Warsaw Pact, which would leave the Soviet Union without its buffer zone to the West. NATO was strong, and would become more so, as the new American defense buildup began to take effect. They’d already been briefed on that troublesome subject. Already, the first new tanks were being given to line units, preparatory to shipping them to West Germany. And so were the new airplanes. Most frightening of all was the vastly increased training regimen for the American soldiers. It was as though they were actually preparing for a strike east.
The fall of Poland and Germany would mean that a trip to Soviet territory would be shortened by more than a thousand kilometers, and there was not a man at this table who did not remember the last time the Germans had entered the Soviet Union. Despite all the protestations that NATO was a defensive alliance whose entire purpose was to keep the Red Army from driving down the Champs Elysees, to Moscow NATO and all the other American alliances looked like an enormous noose designed to fit around their collective necks. They’d all considered that before at great length. And they really didn’t need political instability to add to their problems. Communists—though not quite so fervent as Suslov and his ideological heir, Alexandrov—feared above all the possible turning away of their people from the True Faith, which was the source of their own very comfortable personal power. They’d all come to power at second hand to a popular peasant revolt which had overthrown the Romanov dynasty—or so they all told themselves, despite what history really said—and they had no illusions about what a revolt would do to them. Brezhnev shifted in his chair. “So, this Polish priest is a threat.”
“Yes, comrades, he is,” Andropov said. “His letter is a genuine and sincere thrust at the political stability of Poland, and thus of the entire Warsaw Pact. The Catholic Church remains politically powerful throughout Europe, including our fraternal socialist allies. If he were to resign the papacy and travel back to his homeland, that in itself would be a huge political statement.
“Josef Vissarionovich Stalin once asked how many army divisions the Pope had. The answer is none, of course, but we cannot disregard his power. I suppose we could try diplomatic contacts to dissuade him from this course…”
“A complete waste of time,” the Foreign Minister observed at once. “We have had occasional diplomatic contacts in the Vatican itself, and they listen to us politely, and they speak reasonably, and then they take whatever action they want to take. No, we cannot influence him, even with direct threats to the church. They merely see threats as challenges.”
And that put the matter squarely in the middle of the table. Andropov was grateful to the Foreign Minister, who was also in his camp for the issue of succession. He wondered idly if Brezhnev knew or cared about what would happen after he died—well, he’d care about his children’s fate and protection, but that was easily handled. Sinecure Party posts could be found for all of them, and there would be no future marriages to require the china and tableware from the Hermitage.
“Yuriy Vladimirovich, what can KGB do about this threat?” Brezhnev inquired next.
“It may be possible to eliminate the threat by eliminating the man who makes it,” the Chairman replied, with an even, unemotional voice.
“To kill him?” Ustinov asked.
“Yes, Dmitriy.”
“What are the dangers of that?” the Foreign Minister asked at once. Diplomats always worried about such things.
“We cannot entirely eliminate them, but we can control them. My people have come up with an operational concept, which would involve shooting the Pope at one of his public appearances. I have brought my aide, Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy, to brief us in on it. With your permission, comrades?” He received a collection of nods. Then he turned his head: “Aleksey Nikolay’ch?”
“Comrades.” The colonel rose and walked to the lectern, trying to keep his shaking knees under control. “The operation has no name, and will have none for security reasons. The Pope appears in public every Wednesday afternoon. He generally parades around Saint Peter’s Square in a motor vehicle, which offers him no protection against attack and comes within three or four meters of the assembled multitude.” Rozhdestvenskiy had chosen his words carefully. Every man at the table knew biblical matters and terminology. You could not grow up, even here, without acquiring knowledge of Christianity—even if it was just enough to despise everything about it.
“The question then is how to get a man with a pistol to the front rank of spectators, so that he can take his shot at sufficiently close range to make a successful shot likely.”
“Not ‘certain’?” the Minister of the Interior asked harshly.
Rozhdestvenskiy did his best not to wilt. “Comrade Minister, we rarely deal in absolute certainties. Even a skilled pistol shot cannot guarantee a perfect shot against a moving target, and the tactical realities here will not allow a carefully aimed round. The assassin will have to bring his weapon up rapidly from a place of concealment, and fire. He will be able to get off two, possibly three, shots before the crowd collapses on him. At that point, a second officer will then kill the assassin from behind with a silenced pistol—and then make his own escape. This will leave no one behind to speak to the Italian police. For this, we will use our Bulgarian socialist allies to select the assassin, to get him to the scene, and then to eliminate him.”
“How will our Bulgarian friend get away under these circumstances?” Brezhnev asked. His personal knowledge of firearms allowed him to skip over technical issues, Andropov saw.
“It is likely that the crowd will concentrate on the assassin, and will not take note of the intelligence officer’s follow-up shot. It will be virtually silent and there will be a great deal of crowd noise. He will then simply back away and make his escape,” Rozhdestvenskiy explained. “The officer we want on this is well experienced in operations of this kind.”
“Does he have a name?” Alexandrov asked.
“Yes, comrade, and I can give it to you if you wish, but for security reasons…”
“Correct, Colonel,” Ustinov put in. “We do not really need to know his name, do we, comrades?” Heads shook around the table. For these men, secrecy came as naturally as urination.
“Not a rifleman?” Interior asked.
“That would risk exposure. The buildings around the square are patrolled by the Vatican’s own security force, Swiss mercenaries, and—”
“How good are these Swiss militiamen?” another voice asked.
“How good do they need to be to see a man with a rifle and to raise an alarm?” Rozhdestvenskiy asked, reasonably. “Comrades, when you plan an operation like this one, you try to keep the variables under strict control. Complexity is a dangerous enemy in any such undertaking. As planned, all we need to do is to insert two men into a crowd of thousands and get them close. Then it’s just a matter of taking the shot. A pistol is easily concealed in loose clothing. The people there are not screened or searched in any way. No, comrades, this plan is the best we can establish—unless you would have us dispatch a platoon of Spetsnaz soldiers into the Vatican Apartments. That would obviously work, but the origin of such an operation would be impossible to conceal. This mission, if it comes off, depends only on two people, only one of whom will survive, and who will almost certainly escape cleanly.”
“How reliable are the participants?” the Chairman of the Party Control Commission asked.
“The Bulgarian officer has personally killed eight men, and he has good contacts within the Turkish criminal community, from which he will select our assassin.”
“A Turk?” the Party man asked.
“Yes, a Muslim,” Andropov confirmed. “If the operation can be blamed on a Turkish follower of Mohammed, so much the better for us. Correct?”
“It would not hurt our purposes,” the Foreign Minister confirmed. “In fact, it might well have the effect of making Islam look more barbaric to the West. That would cause America to increase its support for Israel, and that would annoy the Muslim countries from whom they buy their oil. There is an elegance to it all, which appeals to me, Yuriy.”
“So, the complexity of the operation is entirely limited to its consequences,” Marshal Ustinov observed, “and not to the undertaking itself.”
“Correct, Dmitriy,” Andropov confirmed.
“What are the chances that this operation might be linked to us?” asked the Ukrainian Party Secretary.
“If all we leave behind is a dead Turk, connections will be very difficult to establish,” the KGB Chairman replied. “This operation has no name. The number of people involved is less than twenty, and most of them are in this room, right here. There will be no written records. Comrades, the security of this operation will be absolute. I
