[Quinn 04] - The Silenced

Quinn took a good look at the wavy-haired boy. It wasn’t hard to imagine the man he would become. Quinn had actually seen him as an adult. The third photo in the folder from Annabel Taplin’s briefcase. “Palavin,” he said. “Your Ghost.”

Petra smiled without humor. “A name of convenience.”

“How did he get involved with a youth group in Hong Kong?”

“The first question is really, how did Kabulov get involved with them?” she said. “He generally didn’t deal with these groups. His specialty was coordinating agent infiltration into enemy governments. At the height of his career, it was said he had dozens placed throughout Western Europe.”

“Okay. So why was he there?”

She pointed first at the Ghost, then at the straight-haired boy who looked like him.

“Are they brothers?” Quinn asked.

Petra shook her head. “Not brothers. Not even related. Palavin was born in Moscow, and was actually twenty- three when this was taken. All we know about the other one is that he was born in London, but lived most of his life in Hong Kong. If we knew his name, we wouldn’t have been looking for you.”

“Why not?”

“Because in 1988, the Ghost,” she said, her finger hovering over the wavy-haired youth on the right, “became this man.” She moved her finger to his doppelganger.

“HOW DID PALAVIN STEAL SOMEONE ELSE’S IDENTITY?” Quinn asked.

Petra looked back at the photograph. “The look-alike came to the attention of Kabulov in the early 1960s through a KGB agent named Glinka working in Hong Kong,” she said. “Glinka had met Palavin on a previous trip to Moscow, and noticed the resemblance between the two men.”

Quinn nodded.

“Kabulov was always looking for infiltration opportunities,” she went on. “He investigated, and agreed with Glinka. He arranged for Palavin to be transferred to Hong Kong and to be assigned as Russian youth advisor to the Young Leninists. Palavin’s real job, though, was to get close to the young man, get to know him and his habits.”

“So the Ghost could eventually assume the other man’s identity,” Quinn said.

“Exactly,” she said, nodding. “It was Kabulov’s ultimate plan, the piece that would be the crown jewel of his career. In his mind, once the Ghost had become the Englishman, he would return to the U.K. and begin a rapidly advancing career within the British government.”

“But things didn’t work out that way,” Quinn said, making an educated guess.

“No. Kabulov became involved in a series of failures, and was eventually declared an enemy of the party, and disposed of. Palavin, on the other hand, had been smart. He had taken a position in Moscow while waiting for the day Kabulov would decide it was time for him to become the Englishman. It was a job that obviously fed the sadist inside him. He became an internal security officer based out of Lubyanka Prison, and built his reputation within the party. He was able to use that to shield himself from Kabulov’s downfall.”

“If Kabulov died, what happened to his plan?” Quinn asked.

“It died with him. The only one who knew about the Englishman other than the Ghost was Glinka, and he had become a loyal member of the Ghost’s inner circle. For Palavin, assuming the Englishman’s identity transitioned from being a potential career as a British mole to a potential escape valve, just in case things went south for him like they had for Kabulov. It was perfect. If things did go bad, here was a new identity with a real-life history.”

“So he just left his look-alike in Hong Kong? Hoping he’d be around if ever needed?”

She smiled without humor. “Palavin was smarter than that. He recruited the Englishman, telling him he would be an agent for the Soviet Union, with Palavin as his handler, of course. Only he wasn’t an agent for anyone but the Ghost. It was a way to put the man on ice for as long as needed. Palavin would send him here and there, carrying packages that the man was told were top secret messages, or keeping tabs on people who really had no intelligence value at all. Palavin thought of everything, even setting him up with a woman who he probably thought cared about him. It wasn’t long before the Ghost controlled him completely.

“Palavin continued his work in Moscow, honing his craft and becoming a master at extracting confessions. A KGB star. Most of those he interviewed never saw the outside of Lubyanka again. Their voices silenced, never to be heard by the people who loved them again.” She paused. “If you had been working for him, Mr. Quinn, you would have been kept very busy.”

Quinn ignored the comment. “What drove him to take on the Englishman’s identity?”

“By the late eighties, he realized the Soviet Union was heading for disaster. We all did. Only he had a way out, and decided to take advantage of it before it all crashed down. With the body count he’d amassed, he had to know if he stayed his own life would be in danger.

“In 1988, he ordered his double to return to London. It was the first time the Englishman had been in the U.K. since he’d been a child, and what family he had there, he’d lost contact with long ago. The important thing for Palavin was that the U.K. Border Agency recorded the Englishman’s entry back into the country from Hong Kong.”

She fell silent.

“And then?” Quinn asked.

“Palavin killed him, and became him. At that point, Nikolai Palavin disappeared.” She paused. “Like a ghost.”

“How do you know all this?”