“Against the FSB?”
When Gorbachev, just before his own ouster, broke up the KGB, the First Chief Directorate was renamed the SVR but still carried on as before from its old headquarters at Yazenevo. The Second Chief Directorate, covering internal security, was renamed the FSB.
“Probably nastier than that.”
Carey Jordan chewed on his whitebait, thought, then shook his head.
“No, he wouldn’t go. Never again.”
“Who, pray? Who wouldn’t go?”
“Guy I was thinking of. Also out of it, like me. But not as old. He was good. Cool nerve, very smart, a one-off, a natural. Fired five years ago.”
“He’s still alive?”
“So far as I know. Hey, this wine is good. Not often I get wine like this.”
Irvine topped up his glass.
“What was his name, this fellow who wouldn’t go?”
“Monk. Jason Monk. Spoke Russian like a native. Best goddam agent runner I ever had.”
“Okay, even though he won’t go, tell me about Jason Monk.”
So the old former DDO did that.
East Berlin, September 1990
IT was a warm autumn evening and the café terrace was crowded. Colonel Turkin, in a lightweight suit of German cloth and cut, attracted no attention when he took his seat at a small table close to the sidewalk at the very moment it was vacated by a loving pair of teenagers.
When the waiter cleared away the glasses, he ordered a coffee, opened a German newspaper, and began to read.
Precisely because he had spent his career in counter-intelligence, with its onus on surveillance, he was deemed to be an expert in counter-surveillance. The watchers from the KGB were therefore keeping their distance. But they were there: a man and a woman across the Opera Square, seated on a bench, youthful, carefree, each with a Walkman headset over their ears.
Each could communicate with two cars parked around the corner, passing their observations and receiving instructions. In the two cars were the snatch squad, for the arrest order had finally been given.
Two last pieces of information had tipped the balance against Turkin. In his description, Ames had said Lysander was recruited outside the USSR and spoke Spanish. The language alone gave the Investigation Branch the whole of Latin America plus Spain in their hunt of the records. The alternative candidate, it recently proved, had arrived on his first South American posting, to Ecuador, five years earlier. But Ames had said the recruitment of Lysander took place six years ago.
The second and clinching piece of evidence stemmed from the bright idea of checking all the phone records out of the KGB’s headquarters in East Berlin the night of the abortive raid on the CIA postbox apartment, the night the flat’s occupant had made his getaway one hour before the raid.
The logs revealed a call made from the public phone in the lobby to the same number as the designated apartment. The other suspect had been in Potsdam that night, and the leader of the abortive raid had been Colonel Turkin.
The formal arrest would have taken place earlier but for the fact a very senior officer was expected from Moscow. He had insisted on being present at the arrest, and personally escorting the suspect back to the USSR. Quite suddenly the suspect had left the headquarters canteen, on foot, and the watchers had no choice but to follow.
A Spanish-Moroccan shoe cleaner shuffled along the pavement by the café, gesturing to those in the front row to ask if they wished their shoes cleaned. He received a series of shakes of the head. The East Berliners were not accustomed to see itinerant shoeshine boys at their cafés, and the West Berliners among them mostly believed there were far too many immigrants from the Third World infesting their rich city.
Eventually the shoe cleaner got a nod, whipped his small stool under his backside, and squatted in front of his customer, quickly applying a thick application of black polish to the lace-up brogues. A waiter approached to shoo him away.
&n
bsp; “Now he has started, might as well let him finish,” said the customer in accented German. The waiter shrugged and moved off.
“Been a long time, Kolya,” muttered the bootblack in Spanish. “How are you?”
The Russian leaned forward to point out where he wanted more polish.
“Not so good. I think there are problems.”