‘Yes. That first deputy would have to have his ear very much to the ground, ready to bury himself the moment anything started to give at the top. Ideally he would have direct access to all top policy movement in the KGB — to this committee here in fact.’
Flitlianov had at last voiced something which had gradually been forming in the minds of all present at the table. Vassily Chechulian was the first to speak — a harshness, almost an anger in his normally easy voice. ‘Look, what have we imagined? A very senior man in the Second Directorate, stationed in Moscow, ex-army intelligence officer, joined us immediately after the war, a particularly able man, an intellectual among other things — and quite a young man, in his late forties now perhaps. Well it must be clear to all of us here — and most of all to you, Alexei — that this background is very similar to your own.’ Vassily Chechulian turned to Andropov. ‘I’m curious to know why the Chief of the Second Directorate — in response to your queries — has almost exactly described himself in this role of counter-revolutionary. What are we meant to deduce from this?’
Chechulian lit a cigarette, the first man at the meeting to do so. Tilting his head, he blew a stream of smoke almost straight upwards where the burnt tobacco formed a small wispy cloud under the soundproofing membrane. There was a sudden smell of life in the arid room.
‘Ask him yourself, Vassily.’ Yuri Andropov said. ‘We’re all supposed to be asking questions here.’
‘Well, Alexei — what are you condemning yourself out of your own mouth for?’
‘Not at all, Vassily. I was asked to imagine myself as head of this mysterious Sixth Directorate. That’s how I would have gone about organising it. You would have done it differently I’m sure — yet not, I think, so very differently. There are constants in the formation of any clandestine group. You formed just such a group yourself in West Germany just after the war. We know that. I might also add that the background I’ve given this man could, at a stretch, fit you as well as me.’
‘Oh, I’m no intellectual, Alexei. You have a degree. You were even a professor once, as your cover overseas. Besides, I’m older than you.’
‘Yes, but the rest stands, or near enough. Indeed your counter-espionage directorate might be the expected place to look for this sort of conspiracy. Your Third Directorate — necessarily of course — is the most secretive part of our organisation. By comparison my Second Directorate is an open book, and I’m hardly more than a traffic policeman.’
Flitlianov smiled briefly. Chechulian said nothing. Andropov broke the moment’s unease that had suddenly sprung up.
‘Gentlemen, I didn’t come here — nor I hope did any of you — to conduct a purge. That was not the purpose of my questions to Alexei. I wanted a picture of the type of man we’re after. And I think Alexei has given us that. I think probably, too, the man is in Alexei’s Directorate. But that, as we’ve shown, is to be expected. His is by far the largest, more than 20,000 fully established staff, at least two hundred of whom occupy senior rank and some of these must share some or all of the characteristics we’ve established. We’ll go through all these men very carefully now, take them apart. And I’d like each of you to do the same within your own Directorates. We have a rough picture, a profile. It may be the wrong one, but for the moment we’ve nothing else to go on. Let’s see if we can find the body that fits it.’ He looked round at the five men. ‘And kill that body quickly.’
Andropov paused, consulting some notes in front of him. The others relaxed. Chechulian poured himself a glass of mineral water from a bottle in front of him, tasted some of it and then puckered his lips. He looked at the contents of the glass sadly and pushed it away. Andropov had found his place. ‘Gentlemen, our second consideration this evening, normally our first: next year’s budget. As you know our allocations are to be cut — by up to 18 % over three years, starting January 1972. We must continue to mark out areas of economy. However, we may be able to limit this to one area and Grigori Rahv will brief you on this in a moment. In outline, what it amounts to is this: I believe we may be able to make substantial reductions in our scientific budget, particularly in the area of communications and in future capital development in that field. You’ll remember our discussion at the last meeting: since then we’ve established beyond doubt that the British have now successfully developed their new code transmission system and will shortly be introducing it into all their diplomatic and intelligence traffic: as far as we can tell it’s a form of electronic one-time pad. There’s no doubt that if we can obtain the precise technical data on how this system operates — which we can only do at source, on site — this information alone should enable us to reduce our expenditure by the required 18 % over three years. Grigori, would you give us the present position in more detail?’
Grigori Rahv broached these electronic mysteries very carefully and clearly, like a teacher among witless, rascally children. Chechulian hunched his great farmer’s shoulders and let his head sink oft his chest. Andropov removed his spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose. Flitlianov closed his eyes. Sakharovsky studied the label on the mineral-water bottle in front of him, massaging his old hands. Savitsky remained obviously alert: a saving of 18 % over three years would bring more credit to him than to anyone else in the room.
Technical data filled the air for the next fifteen minutes. Sakharovsky had to force himself to listen for he knew that his First Directorate would be made responsible for obtaining this information in England. And so it was later agreed. After ten minutes on other business, the meeting broke up.
‘Come, Alexander,’ Andropov turned to the old man, ‘we must welcome our guests. Alexei? — are you coming to meet our Czech colleagues? No? Well, see you on Sunday then. You too, Vassily: you’re with us on the hunt as well, aren’t you? Remember it’s a five o’clock start. Unless you want to sleep at the lodge overnight? No one else coming downstairs with us?’ Andropov looked round the room. ‘Very well then, I thank you for your attention. Gentlemen: I bid you a “happy weekend”.’
Andropov sometimes introduced odd, English phrases into his conversation: ‘Vaudeville Ham’, ‘Happy weekend’, ‘The more the merrier’. The archaisms were always there, waiting rudely to emerge, often in the most inappropriate circumstances. And this was one of them, Alexei Flitlianov thought. ‘Happy weekend’? Certainly Andropov’s professional outlook at that moment did not warrant any such jeux d’esprit — the weather around him seemed threatening indeed. There was some contradiction here — these happy words in a time of vast conspiracy. Flitlianov could not account for this good humour. It was as though he had stumbled for the first time on an untranslatable idiom in Andropov’s commonplace phrase book.
‘Good. I didn’t think he’d come with us. We can talk after we’ve seen our Czech friends.’ Andropov spoke to Sakharovsky quietly as they walked down one flight of stairs to the second KGB suite in the Presidential Tower on the 18th floor. There they welcomed their guests who had arrived earlier in the evening on the last flight of the day from Prague: the head of the Czech Internal Security police, Colonel Hartep, and Andropov’s Russian liaison officer in Prague, Chief of the KGB bureau there, together with assorted deputies, assistants and bodyguards. But the little social reunion between the two security organisations didn’t last long.