A curtained Kremlin limousine driving down the official lane of the Khoroshevskoye Shosse passed a line of trucks. Kirov watched it go by, saw the reflection of his own car in the curtained windows, which were normally so anonymous as to defy even curiosity, and for once he wondered about the particular occupant: did he live his life in fear of being poisoned? Was it simply an obscure and irrational dread that had caused the murder investigation in the wake of Andropov’s death? In the West they might use analysts, but here it was possible to set the police on the trail of one’s nightmares; and with the advantage that they could make them come real, and complete with confessions.
From the highway four floors of barred windows and grimy brickwork were visible and belonged to the GRU factory that took Western equipment apart to see what made it tick. The main body of the Aquarium was lost in the classified installations around the Khodinsk airfield. Access was down a narrow lane by the Institute of Cosmic Biology and through a checkpoint manned by the special guards battalion. Kirov submitted to the searches and the scrutiny and was introduced to the glass palace forming the main building and left to cool his heels in a windowless side room watched over by an armed soldier.
After an hour there was a noise at the door. A lieutenant came into the room with a two-man escort. He invited Kirov to follow and together they took an elevator to the ninth floor, passed through a pair of internal checks and arrived finally in a wide carpeted corridor with pictures on the wall and a small reception lounge complete with club chairs, scatter cushions and magazines. There Kirov was again left alone, but this time with a copy of the Economist and the day’s edition of the Herald Tribune. A secretary offered him a glass of tea and a biscuit and suggested politely that he stay away from the window.
An hour in a bare room and then a half-hour in a lounge that would have done credit to a decent hotel — was Heltai confusing his cues? It was impossible to tell. Kirov wondered if Heltai had made the connection to their common past, the hotel in Riga — indeed if he even remembered the incident of his emergence from the sea carrying a Ruslan and Ludmila cake which had so impressed a fourteen-year-old boy. Like many powerful images it had no fixed meaning. This one had left an adolescent with a sense of the other man’s significance yet no thought of what that significance might be. It joined those other images which have importance but no consequences, as if in the press of a crowd his hand had been brushed by a stranger who was there and then gone leaving only the sensation that his hand had been touched by the fingers of God.
‘Kolomeitsev,’ said the Major, coming from the office and introducing himself. ‘I’m sorry you’ve been kept waiting. General Vlassov is ready to see you.’
‘And Colonel Heltai?’
‘Colonel Heltai sends his regrets. He was looking forward to meeting you. Do you two have some personal connection? I got the impression that you knew each other, old friends almost.’
‘The Colonel told you that?’
‘Not in so many words,’ Kolomeitsev answered confidingly as if he too were an old friend, ‘but one gets an impression. By the way,’ he added, to broaden the basis of the conspiracy between them, ‘a word to the wise. Vlassov is inclined to be bad-tempered. If I were you, I’d just listen while he shouts off; and if at the end you could promise to be good — even apologise just a little bit for the trouble in Bulgaria — then so much the better. You don’t have to mean it. I’m sure that you had good reasons for doing whatever it was that you were doing there. The main thing is to appease the powers-that-be. At a purely personal level I’m sure that you and I can sort out the basis of our collaboration quite amicably.’
‘We’re collaborating, are we?’ Kirov asked.
‘I hope so,’ Kolomeitsev replied slightly more stiffly. ‘Your escapade in Bulgaria has the makings of a good interdepartmental row. A promise of mutual co-operation could defuse it before it really gets started. If you and I could reach an understanding, I would be able to lend you a bit of quiet support against Vlassov.’
‘I appreciate that.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
Kirov’s first impression of General Vlassov was of a man used to getting his own way. He was tall; crop-haired and tight-built; a man who plays tennis at the age of fifty. His skin looked stitched to his face in fine lines and tucks. He remained seated frigidly behind his desk while his languid subordinate made the introductions then draped himself over a chair and watched the action from this ornamental pose.
‘You work for General Grishin?’ Vlassov began with the sort of pointless question intended to establish the speaker’s power since it demanded agreement. Then he got straight to the point. ‘What the hell were you doing in Bulgaria?’
‘I was pursuing enquiries into the illegal trade in antibiotics.’
‘Why wasn’t the local referentura informed?’
‘General Grishin waived the requirement.’
‘That wasn’t my question. And don’t think you can hide behind that Grishin-shit: Grishin violated KGB’s own procedures. Your own Resident has complained to his masters in the 11th Department and they’ve got a few questions of their own about what a purely domestic surveillance department was doing operating in one of their satellites. So forget Grishin. I want to know why you thought a clandestine operation was necessary.’
‘It was an operational decision. I don’t feel obliged to justify it here.’
‘Not justify exactly; Kolomeitsev intervened helpfully. ‘I don’t think that’s quite what the General had in mind.’ His words were directed at Kirov, but his eyes were elsewhere. Behind Vlassov’s desk a mirror was screwed to the wall. ‘Explain might have been a more appropriate expression,’ he suggested.
‘Explain will do,’ Vlassov agreed.
‘My investigations are concerned solely with illegal activities here in the Soviet Union. But I had reason to suspect that Bulgaria was the source of the antibiotics concerned in the illegal trade. Since I had no knowledge of how the Bulgarian end of the racket might be working, I was concerned with…’
‘What?’
‘The possibility of some official involvement in the business.’
‘By KGB?’
‘I was referring to official involvement of an informal nature. If it existed, then it might have been unwise to alert the persons involved as to the purpose of my visit.’
Vlassov smiled. Kirov thought that the idea of suspicion and a witch-hunt within KGB would appeal to him. Kolomeitsev also gave the appearance of being charmed by the prospect, but his eyes still wandered guardedly to the wall behind the General.
‘Did you establish whether the Bulgarian factory was the origin of your illegal supplies?’ Kolomeitsev asked.
‘I think it’s unlikely.’
‘May I ask why?’
‘Because GRU investigated the plant as recently as 1984 and apparently satisfied itself that the place was operating normally.’
‘How did you learn of that investigation?’ Kolomeitsev enquired calmly when Vlassov had left the room ostensibly on other business after expatiating on the operational confusion that could arise if business was carried on by prima donnas who felt obliged to report to no one. The Major offered cigarettes from the box on the General’s desk.
‘Rumours — nothing more. Once people knew I was interested in Bulgaria they told me stories.’
‘What did they give you?’
‘No details, just that GRU had looked over the Bulpharma plant.’
‘And found?’
‘Nothing, so far as I can tell. What was your interest?’