Deep Cover
Brian Garfield
A MysteriousPress.com
Open Road Integrated Media ebook
For Shan and Z M
Man is a pliable animal, a being who gets
accustomed to everything.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY
The House of the Dead
War is such a terrible, such an atrocious, thing,
that no man has the right to assume
the responsibility of beginning it.
LEO TOLSTOY
War and Peace
And nothing can we call our own but death;
And that small model of the barren earth,
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
King Richard II
Prologue
September 1954
The file on Viktor Rykov was open on the desk and Yashin did not look up from it when Grigorenko came in. The general entered the office with outstretched arms and the grumbling voice of a Russian bear: “Comrade Secretary—always a pleasure to see you,” and Yashin let him stand there with his hands out over the desk. Finally he looked up and the smile on Grigorenko’s face had gone rigid, so that it no longer concealed the deceit of his courteous greeting.
Yashin removed his rimless glasses. “Be seated, General.” His pointing arm was serpentine. Behind the pane at his right a summer drizzle misted the turreted onions of St. Basil’s and the heavy towers of the Kremlin. Yashin reached for the cord and drew the blind. “Well then, Oleg.”
Grigorenko waited politely.
“It appears Rykov has a plan to offset the American superiority in strategic weapons.”
“Rykov always has a plan,” the general said.
“You don’t trust him, do you?”
“Not always.”
Yashin said, “He insists he knows precisely how many years ahead of us the Americans are in long-range bombers and guided missiles and nuclear capacity. I forget his exact figures.”
“Is Rykov a scientist now?”
The lamps pushed at the gloom without dispelling it. The siren of an emergency vehicle brayed faintly from some indeterminate direction and Yashin watched the general’s broad face. A year ago Lavrenti Beria had been executed, and Grigorenko had expected to get Beria’s job, but Marshal Zhukov had blocked him and Grigorenko was still Second Secretary, GRU (Air).
Yashin said, “Your wife is well?”
“Oh yes. Thank you.”
“Your sons in the Air Forces?”
“Both very fit. Igor is in China, training pilots.”
“Yes, I know.” Yashin liked to change the subject swiftly and see how neatly balance was regained: “Rykov’s newest scheme has come to the attention of Nikita Khrushchev. Without the express endorsement of Rykov’s immediate superiors.” He watched the general shift mental gears.
“Rykov would have ways of doing that,” the general said.
“Evidently Secretary Khrushchev approves. I understand they’ve cleared Rykov to proceed with his scheme.”
“What about Comrade Malenkov?”
“I think as time goes on it won’t matter what Malenkov thinks,” Yashin said.
“… I see.”
“Rykov has hundreds of people in training.”
“I know how his programs work. It’s the pattern of his old China scheme. What is it this time, Japan?”
“America.” Yashin watched the general absorb it. “Rykov’s whimsy is to call his training camp Amergrad.” His praying-mantis body curled over the desk. “That’s what Rykov wants to do—another deep-cover scheme.”
“His schemes have worked before, you know.”
“Never on this scale.”
Grigorenko looked uncomfortable. “It hasn’t been tried on this scale. Hundreds of people, you said.”
“You’re defending the man?”
“I don’t trust him. I said that. But you must admire his successes. He made it work in China.”
“He used Chinese agents. Born in China. He has no American-born agents for this one—where would he get them?”
Grigorenko spoke reluctantly. “Rykov is thorough. I’ve never faulted his attention to security.”
“He’s persuaded Khrushchev he can account for every detail. But what of it? Hundreds of men and women party to the secret—any one of them can destroy it.”
“I’d need to know more about it,” Grigorenko said. “One must assume he’s screened all of them exhaustively.”
Yashin was patient. “Rykov would have us all believe he knows as much about strategy as Clausewitz. What do you think will happen if he’s left alone to his Machiavellian intriguing?”
“I suppose the risk is high.”
“Indeed.” Yashin reached for his meerschaum; he did not light it. “Dangerous to the Party and dangerous to Mother Russia, n’est-ce pas?”
“Quite possibly so, Comrade.”
Yashin pushed the Rykov file across the desk. “He’s arrogant. He’s convinced he has the only way of doing things. You worked with him against the Germans early in the war—more than once you disagreed with him on tactics; you were superior to him both in rank and in the chain of command but every time there was a dispute Rykov managed to get the ear of someone with the authority to force you to go along with Rykov. More than once his schemes failed, but he was never reprimanded—he has a talent for covering his tracks, he always has a sacrificial goat nearby to take the blame.” The pipe lifted like a pistol. “But this time if he fails we all suffer and if he succeeds it could undermine your position and mine as well.”
“Could it?”
The general had to be played with care. “If the Politburo keeps digging holes in our funds so they can finance Rykov’s expensive schemes, our performance will suffer and of course Rykov will be able to suggest that our responsibilities be combined under his command.”
The general answered slowly. “I suppose that could be the case.”
Then Yashin brought out his heavy artillery: “You know of course that it was Rykov who blocked your hopes to take Beria’s place.” And watched the general’s face change.
When the Zis limousine stopped at the platform Viktor Rykov leaned forward in the back seat to bring the depot clock into view.
From the end-of-track station the rails glittered along the south Russian steppes toward Dzhezkazghan. The weather-beaten building might have been an isolated Siberian Railway stop. Southeast, two thousand kilometers across the Kirghiz, lay China: six hundred years ago Genghiz Khan’s Mongols had drummed across these steppes, invading without warning, and one day the new Mongols of Mao’s China might attempt it again.