‘I’ll pay you back.’
‘Forget it.’
Kirov remembered the fight in Stoleshnikov Lane.
‘So you know about that? Well, I was short of a hundred roubles and Yuri is an arsehole. We had a disagreement. That and maybe I hit him for old times’ sake.’ Bogdanov began to drift off again. Then: ‘Change! I’ll tell you what change means! That sonofabitch seriously thought of hitting me back!’
He staggered off to find a toilet and returned with two beers. He sat down and stared at the glasses through eye slits that looked as though they would heal over. Kirov sensed the same incoherent anger and tried to distract it.
‘Where did Yuri get the figure from?’
The question shook Bogdanov back from his torpor. ‘Huh? Oh, yeah, the figure. He bought it from Dyukov.’
‘Dyukov?’
‘He works for an MVD team of burglars, locksmiths and other handy mechanics, doing jobs for whoever asks.’
‘You’re certain?’ Kirov pressed.
‘Certain,’ Bogdanov repeated flintily. ‘Yuri and I talked about it until he was nearly unconscious from the effort.’
He smiled at his own understatement, thinking about his fight with Yuri the Bazaar. Almost boyish. He looked to Kirov for approval, and Kirov thanked him and told him that he would find them both a cab to get Uncle Bog home where he could sleep it off. He asked if Bogdanov was OK to be left alone and Bogdanov said he was. Kirov left the other man some cigarettes to get on with and stepped out into the street and the cold air to find a cab and to think.
He knew who had broken into Viktor Gusev’s dacha.
He didn’t know what they were looking for.
At Romashkovo the next day he stopped the car on a whim and went to study the cemetery. There on the hill he looked over the graves, brushing away the snow to reveal the names of people he didn’t know. ‘No marker, no ceremony when I go,’ said Uncle Kolya earnestly. ‘You’re not going,’ Kirov answered thinking the old man was worried about dying. ‘What sort of crap is that?’ Uncle Kolya answered scornfully, then relented. ‘Just remember: no ceremony. I want to go out like your father.’ My father? Kirov wanted to ask; but the General had had his say. He would explain nothing of the elder Kirov’s burial or, as seemed more likely, the secret scattering of his ashes.
Question: what happened to the bodies?
Kirov had never met anyone who knew, with the exception of old Chestyakov, who, in his dotage and over a drink after lectures, confessed to having disposed of a couple, but not the who and the how of it, which was where the secrets lay. Instead the ancient Chekist rubbed his nose and gave his cabalist leer, which said, it is for me to know and you to discover, but maybe when your time of initiation is come, the rites performed and the words spoken. Then maybe…. When Kirov believed in KGB — when he was in love with KGB — it was possible to imagine that each new operative was gifted with a corpse to bind him to the brotherhood. Chestyakov in full regalia, Chekist, priest and magus, holds it clenched in his left hand (the right hand holds the initiate’s badge, the sword and shield of KGB). Here it is, outstretched and secret. ‘And this is your body, Pyotr Andreevitch. Your own special body. Bury it carefully.’
He returned to the car, leaving the wind to sweep snow over his footsteps. Bogdanov, nursing his hangover, had stayed in the vehicle and left the engine running to maintain heat. The windows steamed up. The interior smelled of tobacco, the dampness of Bogdanov’s coat, his stale body. Kirov took the rear seat and let the other man drive. He examined the mail he had brought with him. Tomsky had brought it in that morning; he was acting as bagman for the Washington Resident in Scherbatsky’s absence. He had just returned from the United States and looked like a man who has just visited his mistress. A man could be generous in that mood.
‘Could you do me a favour?’ Kirov asked as he accepted the canvas pouch in which Yatsin had sealed his letter.
‘Why should I do that?’ Tomsky reacted suspiciously.
‘No reason. Why did I agree to help out Scherbatsky?’
‘OK, OK — point taken. What do you want?’
‘Information on a company, the Lee Foundation. They’re involved in pharmaceuticals.’
‘I’ve heard of them. Why don’t you simply call up the main file?’
‘It’s an American corporation. I thought the American desk would know its way around the records and be able to collate the data more easily than I could.’
‘Ask Bogdanov to do it.’
‘He doesn’t speak English. It’s all right if you don’t want to do it.’
‘No, I said I’d do it. But data is all you get — no report, no analysis.’
Kirov agreed no report, no analysis. In any case he doubted Tomsky was qualified to produce them. He asked whether Scherbatsky had surfaced again. Tomsky said he hadn’t. He’d just vanished.
To: Colonel P. A. Kirov
12th Department,
Second Chief Directorate,
Committee of State Security,
Moscow
SUBJECT: ACADEMICIAN I.A. YAKOVLEVITCH
Reference your enquiry as to the present whereabouts of the above person. Academician I.A. Yakovlevitch was granted an exit visa from the USSR on health and compassionate grounds on 2 May 1984. He was suffering from recently diagnosed angina pectoris and wished to visit friends and relatives in the United States of America and Israel. He was already in serious ill health at the time of his departure and died suddenly within twenty-four hours of his arrival in the United States. According to the autopsy conducted by the American authorities, the cause of death was heart failure.
(Signed) General I.A. YATSIN
Washington
The pouch contained a second document, a hastily scribbled letter:
Petya,
I am dashing this off before T catches the plane, so excuse the fist. You should be getting a formal report with this note, and it represents the official truth. We didn’t handle the business over here; so the official report is all I know for sure — honest! Except one thing. Yakovlevitch may have had a ‘friend’ on the plane. Draw your own conclusions.
Don’t let the bastards get to you!
Vanya
PS When are you coming here again? I’m keeping the vodka cold and the women warm!
See you, pal
V
‘Why did you ask Tomsky to get the material on the Lee Foundation?’ Bogdanov asked as they drove away from Romashkovo.
‘I don’t want my name logged against the file.’
‘Then why did you ask me to pull the records on the American?’
‘They know I’ve met him and they’ll expect me to check and confirm his background out of simple curiosity.’
‘So how is the Lee Foundation different?’
‘They’d know I was still digging into the Bulgarian business.’
‘That’s what we’re doing, is it?’ said Bogdanov sourly. ‘Wonderful!’
They turned off the road into the woods. The car struggled on the soft ground.
‘I’ve got another job for you,’ Kirov said. ‘I want you to check the passenger manifests for all Aeroflot flights to the United States on the second of May 1984. Find which flight carried Academician I.A. Yakovlevitch and get me a printout of the passenger and crew lists and a run-down on every name that appears.’
He put down Yatsin’s letters and looked out of the car. The birch trees were thin and stood in clumps like bundles of firewood in the shadow of the pines. Here in the depths, the snow hung evasively in the top branches and a clammy mist filled in the gaps.