High Jinx (27 page)

The major sat in the forwardmost window seat, so that Fleetwood was spared the nuisance of having to make conversation with him, or sharing a meal. The male steward offered Fleetwood cakes, tea, Russian wine, beer, and vodka. Fleetwood settled for the tea and cakes, it being only just after lunch. He leaned back contentedly and opened
The Forsyte Saga,
a book he had never got around to reading. He simply hadn't bothered to return it to Comrade Balenkov, the thoughtful librarian of the University of Moscow to whom he had dispatched, via the concierge, the suitcase full of the other books brought in a week ago.

The ceremony in the inner sanctum of the Director of the KGB had really been quite touching. And entirely unexpected. Alice Goodyear Corbett had telephoned him early and said that a little surprise was in store for him on his last full day in Moscow.

And there Beria was, as also the two principal deputies of ‘Lavrenti Pavlovich,' as he had been instructed to call Comrade Beria. And with great solemnity Alistair Fleetwood had been presented with the Order of Lenin, ‘for conspicuous contributions to the cause of international socialism and devoted service to peace and the liberation of the working man everywhere.' It was a beautiful gold medal, with of course the profile of Lenin and, on the back, the inscription that had been read out to him. ‘But we left out your name—the space is there for it. Security. When the climate is propitious, you may take it to a jeweller and have your name inscribed. Meanwhile, in our safe, is the authorisation. We cannot for obvious reasons publicly decorate you, Sir Alistair'—once again, Alice was rattling along to keep up her all but simultaneous translation of the fast-talking Beria—‘but your constructive deeds, creative genius, and loyalty will forever be inscribed in the annals of Soviet heroism.'

That was quite a presentation, Sir Alistair Fleetwood reminisced proudly, looking down at the patches of clouds covering the endless snowfields. It was good, he thought, that he had been critically helpful in penetrating a plot that might have brought the Soviet Union international disgrace, as Beria had explained it to him, among the legions who had worked throughout their adult lives, as he had done, for the cause of brotherhood.

He wondered whether, when the revolution came, he would need to give up his knighthood? He supposed so. And it was true he had got rather used to it. But there were other rewards. After all, Lenin was never Sir Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, let alone Lord Lenin—Alistair Fleetwood had to acknowledge that the possibility was overwhelming that sometime in the not remote future he would be given a seat in the House of Lords, where in fact he belonged—that is to say, where he belonged in a society so structured. There would of course be no such thing in the future. Not the immediate future. The forces of fascism were not quite ready to give up, but that would come. Meanwhile, if he had to serve as a peer of the realm—Lord Fleetwood? Rather euphonious—why, he would simply do so.

He began to doze; as he did so, a tiny grain of sand entered his scientific mind—the mildest little irritant, lodging itself in the subconscious of the Nobel laureate. That little irritant said, yawningly,
How odd that, flying northwest from Moscow to Helsinki, the gradually setting sun is behind the porthole, rather than abeam of it
… But not an irritant quite compelling enough to wake him up.

They landed at 3:30. It was extremely cold and blustery and Alistair Fleetwood had to lean heavily into the wind to make headway down the companionway. He did not recognise the profile of the Helsinki airport, but of course he had seen it a week ago only during the midnight hours. He was vaguely surprised that an officer, indeed an officer and six armed men, were there to escort him to the terminal, where presumably they would disengage, leaving him to embark the commercial airliner to Stockholm as that perennial tourist Bjorn Henningsen. He smiled in the teeth of the wind, holding down his furry cap, the present Alice had given him the day before. The officer at the airfield spoke briefly with Fleetwood's bearded escort, who thereupon reentered the plane, which taxied to the end of the runway and, before Fleetwood had reached the building toward which they were headed, was airborne.

It was only then that he felt a twinge.

Within three hours Alistair Fleetwood had been court-martialled; sentenced to twenty years with hard labour for spying on the Soviet Union; informed that no, he would not be permitted, given the sensitive nature of his offence, to communicate with the British Embassy; put in a cold cell without light or window, having first been stripped of his wallet, watch, and briefcase. He pounded the heavy wooden door of the prison until his hands were swollen. He crawled then on his hands and knees to the thin mattress, wrapped his coat about himself, and wept hysterically until utter exhaustion took over, allowing him to imagine fleetingly that he was in thrall to a nightmare that would surely pass the next morning.

As Fleetwood, exhausted, was finally dozing, the passenger from Helsinki snowed his passport at Immigration in Stockholm, having flown in from Helsinki to which the army transport, by special orders from the Kremlin, had taken him, on the understanding that he would first deliver the prisoner—who would learn now the high cost of facilitating an act of espionage against the duly constituted government of the Soviet Union—to the concentration camp whose director had been instructed on how to deal with him. All this a reward for very special services to the Kremlin: no less than the revelation of Zirca spying on the Premier himself. A contrivance, ironically, invented by the same man recruited and managed by the informer's own American-born wife! Ah, the ironies were wonderful.

He would miss Alice, really, though he would get over it. And of course she, as an accomplice, would be purged. But such was life: some people win, some people lose; and Alice knew that—big girl, Alice. The immigration officer, examining the passport, commented, ‘Well, Herr Henningsen, you evidently like our country. Second visit in just a week, I see.' He stamped the passport and returned it, disdaining to examine closely the passport photo of a heavily bearded man in his late thirties. The following morning, at a hotel suite where the Bank of Zurich kept an agent with a teletype machine, the Swiss agent confirmed, after a teletyped exchange with Switzerland, that the number given to him by the customer entitled him to the instant payment of the five thousand dollars he requested, against the balance waiting for him in Zurich, one half of which, he kept reminding himself sorrowfully, belonged to his old friend—he was amused as he reflected on the name his friend had given himself, ‘Mr. Mussolini.'

Vladimir Belushi counted the notes carefully, pocketed them, and walked out, checking his city map for the location of the Swiss Embassy, where certain formalities would need to be undertaken.

31

A farewell meeting of the Politburo was scheduled for nine that night. It was intended as a celebration, beginning, to be sure, with a brief business meeting. No outsiders had been invited, not even wives. For that reason it had been designated as a meeting rather than as a social event.

While Stalin was alive, Politburo members always arrived early. As much as an hour early. In recent months that punctilio had been in decline. At one session a month or so ago Beria had actually arrived late, though only by ten minutes; and he had excused himself, an act of contrition that caught his colleagues, unprepared to believe that Comrade Beria could, after Stalin's departure, apologise to anyone for anything, by surprise. Most of them assumed it was a tactic, an effort to ingratiate.

They came, always, in their limousines, through the Borovitsky Gate. Their Zil limousines, the Soviet Union's bulky 110-horsepower imitations of a prewar American Packard, moved at top speed through the gate, coming in through the very centre of the most heavily guarded streets in the world. During the period of their arrival the principal street through which they would travel was blocked off by police, who received elaborate warnings in time to clear all pedestrians and other vehicles. The cars were followed by touring cars loaded with armed guards. Warning bells went off at the Borovitsky Gate as each car approached.

Tonight the ten ministers of state began to straggle into the Kremlin's interior through the East Door after passing through the Borovitsky Gate. They arrived with one or more aides, and were brought in by guards.

Marshal Bulganin loitered at the entrance to the East Door, chatting with his own aide, his eye on who was coming and going, interrupting himself to greet the ministers casually but warmly as one by one they came in.

When Lavrenti Beria arrived, Bulganin waved his aide to one side and approached him, speaking matter-of-factly.

‘Georgi Maximilianovich requests that you go to his office on the way to the meeting. He wants you to look at his proposed statement at London Airport before he reads it to the whole Council.'

‘Very well,' Beria said, removing his gloves and handing them, together with his overcoat, to his aide. He did not wait for Bulganin to lead the way. Instead he strode directly toward Malenkov's office. Arriving at the Premier's office he paused, undecided whether to knock. He simply opened the door.

Two guards grabbed him, one by each arm.

Premier Malenkov was standing grim-faced in front of his imposing desk.

‘As Premier and Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Army,' he said metallically, ‘and having surveyed the evidence, I accuse you of high treason against constituted authority. You have been tried by an executive committee of the Praesidium and been sentenced to death, the sentence to proceed immediately.'

From the corner of the room Nikita Khrushchev bounded forward. He drew a 9 mm. Makarov from his right jacket pocket, aimed it at Beria's head, and pulled the trigger.

The guards had been preinstructed on the matter of the disposal of the corpse. The three deputies of Beria would be arrested within the hour.

Orders would issue simultaneously that until further notice all KGB orders should file through the office of the Premier.

The three men—Malenkov, Bulganin, Khrushchev—walked, with strict attention to rank, into the Ministers' Council Room. On noting the expression on their faces there was instant silence.

Georgi Malenkov opted for the identical formulation they had all heard so often, so stunningly often, from Josef Stalin; so casually delivered. The communication was straightforward, unadorned:

‘Gentlemen. Comrade Lavrenti Pavlovitch Beria was apprehended while engaged in treasonable activity against the State. He has been tried and executed.

‘We will get on with the agenda.'

Premier Malenkov proceeded to read aloud the short statement he would deliver at London Airport the following afternoon.

There was no comment—until Marshal Voroshilov spoke up: ‘I think it is absolutely excellent, Georgi Maximilianovich.'

One by one the other members concurred.

‘Excellent.'

‘Just right.'

‘Very good.'

‘Bravo, Georgi Maximilianovich.'

32

In Brian Larwill's office and in his now crowded bedroom it was the same cast. But only a few yards away, in one of the indoor garage's parking spaces, was the lorry, in the rear section of which sat silently the four men brought in from Camp Cromwell, at Colonel Mac's direction, by Joe Louis: trained commandos. At exactly fifteen minutes after 8
P.M
. on that warm night in the late London autumn Superintendent Roberts called down on the walkie-talkie to the technician standing by the main fuses in the basement.

‘Ready out Op Ox.'

‘Roger and out.'

They waited.

They did not need to wait seven minutes this time. Almost immediately the telephone rang. It was Robert Editta.

‘Is this Larwill?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Well, this is Robert Editta, apartment 516. Goddammit Larwill, our fucking lights are out again. I was just developing a film.'

‘I'm most awfully sorry,' Larwill said. ‘I'll have to call Jimmy Moser. I have his home telephone number. It will take him ten, fifteen minutes to get here. Do you have torches, sir?'

‘We've got exactly one torch, and the batteries are weak.'

‘In that case, sir, would you like me to bring you a couple of extras while you wait for Moser?'

There was a pause. Clearly Editta was soliciting the advice of his companion.

‘Yes. Call Moser first, then get up here fast with those torches.'

‘Very well sir. Won't be a minute.'

In apartment 516 Bertram Heath suddenly stood up and wrenched the flashlight from Editta. ‘I don't like this. It could be all right but I'm not going to risk it. You stay here. I'll go out through the hall to the other side of the lift. Just in case.'

Without further exchange he shone the light on the doorknob, opened the door, and went out, down the dark hall toward the lift. He opened the door to the emergency staircase, leaving it ajar just enough to keep his eyes on the lift. He waited. Not long.

A few seconds later the lift light advised that the car was coming to a halt at the fifth floor. Bertram Heath saw five men emerging, four of them in commando garb. He waited two, three seconds, and then began on tiptoe to walk away. Moments later he was racing down the five flights of stairs.

The five men walked noiselessly to apartment 516. Two commandos flattened themselves on either side of the door. Each was carrying a huge flashlight in his left hand, a pistol in the other.

Brian Larwill, carrying two powerful searchlights, knocked on the door with his toe. And said, ‘The torches here, Mr. Editta.'

The sound of the chain being unfastened and the lock being turned was easy to make out.

The door opened, Moser jumped back, beaming his blinding lights into the darkness. The first commando lunged at the door, knocking Editta down. The second and third cast their glaring lights about the room. ‘Where's the other one?' one of them said.