Paul Dark 03 The Moscow Option by Jeremy Duns

Author:Jeremy Duns [Duns, Jeremy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857200716
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

IX

9.54 a.m., 27 October 1969, Gorokhovsky Pereulok, Moscow

An office block loomed in front of us, immense and grey, a couple of cars parked on the street directly in front. I couldn’t remember where Maclean lived, but I’d read the masthead of International Affairs a hundred times or more, and the address was always printed at the foot of the page: ‘14 Gorokhovsky Pereulok, Moscow’. Despite the anonymity of the building, this was a plush neighbourhood in one of the oldest parts of the city – we’d passed several eighteenth-and nineteenth-century palaces on the way.

We hadn’t passed any militsiya patrols or GAZ-23s, but Yuri and his colleagues would be searching hard for this car, so logic dictated we lose it as soon as possible. Sarah was too young to pass for a senior female official in the fiercely male Soviet military environment, and if we went together that might confuse matters, so after a brief discussion we decided it was probably safer that she stayed in the car than risked being stopped on the street. I parked a few streets away outside a block of flats, and left her huddled under the blankets in the back, clutching the attaché case. We agreed that if I hadn’t returned within twenty minutes she would try to make a break for the border alone.

There was a militsiya man on guard by the entrance: probably an undercover KGB officer assigned to the building in general, and Maclean in particular. I’d considered telephoning from a call-box, but had decided it was too risky. He might simply call his handler the moment he replaced the receiver, and I’d be picked up the moment I arrived at the arranged meeting point. No, if I wanted his cooperation, I would have to see him face to face. He might be under surveillance by the KGB, but after nearly two decades in the country I reckoned that the protection would be relatively light.

The militsiya man watched me as I approached, squinting, perhaps to see if I was someone he knew. He had a sergeant’s shoulder-boards.

‘Greetings, comrade!’ I said, raising my hand, and hoping blood wasn’t seeping through the glove.

‘Good morning, comrade. What can I do for you?’

‘I’m here to see the Englishman, Frazer. Is he in his office?’

He frowned at the mention of the name, and my stomach tensed as I waited to see if the gamble would pay off. Maclean might no longer work here, or be on holiday, or be using another name, or be in Minsk . . .

‘Is there a problem?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said, ‘I just need to ask him some questions. One of the other Englishmen has gone missing, and head office thinks this fool might know about it. I doubt it, but I’ve been sent to ask just in case.’

He considered this for a moment. ‘That sounds like one of Vilshin’s ideas.’

I smiled. ‘No, this came directly from Andropov, would you believe?’

He whistled. Then his eyes narrowed. ‘This is the first I’ve heard of it.

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