The Matarese Circle (47 page)

“Involved with
what
, Vasili?”

He did not answer immediately, for he had turned the nude body over. There was a small discoloration of the skin on the lower midsection of the chest, around the area of the heart, barely visible through the matted hair. It was tiny, no more than a half-inch in diameter—the bluish-purple mark was a circle. At first glance it appeared to be a birthmark, a perfectly natural phenomenon, in no way superimposed on the flesh. But it was not natural; it was placed there by a very experienced needle. Old
Krupskaya had said the words as he lay dying:
a man was caught, a bluish circle on his chest, a soldier of the Matarese.

“With this.” Taleniekov separated the black hair on the dead man’s chest so the jagged circle could be seen clearly. “Come here.”

Lodzia got up, walked to the corpse, and knelt down. “What? The birthmark?”

“
Per nostro circolo,
” he said. “It wasn’t there when our Englishman was born. It had to be earned.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will. I’m going to tell you everything I know. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to, but I don’t think there’s a choice now. They might easily kill me. If they do, there’s someone you must reach, I’ll tell you how. Describe this mark, fourth rib, border of the cage, near the heart. It was not meant to be found.”

Lodzia was silent as she looked at the bluish mark on the flesh, and finally at Taleniekov. “Who is ‘they’?”

“They go by the name of the Matarese.…”

He told her. Everything. When he was finished, Lodzia did not speak for a long time, nor did he intrude on her thoughts. For she had heard shocking things, not the least of which was the incredible alliance between Vasili Vasilovich Taleniekov and a man known throughout the KGB world as Beowulf Agate. She walked to the window overlooking the dreary street. She spoke, her face to the glass.

“I imagine you’ve asked this question of yourself a thousand times; I ask it again. Was it necessary to contact Scofield?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Moscow wouldn’t
listen
to you?”

“Moscow ordered my execution. Washington ordered his.”

“Yes, but you say that neither Moscow nor Washington knows about this Matarese. The trap set for you and Beowulf was based on keeping you apart. I can understand that.”

“
Official
Washington and
official
Moscow are blind to the Matarese. Otherwise, someone would have stepped forward in our behalf; we would have been summoned to present what we know—what I brought Scofield. Instead, we’re branded traitors, ordered to be shot on sight,
no provisions made to give us a hearing. The Matarese orchestrated it, using the clandestine apparatuses of both countries.”

“Then this Matarese
is
in Moscow, in Washington.”

“Absolutely. In, but not of. Capable of manipulating, but unseen.”

“Not unseen, Vasili,” objected Lodzia. “The men you spoke to in Moscow—”

“Panicked
old
men,” interrupted Taleniekov. “Dying war horses put out to pasture. Impotent.”

“Then the man Scofield approached. The statesman, Winthrop. What of him?”

“Undoubtedly dead by now.”

Lodzia walked away from the window and stood in front of him. “Then where do you go? You’re cornered.”

Vasili shook his head. “On the contrary, we’re making progress. The first name on the list, Scozzi, was accurate. Now, we have our dead Englishman here. No papers, no proof of who he is or where he came from, but with a mark more telling than a billfold filled with false documents. He was part of their army, which means there’s another soldier here in Leningrad watching an old man who’s curator of literary archives at the Shchedrin Library. I want him almost as much as I want to reach my old friend; I want to break him, get answers. The Matarese are in Leningrad to protect the Voroshins, to conceal the truth. We’re getting closer to that truth.”

“But suppose you
find
it. Whom can you take it to? You cannot protect yourselves because you don’t know who they are.”

“We know who they are not, and that’s enough. The Premier and the President to begin with.”

“You won’t get near them.”

“We will if we have our proof. Beowulf was right about that; we need incontrovertible proof. Will you help us? Help
me?
”

Lodzia Kronescha looked into his eyes, her own softening. She reached up with both her hands and cupped his face. “Vasili Vasilovich. My life had become so uncomplicated, and now you return.”

“I didn’t know where else to go. I couldn’t approach that old man directly. I testified on his behalf at a security hearing in 1954. I’m terribly sorry, Lodzia.”

“Don’t be. I’ve missed you. And, of course, I’ll help you. Were it not for you, I might be teaching primary grades in our Tashkent sectors.”

He touched her face, returning her gesture. “That must not be the reason for your help.”

“It isn’t. What you’ve told me frightens me.”

Under no condition was the traitor, Maletkin, to be aware of Lodzia. The Vyborg officer had remained in the automobile at the corner, but when more than an hour had passed Taleniekov could see him pacing nervously on the pavement below.

“He’s not sure whether it’s this building or the one next door,” said Vasili, stepping back from the window. “The cellars still connect, don’t they?”

“They did when I was last there.”

“I’ll go down and come out on the street several doors away. I’ll meet him and tell him the man I’m with wants another half hour. That should give us enough time. Finish dressing the Englishman, will you?”

Lodzia was right, nothing had changed in the old buildings. Each cellar connected with the one next door, the filthy, damp underground alleyway extending most of the block. Taleniekov emerged on the street four buildings away from Lodzia’s flat. He walked up to the unsuspecting Maletkin, startling him.

“I thought you went in there!” said the traitor from Vyborg, nodding his head at the staircase on his left.

“There?”

“Yes, I was sure of it.”

“You’re still too excited, comrade, it interferes with your observation. I don’t know anyone in that building. I came down to tell you that the man I’m meeting with needs more time. I suggest you wait in the car; it’s not only extremely cold, but you’ll draw less attention to yourself.”

“You won’t be much longer, will you?” asked Maletkin anxiously.

“Are you going somewhere? Without me?”

“No, no, of course not. I have to go to the toilet.”

“Discipline your bladder,” said Taleniekov, hurrying away.

Twenty minutes later he and Lodzia had worked out the
details of his contact with the curator of archives at the Saltykov-Shchedrin Library on the Maiorov Prospeckt. She would tell him that a student from many years ago, a man who had risen high in government office and who had testified for the old gentleman in 1954—wanted to meet with him privately. That student, this friend, could not be seen in public; he was in trouble and needed help.

There was to be no doubt as to the identity of that student, or of the danger in which he found himself. The old man had to be jolted, frightened, concern for a once-dear young friend forced to the surface. He had to communicate his alarms to anyone who might be watching him. The arrangements for the meeting just complicated enough to confuse an old man’s mind. For the scholar’s confusion and fear would lead to tentative movements, bewildered starts and stops, sudden turns and abrupt reversals, decisions made and instantly rejected. Under these circumstances, whoever followed the old man would be revealed; for whatever moves the scholar made, the one following would have to make.

Lodzia would instruct the old man to leave the enormous library complex by the southwest exit at ten minutes to six that evening; the streets would be dark and no snow was expected. He would be told to walk a given number of blocks one way, then another. If no contact was made, he was to return to the library, and wait; if it were at all possible, his friend from long ago could try to get there. However, there were no guarantees.

Placed in this situation of stress, the numbers alone would serve to confuse the scholar, for Lodzia was to abruptly terminate the telephone call without repeating them. Vasili would take care of the rest, a traitor named Maletkin serving as an unknowing accomplice.

“What will you do after you see the old man?” asked Lodzia.

“That depends on what he tells me, or what I can learn from the man who follows him.”

“Where will you stay? Will I see you?”

Vasili stood up. “It could be dangerous for you if I come back here.”

“I’m willing to risk that.”

“I’m not willing to let you. Besides, you work until morning.”

“I can go in early and get off at midnight. Things are much more relaxed than when you were last in Leningrad. We trade hours frequently, and I am completely rehabilitated.”

“Someone will ask you why.”

“I’ll tell him the truth. An old friend has arrived from Moscow.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“A party secretary from the Presidium with a wife and several children. He wishes to remain anonymous.”

“As I said, a splendid idea.” Taleniekov smiled. “I’ll be careful and go through the cellars.”

“What will you do with him?” Lodzia nodded at the dead Englishman.

“Leave him in the farthest cellar I can find. Do you have a bottle of vodka?”

“Are you thirsty?”

“He is. One more unknown suicide in paradise. We don’t publicize them. I’ll need a razor blade.”

Pietre Maletkin stood next to Vasili in the shadows of an archway across from the southeast entrance to the Saltykov-Shchedrin Library. The floodlights in the rear courtyard of the complex shone down in wide circles from the high walls, giving the illusion of an enormous prison compound. But the arches that led to the street beyond were placed symmetrically every hundred feet in the wall; the prisoners could come and go at will. It was a busy evening at the library; streams of prisoners came and went.

“You say this old man is one of us?” asked Maletkin.

“Get your new enemies straight, comrade. The old fellow’s KGB, the man following him—about to make contact—is one of
us.
We’ve got to reach him before he’s trapped. The scholar is one of the most effective weapons Moscow’s developed for counterintelligence. His name is known to no more than five people in KGB; to be aware of him marks a person as an American informer. For God’s sake, don’t ever mention him.”

“I’ve never heard of him,” said Maletkin. “But the Americans think he’s
theirs?
”

“Yes. He’s a plant. He reports everything directly to Moscow on a private line.”

“Incredible,” muttered the traitor. “An old man. Ingenious.”

“My former associates are not fools,” said Taleniekov, checking his watch. “Neither are your present ones. Forget you’ve ever heard of Comrade Mikovsky.”

“That’s his name?”

“Even I would rather not repeat it.… There he is.”

An old man bundled up in an overcoat and a black fur hat walked out of the entrance, his breath vaporizing in the cold air. He stood for a moment on the steps, looking around as if trying to decide which archway to take into the street. His short beard was white, what could be seen of his face was filled with wrinkles and tired, pale flesh. He started down the stairs cautiously, holding on to the railing. He reached the courtyard and walked toward the nearest arch on his right.

Taleniekov studied the stream of people that came out through the glass doors after the old curator. They seemed to be in groups of twos and threes; he looked for a single man whose eyes strayed to the courtyard below. None did and Vasili was disturbed. Had he been wrong? It did not seem likely, yet there was no single man Taleniekov could pick out of the crowds whose focus was on Mikovsky, now halfway across the courtyard. When the scholar reached the street, there was no point in waiting any longer; he
had
been wrong. The Matarese had not found his friend.

A woman. He was
not
wrong. It was a
woman.
A lone woman broke away from the crowd and hurried down the steps, her eyes on the old man. How plausible, thought Vasili. A single woman remaining for hours alone in a library would draw far less attention than a man. Among its élite soldiers, the Matarese trained women.

He was not sure why it surprised him—some of the best agents in the Soviet KGB and the American Consular Operations were women, but their duties rarely included violence.
That’s
what startled him now. The woman following old Mikovsky was trailing the curator only to find
him.
Violence was intrinsic to that assignment.

“That woman,” he said to Maletkin. “The one in the brown overcoat and the visored cap. She’s the informer. We’ve got to stop her from making contact.”

“A
woman?
”

“She is capable of a variety of things which you are not, comrade. Come along now, we must be careful. She won’t approach him right away; she’ll wait for the most opportune moment and so must we. We’ve got to separate her, take her when she’s far enough away from him so he can’t identify her if there’s any noise.”

“Noise?” echoed the perplexed Maletkin. “Why would she make any noise?”

“Women are unpredictable; it’s common knowledge. Let’s go.”

The next eighteen minutes were as disorganized and as painful to watch as Taleniekov had anticipated. Painful in that a concerned old man grew progressively bewildered as the moments passed, his agitation turning into panic when there was no sign of his young friend. He crossed the bitterly cold streets, his walk slow, his legs unsteady. He kept checking his watch, the light too dim for his eyes; he was jostled by pedestrians whenever he stopped. And he stopped incessantly, breath and strength diminishing. Twice he started for an omnibus shelter in the block beyond where he stood, momentarily convinced that he had made the wrong count of the streets; at the intersection where the Kirov Theatre stood, there were three shelters and his confusion mounted. He visited all three, more and more bewildered.