“Aleksey, I have a theoretical problem. You’ve worked in Italy, as I recall.”
“For three years in Station Rome, Comrade Chairman, yes, under Colonel Goderenko. He’s still there, as rezident.”
“A good man?” Andropov asked.
He gave an emphatic nod of the head. “A fine senior officer, yes, Comrade Chairman. He runs a good station. I learned much from him.”
“How well does he know the Vatican?”
That made Rozhdestvenskiy blink. “There is not much to be learned there. We do have some contacts, yes, but it has never been a matter of great emphasis. The Catholic Church is a difficult target to infiltrate, for the obvious reasons.”
“What about through the Orthodox Church?” Andropov asked.
“There are some contacts there, yes, and we have had some feedback, but rarely anything of value. More along the line of gossip and, even then, nothing we cannot get through other channels.”
“How good is security around the Pope?”
“Physical security?” Rozhdestvenskiy asked, wondering where this was going.
“Precisely,” the Chairman confirmed.
Rozhdestvenskiy felt his blood temperature drop a few degrees. “Comrade Chairman, the Pope does have some protection about him, mainly of the passive sort. His bodyguards are Swiss, in plainclothes—that comic-opera group that parades around in striped jumpsuits is mostly for show. They occasionally have to grab a believer overcome by his proximity to the head priest, that sort of thing. I am not even sure if they carry weapons, though I must assume that they do.”
“Very well. I want to know how difficult it might be to get physically close to the Pope. Do you have any ideas?”
Ah, Rozhdestvenskiy thought. “Personal knowledge? No, comrade. I visited Vatican City several times when I was in Rome. The art collection there, as you may imagine, is impressive, and my wife is interested in such things. I took her there perhaps half a dozen times. The area crawls with priests and nuns. I confess I never looked about for security provisions, but nothing was readily apparent, aside from what you’d expect—measures against thefts and vandalism, that sort of thing. There are the usual museum guards, whose main function seems to be to tell people where the lavatories are.
“The Pope lives in the Papal Apartments, which adjoin the church of St. Peter’s. I have never been there. It is not the sort of place in which I had any professional interest. I know our ambassador is there occasionally for diplomatic functions, but I was not invited—my posting was that of Assistant Commercial Attaché, you see, Comrade Chairman, and I was too junior,” Rozhdestvenskiy went on. “You say you wish to know about getting close to the Pope. I presume by that you mean…?”
“Five meters, closer if possible, but certainly five meters.”
Pistol range, Rozhdestvenskiy grasped at once. “I don’t know enough myself. That would be a job for Colonel Goderenko and his people. The Pope gives audiences for the faithful. How you get into those, I do not know. He also appears in public for various purposes. I do not know how such things are scheduled.”
“Let’s find out,” Andropov suggested lightly. “Report directly to me. Do not discuss this with anyone else.”
“Yes, Comrade Chairman,” the colonel said, coming to attention with the receipt of the order. “The priority?”
“Immediate,” Andropov replied, in the most casual of voices.
“I shall see to it myself, Comrade Chairman,” Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy promised. His face revealed nothing of his feelings. Indeed, he had few of those. KGB officers were not trained to have much in the way of scruples, at least outside politics, in which they were supposed to have a great deal of faith. Orders from above carried the force of Divine Will. Aleksey Nikolay’ch’s only concerns at the moment were centered on the potential political fallout to be had from dropping this particular nuclear device. Rome was more than a thousand kilometers from Moscow, but that would probably not be far enough. However, political questions were not his to ask, and he scrubbed the matter from his mind—for the moment, anyway. While he did so, the intercom box on the Chairman’s desk buzzed. Andropov flipped the top-right switch.
“Yes?”
“Your first appointment is here, Comrade Chairman.” His secretary announced.
“How long will this take, Aleksey, do you suppose?”
“Several days, probably. You want an immediate assessment, I assume, followed by what sort of specific data?”
“Correct. For the moment, just a general assessment,” Yuriy Vladimirovich said, “We’re not planning any sort of operation just yet.”
“By your order, Comrade Chairman. I’ll go down to the communications center directly.”
“Excellent. Thank you, Aleksey.”
“I serve the Soviet Union” was the automatic reply. Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy came to attention again, then left-faced for the door. He had to duck his head going out into the secretary’s room, as most men did, and from there he turned right and out into the corridor.
So, how does one get close to the Pope, this Polish priest? Rozhdestvenskiy wondered. It was, at least, an interesting theoretical question. KGB abounded with theoreticians and academics who examined everything, from how to assassinate chiefs of foreign governments—useful in the event that a major war was about to be undertaken—to the best way to steal and interpret medical records from hospitals. The broad scope of KGB field operations knew few limitations.
One could not have guessed much from the colonel’s face as he walked to the elevator bank. He pushed the button and waited for forty seconds until the doors opened.
“Basement,” he told the operator. The elevators all had operators. Elevators were too good a potential dead-drop location to leave unattended. Even then, the operators were trained to look for brush-passes. Nobody was trusted in this building. There were too many secrets to be had. If there were one single place in the Soviet Union in which an enemy would want to place a penetration agent, this building was it, and so everyone looked at everyone else in some sort of black game, always watching, measuring every conversation for an inner meaning. Men made friends here as they did in every walk of life. They chatted about their wives and children, about sports and weather, about whether to buy a car or not, about getting a dacha in the country for the lucky ones with seniority. But rarely did men chat about work, except with their immediate workmates, and then only in conference rooms where such things were supposed to be discussed. It never occurred to Rozhdestvenskiy that these institutional restrictions reduced productivity and might actually hinder the efficiency of his agency. That circumscription was just part of the institutional religion of the Committee for State Security.
He had to pass a security checkpoint to enter the communications room. The watch NCO checked his photo pass and waved him through without much in the way of acknowledgment.
Rozhdestvenskiy had been here before, of course, often enough that he was known by face and name to the senior operators, and he knew them. The desks were arranged with a lot of space between them, and the background noise of the teleprinters prevented ordinary conversation from being overheard at a distance of more than three or four meters, even by the most sensitive ears. This, and nearly everything else about the arrangement of the room, had evolved over the years until the security provisions were as close to perfect as anyone could imagine, though that didn’t keep the efficiency experts on the third floor from wandering about with their scowls, always looking for something wrong. He walked to the desk of the senior communications watch .officer.
“Oleg Ivanovich,” he said in greeting.
Zaitzev looked up to see his fifth visitor of the young day, the fifth visitor and the fifth interruption. It was often a curse being the senior watch officer here, especially on the morning shift. The overnight watch was boring, but at least you could work in a straight line.
“Yes, Colonel, what can I do for you this morning?” he asked pleasantly, junior officer to senior.
“A special message to Station Rome, personal to the rezident. I think a one-time pad for this one. I’d prefer that you handle it yourself.” Instead of having a cipher clerk do the encryption, he didn’t say. This was somewhat unusual, and it pricked Zaitzev’s interest. He would have to see it anyway. Eliminating the cipher clerk just halved the number of people that would see this particular message.
“Very well.” Captain Zaitzev took up a pad and pencil. “Go on.”
“Most Secret. IMMEDIATE AND URGENT.
FROM Moscow CENTRE, OFFICE OF CHAIRMAN.
To COLONEL RUSLAN BORISSOVICH GODERENKO, REZIDENT, ROME.
MESSAGE FOLLOWS: ASCERTAIN AND REPORT MEANS OF GETTING PHYSICALLY CLOSE TO THE POPE. ENDS.”
“That’s all?” Zaitzev asked, surprised. “And if he asks what that means? It’s not very clear in its intent.”
“Ruslan Borissovich will understand what it means,” Rozhdestvenskiy assured him. He knew that Zaitzev wasn’t asking anything he shouldn’t. One-time cipher pads were a nuisance to use, and so messages sent that way were supposed to be explicit in all details, lest the back-and-forth clarification messages compromise the communications links. As it was, this message would be telexed, and so was certain to be intercepted, and equally certain to be recognized by its formatting as a one-time-pad encipherment, hence a message of some importance. American and British code-breakers would probably attack it, and everyone was wary of them and their clever tricks. The West’s damned intelligence agencies worked so closely together.