Agent 6

ONE WEEK LATER
USSR 29 Kilometres North-West of Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport

4 August 1965

Frol Panin watched the heavy rain across the empty runway. The weather had broken and brooding, angry clouds had replaced blue sky and a blazing sun. At the side of the runway the soil had cracked in the weeks of heat, grass turned yellow, so dry that the rain ran off the surface. As the weather deteriorated air-traffic control considered diverting the incoming flight. They were being overly cautious and Panin had pushed back against the idea. Extensive preparations for the passengers had been made. Unless there was an emergency, they would land here.

The returning students couldn’t know the extent to which the murder of Jesse Austin had become news in the Soviet Union and abroad. Internationally the story was a sensation. At home, a less hysterical and more measured approach had been taken, with Pravda casting doubt over the official version of events without actually stating them to be false. All the same, these young men and women needed careful briefing and help adjusting after the shock of the past few days. The airport was busy with KGB agents, psychologists and propaganda officers. Unlike the joyous departure ceremony, there were to be no celebrations for their return, no band, no colourful ribbons, no alcohol and only a very limited number of journalists. Family and friends had not been allowed to come despite their requests. The airport was sealed off.

At sixty-one years old Frol Panin’s hair had turned imperial silver-white, like a well-barbered wizard. His frame was trim. The lines in his face were less like wrinkles and more like victory notches, each carved after one of his many grand career triumphs. His most recent had been acquired after working closely with Chairman Brezhnev to oust the ageing and increasingly erratic Khrushchev. In the end it had proved a quiet accomplishment since Khrushchev had gone without a fight, depressed at his demotion. The former farmer had not lost his life but wisely retired into rural obscurity, an appropriate end since that had been his beginning. Panin was a political kingmaker, one of the most important men in the Kremlin. Even so, he was here, on a seemingly trivial errand, prepared to sit and wait for the return of a airliner and its passengers, becoming personally involved in an operation that he’d had no hand in, or awareness of. As he waited, he made a note to review all the protocols of SERVICE. A, an intelligence department he’d overlooked. Clearly their ability to provoke had been underestimated.

Agents and officials gravitated around him, providing information, answering requests and queries. Even air-traffic-control officers came to him, as though he had some sway with the clouds. His bodyguard and driver stood behind him occasionally asking if there was anything he needed and bringing fresh cups of tea as the plane became increasingly delayed. He was here for the sake of one man – Leo Demidov. They had worked together in the past and, feeling a curious sense of loyalty, perhaps it might even be termed affection – emotions he felt rarely – Panin had decided this par one mar task should fall upon him.

The sky was so dark and the rain so heavy Panin couldn’t see the airliner until it was a few hundred metres above the ground. The wings wobbled as it adjusted position. The landing was uneventful. He stood up as it taxied to a standstill. His driver, a conscientious young man, was already holding an umbrella.

Standing under the umbrella, Panin surveyed the delegation as they disembarked. One of the first to step down was Mikael Ivanov, the propaganda officer assigned to this ill-thought-out operation. A handsome young man, he seemed nervous as he slowly descended the stairs, perhaps expecting to be arrested as soon as he touched the tarmac. He noticed Panin and though he did not recognize him, he feared the worst. Panin stepped forward.

– Mikael Ivanov?

Rain streaming off his face, he nodded.

– Yes?

– My name is Frol Panin. You’ve been reassigned. You’re to leave the city immediately. I have a car waiting to take you to the train station where there is a departure this evening. I don’t know where you’ll be taken, you’ll find out on the train. A new post has been arranged for you. There is no time to return home, no time to pack. You can buy whatever you need once you arrive.

Mikael Ivanov was afraid and exhausted, unsure whether this was an arrest in other guise, or merely a demotion. Panin explained:

– Ivanov, you do not know me. But I know what you have done and I know Leo Demidov, Elena’s father. When he is told what happened, he will seek you out, and he will kill you. I am quite sure of this. You must leave the city immediately. It is important I do not know where you end up because Demidov will ask me and he will know if I’m lying. For the same reason if you tell anyone, any of your family, he’ll find you. Your only chance is to do as I say and to disappear, without a word. Of course, it is your decision. Good luck.

Panin patted him on the arm, leaving him standing dumbfounded in the rain.

Staring up at the disembarking students, he compared their reactions to the news footage of them as they boarded the outbound flight, bathed in sunlight, smiling, waving to the cameras, excited with the prospect of flying transatlantic in an airliner. They were tired and scared. He waited for the girls he was supposed to meet, girls he hadn’t seen since they were very young – Zoya and Elena.

Seeing them step down, Panin moved forward, his driver following so that the umbrella remained in position over his head as he intercepted the two girls.

– My name is Frol Panin. You don’t know me. I’m here to take you home. I am a friend of your father. I knew your mother only a little. I’m very sorry for your loss. She was a remarkable woman. This is a terrible tragedy. But come, hurry, let us get out of the rain. My car is nearby.

The two girls looked at him blankly. They were sick with grief. The younger girl, Elena, peered out across the runway, blinking away the rain, as Mikael Ivanov was led away to his car. He did not look back. Elena was pained. Panin was amazed that even now, after everything that had happened, she still loved him and still believed he must have loved her.

In the car Panin briefed the girls, outlining the reaction to events i New York and the way in which those events had been portrayed, accurately or not. The American version, printed in newspapers from New York to San Francisco, London to Tokyo, was easy to sell to the public, containing drama and sensation. The story depicted the beautiful Raisa Demidova having an affair with the womanizer Jesse Austin. The relationship dated from 1950. They’d met during one of Jesse’s tours. He’d visited her school and invited her to a concert performed in a factory warehouse. There was even film footage of the two together, Soviet propaganda film, with Raisa congratulating him at the end of the concert. She’d fallen in love and begged him to rescue her from the Soviet Union. They’d had a sexual encounter, incidental to him but life-changing for her. She was obsessed with him and had corresponded regularly, going so far as to organize a mass letter-writing session by the students in her school when she’d heard of his troubles with the American authorities. Elena interrupted at this point, exclaiming:

– It’s not true!

Panin gestured for her to remain silent. He had only claimed this was the truth as the world knew it. In this truth, Raisa was a romantic figure besotted with Jesse Austin, convinced they were in the midst of a perfect love affair separated by nations. For Jesse it was no more than a forgotten night of sexual gratification. When she’d heard of the Soviet delegation going to New York, she’d forced her way onto the tour to reunite with him. Her dream was to claim asylum, live with him, abandoning her hated husband, Leo, who happened to be a secret-police officer. When she’d visited Jesse in Harlem they’d enjoyed a second sexual encounter. There was a photograph of Raisa Demidova, standing beside an unmade bed, crumpled sheets, dwarfed by the figure of Jesse Austin. Elena exclaimed again:

– I was there, not Raisa!

Impatient, Panin suggested that Elena appreciate that this version was the one created by the American authorities to defuse the situation. Continuing with the events, he explained that during this meeting between Jesse and Raisa, he’d told her that he would never leave his wife and she would have to return to Russia, to her husband. Consumed by jealousy and despair, Raisa had purchased a gun. Outside the United Nations, she’d shot Jesse Austin dead. She’d been caught holding the gun.

Elena could control herself no longer.

– It’s a lie! It’s all a lie!

Panin nodded, it was a lie. But it was the version of events that the United States had released to the press: it was the version of events they were demanding the Soviet Union support. The Soviet Union had agreed without condition. A lone shooter, no conspiracy and no greater powers at work – a story of unrequited love and a woman’s fury at being spurned. The remaining peace concerts had been cancelled. Frol Panin and many others in the Kremlin had worked hard in order that the delegation might return without too much of a delay. Finally, the students had been released and returned home. There was no news on when the body of Raisa Demidova might be returned.

In the back of limousine, observing the two girls absorb the narrative crafted around them, Panin addressed them on a separate matter.

– You must understand that Leo is a changed man. The news of his wife’s death has…

Panin searched for the correct word.

– Disturbed him. I’m not referring to the normal expression of grief. His reaction has gone far beyond that. He is not the man you remember. To be honest, I’m hoping that your return might help ground him.

The older girl, Zoya, spoke for the first time.

– What can we tell him?

– He will want to know everything that happened. He is trained to detect when he is being lied to. He is certain that the official version of events is a lie. Which of course it is. There is no question in his mind that there has been a conspiracy. You must decide for yourselves what you tell him. I place no limits on what you may talk to him about. Maybe you, Elena, are afraid of telling him the truth. But in his current state of mind, I would be more afraid of telling him a lie.