“Stay there, Inspector. I’ll come at once.”
For several minutes Benny Svenson sat at his desk consumed with horror. In twenty years in the hotel business he had never known a guest to be murdered.
His sole off-duty passion was playing bridge, and he recalled that one of his regular partners was on the staff at the British Embassy. Consulting his private address book he found the diplomat’s home number and called him. It was ten to midnight and the man had been asleep, but he came awake fast when told the news.
“Good Lord, Benny, the journalist fellow? Writes for the Telegraph? Didn’t know he was in town. But thanks anyway.”
This will cause a hell of a flap, thought the diplomat when he put down the phone. Alive or dead, British citizens in trouble in foreign parts were a matter for the Consular Section of course, but he felt he should tell someone before the morning. He rang Jock Macdonald.
Moscow, June 1988
VALERI Kruglov had been back home for ten months. There was always a risk with an asset recruited abroad that he would change his mind on his return home and make no contact, destroying the codes, inks, and papers he had been given.
There was nothing the recruiting agency could do about it, short of denouncing the man, but that would be pointless and cruel, serving no advantage. It took cool nerve to work against a tyranny from the inside, and some men did not have it.
Like everyone at Langley, Monk would never entertain comparisons between those who worked against the Moscow regime and an American traitor. The latter would be betraying the entire American people and their democratically elected government. If caught, he would get humane treatment, a fair trial, and the best lawyer he could procure.
A Russian was working against a brutal despotism that represented no more than ten percent of the nation and kept the other ninety percent in subjection. If caught he would be beaten and shot without trial, or sent to a slave labor camp.
But Kruglov had kept his word. He had communicated three times via dead drops with interesting and high-level policy documents from insi
de the Soviet Foreign Ministry. Suitably edited to disguise the source, these enabled the State Department to know the Soviet negotiating position before they even sat at the table. Throughout 1987 and 1988 the East European satellites were moving to open revolt—Poland had already gone, Romania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia were on the boil—and it was vital to know how Moscow would seek to handle this. To know just how weak and demoralized Moscow felt itself to be was vitally important. Kruglov revealed it.
But in May agent Delphi indicated he needed a meeting. He had something important, he wanted to see his friend Jason. Harry Gaunt was distraught.
“Yalta was bad enough. No one here slept much. You got away with it. It could have been a trap. So could this. Okay, the codes indicate he’s on the level. But he could have been caught. He could have spilled the lot. And you know too much.”
“Harry, there are a hundred thousand U.S. tourists visiting Moscow these days. It’s not like the old times. The KGB can’t monitor them all. If the cover is perfect, it’s one man among a hundred thousand. You’d have to be taken red-handed.
“They’re going to torture a U.S. citizen? Nowadays? The cover will be perfect. I’m cautious. I speak Russian but pretend I don’t. I’m just a harmless American goofball with a tourist guide. I don’t move out of role until I know there’s no surveillance. Trust me.”
America possesses a vast network of foundations interested in art of every kind and description. One of them was preparing a student group to visit Moscow to study various museums, with the high point as a visit to the famous Museum of Oriental Art on Obukha Street. Monk signed on as a mature student.
All the background and papers of Dr. Philip Peters were not only perfect, they were genuine, when the student group touched down at Moscow airport in mid-June. Kruglov had been advised.
The obligatory Intourist guide met them and they stayed at the awful Rossiya Hotel, about as big as Alcatraz but without the comforts. On the third day they visited the Oriental Art Museum. Monk had studied the details back home. Between the showcases it had big open spaces where he was confident he could spot it if they were there following Kruglov.
He saw his man after twenty minutes. Dutifully he followed the guide and Kruglov trailed along behind. There was no tail; he was convinced of it by the time he headed for the cafeteria.
Like most Moscow museums the Oriental Art has a large café, and cafés have lavatories. They took their coffee separately but Monk caught Kruglov’s eye. If the man had been taken by the KGB and tortured into submission, there would be something in the eyes. Fear. Desperation. Warning. Kruglov’s eyes crinkled with pleasure. Either he was the greatest double the world had ever seen, or he was clean. Monk rose and went to the men’s room. Kruglov followed. They waited till the single hand washer left, then embraced.
“How are you, my friend?”
“I am good. I have my own apartment now. It is so wonderful to have privacy. My children can visit and I can put them up for the night.”
“No one suspected anything? I mean, the money?”
“No, I had been away too long. Everyone is on the take nowadays. All senior diplomats have many things brought back from abroad. I was too naïve.”
“Then things really are changing, and we are helping them change,” said Monk. “Soon the dictatorship will be over and you will live free. Not long now.”
Some schoolboys came in, piddled noisily, and left. The two men washed their hands until they were gone. Monk had in any case kept the water running. It was an old trick, but unless the mike was very close or the speaker raised his voice, the sound of rushing water usually worked.
They talked for ten more minutes and Kruglov handed over the package he had brought. Real documents, hard copies, taken from Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze’s office.
They embraced again and left separately. Monk rejoined his group and flew back with them two days later. Before he left, he dropped the package with the CIA station inside the embassy.
Back home the documents revealed the USSR was pulling back on just about every Third World foreign aid program including Cuba. The economy was cracking up and the end was in sight. The Third World could no longer be used as a lever to blackmail the West. The State Department loved it.