“Can’t you get those lazy bastards in the basement to send up some heat?” Shevenko growled. “These radiators have about as much warmth in them as my wife. By the Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B., if I don’t get some heat up here I’m going to send everyone in that basement to Siberia.”
“Beastly what of what or whom, sir?” Stefan Lubutkin’s thin face was a study in confusion.
“You’ve never read J. P. Donleavy? You’re not properly educated, Stefan. Marvelous writer, Donleavy. A New York Irishman. He reminds me of the way I used to write when I was taking my doctorate at Columbia in New York. Now what in the hell do we have to do to get some heat up here?”
“The approved method, Comrade Director, is to write a letter in triplicate and send it by post to the proper bureau. The way the mails are these days that could take from four days to two weeks.
“The bureau that receives the letter will then call a meeting to decide if they are indeed the proper people to consider your request. If they are, they will then schedule another meeting to take up the request. The odds are that they will then write a letter to us, in triplicate, advising us to form a committee and study the problem and keep them advised. By that time, Comrade Director, it will be summer and the problem will be solved.”
“One of these days your sense of humor is going to cost you your balls,” Shevenko growled. “I don’t want to write letters or form committees. I want heat.”
“It is taken care of, sir. I gave the chief engineer a bottle of your American vodka. He prefers it to our own brands, says it has more bite.” As he placed the tray on Shevenko’s desk the radiators began to clank and hiss.
“About time,” Shevenko grumbled. “Now what about that stupidity in London? What’s been done about that idiot who used a truck to mash our would-be embassy defector into strawberry jam against some brick wall or other?”
Lubutkin pulled a chair across the worn carpet and placed it in front of the desk. “Not just some brick wall, sir, it was a wall around a formal garden. A nice poetic touch, I’d say. The idiot you referred to worked, as you know, as a gardener on the palace grounds.”
“Poetic touch your ass,” Shevenko said. “It was a mistake to liquidate the defector in that way, in front of witnesses. The idiot was lucky to get away without being arrested. The defector should have been brought back here where we could have emptied him like a garbage pail. What did that fool who drove the truck expect, a medal, a promotion to the Wet Squad?”
“I don’t know, sir. Perhaps he will get his reward in Heaven, as they say in the West.”
Shevenko cupped his hands around the mug of coffee, relishing the warmth. “Was it done in such a way that the London police will think it was an accident?”
“The subject in question was a heroin addict, sir. I arranged that he get some pure heroin. He died of an overdose. His body wasn’t used to the pure drug.”
“Pure heroin?” Shevenko’s voice rose almost a half octave from its normal deep bass. “You ordered money spent for pure heroin? You’re dumber than you look, Lubutkin. Your father must have mated with a jackass. Or would it be a jenny? No matter. Why didn’t you have him run over by a car or mugged and dropped off a bridge into the Thames?”
“We gain twice, sir. We are rid of an agent who was no longer useful. The stories of his death, he was a British subject as you know, will underline the decadence of a society that uses drugs.” He looked meaningfully at the plate of pastry. Shevenko nodded his head and Lubutkin reached for the plate.
“I wish you’d stop playing the international spy, Stefan. You’re not cut out for it. Your genes aren’t right. Keep things simple. It’s bad enough when our friends on the other side play spy games and get things so messed up we can’t do our work. Keep it simple and keep it cheap. I have enough trouble now with the people who dole out the money.” The clear blue eyes focused on Lubutkin.
“Now the other matter, Stefan. The one that none of us could keep simple?”
“The submarine captain reported that he carried out his orders. He sent the co-ordinates of the area on the ocean bottom where his target is resting. The water there is very deep, thirteen thousand feet, Comrade.”
Shevenko bit into a Napoleon and wiped the creamy filling from his lips with a Kleenex he took from a box that stood on his desk. “The submarine captain is on his way here?”
“Yes, sir. All that information is in the morning folder that I brought in with the newspaper, sir.” His voice held the faintest tinge of reproach that his chief had chosen to read the New York Times before he looked in the folder Lubutkin prepared for him each morning.
“Our leaders have done some stupid things in the past,” Shevenko growled, “but this is one of the more stupid. Those damned admirals get their hands on a new weapon and they can’t rest until they’re tried it out under what they like to call combat conditions. Never forget one thing, little Stefan; if you give a man a target pistol as a gift he won’t rest until he has found a target to fire at. Testing weapons makes noise and noise disturbs the status quo.”
“A target that is now deep under the sea isn’t likely to make much noise, sir,” Lubutkin smiled slyly.
“Don’t underestimate the Americans. That windbag they call a Secretary of State could probably fill his lungs and dive to the deepest part of the ocean and find their missing submarine. Now take this down.
“I want you to schedule a meeting for tomorrow afternoon, as soon as possible after the arrival of the submarine captain. I want the meeting to be held here and I want the submarine captain and Admiral Zurahv and his aides to be there, also old Plotovsky. He may be getting a little senile but he’s still a power in the Politburo and he was against this operation from the start. If you have any trouble getting him let me know and I’ll take care of it. I want him there to maybe throw a little scare into the admirals.
“I want that woman we have, the expert in American affairs, the one with the big bosoms. Tell her I want her there as an observer. Looking at her might make the meeting bearable.”
“I agree, sir, the lady is handsome.” At Shevenko’s nod he placed a Napoleon on a square of Kleenex and carried it into his office. Shevenko broke the seal on the folder with a thick thumb and let its contents spill out on his desk.
“That Joe Namath,” he muttered as he pushed the New York Times to one side. “He lives as we would all like to live. Do your job spectacularly and romp with beautiful women in your off time. Which reminds me.” He punched a button on his desk and Lubutkin’s head appeared around the edge of the doorway between their offices.
“Send a message to Fidel. I want two tickets for the Super Bowl game, good seats, as soon as they are available. I want transport from Havana to Miami and I don’t want to come ashore through a mangrove swamp in the Florida Keys. Tell him to route me through Mexico City to Miami and return the same route. I want a good hotel on Miami Beach, a suite, for three nights.”