Derek Lambert - The Red Dove

Vlasov’s eyes refocused on the report.

0555 hours. Subject heard through microphones in his room in Ukraina Hotel to shout: ‘Phase Three!’ then lapse into gibberish.

0600. Heard to rise from bed. Spent fifteen minutes walking round room.

0615. Returned to bed.

0648. Another shout, words incomprehensible.

Phase Three? Vlasov frowned. Probably a reference to the flight of the shuttle. Or was it?

0800. Woken by early call from switchboard. Breakfast.

0900. Called at Passport Office, Room 20, on first floor of Ukraina. Took stairs to ground-floor. Bought newspaper, Pravda, and crossed river across Kalininsky Bridge, strolled along riverbank. Returned to hotel.

1030. Coffee in room.

1104. Travelled by bus to Pushkin Place. Visited Museum of the Revolution.

So far a model morning, Vlasov thought with relief as the Zil pulled up outside his apartment block.

Militiamen snapped to attention. Plainclothes guards hovered. Vlasov entered the lobby, slid a magnetised card into the elevator control.

He continued to read as the elevator glided upwards.

1145. Emerged from museum and made way by foot to banya off Petrovka Street.

Noon, entered banya.

1210, approx. (Perhaps the Hunter had left his watch in the changing room to avoid the steam.) Approached by fat man who struck up conversation.

1220. Moved to recreation room with fat man. Stayed with him until –

1245. Left banya and returned by taxi to hotel.

The rest of Massey’s day until the Hunter handed over surveillance to another agent at 1800 hours was innocuous. Come to that so was the first part. The footnote to the report was the most interesting part of it.

The elevator stopped. Vlasov emerged into a carpeted corridor. A plainclothes guard stood back as Vlasov opened the door of his apartment with three keys.

‘Nicolay, is that you?’

‘Who else?’

In the living room he kissed his wife perfunctorily while she continued to look at the television. Grand opera, La Bohème by the sound of it.

He poured himself a Chivas Regal with ice and, trailing his free hand across the surfaces of the Finnish whitewood furniture, the Hunter’s report under the other arm, adjourned to his study.

There, he considered the deplorable performance he had just witnessed by the Minister of Defence, Grigori Tarkovsky.

There were ten members of the fourteen-man Politburo present. Average age: seventy-one. They normally met on Thursdays but this week’s meeting had been postponed for two days because the President had been indisposed. Indisposition was becoming increasingly common among the septuagenarians.

They assembled in a long, gloomy room dominated by Lenin, in oils, and the President, who was also chairman of the Politburo, in the flesh. Through the windows they could see two gold cupolas floating above the falling snow.

The building in which the Politburo met was closed to the public absolutely and at all times, protected by armed guards, steel doors and electronic switches. It reminded Vlasov of an impregnable coffin set among wreaths of delicate blossom.

Tarkovsky was on his feet astride his hobby-horse: the failure of détente and the ultimate alternative, force of arms. The trouble, Vlasov thought, was that although Tarkovsky mouthed ultimate he meant only. Thank God there was still enough common sense in the granite-faced old men sitting at the long mahogany table to restrain him.

What a bunch of ancients we are, Vlasov mused. But although our bodies might betray us, our minds are icily determined, moulded by the long campaign of survival. Frozen, inflexible? Well, that accusation had been levelled at them many times and it had some validity. But the proof of the pudding was the eating: the old fogies had made Russia a superpower and they intended to keep it that way.

Who were the more dangerous, old men set in their ways, suspicious and cantankerous, or young men lusting for battle? Old hawks dictating from their nests or fledglings flexing their talons?

What we have to do, Vlasov thought as Tarkovsky, the Iron General, continued to address his troops, is to ensure a smooth transfer of power; to hang on until the young hotheads have cooled off a little.

But, before that, someone would have to be chosen to succeed the President, sitting brooding and heavy-lidded – as well he might listening to Tarkovsky – at the end of the table, life in his bulky body sustained by the pacemaker buried in his chest.

Certainly not Tarkovsky: with such a man in power there soon wouldn’t be a world left to rule. Certainly not me; I have never sought that sort of power; in any case the Soviet Union would lose credibility with the chief of its secret police at the helm. The Foreign Minister? No, he might be adept at spitting in the eye of an American Secretary of State – he had been doing it long enough – but he wasn’t for domestic consumption, and it was domestic policy that needed to be shored up – you could hear the groan all the way to the Sea of Okhotsk when another Five Year Plan was announced after another wheat crop had failed. Party Theorist Levich who had recently taken over the job after the death of his illustrious predecessor? Again he was too remote from reality. No, it would have to be one of the young men, a sprightly 65-year-old! The snag there was that three of these weren’t natives of the Republic of Russia and it would never do to install a leader from another ethnic group, despite avowals to the contrary. And, ironically, yet another of the youngsters was Andrei Romanov. If he wanted a crack of the whip he would have to change his name!

But, a young man it would be. Well, not anyone over eighty.

In America, Vlasov reflected, they also had an old age problem, except there it was contained in one man. If the United States President wanted to be re-elected then he would have to pull off some sort of coup proving that his mind was still agile. Idly, Vlasov wondered if he, or George Reynolds, had anything in mind.

‘…the future lies in space…’

Wearily, the President glanced at his wristwatch.

‘…in the absence of co-operation by the United States to agree upon a formula for co-existence…’

Etcetera, etcetera, Vlasov thought.

‘…the logical plan in the event of a limited war would be to knock out US bases for space flights in a pre-emptive strike…’

And so on.

‘…There are several ways in which this can be achieved…’

Vlasov yawned. What Tarkovsky didn’t realise was that he now knew about the plan, involving the fleet of Dove shuttles, that the minister of defence had presented to the President. It had taken him only forty-eight hours to find out.

What alarmed Vlasov was the fact that the President hadn’t confided in him. In other words had taken Tarkovsky’s lunacy seriously.

Which was why he had to expedite the scheme given to him by Massey on a plate. To prove that, in the cosmos, the Americans could be defeated by guile rather than brute spatial force.

Tarkovsky sat down. The troops stood at ease. The President looked around the table inquiringly. No response: Tarkovsky had that effect on them. The meeting was declared at an end.

And if the Vandenberg penetration was to proceed swiftly and smoothly then any suspicion of a flaw had to be dealt with as soon as it materialised. Vlasov sipped his whisky without tasting it.

Phase Three? He would have to find out if such a term was in common usage in shuttle parlance. Perhaps it was an American expression. Or it could have been a generalisation; he would have to listen to the tape to see if the tone was incisive.

His glass was empty; he didn’t remember drinking any of the Scotch. He went back to the living-room. The television flickered in rich colours. ‘Your tiny hand is frozen…’ His wife didn’t look round. He replenished his glass and returned to his study.