by Brian Lumley
At the end of the corridor, Tzonov came to a halt at the closed double-doors of the last office. Flanking this terminal room, two lesser rooms stood with their doors open. These were secretarial offices, momentarily unoccupied. Tzonov could hazard a guess why: the clerks had been sent away. There are some secrets that even secretaries shouldn’t share.
He knocked twice on the doors and a thin, cold voice from within said, “Come.” Tzonov narrowed his eyes, and immediately composed himself. As he was well aware, that voice was a perfect match for the mind and soul that issued it. He entered the room, and his eyes were at once drawn to the figure of one of the most powerful—some would say the most powerful—men in Russia where he was seated at his desk. Comrade, or more properly Direktor, Andropov.
Andropov didn’t look up but studied paperwork on the desk before him. Grey light from the frosted glass of large, bullet-proof bay windows framed him in a misty silhouette, turning the lenses of his spectacles, the larger dome of his polished head, and the lesser gleam of his chin to an ankh-like design of silvery ovals. But as Tzonov approached his desk he offered him a cursory glance and said, “Good morning, Comrade. Please sit.”
Slightly inclined to the angle of the great desk, a large leather chair waited for Tzonov. Answering, “Good morning, Comrade Direktor Andropov,” he sat down, put his briefcase on the floor, made himself as comfortable as possible … and waited. For much like Andropov himself—and despite the natural enthusiasm of youth—Tzonov wasn’t an impatient man.
Eventually Andropov was done with his papers; he shuffled them aside, put his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers before his face. In that face, only the ovals of his spectacles were visible against the haze from the windows. And:
“Well,” he said eventually, his voice cold, measured and emotionless. And twice more: “Well, well! But such a young man, which was my opinion when first we met. Yet so persistent, and full of such large ambitions. The reorganization of a branch of Soviet security which on at least two occasions has proved itself an absolute liability to the system. Furthermore, a branch which in the past stood in direct opposition to my own rather more orthodox, er, institution and methods.”
“Not only that,” Turkur Tzonov spoke up, “—not only to reorganize ESP-Branch—but to run it. Er, with your guidance, naturally. That was my proposal when first we met five months ago, and it still is. As you required at that time, I have now procured evidence of my credentials for the job. Direktor Andropov, I was only eighteen years old when the ESP facility at the Chateau Bronnitsy fell and the Branch more or less ceased to be. Perhaps fortunately, I had been too young to be of service as a field agent, and instead had been ordered to attend a four-year course of studies to prepare me for my duties …”
Tzonov paused and waited, and when Andropov nodded, continued: “Even after Bronnitsy fell, I continued with my studies and six months ago passed all necessary examinations with honours. Since when, I and a handful of other Bronnitsy survivors have stood idly by waiting for a decision from … well, let’s say from a higher authority. That decision has not been forthcoming. And we don’t know if we’re coming or going. But we do know that our talents are going to waste—or have been.”
While Tzonov spoke, the head of the KGB was not only attentive to everything he said, but he also took the opportunity to scrutinize his visitor minutely. And what he saw didn’t entirely displease him. For in just a few months this precocious youth seemed to have become more properly the man.
Turkur Tzonov was part Turk, part Mongol, all male. There could be no question but that he was an “Alpha” male, a future leader, an outstanding mind in an athlete’s body. His penetrating grey eyes were the sort that could look at or into a man; and indeed that was his alleged talent: he read minds, through eye-contact with his subjects. Which was also the reason that Yuri Andropov had arranged his office this way. He wanted the light in Tzonov’s eyes, for the moment at least. For Andropov must first let his visitor commit himself before he would show his own hand. If this man was as good as the reports Andropov had read on him, he certainly didn’t want him in his mind! Not just yet. And probably not ever.
“But you came to see me five months ago,” Andropov deliberately leaned back in his chair, diffusing the silhouette and contours of his face more yet in the light from the bay windows curving around him. “Somewhat pre-emptive of you, wasn’t it? The ‘higher authority’ you refer to can only be Premier Leonid Brezhnev himself—the man who instigated this mindspy organization in the first place. And by seeing me, did you hope to jump the gun on Brezhnev? Did you think it likely I would be willing to risk going over his head? And what made you believe I might be prepared to reinstate ESP-Branch in the first place? For after all, the Branch was a thorn in my side. What is more, its first Direktor, that old warhorse Gregor Borowitz, was an actual pain in my arse!”
And while Tzonov thought about that, Andropov continued to study him.
The youth’s eyebrows were slim as lines pencilled on paper; upward slanting, they were silver-blond against the tanned ridges of his upper orbits. From the eyebrows up he was completely hairless, but this was so in keeping with his other features as to make it seem that in his case hair was never intended. Certainly this premature baldness wasn’t a sign of ill health; the bronze dome of Tzonov’s head glowed with a vitality matched by the flesh of his face, where the single anomaly lay in the hollows of his eyes. Deep-sunken and dark, they seemed bruised as if from long hours of study or implacable concentration. A symptom of his telepathy, apparently.
Turkur Tzonov’s nose was long and straight; his mouth was well fleshed if a little wide, over a chin that was strong and aggressively square. His cheeks were very slightly hollow, and his small pointed ears lay flat to his head. The overall picture was of a too-perfect symmetry, where the opposing halves of his face seemed mirror images. In a majority of people it would be a disadvantage, Andropov thought. The physical attraction of a face, its “good looks,” are normally defined by imperfections of balance. Tzonov was the exception to the rule, for paradoxically he was a very attractive young man. “Talented” remained to be seen, but definitely outspoken.
Meanwhile, Tzonov had thought over what Andropov had said to him. Now, in an even voice he answered, “Comrade Direktor, it wasn’t a case of my hoping you would go over the Party Leader’s head. Indeed, I can’t see how anyone could be accused of that. For to my knowledge there isn’t anyone—or anything —inside that head! Let me try to explain. As soon as my studies were at an end I went to see Brezhnev, on behalf of that handful of Bronnitsy survivors. I spoke to his secretary, who knew of the Premier’s interest in the Branch. I was granted an appointment. Two weeks later I was driven to a dacha at Zhukovka, where he was supposed to be ‘resting.’ But something had happened to him between times, for while Leonid Brezhnev was there, wrapped in a blanket and hunched on a couch, he was not really … there. It was an aide who did all of his talking for him.”
Andropov held up a cautionary hand. “What are you saying?” His voice was quite emotionless.
“It is also an aide who signs his daily round of papers for him,” Tzonov went on. “Articles of state, that is. And an aide who props him up when he appears on television. And probably another who imitates his voice … fairly difficult, that last, for to me it always seemed like the Party Leader was eating cabbage! And there must definitely be another aide to wipe his backside when he has been to the toilet! So what I am saying is that he’s a zombie, Comrade Direktor!”
Andropov sat up straighter and his face became more visible, but still his eyes were silver ovals. “Treason, then,” he said. “If what you say is true, it is treason. You understand that, don’t you? You’re undermining the security of the State. And if it is not true, still it’s treason. Your youth is no excuse. Do you agree?”
“No,” the other shook his head. “I don’t think so. Oh, it would be reason if I said it to anyone else … especially to a foreign power! But no
t if I report it to the head of the Komissia Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti. To gather intelligence—to be aware of everything—is your job, after all. And surely this is important intelligence.”
“Do you presume to tell me my job?” Andropov’s tone hadn’t changed in the slightest degree. “Anyway, it wasn’t your job to gather such intelligence.”
Tzonov shrugged. “I made no effort to gather it. I merely observed it.”
“And how accurate were these … observations? Sufficient to provide proof that Leonid Brezhnev, the Russian Premier, is on death’s doorstep, kept alive—well, more or less—until someone else can be elected in his stead?”
“To my satisfaction, yes.”
“And by virtue of your … talent?”
“Yes.”
Andropov leaned back again, his face dissolving into misty white light. “This is the proof you would offer me that you are fit to head a revamped ESP-Branch of Soviet Security, right?”
“Not all of it.”
“But some of it?”
“Some of it, yes.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me these things on the first occasion of our meeting?”
“Because I would not presume to tell you what you already knew. You are the head of the KGB. Of course you knew. You are probably responsible for this continuing—and very necessary—subterfuge.”
“Twenty-two years old,” Andropov mused, “and already deep as a well. I believe I may have work for you. In what capacity I can’t yet say. A revitalized ESP-Branch? Well, perhaps, but I really do not think so. To date its Direktors have been … shall we say, less than co-operative? They seemed to develop a lust for power—all of them! It is a power thing, after all, the gathering and control of information. And as for esoteric information … ? I want no secrets kept from me.”
“You would know everything that I learned the very moment I learned it!” Tzonov assured him.
“I would put one of my own in charge,” Andropov continued to muse, “so as to have my finger on the pulse. And if and when your loyalty was proven, then you might one day replace him.”
“Only give me the opportunity.”
“And is that it?” Andropov’s face came back into focus but his eyes remained invisible. “Are we done here? Is this what it boils down to: you could not get what you wanted from a failing Brezhnev, and so turned to me? But why me? After all, I’m only a special policeman.”
“Very special,” Tzonov answered. “According to my colleagues, at least.”
“Your colleagues? The other survivors?”
“Futurologists, hunchmen, locators …”
“Psychics!” Andropov snorted, finally displaying something of emotion. “Borowitz was convinced, and he convinced Brezhnev. But where is Brezhnev now? What good did it do him? Similarly, Felix Krakovitch and Ivan Gerenko were true disciples of these … these ‘metaphysical mysteries,’ and they’re dead, too! And the Chateau Bronnitsy—which was home to all such ‘spirit mediums’—is a gutted shell.”
“You have no faith in us.” Tzonov smiled … and Andropov didn’t like it.
He leaned closer across his desk, and his spectacles lost something of their opaqueness. His eyes were now part-visible, but not enough. “I have faith in proven systems,” he answered. “Show me some respect, and show me the benefits—real respect, real benefits, real proof—and I’ll give you what you want.”
“I’m not lacking in respect,” Tzonov told him in an even voice. “I would never have dared to come here without it. Nor without real proof. As for the latter, and the benefits: you must be the judge.”
“What benefits? Are you talking in riddles?”
“Moscow is still standing, still secure. Isn’t that benefit enough?”
“Moscow is still … ?” Andropov was obviously mystified. “Explain, and quickly.”
“For the last four years, in my spare time, I’ve kept my group together,” Tzonov answered. “Not difficult. They were at a loss what to do with themselves; the State had lost all interest in them; some of them even took mundane jobs. And … I have continued their training. I’ve kept them up to scratch.”
“You have been operating a mindspy cell?”
“I’ve been gathering proof of their effectiveness. Isn’t that what you asked for the first time we met?”
“We only met five months ago!”
“At which time I didn’t have the proof—not the kind of proof that would sway you—not quite.”
“What has all of this to do with the fact that Moscow is—what? Still standing, still secure? I am growing impatient now. You had better let me see the whole picture.”
“It’s a complicated picture.”
“Show me anyway.”
“Do you remember the Parapsychological Convention held in Moscow two years ago? I fancy it was a brainchild of Brezhnev’s, though at the time he pretended to stand aloof from it. It was his last attempt to reinvent ESP-Branch, and he wanted to know what we were up against in the rest of the world.”
“I do remember, yes,” Andropov replied. “Psychic détente, ostensibly. Spoon-benders from Israel, and water-diviners from Egypt! Mentalists from Mongolia and scryers from Syria! Even a couple of futurologists from England—probably from their own E-Branch—and other metaphysicians from places diverse as Chicago and China!”
“And Tibet,” Tzonov remained cool.
“Eh?”
“Tibetans, part of the Chinese delegation. Would-be saboteurs, as it has since turned out.”
“Saboteurs?” Andropov growled. “And what were they trying to sabotage, pray?”
“Moscow,” Tzonov told him without further ado or emphasis. “That for a start, anyway. Moscow and world peace, and but for my team they would have succeeded.”
“Explain.” Andropov moved out of focus again.
“Myself and several of my people attended the convention, naturally. Brezhnev required it.”
“I remember something of that, yes.”
“Well, we were there to spy on possible mindspies, to see how good they were. I was the group’s telepath, of course. But there was also my precog, and a hunchman.”
“Your precog …” Andropov’s frown wasn’t quite visible in the haze of light but Tzonov felt it all the same. “And—what did you say—a hunchman?”
“It’s difficult to explain in layman terms,” Tzonov said. “A hunchman is a special kind of esper who makes clever guesses—except it’s not just guesswork but his talent. He’s aware of—oh, all sorts of things. About what’s going on in general. If he can pinpoint a British nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea, then we call him a ‘locator.’ If he dreams or nightmares about someone’s death in a week’s time, and seven days from now that someone dies, then he’s a futurologist or ‘precog.’ At the convention, I had a precog and a hunchman with me.”
“Go on.”
“The Chinese attendees were paramilitaries, from the ESP-Centre on Kwijiang Avenue in Chungking. We’ve known about them for a long time. They were doing what we were doing: seeing if they could find out what the opposition was up to and how good we were at it. Nothing strange about that: apart from all the, er, ‘spoon-bending,’ and Zener card reading, it’s what we were all there for. But these Tibetans were something else …
“There were six of them, sect members of an obscure monastery somewhere. They had shaven heads and wore red robes, usually with the hoods up. They moved together, always, almost as one man. One of them, their leader, I supposed, had tiny bells sewn into his sleeves.
“My hunchman told me he thought they were up to something. When he concentrated on them, all he got was a kind of smog, a mental smokescreen. The same sort of thing, incidentally, that we occasionally experience with British espers. My precog was similarly confused and very nervous in their presence. He preferred to be nowhere near them. Precogs are generally peculiar in that respect: they fear to ‘see’ too much, and are never or very rarely interested in their own futures. They say that
the past and future are immutable. Since they can’t change the future, they prefer not to know it, at least not with respect to themselves. It must be an awful thing to know you are going to die, when and how, and not be able to do anything about it …
“I was curious and tried to read the minds of these Tibetans. I pride myself on my skill, that it’s almost undetectable except to other, skilled telepaths. But somehow the red-robes knew it. They accepted—far more readily than anyone else at the convention—that I was the genuine thing, and avoided me like the plague. But what little I did see … was very worrying. They were definitely hiding something.
“If you recall, Comrade Direktor, the convention accommodation was the Central Committee Hotel, in the Sivtsev Vrazhek district of the city, and the convention rooms were right here on Kurtsuzov Prospekt—which I imagine made it easy for your men to watch the comings and goings of foreign attendees. Easy to collect their fingerprints and other details, too.”
Andropov nodded. “I believe we got them all, yes. A few dozens, to go with the many thousands already on file.”
“Indeed. And if you didn’t, my people did …”
Again Andropov’s face was drawn back into view, and his frown—of disapproval? —was plainly visible. But before he could say anything, Tzonov continued: “The convention was inconclusive; there were too many fakers; the cause of parapsychological research was not furthered. But we did learn that there are many budding talents in China, that the British are probably leaders in the field, and that the Tibetans, whom we supposed to be working hand in hand with the Chinese, were up to … something.
