The Quiet Dogs: 3 (The Herbie Kruger Novels)

by John Gardner

  In his own office, Stentor—the desk littered with papers—used a pocket calculator, transcribing the message into numbers, then breaking them down into the familiar groups. Less than an hour later he had a translation, locked away secretly in his head.

  STENTOR: expect contact and visit from your nephew Piotr Kashvar mining engineer. Piotr should reach you within one week. At present preparing for leave from site in Urals. CODEX.

  So, at last it had come. After fifty years and more, his masters were keeping their promise. It was an odd sensation, for he knew this had to be an end to the life of Glubodkin: the only way of life known to him.

  A rap at the door broke Stentor’s train of thought. His Assistant, Polnikov, stepped into the room. There was a General to see him. The one who had just been appointed as Chairman’s representative to the Standing Committee. Vascovsky. He wished to see the Comrade General.

  Stentor nodded and smiled as Jacob Vascovsky entered with an apologetic word—“I was just passing. Hope I am not disturbing you, Comrade General, but I suddenly remembered you asked for my help, the other night, concerning your niece and nephew. You would still like to see them? Arrange visits?”

  Stentor sat down quietly. Of course. But he did not believe they should be frightened. He was getting on in years, he knew. But, in family affairs, it was not his way to pressurise relations. If they did not wish to come to Moscow, he certainly would not demand it of them.

  “I’ve always believed in family responsibility,” Vascovsky sounded treacle smooth. “If you have their names and addresses ...”

  Of course he had their names. An address for his niece; but, as for Piotr, the nephew—“He is a mining engineer. The last I heard, he was in the Urals. You know how they move around?”

  Vascovsky agreed. Nowadays, people in professions such as mining engineers were moved around more than soldiers. “They are soldiers. The spearhead of Mother Russia’s economic survival.”

  The two men stayed silent for a few moments, as though making individual decisions on weighty matters.

  “Piotr ... ?” Vascovsky queried.

  “Have a quiet, friendly word with my niece first ...” Stentor began, giving the Leningrad name and address. “Kashvar. That is my nephew’s name, Comrade ...” As he spoke, there was a light tap at the door, Oleg Zapad of Directorate T came into the room.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. I did not know you had such illustrious company, Volodya. I shall leave at once. The General,” he indicated Vascovsky, “has the ear of the Chairman himself. Did you know that? They tell me you’re always nipping into Dzerzhinsky Square to run errands for him.” He grinned broadly.

  “Come in, Oleg. You’re always welcome here.” Stentor looked pointedly at Vascovsky. “The Comrade General was about to leave anyway.”

  13

  BIG HERBIE HAD HIS OWN small room off the complex, in the Warminster grounds. As always, he carried a small case of tapes, together with his miniature portable stereo unit and a lightweight headset. At night, and when not sitting in on the work—while the ringmasters were putting Michael Gold through his paces—Herbie would lie for hours: his mind at rest—or reading the Stentor dossier—while the works of Gustav Mahler flowed into his head.

  Herbie soaked up the music he knew so well, while his subconscious worked away, distilling the massive amount of technique he would have to crowd into Michael’s mind, before taking the lad for his final briefing with the Director General. There was so much, the bulk of which could only really be learned by extensive experience in the field. Herbie’s job was to give young Gold the essentials; sifting methods, choosing only the things he might have to use on this particular job.

  During the days, Big Herbie sat in on some of the tough sessions with the ringmasters. They were well named, as he knew from his own past experience. These were men whose agile minds battled against their pupil—putting him over hurdles: going progressively higher; and whipping him through hoops, which eventually blazed with fire.

  By the time it came for Herbie Kruger to take over, Michael Gold knew Moscow in the dark. He could see it; smell it; hear it. He was as familiar with the transport systems of taxis, ‘collective taxis’, buses, trams and the underground—named so aptly after Lenin himself—as he was in London.

  Gold also knew Stentor: his looks, habits, likes, dislikes, communication systems, idiosyncracies. He could get to the apartment on Kutuzovsky Prospekt blindfold, and was completely familiar with the best exits from the well-guarded building.

  The ringmasters also ran him through the short cuts of elementary small arms’ training, and self-defence. “There’s no point in trying to give him the works,” one of them told Herbie. “As long as he knows the standard hand weapons in use—the Makarov and that bloody big Stechkin—it’s enough.”

  Herbie had grinned. “Good idea if you tell him which end is which; and where the safety is.”

  Basic holds; easy throws; the quick arts of physical deception, made up the self-defence course. Herbie had to turn away, and gaze silently out of the window as he listened to the hardest of the instructors telling the old, old story. Things changed little—“Remember, Mikhail,” the leathery little instructor advised, “there’s always a weapon to hand: a box of matches converts into a hard object that will break a nose; a book of matches, if handled with the right misdirection, can be flared in the face; a pen will take out an eye ...” These were things taught years ago; things Herbie had learned, in this very place; and the Director, also, many decades ago, during the Second World War.

  The boy had to be as ready as they could make him. Lying on his bed, the night before starting his own two-day marathon of technique training, Herbie listened to the magnificent Mahler Eighth—the Symphony of a Thousand—and made the divisions in his mind: Anti-Surveillance, watching your own back; Throw-offs and Back-doubles; Misdirection; Emergency exits—just in case there was no other way. The Director could do the rest—the Piotr Kashvar briefing, and the way out with Stentor: to the Latvian coast dacha, and that final dash to Sweden.

  Big Herbie slept fitfully that last night, knowing there would be a forty-eight hour stint ahead. Yet, in the shallow vales of sleep, the dreams came back—as they so often did. Dreams that should have been peaceful, but to Herbie, were nightmares—dreams of a Dürer print and ruby wine glasses with fluted stems; of the woman he had loved in East Berlin; of Vascovsky smiling like a head waiter, bending over him. Then, far off, the KGB man beckoning to him from the end of a tunnel, while a girl led Herbie nearer to Vascovsky, scattering paper: a paperchase, right into Vascovsky’s waiting arms. He even heard the Russian’s voice. “Come, Big Herbie. It’s the only thing to do now. Come to us, man. It makes sense: ideologies are things of the past now. It’s us against them.” It did not seem odd that Vascovsky spoke to him in German.

  He woke, in a boiling sweat, with the quiet voice still in his head. Dawn was breaking; and, with the light, Herbie saw traces of hammerheaded clouds through the window. The thunder came; and lightning. For the entire two days with Michael Gold it teemed with a rain so dense that you could only see clearly for ten yards or so from the windows.

  Alexei would have been proud of his son: if only because he was such an apt pupil. Herbie telescoped knowledge, garnered from a lifetime, and the young man had it fast in his head as quickly as Kruger could pass it on: blanking his own doubts and worries from his mind.

  “All the tricks of the trade, Michael. Remember, the whole time, that they’re following you. They probably won’t be near, but think it: that’s what matters. Now, give me the signs. What you look for?”

  Young Gold reeled them off, and even Worboys—who had remained quiet—was impressed. “Watch for the same car numbers; then look for the faces. Always watch the shoes, and wristwatches—teams change clothes, but often forget the small things.”

  “Yes, watch faces, Mickey. Always the faces. One turns up twice: you take a dive, okay?”

  “Okay, Herbie.”


  So, and so. Such and such. On and on. At the end of it all, Michael Gold still appeared fresh. Herbie felt himself to be a wreck. Age, he thought. Over the hill, Herbie. Maybe Jacob Vascovsky is right. Time for me to take the dive and vanish. Maybe. See if this one works first.

  They allowed twelve hours for rest, then it was a pile into the cars, with the dark windows, and a fast drive to London. The rain had disappeared, and—with the inconsistency of English weather—the sun shone, cool, from skies of pale blue wash.

  Curry’s boys were to have a go at Michael Gold, so Herbie let him out in Swallow Street. Gold knew they would be working the area, just as he knew there was a time limit: two hours to throw them and get to the safe flat near Kensal Green.

  The safe flat was off the far side of Harrow Road, the once opulent building flanked now by an Indian Restaurant and a launderette. You had to go up two flights of stairs, past peeling walls, and the noise of Reggae music, rattling the cockroaches from the woodwork on the first landing. Behind the doors on the second turn of stairs, West Indian voices screamed—a man and a woman: it could end in murder, and the police might not know for days.

  Safe flat, Herbie thought (“Whata fuck you know, maan. I know. You believe that now ... ?” “Yo shut your fuckin’ mouth, woman. I say what goes on here. My house. Get it. GET IT...” Then the sound of a blow).

  “Charming neighbours we have here.” Curry smiled as Herbie opened up the Chubb dead-lock. Curry’s hand slid into sight again from inside his jacket. “Bit niffy as well, old cocker. Scents of Arabia and all that.”

  Herbie leaned his great bulk against the door frame. “Good hard-working people, Curry. Very hard working in this area. I tell you. I know. Been using this place a long time.”

  “Well, it’ll remove any glamorous ideas from friend Gold—or Troilus, as I understand our beloved Director wishes him to be called. He’s bloody good anyway. You’ll be pleased to hear, he lost my boys. Boots, the Chemists, in Regent Street. Straight through and out. Thought they’d pick him up in Great Marlborough or Carnaby, but he just vanished. Well done Warminster.”

  “You only had your probationers on, though, Curry. Yes?”

  “Actually, no. Mixed team. Thirty of them ...”

  Two sharp rings on the bell, heralded Michael Gold’s arrival. He was hardly inside when the telephone squeaked, and Curry answered. “Our lord and master’s on his way. Everything clean as starch.” He congratulated Michael Gold whose face showed nothing but wary concentration.

  The Director General arrived, as arranged, with young Worboys riding shotgun. He took no notice of the others, looking straight at Curry, to ask if they were clear. Curry nodded, and the Director introduced himself to Michael Gold. “We’ve a lot to do. If Curry would arrange coffee or something...”

  Curry Shepherd cocked an eye at Worboys, who disappeared into a small kitchen while everyone else arranged themselves on the shabby furniture.

  In the trade they called it the moment of truth: when the full news was laid on the agent. The Director General had a long briefing ahead. Michael Gold’s cover as Kashvar; passwords; drops; what to do if they went to pieces, and he had to take a dive. Most important, there was the operation itself, once Stentor had agreed to go. The stations, trains, methods. What was to be done at the dacha, then the complex business of getting them out, and away—across the Baltic to Stockholm.

  Big Herbie had heard it all. He knew that, at this moment, there was a merchant ship, under a flag of convenience, departing from Harwich, ostensibly to pick up aircraft parts from Stockholm. The Artemis. What the manifest did not show was the four Gemini inflatables, plus several crates of arms, brought on board under cover of darkness. Herbie thought also of the Island class patrol-craft, Jersey; now lying in the safety of Rosyth, under sealed orders which would eventually reveal a dash across the North Sea—not the most pleasant trip at speed, in this 195 foot, 925 tons vessel-through the Kattegat, and into the Baltic on a ‘good-will-show-off’ mission.

  The Director began to speak, addressing Michael Gold personally, going through each stage with care; emphasising every point. On the small table, maps were spread out—street plans, drawings, timetables; while, put to one side, was a pile of documents: Gold’s own passport with the necessary visas and papers; the Russian passport, and travel permits, in the name of Piotr Kashvar.

  Herbie felt himself drifting from the briefing, the Director’s voice becoming blurred, as words on paper will go out of focus when fatigue overcomes the reader. He was not nodding into sleep, however; merely letting his mind roam over Stentor’s dossier, which he had spent much time studying when waiting for the two-day stint with Michael.

  Reflecting now, Big Herbie was amazed at the amount of solid information they had taken from Stentor. In the early 1950s, with the war over, and his field work done, Stentor spent time with the cipher department at Moscow Centre, graduating quickly to other, more important, and useful, posts. Then, for two years, he contributed little. The First Chief Directorate had shipped him off to the training school, near Minsk, to do the full interrogation and debriefing course.

  This turned into a blessing in disguise during the following decade, for Stentor became one of those who interrogated possible defectors; and many things Herbie had suspected, regarding the handling of certain doubles, now fell into place like pieces in a jigsaw.

  Stentor’s value, at the heart of the Soviet intelligence community, was not so much that of a provider of hard secret facts; more often he gave a stream of comment and warning from the very core of Moscow Centre. Page after page of the material from the 1960s appeared to be direct transcripts from interrogations, and briefings; together with the arterial thinking behind Soviet subversive and clandestine action.

  The details are not known to me—Stentor reported in one lengthy statement—but I have little doubt the recent Cuban missile crisis (this was in 1963, before President Kennedy’s assassination) was manufactured. Penkovsky is still alive, and not executed, as announced after the trial. It would seem that the US Government, the CIA, and the President went for what is called in vulgar language, ‘a sucker ploy’. More on this when I have it.

  Many times in his list of different lives, Herbie had been through case files. Nine out of ten were terse; even unimaginative, and dull: the signals kept short by necessity. But, with Stentor, while there were many Flash messages, in which a wealth of information was packed into a few words, the major reports were long and finely-honed. Sometimes, these reports read like lengthy letters to a friend, in which gossip mingled with hard, sometimes devastating, facts.

  Big Herbie’s mind swam away from the realities going on around him, in this dingy and uncomfortable room smelling of Indian food, and stale, musty, disuse. When he had been in extremis—last year in East Berlin—it was Stentor who had tried to warn the Director. Now, almost out of respect, he dragged himself back to the all-important briefing, knowing he was gambling with Stentor’s life, as well as that of Michael Gold, and, perhaps, his own.

  The Director continued his cold, weighty, monologue; punctuated, from time to time, with sharp, telling, questions, fired like darts at Michael. Herbie Kruger concentrated also. Tomorrow, this young man would be on his way to Moscow. Face to face with Stentor. Ready to bring him out: Troilus, not the betrayed son of King Priam, but Troilus the guide and protector of an old man who, while betraying his own country, had served another with great loyalty.

  It was late and dark by the time all the questions were done, and the long briefing over. The Director left after Curry Shepherd, who went ahead to check on a clear coast for everyone. Herbie nudged Worboys on his way, and turned to Michael Gold.

  “Do it well, Mickey. Break an arm and a leg, yes?”

  Michael took the huge hand. “I’m scared shitless, Herbie.” His palm was clammy.

  Big Herbie shrugged. “So are we all. So we all know. Just do it well. If it goes wrong, dive out very fast. Take your Uncle Herbie’s advice. Hell is full of
heroes—old movie title: yes? Don’t be a hero.”

  When Michael had gone, Herbie Kruger went to the window, watching from a chink in the curtain as the young man walked down the street. A girl came out of the shadows to offer herself, but Michael Gold kept on walking. Good boy, Kruger thought. That would be what he needed now: a bed and a woman; some small comfort before it all started. Insecure, with all the papers he carried; yet he would have wanted it.

  With a start, Herbie realised it was what he wanted. Crossing to the telephone, which was completely sterile, he called the office, asking if he could be out of London for that night. The Director had just returned and they put him through. He did not see why the request should not be granted. “Nothing any of us can do until he’s made contact. As they say in those dreadful old war films, ‘It’s hell—the waiting.’”

  Herbie thanked him, asking if he could use the car and driver. He then made another call—to Lymington. Martha Adler was more than happy. “I’ll cook us a late supper,” she told him.

  Herbie did not stop off at St. John’s Wood, but had the driver take him straight down to Hampshire—pausing at a still-open chemist’s shop to get a toothbrush and spare razor. If he had gone back to the flat, the whole thing might have been different.

  14

  THE ADVENT OF GENERAL Oleg Zapad, into Stentor’s office at the Yasenevo Complex, had no immediate effect. In spite of Stentor’s comments, and Zapad’s wry sarcasm, Vascovsky did not leave. He merely lit a cigarette, sat on the corner of Stentor’s desk and chatted amiably for ten minutes or so. Smooth he certainly was, but the smoothness was that of glue.

  “Gives me the creeps; makes me expect a knife in my back, that one,” Zapad said after Vascovsky finally left the office.

  Stentor—General Vladimir Glubodkin—smiled with no hint of concern. “Oh, they come and go. The Chairman’s ferrets. This one’s already blotted his copybook, Oleg. Don’t lose sight of that. When you screw something as badly as he did, there are three possibilities: they retire you to a pleasant spot where you can do no harm, you disappear to an unpleasant spot where you can do no harm; or they promote you and, possibly, set you the most difficult job going: you fail, and then it’s curtains. Humour him.”