Wormwood by Dawson Mark

Author:Dawson, Mark [Dawson, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: thriller, Mystery, Historical
Amazon: B09MWLFHK9
Goodreads: 59750767
Publisher: Unputdownable
Published: 2022-01-14T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter Forty-Seven

They were given two small rooms in the basement from which they could conduct their review. The files were delivered by a cadet wheeling a trolley, arranged in cardboard boxes and varying in thickness depending upon how much attention the subject had warranted from state security. The military staff and scientists who had been stationed at the Duga-1 radar array had numbered only a few hundred, and Kostin and Stanislavovich took only a couple of hours to work their way through their files. Some were little more than single sheets that recorded names, parents, date and place of birth, Party status and education history. They could dispose of these quickly. Other files were larger, with dossiers of information setting out concerns shared by friends and neighbours, worries about loyalty to Party or state, or suspicions that a person might be susceptible to the corrosive impact of Western culture. These files took much longer to review. Kostin established a system: if a file was clean, with nothing to suggest that there was any prospect that the subject might be considering defection, it could be returned to a box and sent back to storage. Files that included material that might suggest dissatisfaction were set to the side so that a shortlist could be established. Tereshchenko agreed that anyone on the shortlist who had aroused particular concern could be put under surveillance.

Stanislavovich opened the door. “Any luck?”

“No,” Kostin said. “A radar technician who complained to the wrong person. Another one who bought a pair of black-market Levi’s for her daughter. But anything that might suggest someone was ready to defect? No. Nothing. How about you?”

“The same.”

“How many files have you got left?”

Stanislavovich rolled his eyes. “I’ve hardly made a dent in it.”

Kostin ducked his head and scrubbed at his temples. “Me too.”

“We could ask for help?”

“No,” Kostin said. “We’ve already got his people watching for us. I don’t want to push it.”

Stanislavovich stretched out his arms. “Maybe they’ll find them on the street. He said the pictures have been circulated.”

“I doubt it. They’ll be careful now they’re here.”

“What, then?”

“We don’t have a choice. We just have to keep looking.”

Kostin didn’t mention that he wanted them to be responsible for scouring the files. They would be blamed for anything that the enemy agents might do, but at least he could be confident that he would take the search seriously.

There was a knock at the door.

“Yes?”

The woman from the front desk put her head into the room. “I have a message for Comrade Stanislavovich.”

Stanislavovich raised a hand. “That’s me. What is it?”

“We just had a call from Warsaw. Your wife is pregnant?”

“Yes,” Stanislavovich said, standing a little straighter. “Is everything all right?”

“I’m not sure, Comrade. The message was that there have been complications, and your wife has had to be taken into hospital.”

“Shit,” Stanislavovich said. “When?”

“I don’t know. They didn’t say.”

Stanislavovich turned to Kostin. He was pale. “Yulian—”

“Go.”

“But what about you? We’ve hardly started.”

“I’ll manage. Take the car. I’ll get the train back.”

Stanislavovich looked between the boxes of files and the door.

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