The suspension bridge vibrates with the steps of the pedestrians, at the end of the bridge her pupil stumbles, she clutches at his arm, a car is there, a door is open, the door slams shut, a pistol fitted with a silencer, one finger held against a mouth, the car speeds off, it swerves throwing Lena from one man against another, the one on her right says something, the car slows, other things are said, in fractured English, ‘you’, ‘calm’, they tie her hands, a hood is placed over her head, her head is forced down, fewer bends now, they are on an open road, much time goes by, her back aches.
Now the car is being driven fast, they let Lena sit up again, I must try to sleep, there’s nothing else I can do, I should never have walked, it wouldn’t have made any difference, they’d have laid on a bogus taxi, that pupil of mine was a good-looking boy, did they lean on him? Lithe, he walked lithely.
A long road, the car brakes, a sharp turn, ruts, then an unmade road, come to a stop, they bundle her out, a damp forest smell, they sit her down, back must be against the trunk of a tree, they remove the hood, a bad sign.
The air is dark and cool, night, moon, a soughing of leaves, a clearing, three men and one woman stand over her, two machine-pistols. The men smoke. Everything has a pallid sheen.
She looks up at the sky, hears the beat of wings, repeats to herself ‘The stars and our lives are bound by hoops of steel’, she is sixty-one years old, it’s the end of the road, she is not unhappy, this afternoon’s renditions of Schubert were very good. None of the three men look at Lena, the woman has the face of a mournful slave, rough movements and a revolver. She takes Lena by the arm and leads her to one side.
The Russians had kidnapped Lena, the KGB, it was Max who reconstructed the puzzle, it took him a good long time, he reconstructed it for Hans, to tell him the story of what happened, a very Max-ish story, with real facts, gaps, and cloak-and-dagger padding to fill the gaps, in 1956 Markov is Russia’s deputy Minister of Security, in late August he arrives in Hungary, on its eastern border, a meeting of Warsaw Pact intelligence services, in a railway carriage:
‘The Americans are making a nuisance of themselves, we need to give them a serious warning not to make a nuisance of themselves.’
‘We could eliminate a few of their agents tonight, comrade Minister.’
‘Like diplomats, you mean? And then what? If they’ve got diplomatic passports, we’ll have the United Nations down on us like a ton of bricks. If they don’t, they’re just the small fry.’
Lilstein is there, a better head on him than most of the other men present, he has a detached air, in fact he’s had an idea but wishes he hadn’t, it’s a bad idea but it might produce good results, a doubtful gesture which might not turn out too badly, though badly for whom? He hesitates while all the rest put forward their proposals, round up one of the known networks and shoot the lot, hang them, do it in public, expel America’s ambassador but not Britain’s, it would produce the same rumpus and would have less fall-out, maybe there’s something could be set moving in Berlin.
‘What? Another world war?’
Markov is beginning to get angry, and the men who are there are afraid of Markov, it’s late, it’s dark and the later it gets the twitchier Markov becomes. It is dangerous to speak within earshot of a man with a record like Markov’s, he saw off the Waffen SS with his foot soldiers, a forceful type, but tonight he’s as jumpy as a cat, the other men speak when he gives them the nod and as they speak they can hear what is going into the report that contains a minute of what they’ve said together with an estimate of their abilities, at this juncture we need to come up with guilty names, if we’re in this mess it’s because there have been anomalies, if there have been anomalies it’s because there have been failures.
Usually the way out of these messes is to recommend the strongest measure, pull coals out of the fire, only this time, pulling coals out of the fire when the result is a disaster amounts to sabotage, and Markov glares at the advocate of the strongest measures as if he were dealing with a mixture of Anglo-Saxon spy and Trotskyite snake, like in the good old days.
Then someone recommended to Markov the strongest measures, with safeguards, and Markov asked what exactly, and he doesn’t know, and the report is filled out and he’s marked down as a moron. Markov doesn’t need to tell you in so many words, you might well be the head of Hungarian or Czech counter-espionage, and thousands, millions of people shake in their shoes at the mere mention of your name, but when you’re facing Markov you’re an undiluted moron.
And if you start talking of safeguards you immediately give the impression of being some sort of moderate and in the pay of the Anglo-Saxons to boot, and just at the very moment when the need is to come up with names, never mind, if we have to go in and clean up Budapest’s mess we’ll pick up anyone who doesn’t have a diplomatic passport and we’ll introduce martial law, without issuing any communiqués or talking about wasted bullets.
‘Misha, you’re not saying anything, are you bored? Is it complicated? What have you got to suggest?’
Markov smiles as he speaks and Michael Lilstein has a feeling that in that smile tragedy is choosing the object it will strike.
‘We could snatch someone well known, comrade Minister, someone who is well-protected, who has never been bothered until now, and by snatching this person we would show that we know everything, we’d be returning the goods to the sender, at night, all the way to Austria, they’ll get the message loud and clear.’
‘A corpse?’
A trap, don’t fall into it, you say:
‘That’s one option, comrade Minister.’
‘It’s still too complicated, Misha.’
Markov is not smiling now. Lilstein does not like seeing him in this mood. In January 1945, Markov was the first man Lilstein saw looming up in front of him, in woods close to Auschwitz, with his round, beaming face, Sancho Panza in a fur coat carrying a machine-pistol, part of the avant-garde of Konev’s army, Lilstein fell into Markov’s arms, he wept for a quarter of an hour in Markov’s arms, saying nothing, and Markov smiled and said: ‘It’s all over, lad, all over’ to a man who was two heads taller than him and weighed three times less. Markov was one of the political commissars of Konev’s army. He was always in a good humour. He’s done very well for himself. He’s deputy Minister now. Tonight his mood is grim, he says:
‘We’re floundering, I must get some sleep, tomorrow morning, at five, we’ll see what needs to be done.’
Twenty minutes after the meeting ended, Lilstein was called back to Markov’s carriage.
‘The Americans have an important agent in Budapest, an agent we’ve never bothered, and you never mentioned the fact to me?’
‘There was a good chance the information would end up on a desk that wasn’t yours, comrade Minister, I didn’t have time to come to Moscow personally.’
And Markov adopts a very mechanical tone, why so many precautions among men who are fighting the same war, all the Ministries have their shoulders to the same wheel, Misha should have sent his message without delay. Markov ends with a wide, childlike smile, the look in his eye dictates Lilstein’s response.
‘I was aware, comrade Minister, that it wouldn’t be long before you called us all together. I waited for the opportunity you’ve just created: it’s a woman.’
Markov throws his hands in the air: