Page 24 of Cry Havoc (Tom Reece #1)

Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic

MAJOR KIRILL DVORNIKOV SHRUGGED off his dark wool overcoat and folded it over his arm, his eyes scanning the restaurant. How Dvornikov missed Paris. During the dark months of winter, he would have even settled for Berlin. A Moscow winter was not for the faint of heart.

A man in a rumpled dinner jacket stepped from behind a reception desk and started to open his mouth but was silenced by the rise of Dvornikov’s left finger. The host simply bowed his head. He had not survived this long because he was bad at reading signals, especially the obvious ones.

The restaurant did not cater to the average Muscovite.

In fact, there were no restaurants for average Muscovites.

The Aragvi was beyond the means of anyone not associated with the highest echelons of the Party or those lucky few whose power was derived from access to people and information.

Connections were the real currency at these levels, currency that was traded behind these doors, one of the most exclusive markets on earth.

Old men, Party members and a few of the cultural elite, no doubt currying favors with one another, were seated at partitioned tables.

The Khrushchev Thaw that most of the Soviet elite had read about over a decade prior in Ilya Ehrenburg’s The Thaw had turned the way of the Moscow winter.

Even so, a piano piece Dvornikov recognized as the work of Dmitri Shostakovich played from an unseen gramophone, masking the whispered conversations of Aragvi’s patrons.

The Thaw. Not this year, Dvornikov thought.

The Russian writer Ehrenburg was interred at Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery.

Maybe one day Dvornikov would make a point of visiting his grave.

He had heard the headstone was etched with a portrait by Pablo Picasso, though the major would wait until Brezhnev no longer wielded the sword before paying his respects.

Even more so than behind the Kremlin Wall, deep within Lubyanka, or offices in the Aquarium, the Aragvi was where decisions were made that would either usher in the golden age of the Soviet Union or result in her demise. Decisions such as these were best made on full stomachs.

Dvornikov had stayed far afield during Khrushchev’s ousting in 1964, watching from an apartment in Paris as the Brezhnev era swept the nation.

The Soviet Union was now accelerating its arms manufacturing capability in a bid to outmatch the United States while at the same time expanding Soviet influence around the globe. These were dangerous times.

Khrushchev would not live much longer. Reluctantly, the KGB permitted him a house, a dacha, a car, and a pension.

Though prosperous by Soviet standards, Dvornikov knew Khrushchev’s retirement for what it really was, a prison without the bars.

Dvornikov would have to tread carefully.

One did not misstep in Brezhnev’s Russia.

Would the Soviet Union one day fall? Perhaps.

One must be ready. Rise, fall, or stagnate, Dvornikov preferred to experience it far from the confines of his homeland, over dinners at Lapérouse with a young female Parisian or possibly a British or American exchange student rather than amongst old men smelling of mothballs and rotting cabbage in frigid Moscow.

If a nuclear exchange were to destroy them all, he would rather leave the world in bed with a warm, naked coed.

Without ever making eye contact with the host, Dvornikov found his target and strode through the room.

The director’s two bodyguards sat at a table on the far side of the restaurant, drinking ice water and eating stale rye bread.

The major always found it unsettling that fresh bread remained an elusive commodity to even the proprietors of the best restaurant in Moscow.

At least they did not have to stand in long lines for it as did most of their countrymen.

They recognized him and allowed him to approach.

Dvornikov had maneuvered in these circles all his adult life. He was comfortable here.

“Director, we have a problem,” Dvornikov said, hanging his damp jacket on the back of a chair and taking a seat across from the man who ran the GRU.

Interrupting his superior at dinner, as he knew Lavrinenko was aware, was a power move intended to demonstrate to those watching furtively out of the corners of their eyes that the major had the director’s ear.

“We must if it means disturbing my meal,” Lavrinenko said.

Lavrinenko took a final bite of shashlik, touched a napkin to the corners of his mouth, and then let it fall to his lap.

“I would only intrude if it was of the utmost importance.”

“I know.”

Dvornikov’s eyes took in the table, noting the stark contrast between the plentiful Georgian food and what he imagined life was like for those struggling to put bread on their own tables just blocks away.

He wondered if he was the only man in the room to find the irony in discussing the greatness of Soviet Russia over full plates while the collective stood in long lines hoping for a meager portion of meat and vegetables with which to make soup for their families.

History would be the ultimate arbiter of the success or failure of collectivization, and it would be written, as were all histories, by the victor.

Right now, the Soviet-American Cold War felt like a stalemate. He must tread carefully.

“The rumor is that all tables here have microphones,” he said.

“I have heard that.” Lavrinenko smiled. “And it is true, Comrade, but they are our microphones. And all the tables are bugged but this one. Advantage, GRU.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Lavrentiy Beria used to frequent this restaurant. He would bring Stalin’s son Vasily for lunch. They liked the Georgian wine. Can’t stand it myself. Doesn’t hold up to vodka.”

“But what does?”

“See that man over there? The one with his back to us, dining with the woman. That’s Kim Philby. Would you like an introduction?”

Dvornikov shook his head.

“He got caught,” the major said. “I’d rather talk with a spy who didn’t,” he added, by way of explanation.

Every conversation with Lavrinenko was a job interview, a test, a probe, an examination.

The way you handled the inquisition would directly impact a future posting and determine whether that assignment would be Paris, France, or Norilsk, Siberia.

“Ah, true. He did. But he managed to defect to us.”

“I think the British let him. Less embarrassment than a full-blown trial for espionage in England.”

“That is entirely possible. He was not the best of spies looking back on it, but even as inept and overt as he and his compatriots were, he, and they, caused unimaginable damage to British and American intelligence services. Think what a competent asset could do.”

“Like the man you have bringing us keying material?”

“Why do you assume it’s a man? And why assume it is just one person?”

The old man still had lessons to teach.

Dvornikov nodded to concede the points. It was best to temper his approach with just the right amount of humility to offset his intentional arrogance, which he knew translated as confidence to the man across the table.

“Did you read the Philby article in the Moscow Times last year?” the director asked.

“I did.”

“He said the purpose of his life was what?”

“ ‘To destroy imperialism,’ ” Dvornikov responded.

“That’s right. He’s dining with Melinda Maclean, Don Maclean’s wife.

Quite incestuous. Shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Don Maclean is bisexual. Burgess and Blunt are gay, though at first we didn’t know if they were homosexual or just British.

The Brits make it hard to tell at times.

Never needed to use that against them. They were quite open about it.

Do you know why they got away with it for so long, the spying I mean? ”

“The arrogance of the British aristocracy?”

“Certainly, but there was another factor.”

“Which was?”

“They believed in what they were doing. None of them did it for money. Maclean was the most valuable; led the British Foreign Office’s American Department.”

“We should put the Trinity College staff at Cambridge on our payroll.”

“Perhaps they already are, Major.”

Dvornikov chuckled.

The director continued, “Philby was friendly with James Angleton you know, and now the CIA’s counterintelligence chief is obsessed with finding the American Philby.

One day he just might, though he’s looking in the wrong division.

We have an advantage. Both the UK and the U.S.

are open societies. That gives us much more room to maneuver.

Here, if I suspect someone is a spy, they spend time in the basement of the Lubyanka or at a work camp in Siberia.

No individual rights or Constitution to contend with. ”

The director’s threat was only slightly veiled in that his tone remained as constant as it had been discussing Philby.

“Now, I am sure you are not here to listen to me pontificate on the advantages of communism and collectivization or the sexual predilections and habits of spies and defectors.”

A waiter approached to clear the table.

“Vodka?” the GRU director asked his uninvited guest.

“Please,” Dvornikov said, even though he couldn’t stand the stuff.

The one benefit of running the Southeast Asia desk was the ability to acquire Mekhong whiskey from Thailand.

It was marketed as a whiskey when it was actually a spirit distilled from molasses and rice.

Admitting his preference for the Spirit of Thailand over the goryashchee vino or burning wine favored by his countrymen was unnecessary.

A Russian who preferred another liquor to vodka must be suspect.

Who knew, in the future that might change, and with his network in Asia maybe he could import and distribute Mekhong liquor in the Soviet Union and their satellite states. But that was for another day.

“Now, what was of such importance that you found it necessary to track me down this evening?”

“As I said, we have a problem.”

“Do you come with a solution or just a problem?”

“The Americans have an NVA prisoner being moved from Da Nang to Saigon.”

“Why does this concern us?”

“He is a colonel, and he knows about the upcoming offensive. Colonel Phúc Tran, NVA military intelligence.”

“I see.”

“As you know, the upcoming Tet attacks were coordinated using a physical network of assets. No radio transmissions. Our assessment is that as of now we have the advantage of a complete surprise. The Americans, primarily at the CIA, who have warned of a pending attack have been ignored. We believe that General Westmoreland and President Johnson prefer the more positive reports coming out of Saigon.”

The waiter returned and placed a glass in front of the major, pouring in two fingers from the bottle at the table. The two men waited until he had retreated before resuming their conversation.

“We are less than two days away from a battle that has the potential to change the course of the war,” Dvornikov said.

“Ho and Giap have temporarily left the country. They are citing medical reasons, but it is really to escape any potential fallout from Resolution 14, the Tet attacks, which they have never supported. Resolution 14 was pushed through the Central Committee by Le Duan, First Secretary of the Party, the man most likely to replace Ho when he dies. As you know, Ho is in his late seventies and in poor health.”

“All this prisoner, this Colonel Tran, needs to do is keep quiet for forty-eight hours,” Lavrinenko said.

“That might not be possible. He is being transported to the CMIC, the joint American and Vietnamese interrogation center; their Lubyanka. No one stays quiet in Lubyanka. I am concerned that he will break.”

“What makes you think he has not broken so far?”

“Because he was captured outside of Phu Bai. Then taken to Da Nang. Now he is being transported to Saigon. That tells me that he was not broken at Phu Bai or Da Nang. He won’t be able to resist when the South Vietnamese get ahold of him.

The Americans at Phu Bai and Da Nang still play by the rules for the most part. Outdated rules but rules nonetheless.”

“Where are you getting your information?”

“A high-level source in Saigon.”

“The one who was supposed to deconflict our movements with American troop operations to prevent this exact scenario?”

“Yes. The two Americans transporting him are the soldiers who captured him outside of Phu Bai.”

“He had a security detail and was captured by only two men?”

“It appears so. There was no mission scheduled for the night of his capture. Apparently these two MACV-SOG operators were operating outside of normal protocols.”

“American cowboys,” Lavrinenko said, taking another sip of vodka. “You said you had a solution.”

“As you know I have established a robust network of agents throughout Southeast Asia but primarily in Saigon. One of my assets can ensure that the prisoner never reaches the interrogation center. It may burn him, but if it does then he was burned for protecting Tet. It is worth the sacrifice.”

“Do not fail.”

“You have my word, Director. The colonel will never reach Saigon alive.”