“Greetings, Vanya,” a familiar voice said in English. “I will not ask how you got this number. What can I do for you?”
“Sergey, we need to see you at once on an important matter.”
“What sort of matter?”
“I am the mailman, Sergey. I have a message to deliver to you. It is worthy of your attention. Can Domingo and I see you this evening?”
“Do you know how to get here?”
Clark figured he’d find his way out to the woods. “Just tell the people at the gate to expect two capitalist friends of Russia. Say about an hour from now?”
“I will be waiting.”
“Thank you, Sergey.” Clark replaced the phone. “Where’s the piss-parlor, Barlow?”
“Down the hall on the right.”
The senior field intelligence officer folded the fax and tucked it into his coat pocket. Before having a talk about something like this, he needed a bathroom.
C H A P T E R – 42
Birch Trees
They drove into the sunset, west from the Russian capital. Traffic had picked up in Moscow since his last real adventure here, and you could use the center lane in the wide avenues. Ding handled navigation with a map, and soon they were beyond the ring roads around the Russian capital and entering the hills that surrounded the city. They passed a memorial which neither had ever seen before, three huge—
“What the hell is that?” Ding asked.
“This is as close as the Germans got in 1941,” John explained. “This is where they stopped ’em.”
“What do you call those things?” “Those things” were immense steel I-beams, three of them welded at ninety-degree angles to look like enormous jacks.
“Hedgehogs, but in the SEALs we called ’em horned scullies. Hard to drive a tank over one,” Clark told his younger partner.
“They take their history serious here, don’t they?”
“You would, too, if you stopped somebody who wanted to erase your country right off the map, sonny. The Germans were pretty serious back then, too. It was a very nasty war, that one.”
“Guess so. Take the next right, Mr. C.”
Ten minutes later, they were in a forest of birch trees, as much a part of the Russian soul as vodka and borscht. Soon thereafter they came to a guard shack. The uniformed guard held an AK-74 and looked surprisingly grim. Probably briefed on the threat to Golovko and others, John imagined. But he’d also been briefed on who was authorized to pass, and they only had to show their passports to get cleared, the guard also giving them directions about which country lane to take.
“The houses don’t look too bad,” Chavez observed.
“Built by German POWs,” John told him. “Ivan doesn’t exactly like the Germans very much, but he does respect their workmanship. These were built for the Politburo members, mainly after the war, probably. There’s our place.”
It was a wood-frame house, painted brown and looking like a cross between a German country house and something from an Indiana farm, Clark thought. There were guards here, too, armed and walking around. They’d been called from the first shack, John figured. One of them waved. The other two stood back, ready to cover the first one if something untoward happened.
“You are Klerk, Ivan Sergeyevich?”
“Da,” John answered. “This is Chavez, Domingo Stepanovich.”
“Pass, you are expected,” the guard told them.
It was a pleasant evening. The sun was down now, and the stars were making their appearance in the sky. There was also a gentle westerly breeze, but Clark thought he could hear the ghosts of war here. Hans von Kluge’s panzer grenadiers, men wearing the feldgrau of the Wehrmacht. World War II on this front had been a strange conflict, like modern TV wrestling. No choice between good and bad, but only between bad and worse, and on that score it had been six-five and pick ’em. But their host probably wouldn’t see history that way, and Clark had no intention of bringing up the subject.
Golovko was there, standing on the sheltered porch by the furniture, dressed casually. Decent shirt, but no tie. He wasn’t a tall man, about halfway between Chavez and himself in height, but the eyes always showed intelligence, and now they also showed interest. He was curious about the purpose of this meeting, as well he might be.
“Ivan Sergeyevich,” Golovko said in greeting. Handshakes were exchanged, and the guests conducted inside. Mrs. Golovko, a physician, was nowhere in evidence. Golovko first of all served vodka, and directed them to seats.
“You said you had a message for me.” The language for this meeting was to be English, John saw.
“Here it is.” Clark handed the pages across.
“Spasiba.” Sergey Nikolay’ch sat back in his chair and started to read.
He would have been a fine poker player, John thought. His face changed not at all through the first two pages. Then he looked up.
“Who decided that I needed to see this?” he asked.
“The President,” Clark answered.
“Your Ryan is a good comrade, Vanya, and an honorable man.” Golovko paused. “I see you have improved your human-intelligence capabilities at Langley.”
“That’s probably a good supposition, but I know nothing of the source here, Chairman Golovko,” Clark answered.
“This is, as you say, hot.”
“It is all of that,” John agreed, watching him turn another page.
“Son of a bitch!” Golovko observed, finally showing some emotion.
“Yeah, that’s about what I said,” Chavez entered the conversation.
“They are well-informed. This does not surprise me. I am sure they have ample espionage assets in Russia,” Golovko observed, with anger creeping into his voice. “But this is—this is naked aggression they discuss.”
Clark nodded. “Yep, that’s what it appears to be.”
“This is genuine information?” Golovko asked.
“I’m just the mailman, Chairman,” Clark replied. “I vouch for nothing here.”
“Ryan is too good a comrade to play agent provocateur. This is madness.” And Golovko was telling his guests that he had no good intelligence assets in the Chinese Politburo, which actually surprised John. It wasn’t often that CIA caught the Russians short at anything. Golovko looked up. “We once had a source for such information, but no longer.”
“I’ve never worked in that part of the world, Chairman, except long ago when I was in the Navy.” And the Chinese part of that, he didn’t explain, was mainly getting drunk and laid in Taipei.
“I’ve traveled to Beijing several times in a diplomatic capacity, not recently. I cannot say that I’ve ever really understood those people.” Golovko finished reading the document and set it down. “I can keep this?”
“Yes, sir,” Clark replied.
“Why does Ryan give us this?”
“I’m just the delivery boy, Sergey Nikolay’ch, but I should think the motive is in the message. America does not wish to see Russia hurt.”
“Decent of you. What concessions will you require?”
“None that I am aware of.”
“You know,” Chavez observed, “sometimes you just want to be a good neighbor.”
“At this level of statecraft?” Golovko asked skeptically.
“Why not? It does not serve American interests to see Russia crippled and robbed. How big are these mineral finds, anyway?” John asked.
“Immense,” Golovko replied. “I’m not surprised you’ve learned of them. Our efforts at secrecy were not serious. The oil field is one to rival the Saudi reserves, and the gold mine is very rich indeed. Potentially, these finds could save our economy, could make us a truly wealthy nation and a fit partner for America.”
“Then you know why Jack sent this over. It’s a better world for both of us if Russia prospers.”
“Truly?” Golovko was a bright man, but he’d grown up in a world in which both America and Russia had often wished each other dead. Such thoughts died hard, even in so agile a mind as his.
“Truly,” John confirmed. “Russia is a great nation, and you are great people. You are fit partners for us.” He didn’t add that, this way, America wouldn’t have to worry about bailing them out. Now they’d have the wherewithal to see to their own enrichment, and America needed only offer expertise and advice about how to enter the capitalist world with both feet, and open eyes.
“This from the man who helped arrange the defection of the KGB chairman?” Golovko asked.
“Sergey, as we say at home, that was business, not personal. I don’t have a hard-on for Russians, and you wouldn’t kill an American just for entertainment purposes, would you?”
Indignation: “Of course not. That would be nekulturniy.”
“It is the same with us, Chairman.”
“Hey, man,” Chavez added. “From when I was a teenager, I was trained to kill your people, back when I was an Eleven-Bravo carrying a rifle, but, guess what, we’re not enemies anymore, are we? And if we’re not enemies, then we can be friends. You helped us out with Japan and Iran, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but we saw that we were the ultimate target of both conflicts, and it was in our national interest.”