Document Z by Andrew Croome

Author:Andrew Croome
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: FIC000000
ISBN: 9781741768053
Publisher: Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd
Published: 2009-01-08T05:00:00+00:00

12

Bialoguski rang the Sydney Morning Herald from a phone box on Victoria Road, asking to speak to any journalist with a special interest in world or national affairs. They put him through to a man named Clean. He listened closely to the man’s voice, trying to make a political assessment.

‘Listen,’ Bialoguski said. ‘Are you a man of the left or the right?’

‘What’s that matter?’

‘Answer.’

‘Left, right—I’m too bloody busy.’

‘Left or right?’

‘Let me refer you. We’ve got both kinds of bastard here.’

‘Look, I need a journalist who’s not a communist.’

‘If there’s one thing I’m not.’

‘Alright.’

He told him he was a Security agent, recently retired. He wanted to write an exposé based on his penetrations. He wanted to forensically describe the activities of the New South Wales communist front, its various organisations, the Peace Movement. There were respectable doctors and lawyers and scientists sinking in the shit of Marxist philosophy. People having their pockets cut open and their cash funnelled in unsavoury directions. He had documentary evidence. Hard facts. Names. He would write these articles anonymously and he would be paid. If they needed proof of his Security connections, he could provide the names of men who would vouch for him. The best idea, he thought, would be to pen the articles under a pseudonym, something suitably heroic and metaphysical: T.J. Shawl or K.K. Ghost. The articles could be used as the basis of news stories, but the articles themselves had to be the magazine type with illustrations and a hard, black edge. There were further options. A series of articles on the Soviet embassy. He had a direct connection to revelations about the activities of Soviet diplomats and embassy personnel.

‘Who am I speaking with?’ asked Clean.

‘For the moment I’m just a man calling from a phone box.’

He mentioned the name Petrov; the names Pakhomov, Vislykh, Generalov. Said there were underhand goings-on he could expose. Front-page news.

‘Hold on,’ said Clean. ‘How can we meet?’

‘I’ll call you,’ said Bialoguski. ‘For the moment I am simply interested in your interest.’ He disconnected.

Arriving at Cliveden, it was a shock to find Petrov on the doorstep. The Russian looked drunk and sulky, mostly wretched. The weather was much too warm for an overcoat, but Vladimir’s hugged his body all the same.

‘I need to see Beckett,’ he said.

Bialoguski felt his dark mood. They went upstairs. He poured them drinks and they sat.

‘Bastards,’ Petrov spat.

‘What’s wrong, Vladimir?’

The man jerked a newspaper from his pocket and thrust it under Bialoguski’s nose. ‘Look at this,’ he said.

It was an article. Life in Russia. The day-to-day starvation of the masses; the overbearing fear of the purge.

‘Lies?’ suggested the doctor.

‘No,’ said Petrov. ‘It’s all true. Except really it’s twice as bad!’

Bialoguski looked at him carefully.

‘Come on, Doctor,’ the Russian went on. ‘I think you know. You are clever enough to realise we are suffering terribly. Maybe you believe in dialectical materialism, but about the ruthless conditions in the Soviet Union you are smart enough to know.’

‘What is this, Vladimir?’

The man pointed to Malenkov’s bulbous, dual-chinned face.

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