Len Deighton - XPD

‘Illegal resident for the Russians? Controlled all the time by the CIA?’

‘Keep the Ruskies happy, and then they won’t release your war-crimes file, Willi.’ He smiled and slapped a fly on his arm. It was a sudden movement and it made Kleiber start in surprise. ‘We’ve got a common interest, Willi old pal, we want to keep those Ruskies smiling.’

‘They’ll suspect me.’ Willi had begun to waver as both men knew he would.

‘We’ll give you some real good breaks, Willi. Don’t worry about that. We’ll keep Moscow happy. We know the sort of thing they so desperately need; undersea warfare technology, computer advances, cruise missile data. We won’t keep you short of stuff to feed them. We’ll make you a big man, Willi.’

Kleiber shook his head. ‘We were talking about my feeding Parker, not replacing him… ’

‘Maybe that’s what you were talking about,’ said the project chairman. ‘But I’m talking about the big one.’

‘It’s something I’d have to think about,’ said Willi Kleiber.

‘Yes. You think about it, Willi,’ said the project chairman in a fruity, avuncular voice which was all the more worrying because of the quiet confidence that it showed.

‘Where the hell are we?’ said Kleiber for what must have been at least the hundredth time. It was the sound of an airliner passing over which made his mind go back to that question. It unsettled him not to know where he was-just as it was intended to do.

The project chairman ignored the question, as he had ignored it all the previous times. He stepped across to where a white plastic fascia panel disguised a stove. The wormy floor of the shack moved slightly under his weight. He scooped some instant coffee and milk powder into a thick white mug he got from the cupboard. ‘Quit worrying, Kleiber. I tell you it will be all right.’

‘What do you know about what will be all right?’ Kleiber grumbled. ‘Were you ever a field agent?’

‘It will be all right, compared to the alternative,’ said the project chairman ominously. He lifted the lid of the vacuum flask and, deciding that the water was still hot enough, poured some into the mug. ‘Coffee?’

‘Why can’t I have a proper drink?’

‘The doc says no.’ The project chairman had no great liking for this arrogant hoodlum. ‘You’d better know this, Kleiber, old sport. There are quite a few people working on this project who’d like to see you arraigned on a murder indictment.’

‘The bible man for one,’ said Kleiber. ‘Yes, he told me that.’

The project chairman nodded. Melvin Kalkhoven had been vociferously opposed to any deal that allowed Kleiber to escape punishment. Kalkhoven had told the project chairman, ‘I called thee to curse mine enemies, and behold, thou hast altogether blessed them these three times.’ His indignation was fired by the knowledge that Kleiber would be paid at a higher grade than Kalkhoven himself.

‘But not me,’ added the project chairman. ‘I’d XPD you if I had my way.’

In the last two decades the KGB have been less paranoid about their huge Moscow office block with its infamous Lubyanka prison and rooftop exercise yard. Fewer Russians have been arrested for loitering in Dzerzhinsky Square, and it has been a long time since a tourist has had his camera confiscated in this vicinity.

This is not due to any change of policy by the upper echelons of the world’s largest and most powerful political police force. The large grey stone building which before the revolution belonged to the All-Russia Insurance Company now houses only less important echelons of the secret police. A large computer and a specially built telex network have made it possible to spread KGB offices throughout the city. The First Main Directorate’s Section 13, together with the personnel office, now occupies six floors of the thirty-one-storey SEV building. This well-designed modern block is at the Tchaikovsky Street end of one of Moscow ’s widest and most modern boulevards, Kalinina Prospekt, not far from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade.

The SEV building is sited at a place where the slow-moving Moskva river loops towards the city and back again. From its higher floors there are magnificent views across the city, and away to the south where the gigantic-and hideously ugly-university sprawls across the Lenin Hills. But not many of General Shumuk’s staff of nearly 400 spent much time admiring the view. These floors, occupied by specially selected KGB employees, are noted for cleanliness, industry and silence. Even the telephones are specially muted.

General Shumuk’s office was large, its size emphasized by the lack of furniture. There was only a metal desk, swivel chair and a high-back wooden visitor’s chair with uneven feet which, rumour said, Shumuk himself had designed to cause concern and discomfort to anyone sitting in it. The new linoleum had already cracked around the places where the hot water radiators were let into the floor. On the desk there were two trays, three telephones and a concealed button for calling his secretary. The only picture on the wall was a cheap lithograph of Peter the Great. Shumuk had always been careful not to identify himself with any of the more modern residents of the Kremlin; it was too dangerous. Behind the picture there was the standard steel safe provided for all senior KGB officials. Each evening it was ceremoniously sealed with red wax.

There was a knock at the door and the duty cipher clerk entered. Without a word the clerk put a red folder on General Shumuk’s desk and passed to him the timed receipt. Shumuk initialled it without looking up, and started reading the telex decodes. It was the one from the Soviet embassy in Washington which spoiled his even temper. It was a long message: four pages of text largely concerned with low-grade trivia which should not have been sent on the signature of Yuriy Grechko, the senior KGB man in the embassy. It should have been consigned to the weekly summary. Shumuk read on hurriedly. He had once been an embassy legal himself; he too had learnt how to wrap up bad news.

When he came to the paragraph in which Grechko reported that Wilhelm Kleiber had phoned the embassy asking for an urgent meeting, Shumuk put down the telex sheets. He took off his steel-rimmed spectacles and laid them on his desk while he placed the palms of both hands over his face. Long, long ago such mannerisms had been mistaken for grief, alarm or anxiety, but by now everyone knew that it was just a way in which Shumuk was able to concentrate his thoughts. If there was a way in which he manifested grief, alarm or anxiety-or any strong emotion other than anger-no one working with him had yet discovered it.

Kleiber had failed to obtain the Hitler Minutes, that much was obvious. An agent did not make contact in this reckless, unprofessional manner to report success. If Kleiber had secured the Hitler Minutes in the way that the popinjay Grechko and his sleepy-eyed friend Parker had promised, then by now they would be here on Shumuk’s desk instead of this long telex cluttered with nothing better than gossip culled from Aviation Week. He read the paragraph again.

para eight task POGONI 982 [Grechko’s submission numeral]

SUGGEST MEETING KLEIBER ROUSILL ON BEACH MOTEL

VERNON FAIRFAX COUNTY ++ 2200 HOURS TUESDAY

TWENTY FIRST AUGUST STOP CONSENT REQUEST

TWO END PARA

General Stanislav Shumuk could not think about Task Pogoni without seeing in his mind’s eye the two men upon whom he had relied for its success. Shumuk had no confidence in either Parker or Grechko. He had been a member of the promotions board that had selected Grechko for his present KGB appointment in the Washington embassy. Needless to say, Shumuk had strenuously argued against giving Grechko such responsibility, but he went unheeded. Shumuk was over six feet tall and he could never reconcile himself to the fact that Grechko habitually wore elevator shoes which gave this over-confident little man a sorely needed increase in height. Stanislav Shumuk believed that the elevator shoes revealed the fundamental flaw in Grechko’s personality; his desire for elevation-literally and figuratively-characterized his attitude to his job, to his family and to the women with whom he wasted so much time. Several times Shumuk had made formal complaints about Grechko’s womanizing, but on every occasion Grechko had been able to ‘prove’ that the ladies in question-who included the wives of foreign diplomats-were a valuable source of intelligence material.