Tom Smith - Agent 6

He was speaking so fast his words were running into each other.

– You love him, this man, Mikael Ivanov, who worked for this secret department? He told you his motivation was equality and justice. Elena, he didn’t love you. Love was how you were manipulated. Some people want money. Some people want power. You wanted love. That was your price. You were bought. It was planned. The love was a lie, the most obvious and simple of tricks.

Elena wiped away her tears, feeling a wave of anger for the first time.

– You can’t be sure of that. You don’t know what happened.

– I am sure. I’ve planned operations like this myself. What’s worse, they knew that only a person who wasn’t aware of the plot could have persuaded Jesse Austin to attend the concert. They needed someone in love. They needed someone full of love and optimism. Otherwise, Jesse Austin would have sensed a trick. He would have sensed if you were lying to him, or if you didn’t really believe the things you were saying. He would never have attended that concert if you hadn’t asked him to.

Elena stood up.

– I know it’s my fault! I know!

Leo shook his head, lowering his voice.

– No, I blame myself. I taught you nothing. I let you into this world naked and naive and this is what happened. Raisa and I wanted to shelter you from those things – lies, deceit, trickery – but they are the truths of our existence. I failed you. I failed Raisa. I had only one thing to offer her, protection, and I couldn’t even provide that.

Leo addressed Frol Panin.

– Where is Ivanov now?

– I know that right now he is on a train. I don’t know where that train is heading.

Leo paused, sensing this was the truth but suspicious of it all the same.

– Who killed my wife?

– To the world, the answer is Anna Austin.

– That is a lie.

– We don’t know what happened.

Leo became angry.

– We know that the official version of the events is a lie! We know that much.

Frol Panin nodded.

– Yes, that version seems unlikely. However, to avoid a diplomatic crisis we have agreed not to contradict the American version of events.

– Who killed Jesse Austin? Was it us? Was it the Americans? It was us, wasn’t it?

– As far as I know, the plan was merely to have Jesse Austin turn up outside the United Nations. The hope was that he would be arrested, dragged off by the police, and if one of the students could become embroiled in the ruckus that would be useful from a propaganda point of view. It was a plot conjured up by a department that is desperate to make some inroads into the anti-Communist senti a de that prevails in the United States. They wanted to repair Jesse Austin’s career. They wanted him to be famous again.

Leo began pacing the room again.

– I knew all along it would be impossible for you not to try something. You couldn’t merely stage a concert. You had to go further. You had to do more.

– It was an ill-conceived plan that has gone badly wrong.

– Let me go to New York. Let me investigate.

– Leo, my friend, listen to me: what you ask is impossible.

– I must find out who murdered my wife. I must find them and kill them.

– Leo, you will never be allowed to go. It will not happen. There is nothing you can do.

Leo shook his head.

– There’s nothing else! This is all that’s left for me to do! I promise, I will find her killer. I will find the person responsible. I will find them.

Same Day

Leo had no clear sense of how long he’d been sitting on the roof of the apartment block – several hours at least. After Panin had left, he and the girls had put the room back as it should be, resembling a home, the two beds side by side. Leo had begun to make dinner but abruptly abandoned his efforts, leaving the food uncooked. The only place he could think to go was the roof.

Teenagers sometimes came here to kiss and fool around if they couldn’t find anywhere else. Tonight, in the pouring rain, it was empty. Leo did not feel cold, even with his clothes soaked through. He could see out across the city, the night lights of Moscow smudged by rainfall. He stood up, walking to the edge of the building and looked down at the drop. He remained there for many minutes, trying to reason why he should step back. He remembered his promise. Stepping away from the edge, he turned his back on the city, heading downstairs to an apartment he’d once thought of as home.

New Year’s Day 1973

The rucksack belonged to a man shot trying to cross the border into Finland. Despite it being a savage winter with the snow in the forests lying waist deep, the man had attempted the perilous crossing perhaps hoping that the weather and near-permanent darkness would make it easier to pass undetected. To trespass into this heavily controlled area by accident or design was considered an attempt to defect to the West, an act of treason. The soldiers patrolling, many on skis through the forest, were instructed to shoot to kill. There would be wide-reaching repercussions if a traitor managed to slip through and seek asylum abroad, revealing classified information about the Soviet Union to its enemies. On a personal level, Eli Romm, in charge of this zone, would be called be witribunal and would almost certainly lose his job and possibly his freedom, accused of neglect or, worse, of wilfully allowing an act of sabotage.

Eli examined the contents of the rucksack. It contained basic provisions: water, bread and cured meats. There was a change of clothes, dark in colour, a thick wool blanket, several boxes of matches, medical supplies, a sharp hunting knife and a steel cup – standard outdoor fare and of little interest. Eli tipped the rucksack upside down. Nothing else fell out. He felt the lining, running his finger along the stitches, convinced it held further evidence. He was right. There was a lump in the material, a secret pocket. Cutting through the material, ripping off the patch, he discovered the pocket contained several thin gold coins, bound in plastic, proof that this was a serious attempt at defection. Extensive preparations had been made – gold was nearly impossible to obtain for an ordinary citizen, the inference was that a foreign country was involved and the man was a professional spy.

The secret compartment contained more than gold. Romm found two photographs. Expecting them to be classified he was surprised that they appeared to be worthless from an intelligence point of view, photographs of two women in their late twenties, taken on their wedding day. There were also a series of papers. He opened them, his puzzlement growing as he discovered that they were a mass of carefully pressed, faded Soviet newspaper clippings detailing the shooting of a man called Jesse Austin, a once popular Communist singer, murdered in New York by his lover, a woman called Raisa Demidova. The murder had taken place some years ago, the articles dated back to 1965. There were extensive handwritten notes on the articles, in small neat writing, thoughts on the case, with a list of names, people the man wanted to speak to. Evidently from these notes the ambition was to reach New York, the United States – the main adversary. The apparent motivation was so peculiar that Eli wondered if the papers were in some sort of code. He would have to report the matter directly to Moscow, to the highest authorities.

The prisoner was in a cell downstairs – shot but not killed by a soldier on guard patrol. After firing from long range with a sniper rifle, the guard had pursued but failed to find the wounded man. Somehow the man had struggled on through the snow. The guard had returned to base, bringing out reinforcements to search the area. Eventually, surrounded by dogs, the man was lucky to be apprehended alive. His injury, a single bullet wound, was not life-threatening and he had received rudimentary treatment at the barracks. The man’s tenacity, the fashion in which he’d evaded capture for several hours against overwhelming odds, and the organized, disciplined contents of his bag suggested a military background. He’d refused to speak to the guards or to give his name.