The woman in gray uniform got out from behind the wheel and came round to open his door. Viktor Rykov’s boots crunched the cinders as he dismounted and went up the wooden steps. His eyes swept the platform quickly. Two soldiers marched sentry paths, rifles across their shoulders; no one else was in sight except the dispatcher in his window by the turnstile.

The advancing train was less than a kilometer away and Rykov could feel its rumble through the soles of his boots. A long plume of coal smoke trailed back from the engine.

Andrei Bizenkev spoke behind him and Rykov turned with a quick snap of his thick shoulders. Andrei had emerged from the dispatcher’s office. His face was young, Slavic-broad. “I was afraid you’d be late.”

“A flock of goats on the road. There are always delays in this rancid country.”

The troop lorry came rutting down the road and stopped by the platform a hundred meters away. The driver got out on the running board and straightened his cap and waited without moving. Andrei turned to Rykov: “I’d like to bundle the bastards right back on the train and send them back with boot prints on their asses.”

“They haven’t destroyed me yet. They’ve tried before.” Rykov spoke Russian with a strong Georgian accent. He was a superb linguist; he had a colloquial command of eight languages and his thick harsh Russian was deliberate, a reminder of roots necessary to a man made rootless by history. Stalin’s accent.

“Andrei.”

“Yes?”

“We don’t want our guests denouncing us for lax discipline. Observe the proper formalities of address with me while they’re here.”

“Da, Tovarich.” The crooked smile of complicity did not fit quite right on the wide young face.

The train slid in with a hissing scrape of brake shoes. The engine driver had been briefed: normally the train would stop its goods wagons nearest the platform, leaving the passengers to walk a hundred meters on cinders, but today the first-class carriage halted directly opposite the station turnstile. Andrei straightened his tunic, and Rykov watched the carriage doors swing open and decant a handful of soldiers who ranged themselves along the platform. A young Red Army ensign walked around very stiffly barking commands at them, and Andrei said peevishly, “The whole absurd performance is guaranteed to attract attention.”

“Whose attention? There’s no one.”

“Just the same. The Army’s got no subtlety. No sense of security.”

“Perhaps it wasn’t the Army’s idea. Men like our friend Yashin see an assassin beneath every stone. Never mind—let them have their games.”

The soldiers moved clear of the carriage doorway and a cadaverous figure appeared: Yashin stepped onto the platform incuriously, not smiling when his glance fell on Rykov. His face was gaunt and scored and his spidery fingers held a gnarled pipe, unlit.

Yashin was followed immediately by Colonel General Oleg Grigorenko who was in mufti. The two visitors walked forward in a lockstep, the general exactly one pace to the rear, as befitted his subordinate status to that of the Comintern First Secretary.

At the turnstile Yashin, with ritualistic formality, flashed his internal passport past the dispatcher’s window and allowed Rykov to submit to his orthodox bear hug of greeting. Rykov could smell the pipe tobacco on Yashin’s coat before he turned to grip the general’s shoulders and repeat the meaningless pantomime. Afterward Rykov led his visitors down to the car. “Your bodyguard detail will ride behind us in the lorry. With your consent they’ll be quartered in truckers’ barracks just outside the kolkhoz. You understand we can’t permit them inside.”

He saw with satisfaction that he had provoked Yashin but the First Secretary’s face did not change expression, except for the eyes, and Yashin turned without comment and stooped to enter the car. Grigorenko followed and Andrei came down the steps to get in after Rykov; Rykov caught the dry glint in Andrei’s young eyes when he settled on one of the jump seats and smiled at the visitors.

The engine popped and began to growl. The Zis left the graded cinders and began to rattle when it struck the stony ruts of the dirt road. General Grigorenko reached for the strap loop. Andrei made casual talk about the sparse landmarks out here in the bear’s corners and Grigorenko made a few monosyllabic responses in a voice heavy as coal lumps rattling down a metal chute; neither Yashin nor Rykov spoke at all. Rykov used the time to measure his guests—for confirmation, not discovery: he was quite certain he already knew their intentions.

Fyodor Yashin’s hawked features were arresting and elegant: he was a striking figure, heads turned when he came into a room, and his success in the Party was due in part to the physical accident of his appearance. He had the genius of a Rasputin and his vigilant silences could be more disquieting than the harsh brutality of a Malenkov or the sly sarcasms of a Vishinsky. He spoke euphonious Leningrad Russian and wore expertly fitted suits that had not come from stock. A silk shirt and a preference for first-class rail passage in the classless state: vanity was a weakness that could betray a man, and Rykov considered ways of making use of Yashin’s.

By contrast General Grigorenko wore an old suit, double-breasted, with dark pinstripes and baggy cuffs; it bulged where his shoulders had begun to thicken. On his lapel he wore the Order of the Red Star. Clearly he was uncomfortable in civilian clothes: he had an imposing beefy presence, the stiff erect carriage that went with the habit of command. He had a remarkably cubic skull and his pale facial hair was all but invisible against the skin, so that when he cocked his eyebrows the expression showed mainly in the changed shape of his eyes.

Almost certainly Grigorenko had been told it was Rykov who had kept him from taking Beria’s post. Rykov knew the persuasions Yashin must have used: The choice was between you and Tolubchev. Khrushchev consulted Rykov, and Rykov put Tolubchev’s name forward, obviously because Rykov knows he can manipulate Tolubchev. When Tolubchev is gone Rykov will take his place. As a matter of fact it was all true except that no one had ever seriously considered Grigorenko for the post. Even Marshal Zhukov, who had always favored the military, had not endorsed Grigorenko. If you sought a captain for your chess team you did not seek him among those who did not understand the moves of the game. Grigorenko was a satisfactory bureaucrat but when it came to strategy and decision his mind was rudimentary.

It was natural that Yashin and Grigorenko would try to put Rykov away: that was why they were here today, he was certain. The fact-finding visit was only a smoke screen. Yashin and Grigorenko needed to be able to demonstrate that they had taken the trouble to examine Amergrad on the ground, which was something no other high officials had done. Once they returned to the Kremlin they would be in a position to spread any lies they chose and there would be no one to dispute them. Between Grigorenko’s GRU network and Yashin’s control of sixty Communist Parties the two men carried enough weight to persuade the shaky ministerial cabinet to abandon the Amergrad project and put Viktor Rykov on the shelf—give him a listless series of outpost appointments until retirement.

… Following leisurely, the troop lorry was a faint heavy shape through the limousine’s dust. Rykov lit a brown cigarette and reflected on his choice of weapons. The Zis climbed a steady slope and from the summit they overlooked a surprising green valley locked away from the world, a bowl ringed by thick tall trees.

“The forest hides us from the casual eyes of nomadic herders. We have nine hundred square kilometers inside the security wall. There is only the one gate and we patrol the wall with guards and dog squads, but there’s also an electronic detection net. You can’t get within two hundred meters without tripping off an alarm.”