Mark Blair - Stroika

As he passed reception, the concierge handed him an envelope. Yuri waited until he was in his apartment before opening it. Inside, a card read:

Dear General, Further to your enquiry, I can confirm your suit will be ready on October 13.

It was a message from Biryukova. So there was to be another meeting. He must get a message to Ilya. If Ilya could have some of his men trail the committee members the lieutenant had identified, maybe he could take his suspicions to Ghukov with some hard facts. He called a driver and scribbled a note.

Thank you for dinner the other evening and sorry I will miss your celebration on October 13. See you when I return from Archangel.

He was sure Ilya would get the point.

LENINGRAD

Adriana rolled a dollar bill, inserted it into her left nostril and snorted the line of white powder Konstantin had neatly cut her and left on the low table. She closed her eyes and fell back into the sofa. When would Konstantin be back? She couldn’t remember what he had said now. Her heart was pounding in her ears so loudly that she thought it might burst. He had only left a few minutes before, but she wasn’t certain now. The sound of catcalls and music filtered down from the bar. For the first time that evening she was alone, away from lecherous looks and pawing hands.

How many lines of coke had she snorted that night? She tried to remember. Evenings had begun to blur since she had begun to work at Pravdy. Konstantin seemed to take a special pleasure in summoning her when she had been on the floor a few hours. He would pump her with coke before fucking her on the sofa or presenting her to one of his political cronies or that disgusting General Vdovin, tipping her with extra coke if she performed well. She hated all of them.

There was a bang on the door, and a male voice shouted ‘ On in ten minutes! ’

‘ Okay! ’ she shouted back. Re-energised, Adriana stood up and loosened her short pink satin kimono; she was boiling. Catching sight of herself in the mirror, she eased it off her shoulders and gyrated to the dull beat of the music. She looked great , better than great. Thank God for coke, she thought. Had she had one or two lines before sex with Konstantin? She lost her balance, nearly fell over and grabbed the edge of the desk. He had to keep the stuff somewhere in his office, the way he dished it out.

She kicked off her high heels, walked round to the other side of the desk and pulled open the main drawer: Cuban cigars, a guillotine cigar cutter, condoms, a vibrator, a Markov automatic with its safety catch off, a photograph of Viktoriya. She held it up and studied it. She was finding it hard to focus and wondered if she would be able to make it back on stage. Maybe she could persuade Irina to take her place. Studying the image of her former competition, she wondered what was so special about her. She was good-looking, but then weren’t all the girls in Konstantin’s clubs? She knew that they had had an almighty row some time ago and he had thrown her out, but according to the other girls he had never roughed her up, ever, but how did they know. She put back the photo and picked up an old ID card. A man in his fifties with Brezhnev eyebrows stared up at her. She read his name out loud, ‘Pavel Pytorvich Antyuhin.’ She thought it looked like the same card Konstantin had been holding in his hand when she had re-entered the room after his old flame had been shown out. Maybe it had been her who had given it to him. Buried under a small notebook Adriana found what she was looking for, a small bag of white powder. Using the ID, she marshalled two lines on the desk and snorted them back in quick succession.

Recharged, she stood up and wiggled back on her shoes. The face of Antyuhin stared up at her from the desk. She picked it up again, puzzled. Who was he? Trouble , no doubt, for that too good whore ex of Konstantin.

‘These are the proscribed , the supposed enemies of the state.’ Konstantin looked down the list. Someone had taken the trouble to put it into alphabetical order and head it Leningrad . On it were seven names: Gavrilov from the gorkom was there, marked with a tick, Artem, a deputy, a tick, the list went on with ticks and crosses… and Mikhail Dimitrivich Revnik, a cross.

‘They…’ said Vdovin. The famous they , thought Konstantin, ‘…want you to detain the ticks and eliminate the crosses.’

Vdovin gawped at him across his desk.

‘ You signed up to it,’ Vdovin reminded him when Konstantin said nothing. ‘They can revoke that arms licence just as easily as they issued it.’

Vdovin was right in more ways than one. He could hardly back out now, not unless he wanted his own name added to the list. He would just have to make sure he covered his tracks.

‘For the record, I tried to change that cross to a tick. He wouldn’t wear it. He’s adamant, made a big point about it. He also said you can sequestrate his business and take over control of Leningrad Freight for good measure.’

Mikhail Revnik. It was an irony that that one-time-nothing had become public enemy number one. And over what… some fogged photographs? Before, keeping him alive might have mattered, but not now; he didn’t owe him or his ex-girlfriend anything. Hadn’t he even offered him a partnership and been laughed off? Konstantin took a lighter from his pocket, lit the list and watched it turn to ash.

‘And when does this all kick off?’

‘Imminently… East Germany is not going to be allowed to collapse.’

‘And how will I know?’ For the first time in years, Konstantin felt he was back taking orders from his old colonel again.

‘When I give you the code word.’

‘Which is?’

‘Stroika.’

Viktoriya answered the phone.

‘I hope I haven’t caught you at an awkward time.’ It was Yuri. She had not heard his voice since the evening in Smolensk.

‘No, it’s fine.’ She looked at her watch: eight thirty in the morning.

‘I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed our evening and I hope we can do it again.’

‘Yes, that would be lovely.’

Indeed, she had thought of that evening a great deal. Not much had happened. They had kicked the snow, walked and talked and talked. She had hardly noticed the freezing temperature buried inside his coat. But back in Leningrad she had felt different, more settled, centred. It was hard to define, but she was sure it was to do with that evening.

‘Maybe when I’m back from Archangel.’

She hadn’t had the opportunity to tell him about her eavesdropper and was beginning to regret not having it removed. ‘I leave Moscow tomorrow for a few days; we can sort something out when I get back, maybe even go to Europe, if I can pull some leave. Yes,’ she found herself saying. ‘I could give you the grand tour.’

There was a pause as if he were weighing something up, trying to be careful with words. It occurred to her then that he might well suspect her phone being bugged; he couldn’t take the chance that it wasn’t.

‘Okay, I’ll let you plan it. It’s like what we were saying at the bar, now or never . Take care, Vika.’

She replaced the receiver and stood staring blankly at the wall going over his words. She should have felt delighted but somehow it did not ring true… now or never . They hadn’t talked about now or never . They’d talked about a potential coup and a tipping point. But, of course, that’s what he did mean. He must know or suspect something , and weren’t there all sorts of rumours flying around about what was going on in Eastern Europe?