“General, please remember that I am your friend in the government,” Golovko reminded him. Which was just as well. The Defense Minister was—well, he spoke the right words, but he wasn’t really able to think the right thoughts. He could repeat what others told him, and that was about it. In that sense, he was the perfect politician.
“Thank you, Sergey Nikolay’ch.” The general inclined his head with the proper respect. “Does that mean that I can count upon some of these riches that Fate has dropped into our lap?”
“At the proper time I will make the proper recommendation to the president.”
By that time, I will be retired, writing my memoirs, or whatever the hell a Russian general is supposed to do, Bondarenko told himself. But at least I can try to get the necessary programs drafted for my successors, and perhaps help choose the right man to follow me into the operations directorate. He didn’t expect to go any further than he already had. He was chief of operations (which included training) for his army, and that was as fine a goal as any man could ask for his career.
“Thank you, Comrade Minister. I know your job is also difficult. So, is there anything I need to know about the Chinese?”
Minister Golovko wished he could tell this general that SVR didn’t have a decent pipeline into the PRC anymore. Their man, a second-deputy minister, long in the employ of the KGB, had retired on grounds of ill health.
But he could not make the admission that the last Russian source inside the Forbidden City was no longer operational, and with him had gone all the insights they needed to evaluate the PRC’s long-term plans and intentions. Well, there was still the Russian ambassador in Beijing, and he was no one’s fool, but a diplomat saw mainly what the host government wanted him to see. The same was true of the military, naval, and air attachés, trained intelligence officers all, but also limited to what the Chinese military wished them to see, and even that had to be reciprocated every step of the way in Moscow, as though in some elegant international waltz. No, there was no substitute for a trained intelligence officer running agents who looked inside the other government, so that he, Golovko, could know exactly what was going on and report on it to his president. It wasn’t often that Golovko had to report that he did not know enough, but it had happened in this ease, and he would not confess his shortcomings to this soldier, senior one or not.
“No, Gennady Iosifovich, I have nothing to indicate that the Chinese seek to threaten us.”
“Comrade Minister, the discoveries in Siberia are too vast for them not to consider the advantage to be had from seizing them. In their place, I would draw up the necessary plans. They import oil, and these new fields would obviate that necessity, and make them rich in the foreign exchange they seek. And the gold, Comrade, speaks for itself, does it not?”
“Perhaps.” Golovko nodded. “But their economy seems healthy at the moment, and wars are not begun by those already rich.”
“Hitler was prosperous enough in 1941. That did not prevent him from driving his army to within sight of this building,” the chief of operations for the Russian army pointed out. “If your neighbor has an apple tree, sometimes you will pick an apple even if your belly is full. Just for the taste, perhaps,” Bondarenko suggested.
Golovko couldn’t deny the logic of that. “Gennady Josifovich, we are of a kind. We both look out for dangers even when they are not obvious. You would have made a fine intelligence officer.”
“Thank you, Comrade Minister.” The three-star toasted his host with his almost empty vodka glass. “Before I leave my office, it is my hope to lay before my successor a plan, the accomplishment of which will make our country invulnerable to attack from any country. I know I will not be able myself to make that happen, but I will be grateful for the ability to set a firm plan in place, if our political leadership can see the merit of our ideas.” And that was the real problem, wasn’t it? The Russian army might be able to deal with external enemies. It was the internal ones which formed the really intractable problem. You usually knew where your enemy stood, because you faced them. Where your friends stood was more difficult, because they were usually behind you.
“I will make sure you present the case yourself to the cabinet. But”—Golovko held up his hand—”you must wait for the right moment.”
“I understand, and let us hope the Chinese allow us the time for that moment.” Golovko tossed off the last of his drink and rose. “Thanks for letting me come in to bare my heart to you, Comrade Chairman.”
“So, where is he?” Provalov demanded.
“I do not know,” Abramov replied tiredly. “We’ve identified one person who claims to know him, but our informant has no idea where he lives.”
“Very well. What do you know?” Moscow asked St. Petersburg.
“Our informant says that Suvorov is former KGB, RIF’d in 1996 or so, that he lives, probably, in St. Petersburg—but if that is true, he does so under an assumed name and false documents, or ‘Suvorov’ is itself a false name. I have a description. Male, fifty or so, average height and build. Thinning blond hair. Regular features. Blue eyes. Physically fit. Unmarried. Thought to frequent prostitutes. I have some people asking around those women for more information. Nothing yet,” the St. Petersburg investigator replied.
This is amazing, Lieutenant Provalov thought. All the resources we have, and we can‘t develop a single reliable piece of information. Was he chasing ghosts? Well, he had five of those already. Avseyenko, Maria Ivanovna Sablin, a driver whose name he couldn’t remember at the moment, and the two putative Spetsnaz killers, Pyotr Alekseyevich Amalrik and Pavel Borissovich Zimyanin. Three blown up spectacularly during a morning rush hour, and two murdered in St. Petersburg after having done the job—but killed for succeeding or failing?
“Well, let me know when you develop anything.”
“I will do that, Oleg Gregoriyevich,” Abramov promised.
The militia lieutenant hung up his phone and cleared his desk, putting all his “hot” files into the locked drawer, then he walked downstairs to his official car and drove to his favorite bar. Reilly was inside, and waved when he came through the door. Provalov hung up his coat on a hook and walked over to shake hands. He saw that a drink was waiting for him.
“You are a true comrade, Mishka,” the Russian said to his American friend as he took his first slug.
“Hey, I know the problem, pal,” the FBI agent said sympathetically.
“It is this way for you as well.”
“Hell, when I was a brand-new brick agent, I started working the Gotti case. We busted our asses bagging that lowlife. Took three juries to put him in Marion. He’s never coming back. Marion is a particularly nasty prison.” Though “nasty” in American terms was different from the Russian. Russian prisons didn’t really bear thinking about, though Reilly didn’t worry much about that. People who broke the law in any society knew about the possible consequences going in, and what happened when they got caught was their problem, not his. “So, what’s the story?”
“This Suvorov. We can’t find him. Mishka, it is as if he doesn’t exist.”
“Really?” It both was and was not a surprise to Reilly. The former, because Russia, like many European societies, kept track of people in ways that would have started a Second American Revolution. The cops here were supposed to know where everybody lived, a carryover from the Bad Old Days when KGB had kept a third of the population as informers on the other two-thirds. It was an uncommon situation for the local cops not to be able to find someone.
The situation was not surprising, however, because if this Suvorov mutt really was a former KGB officer, then he’d been expertly trained to disappear, and that sort of adversary didn’t just die of the dumbs, like most American and Russian hoods did. Nor would he die from talking too much. Your average criminals acted—well, like criminals. They bragged too much, and to the wrong people, other criminals for the most part, who had the loyalty of rattlesnakes and would sell out a “friend” as readily as taking a piss. No, this Suvorov guy, if he was who and what the informants said he was, was a pro, and they made interesting game for interesting hunts, and usually long hunts at that.
But you always got them in the end, because the cops never stopped looking, and sooner or later, he’d make a mistake, maybe not a big one, but big enough. He wouldn’t be hanging with his former buds in KGB, people who would help keep him hidden, and would only talk among themselves and then not much. No, he was in a different milieu now, not a friendly one, not a safe one, and that was just too damned bad. Reilly had occasionally felt a certain sympathy for a criminal, but never for a killer. There were some lines you just couldn’t cross.