Stroika

Chapter 26

^{MOSCOW, LUBYANKA, KGB HEADQUARTERS}

‘I’ll give you Afghan economics,’ said Konstantin coldly; he had been trying to get his point over for the past half-hour. ‘This is how it works: 5,000 tons of opium, 500 tons of heroin, $250 billion dollars street value. It doesn’t come much bigger.’

The KGB chair, Karzhov, nodded. General Vdovin sat silent next to him.

‘Occupation or no occupation, Najibullah needs arms and the Soviet Union wants to supply him arms; well, I can do that… Geneva Accord or no Geneva Accord,’ he said, trying to not to raise his voice. While the KGB were past masters at espionage, frustratingly, their apparent grasp of markets was less secure.

In fact, forget Najibullah, he thought, they were all at it – more factions and tribes than he could name – they all wanted to get their hands on more weaponry to kill each other.

‘Look, you sell me arms, I pay you in dollars, they pay me in opium and it costs this country nothing in Russian lives. The Americans were at it before, and now it is our turn.’

The KGB chairman stared at him a moment. ‘And where do you make opium into heroin?’

‘Along the border with Pakistan. I just need the political cover to operate – like before – and an arms licence, that’s the new bit. The KGB receives a share and you get a slice into your Swiss account. You don’t have to worry about the transactions in between, delivery… nothing… that’s my responsibility.’

‘But you want support – my support?’

‘Yes. I don’t want the military breathing down my neck… that new guy, General what’s his name… their rising star?

‘General Marov?’ said Karzhov.

‘Yes, General Yuri Marov… Well, when they brought him back from wherever he was and put him in charge of the Afghan pull-out, he gave me a lot of grief. Grounded aircraft, delayed shipments to my suppliers, questions, questions. He never caught us out; we were always a step ahead, well informed, thanks to you.’

‘He’s nobody’s fool. He complained to the Defence Ministry. Fortunately, they see things the same way we do,’ said Karzhov.

Konstantin remembered bumping into Marov in Kabul at a late-night bar only the month before. He was with a beautiful Persian woman. It was the general who had approached him.

‘I don’t want you fuelling this conflict while I am reducing the garrison,’ he had warned him. ‘I have one hundred thousand men to get out of here as safely as I can.’

Thirty minutes later the bar had been abandoned in the face of a rocket attack from outside the city.

‘I find a rocket with a Made in Russia sign on it, I’ll make it my personal business to make sure the person who put it in their hands pays,’ was the general’s parting shot.

He was a cut above most Russians, Konstantin thought, and had money too, that was the rumour. Marov was not someone he could buy, that was clear. And wasn’t he thick with Revnik and his old flame?

‘What precisely is the general up to now?’ asked Konstantin.

Vdovin, who had remained mostly silent until then, spoke.

‘Apart from the pull-out… reorganisation of the military.’

The KGB chairman shook his head. ‘God knows where it will end. The general secretary,’ he said in a mocking tone, ‘is discussing a troop withdrawal from Eastern Europe. Our enemies must be rubbing their hands with glee.’

‘And where does the Politburo sit in all of this?’ asked Konstantin. It was hard to keep track of events, they were unfolding so fast.

Karzhov shrugged. ‘They’re all clowns,’ he jeered, ‘there’s even talk of devolving more powers to the republics.’

The Soviet Union seemed to be teetering towards collapse,

Karzhov threw a glance at General Vdovin, who nodded back.

‘The general says you are to be trusted?’

‘We’ve worked well together so far; our interests are not dissimilar,’ Konstantin replied.

‘There is a group of us, a small group, but I am sure with wide general support, who are committed to ensuring that the Soviet Union does not disintegrate, that all that has been achieved through decades of sacrifice is not lost.’

‘That we do not wake up one morning with the Americans and NATO parked on our borders,’ interjected Vdovin.

‘Quite…’ continued Karzhov, ‘we do not intend to dismantle our general forces or lower our strategic guard.’

Nuclear capability by another name, thought Konstantin.

‘And how do you intend to prevent that?’ Konstantin asked. A revived Soviet Union would make his life a lot simpler.

‘By any means,’ the KGB chairman said, looking at him directly.

There had been countless talk of coups. Something had to give, Konstantin thought. Back in Leningrad it had become so bad that the newly elected mayor was doling out Western food relief. And here he was with arguably the most powerful man in Russia talking about any means – that old communist epithet.

‘And in what way do you want my help?’ said Konstantin before the chairman asked him.

‘You have your network, not unlike our own, covert… global… sworn to secrecy? You understand the meaning of betrayal,’ Karzhov continued.

‘We don’t have defectors… not live ones, if that’s what you mean.’

‘You have political and business affiliations, money and… what shall we call it, your own security force? When the time comes… when our plans are further advanced, I might call on you for support… to neutralise, shall we say, anti-Soviet elements… Do we have an understanding?’

‘Of course, Comrade Chairman… and the arms licence?’

The chairman nodded. ‘You’ll have that by the end of today.’

Chapter 27

^MOSCOW

For a split second, Yuri struggled to remember her name, distracted by the twin sensation of her finger, as it traced the long shrapnel scar on his left side, and her tongue, that flicked over his lips… Natasha.

‘General Yarouchka,’ she whispered, using the diminutive. ‘Surely a general can make his men wait.’

General Yuri Marov moved back a few inches to take her in. Her auburn hair fell straight to her shoulders. She was still wearing the blouse she wore the previous evening hung open and off one shoulder.

‘What meeting is more important than me?’ She lunged forward with bared teeth to bite his lower lip as he snapped back out of range, grabbed her by the shoulder and overbalanced her onto the bed, pushing her face into the pillow. His hand traced the inside of her leg.

‘I knew you were KGB when I first laid eyes on you!’ he said, laughing. He had met Natasha two nights before at a high-level Moscow party. She was a cut above many of the women he had dated, an ex-model turned businesswoman. She ran her own Moscow agency specialising in exporting models to Western Europe.

‘I have to be going…’ He let go of her and jumped off the bed like a trapper releasing a wild animal. She rolled over.

‘You have a beautiful apartment.’

He guessed what she was thinking, how this on a general’s pay?

His apartment on the Arbat had indeed cost him a great deal of money; army pay would hardly have covered a studio rental within the Sadovaya Koltso – the Garden Ring – around Moscow.

‘Thank you,’ is all he said, without elucidating.

Forty minutes until his car arrived. He looked at his uniform and pressed shirt hanging on the wardrobe door and then at the woman on the bed looking up at him with those smokey eyes, her lips distractingly parted.

‘Ten minutes… ten minutes!’ he heard himself say.

Five minutes later than he normally would have been comfortable with, Yuri took the lift to the ground floor. He passed the concierge seated behind an expensive-looking reception desk, more sculpture than furniture, and took the revolving door onto the street. His staff car was directly outside. The driver, a young dark-haired Chechen, jumped out of the vehicle and rushed round to open the rear passenger door. As Yuri bent down to get in, he noticed a man standing on the other side of the road, ten feet from a parked Lada. He wasn’t sure why he noticed him that morning. Maybe it was a gap in the traffic that was normally bumper to bumper. But his brain had registered something. Without giving the Lada or the man a second glance, he climbed in and settled back into his seat as his driver pulled away from the kerb.

Yuri shifted his position so that he now had clear sight of the wing mirror. The man he had spotted opposite was climbing hurriedly into the Lada, which had pulled up swiftly beside him. A second later, the man and the car disappeared from view.

Had he been imagining things? Could it have been a simple coincidence, he thought? He went through a mental list of likely suspects: CIA, MI6, and MSS. One was almost as likely as another. But this was Russia, he reminded himself, where not even generals were to be trusted.

Chapter 28

‘Viktoriya Nikolaevna Kayakova. I have a ten thirty appointment with the minister of oil and gas.’

As the receptionist checked the minister’s calendar, Viktoriya looked across the entrance hall towards the front door where Yuri stood making sure that everything went smoothly.

An hour earlier, the two of them had had coffee together to discuss strategy in a café close by the GUM. Yuri had seemed distracted, directing her to a corner table out of earshot of other patrons and telling her to keep her voice down. He was clearly wary of something. She wondered what he did now that he was back in Moscow. It was not something he ever raised or discussed; she knew better than to broach it with him. All she knew was that he worked at general staff headquarters. Misha guessed it was all to do with the Afghan pull-out, which according to official media was nearly complete. But whatever his role, where her director had failed, Yuri had succeeded. There had been no hesitation from the minister in meeting them once there had been a call from his office.

‘ID?’ said the receptionist, a dowdy-looking woman in a grey uniform. Viktoriya wondered if she was always as rude or had just taken an exception to her. There was a tap on her shoulder.

‘I have to be going,’ said Yuri as he kissed her on both cheeks. ‘You’ll have to give me a full report later.’

Viktoriya held his arms for a moment.

‘Everything all right, General,’ she said, using his title affectionately. Outside, it had begun to rain heavily. A passing truck hit a pothole in the road, sending a sheet of water over the pavement.

‘Yes, absolutely,’ he said, his normal smile returning. ‘A lot going on, that’s all.’

A young man interrupted them and motioned for her to follow. Viktoriya watched as Yuri ran out into the street and jumped into his staff car. Despite his protest, she couldn’t banish her sense of unease.

‘Please wait here,’ said the young man. He parked her in a bare-looking meeting room, all wood and frosted glass, and pointed to a pot of coffee brewing on the table.

Before she had time to pour herself a cup, an older man – she guessed late fifties, in a regulation Soviet double-breasted grey suit – stepped into the room and introduced himself as Stephan Federov.

Viktoriya wondered if Federov had any real sense of the power he wielded, his fiat over every well, refinery, and fuel distribution centre. Most state-level bureaucrats she had met simply had no understanding of how the real system worked.

‘Viktoriya Nikolaevna, a pleasure to meet you,’ he said, self-consciously tidying his hair. ‘What can I do for you? General Marov made the introduction, I gather? Can I ask what your relationship is with him?’

Viktoriya explained that Leningrad Freight had dealt with him on customs and security issues when he was a colonel in charge of Smolensk and he had been kind enough to recommend her. It was halfway to the truth.

‘I also have a letter of introduction from the Leningrad gorkom and my director at Leningrad Freight.’

‘You do indeed come highly recommended,’ said Federov, glancing at the documents before returning them. He took off his glasses and placed them on the table.

‘So, Miss Kayakova… back to the beginning. It says in my notes that you wish to discuss fuel supply problems for… Leningrad Freight. Normally I would not get involved in such matters but, as I said, you come highly recommended, not least by General Marov, who tells me you are trustworthy and discrete.’

Viktoriya had the impression Federov was beginning to talk in code.

‘Leningrad Freight is the second largest shipping company in Russia,’ he continued. ‘You have done well to rise so fast. You must only be…’

‘Twenty-eight.’

‘Yes, I have that here too,’ he said, referring to his notes, ‘first-class honours in Economics at Leningrad State.’

Viktoriya felt this was turning into an interview.

‘You will appreciate I like to know who I am dealing with.’

He turned a page. It was a list of diesel supplies to Leningrad Freight over the past four months.

‘I am a petrochemical engineer,’ he added apropos of nothing. ‘Your requisitions have increased substantially. It’s good to know that at least someone is moving goods around Russia,’ he said with a deadpan face and shut the folder.

‘May I suggest we continue at a café close by? They do much better coffee and it has stopped raining now.’

The café was indeed close, a few doors down from the ministry. It was spacious with a freshly painted vaulted ceiling and newly installed red velour booth seating.

‘I think this will be more private, Miss Kayakova.’

Coffee arrived almost instantly.

‘I’ll come to the point. You have a supply contract with Mikhail Revnik’s cooperative to supply him diesel, in which… how shall I put it, the gorkom also have an interest?’

The minister for oil and gas was not a simple state-level bureaucrat, after all, she thought.

‘Yes, fuel surplus to Leningrad Freight requirements.’

‘Quite, sound economics… Tell me, do you know of the oil refinery at Roslavi?’

Viktoriya said she did. Leningrad Freight had made sporadic deliveries for it going back years. It was south of Smolensk, halfway to Bryansk.

‘General Marov, I am sure, is very familiar with it from his previous command,’ added Federov. He paused, and she wondered for a moment whether he would continue.

‘It will not come as a surprise to you that perestroika has turned everything on its head. First there were rules, and now there are none. Many of our industries, and that includes oil refineries, are plagued by criminal gangs. In our motor industry there is wholesale theft from the production line of spare parts, even cars. No one dares challenge them, not if you value your life. Mikhail Dimitrivich has his bank – Moika – and accounts in Switzerland?’ he continued.

She nodded.

‘Do you think that between yourselves and General Marov you can secure Roslavi?’

Secure Roslavi? Occupy it, militarily? That was a tall order, she thought.

‘And if I could?’

‘I grant your new cooperative a distribution agreement with the refinery, all you can manage.’

‘At the domestic price, in roubles?’

‘Naturally… and 15 per cent of the market price, US dollars, into a Swiss bank account, which your friend will set up for me.’

What he was proposing was on an entirely different scale. The current offtake would seem like petty cash to this. The revenues would be enormous.

‘Comrade Minister, let me speak with my principals. I’ll come back to you shortly.’

‘Well don’t wait too long… carpe diem.’

Chapter 29

The aircraft taxied to the edge of the runway. Out of her window, Viktoriya glimpsed the aeroplane in front lift from view, its wheels already retracting, as it rose into an unblemished morning sky. On cue, the giant Ilyushin made a slow turn to face down the runway, square onto the flight strip. It rolled forward a few metres and stopped.

‘Prepare for take-off,’ said the address system.

Viktoriya looked at the second hand of her watch as the engine noise swelled to deafening pitch and she resisted the temptation to cover her ears. Like a dog anxious to be unleashed, the aircraft struggled against its master, shaking and shuddering. Surely now, she thought. There was an almost imperceptible change in gravity, the infinitely small gap between stillness and kinesis, a stasis, where opposing forces cancel each other out. The sudden, precipitous, forward movement of the aircraft forced her, almost threw her, back in her seat. She looked again at her watch as the behemoth gathered momentum and lift with every inch. Thirty, thirty-five, she had guessed fifty seconds, forty, forty-five; the Ilyushin slipped the lead and clawed its way skyward before turning north to Leningrad.

She reached for the briefcase stowed under her seat and pulled out the latest shipping figures. Blankly, she stared at the numbers, unable to concentrate on the neat schedule of rows and columns. Her mind drifted to the meeting she had just finished with Yuri, who had delivered her to the airport that morning. They had sat in the busy concourse watching the early morning bustle while she recounted her conversation with Federov.

Yuri had sat quietly thinking it through. It was entirely within his power whether they went ahead or walked away.

‘I know what you are thinking, but there is no honour in penury, not unless you’re a religious obsessive, and we’ve surely had enough of them,’ she had thrown in. ‘And if it is not us, it will be someone else.’

‘Not always the best way to justify one’s actions.’

‘Maybe not, but you can see the state things are in… One day soon the ordinary Russian is going to wake up and discover that the money in his bank account is worth nothing, zero, the government have spent it all. I don’t want to be that ordinary Russian. You don’t either.’

He had stared at her for a moment. His expression changed. It was as though he were seeing her for the first time.

‘Carpe diem,’ he had said with the hint of a smile on his face.

‘Carpe diem.’

‘Look, I can’t commit the military, not to secure the refinery, but there is a way. It’s no secret that we are decommissioning whole regiments with the Afghan pull-out. There are a lot of soldiers looking for work – officers and men. I know a few from my old regiment. We build our own security force.’

‘A private army.’

‘Four hundred men… to start, one battalion. The way things are going we’ll need more, a lot more. Tell your minister we’ll take care of Roslavi.’

She closed her eyes.

‘Coffee, madam,’ asked the hostess. She looked up and placed her cup on the small tray held out to her.

Yuri – he was his own enigma, she thought. What did he ultimately want? She didn’t believe it was all about money… but didn’t wealth and power go together, and was he not quietly accumulating both.