“Very well. What needs to be done?”
“First of all, the DS operates under political guidance. The section that Colonel Strokov commands operates with few written records, but it is directly controlled by the Bulgarian Politburo. So we would have to get political authorization, which necessarily means approval from our own political leadership. The Bulgarians will not authorize their cooperation without an official request from our government. After that, it’s actually a straightforward operation.”
“I see.” Andropov went silent for half a minute or so. There was a Politburo meeting the day after tomorrow. Was it too soon to float this mission? he wondered. How difficult might it be to make his case? He’d have to show them the Warsaw Letter, and they would not be the least bit pleased by it. He’d have to present it in such a way as to make the urgency of the matter plain and… frightening to them.
Would they be frightened? Well, he could help them along that path, couldn’t he? Andropov pondered the question for a few more seconds and came to a favorable conclusion.
“Anything else, Colonel?”
“It hardly needs saying that operational security must be airtight. The Vatican has its own highly effective intelligence service. It would be a mistake to underestimate their capabilities,” Bubovoy warned. “Therefore, our Politburo and the Bulgarians must know that this matter cannot be discussed outside of their own number. And for our side, that means no one, even in the Central Committee or the Party Secretariat. The smallest leak would be ruinous to the mission. But, at the same time,” he went on, “we have much working for us. The Pope necessarily cannot isolate himself, nor can he be protected as we or any other nation-state would do with such a threat to its chief of state. In an operational sense, he is, actually, rather a ‘soft’ target—if, that is, we can find an assassin willing to risk his life to get sufficiently close to take his shot.”
“So, if I can get authorization from the Politburo, and then we make the request for assistance from our Bulgarian brothers, and then you can get this Colonel Strokov moving, how long before it actually happens?”
“A month, I should think, perhaps two months, but not more than that. We would need some support from Station Rome, for issues of timing and such, but that’s all. Our own hands would be entirely clean—especially if Strokov assists in eliminating the assassin immediately upon completion of his mission.”
“You’d want this Strokov fellow to act personally?”
“Da.” Bubovoy nodded. “Boris Andreyevich is not averse to getting his hands wet. He’s done this sort of thing before.”
“Very well.” Andropov looked down at his desk. “There will be no written records of this operation. Once I have proper authorization, you will receive notice to proceed from my office, but only by operational code, and that is 15-8-82-666. Any complex information will be relayed by messenger or by face-to-face contact only. Is that clear?”
“It is clear, Comrade Chairman. Nothing gets written down except the operation number. I expect I will be flying a good deal between Sofia and Moscow, but that is not a problem.”
“The Bulgarians are trustworthy?” Andropov asked, suddenly worried.
“Yes, they are, Comrade Chairman. We have a long-standing operational relationship with them, and they are expert at this sort of thing—more than we are, in fact. They have had more practice. When someone must die, it’s often the Bulgars who take care of matters for us.”
“Yes, Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy has told me that. I just have no direct knowledge of it.”
“You could, of course, meet with Colonel Strokov any time you wish,” Bubovoy suggested.
Andropov shook his head. “Better that I should not, I think.”
“As you wish, Comrade Chairman.” That figures, Bubovoy thought. Andropov was a party man, not used to getting his hands dirty. Politicians were all the same—bloodthirsty, but personally tidy, depending on others to carry out their nasty wishes. Well, that was his job, the colonel decided, and since politicians controlled the good things in his society, he needed to please them to get the honey from the hive. And he had as big a sweet tooth as anyone else in the Soviet Union. At the end of this mission might be general’s stars, a nice flat in Moscow—even a modest dacha in the Lenin Hills. He’d be glad to return to Moscow, and so would his wife. If the price of it was the death of some foreigner who was a political inconvenience to his country, well, that was just too bad. He should have been more careful about who he was offending.
“Thank you for coming and for giving me your expertise, Comrade Colonel. You will be hearing from me.”
Bubovoy stood. “I serve the Soviet Union,” he said, and made his way through the hidden door.
Rozhdestvenskiy was in the secretaries’ room, waiting for him.
“How did it go, Ilya?”
“I am not sure I am allowed to say” was the guarded reply.
“If this is about Operation -666, then you are allowed, Ilya Fedorovich,” Rozhdestvenskiy assured him, leading him out the door into the corridor.
“Then the meeting went well, Aleksey Nikolay’ch. More than that, I can only say with the Chairman’s approval.” This might be a security test, after all, however much a friend Rozhdestvenskiy might be.
“I told him you could be relied upon, Ilya. This could be good for both of us.”
“We serve, Aleksey, just like everybody else in this building.”
“Let me get you to your car. You can make the noon flight easily.” A few minutes later, he was back in Andropov’s office.
“Well?” the Chairman asked.
“He says the meeting went well, but he will not say another word with out your permission. Ilya Fedorovich is a serious professional, Comrade Chairman. Am I to be your contact for the mission? ”
“Yes, you are, Aleksey,” Andropov confirmed. “I will send a signal to that effect.” Andropov didn’t feel the need to run the operation himself. His was a big-picture mind, not an operational one. “What do you know of this Colonel Boris Strokov?”
“Bulgarian? The name is familiar. He’s a senior intelligence officer who has in the past specialized in assassination operations. He has ample experience—and obviously Ilya knows him well.”
“How does one specialize in assassinations?” the Chairman asked. It was an aspect of the KGB he hadn’t been briefed in on.
“His real work is something else, obviously, but the DS has a small group of officers with experience in this sort of thing. He is the most experienced. His operational record is flawless. If memory serves, he’s personally eliminated seven or eight people whose deaths were necessary—mostly Bulgarians, I think. Probably a Turk or two as well, but no Westerners that I know of.”
“Is it difficult to do?” Yuriy Vladimirovich asked.
“I have no such experience myself,” Rozhdestvenskiy admitted. He didn’t add that he didn’t especially want any. “Those who do say that their concern is not so much in accomplishing the mission as in completing it—that is, avoiding police investigation afterwards. Modern police agencies are fairly effective at investigating murders, you see. In this case, you can expect a most vigorous investigation.”
“Bubovoy wants this Strokov fellow to go on the mission and then eliminate the assassin immediately afterward.”
Rozhdestvenskiy nodded thoughtfully. “That makes good sense. We have discussed that option ourselves, as I recall.”
“Yes.” Andropov closed his eyes for a moment. Again, the image paraded itself before his mind. Certainly it would solve a lot of political problems. “Yes, my next job will be to get the Politburo’s approval for the mission.”
“Quickly, Comrade Chairman?” Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy asked, unable to contain his curiosity.
“Tomorrow afternoon, I think.”
DOWN IN COMMUNICATIONS, Zaitzev had allowed his daily routine to absorb his consciousness. It suddenly struck him how mindless his job was. They wanted this job to be done by machines, and he’d become that machine. He had it all committed to memory, which operational designator went to which case officer upstairs and what the operations were all about. So much information slid into his mind along the way that it rather amazed him. It had happened so gradually that he’d never really noticed. He noticed now.
But it was 15-8-82-666 that kept swimming around his mind…
“Zaitzev?” a voice asked. The communicator turned to see Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy.
“Yes, Comrade Colonel?”
“A dispatch for rezident Sofia.” He handed across the message form, properly made out.
“On the machine or the pad, comrade?”
The colonel paused for a moment, weighing the two options. He came down on the side of consistency: “The pad, I think.”
“As you wish, Comrade Colonel. I will have it out in a few minutes.”
“Good. It will be waiting for Bubovoy when he gets back to his desk.” He made the comment without thinking about it. People all over the world talk too much, and no amount of training can entirely stop them from doing so.