Brian Freemantle: The Bearpit

All wasted: four years of dawn to dusk study – of top-grade passes in every test and examination – utterly and completely wasted. But Yuri’s concern was not in the KGB’s loss. His concern was as his own, personal potential loss.

Yuri had liked – come to need and expect – the cosseted life of the son of someone secure within the Soviet hierarchy. He’d never known anything but an apartment in Kutuzovsky Prospekt and the dacha in the Lenin Hills and the cars that had always been the surefire aphrodisiac with the girls. He’d enjoyed the concessionary allowances and the freely available foreign imports and never having to wait or to queue for anything; and then to be told it was not available. Nothing ever had been unavailable to him.

So it was unthinkable for it not to continue. But eventually properly awarded and allowed, for himself, not obtained through his father. Which was why he had responded so immediately to the KGB recruitment approach at college – and until his enrolment kept that approach secret from his father, striving then for the independence he would so willingly have surrendered now, to be spared Afghanistan. He’d never doubted his ultimate promotion to the Dzerzhinsky Square headquarters, with all its benefits. Nor underestimated that irrespective of his ability – and Yuri had never been unsure of his own ability – there would be political pitfalls it was necessary to avoid.

Which was why Afghanistan was so dangerous. Moscow was trapped in a no-win situation and so, correspondingly, was every Russian posted here. Georgi Solov, the rezident, and all the others in the KGB rezidentura were mad, pissing over their boots in their vodka celebrations and infantile boasts of success after the Moscow edict entrusting them with greater responsibility. Yesterday the GRU, tomorrow the KGB. Then there wouldn’t be any luxury flats or weekend villas or chauffeured cars: if it were anything like the Hararajat disaster it could be instead a cell in Lefortovo or Butyrki.

Yuri supposed he could write to the old man. But to say what? Something his father already knew? And had already refused to do anything about, despite the danger argument being patiently set out and actually agreed! He wouldn’t beg, Yuri determined. Not like he’d begged at that farewell dinner, demeaning himself like some pant-wetting schoolboy and to be humiliated again as he had been then. Yuri actually flushed, hot with embarrassment at the memory. Never again, he thought. Ever.

What then?

Continue jockeying Ilena and the translator, he supposed, although more for what was in their heads than beneath their skirts. Maybe explore beneath the bedcovers with the eager wife of the cultural attache and that of the Third Secretary, as well and for the same reason. If he were going to establish a personal, protective intelligence system the wisdom of extending it as widely as possible overrode the hazards of outraged husbands who seemed to be limp-pricked anyway. Anything else? Nothing that he could think of. He wished there were. It didn’t seem enough.

The embassy mess was in the basement, the ceiling-level windows taped against bomb blasts and with defensive sandbags beyond after the repeated guerilla mortar attacks. The air conditioning was broken, as it always was, and the stale air was thick with tobacco smoke and body odour. There was the obligatory portrait of Gorbachov on the inner wall, as far away as possible from any attack damage, and posters of Black Sea holiday resorts and of Red Square during the May Day parade of two years before, showing the pass-by of SS-22 missiles.

Solov was holding court at his accustomed table, close to the serving hatch, with the other three senior officers in the rezidentura – Gusev, Bunin and Anishenko – in obedient attendance. They all had their jackets off and their collars loosened, because of the heat, but they were all sweating, adding to the smell of the room. Yuri, who was still considered junior from the newness of his posting, did not intend to join them but as he went to the hatch Solov thrust a chair away from the table with his foot and said: ‘Sit down.’

It was more an order than an invitation and Yuri guessed the men were drunk: because of his father’s changed position within the KGB the attitude had for the past few weeks been more cautious. Yuri sat but brought his own beer to the table, shaking his head against their offer to share the diminishing bottle of vodka. Another stupid celebration to imagined triumphs to come, he decided.

‘The GRU rezidentura is being scaled down,’ announced Solov. ‘They’re only replacing with ten embassy officers, not fifteen like before. Less than half the field agents, too.’

The controller spoke proudly, as if he were personally responsible for the continued demotion. Taunting, Yuri said: ‘It’s a recognized algebraic equation: one KGB man equals two GRU.’

‘Bloody right,’ slurred Gusev. ‘Right every time.’

Fool, thought Yuri. The alcohol heightened Gusev’s blood pressure, so that he appeared almost cosmetically made up. Yuri said: ‘When are they arriving?’

‘Beginning tomorrow,’ said Anishenko.

‘Officer in charge is named Nikandrov, Anatoli Nikandrov,’ further disclosed Solov. ‘Being transferred from Vienna.’

Poor bastard, thought Yuri: coming from Austria to Afghanistan would be like arriving from another planet. The amount of information his superior officers appeared to possess could only mean that during the withdrawal of the military intelligence personnel the KGB had managed to get a tie-line into the restricted GRU telex and cable channels normally precluded to them. He wondered how long it would take for the GRU to discover and remove it. Not too long, he guessed: they were stupid, each of these men sitting and sweating and smelling around him, to boast so openly. He said: ‘They will be cautious after what happened.’

‘Just as long as they don’t get in our way,’ said Bunin.

‘We’ll walk all over them!’ goaded Yuri.

‘Bloody right,’ said Gusev, his mind jammed on replay.

‘Prove to everyone why we’ve been given the responsibility!’ said Yuri, cheerleading like the muezzin in the mosques outside.

‘Prove it like no one will believe!’ endorsed Solov.

Yuri hesitated, curiously, unsure if the remark were anything more than braggadocio buoyed up on a sea of alcohol. He’d been idly amusing himself, prodding their stupid reaction. More intently now, Yuri said: ‘Hararajat showed the mujahideen aren’t to be underestimated: it’s important not to forget that.’

‘It’s important for the mujahideen to be shown that the KGB is not to be underestimated, either. Or forget it,’ said Solov, and Bunin laughed.

Eyes-Only traffic, remembered Yuri. He said: ‘I have things to do here in the compound. But I would consider it an honour to buy you another bottle of vodka: this one is exhausted.’

‘And we would consider it a pleasure to accept,’ sniggered Anishenko.

Russian tradition dictated that Yuri, although a departing host, should accept the initial toast.

‘Socialism!’ proposed Solov.

‘Socialism,’ echoed everyone, including Yuri, who said it dutifully. The vodka was cheap and harsh to his throat: Russian style, each man emptied his glass in one gulp.

Yuri made to rise but Solov waved him down, refilling the glasses. ‘To the Cheka,’ toasted the rezident, calling the KGB by the name by which it has traditionally been known from the time of Feliks Dzerzhinsky’s inception, and by which they still privately referred to themselves, boasting their membership of a special club.

‘The Cheka,’ intoned everyone around the table.

Yuri used the internal telephone in the main lobby of the compound and Ilena answered after the second ring, as if she had been expecting the call.