Stroika

Chapter 37

^MOSCOW

‘Come in, General Marov. Thank you for coming to see me so promptly.’

Yuri heard the door click shut behind him.

Colonel General Andrei Ghukov stood next to a wall map of Europe. A line traced the Iron Curtain dividing East from West and coloured pins the disposition of allied and enemy forces – red for Soviet, black for local and blue for NATO.

‘I’ve just met with the general secretary… I suppose you have been following the reports.’

‘Yes, sir,’ was all he said. What had started a month ago, with Hungary opening its borders with Austria and letting thousands of East Germans use it as an escape route to the West, had escalated into mass protest against the East German government. The general secretary’s recent visit had only increased tensions.

‘Honecker is a fool if he thinks he can keep a lid on this,’ Ghukov continued. ‘The general secretary has signalled change and all his government have done is stonewall. He is losing control. He’s been there too long.’

Eighteen years, thought Yuri. Honecker and the Communist East German government had seen three general secretaries come and go.

‘We are putting pressure on him to resign, as are his colleagues. I don’t think it will be long in coming. But the long and short of it is that the general secretary will not intervene. He has assurances from the Americans that they will not take advantage of the situation if we allow Eastern Europe to break free.’

‘You trust them, sir?’

‘I don’t think we have a choice, not if we want to avoid a lot of bloodshed.’

‘And General Volkov?’ asked Yuri. Volkov had enough hardware and manpower to steamroller Western Europe.

‘Volkov called and recommended I persuade the general secretary to intervene before it’s “too late”, to use his actual words.’

They were both silent for a minute.

‘And your view, sir?’ asked Yuri.

‘We shouldn’t intervene. I am with the general secretary for all the reasons we have discussed. It’s time we stepped back.

‘General, you are close to the district generals. How do you think they will react?’

Yuri shrugged. ‘I don’t know sir, they are hard to read… with the exception, of course, of generals Volkov and Vdovin… I can’t say there is much enthusiasm around the table for Soviet troop reductions.’

Yuri wondered whether the colonel general, having come so far, might backtrack. He and the general secretary were clearly under pressure.

Ghukov fell silent and contemplated the map as though the answer he was looking for might be there.

‘Where are you going to be for the next few days, General?’

‘Archangel, sir… a new weapons trial. I can reschedule if you’d rather I stayed in Moscow.’

‘No, General, you go. It would send the wrong signal not to.’

As Yuri’s staff car drove him back to his apartment building, Yuri reflected on the conversation he had just had with the chief of staff and earlier that morning with Terentev. His KGB friend had drawn a blank; there was no record of any meetings, which only deepened his suspicions. He knew from the lieutenant that that wasn’t the case, and he didn’t think she was lying.

As he passed reception, the concierge handed him an envelope. Yuri waited until he was in his apartment before opening it. Inside, a card read:

It was a message from Biryukova. So there was to be another meeting. He must get a message to Ilya. If Ilya could have some of his men trail the committee members the lieutenant had identified, maybe he could take his suspicions to Ghukov with some hard facts. He called a driver and scribbled a note.

He was sure Ilya would get the point.

Chapter 38

^LENINGRAD

Adriana rolled a dollar bill, inserted it into her left nostril and snorted the line of white powder Konstantin had neatly cut her and left on the low table. She closed her eyes and fell back into the sofa. When would Konstantin be back? She couldn’t remember what he had said now. Her heart was pounding in her ears so loudly that she thought it might burst. He had only left a few minutes before, but she wasn’t certain now. The sound of catcalls and music filtered down from the bar. For the first time that evening she was alone, away from lecherous looks and pawing hands.

How many lines of coke had she snorted that night? She tried to remember. Evenings had begun to blur since she had begun to work at Pravdy. Konstantin seemed to take a special pleasure in summoning her when she had been on the floor a few hours. He would pump her with coke before fucking her on the sofa or presenting her to one of his political cronies or that disgusting General Vdovin, tipping her with extra coke if she performed well. She hated all of them.

There was a bang on the door, and a male voice shouted ‘On in ten minutes!’

‘Okay!’ she shouted back. Re-energised, Adriana stood up and loosened her short pink satin kimono; she was boiling. Catching sight of herself in the mirror, she eased it off her shoulders and gyrated to the dull beat of the music. She looked great, better than great. Thank God for coke, she thought. Had she had one or two lines before sex with Konstantin? She lost her balance, nearly fell over and grabbed the edge of the desk. He had to keep the stuff somewhere in his office, the way he dished it out.

She kicked off her high heels, walked round to the other side of the desk and pulled open the main drawer: Cuban cigars, a guillotine cigar cutter, condoms, a vibrator, a Markov automatic with its safety catch off, a photograph of Viktoriya. She held it up and studied it. She was finding it hard to focus and wondered if she would be able to make it back on stage. Maybe she could persuade Irina to take her place. Studying the image of her former competition, she wondered what was so special about her. She was good-looking, but then weren’t all the girls in Konstantin’s clubs? She knew that they had had an almighty row some time ago and he had thrown her out, but according to the other girls he had never roughed her up, ever, but how did they know. She put back the photo and picked up an old ID card. A man in his fifties with Brezhnev eyebrows stared up at her. She read his name out loud, ‘Pavel Pytorvich Antyuhin.’ She thought it looked like the same card Konstantin had been holding in his hand when she had re-entered the room after his old flame had been shown out. Maybe it had been her who had given it to him. Buried under a small notebook Adriana found what she was looking for, a small bag of white powder. Using the ID, she marshalled two lines on the desk and snorted them back in quick succession.

Recharged, she stood up and wiggled back on her shoes. The face of Antyuhin stared up at her from the desk. She picked it up again, puzzled. Who was he? Trouble, no doubt, for that too good whore ex of Konstantin.

Chapter 39

‘These are the proscribed, the supposed enemies of the state.’ Konstantin looked down the list. Someone had taken the trouble to put it into alphabetical order and head it Leningrad. On it were seven names: Gavrilov from the gorkom was there, marked with a tick, Artem, a deputy, a tick, the list went on with ticks and crosses… and Mikhail Dimitrivich Revnik, a cross.

‘They…’ said Vdovin. The famous they, thought Konstantin, ‘…want you to detain the ticks and eliminate the crosses.’

Vdovin gawped at him across his desk.

‘You signed up to it,’ Vdovin reminded him when Konstantin said nothing. ‘They can revoke that arms licence just as easily as they issued it.’

Vdovin was right in more ways than one. He could hardly back out now, not unless he wanted his own name added to the list. He would just have to make sure he covered his tracks.

‘For the record, I tried to change that cross to a tick. He wouldn’t wear it. He’s adamant, made a big point about it. He also said you can sequestrate his business and take over control of Leningrad Freight for good measure.’

Mikhail Revnik. It was an irony that that one-time-nothing had become public enemy number one. And over what… some fogged photographs? Before, keeping him alive might have mattered, but not now; he didn’t owe him or his ex-girlfriend anything. Hadn’t he even offered him a partnership and been laughed off? Konstantin took a lighter from his pocket, lit the list and watched it turn to ash.

‘And when does this all kick off?’

‘Imminently… East Germany is not going to be allowed to collapse.’

‘And how will I know?’ For the first time in years, Konstantin felt he was back taking orders from his old colonel again.

‘When I give you the code word.’

‘Which is?’

‘Stroika.’