The Russian Century

by George Pahomov

  We had arranged it so that right outside the French Embassy Marie-Claire got into our car, a large ZIM, the state luxury car, which, according to our cover story, I had borrowed from the Ministry of Culture. Lora got into De Jean’s car with the little flag, and they rode together the whole way—she and

  298

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Maurice. Zhorzh Mdivani and Taichik were with us and, I think, Chered-nichenko.

  We set off for the Planernyi Region . . .

  Somewhere at the edge of the forest we got out of our cars, walked around, and took a lot of pictures. At around eight o’clock, we arrived at the restaurant, where a table had been reserved for us in advance. Despite Kunavin’s efforts, a small mishap occurred right at the beginning of the evening. It turned out that there were foreign journalists, Americans, in the dining area, and among them, if my memory serves me right, was the wife of the American journalist Stevens (as Kunavin later told me), who, of course, recognized Maurice De Jean and Marie-Claire and watched us intently throughout the entire meal.

  While dancing was going on, I saw that Lora, who had drunk a fair amount, was pressing herself up against the ambassador. And he was smiling and whispering something in her ear. Marie-Claire either didn’t notice, or pretended not to notice. Lora was really letting herself go that night. When I danced with her, she pressed herself up against me, too. I whispered in her ear, “I’m not the ambassador, babe.”

  After the evening was over and we had said good-bye to the De Jeans, I took Lora home by taxi. But all of a sudden she got stubborn and said that she wanted to come spend the night at my place, that she been attracted to me for a long time, and that she wasn’t going to let this opportunity get away.

  We arrived at my place, having bought champagne at the Praga Restaurant along the way. There Lora told me that Kunavin, speaking on authority for General Gribanov, had promised her, in the event of success, a room of her own in Moscow—no, not an apartment, but a room. But soon afterwards, she’d forgotten about Maurice and the room, and was remembering my cousin and her love for him with tears in her eyes. And then, no longer crying and having forgotten my cousin, she consoled herself with me. There was something pathological in all of this, for her as well as for me.

  Soon afterwards Marie-Claire left for France. Summer came. Gribanov decided to force events.

  I was given a special, top-secret note from the chairman of the KGB, General Serov, to the USSR State Planning Committee, which allowed me to purchase a new Volga automobile, using my own money, through the intercession of the Ministry of Trade. This was an unheard-of stroke of luck. I felt like a little boy on his birthday. After all, in those years only the very highly placed, the chosen ones, could buy a car this way. Mere mortals had to stay on a waiting list for several years, or spend 75,000 rubles buying a Volga on the black market, nearly risking their lives in the process. My Volga was intended for the Maurice De Jean operation. Gribanov’s chief assistant, Vasily

  Iurii Krotkov, The KGB in Action

  299

  Stepanovich, congratulated me over the phone, saying, “Well, now you’re fully armed. Go for it!” Kunavin, an old automobile enthusiast, some other KGB administrator, and I went to buy a Volga at the only automobile dealership in Moscow, on Bakuninskii Street. Kunavin said that this was a big present for me, and I agreed, even though I was paying 40,000 rubles of my own money for this present.

  Finally we approached the final stage of the Lora Kronberg-Sobolevskaia epic. In the end, Gribanov wasn’t fully certain of Lora (or perhaps that was simply his style—having doubles and back-ups), and that’s why one more girl was brought into the operation. This was Alla Golubova (code name: Petrova), a beautiful young woman who now works for Intourist. I was to introduce her to Maurice as a straw widow—that is, as the wife of a sailor always out at sea who rarely returned to Moscow. According to the cover story, Alla had a separate apartment on the Arbat in building #41, apartment #14. In actuality, it was an apartment owned by the KGB where I would often meet with lower-ranking agents. Alla really lived with her aunt’s family, and didn’t even have her own room.

  Kunavin brought us together in advance at that same ill-starred Moscow Hotel, where we discussed our plan of action, went over the history of our acquaintance, details of Alla’s biography, etc. Then I called up Maurice at the embassy and said that I’d like to invite him out for a picnic, especially since before she left for France Marie-Claire had asked me not to abandon her husband, to entertain him from time to time. Maurice agreed. I said that Larisa and another friend of mine were coming.

  The night before, Kunavin and I went to the village of Kriukovo, within a forty-kilometer radius of Moscow, where the writer Georgii Briantsev and his wife Tonia had their dacha. [Foreigners were restricted to this 40km. radius.] In the past he had been a big man in the KGB and the Ministry of State Security; his wife had also worked for the KGB.

  Someone at the Lubianka called Briantsev beforehand. He met us cordially and readily agreed to help. We revealed some of our cards to him and acquainted Tonia with what was going on. Kunavin’s assistants brought fresh food, drinks, and fruit right away. I made sure I remembered the directions, in order not to get lost the next day.

  The day after, Lora, Alla, and I drove my new Volga up to the French Embassy. Guarding the Embassy were three militiamen, employees of the KGB First Sector who sullenly looked us over, even though they had been apprised of our coming, as usual. The Chevrolet sat near the entrance, with Boris behind the wheel. De Jean came out exactly at the pre-arranged time. I offered him a ride in my new Volga, but he preferred his Chevrolet. Then we decided that Lora would go with him, and she got into his car. We set off. Later Boris

  300

  Chapter Thirty-One

  said that De Jean got a little nervous when he noticed we were approaching the 40-kilometer mark, since diplomats were forbidden to cross it, but it was then that we turned off onto a side road and soon reached our destination.

  We left our cars in the clearing and walked to Briantsev’s dacha, which was about 300 meters away. We went in pairs. Maurice was with Lora, and I was with Alla. I was already pretending that Alla was my girl, since I saw whom Maurice clearly preferred.

  At Briantsev’s well-appointed, comfortable dacha, we had dinner, and drank quite a bit. Briantsev, a short, stocky man with sharply defined features, a little crude in conversation, delivered several completely obscene jokes. But Maurice wasn’t embarrassed in the least.

  After a short walk and a game of catch, we left for Moscow while it was still light. (Maurice, of course, invited the Briantsevs to visit him, but they never took him up on his offer.) We said good-bye at the center of town. I took Alla home, and Maurice took Lora home.

  Home?

  Yes, since by that time an apartment had been set up for her in building #2/4 on Ananiev Lane. Her apartment was on the first floor, and next to it on the same level, and with an entrance on the same landing, was a different KGB apartment—the same arrangement as on the Arbat. This system of paired apartments was intended for special operations.

  The furnishings in the apartment prepared for Lora were okay—not luxurious, but not cheap, of course. The fact of the matter is that, according to the cover story, Lora’s husband was a geologist, who spent most of the year on faraway expeditions. Could Maurice check up on this? No. And why would he want to check up on something that was so convenient, from his standpoint? Lora had no children (both in real life and according to the cover story), nor did she have any relatives. She lived all alone, poor soul.

  And so, Maurice took Lora to Ananiev Lane. She, like Lida Khovanskaia before her, asked the ambassador in for a cup of coffee, and also to see how a common Soviet movie star lived. (Alas, not at all the way Brigitte Bardot lives.) Maurice agreed. In these cases he was amazingly amenable. The ambassador did not spend a long time there. The driver waited in the car for half an hour. And during that time nothing happened between Lora and De
Jean.

  A few days later, Maurice invited us over for breakfast. Everything was orderly and elegant. Breakfast was served in the reception hall, in the right corner near the window. For an hour-and-a-half we lived among antique tapestries and furniture worthy of a museum.

  Later there came another invitation to the Briantsevs’ —not to Kriukovo, but to their Moscow apartment, which was in the Writers Building, on Cher-niakhovskii Street. De Jean accepted the invitation at first, but the next day I

  Iurii Krotkov, The KGB in Action

  301

  received a call at home from his interpreter, who asked to move the date of the meeting. Oh, what a fright the call from the French ambassador caused in my communal apartment! I wasn’t at home. When I returned, my neighbor, Valentina Zevakina, told me with wide-open and clearly frightened eyes that I had received a call from the French Embassy, from the ambassador himself, and that they had requested that I call the embassy immediately.

  The second meeting at the Briantsevs’, officially a dinner, was only an intermediary step necessary to put Lora and Maurice on a more intimate footing, to bring them closer together smoothly and naturally.

  When we left the Briantsevs’ and said good-bye, Maurice got into his car and left alone. Alla set out on foot, since she lived quite close. Lora jumped into my Volga, and ordered me to rush at top speed to Ananiev Lane. On the way Lora told me that De Jean would be visiting her in an hour, and that they had arranged this inconspicuously at dinner (this was what these dinners were for!), and that she didn’t know what to do, since this hadn’t been pre-arranged with Kunavin. When we arrived at the apartment on Ananiev Lane, we called every KGB number we knew: Kunavin, Vera Ivanovna, Melkumov, and even Gribanov himself—that is, his office. Imagine, dear reader, none answered their telephones, or the secretaries didn’t know where their bosses were. This happens sometimes, even in the KGB.

  We were forced to make an independent decision, which, of course, is not recommended in KGB practice.

  Lora said, “To be or not to be?”

  I said, “Almost Hamlet.”

  She said, “It’s funny. This is the first time in my life when it depends not on myself, but on the KGB.”

  I said, “Babe, you gotta fall.”

  And Carthage fell.

  The affair between Lora and Maurice continued afterwards. She got ahead of General Gribanov’s schedule. He had to rework everything on the fly. It was obvious that Lora had captivated the ambassador; he was taken with her. And to be snared by her . . .

  Getting ready for the dénouement, Gribanov ordered her to hold off. De Jean would call Lora at home, but she wouldn’t answer. And the meetings with Kho-vanskaia had also ceased. The poor ambassador remained without a woman’s attentions. They had barely given him a taste, and all of a sudden—well, there you go. But the predatory wolf from the KGB knew his business. He had planned precisely, taking into account even such factors as physiology.

  During this short interlude, the necessary organizational tasks were completed. The first thing Gribanov did was to call Kunavin back from a vacation that had started several days beforehand. From Kazan he summoned Misha,

  302

  Chapter Thirty-One

  a KGB operative and a really big bruiser ready for anything. I had heard that he was used regularly in these types of cases—that is, when decisiveness and brute force were called for. Lora’s room on Ananiev Lane was wired; that is, there was a very sensitive microphone hidden somewhere, whose wires led to the apartment next door, where a short-wave radio transmitter and receiver were set up.

  Gribanov himself decided to meet with Lora. This meeting took place in a private room at the Metropole Restaurant. Besides Oleg Mikhailovich, Melkumov, Kunavin, and Misha—and Lora, of course—were present. All of the tiniest details were planned. Kunavin told me about it later. Gribanov stated again that if everything went well, Lora would receive a room in Moscow. A room, not an apartment. The KGB men had a champagne toast. After Gribanov and Melkumov left, Lora remained in the company of Ku-navin and Misha, in order to get to know Misha better—after all, he was her husband, the very enthusiastic geologist. This was the role he had to play at the crucial moment. And to help him, he had a friend, Kunavin—also a dedicated geologist. Melkumov met with me; we went over my part in the script.

  And, finally, the fateful day arrived for Maurice De Jean.

  I invited him out for a picnic again. He agreed when he found out that Lora and Alla would be there. (Alla was my “love interest”—that’s how I presented her, in order to make everything clear.) We decided to have this picnic out in the open, somewhere in a forest clearing. At Lora’s request, we drove in the direction of the Lenin Hills. Afterwards I found out that this was all planned at the dinner at the Metropole Restaurant. De Jean rode in the car driven not by Boris this time, but by a different chauffeur, and took some folding metal furniture—a table and chairs—a huge umbrella for protection from the sun, and a lot of snacks and alcoholic beverages. And in our car we were carrying those items prepared by Kunavin’s agents.

  It was like this: Alla and I went ahead in my Volga, and Maurice and Lora followed in the Chevrolet. Twenty kilometers outside of Moscow, the Chevrolet unexpectedly pulled ahead of us, and soon turned off the road into a clearing, and proceeded to go deeper into the forest. I realized that Lora knew this place, and that we were going to set up things right there. (Later she told me that that was her “secret” place, where she met with my cousin and Pomeshchikov and other lovers.) And the grove really did turn out to be charming: a little ravine, a brook, and a sown field already thick with rye.

  We sat down in the shade, made ourselves comfortable, and had a bit to eat and drink. The chauffeur had a bit to eat as well, and then went for a long walk. When we’d left Moscow and got into the country road, I’d noticed a GAZ-64 [a jeep] with an enclosed rear, which followed us constantly at a distance. Near the turn-off from the main road, I noticed another car, a Pobeda.

  Iurii Krotkov, The KGB in Action

  303

  I hadn’t been warned about this. I found out some of the technical details of the operation post factum, but certain professional secrets were so obvious that I had caught on to them by myself. But Lora, I think, had known about these cars—that is, she had known that we would be monitored for control and to prevent any sort of unforeseen occurrences.

  Now we had one of those occurrences. I don’t think that this was arranged with Gribanov in advance. What happened was that a couple of hours later, a light gray Volga appeared in the forest grove, about 100 meters away from us. The half-drunk Lora whispered to me that her Feinzimmer had arrived. (Yes, I had heard previously that he had recently bought a Volga, after having spent several years on the waiting list.) Lora was right. It was Feinzimmer. Paying us no attention, he got out of his car, got undressed down to his underwear, opened the hood of his car, and began to fiddle with the engine. Of course, he noticed Lora among us, but he pretended that he didn’t see her.

  De Jean realized that the arrival of this unknown person signified something to Lora, and, watching Lora, he realized that she was not wholly indifferent towards this person. Familiar with the mores of movie actors, he became jealous, naturally, even though he was showing it in a jocular manner. And Lora enflamed his jealousy. I directed her in a whisper to go down into the ravine and followed after her, while Alla flirted with De Jean.

  In the ravine I gave Lora a berating directive. I told her that she was wrecking Gribanov’s operation, that she was introducing the element of anarchy and self-initiative into it. I asked her who gave her permission to tell Feinz-immer that she was going to be here, and not alone but with friends? She began to defend herself and answered that this was all purely an accident, and that she hadn’t told Feinzimmer anything. However, I think she was lying. She had decided, with a woman’s logic, to kill two birds. On the one hand, probably having had a fight with Feinzimmer, she was demonstrating her prowess as far
as men were concerned through this encounter. On the other hand, she was really getting De Jean worked up. Lora herself was overly excited, and this was making me nervous. Maurice, however, was looking at her with desire. This was Lora’s improvisation—an improvisation which, in the event of failure, would have cost her dearly. But right sides with the victors. Since she triumphed, everything was forgiven, and she was even praised for much that had been unexpected. (But I don’t know how Lora explained this entire episode to Feinzimmer after she married him.)

  And so we were having a picnic while Kunavin and Misha sat in the KGB apartment next to Lora’s apartment, wearing clothes for an expedition, in waterproof hob-nailed boots, with backpacks and plywood suitcases, like real geologists, while Gribanov and Melkumov waited for news, hovering over the radio operator. Our picnic outing was being reported in great detail. After

  304

  Chapter Thirty-One

  all, both vehicles, the GAZ-64 and the Pobeda, were equipped with radio transmitters.

  It had been decided that we would return to Moscow at five o’clock. Melkumov had given me strict orders not to be late. I tried to hurry Lora along, but she dallied.

  Finally, we set out on our return trip. (Feinzimmer left earlier, not having approached Lora after all.) Somewhere on the road I pulled ahead of a car in a no-passing zone. (I didn’t have a KGB permit to avoid a license and registration check, since my Volga wasn’t an operative car.) I was stopped by a highway patrolman. The Chevrolet pulled over behind me. This was immediately reported to Gribanov via radio. As Kunavin later told me, Gribanov cursed both me and the highway patrolman. But the latter, having verified my documents and glanced at the little French flag on the ambassador’s car, quickly saluted and let me go on my way. As we were nearing Moscow we came up to a small and rather dirty lake. Lora suddenly decided to go for a swim, and asked the ambassador to stop the car. I noticed this in the rearview mirror and also stopped.