The Kremlin Letter Read online

  Rone was aware of the Highwayman’s stare. “How many times did you read that page?” he asked.

  “Once,” answered Rone. He saw Ward nod to the Highwayman.

  “Please begin with the report,” said Ward.

  “A.I. Bresnavitch is a master politician within the ruling clique of the Communist Party itself,” Rone began. “He grew up with the revolution. His credentials are all in order. Arrest, imprisonment, exile, torture—I can give you the dates and places if you want.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” said Ward. “Just keep going.”

  “His political career began when he met Lenin in Germany. Later he was exiled to Siberia with Stalin. He met Trotsky at the front. Is this too brief?”

  “Just keep up the way you’re going,” said Ward.

  “Bresnavitch disliked Lenin, but supported him instead of Trotsky, who had become one of his closest friends. When Lenin died he gambled and gambled well. This time he supported Stalin, whom he distrusted, rather than Trotsky, whom he still admired. After Stalin’s death he was forced into still another choice. This time he threw his weight behind Khrushchev instead of Malenkov. Bresnavitch is in no way a toady. He’s a practical Bolshevik and a hardened revolutionary. He retreats when he feels he should retreat and he attacks when he feels he should attack. During Stalin’s regime he openly opposed Beria. The feud became so bitter that Western Kremlinologists gave Bresnavitch little chance of survival. In the end it was Beria who fell and Bresnavitch who flourished.

  “Another one of his targets was Chou En-lai. He started his attack at a time when Moscow treated Peking with confidence and respect. Once again history seems to have sided with him.

  “Bresnavitch has not been without his problems. He has been openly critized in Kremlin circles for being slightly lavish.

  “One of the few positions which we know he held under Stalin was administrator of artistic restoration. A great many paintings, including a Hals, a Vermeer and a Picasso, seem to be on loan at his private residence, a rather palatial building once occupied by one of the Romanovs. He has somehow managed to keep his private collection intact even today.

  “Criticism over his standard of living goes back almost fifteen years. He has constantly been accused of being pro-Western by other Russian officials. Stalin apparently warned him about it, and Khrushchev did more than that: He took away Bresnavitch’s visiting privileges to western Europe. They were reinstated two years ago, but to our knowledge he hasn’t used them.

  “His present position in Moscow seems to be exceedingly strong. He has emerged a major influence peddler. It is doubted whether any leadership change could be effected without his support.

  “Bresnavitch is particularly powerful in areas of intelligence agencies. Over the years he has more or less become the Kremlin’s ex officio liaison man. He has smoothed over many rifts between intelligence personnel and political bigwigs. His power seems to date back to the showdown with Beria. He is, or at least was, quite close to the Third Department’s Colonel Kosnov. His son-in-law, Grodin, is presently on Kosnov’s staff.”

  The questions continued until after midnight. Finally the Highwayman asked, “You seem to retain everything you read quite well, but how do you do on what you hear?”

  “I can usually remember most of it.”

  “To what degree?” the Highwayman said with a note of hostility.

  “What degree do you want?”

  “All of a spoken conversation as it was originally stated.”

  “That shouldn’t be too hard,” Rone answered with irritation.

  “Well, let us see,” the Highwayman said with a smirk. “Tell me what I said the first morning the entire group arrived.”

  “At the breakfast table or at the meeting afterward?”

  “At the meeting.”

  “Well, first you welcomed each of us. Then you told us that the group had been brought together for a specific mission—”

  “I asked you to be specific,” the Highwayman snapped. “Is that the closest you can come?”

  “You stood up and turned slightly to the right,” Rone began slowly. “Then you said, “The project will have three phases: Training, Interior Action, and Exterior Action. All of you will participate in the Training and Interior Action. Only some of you will be asked to participate in the overseas operation.…’”

  When Rone finished, Ward snapped on a tape recorder. It played a recording of the Highwayman’s original talk. Rone had recited it verbatim.

  17

  Polakov

  Instead of waiting for Sonia on the corner or walking along the street, Janis led Rone into an office in a building diagonally opposite the school. From the sixth-story window they had a perfect view of the entrance.

  “She’ll be coming out earlier today,” he told Rone.

  “Why should she? She never has before.”

  “Seems the wires in the school cafeteria burned out last night. Left an awful stench. She’ll have to go out for lunch.”

  At one-thirty, as Janis had predicted, Sonia came out on the street with a group of students. Rone saw that she was being asked to join them. She shook her head in refusal and went in the opposite direction. Janis produced a pair of binoculars and watched her as she walked.

  “Drat it,” he said, “doesn’t that bitch notice anybody?”

  Sonia returned to the school at two-fifteen.

  Rone was left alone to follow her on her four-o’clock walk through the park. Her path and activities were identical to those of the previous days with one exception: While she was at the lion cage a rather handsome young man in sports clothes tried to talk to her. Sonia would have none of it.

  Much to his surprise Rone was asked to give tactical briefing number three. It was to deal with Russian intelligence organizations, specifically with the Third Department, a subject he had read about three nights before. When Rone stood up to speak he noticed Ward switch on a tape recorder.

  Rone traced the evolution of the various military, political and civilian organizations. Although he had read the brochures only once more than a week before he had little trouble remembering names, places and dates.

  He took more time with the Third Department, pointing out that though it was nominally a counterespionage unit it had in fact grown to be a major intelligence-gathering organization with independent international branches. The mission of the Third Department had originally been to protect the Kremlin from external dangers, but it had become the watchdog of internal matters as well. It was undoubtedly a very potent political force.

  The biography of Colonel Kosnov was familiar: at sixteen a fighter in the revolution, in the thirties a Stalinist, during World War II an exceptional espionage administrator, and now chief of the Third Department.

  Lieutenant Vassili N. Grodin had been the colonel’s aide for over three years. He was an alert, efficient, aggressive young officer who had been educated during the postwar technological boom. He was of “New Russia.” Kosnov belonged to the old. Grodin’s father-in-law, Aleksei I. Bresnavitch, promoted Grodin in the intelligence services, specifically in the Third Department.

  Following Rone’s lecture, Ward showed slides of each of the men discussed. Then he packed up his tape recorder and left.

  The following day Rone was once again asked to give the tactical briefing. This time he was to discuss the members of the Central Committee. Once again Ward was waiting with the recorder.

  After the lecture Rone went on his surveillance detail. Sonia trailed into the park on schedule, talked to no one, avoided the advances of another young man, and returned to the school in time to be picked up by the car and followed by the grocery truck.

  That evening Rone was called to the meeting room in the basement. Ward and a tall, handsome woman in her middle forties were waiting. She wore a well-tailored tweed suit with a pale-pink cashmere sweater, a thin string of pearls and brogues. She spoke with an English accent and was introduced by her code name—Uncle Morris.
A moment later Sweet Alice entered.

  Ward turned down the lights and switched on the slide projector. A cemetery appeared on the screen.

  “This is the graveyard outside of Moscow where Polakov, his wife, his mother and his sister are believed to be buried. We have no confirmation on the graves, since the area may be under surveillance.” The slide changed. “This is one of the few photographs taken of Polakov,” Sweet Alice announced. The face disappeared and was replaced by the picture of a strikingly beautiful young girl.

  “This was his wife, maiden name Erika Boeck, born Hamburg, Germany, January 10, 1941. Polakov was fifty-eight. His wife was twenty-three.” The lights switched on.

  Uncle Morris moved to the end of the table and began talking. “Our knowledge of Polakov’s history is sparse. We are doing everything we can to fill it in, but I fear we will have to work with what we have. He was born in the Moscow area in about 1907 or 1908. His father is believed to have been the second violinist with the ballet orchestra. His mother had been a painting teacher. We did not know until recently that his mother and sister were still alive. How or why he left Russia as a young man we do not know. He is believed to have attended the University of Paris in or around 1926 to 1928. It is difficult to check because we don’t know what name he was using. There seems to be evidence that he studied art and languages. He also appears to have been bisexual during this time.

  “Our first official knowledge of Polakov came during World War II when he fought with the Dutch resistance and acted as liaison with the French maquis.

  “In the late forties he appeared in Vienna and was employed by French intelligence. It wasn’t long before he was on his own and selling information to the highest bidder. He established a reputation for quality merchandise. Unlike other independent espionage brokers, he did not work on volume. He came to market perhaps three or four times a year, but when he did he received top price.

  “His movements were well covered, but we have been able to break his activities into four specific time periods: 1956, 1959, 1962 and 1963.

  “French intelligence reports that he was in Moscow in 1956 to visit his mother and sister. He was traveling under his favorite cover, as an art dealer. The French claim he was on no specific mission, but since they just gave us this information last week, we don’t know what they are withholding. During this time, according to them, Polakov made contact with a Chinese he had studied with in Paris. The man’s name was Chu Chang. Chang was connected with the Red Chinese Embassy, but was apparently a rather bad boy. He and Polakov cooked up some narcotics business. Chang would supply the material from China and cover the Moscow market. Polakov would act as distributor for Leningrad and the Iron Curtain countries. Chang got caught and expelled from the country. It looked as if the Russians had a strong lead straight to Polakov, but French intelligence bailed him out by sending a decoy so his record would be clean.

  “In 1959 his mother took sick and he returned to Moscow. Up to then he had been working for the French in payment for their help in ’56. He wanted his mother to leave Russia. She refused, so he sat it out there with her. Apparently he did quite a lot of reading and museum-going. He showed up at many literary and cultural affairs. It’s during this period he must have made his major contact. It could have been through a homosexual relationship. Polakov seems to have remained bisexual until his marriage. He may have made the contact through his art connections. We do know that eight months later he returned to Paris and sold two Mondrians. Several months later he purchased a Picasso for fourteen thousand dollars. There is no trace of what he did with it. He remained in Paris and became active in the art world.

  “In 1962 Polakov returned to Moscow. He remained there for two months, then returned to Paris. Nothing is known of his stay. There is no indication it had anything to do with intelligence except for one factor. When he returned to Paris he sold most of his art works.

  “It was in 1963 that Polakov made a move. He showed up in London with information to sell. The first packet was minor, something to do with Russian-Hungarian relationships. It was purchased for five hundred dollars. It proved to be very accurate. The next packet dealt with the Russian army. Polakov showed off only part of it. He jumped his price to five thousand and got it. From then on in the information began to flow. He asked an average of five to ten thousand a folder. The information was excellent. During an eight-month period it is estimated that Polakov was paid slightly more than four hundred thousand dollars, without ever revealing who his contact was.

  “It was at this time that two things happened. One, Polakov got married. We have very little information on his wife. You’ve seen her picture and you know her birthday. We’ve tried a trace and found almost nothing. She showed up in Paris eight days before he married her, then she disappeared with him. The few people who met her during this period describe her as destitute, highly neurotic, and apparently very much in love with him.

  “The second thing was Polakov’s arrival with a message from his contact. Polakov explained that the man was a high Soviet official involved in a power play to take over from Khrushchev. He felt he could rally pro-Western sentiment in the Kremlin into a strong enough force to oust the premier. Polakov produced detailed information on these maneuvers. For good measure he sold us information concerning the Cuban situation—it was our first indication of what was to come.

  “The Pepper Pot said the decision had to be made within twenty-four hours. He wanted either State Department or Foreign Office verification, written verification, that we would go along with a plan he would outline. The idea was that the document would be tangible proof to his contact’s supporters that a deal with the West was a realistic political possibility.

  “What he wanted in writing was an Anglo-American guarantee to assist the Russians in destroying China’s atomic-bomb project at Lop Nor.

  “The Anglo-American intelligence officers dealing with Polakov said they needed more time than twenty-four hours. Clearance would take much longer than that. Polakov said if his man was to act it had to be within twenty-four hours or not at all.

  “The next evening the letter was ready. Polakov was in Moscow with it the next morning.”

  “They actually agreed?” Rone uttered in disbelief.

  “Not only did someone agree,” Sweet Alice said with a sad smile, “but they also consented to sending it in unaddressed. It was simply the body of the letter and a signature they turned over. Polakov was to fill in the name of the recipient when and where he chose.”

  “It’s inconceivable,” Rone said aloud.

  “So was the Bay of Pigs,” Sweet Alice said.

  18

  Sonia

  Rone told Janis what he had seen in the park that afternoon.

  “She talked to them?” he asked Rone in anticipation.

  “For almost twenty minutes. She even ignored her lions.”

  “Describe them again, carefully.”

  “It was a Negro couple. Well dressed. The girl looked about nineteen or twenty. The man about twenty-four. He was about five eleven and—”

  “Which one did she talk to the most?” Janis interrupted.

  “It seemed pretty even,” answered Rone.

  “Be ready to go in an hour.”

  Janis, Rone and a dapper Negro named Fred Firm drove slowly through Harlem. It was a Friday night. The streets teemed with people. “When you see somebody who looks like either of them let us know,” Janis ordered.

  They stopped off at half a dozen bars and restaurants before Rone saw a girl who vaguely resembled the one Sonia had talked to.

  “Hey, baby, that’s Jamaican stuff if you ask me,” said Fred, almost staring in the girl’s face.

  “Forget national origins, old fellow. Do you have anything like that in stock?”

  “Daddy, what Fred don’t have in his pocket, he’s sure bound to find in his wallet. When do you need her?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Cool, man, cool.”

&
nbsp; The following Monday, Rone and Janis were back at their 57th Street vigil. Apparently the lunchroom had been repaired. No one came out. At noon Janis told Rone he would take the afternoon shift himself. Rone started back for the Tillinger mansion. He was just about to hail a cab when someone tapped him on the shoulder.

  “You naughty boy.”

  Rone turned and faced the art school’s registrar.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself. It is your responsibility to share your gift with the world.”

  “I was thinking of coming, but I just couldn’t find the time. Maybe I’ll start next week.”

  “Oh, no you don’t. You’ll have to wait until next fall. It serves you right, too.”

  “Why can’t I start?”

  “We’ve reached this term’s quota. We have our full fifteen. Our staff can’t accommodate any more. However, if you’re sure you’re coming next week, if you positively promise, then I might make an exception to our rules.”

  “When did you get the new students?”

  “That’s none of your business. But I got them all right.”

  Rone reached into his pocket and handed the registrar fifty dollars. “Here’s my deposit. I’ll be there Monday. Now tell me about the new students.”

  The registrar was slightly stunned. “Why in the world should I?”

  “Well, I told several friends of mine about it. I just wanted to know if they were the ones who registered.”

  “Oh, heavens no! These four people just flew into the country this morning. They are foreign artists.”

  “Foreign?”

  “They’re scholarship students from the Jamaican Art Lovers League.”

  Rone had expected to spend Tuesday with Clocker Dan and the Puppet Maker, but early that morning his orders were changed. He, the Priest and the Warlock took a taxi downtown to Greenwich Village. They joined Janis at a corner table in a Bleecker Street coffeehouse.