Frederick Forsyth - The Devil's Alternative

“I worshiped them, Adam. I respected them. I revered them. Now, for years, I have lived close to them all. I have lived in their shadow, taken their gifts, been showered with their privileges. I have seen them close up, in private; heard them talk about the people, whom they despise. They are rot­ten, Adam, corrupt and cruel. Everything they touch they turn to ashes.”

Munro swung one leg across the tombstone so he could face her, and took her in his arms. She was crying softly.

“I can’t go on, Adam, I can’t go on,” she murmured into his shoulder.

“All right, my darling, do you want me to try to get you out?”

He knew it would cost him his career, but this time he was not going to let her go. It would be worth it; everything would be worth it.

She pulled away, her face tear-streaked.

“I cannot. I cannot leave. I have Sasha to think about.”

He held her quietly for a while longer. His mind was rac­ing.

“How did you know I was in Moscow?” he asked care­fully.

She gave no hint of surprise at the question. It was in any case natural enough for him to ask it.

“Last month,” she said between sniffs, “I was taken to the ballet by a colleague from the office. We were in a box. When the lights were low, I thought I must be mistaken. But when they went up at intermission, I knew it was really you. I could not stay after that. I pleaded a headache and left quickly.”

She dabbed her eyes, the crying spell over.

“Adam,” she asked eventually, “did you marry?”

“Yes,” he said. “Long after Berlin. It didn’t work. We were divorced years ago.”

She managed a little smile. “I’m glad,” she said. “I’m glad there is no one else. That is not very logical, is it?”

He grinned back at her.

“No,” he said. “It is not. But it is nice to hear. Can we see each other? In the future?”

Her smile faded; there was a hunted look in her eyes. She shook her dark head.

“No, not very often, Adam,” she said. “I am trusted, privi­leged, but if a foreigner came to my apartment, it would soon be noticed and reported on. The same applies to your apart­ment. Diplomats are watched—you know that. Hotels are watched also; no apartments are for rent here without impos­sible formalities. It will be difficult, Adam, very difficult.”

“Valentina, you arranged this meeting. You took the initia­tive. Was it just for old times’ sake? If you do not like your life here, if you do not like the men you work for ... But if you cannot leave because of Sasha, then what is it you want?”

She composed herself and thought for a while. When she spoke, it was quite calmly.

“Adam, I want to try to stop them. I want to try to stop what they are doing. I suppose I have for several years now, but since I saw you at the Bolshoi, and remembered all the freedom we had in Berlin, I began thinking about it more and more. Now I am certain. Tell me if you can—is there an intelligence officer in your embassy?”

Munro was shaken. He had handled two defectors-in-place, one from the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City, the other in Vi­enna. One had been motivated by a conversion from re­spect to hatred for his own regime, like Valentina; the other by bitterness at lack of promotion. The former had been the trickier to handle.

“I suppose so,” he said slowly. “I suppose there must be.”

Valentina rummaged in the shoulder bag on the pine needles by her feet. Having made up her mind, she was ap­parently determined to go through with her betrayal. She withdrew a thick, padded envelope.

“I want you to give this to him, Adam. Promise me you will never tell him who it came from. Please, Adam. I am frightened by what I am doing. I cannot trust anyone but you.”

“I promise,” he said. “But I have to see you again. I can’t Just see you walk away through the gap in the wall as I did last time.”

“No, I cannot do that again, either. But do not try to con­tact me at my apartment. It is in a walled compound for sen­ior functionaries, with a single gate in the wall and a policeman at it. Do not try to telephone me. The calls are monitored. And I will never meet anyone else from your em­bassy, not even the intelligence chief.”

“I agree,” said Munro. “But when can we meet again?”

She considered for a moment. “It is not always easy for me to get away. Sasha takes up most of my spare time. But I have my own car and I am not followed. Tomorrow I must go away for two weeks, but we can meet here, four Sundays from today.” She looked at her watch. “I must go, Adam. I am one of a house party at a dacha a few miles from here.”

He kissed her on the lips, the way it used to be. And it was as sweet as it had ever been. She rose and walked away across the clearing. When she reached the fringe of the trees, he called after her.

“Valentina, what is in this?” He held up the package.

She paused and turned.

“My job,” she said, “is to prepare the verbatim transcripts of the Politburo meetings, one for each member. And the di­gests for the candidate members. From the tape recordings. That is a copy of the recording of the meeting of June tenth.”

Then she was gone into the trees. Munro sat on the tomb­stone and looked down at the package.

“Bloody hell,” he said.

ADAM MUNRO sat in a locked room in the main building of the British Embassy on Maurice Thorez Embankment and listened to the last sentences of the tape recording on the machine in front of him. The room was safe from any chance of electronic surveillance by the Russians, which was why he had borrowed it for a few hours from the head of Chancery.

“... goes without saying that this news does not pass out­side those present in this room. Our next meeting will be a week from today.”

The voice of Maxim Rudin died away, and the tape hissed on the machine, then stopped. Munro switched it off. He leaned back and let out a long, low whistle.

If it was true, it was bigger than anything Oleg Penkovsky had brought over, twenty years before. The story of Penkov­sky was folklore in the SIS, the CIA, and, most of all, in the bitterest memories of the KGB. He was a brigadier general in the GRU, with access to the highest information, who, disenchanted with the Kremlin hierarchy, had approached first the Americans and then the British with an offer to provide in­formation.

The Americans had turned him down, suspecting a trap. The British had accepted him, and for two and a half years “run” him until he was trapped by the KGB, exposed, tried, and shot. In his time he had brought over a golden harvest of secret information, but most of all at the time of the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis. In that month the world had ap­plauded the exceptionally skillful handling by President John F. Kennedy of the eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with Nikita Khrushchev over the matter of the planting of Soviet missiles in Cuba. What the world had not known was that the exact strengths and weaknesses of the Russian leader were al­ready in the Americans’ hands, thanks to Penkovsky.

When it was finally over, the Soviet missiles were out of Cuba, Khrushchev was humbled, Kennedy was a hero, and Penkovsky was under suspicion. He was arrested in Novem­ber. Within a year, after a show trial, he was dead. That same winter of 1963 Kennedy, too, died, just thirteen months after his triumph. And within two years Khrushchev had fallen, toppled by his own colleagues, ostensibly because of his failure in the grain policy, in fact because his adventurism had scared the daylights out of them. The democrat, the despot, and the spy had all left the stage. But even Penkovsky had never got right inside the Politburo.

Munro took the spool off the machine and carefully rewrapped it. The voice of Professor Yakovlev was, of course, unknown to him, and most of the tape was of him reading his report. But in the discussion following the profes­sor, there were ten voices, and three at least were identifiable. The low growl of Rudin was well enough known; the high tones of Vishnayev, Munro had heard before, watching tele­vised speeches by the man to Party congresses; and the bark of Marshal Kerensky he had heard at May Day celebrations, as well as on film and tape.