“And Fielding?”
“More. Maybe two or three times.”
“There you have it,” Prince concluded grandly. “You can always tell.”
“You read too many James Bond books,” Foley said dismissively. “Or maybe Matt Helm.”
“Get real, Ed,” Prince bristled with elegant gentleness.
“If Fielding is the head spook, who are his underlings? Damned if I know.”
“Well, those are always pretty covert,” Prince admitted. “No, on that I don’t have a clue.”
“Pity. That’s one of the games you play in the embassy—who are the spooks.”
“Well, I can’t help you.”
“It’s not something I need to know anyway, I guess,” Foley admitted.
You never were curious enough to be a good reporter, Prince thought, with a casual, pleasant smile. “So, does this keep you busy?”
“It’s not a ball-breaker. Anyway, can we make a deal?”
“Sure,” Prince replied. “What is it?”
“If you hear anything interesting, let us know here?”
“You can read about it in the Times, usually on the front page above the fold,” he added, to make sure Foley knew how important he was, along with his penetrating analysis.
“Well, some things, you know, the Ambassador likes to get a heads-up. He told me to ask, off-the-record-like.”
“That’s an ethical issue, Ed.”
“If I tell Ernie that, he won’t be real happy.”
“Well, you work for him. I don’t.”
“You are an American citizen, right?”
“Don’t wave the flag at me, okay?” Prince responded wearily. “Okay, if I find out they’re about to launch nuclear weapons, I’ll let you know. But it looks to me like we’re more likely to do something that stupid than they are.”
“Tony, give me a break.”
“This ‘focus of evil in the world’ crap wasn’t exactly Abe Lincoln talking, was it?”
“You saying the President was wrong?” the Chief of Station asked, wondering just how far his opinion of this ass might sink.
“I know about the Gulag, okay? But that’s a thing of the past. The Russians have mellowed since Stalin died, but the new administration hasn’t figured that one out yet, have they?”
“Look, Tony, I’m just a worker bee here. The Ambassador asked me to forward a simple request. I take it your response is ‘no’?”
“You take it correctly.”
“Well, don’t expect any Christmas cards from Ernie Fuller.”
“Ed, my duty is to The New York Times and my readers, period.”
“Okay, fine. I had to ask,” Foley said defensively. He hadn’t expected anything better from the guy, but he’d suggested this to Ambassador Fuller himself to feel Prince out, and the Ambassador had approved it.
“I understand.” Prince checked his watch. “Hey, I have a meeting scheduled at the CPSU Central Committee building.”
“Anything I ought to know about?”
“Like I said, you can read it in the Times. They fax you the Early Bird out of Washington, don’t they?”
“Yeah, it eventually trickles down here.”
“Then, day after tomorrow, you can read it,” Prince advised, standing to take his leave. “Tell Ernie.”
“I’ll do that,” Foley said, extending his hand. Then he decided he’d walk Prince to the elevator. On the way back, he’d hit the men’s room to wash his hands. His next stop after that was the Ambassador’s office.
“Hi, Ed. Meet with that Prince guy?”
Foley nodded his head. “Just cut him loose.”
“Did he nibble at your hook?”
“Nope. Just spat it right back at me.”
Fuller smiled crookedly. “What did I tell you? There used to be some patriotic reporters back when I was your age, but they’ve mostly grown out of it over the last few years.”
“I’m not surprised. When Tony was a new kid in New York, he never liked the cops very much, but he was good at getting them to talk to him. Persuasive bastard, when he wants to be.”
“Did he work on you?”
“No, sir. I’m not important enough for that.”
“What did you think of the Washington request about the Pope?” Fuller asked, changing the subject.
“I’m going to have some people look into it, but—”
“I know, Ed. I don’t want to know exactly what you’re doing about it. If you find anything, will you be able to tell me about it?”
“Depends, sir,” Foley answered, meaning probably not.
Fuller accepted that. “Okay. Anything else shaking?”
“Prince is on to something, ought to be in the papers day after tomorrow. He’s on his way to the Central Committee, or so he told me. He confirmed that Alexandrov will replace Mikhail Suslov when Red Mike checks out. If they’re telling him, it must be official. I think we can believe that one. Tony has good contacts with their political types, and it tracks with what our other friends tell us about Suslov.”
“I’ve never met the guy. What gives with him?”
“He’s one of the last true believers. Alexandrov is another one. He thinks Marx is the One True God, and Lenin is his prophet, and their political and economic system really does work.”
“Really? Some people never learn.”
“Yep. You can take that to the bank, sir. There are a few left, but Leonid Ilyich isn’t one of them, and neither is his heir apparent, Yuriy Vladimirovich. But Alexandrov is Andropov’s ally. There’s a Politburo meeting later today.”
“When will we know what they discussed?”
“Couple of days, probably.” But exactly how we find out, you do not need to know, sir, Foley didn’t add.
He didn’t have to. Ernie Fuller knew the rules of the game. The U.S. Ambassador to every country was thoroughly briefed on the embassy he was taking over. To get into Moscow involved voluntary brainwashing at Foggy Bottom and Langley. In reality, the American ambassador to Moscow was his country’s chief intelligence officer in the Soviet Union, and Uncle Ernie was a pretty good one, Foley thought.
“Okay, keep me posted if you can.”
“Will do, sir,” the Chief of Station promised.
CHAPTER 13:
COLLEGIALITY
ANDROPOV ARRIVED IN THE KREMLIN at 12:45 for the 1:00 P.M. meeting. His driver pulled the handmade ZIL through the Spasskiy Gate’s towering brick structure, past the security checkpoints, past the saluting soldiers of the ceremonial Tamanskiy Guards Division stationed outside Moscow and used mainly for parades and pretty-soldier duties. The soldier saluted smartly, but the gesture went unnoticed by the people inside the car. From there it was a hundred fifty meters to the destination, where another soldier wrenched open the door. Andropov noted this salute and nodded absently to let the senior sergeant know that he was seen, then made his way inside the yellow-cream-colored building. Instead of taking the stone steps, Andropov turned right to go to the elevator for the ride to the second floor, followed by his aide, Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy, for whom this was the most interesting and about to be the most intimidating part of his official duties since joining KGB.
There was yet more security on the upper floors: uniformed Red Army officers with holstered side arms, in case of trouble. But there would be no trouble in his ascension to the General Secretaryship, Andropov thought. This would be no palace coup. He’d be elected by his political peers in the usual way that the Soviet Union handled the transition of power—awkwardly and badly, but predictably. The one with the most political capital would chair this counsel of peers, because they would trust him not to rule by force of will, but by collegial consensus. None of them wanted another Stalin, or even another Khrushchev, who might lead them on adventures. These men did not enjoy adventures. They’d all learned from history that gambling carried with it the possibility of losing, and none of them had come this far to risk losing anything at all. They were the chieftains in a nation of chess players, for whom victory was something determined by skillful maneuvers taken patiently and progressively over a period of hours, whose conclusion would seem as foreordained as the setting of the sun.
That was one of the problems today, Andropov thought, taking his seat next to Defense Minister Ustinov. Both sat near the head of the table, in the seats reserved for members of the Defense Counsel or Soviet Orborony, the five most senior officials in the entire Soviet government, including the Secretary for Ideology—Suslov. Ustinov looked up from his briefing papers.
“Yuriy,” the minister said in greeting.
“Good day, Dmitriy.” Andropov had already reached his accommodation with the Marshal of the Soviet Union. He’d never obstructed his requests for funding for the bloated and misdirected Soviet military, which was blundering around Afghanistan like a beached whale. It would probably win in the end, everyone thought. After all, the Red Army had never failed… unless you remembered Lenin’s first assault into Poland in 1919, which had ended in an ignominious rout. No, they preferred to remember defeating Hitler after the Germans had come to within sight of the Kremlin itself, stopping only when attacked by Russia’s historically most reliable ally, General Winter. Andropov was not a devotee of the Soviet military, but it remained the security blanket for the rest of the Politburo, because the army made sure the country did what they told it to do. That was not because of love, but because the Red Army had guns in large numbers. So did the KGB, and the Ministry of the Interior, in order to act as a check on the Red Army—no sense giving them ideas. Just to make sure, KGB also had the Third Chief Directorate, whose job it “was to keep an eye on every single rifle company in the Red Army. In other countries, it was called checks and balances. Here it was a balance of terror.