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Because he was a Russian, the alert involved SE Division as well, and Harry Gaunt suggested a new face be put in front of Kruglov. As he spoke Spanish and Russian, he suggested Jason Monk. Jordan agreed.

It was a simple enough task. Kruglov had only a month to go. In the words of the song, it was now or never.

Five years after the Falklands War, with democracy restored to Argentina, Buenos Aires was a relaxed capital and it was easy for the American “businessman,” partnering a girl from the American Embassy, to meet Kruglov at a reception. Monk made sure they got on well and suggested a dinner.

The Russian, who as First Secretary had considerable freedom from his ambassador and the KGB, found the idea of dining with someone outside the diplomatic circuit attractive. Over dinner, Monk borrowed from the real-life story of his former French teacher, Mrs. Brady. He explained that his mother had been an interpreter with the Red Army and after the fall of Berlin had met and fallen in love with a young American officer. Against all the rules, they had slipped away and married in the West. Thus in the parental home, Monk had been brought up to speak English and Russian with equal fluency. After that, they dropped into Russian. Kruglov found it a relief. His Spanish was excellent but his English a strain.

Within two weeks, Kruglov’s real problem had emerged. At forty-three, divorced but with two teenage children, he was still sharing an apartment with his parents. If only he had a sum close to $20,000 he could acquire his own small flat in Moscow. As a wealthy polo player, down in Argentina to check out some new ponies, Monk would be happy to lend his new friend the money.

The Chief of Station proposed photographing the handover of the cash but Monk demurred.

“Blackmail won’t work. He either comes as a volunteer or he won’t come.”

Although Monk was junior, the Chief of Station agreed it was his ball game. The “play” Monk used was the enlightened-against-the-warmongers theme. Mikhail Gorbachev, he pointed out, was hugely popular in the States. This Kruglov already knew and it gratified him. He was very much a Gorbachev man.

Gorby, suggested Monk, was genuinely trying to dismantle the war machine and bring peace and trust between their two peoples. The trouble was, there were still entrenched Cold War warriors on both sides, even right in the heart of the Soviet Foreign Ministry. They would try to sabotage the process. It would be so helpful if Kruglov could alert his new pal to what was really going on inside Moscow’s Foreign Ministry. Kruglov must have known by then to whom he was talking, but he evinced no surprise.

To Monk, who had already developed a passion for game fishing, it was like pulling in a tuna that had accepted the inevitable. Kruglov got his dollars, and a communications package. Details of personal plans, position, and access should be sent in secret ink on a harmless letter to a live letter box in East Berlin. Hard intelligence—documents—should be photographed and passed to the CIA Moscow via one of two drops in the city.

They embraced when they parted, Russian-style.

“Don’t forget, Valeri,” said Monk. “We ... us … we, the good guys, are winning. Soon all this nonsense will be over and we will have helped it happen. If ever you need me, just call and I’ll come.”

Kruglov flew home to Moscow and Monk returned to Langley.

¯

“BORIS, here. I’ve got it!”

“Got what?”

“The photograph. The picture you wanted. The file came back to Homicide. I pinched one of the best prints in the bunch. The eyes are closed so it doesn’t look so bad.”

“Good, Boris. Now I have in my jacket pocket an envelope with five hundred pounds in it. But there’s something else I need you to do. Then that envelope grows fatter. It contains one thousand British pounds.”

In his phone booth Inspector Novikov took a deep breath. He could not even work out how many hundreds of millions of rubles that sort of envelope could buy. Over a year’s salary anyway.

“Go on.”

“I want you to go to see the director in charge of all personnel and staff at the headquarters of the UPF Party and show it to him.”

“The what?”

“The Union of Patriotic Forces.”

“What the hell have they got to do with it?”

“I don’t know. Just an idea. He might have seen the man before.”

“Why should he?”

“I don’t know, Boris. He might have. It’s just an idea.”

“What excuse do I give?”

“You’re a homicide detective. You’re on a case. You’re following a lead. The man may have been seen hanging around party headquarters. Perhaps he was trying to break in. Did any of the guards see him lurking about in the street. That sort of thing.”

“All right. But these are important people. If I get busted, it’s your fault.”

“Why should you get busted? You’re a humble cop doing his job. This desperado was seen in the neighborhood of Mr. Komarov’s dacha off Kiselny Boulevard. It’s your duty to bring it to their attention, even if he’s dead. He might have been part of a gang. He might have been casing the joint. You’re watertight. Just do it, and the thousand pounds is yours.”

Yevgeni Novikov grumbled some more and hung up. These Anglichani, he reflected, were bloody mad. The old fool had only broken into one of their flats, after all. But for a thousand pounds, it was worth the trouble of asking.

Moscow, October 1987

COLONEL Anatoli Grishin was frustrated, as in the manner of one whose high point of achievement was seemingly over, with nothing more to do.

The last of the interrogations of the agents betrayed by Ames was long over, the last drop of recollection and information squeezed from the trembling men. There had been twelve of them living in the weeping basements below Lefortovo, to be brought up on demand to confront the question masters from the First and Second Chief Directorates, or taken back to Grishin’s special room in the event of recalcitrance or loss of memory.

Two, against Grishin’s pleading, had received only long terms in labor camps instead of death. This was because they had worked only a very short time for the CIA or been too lowly to have done much damage. The rest had received their death sentences. Nine had been executed, taken to the graveled courtyard behind the sequestered prison wing, forced to kneel and to await the bullet into the back of the brain. Grishin had been present as senior officer on all occasions.

Only one remained alive, on Grishin’s insistence, and he was the oldest of them all. General Dmitri Polyakov had worked for America for twenty years before he was betrayed. He had in fact been in retirement after returning to Moscow in 1980 for the last time.

He had never taken money; he did it because he was disgusted by the Soviet regime and the things it did. And he told them so. He sat upright in his chair and told them what he thought of them and what he had done for twenty years. He showed more dignity and courage than all the others. He never pleaded. Because he was so old, nothing he had to say was of current value anyway. He knew of no ongoing operations nor did he have names other than of CIA handlers themselves retired.

When it was over, Grishin hated the old general so much he kept him alive for special treatment. Now the pensioner lay in his excrement on his concrete slab and wept. Now and again Grishin looked in to make sure. It would not be until March 15, 1988, that at General Boyarov’s insistence he was finally finished off.

“The point is, my dear colleague,” Boyarov told Grishin that month, “there is nothing more to do. The Ratcatcher Commission must be disbanded.”

“There is surely still this other man, the one they talk of in the First Chief Directorate, the one who handles traitors here but who has not been caught.”

“Ah, the one they cannot find. Always references, but not one of the traitors had ever heard of him.”

“And if we catch his people?” asked Grishin.

“Then we catch them, and we make them pay,” said Boyarov, “and if that happens, if Yazenevo’s man in Washington can give them to us, you can reconvene your people and start again. You can even rename yourselves. You can be called the Monakh Committee.”

Grishin did not get the point, but Boyarov did, and laughed uproariously.
Monakh
is the Russian for monk.

¯

IF Pavel Volsky thought he had heard the last of the forensic pathologist at the morgue, he was wrong. His phone rang the same morning his friend Novikov was talking covertly to an officer of British Intelligence, August 7.

“Kuzmin here,” said a voice. Volsky was puzzled.

“Professor Kuzmin, Second Medical Institute. We spoke a few days ago about my postmortem on a John Doe.”

“Oh, yes, Professor, how can I help you?”

“I think it’s the other way round. I may have something for you.”

“Well, thank you, what is it?”

“Last week a body was pulled out of the Moskva at Lytkarino.”

“Surely, that’s their business, not ours?”

“It would have been, Volsky, but some smartass down there reckoned the body had been in the water for about two weeks—he was right, actually—and that in that time it probably floated down the current from Moscow. So the bastards shipped it back here. I’ve just finished with it.”

Volsky thought. Two weeks in the water in high summer. The professor must have a stomach like a concrete mixer.

“Murdered?” he asked.

“On the contrary. Wearing only undershorts. Almost certainly went for a swim in the heat wave, got into trouble, and drowned.”

“But that’s an accident. The Civil Authority. I’m Homicide,” protested Volsky.

“Listen, young man. Just listen. Normally there would be no identification. But those fools at Lytkarino failed to spot something. The fingers were so swollen they didn’t see it. Hidden by the flesh. A wedding band. Solid gold. I removed it—had to take the finger off, actually. Inside are the words:
N. I. Akopov, from Lidia.
Good, eh?”

“Very good, Professor, but if it’s not a homicide …”

“Listen, do you ever have anything to do with Missing Persons?”

“Of course. They send around a folio of pictures every week to see if I can make a match.”

“Well, a man with a big gold wedding band might have family. And if he’s been missing for three weeks they might have reported it. I just thought you could benefit from my detective genius by scoring some brownie points with your friends in Missing Persons. I don’t know anyone in Missing Persons, so I called you.”

Volsky brightened up. He was always asking favors from Missing Persons. Now he might clear up a case for them and earn some kudos. He noted the details, thanked the professor, and hung up.

His usual contact at Missing Persons came on the line after ten minutes.

“Do you have an MP in the name of N. I. Akopov?” asked Volsky. His contact checked the records and came back.

“Certainly do. Why?”

“Give me the details.”

“Reported missing July seventeenth. Never came home from work the previous night, not been seen since. Reporting party, Mrs. Akopov, next of kin …”

“Mrs. Lidia Akopov?”

“How the hell did you know? She’s been in four times asking for news. Where is he?”

“On a slab in the morgue at Second Medical. Went swimming and drowned. Pulled out of the river last week at Lytkarino.”

“Great. The old lady will be pleased. I mean, to have the mystery solved. You don’t know who he is ... or rather was?”

“No idea,” said Volsky.

“Only the personal private secretary to Igor Komarov.”

“The politician?”

“Our next president, no less. Thanks, Pavel, I owe you one.”

You certainly do, thought Volsky as he got on with his work.

Oman, November 1987

CAREY Jordan was forced to resign that month. It was not the matter of the missing agents. It was Iran-Contra. Years earlier the CIA had covertly sold arms to Iran to fund the Nicaraguan rebels. The order had come from President Reagan via the late CIA director Bill Casey. Carey Jordan had carried out the demands of his president and his director. Now one had amnesia and the other was dead.

Webster appointed as the new Deputy Director Ops a retired CIA veteran Richard Stoltz who had been gone for six years. As such, he was clean of any involvement in Iran-Contra. He also knew nothing of the devastation of the SE Division two years earlier. While he was finding his feet, the bureaucrats took over in force. Three files were removed from the departed DDO’s safe and relogged with the main body, or what was left of it, in the 301 file. They contained the details of agents code-named Lysander, Orion, and a new one, Delphi.

Jason Monk knew none of this. He was on vacation in Oman. Always hunting the sea-angling magazines for new hot spots to fish, he had read of the great shoals of yellowfin tuna that stream past the coast of Oman just outside the capital, Muscat, in November and December.

As a courtesy he had checked in with the tiny one-man CIA station at the embassy in the heart of Old Muscat close to the Sultan’s palace. He never expected to see his CIA colleague again after their friendly drink.

On his third day, having taken too much sun out on the open sea, he elected to stay ashore and do some shopping. He was dating a ravishing blonde from the State Department and went by cab to the souk at Mina Qaboos to see if, among the stalls of incense, spices, fabrics, silver, and antiques he could find something for her.

He settled on an ornate, long-spouted silver coffee pot, forged long ago by some smith high in the Jebel. The antique-shop owner wrapped it and put it in a plastic shopping bag.

Having got himself completely lost in the labyrinth of alleys and courtyards, Monk finally emerged not on the seaward side but somewhere in the back streets. As he came out of an alley no wider than his shoulders, he found himself in a small courtyard with a narrow entrance at one end and an exit at the other. A man was crossing the yard. He looked like a European.

Behind him were two Arabs. As they debouched into the courtyard, each reached to his waist and withdrew a curved dagger. With that they ran past Monk toward their target.