Several of the women were crying. Several of the men were crying. In contrast, the voice on the radio was clipped and without emotion.
– Last night the once-popular singer Jesse Austin was murdered, shot dead in public. The suspect is a Russian woman, a Communist, suspected of being his lover. A source inside the NYPD reports that the Russian woman told police officers after the murder that she shot Mr Austin because he failed to live up to his promise to marry her and rescue her from Soviet Russia. Mr Austin is already married. The tragic affair did not end there. Last night his wife, in revenge for the murder, took a gun and entered the police precinct, where she shot the Russian woman. After killing the suspect Mrs Austin turned the gun on herself…
Nelson picked the radio off the counter, pulling it from the power socket, raising it above his head. The customers watched. He reconsidered, put it down. After a moment, he addressed the room.
– Anyone want to listen to those lies, they can do it someplace else.
He walked into his office, returning with a large glass jar that he placed on the counter by the cash register.
– I’m setting up a collection. Not for the funeral, this isn’t a time for flowers and Jesse wouldn’t want them anyway. I’m going to hire someone to figure out who really murdered Jesse and Anna. We need lawyers. Private detectives. I can’t speak for you. But I need to know. I have to know.
He took out his wallet and emptied it into the jar.
By the end of the morning the jar was full, waitresses contributing their tips, customers donating too. As Nelson counted out the collection, noting it down in a ledger, he heard one of Jesse’s songs. He left his office to find his customers and waitresses standing by the window, looking out onto the street where the music was coming from. He crossed the restaurant, opened the door and stepped outside. A young man called William whose parents Nelson knew well was standing on top of a crate, singing one of Jesse’s songs. He didn’t have any music in his hands. He knew the words by heart.
People stopped in the street, gathering around the crate, forming an audience. Men held their hats in their hands. Children paused from their games and stood, listening, staring up at the young man. I’m only a folk singer
And that’s enough for me
I’m only a folk singer
Dreaming one day we’ll all be free.
Regarding the audience, Nelson knew that with a little effort he could pull together a crowd of thousands – he could address the crowd himself, he had ply to say, maybe not with Jesse’s voice but he’d find his own. Remembering what Jesse used to answer when asked why he’d risked so much, Nelson finally understood. Running a restaurant, even a successful restaurant, just wasn’t enough.
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.
