Malakhov smiled.
“I think he recruited me, he and Yuri. He graduated near the top of his class, and within a week, we had him at the KGB foreign service school.”
“Did you keep track of him during his training?”
“No, I was sent abroad soon after that, but on leave at home, I would always hear rumors around Moscow Central about his progress. He was dazzling, from all I heard.
His skill with languages shortened his training time greatly, since much time is usually spent perfecting a candidate’s language skills, and he was posted to Stockholm after only two years. I had no further direct contact with him until 1978, when he was made head of First Chief Directorate. I had a number of long meetings with him, sometimes alone. and he chose me for the UN assignment.”
“Andropov made him head of First, then?”
“Of course. During the time when Yuri was studying English with Viktor Sergeivich, they developed almost a father-son relationship, although Andropov was only fortyish at the time. He was always Majorov’s chief patron after that time, although Viktor Sergeivich took pains to ingratiate himself with others he thought to be on their way up.”
“Who in particular?”
“Gorbachev, principally, who was a few years older than Majorov, but also a protege of Andropov, and during his time at the UN I heard that he got along particularly well with Gromyko. not an easy thing to do.”
“He did well with both generations, then?”
“Yes. indeed. He had the ambition of the younger generation to change things, but the cold hardness of the older. He could identify with both.”
“It would sound as though, under the present leadership, he would have been in line to head the KGB.”
Malakhov gave a massive shrug.
“Who knows? I thought he was in line to succeed Andropov as head of the KGB when he moved up to the chairmanship; he certainly had Yuri’s favor, but it didn’t happen. It would have been the most natural thing in the world, given their relationship, but it didn’t happen.”
“Why not, do you think?”
“I have a theory, but I could be wrong.”
Rule was anxious to hear this.
“What is your theory?”
“I think he got something better.”
Now her own theory was getting support. Her next question might advance it another stage.
“What could be better than head of the KGB?”
“I think Majorov invented something for himself; nothing else could be better for him. He always liked freedom of movement.”
“What could he invent for himself that would be better than head of the
KGB.”
“I don’t know, but it would have to be big; grandiose, even. Yes, grandiose, that would suit Viktor Sergeivich. It would have to be something big enough that if it were successful, it would catapult him into the Politburo, perhaps even into the leader’s chair.”
“He thinks as big as that, does he? Pretty risky thinking.”
“Majorov revels in risk, my dear Brooke. He is the sort of man who will either achieve everything, or destroy himself trying. He is not without his faults, if the rumors mean anything.”
Rule tensed a little.
“Tell me about the rumors.”
“Well, on trips back to Moscow, I heard more than once that Viktor Sergeivich had… certain proclivities, sexual proclivities.”
“You mean he’s homosexual?”
“Indeed not. To the contrary, he was a consumer of women, often in twos and threes, that was common knowledge.”
“What proclivities, then.”
Malakhov squirmed a bit.
“I am an old puritan. I suppose, and these things make me uncomfortable, even to talk about them.”
Rule leaned forward.
“Please.” she said.
“Well, the rumor was that things sometimes went too far, that he sometimes killed.”
“Killed his sexual partners?”
Malakhov nodded.
“That was the rumor, that it happened… more than once. And I must tell you, that when I heard this rumor, I did not have difficulty believing it.”
“Why not? What in your experience with Majorov made you think he might be capable of sexual murder?”
“Murder is not hard,” Malakhov said, somewhat sadly.
“[ have murdered. If you are in the KGB for very long. you will soon murder, one way or another. But not every murderer is capable of wielding the knife himself. But some men enjoy that. I saw Majorov enjoy it, once.”
“Tell me about the occasion.”
Malakhov looked at the floor.
“Do you know how a military execution is carried out in the Soviet Union?”
“Firing squad, I suppose.”
Malakhov shook his head.
“No, for crimes that incur the death penalty, a firing squad is too good, too dignified for this sort of criminal. He is led to believe this is what will happen, though. A firing squad is selected, and the victim is marched out to meet them. Then, while the firing squad appears to be readying itself, a single officer with a pistol quietly approaches the victim from behind and shoots him in the head.”
Rule said nothing.
“I saw Majorov perform such an execution, once,” Malakhov said, still looking at the floor.
“The victim was a KGB officer who had been found guilty of attempting to defect to the West. A firing squad was assembled, and as the officer chosen to perform the execution was about to approach the victim from behind, Majorov suddenly appeared and took the pistol from him. He walked slowly, crablike toward the victim, and the expression on his face… he was very excited. He waited for a moment, then another, until the victim began to wonder what was happening, why the firing squad was not proceeding.
Majorov held the pistol close to his head and waited… waited until the man thought he sensed something and began to turn toward him. Majorov waited until the instant the man caught sight of him, out of the corner of his eye, and then he fired, catching the man in the temple. Then he walked away and left him lying there, not dead. It remained for another officer to administer the coup de grace.
It was a terrible thing to see… a terrible thing to see a man enjoy the killing of another.”
Rule still said nothing.
“I will tell you this, Brooke Kirkland,” Malakhov leaned forward and spat the words.
“In the more than thirty years I spent in the KGB, Viktor Sergeivich Majorov was the crudest, most ruthless man I ever encountered. It frightened me to be around him.”
The door behind Rule opened, and she turned to see Ed Rawls standing in the doorway.
“You’ve got to get going,” he said.
Rule tried desperately to think of what she should ask.
She had sat there, entranced, and let this old General control the conversation, spin his tales, and use up her time. Some interrogator she was! She stood up.
“Coming, Ed.” She turned to Malakhov.
“Is Viktor Majorov capable of committing Soviet forces to a land war in Europe, if he could get the support of the Politburo?”
Malakhov stood, too.
“You have not been listening to me, Brooke Kirkland,” he said, shaking his head.
“Viktor Sergeivich Majorov is capable of anything—any act that will further his personal ends. No man. no group, no nation is safe that stands between him and what he wants, and I do not exclude the Soviet Union herself from that assessment.”
“Thank you,” she said, and turned to leave.
“Brooke Kirkland,” Malakhov called out as she reached the top of the steps.
Rule turned and looked back.
Malakhov grinned.
“Whatever Viktor Sergeivich is up to, I can promise you, you will not like it!”
She could hear him laughing through the closed door as she walked from the schoolhouse with Ed Rawls.
“Jesus,” she said, “that was an education.” She stopped at her car and turned to Rawls.
“Ed, did you ever have some wild idea, and when you started to chase it down, everything you learned supported it?”
“Yeah,” Rawls replied, “once or twice.” He grinned at her.
“Pretty scary, isn’t it?”
“It sure as hell is.” She threw an arm around his shoulders and kissed him on the cheek.
“Thanks, I appreciate this more than I can tell you.”
“Remember,” he said, “you cannot put today’s stuff in any file, you cannot cite it to support any theory.”
“I remember,” she said, getting into her car and starting it.
“See you around Langley, Ed.”
“I hope so, Kate,” he replied, not smiling.
“I really hope so.”
She drove to Stowe and turned toward Burlington and her plane. She had come up here for background, for confirmation, and she had gotten it. she thought. She wondered why, instead of feeling elated, she felt depressed. HELDER was wakened by a cold and wet sensation on the top of his head, followed instantly by the pain in his shoulders. He felt as if his face were about to explode, and it took several seconds for him to regain enough consciousness to under stand his condition. He was hanging upside down from his airplane-style shoulder harness, and the straps were cutting badly. From a distance, there was the sound of water rushing under pressure, and he realized that the mini sub was being flooded, and that the water had reached the top of his upside-down head.
He clawed at the emergency harness release in panic, thinking he would drown soon if it would not release. It released all too well. dumping him into a foot of water. He scrambled upright, spitting and choking and trying to orient himself to the sub’s capsized condition. The instrument lights were still burning, and so was the overhead dome light, except that it was now underwater, and it cast distorted rays about the chaotic interior of the Type Four.
Helder looked about him. Valeric Sokolov was floating face down a couple of feet from him. He grabbed at her and heaved her upright she might still be alive then he cried out and shrank from her. A screwdriver handle protruded from her right eye; the blade had been driven in to the hilt, directly into her brain. Her other eye stared blankly, and her jaw hung slack. Helder remembered grabbing something and jabbing at her to make her let go of him.
He had succeeded.
It took a moment for him to recover from this sight and to begin to realize his situation. The mini sub rested upside down on the bottom, at an angle of about ten degrees off the perpendicular, and water was coming in fast from the area of the hatch, which now rested on the bottom, making escape from the sub impossible. In the original Type Four, another hatch existed; in this truncated version, that had been eliminated. The main hatch was the only way out.
Helder tried to be calm and consider his position. The lights were still burning in the sub; that meant he still had battery power. He groped for the switch for the outside lamps, found it, and switched it on. The seabed outside the sub sloped gently downward in the direction of the sub’s angle from the perpendicular, encouraging him to think he might be able to roll the machine at least partly over. He flipped off the switch, chose a part of the sub’s hull on the downhill side and threw his weight at it. The sub rocked slightly, then settled back into its original upside-down position. He flung himself repeatedly at the hull, but the sub’s attitude would not change.
Helder closed his eyes and tried to think what resources were available to him. Power, he had power. He thought for a moment, then reached up for the propeller controls.
He took hold of the control handles and shoved the star board throttle to full ahead and the port throttle to full back. The engines rose to a high whine, and the sub began to shudder. Then, slowly, the after end of the mini sub skidded a few inches sideways, and the sub began to roll over. Helder had not been ready for this change of attitude, and he found himself clinging desperately to what ever handhold he could get as the sub rolled over to rest on its port side.
That cleared the hatch, he thought, if the sub’s resting on it had not jammed it. Water sprayed violently from the breached hatch, sending out a painful, needlelike spray.
Helder stood and started tearing at a locker door on the starboard side of the sub, now above his head. It came open, and two escape lungs fell on top of him. He grabbed one and inspected it quickly; it seemed to be all right. The lung consisted of a pressure regulator, a mouthpiece, a nose clamp, and a small bottle of compressed air, said in training to contain a ten-minute supply. Helder had used one once, in an escape tower at sub school. He snapped the strap around his neck and looked about him again. His emergency gear, still sealed in its heavy plastic envelope, floated at his feet. He picked it up, broke the seal, and squeezed as much air from the envelope as he could before re zipping it shut. He had to ascend to the surface as slowly as possible, and he didn’t want the air in the envelope to pop him up too quickly. He looked around again; he seemed to have what he needed.
The spray from the hatch was driving him crazy. He waded aft past it, shielding himself from the needles, and opened the sub’s sea cocks Water now streamed into the mini sub in two columns that equaled the size of his wrist.