road. The two of them just disappeared, as I understood it, sometime in the afternoon. That’s all I can say. Look, I’m tired, I need the bathroom.”
“Of course you do.” Lermov got up, and said to Ivanov, “A word.”
They went out, and Ivanov said, “This is quite a story.”
“If it’s true, I want you to contact Major Chelek in London. She’s just told us she didn’t see them again after their night on the town because she’d gone down to staff quarters and gone to bed. See if he can confirm that. Also ask him to confirm the question on this slip of paper.”
“I’ll see to it. Anything else?”
“Yes, tell Sergeant Stransky to commiserate with her, woman-to-woman, let her have a shower and general cleanup and see that she gets a decent meal and a drink. Have her back here in an hour and a half.”
“What for?” Ivanov asked.
“Because there’s more, Peter, much more, and I haven’t got time to waste. I’m trying to think of absolutely the worst consequence I can threaten her with. I’ll let you know when I’ve decided what it is.”
Ivanov said with awe, “I’m beginning to think I don’t know you at all, sir.”
“Frequently, I think I don’t know me,” Lermov said. “But, for now, I’m going back to the office, where, with luck, the old tea lady may be operating.”
And she was there, still plying her trade. He purchased two ham sandwiches made with rough black peasant bread, had scalding tea in a tall glass, and sat in the office and went through the loose file from beginning to end, feeling already that he almost knew it by heart.
Academic work was all he’d had time for when it came to writing books, but he loved fiction at any level, had considered it an essential part of his work in the intelligence field. It had taught him that individuals were what they were, could continue to act only in that way, so that it was possible to tell in advance exactly how they would behave in any given situation. He was absolutely certain that applied to Greta Bikov.
The door opened, and he glanced up. Ivanov moved in and dropped a transcript on the desk. “
How the hell did you know? When you leave the code room, you sign out if you are junior staff. You also sign out at the front door of the Embassy. Just down the road are staff quarters, and you sign in there and sign out when you leave and sign in again at the Embassy. Here’s the answer to your query, too.”
“Stupid, stupid girl.” Lermov sighed as he read it all.
“What are you going to do with her?”
“Make her tell the truth,” Lermov said. “All of it.”
Greta was standing by the desk when they went in, Stransky and her colleague on either side of the door, and she looked renewed again, her hair bound, a touch of lipstick, trim and attractive in her uniform.
“Sit down, Lieutenant. I trust you feel refreshed?”
“Of course, Colonel, you’ve been very kind.”
“And you’ve been very stupid,” he said softly, took off his glasses, and polished them.
“What is this?” She was angry now, and allowing it to get the better of her.
“You lied to me. You didn’t go off to the hostel to go to bed. The only place you booked out of when a colleague took over was the code room. We’ve been on to London and had your comings and goings checked.”
She was thoroughly unsure now. “I was in the canteen.”
“Enough of this. I’ll tell you what you are. A tramp who has shared the bed of an infatuated fool who’s indulged you at every turn. You stuck your nose into everything, indulged yourself by perusing documents that were eyes-only or most-secret, listened in on his telephone calls. Oh, yes, I’ve had that aspect of Luzhkov’s office and the outer office checked by GRU in London. There are three different systems linking both offices that would allow someone to eavesdrop.”
She was thoroughly worked up now. “It’s not true, I swear it.”
“And then there’s the safe, I’m sure he showed that off to you, stuffed with thousands of pounds sent to fund covert GRU operations. I would imagine you purchased your underwear at Harrods.”
“Damn you to hell,” she screamed.
“No, hell is where you are going.” Lermov took a folded document from his breast pocket and opened it on the desk. “You are dismissed from the GRU with disgrace and sentenced to life imprisonment in Station Gorky.”
