In his mind he compared them to the American people. America, that fractious childlike nation, where each pulled against the other; where avarice was considered the greatest virtue; where patience and subtlety were considered the greatest vice. Was there any other nation in history which had perverted the ideal of democracy to the point where the freedom and the rights of the individual had become a tyranny on the rest of society? Was there any other nation which so glorified its criminals - Bonnie and Clyde, Al Capone, Billy the Kid, the Mafia, the black drug-lords? Would Russia or any other sensate government emasculate and shackle its armed forces with such rules of disclosure and publicly debated budget allocations?
The Chaika stopped at a set of traffic-lights. It was the only vehicle on the broad thoroughfare apart from two public buses. Where every American had his own automobile, there was no such wasteful ownership in Russian society. Ramsey watched the pedestrians cross the street in an orderly stream in front of his vehicle. The faces were handsome and intelligent, the expressions patient and reserved. Their dress had none of the wild eccentricity that would be evident in any American street. Apart from the predominance of military uniforms, the clothing of both men and women was sober and conservative.
Compared to this educated and scholarly people, the Americans were illiterate oafs. Even the workers in the Russian fields could quote Pushkin. The classic books were amongst the most sought-after items on the black market. Any day that one visited the cemetery at the monastery of Alexander Nevsky in Leningrad you would find the graves of Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky piled with fresh flowers, daily tributes from ordinary people.
By contrast, half the American high-school graduates, especially the blacks, had reading skills barely adequate to follow the captions in a Batman comic-book.
Here, then, was the reward for almost sixty years of the socialist revolution. A structured and delicately layered society, secretive and protected in depth. Ramsey often compared it to the Matryoshka dolls in the Beriozka tourist stores, those cunningly carved nests of human figures which fitted one within the other, the outer layers protecting and hiding the precious centre.
Even the Russian economy was deceptive to the Western eye. The Americans looked at the food-queues and the lack of consumer goods in the gigantic GUhf- departmental stores, and in their naive and simple-minded way they saw this as the sign of a failed or at least an ailing system. Hidden from them was the internal economy of the military productive machine. A vast, highly efficient and powerful structure which noi only matched but far outstripped its American capitalistic counterpart.
Ramsey smiled at the story of the American astronaut perched in the nose capsule of his rocket waiting for the blast-off who, when asked by ground control if he was nervous, answered: 'How would you like to be sitting on top of the efforts of a thousand low-bidders?' There were no low-bidders in the Russian armaments industry.
There was only the best.
In much the same way there were no siftings from the eequal opportunity' school of employment, or rejects from IMB and GM, in the upper echelons of the Russian military. There were only the best. Ramsey was aware that he was one of them, one of the very best.
He straightened up in his seat as the Chaika entered Dzerzhinsky Square and passed the heroic statue of the founder of the organization of state security on its raised plinth, and moved up the hill towards the elegant but substantial edifice of the Lubyanka.
The driver pulled into the narrower street which ran behind the headquarters and parked with the rows of other official KGB vehicles in the rank reserved for them. Ramsey waited for him to open the door and then he crossed the road to the rear entrance and entered the building through the massive cast-iron grille doors.
There were two other KGB officers ahead of him at the security-desk. He waited his turn for clearance. The captain of the security guard was thorough and painstaking. He compared Ramsey's features to those of the photograph on his identity document the regulation three times before allowing him to sign the register.
Ramsey mounted to the second floor in the antique lift of etched glass and polished bronze. The lift and the chandeliers were relics from pre-revolutionary times when the building had been a foreign embassy.
His secretary stood to attention beside her desk when he entered his office and greeted him as he hung his greatcoat at the door.
'Good morning, Comrade Colonel.' He saw that overnight she had set her hair with hot curling-tongs into crisp tight curls. He preferred it loose and soft. Katrina's eyes were almond-shaped and hooded, a legacy from some distant Tartar ancestor. She was twenty-four years old, the widow of an air-force test pilot who had died flying a prototype of the new Mig-27 series.
Katrina indicated the cardboard box on the corner of her desk. 'What should I do with these, Comrade Colonelf She opened the lid, and Ramsey glanced at the contents. They were all that remained of General Cicero's presence. She had cleared the drawers of the desk that now, at last, belonged to Ramsey alone.
Apart from a gold-plated Parker ballpoint pen and a leather wallet, there were no personal items in the box. Ramsey picked out the wallet and opened it. There were half a dozen photographs in the compartments. In each of them Joe Cicero posed with a prominent African leader, Nyerere, Kaunda, Nkrumah.
He dropped the wallet back into the box, and his hand brushed against Katrina's soft pale fingers. She trembled slightly, and he heard her catch her breath.
'Take it all down to Archives. Get a receipt from them,' he ordered.
'Immediately, Comrade Colonel.' She was an attractive placid woman, with a narrow waist and wide comfortable hips. Of course, she had the highest security clearance, and Ramsey had meticulously recorded their relationship in his daybook. Their relationship had the tacit sanction of the head of department. Her flat was a convenient base for him while he was in Moscow, even though she shared the two rooms with her elderly parents and her three-year-old son.
'There is a green-flash despatch on your desk, Comrade Colonel,' Katrina said huskily as she picked up the cardboard box. Her cheeks were still lightly flushed from the brief physical contact. Ramsey felt a shaded regret that he would be leaving Moscow at midnight. On the average he spent only a few days in the mother city in any one month. He saw so little of Katrina that her appeal was still fresh, even after two years.
She must have read his mind, for she dropped her voice 23e to a whisper. 'Will you dine at the flat tonight, before you leave? Mamma has found an excellent sausage and a bottle of vodka.' 'Very well, little one,' he agreed, and then went through to his own office.
The green-flash box was on his desk, and he unbuttoned his tunic and split the security seal that the cipher department had affixed.
As he read the code Red Rose he felt a sharp elevation of his pulse rate.
That annoyed him.
Red Rose was merely an agent like a hundred others under his control. If he allowed personalities to intrude, his own efficiency was diminished. Even so, as he lifted the Red Rose folder from the box he was struck suddenly by a mental image of a naked girl perched on a black boulder in a Spanish mountain stream. The picture was extraordinarily vivid, even down to the deep indigo blue of her. eyes.
He opened the file and saw at a glance that it was the report on the South African naval radar chain that he had called for. It had come in via the London embassy bag. He nodded with satisfaction and then consulted his daybook. With the log open before him he lifted the handset of his departmental intercom and dialled Records.
'A printout. Reference 'Protea', item number 1178. Urgent, please.' While he waited for the printout to be delivered, he rose from his desk and crossed to the windows. The view was novel enough to engage his interest.
Over the statue of the founder he looked across the stately forest of buildings to the colourful onion-shaped domes of the Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed and the walls of the Kremlin.
He was still disturbed by the memories that the Red Rose despatch had evoked. On a logical train of thought his mind went on to the journey that would begin for him at midnight from Sheremetyevo Airport, and the child who would be waiting for him at the journey's end.
He had not seen Nicholas for over two months. He would have grown again and he would be speaking even more fluently. His vocabulary was quite unusual for his age. Paternal pride was a bourgeois emotion, and Ramsey sought to suppress it. He should not be standing dreaming out of the window while there was so much work to be done. He checked his wristwatch. In forty-eight minutes there was a meeting scheduled, the result of which would vitally affect his career over the next decade.
He returned to his desk and took his notes for the meeting from the top drawer. Katrina had typed them out in double spacing. He flipped through the pages, and found that he still knew every word by heart. His presentation was memorized word-perfect. Further study would only affect the spontaneity of his delivery. He set the report aside.
At that moment there was a knock on the door and Katrina ushered the records clerk into his office. Ramsey signed for the computer printout in the records-book, and after Katrina and the clerk had left he slit the envelope and spread the printout on his desk.
Protea was the code-name of another of his South African agents. His real name was Dieter
