She looked at him, her dark pebble-like eyes growing sharp with the visions, and then spoke, “You will survive this. Your destiny is greatness.”
The boy – whose name was Peytor Gorbov – smiled and jumped back up on the tank, waving as it roared away. Half a century later he was still feeding the woman’s orphans – but now they were kittens in his kitchen and he was General Secretary of the Supreme Soviet.
Borshin took a seat on the hard monk’s bench in the hall, hiding his gloved useless hand under one crossed leg. Alone now, he listened to the sounds of the house. In another room, a clock was chiming. Somewhere, someone polishing silverware; he supposed it would be real silver here, but with the stories about basics it might just be camping utensils. He smiled at the thought and was still smiling when Peytor Gorbov walked into the hall. The smile was there, the same expansive smile he offered to Presidents and Prime Ministers, and the hand was out to shake.
He stood briefly to attention and then took the hand, nodding formally.
“I am honoured, Comrade General Secretary.” It was said stiffly, for the man was uncomfortable here at the Dacha. Other meetings had been in the more familiar Kremlin.
“Nonsense,” Gorbov said charmingly. “You honour no-one but God. How’s your daughter?”
Borshin was taken aback a second and it showed. He was a devout Christian in the home of atheism and he had not known that Gorbov knew that. His daughter was the other immense joy in his life. She was an actress, opinionated, outspoken and constantly in trouble with the militia at the University. Even though Borshin scolded her, he was secretly proud of the fire in her blood. Gorbov smiled.
“Come, come Nikolai, you love her to bits, but she drives you crazy, yes? Mine is the same.”
“You are right.” Borshin smiled and Gorbov did the same.
“Come through.” Gorbov led the way into what was a study, the walls lined with books. Three chairs sat at the table, and Gorbov pulled two out. “Sit down.”
Borshin sat, his cap on his lap.
“So how goes the Fourth?”
“It goes well Comrade Gorbov. It is still full of brown noses and politicians, but I’m getting there.”
Gorbov laughed. Seven years before, he had spotted the lean purity in Nikolai Borshin – who had been wasted in a dying section of the Second Directorate. He was youthful, strong, astonishingly talented, incorruptible and completely apolitical, despising those who curried favour and sought out influence.
Gorbov had plucked him from that obscurity and given him the plum job of Head of the Fourth Directorate, riding roughshod over the then head of the KGB, alienating other more senior men and rocking the old boy network. Gorbov didn’t want his own man in the job; he wanted no-one’s man in the job. He wanted a man who was untouchable, with deep convictions in something other than just the Rodina – the party – but who would die for it if asked.
As he spoke, Gorbov studied the man for the hundredth time. He never got used to the dramatic appeal, the lean hawk-like good looks only enhanced by the eye patch – which, with the short iron grey hair, gave him a swashbuckling air. But there was always something a photograph never caught, and in Nikolai Borshin it was the rebel, the non-political ‘stuff-the-Party and just get it done’ attitude that had stopped so many good men.
“Have you got a man, someone on the outside you can trust implicitly?” Gorbov asked.
“You better tell me what you have in mind,” Borshin answered.
“I have a source in your department,” he began. Borshin nodded. He expected nothing else. “Long Knives has raised its head again.”
“I know,” Borshin said.
“Are we still...”
“At a dead end? Yes, I’m afraid we are – but something has broken in England, as you know. I think we should put a... that was what you wanted?”
“Yes, Nikolai. That is what I want. Take a good man. The best you have. He must be in position to capitalise on anything that breaks open there.”
Borshin nodded. He had pre-empted the decision by almost two months with a man on the ground in the United Kingdom, but he thought – in the light of the new interest – he would now change the individual.
The current operative was a fifty two year old Polish émigré, a man whose forte was silent observation and piecing together the bits, who reported through to the KGB man at the Embassy. He would need a new man, a man who could do both that and have the experience and confidence to react on his own initiative – because there would be no embassy orders now. He would be on his own. He thought quickly about the killings at the safe house. They may think that was us. The new man must be able to deal with that.
“He is to report directly to you,” Gorbov said.
Borshin was thinking fast. He must be able to take care of himself. He needs to have been through the mill a few times. He needs to be loyal to me and to the Rodina above all. He needs to be like me. Compulsive, a man who doesn’t give up. A real bastard when it counts.
“I will find the right man,” he replied.
That night he worked late, methodically going through the files. There was a constant stream of perfectly cloned talent coming out of the training schools, but he went to the other end of the spectrum. He began with older men who had commendations on their files – but for some reason had been passed over for the sort of promotion one would expect for that generation. He knew what he was looking for but, unable to explain it in words, he had his secretary bring him the files in batches.
He had sent his assistant, a bright young captain, home, preferring to allow Svetlana
