Paul Vidich - The Mercenary

Garin finished tying his shoes but didn’t respond.

“How clever you’ve been, thinking you could enter the country, do what you are up to, and be gone before we found you,” Posner said. “I have diligent staff who matched your visa to our old photos. A young woman saw the visa’s forgery, and that started our investigation. The glasses threw us off, and the graying hair, but the girl noticed the scar. You’ve changed your name, shaved the moustache, gotten rid of the mutton chops, but the scar is the same, and the face, too.”

“What do you want?”

Comrade Posner stood in the middle of the room, and having the upper hand, he wasn’t to be rushed. He held the cigarette holder delicately and nodded at the door Natalya had fled through. “She has suffered. Her father’s execution, her brother’s death, and then the ankle. So much pain for such a young woman. What does an ex-ballerina do?

“I knew her father. He was high up in the First Chief Directorate. I was able to protect her. A handsome young woman, even an orphan, attracts supporters. Her brother’s death was a terrible blow. After her father’s execution they were close and now… well, she works for me.”

Posner held his cigarette at arm’s length, observing it. His eyes dropped to Garin again. “This doesn’t have to be hard for you.”

“What do you want?”

Posner motioned for the shorter KGB agent to bring two glasses and the bottle of port. Posner filled both. “Chernenko is dead. The news will be in tomorrow’s papers.” He drank the ersatz liqueur and put down the glass. “Local shit,” he said. He looked at Garin. “Why am I telling you this? I will get to that. Patience, Alek Garin—or whatever your name is. Patience in a spy is a useful thing. Though I am not sure you are patient. Excitable? Cautious? But I haven’t seen your patience. Maybe you will surprise me.”

Posner brought the glass to his lips but stopped. “Americans don’t understand what is happening in the Soviet Union. You are still fighting the Cold War of ten years ago, but the Soviet Union of Brezhnev and Khrushchev is dead. Chernenko was the last Bolshevik—elderly, dull, uninspiring, the personification of decay. He has been sick for years. The surprise is not that he is dead but that it took him so long to die.

“He could barely stand at the podium to read his eulogy of Andropov last year, and when he finished, two bodyguards helped him from the stage. He was a chain smoker and a drunk, and he suffered from cirrhosis and heart disease, and who knows what else. He was a stumbling example of the Soviet Union. Now he is dead. His death will be announced on page two of tomorrow’s Pravda. Gorbachev’s ascension will be on the front page. He will be making changes.”

Posner looked at Garin, making a judgment. “Excitable, but also stupid,” he declared. “Deputy Chairman Churgin found your performance at Spaso House insulting. He was livid when he was told his thugs didn’t get to rough you up on your way back from Golukov. Maybe he’s forgotten about you, and maybe he hasn’t.” Posner took a measure of Garin. “Do you know Lieutenant Colonel Talinov?”

Garin considered which answer to give. There was a risk to any answer, but only one answer preserved his cover, but that was also the answer that shut down the conversation and left him clueless of Posner’s intentions.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“He’s KGB. Ambitious. Ruthless. Plays the piano.”

Posner tapped cigarette ash into his palm. “So you do know him.” He smiled. “I too am KGB, First CD, but you probably already knew that, or suspected it. I don’t try to hide myself. How do you know Talinov?”

“I don’t.”

“You said you did.”

“I know of him. I’ve heard the name. What do you want from me?”

“Cooperation.”

“For what?”

“Zyuganov.” Posner rose and closed the bedroom door, revealing on the back of the door a photograph of a younger General Zyuganov with his wife and two young children on a picnic blanket spread on a lush green meadow in front of a Scottish castle. “He was thirty-six when this was taken. He’d just been promoted and summoned to headquarters from London. Perhaps you recognize his daughter, Natalya. She is eight years old in the photograph, but you can already see her defiance.”

Garin felt the long arm of coincidence at work. Nothing surprised him that night, but later he would write in his diary that he’d been startled to discover that Natalya was General Zyuganov’s daughter.

Garin leaned forward to look at the photograph and then settled back in his chair. He had admitted too much. His memories of Zyuganov returned like bad dreams. There was no room for attachment in his work, but he had been younger, and he’d made that mistake. Their conversations along Moscow River had surprised him. He had come to respect the man, if he was honest with himself, but that wasn’t something he put in his reports. Wise, troubled, and eloquent in five languages. He had admired the man’s humanity and came to know his fears.

Posner said, “We have surveillance photos of the two of you sitting on a bench by the river. Two spies sharing a friendly conversation.”

“I reported my contacts,” Garin said with a grunt. “I’m sure he did as well. That was the protocol. It was our job to probe each other. It was our job to meet.” He glared at Posner. “And I’ll report this meeting.”

“We’ll see how you feel about that when we’re done. Why did you meet Zyuganov?”

“He asked me to defect.”

Posner was skeptical. “What’s your real name?”

“Aleksander Garin.”

Posner drained his glass and poured himself another. Almost as an afterthought, he raised his glass, offering Garin one, but Garin shook his head.

“It will be a long night,” Posner said. “Why did you come back?”

“Human rights work,” Garin said.

“Stupid answers.” Comrade Posner’s demeanor hardened and his eyes narrowed. “You are in a small box. This evening, the photographs we took, your history. I have enough to expel you. You will be gone in forty-eight hours, and I will get a big commendation. And you will have to explain yourself to Langley.”

Posner’s expression was fastidiously unpleasant. “That would suit me, but it wouldn’t satisfy me. I need more than that. I need your cooperation. I see I have your attention.” Comrade Posner paused. “The CIA and the KGB have men who abuse their positions, corrupt men who are promoted because they tear colleagues down. I am sure you know men like this. Perhaps you are one. Our politics may be different, but our sins are all human.”

Posner lifted his silver cigarette holder and gazed at the lengthening ash, which he knocked into his palm, adding more to what he already held. “Each day, we wake up devising ways to defeat each other. But we have a common adversary: corruption.”

Posner stepped forward and stood over Garin, his lips pressed, eyes narrow. “I want Talinov.” He spoke the name like a curse. “Chernenko is dead. Things will change. The KGB will rid itself of corrupt men, and Talinov is on the list. He must be discredited to the deputy chairman for wrongly executing Zyuganov. I want your cooperation.”

“Why this?” Garin nodded at the bed.

“Jeopardy, to focus the mind.” Posner leaned forward. “I will tell you something, but only because I want your cooperation. We are enemies, yes, but there can be cooperation between enemies if it serves a common purpose. Talinov is such a purpose. He betrayed General Zyuganov and has incriminated colleagues to advance himself, and if needed, he would put a gun to your head. A corrupt and evil man. He likes to say he plays Chopin, as if that absolves him. Our side is better off without him. You will also benefit. What I need is evidence of his crimes—evidence only you can provide.”