Derek Lambert - The Red Dove

2 Jan. Proof that penetration has been successful.

13 Jan. Definitive penetration.

14 Jan. Devastating proof that final penetration has succeeded.

The last two dates weren’t positive. But certainly the whole operation had to be concluded by 14 January because that was Tarkovsky’s new date for the Dove launching, brought forward to impress the President – old men admire speed. And what timing: the dramatic Soviet step into space synchronising with the destruction of all America’s cosmic ambitions.

Or put another way, Vlasov thought, drumming his fingers on his desk, I have fourteen days in which to avert a holocaust.

But several suspicions, the crosses he had to bear, were already grouping to threaten the too-neat timetable.

Firstly Massey.

The seduction. Vlasov pressed the start button on the tape recorder in his office.

‘Why did you come to the Soviet Union?’

‘Because of what they did to me.’

‘Who?’

‘The Company, the CIA.’

Vlasov speeded up the tape.

‘Who is the Ukranian, Robert?’

‘They shot me full of drugs, those bastards.’

Vlasov remembered the advice he had been given long ago: ‘Whatever form the interrogation takes concentrate on a truth divorced from the questions.’

Which was what Massey had been doing.

On the other hand what else could he say if he was genuine? If he didn’t know who the Ukrainian was? Careful, Vlasov, lest your suspicions wreck the whole operation.

The photographer was taking his pictures now. Routine – there might be a use for them some day. The KGB had the most comprehensive archives of pornography in the world.

Without emotion, Vlasov imagined the girl lowering herself on to Massey.

‘The truth is that I wanted to share.’

‘To share what, Robert? Quickly, I’m so excited.’

That was the trouble: she had been excited and she had finished the exercise too quickly. Peslyak had employed an amateur.

‘The stars.’

That sounded convincing too, tallied with what he had said during his initial interrogations. To all intents and purposes Massey was exonerated from any suspicion.

And yet everything he said was too pat. What, then, Nicolay Vlasov, is the point of these tests if you don’t accept them?

Massey had smashed the microphone in his lapel.

An accident. He couldn’t have known it was there because the drug they had used obliterates aural reception.

Unless Massey had been trained to take anti-surveillance action after a compromise.

Impatiently, Vlasov pressed the STOP button. He was fast becoming paranoiac.

The Rybak lead had evaporated, as of course it would have done if Massey was genuine. Which he is!

But what about the meeting between Massey and the Estonian named Nosenko over the chess board in Gorky Park?

Vlasov slotted another tape into the recorder. It began with a scream.

Then a reassuring voice: ‘Sorry, comrade, we were a little hasty. We won’t switch on the current again if you tell us the truth.’

‘What truth? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘What was the message for Massey?’

‘Massey? Who’s Massey?’

‘Who won the game of chess?’

‘I did—’

‘Wasn’t Massey any good?’

‘He was lousy but what—’

‘So you do know his name was Massey?’

‘I don’t know anything. I just played a game of chess with a stranger like anyone does in Gorky Park.’

‘With a foreigner?’

‘Why not?’

Scream.

‘Don’t get smart, Nosenko, if these electrodes get overheated they’ll burn your balls off.’

Another voice: ‘Was the message from the Ukrainian?’

‘What fucking Ukrainian?’

‘You know what fucking Ukrainian – Rybak.’

‘Massey, Rybak… I don’t know any… No, please, no…’

The scream was louder this time. Vlasov turned down the volume control.

‘Now, Nosenko, what was the message?’

The first voice: ‘Hold it, Mikhail, I think we lost him.’

‘Shit.’

Bunglers! Vlasov stopped the tape. They should have checked his heart before applying the electrodes. More ammunition to be fired in Peslyak’s direction.

Quite possibly there hadn’t been anything Nosenko could have told them anyway. Why, then, had Massey lost his tail the following day?

It could have been coincidence, of course – there was mist around that day. And Massey had only been lost for eight minutes. Long enough!

You’ve got to stop this, Vlasov, before they cart you off to a psychiatric clinic. Outside the sun was setting coldly over the white rooftops in plumes of pigeon-grey and pink.

Vlasov pressed the intercom and told his secretary to fetch his hat and coat and tell his driver to bring the Zil to the main entrance.

One last suspicion presented itself unsolicited to Vlasov before he left his office. The last contact with Vandenberg had been aborted because Vogel was allegedly sick. Was his indisposition genuine? Or am I being set up for the biggest intelligence double-cross since ULTRA?

He picked up his hat, straightened his back. To hell with it, he was going to a party.

Frosted snow crunched beneath the wheels of the Zil taking Vlasov and his wife to the President’s weekend dacha near Zhukovka. Moonlight added coldness to the night, icing fields of snow, isolating the black pine forest.

Unlike so many Russians, Vlasov didn’t like winter. Like Stalin he was a scheming Georgian and he loved the sun in which to hatch his plots.

Why Intourist couldn’t promote the Soviet summer he couldn’t imagine. July in Moscow with the river beaches packed, kvas vans in the streets, the scent of carnations (from Georgia) heavy on the air, parks full of families unfurled in the sun…

Guards peering into the Zil cut short summer. The driver showed his papers, the militiamen leaped back.

The Zil coasted down the driveway, past relays of guards and electronic warnings, to the presidential dacha, a magnificent anachronism, like a Loire château, with spires and balconies and terraces, its room lit tonight with a festive glow.

In the baronial living room, its walls lined with split pine from Canada, maids circulated among the guests with trays of drinks and zakuski. Like all Russian rooms in the winter it was sweating hot, the area around the log fire like a sauna.

Vlasov’s wife, regal and distant, immediately joined the Politburo wives sipping sweet champagne and, between gossip, monitoring the alcohol intake of their husbands. One vodka too many, one indiscretion, and they might be transferred to a hydro-electric power station in Khatanga. Except, Vlasov reflected, that these days disgrace would probably be confined to the circle of power: old men had to stick together.

Vlasov, aware that, with his portfolio of secret lives, he was the least popular guest in the dacha, joined the foreign minister.

The President, oblivious to the heat, was standing in front of the fire talking to Tarkovsky who was trying to ignore the sweat trickling down his old, warrior face. The President, Vlasov thought, looked magnificent; his bulkiness exuding resolution, heavy features brooding – an old predator in his lair.

The President beckoned him over. ‘I want to have a talk with you and Grigori. We will adjourn to my study.’

Over their glasses other members of the Politburo and their wives observed their departure. A council of war on New Year’s Eve?

Vlasov recalled his timetable… possible showdown with Tarkovsky.

The President poured them vodka, in deference to the New Year and Narzan and stationed himself in front of another log fire. Now that he was in his den rather than his lair, surrounded by books and trophies and photographs of himself with heads of State including a clutch of American presidents, he looked benign. A deception!