Gordon Stevens - Moscow USA

They both knew what Kincaid was going to say.

‘And we let him down.’

Bram refilled their glasses. ‘Don’t take it personally, Jack.’

‘Difficult not to, Bram.’

Difficult to stand in the morgue at Belle Vue and not think that you betrayed the man in the bag. Difficult not to try and work out what little thing you might have done that would have made the difference.

He swilled the Black Label around the glass, downed it in one, reached across the table and poured them each another. ‘Funny, isn’t it? In five years nobody will remember what happened in August ’91. Nobody will remember the attempt to depose Gorbachev.’

‘What are you getting at, Jack?’

‘I guess that some things you remember for the fact that they were a crossroads for the world. Some things you forget, even though at the time the world thought they were cataclysmic. Some things you remember for what they meant to you as an individual.’

O’Bramsky looked across the table at him. ‘Like I said, Jack, don’t take it personally.’

At eleven the next morning Kincaid took his seat before the panel investigating the Joshua affair. No Jameson or O’Bramsky, he noted. Miller was present, so Ed had covered his ass, and thank Christ for that. Some faces from the seventh floor, plus a woman he didn’t know. Early forties, good-looking, ash-blond hair and cut-glass English accent. So London had been cut in on the deal somewhere along the line and were now demanding their pound of flesh.

In Moscow the crowd defending the White House had grown to a hundred thousand, the KGB Alpha teams which had been sent to assassinate Yeltsin had changed sides and were now protecting him, key units of the army were also going over, and the coup showed every sign of collapsing.

Where were you when you were first informed of Joshua …? the questioning began. When did you first hear the code-name Joshua …? Who told you and who did you speak to after that point …?

The Leningrad sun was hot on her back, and the sweat ran in streams down the faces of the men carrying the coffin. Anna Buskova stood at her mother’s side and held her mother’s arm. An hour earlier, before they had screwed down the lid, she had kissed her father goodbye for the last time.

Love you, she told him again now. Remember so many things, remember the toys you made me when I was young and before you and Mamma had any money, remember how you were away so much later. Remember the porcelain horseman you gave me. Remember not just the gifts you brought back when you returned, but how you brought them back. As if they were no more or no less precious than the dolls you made for me at the kitchen table.

And now, my father, you are dead. Now you lie in your KGB uniform, and the other generals have come to say goodbye, though the times are strange and the conversation before the service was muted and conspiratorial, as it will be after.

The coup has ended, probably Communism as well. All of which is irrelevant to me because the only thing I will remember about August 1991 is the fact that my father, whom I loved dearly, was taken from me.

The KGB still takes care of its own, though. So that when your body was returned to us, after you had suffered the heart attack, you were already in dress uniform, your eyes closed and your hands folded in peace across your chest.

A heron flew overhead. She heard the ruffle of its wings and looked up. The guard of honour snapped to attention and the first volley echoed into the sky.

The December snow was on the ground and the sky was a dark threatening grey. Anna Buskova picked her way between the headstones, the white of the snow like mantles on them, till she came to the mound in the corner. In the spring, when the earth had settled, they would erect a proper headstone, now the grave was marked by a simple cross.

The snow fell from the sky again, and her hands and feet were cold. She removed her gloves and took the envelope from the pocket of her greatcoat. The envelope was thick, as if something was folded inside it. She took the second envelope from it, then the letter from inside it. The envelopes had been delivered by an American friend ten days earlier, when she was in Moscow. The snow was falling more heavily now. She brushed the flakes from her eyelids and opened the single sheet of the letter. There was a date on it, a date in August, but no names, neither hers at the top nor her father’s at the bottom.

She wiped the snowflakes from her cheeks, except they were not snowflakes and began to read.

When you receive this it will be over. If I have been able to achieve what I am about to do, then I will tell you; if not, then others might not. If others tell you, judge them, not me, by what they say. What I do, I do because I remember the day you were born and wish that others might know such happiness. What I do, I do because even now I know I have a smile on my face at the memories of our family together, and wish that others might also smile. But that they may smile in freedom and in joy. What I do now, I do because I am a patriot. What I do now I do for Mother Russia. Always be strong, always smile .

She wiped her cheeks again, then she folded the sheet of paper and placed it inside the first envelope. The envelope had no name or address on it. Then she folded it and tucked it inside the second envelope. The second bore the name and address of the friend in Boston who had hand-delivered it to her, the stamp in the top right corner was a United States 32 cents issue, and the postmark indicated Moscow, though the date and the state were blurred and barely legible.

Tomorrow she would bring flowers, she decided. Tomorrow, even though the snow would be deep and the ice would be packed hard, she would place the flowers on the grave of her father. Anna Buskova turned, placed the envelope in her coat pocket, and retraced the line of her footsteps.

The snow was turning to ice on the pavements outside and the windows of the bar were steamed with condensation. Sad night, Kincaid thought, sad faces: Jameson and Panelli, himself and O’Bramsky. Ed Miller there with them, even though he’d survived the night of the knives.

Miller rose, pulled on his coat, and patted each of them on the shoulder. Sorry, the gesture said. Can’t find the words, but you know how I feel. He turned and left, Jameson and Panelli followed him into the snow ten minutes later.

Kincaid called the waiter and asked for two more Black Labels. ‘Ironic, isn’t it?’

‘Why ironic?’

‘If Joshua had been aware of his death, then he would have thought he had failed. But he didn’t need to try anyway, because the putsch collapsed and the old days are over for ever.’

That morning the Soviet Union had ceased to exist.

O’Bramsky nodded. O’Bramsky hadn’t spoken much all evening.

‘So what did the enquiry report say, Bram? Because you’ve seen a draft and I haven’t.’

‘That Joshua was trying to make contact with us to prevent the Gorbachev putsch, and that his own people suspected what he was about to do, tailed him, and took him out.’

‘No other reason why he should contact us?’

‘Not according to the draft report.’

‘But we carry the blame.’

O’Bramsky laughed.

‘What about Moscow, Idaho?’ Kincaid asked. ‘What about the fact that Joshua made the first call from there?’

‘The enquiry will decide that Moscow USA was irrelevant, that Joshua was covering his tracks and trying to confuse us.’

Kincaid drained his glass. ‘So what you going to do now, Bram?’

‘What I should’ve done long time back; do up the house on the Chesapeake, paint the Hobie, and tell myself the last twenty-five years didn’t end like this.’

And what about you, Jack? – it was in O’Bramsky’s stare. I know that there’s something on your mind, but I can’t tell what.