The Soviet Comeback by Jamie Smith (best ereader for academics TXT) 📕

the room, which had been painted over, and with some effort, forced it open. The seasoned KGB agent looked out at the deserted alleyway below and weighed his chances. Backing himself, he jumped out without a backward glance at his pitiful victim and landed on all fours on the cold concrete a floor below, rolling to absorb the impact.

After brushing himself down, he stalked off, the cold killer once more with no thoughts of the flesh to distract him.

The White Russian was on the move.

As he walked away, an expressionless face with a toothbrush moustache and large thick glasses appeared at the window of a building opposite the brothel and peered after the assassin, focusing the lens of a bulky camera and snapping him silently. He took out a pen and made a note in a small notebook he produced from within his long coat, before snapping it shut. On the front cover were the letters ZB.

***

Viktor Yerin walked purposefully through the ornate gilded halls of the Kremlin. For a man well into his sixties he moved well, the result of a daily regime of calisthenics and a history of military discipline carried with him throughout his adult life.

The chairman of the KGB was dressed in a dark grey suit and black tie, and in his hand carried a briefcase. As a key member of the Politburo, the supreme executive and legislative body of the Communist Party and Soviet Union government, for the past three years he had been able to move with ease through government halls, but it was rare that the leader of the Soviet Union summoned him directly. Or at least it had been, but times were changing.

Walking straight past the secretary, Yerin paused outside the heavy wooden door of the leader’s office, then setting his shoulders, raised his head and knocked.

“Da,” came the reply, and he pushed open the door.

Yerin remembered the office as it had been under Brezhnev. He even remembered it from a visit once while Nikita Krushchev was general secretary, when he had maintained the look and feel Stalin had enjoyed. Back then there had been a highly decorative, polished wooden floor and walls of deep crimson. All that now remained was the dark oak desk behind which sat the leader of the communist world and the largest nation on the planet, surrounded by grey walls and a largely colourless room.

Mikhail Petrenko pushed himself up from the hard wooden chair. “Viktor, thank you for coming,” he said in his firm voice and shook hands with the KGB leader. “You look tired, comrade,” he added.

“Work loves fools,” said Yerin, reciting the Russian proverb.

Petrenko laughed. “Yes, but no water runs under an idle stone,” he replied with a proverb of his own. He gestured towards a chair at his desk. “Please sit,” he said and returned to his own seat. He sat looking at Yerin, his hands folded in front of him.

Stirring uncomfortably, Yerin asked, “You summoned me?”

The smile faded slightly from Petrenko who with a grunt pulled open a drawer at his desk and delved into it. Yerin surveyed the man before him. His skin was almost grey, and the size of his belly had crept over the mark from portly to fat.

He produced the bottle of vodka and the two glasses he had been searching for.

“I keep the good stuff for those I know will appreciate it,” Petrenko said smiling, and Yerin saw that his nose was a deepveined red as he poured the clear liquid into the two glasses. “Nazdarovje,” said Petrenko, raising his glass, which was echoed by Yerin.

“To the matter of business then,” said the Soviet leader. “I want an update on the situation in America; I feel devoid of information.”

“You are not receiving my missives, sir?” asked Yerin, knowing full well that he had been.

“You and I both know that there is a great deal missing from your missives, Viktor, and I would know the full story. I am hearing rumours that they have uncovered the Black Russian. Tell me this is not true.”

“It is not true,” Viktor replied coldly. He prided himself on the thoroughness of his reports.

“Come now, Viktor, you are very sensitive for a man who leads the world’s greatest and toughest security agency. I also know that you are a master of clandestine work and missives can fall into the wrong hands so easily. But now in person I would know all that is too sensitive to be written down.”

Yerin nodded, pacified. “The Americans have begun to get dangerously close to the truth, but Colonel Klitchkov is devising a plan to lead them elsewhere.”

“You think him cleverer than the CIA, FBI, NSA and US government?”

“Without a doubt, sir,” replied Yerin without a trace of humour. “I do not yet know the full details of his plan, but as it stands the Black Russian’s identity remains intact, and we are working to ensure that the agent we call Kolokol remains unmasked.”

“Is the influence of Kolokol still as great?”

“This year alone he has given us over thirty foreign agents of the CIA operating in Soviet territories. We believe we have now gathered the vast majority of American spies in Moscow thanks to him. He has been the single greatest asset we have ever possessed.”

“You did excellent work in turning him, Viktor. But I am concerned about why they are getting so close to our Black Russian.”

“The agent has carried out his missions perfectly, and is doing excellent work in undermining the CIA’s Soviet counter-intelligence work.”

“If he is so perfect then how do they know he exists?”

“At present, sir, they remain unaware of his existence; they merely suspect that a KGB agent is on US soil carrying out assassinations. They have exceeded expectations in putting together a trail of breadcrumbs from the deaths, despite our efforts to ensure