Aarons smiled. “Cheers.”
“I’ve had word from the man. Spoke to me personally. I had to meet him after he visited some school. He’s spoken to Eisenhower in very general terms but Eisenhower wasn’t interested. But the man wants to keep in contact with you on the same basis. Mutual discussion and mutual briefing. He thinks he can still influence policy makers both in the White House and on the Hill.” Malloy smiled. “He was concerned that you might be offended by Ike’s lack of interest. What do you think?”
“Well, I’m certainly not offended. I think it showed exceptional courage for our man to go with this crazy set-up in the beginning. If he wants to keep in touch I’ll be happy to cooperate. It will be easier when he’s no longer the man. And just as useful in many ways.” He paused. “He didn’t give Eisenhower any clues as to my identity?”
“No, and he doesn’t know enough to give anyone a lead by mistake.” He smiled. “I gather he was impressed by your attitude.”
“What attitude?”
Malloy shrugged. “Your even-handedness about both sides.” He waved towards their table. “We’d better get back and give the girls a whirl.”
CHAPTER 42
General Eisenhower became President Eisenhower on the 20th of January 1953 and Stalin died on the 5th of March.
On May 4 over two thousand Germans from the Russian sector of Berlin marched over to the West, and in the Communist Zone of Germany two million people were refused ration cards because of the shortage of food. The Communists refused Western offers of relief supplies to ease the famine.
In June Soviet troops fired on protesting workers in East Berlin, killing twenty-two of them. Two days later the Rosenbergs were executed for spying in the USA. The following day Aarons received instructions to go to Moscow immediately.
Lensky, as always, met him off the Stockholm plane and took him back to his apartment. He could see from Lensky’s face that he was under some sort of pressure. As Lensky closed the door of his apartment he held up a piece of paper for Aarons to read. It told him not to talk about anything other than the weather and family affairs.
Half an hour later they were sitting on a bench under the trees in Vorontsovo Park. There were small children playing games under the watchful eyes of babushkas and groups of old men walking slowly down the wide pathways, eyes alert but backs and shoulders bent by a lifetime’s hard labour.
“What did the message say that brought you here?”
“Just ‘come immediately,’ and the password.”
“What password?”
“Soyus.”
“Why so long getting here?”
“Some sort of service engineers’ strike at Toronto airport. Why do you ask?”
“You had a lucky escape, my friend. That recall message went to all overseas residents from Beria. Did you ever meet Beria?”
“No. Why should I?”
Lensky smiled. “That question shows how lucky you are—Beria’s your boss. Or to be more precise, he was your boss—until yesterday.”
“What happened?”
“I’d better go back a bit. After Stalin’s death Beria saw himself as the kingmaker, deciding who would be Stalin’s successor. You’ve got to remember that he had secret files on every member of the Presidium. Embarrassing, incriminating and scandalous material. And the members of the Presidium knew he’d got them. He’d used them before.
“He began throwing his weight about right after Stalin’s funeral. He didn’t seem to realise that he had built up a great barrier of hatred. When there was the workers’ uprising in East Berlin he went there personally to take charge. Instead of cooling things down he sent in armour and troops. Taking advantage of him being away it was decided to call a meeting of the Presidium and deal with Beria in his absence. Somehow he learned of the meeting and phoned the Secretariat who told him it was just a routine meeting. But he flew straight back to Moscow.
“The group against Beria was Khrushchev, Bulganin, Marshal Zhukov and Malenkov. At the start of the meeting Beria asked what was on the agenda. Malenkov was supposed to denounce him, but when the chips were down he didn’t have the guts. Khrushchev and Bulganin denounced Beria and somebody, I think it was Malenkov, pressed a secret button under the table and seconds later in came Marshal Zhukov at the head of a group of armed army officers and took Beria away.” Lensky sighed. “That was yesterday.”
“Are they going to try him?”
“They’ll talk about a trial in camera. But there’ll be no trial.”
“So what will they do?”
“They’ve done it, Andrei. They shot him last night.”
For a moment Aarons was silent, then he looked at Lensky and said quietly, “What kind of people are they, Jakob? This is gangsterism. The Mafia.”
“Beria was no angel, Andrei. He had a house in Vspolny Pereulok and he used to drive around the Moscow streets late at night looking for teenage girls. He’d drag them into his car, take them back to his house and rape them again and again. There were over four hundred names of victims on a list in his house when it was searched. He was a degenerate of the worst kind.”
“But that wasn’t why he was shot. He was shot because he was getting in the way of people greedy for power.”
“So what do we do about it?”
“You tell me.”
“God knows. I just wanted to warn you about what’s going on so that you can be prepared for when you’re talking with them.”
“If the meeting was called by Beria do they still want to talk with me?”
“Yes, they will.” He paused. “You should act as if you don’t know what has happened. You’re just here to discuss your operations in New York.”
“Do you think your apartment has been bugged?”
“I’m sure it has.”
“What’s your position in all this?”
“I think they tolerate me because I’ve never had any ambition to be a member of the Presidium or taken sides in any of the infighting at the top of the Party.
