The ground crew supporting the mission had also been deployed from the Moscow area. As soon as the M-5 rolled to a stop, the film cassettes were unloaded and driven to the portable film lab for development, then forwarded, still wet, to the interpreters. They saw few tanks, but lots of tracks in the ground, and that was all they needed to see.
C H A P T E R – 49
Disarming
“I know, Oleg. I understand that we developed the intelligence in Washington and forwarded it to your people immediately,” Reilly said to his friend.
“You must be proud of that,” Provalov observed.
“Wasn’t the Bureau that did it,” Reilly responded. The Russians would be touchy about having Americans provide them with such sensitive information. Maybe Americans would have reacted the same way. “Anyway, what are you going to do about it?”
“We’re trying to locate his electronic correspondents. We have their addresses, and they are all on Russian-owned ISPs. FSS probably has them all identified by now.”
“Arrest them when?”
“When they meet Suvorov. We have enough to make the arrests now.”
Reilly wasn’t sure about that. The people Suvorov wanted to meet could always say that they came to see him by invitation without having a clue as to the purpose of the meeting, and a day-old member of the bar could easily enough sell the “reasonable doubt” associated with that to a jury. Better to wait until they all did something incriminating, and then squeeze one of them real hard to turn state’s evidence on the rest. But the rules and the juries were different here.
Anatoliy, what are you thinking about?” Golovko asked. “Comrade Chairman, I am thinking that Moscow has suddenly become dangerous,” Major Shelepin replied. “The idea of former Spetsnaz men conspiring to commit treason on this scale sickens me. Not just the threat, but also the infamy of it. These men were my comrades in the army, trained as I was to be guardians of the State.” The handsome young officer shook his head.
“Well, when this place was the KGB, it happened to us more than once. It is unpleasant, yes, but it is reality. People are corruptible. It is human nature,” Golovko said soothingly. Besides, the threat isn’t against me now, he didn’t add. An unworthy thought, perhaps, but that also was human nature. “What is President Grushavoy’s detail doing now?”
“Sweating, I should imagine. Who can say that this is the only threat? What if this Kong bastard has more than one such agent in Moscow? We should pick him up, too.”
“So we shall, when the time comes. He’s been observed to do only one dead-drop over the past week, and we control that one—yes, yes, I know,” Sergey added, when he saw the beginnings of Anatoliy’s objections. “He isn’t the only MSS operative in Moscow, but he’s probably the only one on this case. Security considerations are universal. They must worry that one of their officers might be in our employ, after all. There are many wheels in such an operation, and they don’t all turn in the same direction, my young friend. You know what I miss?”
“I should imagine it is having the second chief directorate under the same roof. That way the operation would be run cooperatively.”
Golovko smiled. “Correct, Anatoliy Ivan’ch. For now, we can only do our job and wait for others to do theirs. And, yes, waiting is never an entertaining way to spend one’s time.” With that observation, both men resumed staring at the desk phones, waiting for them to ring.
The only reason that surveillance hadn’t been tightened any more was that there wasn’t enough room for the additional personnel, and Suvorov might take note of the thirty people who followed him everywhere. That day he awoke at his normal hour, washed up, had coffee and kasha for breakfast, left the apartment building at 9:15, and drove his car into the city, with a good deal of elusive company. He parked his car two blocks from Gor’kiy Park and walked the rest of the way there. So did four others, also under surveillance. They met at a magazine kiosk at precisely 9:45 and walked together toward a coffee shop that was disagreeably crowded, too much so for any of the watchers to get close enough to listen in, though the faces were observed. Suvorov/Koniev did most of the talking, and the other four listened intently, and nods started.
Yefremov of the Federal Security Service kept his distance. He was senior enough that he could no longer guarantee that his face was unknown, and had to trust the more junior men to get in close, their earpieces removed and radio transmitters turned off, wishing they could read lips like the people in spy movies.
For Pavel Georgiyevich Yefremov, the question was, what to do now? Arrest them all and risk blowing the case—or merely continue to shadow, and risk having them go forward . . . and perhaps accomplish the mission?
The question would be answered by one of the four contacts. He was the oldest of them, about forty, a Spetsnaz veteran of Afghanistan with the Order of the Red Banner to his name. His name was Igor Maximov. He held up his hand, rubbing forefinger and thumb, and, getting the answer to his question, he shook his head and politely took his leave. His departure was a cordial one, and his personal two-man shadow team followed him to the nearest Metro station while the others continued talking.
On learning this, Yefremov ordered him picked up. That was done when he got off the Metro train five kilometers away at the station near his flat, where he lived with his wife and son. The man did not resist and was unarmed. Docile as a lamb, he accompanied the two FSS officers to their headquarters.
“Your name is Maximov, Igor Il’ych,” Yefremov told him. “You met with your friend Suvorov, Klementi Ivan’ch, to discuss participation in a crime. We want to hear your version of what was discussed.”
“Comrade Yefremov, I met some old friends for coffee this morning and then I left. Nothing in particular was discussed. I do not know what you are talking about.”
“Yes, of course,” the FSS man replied. “Tell me, do you know two former Spetsnaz men like yourself, Amalrik and Zimyanin?”
“I’ve heard the names, but I don’t know the faces.”
“Here are the faces.” Yefremov handed over the photos from the Leningrad Militia. “They are not pleasant to look upon.”
Maximov didn’t blanch, but he didn’t look at the photos with affection either. “What happened to them?”
“They did a job for your comrade, Suvorov, but he was evidently displeased with how they went about it, and so, they went swimming in the River Neva. Maximov, we know that you were Spetsnaz. We know that you earn your living today doing illegal things, but that is not a matter of concern to us at the moment. We want to know exactly what was said at the coffee shop. You will tell us this, the easy way or the hard way. The choice is yours.” When he wanted to, Yefrernov could come on very hard to his official guests. In this case, it wasn’t difficult. Maximov was not a stranger to violence, at least on the giving side. The receiving side was something he had no wish to learn about.
“What do you offer me?”
“I offer you your freedom in return for your cooperation. You left the meeting before any conclusions were reached. That is why you are here. So, do you wish to speak now, or shall we wait a few hours for you to change your mind?”
Maximov was not a coward—Spetsnaz didn’t have many of those, in Yefremov’s experience—but he was a realist, and realism told him that he had nothing to gain by noncooperation.
“He asked me and the others to participate in a murder. I presume it will be a difficult operation, otherwise why would he need so many men? He offers for this twenty thousand euros each. I decided that my time is more valuable than that.”
“Do you know the name of the target?”
Maximov shook his head. “No. He did not say. I did not ask.”
“That is good. You see, the target is President Grushavoy.” That got a reaction, as Maximov’s eyes flared.
“That is state treason,” the former Spetsnaz sergeant breathed, hoping to convey the idea that he’d never do such a thing. He learned fast.
“Yes. Tell me, is twenty thousand euros a good price for a murder?”
“I would not know. If you want me to tell you that I have killed for money, no, Comrade Yefremov, I will not say that.”
But you have, and you’d probably participate in this one if the price went high enough. In Russia, E20,000 was a considerable sum. But Yefremov had much bigger fish to fry. “The others at the meeting, what do you know of them?”