“Picture this, Burt,” Adrian had begun. “A man walks into our embassy in Kyrgyzstan three months ago. August sixteenth, to be exact. He’s looking for a relative of his who’s gone missing on a trip to western Europe. He wants our help.”
“You’re going to tell me who he is, presumably?” Burt asked.
“He’s from the Federal Security Service Reserve, Burt, KGB to the core. This relative of his was on an assignment in Germany.”
“For the KGB?”
“Yes.”
“Why doesn’t he go to his own people?” Burt queried. “Or the German embassy, come to that?”
“First of all he couldn’t go to the Germans because this relative was doing something clandestine there, that’s why. He knew he’d get no help from the Krauts in the circumstances.”
“And his own people?”
“That’s the juice,” Adrian said. “He believes his relative, who is a brother, by the way, has been killed. But he’s sure it’s not by the Germans or any of our intelligence services. What he tells us is that it’s his own side he believes has killed his brother. The Russians, he says, killed their own agent. He wants to find out if this is true, and either way, he wants to find out where his brother has got to. If he’s still alive, even.”
“Some risk he took,” Burt replied.
“Oh, yes. A great risk. But he’s angry. He’s from one of the southern republics, and this is the last straw for him. Years of racism, years of Russian arrogance, years of Russia and the Russians walking all over his country, wrecking his women and his people and his land. That’s how he sees it.”
“Where’s he working?”
“The Defence Ministry in Moscow.”
“Very good,” Burt said. “Very interesting. So what do you do to help him?” Burt raises an eyebrow in ironic deference to Adrian’s great healing powers.
“We keep him talking until we’ve run a check on him. We find he’s definitely a middle-ranking figure in the Defence Ministry in Moscow. So far, so good. And then we think, Why not? We drug him and hold him for eight hours until he tells us some very interesting things. Some of which are on that tape.”
“Then you let him go?”
“Yes. We hold him for as long as we dare. We don’t want anyone alerted that he’s missing.”
“And then you help find his brother.” Burt guffawed at this unlikely scenario. It was a sound that was probably louder than the library at the Union Club had heard for several decades.
“We make enquiries, yes. But what we do in the main is contact him again and tell him how much he’s compromised himself. We have him nailed. All on tape, photographed inside our embassy, full of stuff the Russians will recognise. We tell him we need more of his help. Then we’ll see what happened to his brother.
“But we also tell him that if he doesn’t help us, not only will his brother be gone forever, so will he. Once we hand over the material to the Defence Ministry, or the KGB, he’s done for.”
“What made you think he was worth it?”
“As I say, he’s a middle-ranking figure, but during the few hours we held him we could tell he had access. Initially we thought we’d get some good insight into the regular running of the ministry, if nothing else. You know the kind of thing—what its current general aims are, who are the key figures with influence there, who is closest to the Kremlin. That sort of thing. Humdrum stuff, but all adding up to a bigger picture.”
“But you got more than you bargained for.”
“There was one thing he told us when he was drugged that made me think he might have more use than that.”
“And it’s about us.”
“About America, yes. When he was drugged, he spoke in various tones of voice, various degrees of volume, he either sat completely still or thrashed about—you know how it is. There was one theme that he referred to twice. On both occasions, he almost shouted about it, waved his arms. It’s a theme that concerns you very much, Burt. Defence secrets. American defence secrets. He said the KGB has an agent here in America, who communicates via a Russian official at the United Nations in New York. Someone who’s employed inside one of your own defence establishments.”
Adrian had sat back in his chair, and Burt saw a feeling of satisfaction wash over him.
“Or so this guy says,” Burt replied. “Which one? Which defence establishment?”
“That’s something we’re still working on,” Adrian purred, with the clear intention of implying he knew. “We think he doesn’t know,” he added disingenuously.
“Or you’re holding out on me, Adrian.”
“Not at all,” Adrian said primly. But he hadn’t finished yet.
“We’ve kept in contact with him, of course. Let’s call him Rustam. First we held drops to communicate with him and pick up his material at Sokolniki, the Moscow metro station. Then we moved the drop to Sokolniki, the town, in Tula Oblast. After that, we kept to the theme, first time a metro station, then the town or place from which it gets its name. He’s being very compliant. In fact, he’s fucking terrified.”
“You’ve turned him. Well done, Adrian.”
Adrian soaked up the compliment, but his face was still hard, Burt saw.
“What about the brother?” Burt said at last. “Did you go after him?”
“We did.”
“And what did you find?”
“It was very difficult. We wanted to do it without alerting the Germans. But we found him all right.”
Adrian was not going to volunteer any further information. It was Burt’s turn to insist now. Adrian had done enough special pleading for a lifetime.
“Well?” Burt prompted.
“He’d been murdered. Poisoned in Hamburg. The police didn’t have any identity for him. We told them he was one of ours. They’d had him on ice in some super-closed-down facility for a month, against the possible spread of contamination. One of those places built since 9/11. It was a job to retrieve him, but we did, even though I don’t think the Krauts believed us. But what could they do? They had nothing on him.
“Then we showed a picture of him to Rustam. Jackpot. It was his brother, just as we thought. The poison was identified as polonium-210. Same stuff they’ve used in western Europe before—the Russians, that is. So it looked pretty clear-cut that the Russians had murdered one of their own, an agent who was the brother of a KGB reservist and decent figure in the Defence Ministry who’d just been waiting for one more grudge to blow him over the edge. Now, Rustam is almost happy that we drugged him and got all his lovely secrets. He’s going to be most helpful in finding this agent in America.”
Burt sat without speaking. Eventually he looked up and fixed Adrian with a friendly stare.
“Why bring this to me? Why not go straight to Langley? You’re the boss in London, you could talk to the head of the CIA here, direct.”
“This is your operation, Burt.”
“You mean Anna.”
“Yes, the woman,” Adrian said, and sat back.
“So,” Burt said. “This is your way through to meeting with her.”
“That’s right.” Adrian allowed himself to feel the warm glow of victory. “I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to get that favour from you personally. If I go to Langley, there’ll be all kinds of fingerprints over it. I don’t want to foul your operation,” he said with deliberate insincerity. “What I want—what we both want, Burt—is Mikhail. If I tell Langley I want to speak to the woman, they’re going to trample all over your carefully laid plans for debriefing her. I don’t want to damage your operation, Burt. I just want time with her. Deal?”
Although Burt saw this was an expert piece of blackmail, he didn’t show it. But Adrian’s threat hung over him in the library. If Burt didn’t give him what he wanted, he’d go to Langley, and they would give him what he wanted. Which would mean, in turn, that Burt would lose control of Anna in the melee that was bound to happen.
“You’ve got me,” Burt said. Then he grinned. “Well, I’ll be damned, Adrian. You sat on this the whole damn evening.”
“And you get to take this to Langley yourself,” Adrian chimed in, pointing at the tape. “A feather in all our caps. But only once I’ve seen her.”
