Yet the short Romanovsky years had seen the emergence of another figure who in the early eighties had been virtually unknown to anyone but a few Kremlin-watchers in the West.
The one woman who sat among the men in the Kalasty Clinic, chain-smoking a pack of Belomors cigarettes, had occupied, since the death of Leonid Brezhnev, one of the most powerful positions in the Party — the Chairmanship of the Russian Socialist Federal Republic, that huge segment of the Soviet Union which stretched from Leningrad to the Pacific.
Fifty-eight years old, imposingly built, Natalya Roginova still retained some traces of the attractiveness of her youth. Perhaps in the last few years she had deliberately sought a more severe image. Certainly now the dark-blue skirt and jacket and the almost flat-heeled shoes had become her hallmark. Her thick blond hair had been allowed to fade and she now wore it drawn back severely to the nape of her neck.
Until 1982 she had not been a candidate member of the Politburo, but as a deputy minister of Defense, she had shared Dimitry Ustinov’s close connection with the military, without being directly responsible for its shortcomings in Afghanistan. She was also a creature of the Party and had served as first secretary in a wide range of oblasts before reaching minor republic level in the seventies. She was a Russian, born twenty miles east of Moscow. An engineer technocrat of MGU, Moscow University, she had negotiated technological exchanges with the United States and not only spoke English well but had achieved a reputation for considerable experience in foreign affairs.
As the Politburo waited at the Kalasty Clinic that night, possibly only KGB General Semyon Kuba did not underrate her as a contender for the leadership of the Soviet Union.
From along the hall beyond the waiting room the sound of approaching footsteps held the attention of the waiting Politburo. Voslov rose with difficulty from his chair. General Semyon Kuba moved closer to the door. Natalya Roginova watched from the back of the room.
The door opened and three white-coated doctors entered. For a moment they stood, uncertain whom to address. Brostov cleared his throat and gestured for them to begin.
“Distinguished comrade members of the Politburo,” the senior doctor said, “President Romanovsky is comfortable under light sedation. While it is possible that he suffered a very mild coronary infarction, a heart attack, in Oslo, our tests give no positive confirmation.”
General Kuba looked angrily at the doctors. “You mean the President just slipped at Oslo?” he said unbelievingly.
“It’s the most likely explanation, Comrade General,” the senior doctor said nervously.
Kuba turned to the other members of the Politburo. “You see what these fools have done,” his small eyes glittered with fury, “by bringing the President back to Moscow? They’ve set the West alight with speculation!”
“It was a heavy fall, Comrade General,” the senior doctor protested feebly. “At the time there was no way of knowing…”
Kuba silenced him with a dismissive gesture. He turned to the other Politburo members. “The decision should be investigated,” he said.
“Consider…” Natalya Roginova said as she came forward into the middle of the room until she was facing Kuba. “Consider the possibility that the President was in fact suffering from a serious illness, Semyon Trofimovich. Could we entertain for one moment the idea of a President of the Soviet Union being treated in the West? I move that the Politburo publicly commend the doctors’ decision. Any investigation by the Bureau of State Security will make doctors less decisive should the situation arise again with any Politburo member traveling abroad.”
It was an open challenge, the first Natalya Roginova had ever issued to the leading contender. In the complex chess game which was the struggle for power in the Soviet Union, Roginova had made her first move. Was it dangerously rash or supremely confident? The old men around her looked down at the floor. Nobody was prepared to offer Kuba support at this moment. Too many calculations had still to be made.
Thickset, Stalin-like in build, Semyon Kuba looked up at the tall woman facing him. Like the others in the room he recognized the challenge. But he knew this was no issue to fight on. “I agree,” he said to Roginova. “It is policy that no senior figure in Soviet government should be treated by Western doctors. That principle must of course be held.”
By his retreat he had defused the moment. But in that moment Natalya Roginova had established herself as a leading contender for the succession.
Igor Bukansky leaned over the bed. He could make out the line of his secretary’s bare shoulder but her face and blond hair were pillowed in darkness. He reached downward for her shoulder. Taking it harder than he intended he shook her.
“Wake up, little dove,” he said.
“I’m too tired to talk, Igor Alexandrovich,” she protested.
“This is important,” he said. “You must get dressed.”
Full of vodka he sat down heavily on the side of the bed. She was awake now.
“Come to bed,” she said. “You drink too much when you sit up alone.”
He switched on the bedside light, suffusing her in a pale pink glow. Twenty, twenty-one was she? Youth was an invisible wand. The moment it ceased to touch you strange things happened. Your boringness became boring. Your crumpled waking look became sad. That long line between your breasts compressed in sleep would take all morning to disappear. Or never.
Some morning the wand would no longer touch Lydia Petrovna. The tousled hair, the crumpled face of sleep would lose its charm.
Not yet.
He reached out and stroked her arm. “You must go, Lydia. I have a visitor arriving.”
She licked her lips and passed her hand across them.
“A woman?” she said.
“A visitor. Important. You must go, my dove.”
With a girlish grumpiness she got up and dressed. He had already called his chauffeur. The big black car was waiting outside the dacha.
“Sleep late tomorrow morning,” Bukansky said, knowing she wouldn’t.
She nodded and climbed into the back of the car.
“It may be that my visitor will have something to say about your uncle’s manuscript,” he said.
She lay full length on the back seat as he slammed the door shut. The driver flicked on the headlights, the engine kicked and the car pulled away along the gravel drive.
Bukansky watched the taillights disappear as the car turned onto the Peredelkino road which led to the Moscow highway, then walked back toward the house. The dark surrounding woods with their thick summer leaves seemed to sing on one throbbing note. Yet there were guards in these woods, discreet, silent men. Every dacha in the village had them.
He passed through the hall and into the long timbered modern room. Even in summer he kept the fire burning. An empty liter stood on the smoked-glass coffee table. He opened another bottle and sat down. The news of President Romanovsky’s collapse in Oslo had not of course been broadcast on television, but Bukansky was among the privileged recipients of White Tass, the vlastis’ own news service. He knew that at this moment the Soviet Union might be about to choose a new leader.