Page 91 of Cry Havoc (Tom Reece #1)

GRU Headquarters

Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic

MIKHAIL LAVRINENKO DID NOT bother knocking. His deputy’s secretary knew to bury her head in her work and continue to type.

Though Anatoly Penkovsky’s office was just down the hall on the same floor, Lavrinenko had never been there.

He had always summoned the deputy director to his.

Walking to a subordinate’s office was not how things were done in the Soviet state, and certainly not how they were done at GRU headquarters.

“Director, I could have come to you,” a surprised Penkovsky said, as he stood from behind a desk that was much smaller than Lavrinenko’s.

Everything about Penkovsky’s office was smaller than that of his superior: the space, the desk, the chair, and the window, though he still had a view of the crematorium.

Lavrinenko surveyed the unfamiliar surroundings.

“Please,” Penkovsky said, offering him a seat.

Instead, Lavrinenko walked to the window on the same side of the desk as his deputy.

“It seems I’ll be at GRU longer than I anticipated,” Lavrinenko said.

“Why?”

“Because I have no successor.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I have been wrestling with something, Anatoly. At first, I didn’t see it, but I think I do now.”

“What, sir?”

“How did the CIA know we had American POWs in Siberia?”

“Major Dvornikov obviously told them under the duress of interrogation.”

“Yes, but I kept asking myself, why go to all the trouble to abduct Dvornikov in the first place? Do you want to know what I came up with?”

“Comrade?”

“I think they already knew about American POWs in Siberia. They didn’t abduct Major Dvornikov and then find out about U.S. POWs in Siberia. No. They abducted him because they knew we had them. The intent of their plan was always to trade him for those prisoners.”

“And how would they know that?”

“Someone must have told them.”

“A spy?”

“Yes, in our very midst. I was so busy thinking about how to manage the crisis that I did not stop to ask the most important question: Why—why was Dvornikov targeted?”

Lavrinenko paused and looked back toward the door, where a dark overcoat was hanging on a coatrack.

“I recognize that coat,” he said. “It looks familiar. I believe I have a similar one.”

“It’s quite common,” Penkovsky responded.

“That is yours, is it not?”

“It is.”

“We found that exact coat worn by a man working for the CIA.”

“Oh?”

“He had just left the opera. His seat was next to yours. There was harp sheet music in his pocket. You don’t play the harp, do you?” Lavrinenko asked.

“No, Director.”

“But your wife did.”

“She did.”

“There is something else. When treated with chemicals a funny thing happened. Do you know what it was?”

Penkovsky’s eyes hardened.

“Invisible ink appeared on the sheet music in handwriting that matches yours. Can you explain that?”

The deputy director began to perspire.

“It was not difficult, Anatoly. A list of those in Moscow who know about the American POWs in Siberia is quite short. Their homes and offices were all searched. They were put under surveillance as were their spouses and children. Everyone with whom they came into contact was also investigated. All came up clean, except you. You have sheet music for the harp in your flat, yet you have no harp. That could easily be explained. What could not be easily explained was the one person other than your driver with whom you spoke for any length of time. Had you a lot of friends, this would have taken longer, but the only person outside of this building that you had any interaction with is the man who sat next to you at the opera. You really do lead a sad and solitary life.”

Lavrinenko turned to the window and looked out over his domain.

“Do you know what we did with the CIA man?”

“No, Director.”

“We let him go. He stuck to his legend. His backstory was almost perfect. We could have taken things a step further in the Lubyanka basement, but I decided there was another play. Do you know what it was?”

Penkovsky did not respond.

“We kept him for three days. No physical coercion. We allowed him to think we bought his story. Then we returned his belongings and told him that everything had checked out. We even apologized for the inconvenience. Why? Because we had substituted a new note forged in your handwriting using the same method of cerium oxalate paper transfer on the same music sheets.”

“What did it say?”

“It exposed Allister Desmond.”

“Desmond? Why?”

“Anatoly, have I misjudged your analytical prowess? Think about it.”

Penkovsky took a moment, thinking it through.

“Because the Americans knew someone was passing us classified keying material and that we had access to the encryption machines from the Pueblo,” he said.

“Major Dvornikov knew we had the machines and now had the ability to decrypt American communications, but he didn’t know who was giving us the keys. You gave them Desmond.”

“Can you tell me why?” Lavrinenko asked.

“To protect John Walker. Walker was assessed to be the more valuable spy. Giving up one would protect the other. Now the Americans think they have plugged their leak.”

“Bravo, Anatoly, that is what you say at the opera, isn’t it?

In your letter to the Americans, you were offering up a spy, but you did not name him.

You intended to hold that information until you got what you wanted, which was eventually to defect, is that right?

Now that will not happen. You pushed it too far.

Desmond is sacrificed and Walker will continue to pass us keying material for years to come.

He has expressed interest in recruiting others, others in his own family, and creating a true spy ring, one that gives us a seat in the inner sanctum of the Pentagon. ”

Penkovsky looked down in defeat.

“If only you had given both Walker and Desmond up earlier. Why didn’t you? Don’t answer. I think I know. You wanted to bleed us slowly, to see us die a slow death as did your son.”

“Fuck you.”

“Tuberculosis, wasn’t it? We never talked about it.”

“You never asked.”

“But I’d read your file. It is my job to know the weaknesses and motivations of everyone in the building. I revisited it, in light of recent revelations.”

Penkovsky remained stoic.

“The file said the tuberculosis caused irreparable damage to your son’s lungs.

It must be hard for a parent to watch their son suffocate.

I understand it was extremely difficult on your wife.

That is why she left you, isn’t it? You represented the state to her, the same state that killed her child. ”

Penkovsky’s eyes burned in a fusion of hatred and pain.

“The official cause of death was organ failure after the disease spread beyond the lungs,” Lavrinenko continued.

“Did it get to his kidneys? Spine? Liver? Brain? I do sympathize with you, Comrade. If it were me in your position, I can’t say what I would do, though I would hope I would not betray the motherland. ”

“It is the country that betrayed us.”

“Is that what you tell yourself when the curtain goes up at the opera and you exchange coat claim tickets with the enemy? You were keeping Walker as your ace in the hole, as your American friends would say, in case you needed to defect. Of course, they would want to keep you in place feeding them information for years, but something as big as Walker, well, that just might have been your ticket. You didn’t know when to get out of the game. They were using you.”

“And I, you, Director.”

“I learned the way your mind works in all these years we have worked together. Do you think I just sit there and eat caviar and grow fat? I am watching, learning. That’s how I survive.”

Lavrinenko turned to the window and looked out over GRU headquarters, his eyes coming to rest on the crematorium, its chimney spewing dark, oily smoke.

“You know there is only one way out of here for you, Anatoly.”

Lavrinenko did not need to specify what that was. They both knew. It was through the chimney of the crematorium.

Four large Spetsnaz soldiers in suits entered the office.

Lavrinenko turned to them.

“I never want to see him again.”

Without a word, Penkovsky buttoned the top button of his tweed jacket and was escorted from the room.