The girl picked up the cash and counted the notes carefully before checking the back of the license against the signature on the form. Adam was relieved that she hadn’t spotted the disparity in the dates of birth. He replaced all Albert Tomkins’s documents and wallet in his inside jacket pocket as the girl turned round and removed an ignition key from a hook on a board behind her.
“It’s a red Citroen, parked on the first floor,” she told him. “The registration number is stamped on the key ring.”
Adam thanked her and walked quickly up to the first floor where he handed the key over to an attendant, who drove the car out of its parking space for him.
When the attendant returned the key, Adam handed him a ten-franc note. Exactly the same sum as the other man had given him to let him know if an Englishman who fitted Adam’s description tried to hire a car. What had he promised? Another hundred francs if he phoned within five minutes of seeing him.
PART IV
THE KREMLIN
MOSCOW
June 19, 1966
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE KREMLIN
JUNE 19, 1966
LEONID ILYICH BREZHNEV entered the room, hardly allowing the other four members of the inner quorum of the Defense Council enough time to stand. Their faces were grim, resolute, no different from their public image—unlike Western politicians.
The General Secretary took his place at the head of the table and nodded to his colleagues to sit.
The last time the inner quorum of the Defense Council had been summoned to a meeting at an hour’s notice had been at the request of Khrushchev, who was hoping to enlist support for his Cuban adve
nture. Brezhnev would never forget the moment when his predecessor had uncontrollably burst into tears because they had forced him to order the Soviet ships to return home. From that moment, Brezhnev knew it could only be a matter of time before he would succeed Khrushchev as the leader of the Communist world. On this occasion he had no intention of bursting into tears.
On his right sat Marshal Malinovsky, Minister of Defense; on his left Andrei Gromyko, the young Foreign Minister. Beside him sat the Chief of the General Staff, Marshal Zakharov, and, on his left, Yuri Zaborski. Even the seating plan confirmed Brezhnev’s obvious displeasure with the Chairman of the KGB.
He raised his eyes and stared up at the massive oil painting of Lenin reviewing an early military parade in Red Square, a picture no one other than members of the Politburo had seen since it disappeared from the Tretyakov in 1950.
If only Lenin had realized the icon was a fake in the first place, Brezhnev reflected … . Yet, despite the traditional Russian pastime of blaming the dead for everything that goes wrong, he knew that Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was beyond criticism. He would have to find a living scapegoat.
His eyes rested on Zaborski. “Your report, Comrade Chairman.”
Zaborski fingered a file in front of him although he knew the contents almost by heart. “The plan to locate the Czar’s icon was carried out in an exemplary fashion,” he began. “When the Englishman, Adam Scott, was caught and later … questioned”—they all accepted the euphemism—“by Comrade Dr. Stravinsky in the privacy of our embassy in Paris, the Englishman gave no clue as to where we would find the icon. It became obvious he was a professional agent of the West. After three hours, interrogation was momentarily suspended. It was during this period that the prisoner managed to escape.”
“Managed,” interjected Brezhnev.
Just as he had taught his subordinates over the years, the Chairman of the KGB made no attempt to reply.
“Don’t you realize,” continued the General Secretary, “that we had within our grasp the opportunity to turn the very land the Americans use for their early-warning system into a base for our short-range missiles? If it had proved possible to retrieve our icon, it would also have been possible to site those same missiles along a border less than a thousand eight hundred kilometers from Seattle—two thousand eight hundred kilometers from San Francisco—a mere four thousand kilometers from Chicago. Not only could we have made the Americans’ early-warning system redundant, we could have greatly improved our ability to detect any enemy missiles while they were still thousands of kilometers from our nearest border.”
The General Secretary paused to see if the Chairman of the KGB had any further explanation to offer, but Zaborski kept his eyes fixed on the table in front of him. When Brezhnev began again it was almost in a whisper:
“And for such a prize we would not have had to sacrifice one life, one rocket, one tank, or even one bullet—because all this was ours by right. But if we fail to locate the Czar’s icon in the next thirty-six hours, we will never be given such a chance again. We will have lost our one opportunity to remove a star from the American flag.”
Foreign Secretary Gromyko waited until he was certain Brezhnev had completed his statement before he inquired: “If I may ask, Comrade Chairman, why was Major Romanov allowed to continue being involved in such a sensitive operation after it was suspected he had killed”—with this he glanced down at the papers in front of him—“Researcher Petrova?”
“Because when that situation was drawn to my attention,” replied Zaborski, at last looking up, “I had only seven days left to tomorrow’s deadline, and in my judgment there was no one who could have taken over Romanov’s place at such short notice—”
There was a timid knock on the door. All the faces round the table showed surprise. The Minister of Defense had given specific orders that no one was to interrupt them.
“Come,” shouted Brezhnev.
The great door inched open, and a secretary appeared in the gap. The thin piece of paper in his hand shook, betraying his nervousness. The Minister of Defense waved him in, as Brezhnev had no intention of turning around to see who it was. The secretary walked quickly toward them. As soon as he had deposited the telex on the table he turned and almost ran from the room.