The Kremlin Letter Read online

  The girl nodded and picked up a crude wooden ladle that had fallen from the caldron. She cautiously approached the thrashing pile, raised her weapon high above her head, waited for the right moment, and brought it crashing down between the fat woman’s legs. There was an agonized shout. Rone’s entry doubled up and rolled helplessly out of the pile. She lay there immobile as the other women got to their feet.

  “Not a bad act,” said the man, crossing to Rone. “I’m thinking of taking it to Honduras. Say, chap, you do have that hundred on your person, don’t you?”

  Rone handed the man six fifty-dollar bills.

  “They can fight again in an hour if you like.” He walked over to the motionless body on the ground. “Sorry, old cow, maybe this will take away the ache.” He dropped two of the bills in front of her. The fat woman was in too much pain to do anything but stare at them blankly. The four other women had not bothered to dress. They stood silently near the hut wiping the blood and dirt from their naked bodies. The man handed each a fifty-dollar bill. They exploded like children at a birthday party, covering him with kisses and hugs. Then they ran to the crumpled body and cheerfully dragged her inside.

  The man sat down in a frayed wicker rocking chair at the far end of the ledge and motioned to Rone.

  “Well, you’ve seen the lot of them, take your pick. Between you and me, chappie, that fat cow is magnifico. Absolutely magnifico. She can do things to you no other woman you will ever meet can equal. Her muscular control is sheer artistry.” He rocked back in the chair and examined Rone’s reaction. “But you’re an American, aren’t you?” He frowned. “I forgot. You fellows are only interested in faces. Then you’d better take one of the others. They are all superb. Trained them myself. They’ll even put their clothes back on if you find that more enticing. It’s a shame about your state of mind, though—the fat cow is brilliant, but you’ll never know how to enjoy her, will you?”

  The man looked dejected for a moment, then the smile returned. “Why worry about national fetishes at a time like this? Absolution is at hand. Take your pick. For twenty dollars any one of them is yours. For thirty you can have two. For fifty take the entire stable.”

  “The Tillinger Fund is planning an expedition,” Rone said.

  “Bully for the Tillinger Fund. The business at hand is more important. For forty dollars you can have them all.”

  “The Highwayman expects you.”

  “Of course he does, chappie. I’m the best there is—in my line.” He leaned toward Rone and spoke confidentially. “I’ll toss you double or nothing. Eighty dollars or the whole batch for free. Now what about that for fair play?”

  “I have a plane waiting,” said Rone.

  “Dammit, man,” bellowed Janis. “Where’s your sense of proportion? You’re talking business and I’m offering aesthetics. Are you or are you not going to flip a coin?”

  “The plane’s waiting,” Rone repeated.

  “Then let it wait,” Janis burst out in anger. He regained his composure quickly and studied Rone for a moment. “Am I to assume that if I don’t wish to go, you have to make me?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Can you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Without killing me?”

  “Yes.”

  Janis winked at Rone. “Would you like to bet on it, chappie? Say, five hundred pounds—fifteen hundred dollars, that is?”

  “Can you cover it?”

  “I would trust that my credit is still good?”

  “Not for this.”

  “Oh,” Janis said, with visible disappointment. “That complicates matters.”

  “And if I don’t bring you out,” Rone reminded him, “then they will send someone else who can.”

  “Why should I do anything for them? After all, they let me rot for five years.”

  “They’ve all rotted for five years—most of them even longer.”

  Janis was silent for a moment. “I owe nothing to the Highwayman. If it were Sturdevant then things would be different.”

  “Sturdevant is dead.”

  Janis roared with laughter. “Good God, don’t tell me they have you believing that whore’s cry too. Look, chappie, I know Sturdevant. And I tell you he never could or would take his own life.”

  “Then where is he?”

  “He’s waiting, my boy. Somewhere, someplace he’s waiting, like a lion in the thicket. He’ll be out when the time is right. You mark my words, chappie, he’s waiting.”

  “You sound very sure.”

  “I am very sure. He’s too competitive to stay out much longer. I knew him better than any living man. I know what makes him tick. You see, he’s a gambler at heart. Just as I am, except that he is slightly better. He has more patience than any man I know. That’s what a great gambler needs above all other traits. You must learn to sit on your hands. You must learn not to move until the time is propitious. You wait until either the odds are in your favor or the stakes are so high you cannot refuse. When either one of those things occurs, Sturdevant will show his face.”

  “I’ve heard that he was a coward.”

  “You’ll hear many things. That he was frightened, perverted, sadistic. No matter who you talk to there will be a different story. Remember just one thing. You will only hear what that Sturdevant wants you to hear. He thrives on confusion. But you see, he’s the last of the great hunters. He needs an even fight. In this day and age that isn’t easy to find. So he’s developed a thousand little devices to keep him out of meaningless skirmishes. Very few people can understand this. Since time began very few people have ever been able to understand the brave man, and almost none have understood the just man.”

  “I still have to bring you with me,” Rone reminded him.

  “And I don’t think I care to go,” Janis stated. “It isn’t as much to do with the Highwayman as you think. You see, there’s a basic law of physics which states that at one time or another all bodies within this atmosphere must come to rest. I think I have come to rest here. Like Sturdevant I desire a fair fight and I have found it here. I’m a sensualist, old man. I trade in human weakness—usually sexual.

  “Man’s self-indulgence and animalism is my stock in trade. As long as one male is left on earth who bothers to look up a skirt other than his wife’s, I will prevail. As long as one woman eyes another and gets some inexplicable physical reaction, I thrive. Fetish and taboo are my creed. Take away religion and law, kill conscience, revert to what we really are—and I no longer exist. That’s why this place fascinates me. These Indians are completely devoid of inhibition. They are totally amoral. There isn’t one physical impulse that they won’t explore with the innocence and intensity of a child. What little twinge of morality they might have contracted from progress is eliminated by that mushroom soup they drink.

  “I ask you, what can be a greater challenge to a man like myself than something like this? You could say that I am dedicated to corruption, ultimate corruption. But to me, ultimate corruption is simply elevating man to his natural state—that of the sensual animal. Where do you begin if he has already lived by his impulses for five hundred years? Good god, chappie, I’ve been trying to run a bordello here, but how is that possible when the entire population is giving away what I’m selling? No, my unenlightened friend, they are smarter than you and I. They fascinate me. They are completely incorruptible, since there is nothing there to corrupt. I am transfixed, hypnotized, I am their pupil. My loyalty is here. I shall remain.”

  “Money is involved,” said Rone.

  Janis paused. His eyes twinkled. The broad grin reappeared as he shook his head from side to side. “No, I’ve changed. This is where I belong.”

  “A great deal of money,” Rone emphasized.

  “You simply refuse to understand, chappie. A change has occurred within these perverted bones. A religious phenomenon has transpired.”

  Rone dropped a package of bills on the ground. He saw Janis’ eyes widen. “This is just the b
eginning,” he informed Lord Astor’s Whore. Rone picked up the pack and began counting.

  “It has taken me most of my life to develop principles,” Janis protested, staring at the money. “I will not be shaken.”

  “Twenty-five thousand here and now,” Rone said as he continued counting.

  “I have found my niche.”

  “Twenty-five thousand now,” Rone continued, “and another hundred thousand on completion.”

  “One hundred and twenty-five thousand?”

  “One hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars,” Rone repeated.

  “This must be a rather interesting case.” Janis caught himself at the brink. “No. Money can’t budge me. Not any more. To begin with, I’m too old. The Whore of yesterday is dead.”

  “Plus,” said Rone, “one hundred and twenty-five thousand more if you go on the expedition.”

  “Two hundred and fifty thousand?”

  “A quarter of a million dollars,” Rone said. He finished counting and tossed the stack of bills toward Janis.

  “It must be a very important case. Very, very important.” His eyes were frozen on the money but he didn’t move.

  Rone waited several seconds and then reached out to take the money back. “It is a very important case. I’m sorry the Whore of yesterday couldn’t make it.”

  “He’s dead,” Janis mumbled dejectedly. He watched as Rone started to put the money back in his coat, then reached out and stopped him.

  A grin crossed his face. “Old man, welcome to the resurrection.”

  SECTION TWO

  7

  The Delegate from the UN

  The short man with long arms and stooped, rounded shoulders was led from the incoming Aeroflot jet to a private office at the Moscow airport. He turned open the cover of his Russian diplomatic passport and handed it to the waiting officer. The name read: Mikhail Potkin.

  “United Nations?” the inspector commented politely.

  Potkin nodded.

  The officer compared the photograph with the man standing opposite him. The balding, oblong skull, the thick nose and lips and the small ears, flat against the head were the same. The black, slightly Oriental eyes could not be mistaken. He stamped the passport and handed it back. The leather grip was tagged without being opened. The briefcase and package Potkin held in his hands were ignored.

  “A driver is waiting for you,” the inspector told him.

  “I must make a telephone call first.”

  “Of course.” The officer swung back the door to an adjoining office. A telephone sat on the desk.

  “A private call,” Potkin stated.

  “Of course.” The officer left the room, carefully closing the door behind him.

  Potkin patted the perspiration from his forehead. A voice in the receiver said hello.

  “I’ve j-just arrived,” Potkin said.

  “Welcome home. How is your wife?” asked Aleksei I. Bresnavitch.

  “Quite well.”

  “And your daughters?”

  “Also well.”

  “Good. Will you be with us long?”

  “I plan to return tomorrow.”

  “Ah, then it is a very important meeting after all. When does it begin?”

  “A driver is waiting for me now,” Potkin answered impatiently.

  “I understand. I’m having a few people in tonight. Drop over when you have finished. Don’t worry about the time. This letter business may keep you there quite late.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Did you bring the package?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah, good. I will expect you later.”

  He heard the click of the receiver. Potkin did not like the idea of going to a party. He did not like being met by Colonel Kosnov’s private limousine. He had never liked returning to Moscow on such short notice. Potkin followed the driver through the terminal. He wondered what Bresnavitch had meant by “this letter business.”

  Captain Mikhail Potkin, division director of United States counterintelligence activities for Colonel Kosnov’s powerful Third Department, got in the back seat and the black Zim started for Moscow. He pulled the briefcase to his lap and began reviewing the reports. He knew he must concentrate. The meeting was extremely important. Many questions would be asked, details would be challenged, conclusions would be analyzed. He was not good at meetings; he became nervous, he stuttered. He was embarrassed when he stuttered. He was a field man, not an administrator. He could lead operations, but he could not necessarily explain them. He produced results; that should be enough.

  It was important that he concentrate, but his mind drifted back to Kosnov and Bresnavitch. Even if he did not admit it, he was aware of their feud. He was in the middle. Kosnov was his direct superior, the benevolent dictator, the understanding tyrant. But Bresnavitch was his patron, his benefactor. It was Bresnavitch who had rescued him after the Hungarian fiasco. It was Bresnavitch, the influential friend from the Kremlin, the man earmarked for the Central Committee, who had obtained him a position with Kosnov in the first place. Now they were at each other’s throats and he was in the middle.

  It’s this damnable case, he told himself, turning back to the first file, to the memorandum delivered by courier less than eight weeks before. Everything about this project has been trouble, he thought.

  He reread the message initiating Series Five. At the time the request had simply asked for the names and locations of CIA personnel in the United States who had recently been reassigned. Potkin had pointed out to the courier that a surveillance team recorded the comings and goings of agents at the CIA central headquarters in Washington. He felt this was a good indication of who might be briefed for new missions. Since his observers knew the regular staff, any new visitors might be considered as potential special operatives. Potkin had confided that he he did have sources within the headquarters itself, but he felt it too risky to use them for what appeared to be standard cataloguing. The next day Moscow had concurred, and he had begun assembling the information for transmission.

  Potkin turned through his reports. Everything had gone smoothly until mid-September, until the first rumors of Khrushchev’s rift with the Central Committee had begun filtering back. A message arrived saying that his system was too inaccurate; more specific information was needed. Potkin’s reports covered only thirty percent of CIA agent movement. Ninety percent was now needed. Never in the past had such a demand been made. The most important evaluations had never requested more than a sixty-percent mark. Potkin had contacted Moscow directly for verification.

  “We are no longer interested in percentages,” he was told. “We must know the location and assignment of every CIA agent who has set foot in the United States over the last four months. The other divisions will worry about the agents in their areas. You must cover the United States. Percentages are no longer applicable. We must anticipate who they may send into Russia to replace Polakov.”

  Potkin had protested. There was no way of getting such complete information without seriously jeopardizing his contacts within the organization. He had spent years developing them. Even if they were successful he doubted whether they could obtain total information.

  “Jeopardize them,” he was ordered. “Do whatever is necessary to get it.”

  Potkin looked up from his records. The driver was honking the horn. Hundreds of young girls in tight orange gymnasium uniforms were forming in columns along the road. He thought of his daughters. If he were living in Moscow they would be marching today. Gymnastics would be good for them. They led too sedentary a life in New York.

  He read the notes of September 20. Another courier had arrived demanding the same type of information on the Army’s CIC that he was compiling on CIA. Once again Potkin contacted Moscow directly in protest. He pointed out that three bars and restaurants adjacent to CIC headquarters and training center at Fort Holabird, outside of Baltimore, were operated by his network. They knew most of the soldiers who had received training there o
ver the last five years, but they did not have information concerning their assignments.

  “Why not?” he was asked.

  “Be-be-cause no one has ev-ever requested it,” he remembered answering in anger.

  “We are now,” he was told.

  Potkin had pointed out that he “did not have enough manpower to cover both CIA and CIC in such detail. Where were his men? Working on other cases. “Take them off,” he was ordered.

  Potkin had pleaded he had only two reliable agents within Fort Holabird itself. One was a double agent, a captain in the review section. The other was an army private who was being trained as a CIC agent. Outside of the risk involved, Potkin had argued, their chances of even getting near the restricted information required were almost nonexistent.

  “Use them,” he was ordered.

  As improbable as it had appeared at the beginning, Potkin had obtained the information.

  What bothered him was the ease with which he got it. Everything seemed to fall into place too easily. Secret files seemed too available. Security seemed too lax.

  He set his copies of the CIC and CIA reports to the side.

  “Too easy,” he repeated to himself. “Much too easy.”

  Not that his men had just walked in and taken what they wanted. They hadn’t. They took great risks entering areas where they did not work. They could have been caught at any moment. They hadn’t been. Perhaps they had been lucky? Perhaps they were more skilled than Potkin had realized? Perhaps something else was involved? Potkin had relayed his material to Moscow. Kosnov had been pleased.

  Two days later another emissary had arrived. He too congratulated Potkin and then informed him that the FBI end of Series Five had been transferred to his department. Potkin had blanched. He had never dealt with the FBI. That was Rudman’s operation.

  “The colonel is not pleased with Rudman’s progress. Everything is turned over to you,” he was told.

  Potkin read the message he had sent to Kosnov warning that with such short notice and so little progress up to date he might have to buy the FBI information from other countries.