The Negotiator

“The General Secretary will see you now, Comrade General,” he said.

The Deputy Head of the First Chief Directorate, senior professional intelligence officer of the espionage arm, walked straight down the long room toward the man who sat behind his desk at the end. If Mikhail Gorbachev was puzzled by the request for the meeting, he did not show it. He greeted the KGB general in comradely fashion, calling him by his first name and patronymic, and waited for him to proceed.

“You have received the report from our London station regarding the so-called evidence extracted by the British from the corpse of Simon Cormack.”

It was a statement, not a question. Kirpichenko knew the General Secretary must have seen it. He had demanded the results of the London meeting as soon as they came in. Gorbachev nodded shortly.

“And you will know, Comrade General Secretary, that our colleagues in the military deny the photograph was of a piece of their equipment.”

The rocket programs of Baikonur come under the military. Another nod. Kirpichenko bit the bullet.

“Four months ago I submitted a report received from my resident in Belgrade which I believed to be of such importance that I marked it for passing on by the Comrade Chairman to this office.”

Gorbachev stiffened. The matter was out. The officer in front of him, though a very senior man, was going behind Kryuchkov’s back. It had better be serious, Comrade General, he thought. His face remained impassive.

“I expected to receive instructions to investigate the matter further. None came. It occurred to me to wonder if you ever saw the August report—it is, after all, the vacation month. ...”

Gorbachev recalled his broken vacation. Those Jewish refuseniks being hammered right in front of the whole Western media on a Moscow street.

“You have a copy of that report with you, Comrade General?” he asked quietly. Kirpichenko took two folded sheets from his inner jacket pocket. He always wore civilian clothes, hated uniforms.

“There may be no linkage at all, General Secretary. I hope not. But I do not like coincidences. I am trained not to like them.”

Mikhail Gorbachev studied the report from Major Kerkorian in Belgrade, and his brow furrowed in puzzlement.

“Who are these men?” he asked.

“Five American industrialists. The man Miller we have tagged as an extreme right-winger, a man who loathes our country. The man Scanlon is an entrepreneur, what the Americans call a hustler. The other three manufacture extremely sophisticated weaponry for the Pentagon. With the technical details that they carry in their heads alone, they should never have exposed themselves to the danger of possible interrogation by visiting our soil.”

“But they came?” asked Gorbachev. “Covertly, by military transport? To land at Odessa?”

“That’s the coincidence,”

said the spy chief. “I checked with the Air Force traffic control people. As the Antonov left Romanian air space to enter Odessa control area, it varied its own flight plan, overflew Odessa, and touched down at Baku.”

“Azerbaijan? What the hell were they doing in Azerbaijan?”

“Baku, Comrade General Secretary, is the headquarters of High Command South.”

“But that’s a top-secret military base. What did they do there?”

“I don’t know. They disappeared when they landed, spent sixteen hours inside the base, and flew back to the same Yugoslav air base in the same plane. Then they went back to America. No boar-hunting, no vacation.”

“Anything else?”

“One last coincidence. On that day, Marshal Kozlov was on an inspection visit of the Baku headquarters. Just routine. So it says.”

When he had gone, Mikhail Gorbachev stopped all calls and reflected on what he had learned. It was bad, all bad, almost all. There was one recompense. His adversary, the diehard general who ran the KGB, had made a very serious mistake.

The bad news was not confined to New Square, Moscow. It pervaded the lush top-floor office of Steve Pyle in Riyadh. Colonel Easterhouse put down the letter from Andy Laing.

“I see,” he said.

“Christ, that little shit could still land us all in deep trouble,” protested Pyle. “Maybe the records in the computer do show something different from what he says. But if he goes on saying it, maybe the Ministry accountants will want to have a look, a real look. Before April. I mean, I know this is all sanctioned by Prince Abdul himself, and for a good cause, but hell, you know these people. Supposing he withdraws his protection, says he knows nothing of it ... They can do that, you know. Look, maybe you should just replace that money, find the funds someplace else. ...”

Easterhouse continued to stare out over the desert with his pale-blue eyes. It’s worse than that, my friend, he thought. There is no connivance by Prince Abdul, no sanction by the Royal House. And half the money has gone, disbursed to bankroll the preparations for a coup that would one day bring order and discipline, his order and discipline, to the crazed economics and unbalanced political structures of the entire Middle East. He doubted the House of Sa’ud would see it that way; or the State Department.

“Calm yourself, Steve,” he said reassuringly. “You know whom I represent here. The matter will be taken care of. I assure you.”