He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the ta" ble and his chin on his clasped hands. "Mr. Thorne, I don't know about that. But I can tell you one thing. The men I've been describing to you are very dangerous. Very, very dangerous. They are serious men. They have abandoned everything for what they believe. You said, at the beginning, that you had no interest in the dissidents I proposed telling you of — your current project had nothing to do with them. You said it yourself. If so, nothing is lost: you simply have the basis for an interesting article quoting unnamed, but reliable, Soviet sources. On the other hand, if you do have an interest in this and wish to pursue it, be warned. Be wary. Be cautious. Above all, Mr. Thorne, understand that if you ever meet this man, you are meeting a killer."
And then, reaching into his jacket, he drew out a small white envelope and handed it across to me. Inside, there was a crudely lit photograph, of the kind that is used for official identity purposes. It was a full-face, head-and-shoulders shot of a young man in a Russian Army uniform, and must have been taken before 1970, because he was still wearing the old, high-collared gymnasterka of the Soviet Army. Dark eyes, slightly bugged, perhaps because of the flash… the face almost squeezed, or compressed, with the teeth shoved forward into the mouth… and though the photograph was in black and white, I knew the crew-cut hair had to be red.
I said, "Can you tell me, Mr. Loginov… did this man ever work for your employer?"
He hesitated; then shrugged. "Let us not be coy, Mr. Thome. Aleksandr Subotin worked for the GRU. It is even possible that he still does. He was a specialist in certain security problems in connection with the Soviet Navy." The GRU: Soviet military intelligence. Once, this organization had been a genuine rival to the KGB, but now it was a sort of subsidiary. "But I can tell you no more than that," Loginov added. He started to rise. "From this point, you are on your own."
"But I've been warned?"
He smiled. "Informed."
I nodded. For a second longer, he stood by the table. I wondered if he was thinking of shaking my hand, but in the end he didn't offer and neither did I. I watched him go out the door, then waved at the waiter; but Glubin, whatever his other deficiencies as host, had taken care of the bill. As I got up to go, the band began playing again—"You Light Up My Life" — and everyone was dancing, cheek to cheek. The Hungarian blonde was back with the paratrooper, but as she looked over his shoulder, her eyes wouldn't meet mine.
Waiting till the end, I clapped with the others, and then went into the street.
18
It was snowing as I left the Byka, large, soft flakes that floated down so lazily you could follow each one individually. I walked to the Nevsky. The snow, falling faster, caught on my eyelids, turning the globes of the streetlights into stars which sparkled magically in the darkness above Leningrad's great main street. Traffic was quiet and the snow hissed softly in the stillness. Then, two blocks away, a trolley clattered through an intersection, the row of colored lights on the cab — visible even in the worst blizzard — proclaiming its route. On the sidewalk, a thin stream of people passed by. These were bureaucrats hurrying home from No. 41, the Leningrad Party headquarters, or clerks from the Gostinyy Dvor department store, which had just closed up, or students, wrapped in scarves, leaving the old Imperial Library. Heads bowed before the prospect of the coming winter, and thickly clothed in the resolute silence of Russians in the mass, they trickled into the Metro stops.
Standing there, watching them, I thought over what Logi-nov had told me. Did I believe him? Was there really a Russian dissent within the "Soviet Union" — a dissent that might truly matter? In a way, I thought, this street proved his words. The Bolsheviks had tried to rename the Nevsky "Avenue of the 25th of October," but it just hadn't stuck. And a lot else hadn't stuck either. Since 1917 Russia had come a great distance, but so had the rest of the world; relatively little had changed. She was the real "sick man" of Europe, with a vast, rebellious empire, a desperately backward economy, and a cruelly repressive government. I lifted my eyes. In the distance, framed by the long perspective of the trefoil streetlamps, the sharp golden spike of the Admiralty Tower was brilliantly lit up by spotlights. It had been the city's symbol a hundred years before Lenin arrived at the Finland Station, and its presence now seemed only to mock what he had done. The "Revolution" had been an illusion. But then so was "Soviet Russia" itself. For Brightman and a million others in his generation, it had been a Shangri-la, existing only on the maps of their minds; for Hamilton, it had been a secret stage on which he could act out the fantasies of his own puny power; and for Subotin… a new purity? the true home of the Slavic soul? a "spiritual" path between the "materialism" of the West and the anthill "order" of the East?
Yes, I could believe it… Yet the more I thought about it, the more I felt that this wasn't the real importance of Loginov's message; not for me, not now. Subotin's motives were fascinating but not immediately relevant, and I didn't need anyone to tell me that the man was a killer. Indeed, as I walked along, it was the manner, rather than the substance, of what Loginov had said that struck me as crucial. It was extraordinary, when you thought about it. He'd been so cautious, so circumspect. He'd offered me "information" and "advice." But he wasn't a professor of Soviet studies or Dear Abby. He was a KGB officer. And — in the middle of Leningrad — a KGB officer shouldn't have the least reason for caution. If he wanted something, he'd just give the order; and if you didn't obey, he'd stick you in jail or put you on the next plane back home. Except he hadn't done that. He'd played games… and I thought I knew why. May Brightman, Florence Raines, Dr. Charlie, Dimitrov, Nick Berri, Hamilton: all the separate elements I'd discovered circled one central point — Harry Brightman and Harry Brightman's gold. This was obviously the "resource" Subotih was seeking. But Harry Brightman had been a KGB agent— or, if that wasn't quite the right expression, a KGB asset. Which raised an interesting question: if Harry Brightman had buried the treasure, who had told Subotin where he should dig? There was only one possible answer: even if Subotin and his "tendency" were rooted in the Soviet military, they must have had good lines into the KGB. There was no other way they could have got on to Brightman in the first place. Once you granted that, Loginov's peculiar approach made sense. It implied that there was dissent, or at least ambiguity, within the KGB itself as to how they should handle Subotin… and that was the critical point, so far as I was concerned. It meant I had a certain amount of freedom. But it also imposed some crucial restraints. Subotin had allies; they were in high places; and once they got on to me, they could come down hard. So I had to move fast — it was now or never. If I was going ahead, I had to disappear in a puff of smoke and get in and out of Povonets before anyone noticed.
Or at least that's what I was thinking as I reached the Narodnyy Most, the People's Bridge, over the Moyka.
And — to give myself credit — once I'd reached this conclusion, I did things right.
Assuming I was under surveillance, I tried to appear perfectly normal. I was okay so far — I was following a reasonable route back to the hotel — and now I stopped, lit a cigarette, and looked casually down from the bridge. The Moyka is the smallest of the three rivers — the others are the Great Neva and the
Fontanka — which flow through Leningrad. It was already beginning to freeze, the wind slithering white snakes of snow across a skin of shiny black ice. Winter was setting its teeth. Still, it wasn't too cold for a walk, especially if a KGB officer had just given you something to think about, so I crossed the street and went down to the southern embankment. The wind was brisker here; the few people around hurried along, wrapped in their own shadows, the snow crunching under their boots. But even though I turned up my collar, I still kept to a slow pace: like a man deep in thought, as opposed to one who's made up his mind. Keeping on, I went past all the old dark mansions and palaces that are now institutes and academies, then paused again, looking across to the opposite bank, in order to admire the silver cap of snow on St. Isaac's golden cupola. I smoked one more cigarette there; studiously didn't look back. Then, turning away — apparently becoming conscious of the cold — I shoved my hands deep into my pockets, put my head down against the wind, and set off more quickly: but like a man who just wants to get warm, as opposed to one who's about to do something rash. Beyond the Blue Bridge is an old footbridge; with my steps ringing on the ancient iron, I crossed over. On this side, the embankment merged with Ulitsa Gertsena. Doubling back and crossing the wide square in front of St. Isaac's, I soon reached the hotel.