‘I thought Andropov wasn’t murdered.’
Grishin shrugged. ‘That’s the reality — but it’s the appearances that count. Perhaps we’re all a little crazy. We ran around making it look as though Andropov was murdered. It can amount to the same thing. Yakovlevitch was killed out of — embarrassment, I suppose.’
‘Heltai is still killing people.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Grishin acknowledged coolly. ‘I can’t fully explain it. You can’t expect complete answers to everything. ’
There was a noise outside. One of Grishin’s watchers had got bored and come up to the house. He was rooting among the trash and the wood piles like a stray dog. Kirov peered through a gap in the shutters and saw the man standing at the vegetable patch. A smoky stream of urine hit the earth. He found Grishin at his shoulder, examining the scene morosely.
‘That’s the dross we have to work with,’ Grishin observed philosophically. ‘Do you see us building our bright new world out of characters like that?’ He felt no necessity of explaining that he was personally on the side of the angels and always had been notwithstanding certain conduct in the past and the convenient treasons of everyday life such as pushing Kirov in the direction of Heltai and the GRU killing machine because it had seemed expedient. ‘The changes have created uncertainties.’ He turned from the window and the dark world outside and was blinking at the lights. ‘Uncertainty creates opportunities. Perhaps GRU are doing no more than trying to exploit these for themselves and their masters in the Army.
‘The Army is involved in the plant at Tbilisi,’ Kirov reminded him. ‘There is a second installation there producing — biological warfare agents? Poisons? Georgi Gvishiani can’t have been running his operation without military involvement. They control the plant and they turn a blind eye to the cross-border smuggling. Heltai works indirectly for the Army. Perhaps that’s the connection between the different stories. That and the American. What does the Army want?’
‘It doesn’t want to see the military budget cut as a result of perestroika and disarmament,’ Grishin said drily and in an almost jaunty mood now that he had recovered his nerve asked, ‘And what do you want? And what’s in it for me?’
‘Radek hasn’t beaten you yet.’
‘You can stop him?’ Grishin retorted sceptically.
‘If you bring in a big coup.’
‘Like what?’
‘Give them the Ring, the complete explanation that ties in Heltai, the Army, Yakovlevitch, the whole thing. It represents everything that perestroika is working against. Deliver it to the Committee and the past will be forgotten.’
‘You’re guessing that there is some sort of total explanation.’ Grishin knocked any shred of enthusiasm out of Kirov’s answer. Then he relented. ‘Maybe, maybe. Where else is there to go? OK — maybe there’s something in what you say. But where are you going to get this answer?’
‘From the American, Craig. He was involved in the Bulgarian plant and is up to his neck in the racket at Tbilisi. He’s the link between the GRU investigation after Andropov’s death and whatever the Army is up to in Georgia. Whatever the Ring is, Craig is the key.’
Jack Melchior opened the door of his apartment.
‘Hello, Peter — you’d better come in.’ The little man looked up and down the corridor nervously and left a crack in the doorway just wide enough to slide through. ‘The others are here as promised. Hush-hush, eh? Bog didn’t say. “Do me a favour, Jack,” that’s all. Well, where would I be if I didn’t do favours — where would we all be? That’s what I say. Nothing untoward, though — right? You wouldn’t drop me in the shit, would you, Peter?’
Two men were already in the room: Bogdanov and a second man that Kirov took to be Uncle Bog’s friend, the computer wizard, Krapotkin. One of Jack Melchior’s wives was in the kitchen fixing some snacks and another was in the bedroom drying her hair. Melchior had spruced himself up in a frogged velvet smoking jacket and a pair of brocade slippers. Bogdanov was in a dirty mismatched suit and still wearing his hat. Krapotkin was a short, white-haired man of fifty with hamster cheeks and a pallid complexion. He gave a look of recognition as Kirov came into the room and then fell back into his chair where he was nibbling at his thoughts.
Bogdanov opened up. ‘Tell your missus to hurry up with the snacks, Jack, and then bugger off, will you. Have you two met? Sergei Pavlovitch Krapotkin — Pyotr Andreevitch Kirov. Well, you’ve met now. Come on, Jack, get a move on. Jack’s helping us out —’
‘A favour,’ said Jack.
‘— a favour.’
Krapotkin was a man with something on his mind and was wrapping his expressive face around the problem.
‘Sergei insisted on seeing you face to face,’ Bogdanov explained with a hint of contempt. He emphasised the point to Krapotkin: ‘Doesn’t trust his uncle Bog to get the story straight. Doesn’t want to commit his words to writing in case the Bad Men read them.’
‘Did you break into the file?’ Kirov asked.
‘Of course he broke into the bloody file!’ snapped Bogdanov. He stared at Jack Melchior. ‘What — are you still here?’
‘Sorry, Bog, just getting some things.’
‘Clear off. And you too,’ Bogdanov added, taking the plate of zakuski from Melchior’s wife, a sullen, goggle-eyed woman, twenty years younger than Jack.
‘Just a moment,’ Kirov interrupted. Melchior paused, pleased that he might be helpful.
‘Yes?’
‘You’ve travelled, Jack. Where do cigarettes that smell of clove oil come from?’
‘Christ, you haven’t been offered some of those, have you? I wouldn’t wish them on my enemies. Coffin nails, real El Stinkos!’
‘Where do they come from?’ Kirov repeated.
‘Indonesia mostly, but you can pick them up anywhere in the East.’
‘So, boss, any trouble getting here?’ Bogdanov asked when Jack Melchior was gone and he could ease up a little.
‘No.’
‘What? No spooks? No trailing cars? Men reading newspapers? Maybe this profession isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.’
‘And you?’
‘So, so. Radek is losing interest. He thinks you’re finished, and his hands are full piling stones onto Grishin’s grave so he doesn’t rise from the dead. It seems that not everybody on the Rehabilitation Committee thinks this Yakovlevitch case is such a big deal. A yid doctor is killed — and, even these days, who cares? Heltai is trawling the streets with his goons — I had to shake off a couple — but he still doesn’t have the resources for complete surveillance. I’m not sure he has the full GRU organisation behind him. This business could be just a stunt to cover some game that Heltai and a few of his friends in the Army are playing — a piece of private enterprise. Does that make sense to you?’
‘Perhaps.’ Kirov scrutinised the old man. Too cheerful — too prickly. He was fit to laugh to breaking point. Kirov turned to Krapotkin who was brooding morosely. As friendly as he could he asked, ‘Why didn’t you bring me a print-out?’
Krapotkin peered up and looked embarrassed. ‘I couldn’t take the risk of the print-out being found if … you know … if…. Anyway it seemed safer to tell you myself. I memorised the file. I’ve got a good memory,’ he added proudly in case Kirov had his doubts.
‘I’m sure you have,’ Kirov soothed him. ‘Well? Tell me. Who is our Mister William Craig?’
‘He’s CIA,’ said Krapotkin. He giggled.
At all events Craig had been CIA. Whether that was still the case was uncertain. According to Krapotkin, the American had been born in Boston in 1938 to a good family and had received an education at Cornell and MIT. He had degrees and postgraduate qualifications in human biology and biochemistry. For what it was worth, he had been married once and divorced in 1967. There were no children. He was currently the European Vice President of the Lee Foundation and had been since 1975.