The Matarese Circle (7 page)

Attached to the body—the note held in place by a nail driven into her arm—were the words:
Up your commie ass. Just like hers.

Animals!

American
animals who bought their way to victory without a shell having fallen on their soil, whose might was measured by unfettered industry that made enormous profits from the carnage of foreign lands, whose soldiers peddled cans of food to hungry children so as to gratify other appetites. All armies had animals, but the Americans were most offensive; they proclaimed such righteousness. The sanctimonious were always the most offensive.

Taleniekov had returned to Moscow, the memory of the girl’s obscene death burned into his mind. Whatever he had been, he became something else. According to many, he became the best there was, and by his own lights none could possibly wish to be better than he was. He had seen the enemy and he was filth. But that enemy had resources beyond imagination, wealth beyond belief; so it was necessary to be better than the enemy in things that could not be purchased. One had to learn to think as he did. Then out-think him. Vasili had understood this; he became the master of strategy and counterstrategy, the springer of unexpected traps, the deliverer of unanticipated shock—death in the morning sunlight on a crowded street corner.

Death in the Unter den Linden at five o’clock in the afternoon. At that hour when the traffic was maximum.

He had brought that about, too. He had avenged the murder of a child-woman years later, when as the director of KGB operations, East Berlin, he had drawn the wife of an American killer across the checkpoint. She had been run down cleanly, professionally, with a minimum of pain; it was a far more merciful death than that delivered by animals four years earlier.

He had nodded in appreciation at the news of that death, yet there was no joy. He knew what that man was going through, and as deserved as it was, there was no elation. For Taleniekov also knew that man would not rest until he found his own vengeance.

He did. Three years later in Prague.

A brother.

Where was the hated Scofield these days? wondered Vasili. It was close to a quarter of a century for him, too.
They each had served their causes well, that much could be said for both of them. But Scofield was more fortunate; things were less complicated in Washington, one’s enemies within more defined. The despised Scofield did not have to put up with such amateurish maniacs as Group Nine, VKR. The American State Department had its share of madmen, but sterner controls were exercised, Vasili had to admit that. In a few years, if Scofield survived in Europe, he would retire to some remote place and grow chickens or oranges or drink himself into oblivion. He did not have to be concerned about surviving in Washington, just in Europe.

Taleniekov had to worry about surviving in Moscow.

Things … 
things
had changed in a quarter of a century. And he had changed; tonight was an example, but not the first. He had covertly thwarted the objectives of a fellow intelligence unit. He would not have done so five years ago—perhaps not even two years ago. He would have confronted the strategists of that unit, and strenuously objected on professional grounds. He was an expert, and in his expert judgment, the operation was not only miscalculated, but less vital than another with which it interfered.

He did not take such action these days. He had not done so during the past two years as director of the Southwest Sectors. He had made his own decisions, caring little for the reactions of damn fools who knew far less than he did. Increasingly, those reactions caused minor furors back in Moscow; still he did what he believed was right. Ultimately, those minor furors became major grievances and he was recalled to the Kremlin and a desk where strategies were remote, dealing with progressive abstractions such as getting shadowy hooks into an American politician.

Taleniekov had fallen, he knew that. It was only a question of time. How much time had he left? Would he be given a small
fverma
north of Grasnov and told to grow his crops and keep his own counsel? Or would the maniacs interfere with that course of action, too? Would they claim the “extraordinary Taleniekov” was, indeed, too dangerous?

As he made his way along the street, Vasili felt tired. Even the loathing he felt for the American killer who had murdered his brother was muted in the twilight of his feelings. He had little feeling left.

The sudden snowstorm reached blizzard proportions, the winds gale force, causing eruptions of huge white sprays through the expanse of Red Square. Lenin’s Tomb would be covered by morning. Taleniekov let the freezing particles massage his face as he trudged against the wind toward his flat. KGB had been considerate; his rooms were ten minutes from his office in Dzerzhinsky Square, three blocks away from the Kremlin. It was either consideration, or something less benevolent but infinitely more practical: his flat was ten minutes from the centers of crisis, three minutes in a fast automobile.

He walked into the entranceway of his building, stamping his feet as he pulled the heavy door shut, cutting off the harsh sound of the wind. As he always did, he checked his mail slot in the wall and as always, there was nothing. It was a futile ritual that had become a meaningless habit for so many years, in so many mail slots, in so many different buildings.

The only personal mail he ever received was in foreign countries—under strange names—when he was in deep cover. And then, the correspondence was in code and cipher, its meaning in no way related to the words on the paper. Yet sometimes those words were warm and friendly, and he would pretend for a few minutes that they meant what they said. But only for a few minutes; it did no good to pretend. Unless one was analyzing an enemy.

He started up the narrow staircase, annoyed by the dim light of the low-wattage bulbs. He was quite sure the planners in Moscow’s Iliktrichiskaya did not live in such buildings.

Then he heard the creak. It was not the result of structural stress; it had nothing to do with the subfreezing cold or the winds outside. It was the sound of a human being shifting his weight on a floorboard. His ears were the ears of a trained craftsman, distances judged quickly. The sound did not come from the landing above, but from higher up the staircase. His flat was on the next floor; someone was waiting for him to approach. Someone wanted him inside his rooms perhaps, egress awkward, a trap being set.

Vasili continued his climb, the rhythm of his footsteps unbroken. The years had trained him to keep such items as keys and coins in his left-hand pockets, freeing his right to
reach quickly for a weapon, or to be used as a weapon itself. He came to the landing and turned; his door was only feet away.

There was the creak again, faint, barely heard, mixed with the sound of the distant wind outside. Whoever was on the staircase had moved back, and that told him two things; the intruder would wait until he was definitely inside his flat, and whoever it was was either careless or inexperienced or both. One did not move when this close to a quarry; the air was a conductor of motion.

In his left hand was his key; his right had unfastened the buttons of his overcoat and was now gripped around the handle of his automatic, strapped in an open holster across his chest. He inserted the key, opened the door, then yanked it shut, stepping back rapidly, silently into the shadows of the staircase. He stayed against the wall, his gun leveled in front of him over the railing.

The sound of footsteps preceded the rushing figure as it raced to the door. In the figure’s left hand was an object; he could not see it now, it was hidden by the heavily clothed body. Nor were there seconds to wait. If the object was an explosive, it would be on a timer-release. The figure had raised his right hand to knock on the door.

“Press yourself into the door! Your
left hand in front
of you! Between your stomach and the wood!
Now!
”

“Please!” The figure spun halfway around; Taleniekov was on him, throwing him against the panel. He was a young man, a boy really, barely in his teens, thought Vasili. He was tall for his age, but his age was obvious from his face; it was callow, the eyes wide and clear and frightened.

“Move back slowly,” said Taleniekov harshly. “Raise your left hand.
Slowly.
”

The young man moved back, his left hand exposed; it was clenched into a fist.

“I didn’t do anything wrong, sir. I swear it!” The young man’s whisper cracked in fear.

“Who are you?”

“Andreev Danilovich, sir. I live in the Cheremushki.”

“You’re a long way from home,” said Vasili. The housing development referred to by the youth was nearly forty-five minutes south of Red Square. “The weather’s terrible and someone your age could be picked up by the
militsianyer.
”

“I had to come here, sir,” answered Andreev. “A man’s been shot; he’s hurt very badly. I think he’s going to die. I am to give this to you.” He opened his left hand; in it was a brass emblem, an army insignia denoting the rank of general. Its design had not been used in more than thirty years. “The old man said to say the name Krupskaya, Aleksie Krupskaya. He made me say it several times so I wouldn’t forget it. It’s not the name he uses down at the Cheremushki, but it’s the one he said to give you. He said I must bring you to him. He’s dying, sir!”

At the sound of the name, Taleniekov’s mind raced back in time. Aleksie Krupskaya! It was a name he had not heard in years, a name few people in Moscow wanted to hear. Krupskaya was once the greatest teacher in the KGB, a man of infinite talent for killing and survival—as well he might be. He was the last of the notorious Istrebiteli, that highly specialized group of exterminators that had been an élite outgrowth of the old NKVD, its roots in the barely remembered OGPU.

But Aleksie Krupskaya had disappeared—as so many had disappeared—at least a dozen years ago. There had been rumors linking him to the deaths of Beria and Zhurkov, some even mentioning Stalin himself. Once in a fit of rage—or fear—Krushchev had stood up in the Presidium and called Krupskaya and his associates a band of maniacal killers. That was not true; there was never any mania in the work of the Istrebiteli, it was too methodical. Regardless, suddenly one day Aleksie Krupskaya was no longer seen at the Lubyanka.

Yet there were other rumors. Those that spoke of documents prepared by Krupskaya, hidden in some remote place, that were his guarantees to a personal old age. It was said these documents incriminated various leaders of the Kremlin in scores of killings—reported, unreported, and disguised. So it was presumed that Aleksie Krupskaya was living out his life somewhere north of Grasnov, on a
fverma,
perhaps, growing crops and keeping his mouth shut.

He had been the finest teacher Vasili had ever had; without the old master’s patient instructions, Taleniekov would have been killed years ago. “Where is he?” asked Vasili.

“We brought him down to our flat. He kept pounding on the floor—our ceiling. We ran up and found him.”

“We?”

“My sister and I. He’s a good old man. He’s been good to my sister and me. Our parents are dead. And I think he will soon be dead, too. Please, hurry, sir!”

The old man on the bed was not the Aleksie Krupskaya Taleniekov remembered. The close-cropped hair and the clean shaven face that once displayed such strength were no more. The skin was pale and stretched, wrinkled beneath the white beard, and his long white hair was a bird’s nest of tiny thin strings, matted, separated, revealing splotches of grayish flesh that was Krupskaya’s gaunt skull. The man was dying and could barely speak. He lowered the covers briefly and lifted a blood-soaked cloth away from the perforated flesh of a bullet wound.

Virtually no time was spent on greetings; the respect and affection in each man’s eyes were sufficient.

“I widened my pupils into the death-stare,” said Krupskaya, smiling weakly. “He thought I was dead. He had done his job and ran.”

“Who was it?”

“An assassin. Sent by the Corsicans.”

“The Corsicans? What Corsicans?”

The old man took a long, painful breath, gesturing for Vasili to lean closer. “I will be dead before the hour is gone, and there are things you must be told. No one else will tell you; you are the best we have and you
must
be told. Above all men, you have the skills to match their skills. You and another, one from each side. You may be all that’s left.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Matarese.”

“The
what?
”

“The Matarese. They know I know … what they are doing, what they are about to do. I am the only one left who would recognize them, who would dare speak of them. I stopped the contacts once, but I had neither the courage nor the ambition to expose them.”

“I can’t understand you.”

“I will try to explain.” Krupskaya paused, gathering strength. “A short while ago, a general named Blackburn was killed in America.”

“Yes, I know. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. We were not involved, Aleksie.”

“Are you aware that
you
were the one the Americans believed the most likely assassin?”

“No one told me. It’s ridiculous.”

“No one tells you much anymore, do they?”

“I don’t fool myself, old friend. I’ve given. I don’t know how much more I have to give. Grasnov is not far distant, perhaps.”

“If it is permitted,” interrupted Krupskaya.

“I think it will be.”

“No matter.… Last month, the scientist, Yurievich. He was murdered while on holiday up in a Provasoto
dacha,
along with Colonel Drigorin and the man, Brunov, from Industrial Planning.”

“I heard about it,” said Taleniekov. “I gather it was horrible.”

“Did you read the report?”

“What report?”

“The one compiled by VKR—”

“Madmen and fools,” interjected Taleniekov.

“Not always,” corrected Krupskaya. “In this case they have specific facts, accurate as far as they go.”

“What are these supposedly accurate facts?”

Krupskaya, breathing with difficulty, swallowed and continued. “Shell casings, seven millimeter, American. Bore markings from a Browning Magnum, Grade Four.”