There followed pictures of agents’ cars and their registration plates and some background information on the top men of the British and American intelligence organisations. After a short break there was an instruction film showing how to use a three-man “box” for surveillance of a trained agent.
The evening meal was in the same conference room. About thirty officers. Good food, local wine and a pianist playing the romantic melodies that Vienna had always inspired. Half a dozen senior men took him into a small annexe and asked him to talk about the United States. Not his work but his assessment of the Americans’ intentions. He was surprised from their questions how little they knew about conditions in America. Glances exchanged as he talked of the food and goods available in the stores and sharp questions as to why if things were as good as he described were there strikes and discontent. They were tough, dedicated men but strangely ignorant and naive about the rest of the world. It didn’t seem to enter their minds that their own agents and the Comintern might have contributed to the unrest. And it wasn’t his job to inform them. To each his own sphere of operations. There was even disbelief and distrust on some of their faces. But Aarons was used to that. In the days in America when he had been working for the Comintern he had seen the same look on the faces of Party members who didn’t accept his explanation of Moscow’s actions. But more often than not he had been proved right as time went by. Patience had always been his virtue.
Spassky had taken him to Lensky’s suite of rooms. There were several men talking with Lensky but Lensky broke away from the group and walked over, hand outstretched, a hug, a kiss on each cheek and then a nod of dismissal to the waiting men.
When they were alone Lensky said, “I’m glad you were able to come, Andrei. I wanted to talk to you before I take you to Moscow.” He smiled. “There are a lot of people who want to talk to you. You’re a very important man these days.”
Aarons half-smiled. “I really don’t think so.”
“My dear chap, you’re unique. There’s nobody else who has achieved the total approval of the top men in the Comintern and then gone on to even more approval for his work for the intelligence service.”
“I just do what I was trained to do.” He shrugged. “I carry out my orders as best I can.”
“You’re a modest man, Andrei. Almost too modest.” He paused. “I sometimes wonder if you wouldn’t be more useful in Moscow.”
Andrei shrugged. “Whatever you wish, Comrade Lensky.”
“We’ll see. We’ll see.” Lensky reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a folded sheet of paper, handing it to Aarons who unfolded it and read it. It was a letter on official internal notepaper, a statement confirming officially that he was now an intelligence officer with the rank of full colonel, and signed by the deputy-director in charge of administration.
Aarons looked up at Lensky. “Thanks. But I don’t need sweeteners.”
“It’s not a sweetener, my friend. It’s just formal and official recognition of work done. I just wish your father was still alive to enjoy it. He would have been so proud of you. Now let me tell you about some of the people you’ll be meeting in Moscow. We shall be flying there tomorrow afternoon.”
They had landed at a military airfield south-east of Moscow. A large black car had taken them into the city and Aarons had been given rooms in the same block as Lensky’s home. They ate together in a small restaurant in the building in Dzerdzhinski Square. When the meal was over he had walked with Lensky to Red Square and Lensky had pointed out Lenin’s Mausoleum, St. Basil’s, the Historical Museum and the walls of the Kremlin.
As they sat on a bench by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Lensky said, “Are you warm enough? It’s cold for only September.”
“I’m fine.”
“Good. I wanted to talk to you before we start our meetings tomorrow. You know more about what’s going on in New York and Washington than in Moscow. I thought you ought to know some of the background on what’s going on here.” He paused and looked around then back at Aarons. “There’s a great struggle for power. Stalin encourages the rivalries. At the moment there are several different areas of strife. In the Politburo between Malenkov and Beria. Differences on agricultural policy. We fall far short of our needs for grain. The generals want their share of power and that affects our foreign policy. What worries me most is our almost complete ignorance of the rest of the world. Especially Europe and the United States. We have basements full of reports and summaries of reports and they are all quite useless. Why? Because the people who write them write what they think the Politburo wants to hear.” He spread his arms. “So we not only have unreliable information but we add to the prejudices of top men in the Kremlin who’ve never even been out of the Soviet Union. We can’t form foreign policy without having the facts. The truth.”
“How do I come into all this?”
“Andrei, when you were doing the job for the Comintern, you sent back reports that gave us an accurate picture of what Party members in America were saying and thinking. They were the only accurate reports we got.
“Since you’ve been working for us you’ve used your knowledge of America and Americans to send us information that has been invaluable. In many cases you obviously didn’t know yourself the importance of what you were passing to us. But
