Program for a Puppet (24 page)

“Is that possible?”

“Very,” Rickard said, his steely blue eyes fiercely intent. “We want the Soviets to back down … we're giving the Chinese those arms….”

On the night of September 30, Brogan Junior, Strasburg and Huntsman met in the HQ war room to discuss the PPP and Paul Mineva's forthcoming trip to Moscow. The corporation had volunteered to help Mineva get media coverage from selected journalists
and TV people by offering to fly them to Moscow. Brogan Senior was already in Moscow on business and preparing Mineva's arrival.

“How many media guys have you gotten on board?” Brogan Junior asked Huntsman.

“Fourteen. About forty correspondents in all will be at the press conference in Moscow.”

“Where'll that be held?” Strasburg asked.

“We're putting on a breakfast at the National on Gorky Street next Friday morning.

“Will it be manageable?” the lawyer asked.

“Soviet officials will cooperate in setting it up. Several Soviet writers will ask the right questions as well. We'll have to let a few questions from outsiders through. But it won't be a problem. We'll have control of who asks what.”

“This Logan Act that Rickard has threatened Mineva with,” Brogan Junior said to Strasburg, “is that bluff?”

“Mineva should let the Soviets answer the controversial questions on foreign policy. But if he gets a difficult one, I think he's experienced enough to get around it.”

Brogan Junior nodded, satisfied that things would run smoothly in Moscow.

“Now I want to turn to the PPP,” he said, punching a button on his control panel. “Rickard's popularity has dropped, but not enough according to the program's analysis. This is despite the fact that Alan has fed the media with all the skeletons we could find on Rickard.”

“That sonofabitch is pretty clean,” Huntsman said. “Makes Billy Graham look like a Mafia boss.”

The latest PPP recommendations had appeared on the screen at the back of the room.

The program suggested fabricating tape-recorded conversations that would appear to involve Rickard in criminal activity.

“But he hardly tapes anything,” Huntsman said, frowning. “Haussermann says he's extremely careful about what he records, even at innocuous staff briefings.”

“So we have to put something together,” Brogan Junior said. “According to the PPP, the right tape made public between now and November 4 could help sway the election.”

“What does the program suggest?” Strasburg asked. Brogan
Junior punched another button and the screen flashed up a list of presidential crimes that could alter voting patterns. At the head of the list was:

INFERENCE OF POLITICAL ASSASSINATION, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE.

“Political assassination,” Huntsman said incredulously. “That's fine for the damned computer to throw up, but how the hell could we fabricate a tape implying Rickard's involvement in that?”

“We have the electronic expertise, don't we?” Brogan Junior said.

“Yes, but we need the right words.”

Brogan punched a button that wiped the PPP off the screen. He turned to Huntsman and said, “Find them!”

Graham was extremely relieved to fly out of Leningrad.

He spent the seventy-minute flight thinking deeply about the three days ahead of him in Moscow.

The Australian felt certain the surveillance on him would continue and this influenced him to decide not to try to meet several contacts lined up in the capital. The risks were too high after the Leningrad incident.

Graham had some misgivings too about letting MI-6 down, because the last thing on his mind now was impersonating Radford. He was not at all confident, either, about the possibility of MI-6's Soviet agent trying to make contact with him. Would they be aware of how tight the surveillance on him was?

As the pilot banked the aircraft steeply for the descent into Sheremetyevo airport many in his tour group gasped at the beauty of sunbathed Moscow, which had been covered by a huge white crochet blanket of snow. Graham hardly noticed it. He was too busy thinking about the bed of professional spies that lay under that blanket, waiting for the callow amateur who was about to join them.

Forty minutes after touchdown, a bus took the new arrivals past farmhouses, villages and tenements, and along roads flanked by massive blocks of modern flats. Entering Moscow from the north, they drove past impressive Sverdlov Square, with its beautiful palms, and along busy Okhotny Street.

The bus rumbled down Mokhayava Street, briefly glimpsed the massive Lenin Library, and finally pulled into Marx Prospect and the National Hotel overlooking the Kremlin, where the tour was staying.

Just as Graham began to unpack in his room, the phone rang. It was Victor, the tour guide. His interest in the Australian had picked up since the request to leave the tour early.

“Are you coming on today's tours?”

“Probably.”

“You have paid for all the tours but sometimes you do not come.”

“Yeah, well, I like to find my own way around sometimes, Victor.”

“As you wish. But we would like to know in advance so the rest of the tour is not held up.”

No sooner had Graham replaced the receiver when it rang again.

“Room 508, Dr. Boulter?”

“Yes.”

“There is a message for you,” a Russian girl on the front desk said. “Mr. Mars Gorsky and his wife will meet you at the front entrance lobby at seven tonight.”

Graham racked his brains for several seconds before it clicked. This was the couple Svetlana had introduced to him at the Hotel Astoria in Leningrad. He vaguely remembered their saying they would look him up when he arrived in Moscow. But he had not told them his arrival date or hotel.

The Moscow screws were being tightened already.

Graham left the hotel at seven and strolled along the streets and in Red Square, stopping for half an hour to watch the changing of the guard at Lenin's Mausoleum.

He wanted to avoid contact with the Gorskys. Anything to do with Svetlana spelled danger to him.

At nine he returned to the National's lobby and moved to the front desk to see if there had been any message. There was a note from the Gorskys to say they would call him later. As he turned from the counter, he recognized a woman standing next to him. It was the one who had been staring at him in the boat restaurant the previous night.

“Could you tell Mr. Sheppard Irena Pavliovic is here, please,” she said in heavily accented English to the sullen female desk clerk.

“There's a note for you from Mr. Sheppard,” the clerk said, handing over a piece of paper from a pigeonhole. The woman read it and pulled a face.

Graham turned away. He thought it must have been another Svetlana connection. But before he had reached the elevator, the woman was behind him, touching his arm.

“Excuse me, don't I know you from somewhere?” she said, studying him intently.

The Australian stared at her, stunned. It was the beginning of the MI-6 contact.

“I'm sure I know you,” the woman continued with a thoughtful smile, “I never forget a face, especially a handsome one.”

Graham forced a grin. “I'm sorry … or …” he faltered, “I don't believe …”

The woman kept looking at his eyes and she said pleasantly, “Forgive me,” and then turned to walk out the front entrance.

The Australian continued on his way to the elevator. It had been too fast, too sudden. Why would they try that in a crowded lobby probably crawling with people just waiting for something suspicious? Then he thought ruefully, only he had acted in an uncertain way. The woman had been so poised, assured. He pressed the call button. The doors opened, three men got out. Graham looked back at the entrance. He could see the woman speaking to a taxi driver at the rank in front of the hotel.

He turned and walked quickly out of the entrance, into the street and over to her.

“I know now,” he said brightly. “What a coincidence. Weren't you on the boat in Leningrad last night?”

The woman looked up with a blank expression at first, and then broke into an enormous grin. She thrust out her hand which Graham held lightly for a moment. “Of course. How marvelous!”

“Would you care for a drink?” Graham said, with as much cool as he could muster. He was aware that several taxi drivers nearby had been watching them.

“I have an appointment right now. Perhaps you would like to join me?” The woman slid into the back seat of the taxi.

“Fine,” Graham said, getting in beside her.

“The Cloud,” she ordered the driver. He started the sluggish black Volga sedan and drove them off on the short ride to Sretenka Street.

The woman introduced herself as Irena and then rapidly acquainted him with the people they were about to meet. One was Kerana Taram, the petite brunette Graham had seen Irena with the night before, and for whom she worked. The other was an American business client of theirs, the managing director of the 3C's company from Minnesota. Irena explained with much gesticulation that Kerana's business company, called Tork International, was in “communications.” It introduced American business to contacts in the Soviet Union, and vice versa. Based in New York, and with branches in Moscow and Los Angeles, it had been started by Kerana. She had been born in Russia, but brought up and educated in the U.S. and was now capitalizing on her background, Irena explained carefully. Her own job, she said, was to act as a liaison between Kerana's company and the power circles of the Soviet government and bureaucracy.

The Cloud restaurant was in a quiet alley. The door was painted in shimmering black and white squares, and above it was a simple, white, mushroom-shaped nuclear cloud. Inside it was opulent and dimly lit for a romantic effect. Heavy black and crimson draperies, all velvet and brocaded and embroidered in gold, hung low in front of the dining area. The carpet was a deep red plush. A violinist dressed in a purple robe played superbly as Irena and Graham moved to the table where Kerana and the American, Bill Sheppard, were in the middle of a meal.

After introductions, and an effusive explanation by Irena of her chance meeting with Graham, Sheppard, a rangy bespectacled man in his early forties, ordered champagne.

A little taken aback when Graham didn't appear to know of the 3C company, he said proudly, “That stands for Computers, Communications and Cybernetics. We're the biggest supplier of peripheral equipment to those three areas that there is.”

Sheppard poured champagne for Irena and Graham and insisted they have some chicken while he and Kerana Taram had dessert. Resuming his conversation with the Australian, he went on, “We supply everything from TV displays to cables and electrical equipment.”

“I guess you must have trouble getting through the red tape here to make a sale,' Graham said. It sounded like polite conversation. Sheppard was finding it hard to contain himself.

“It depends on what you're selling,” he said, lowering his voice, “and what I've got they want. Very, very badly.” He looked across at the two women, now engrossed in conversation in Russian. Sheppard drank his champagne and called for another bottle.

“Christ, man,” he said, “you just have no idea. They're signing on the dotted line. They're desperate to get hold of anything to do with Lasercomp.”

“Lasercomp? What are they doing here?”

“You mean what aren't they doing here!”

“I thought I read somewhere they were not allowed to sell their computers here.”

Sheppard smirked. “That's true, but they're here, believe me, and I'm one of their biggest suppliers.” He took off his coat, loosened his tie and filled all the glasses.

Graham looked skeptical. “NATO wouldn't allow it.”

The American gave a knowing smile. “NATO-shmayto. Let's just say that where there's a will there's a way.”

“How do you get around regulations?”

“We work out just where 3C's equipment would be seen as ‘harmless' and for nonstrategic use, by the U.S. trade department and NATO, and we tell the Russians how to place orders.” He paused to smile and salute the two women who had stopped to listen to the conversation. Kerana seemed perturbed but soon Irena was speaking to her again in Russian. Sheppard, leaning his arm on the back of Graham's chair and breathing alcohol into his ear, said, “You know, the Russians are pretty damned slow on the uptake when it comes to business. I have to say to them, ‘Now, if you want such and such, you have to ask us for it, making sure you stipulate it's for cash registers in stores.' Then a little light goes on above their heads, and we get a request for equipment to go into a store cash register system.”

“That's pretty shrewd, but surely there can't be that much business here. Lasercomp can't have too many computers in the Soviet Union.”

Trying hard to look sober and serious, Sheppard, with his face almost touching Graham's, said, “Don't you believe it. I'm
involved in some very big deals with the chairman of Lasercomp himself this week.”

“Clifford Brogan?”

“Right. And he doesn't deal in peanuts. I'll be signing around fifty million dollars' worth alone this week.”

“No wonder you're celebrating!”

At that point Kerana broke in. She had seemed slightly concerned about what Sheppard was telling the Australian. “Please. Can we go now? We have much business tomorrow …”

Sheppard leaned across the table and gave her a slobbery kiss. Graham smiled at Irena. Her intelligent eyes fleetingly locked on his as they all began to gather their things to leave.

He had waited apprehensively for the words he wanted to hear so much that would have signaled the Radford impersonation was off. But they never came. MI-6's Radford three would be on his way to Moscow tomorrow.

As they hailed taxis outside the restaurant, Irena turned to Graham. “It has been a pleasure to meet you. I would be pleased further if you would join me tomorrow night at the Bolshoi.…”