‘Dead!’
‘Yes.’
‘How?’ There was a report, as stiffly formal as the colonel standing before him, but Malik wanted more, much more. He wanted everything.
‘I responded immediately to your telephone instructions,’ recited Panchenko, monotone. ‘But it was evening, as you know. It entailed going to the Comrade Director’s home…’
Malik sighed, curbing the impatience. It was as if the man were reading from the inadequate report he had already submitted. Malik said: ‘How did you know Agayans would be at home?’
‘I did not,’ said Panchenko. ‘I learned by telephoning the duty registration clerk here that Agayans had already left. The garage said the journey was logged to his home, on Gogolevskiy Boulevard…’
Unimpeachable police work, acknowledged Malik. He said: ‘Was any indication given that you were coming?’
Panchenko allowed himself a frown. ‘Telephoning ahead, you mean?’
‘Yes.’ His broken shoulder ached, like it often did, always an unnecessary intrusion. He resisted massaging it.
‘There was no prior contact,’ insisted Pancheno stiffly.
Malik wondered if the man slept in an attitude of permanent attention. He said: ‘How many men were assembled?’
‘A squad. Four men besides myself,’ said the security chief.
‘Were the four with you at Gofkovskoye Shosse?’
‘I telephoned the department here, instructing they should be assembled.’
‘So you returned here to pick them up?’
‘No. We arranged a meeting point at Verdandskovo.’
‘So there was no possibility of Agayans being aware of any security men gathering outside his home?’
‘None whatsoever,’ assured Panchenko. He thought the other man’s disability made him appear ominous and threatening.
‘Continue.’
‘The Comrade Director answered the door himself. He was a bachelor, as I have said in the report. He lived alone.’
‘The door opened at once?’
‘Yes.’
Malik inferred the colonel’s impatience at being taken entirely through an episode he believed already properly accounted for. Further to irritate the impatience, Malik said: ‘You haven’t set out in the report what his attitude was at being confronted by you.’
Panchenko hesitated, then said: ‘Surprise.’
‘Surprise would have been obvious,’ said Malik. ‘What about fear?’
‘Not until after we entered the apartment.’
‘Before which there was some conversation?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who spoke first?’
Again there was a pause, as if for recall. Panchenko said: ‘We practically spoke together. The Comrade Director asked what we were there for as I announced I had orders for his arrest.’
‘What was Agayans’ reply to that?’
‘He asked for what offence. I told him I did not know.’
Malik isolated Panchenko’s mistake and decided to wait to use it to undermine the stiff-backed attitude later. Hurrying on to prevent Panchenko realizing it, Malik said: ‘What then?’
‘He asked upon whose authority – I said yours,’ recounted the security chief. ‘He said he had done nothing wrong and asked if he could get dressed: that’s how he got to the bedroom.’
‘Dressed?’ queried Malik.
‘When we got to the apartment Agayans was in bed,’ reminded Panchenko. ‘It’s in the report.’
‘What time was this?’
‘Approximately nine.’
‘He was wearing nightclothes at nine o’clock at night?’
‘And a robe.’
‘At once,’ prompted Malik.
‘I do not understand,’ complained Panchenko.
‘You told me earlier that when you knocked the door was opened at once by Agayans,’ said Malik. ‘If he had been in bed – and before answering the door had to put on a robe – there should have been a delay.’
‘I…’ started Panchenko and stopped. Then he resumed: ‘It appeared to me that the door opened at once: I agree now there would have been some slight delay.’
‘So that part of your report is wrong?’
‘Yes,’ conceded the colonel tightly.
‘You agreed to his getting dressed?’
‘Although he was under arrest upon your orders I did not think I should detain a Comrade Director in his nightclothes.’
‘You said Agayans showed fear, after his initial surprise,’ prompted Malik. ‘So far I don’t get any impression of fear. It seems almost a normal conversation.’
‘The request to get dressed was made very subserviently,’ insisted Panchenko. ‘It was anything but a normal conversation.’
‘Tell me about going into the bedroom.’
Panchenko swallowed and said: ‘He walked directly from the main room into the bedroom. With my squad I remained in the living area. After a while it occurred to me that Agayans was taking a long time to get ready. I hurried into the bedroom. He was on the far side with the bed between us. The gun was already against his head. The moment I entered, he fired.’
Malik intentionally let the silence build up between them, all the time staring fixedly at the colonel. Panchenko remained rigidly to attention: Malik supposed the man would have learned to remain immobile like that on a hundred parade grounds. He said: ‘Does the main living room lead directly into the bedroom?’
‘No,’ conceded Panchenko.
‘You said he walked directly from the main room into the bedroom,’ reminded Malik.
‘I meant to convey there was no further conversation between us,’ said Panchenko. ‘There is a corridor leading to the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom.’
‘So without any further conversation between you, Igor Fedorovich Agayans walked from the living room, down the corridor and into his bedroom?’ Malik was not sure but there appeared to be a sheen of perspiration upon the other man’s forehead. Raising his voice to make the demand, he said: ‘The corridor is straight, from the main living area? With the bedroom at its far end?’
‘No,’ admitted Panchenko, in further desperate concession. ‘The corridor bends, halfway along.’
‘So you did not know if Agayans had gone directly into the bedroom?’
‘There was only the bathroom or kitchen, as alternatives.’
‘When you assembled your men on Verdandskovo you went at once to Gogolevskiy Boulevard?’
‘Yes.’ In his caution Panchenko’s stance broke, the man’s head going slightly to one side in his effort to anticipate a new direction.
‘Without any outside reconnaissance of the block? Obtaining plans, even?’ Like I did, Malik thought.
‘There was no outside reconnaissance,’ conceded the security man.
‘There might have been a fire escape from the unseen bathroom into which Agayans could easily have gone!’ said Malik. ‘A fire escape down which he could have fled. Is it normal for you, as an arresting officer, to allow a detainee to go out of sight?’
‘No,’ said Panchenko, tightly again.
‘Desperate enough, he could have returned instead to shoot all of you rather than shooting himself, couldn’t he?’
‘I walked with him to the beginning of the corridor,’ blurted Panchenko.
‘That isn’t in your report,’ challenged Malik at once. ‘You said: “I – and my squad – remained in the living room”.’
‘I… we… did. I went with him to the commencement of the corridor: he went from there by himself.’
‘Why walk to the beginning of the corridor and then stop?’ demanded Malik. He shifted, trying to alleviate the shoulder ache.
‘He said he wanted privacy to get dressed.’
‘A detainee giving an order to the arresting head of security of the First Chief Directorate!’ said Malik, allowing the incredulity.
‘A mistake,’ admitted Panchenko, collapsing further.
‘Twice you’ve told me there was no further conversation after Agayans asked to dress,’ reminded Malik. ‘That was a lie, wasn’t it?’
‘It was not a lie,’ tried Panchenko desperately. Sweat was visibly leaking from the man now.
‘But you said nothing about the request for privacy.’
‘It did not seem important.’
‘Not important!’ exclaimed Malik, incredulous again. ‘It allowed the most vital witness in an ongoing inquiry to kill himself! They were probably the most important words he spoke!’
‘Probably,’ mumbled Panchenko, his voice difficult to hear.
‘Isn’t it regulations, having once taken a person into custody, that that person shall remain at all times under observation, until placed in a cell?’ persisted Malik relentlessly.
‘At that precise moment I did not consider I had taken Comrade Director Agayans into custody,’ avoided Panchenko, attempting to rally. ‘I was not formally in possession of any specific charge.’
‘Don’t be pedantic,’ rejected Malik impatiently.
‘That is the wording of the regulation,’ said Panchenko, achieving a small victory.
Choosing his words carefully, Malik said: ‘Having been dismissed by an arrested man, what did you then do? Remain at the corridor mouth? Or return to your squad?’
Panchenko’s face burned. ‘Returned to my squad.’
‘Was there any conversation between you?’
‘There was some discussion about how the passengers would be split between two cars,’ remembered Panchenko. ‘I said I would accompany the Comrade Director, with the driver and one back-up man and the other car should provide escort.’ Panchenko appeared to relax slightly, feet touching safer ground.
‘How long did that discussion take?’
‘Ten minutes,’ replied Panchenko at once.
‘Approximately ten? Or exactly ten?’
‘Exactly ten.’
‘How do you know it was ten minutes exactly?’
‘As I walked from the head of the corridor I checked my watch. It was automatic to look again the moment I became concerned about Agayans.’
‘You went to the bedroom without saying anything to the rest of the squad?’
Panchenko’s throat was moving. ‘I think I may have told them to stay where they were.’
‘How did you go to the bedroom?’ picked up Malik. ‘Did you walk? Or did you run?’
‘I walked quickly.’
‘You were wearing uniform?’
‘Of course,’ said Panchenko, almost truculently.
‘The regulation boots are comparatively heavy. Do you think Agayans might have heard you?’
‘I have no way of telling.’
‘You didn’t shout?’
‘No.’
‘Having respected the man’s wish for privacy, you didn’t call a warning that you were coming into his bedroom?’
‘No.’
‘Was the door closed or open?’
‘Ajar.’
‘Did you knock?’
‘No.’
‘Or shout, finally?’
‘No.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Pushed straight in.’
‘Privacy was completely unimportant now?’
‘I was alarmed. With good reason.’
‘Very good reason,’ sneered Malik. ‘So what did you see, in the bedroom that you finally entered?’
‘Agayans was on the far side of the room. The bed was between us. He had the gun to his head. As I went into the room he pulled the trigger.’
Malik sighed once more. He said: ‘How was he dressed? Still in his nightclothes? Or had he changed?’
‘Still in his nightclothes.’
‘So for ten minutes he had stood in his nightclothes holding a gun to his head. Why do you think it took him ten minutes to pull the trigger?’
Panchenko shrugged. ‘Indecision, perhaps: he was choosing whether or not to kill himself.’
‘There was a moment, as you entered, before he pulled the trigger?’
‘Seconds.’
‘Did you say anything, in those seconds?’
‘I shouted.’
‘At last!’ mocked Malik. ‘What did you shout?’
‘I think “Stop”. Maybe it was “Don’t do it”.’
‘You weren’t frightened he might turn the gun on you?’
‘It was against his head. It was obvious what he intended to do.’
‘But you couldn’t get to him?’
‘Not in time,’ said Panchenko. ‘The impact of the shot threw him against the wall, near the bedhead. His body overturned a side table. He fell half on and half off the bed.’
‘You checked he was dead?’
‘That wasn’t necessary. A lot of his head was gone. The squad came running. I told them to call an ambulance.’
‘Not a doctor?’
‘It was obviously too late for a doctor.’
‘What about the civilian militia?’
‘I am empowered to investigate and handle crimes affecting KGB personnel,’ said Panchenko, quoting regulations again.
‘In those first few moments in the apartment you told him the arrest was upon my orders?’ backtracked Malik.
‘Yes.’
‘And all he said was that he wanted to change?’ persisted Malik. ‘No protests? Not something like “This is a mistake”?’
‘No.’
Abruptly, trying further to off-balance the man, Malik demanded: ‘No insistence upon making a telephone call to see what it was all about?’
Panchenko blinked. ‘None at all.’
It hadn’t worked, Malik realized. Still hoping, he said: ‘What about names?’
‘Names?’
The chance was getting away. Malik said: ‘To what names did Agayans refer?’
‘I have told you everything about the conversation between Agayans and myself,’ insisted Panchenko. ‘There was no reference to anyone by name.’
‘No further reference to me?’
‘No.’
‘Or to anyone else?’
‘No one.’
He had not unsettled the other man as he imagined, thought Malik, disappointed. He needed time to analyse everything that had emerged. What more could there be from Panchenko? Malik said: ‘Do you consider from this meeting that your report was satisfactory?’
‘I did not understand the importance of several things.’
‘The arrest of a KGB division director! The suicide of a KGB division director! And you did not understand the importance of several things!’ The idea came as Malik spoke and he decided it was a good one.
‘I apologize with the utmost regret,’ said Panchenko.
Malik guessed that had been the most difficult concession of all for Panchenko to make. He picked up the report and tossed it contemptuously across the desk towards the security man and said: ‘I am rejecting this as totally unsatisfactory. And recording that rejection upon your file. I want another account covering all the facts that have emerged during this meeting. Within two hours.’
There was no longer redness in that burnished face. The colour now was an unnatural, white fury. Possibly worthwhile, Malik thought. Furious, the man might include in the revised file something that had not come out under questioning, which was the suddenly occurred reason for making him write it again. To maintain the anger, Malik said as dismissively as possible: ‘You may go now.’
It was actually the superficiality of Panchenko’s written account that had prompted Malik to conduct a personal interview without imagining so much would be disclosed. But what exactly had been disclosed? Malik demanded of himself objectively. Facts? Or merely impressions, formed from inconsistencies. It was inconsistent for a trained investigator – a strict observer of rules of procedure – to have begun so properly in establishing Agayans’ whereabouts and assembling his squad and then not bothering to time his arrival at the man’s apartment: and then to be so adamant about the length of time Agayans was alone in the bedroom. Which brought him to the biggest inconsistency of all. It was inconceivable for Panchenko to have allowed Agayans go to his bedroom unaccompanied: here Malik thought the explanation unacceptable to the extent of being a downright lie. And why had the man denied knowing the reason for the arrest? Malik distinctly remembered mentioning Afghanistan when he telephoned Gofkovskoye Shosse because he’d immediately considered it a mistake, ahead of the formulation of any specific charge. And what about Panchenko’s demeanour? At the start the man’s attitude had been one of arrogance, practically contempt. Unthinkable from someone so newly promoted, appearing before a joint First Chief Deputy. And then the change. From arrogance to sweated uncertainty. Uncertainty about what? The realization that his behaviour was wrong? Irritation at having his expertise questioned and so easily shown up to be wanting? Or apprehension, at something more? What was it that could be more? Too many questions lacking too many answers. So what was there? Only impressions that he was in danger of imagining to be facts: unsubstantiated, unpresentable, unprovable facts.
Abruptly Malik recalled the inquiry that had occurred to him during the interview, and reached just as abruptly for the internal telephone. It took less than an hour to get the information from Personnel Records and Malik sat gazing down at the print-out, sure at last of a fact. And even surer that it had significance. Lev Konstantinovich Panchenko had been promoted to colonel and to head the internal security division upon the instigation and personally endorsed recommendation of Victor Ivanovich Kazin.
The link, decided Malik. Not proof of anything but enough to support the suspicion about Kazin that had arisen and stayed with him from that first encounter. Certainly enough to subject whatever revised report he received from Panchenko to an examination even more rigorous than that which it – and its author – had already undergone. But possibly not an isolated examination. There had been a four-man squad. How much would their individual recollections differ from that of the man who had commanded them? Maybe not at all. But then again, maybe a lot. It was certainly worth conducting individual interviews. Would there be enough time before the inquiry? He regretted now demanding a hearing so quickly.
Yevgennie Levin was suffused with an unnatural feeling: a sensation verging on the supernatural. He felt as if he were suspended over his own body, like some outside commentator judging himself perform and act and observe the rituals of his normal day. Maybe it was the effect of his mind – or whatever the responsible organ – flooding his body with adrenaline, hyping him through the final moments: keeping him alert. It was absolutely essential he remain totally alert. It had been from the moment he went into the United Nations library to see at once the signal for which he had waited so anxiously, telling him it was tonight. He’d watched himself go through the ritual of a committee meeting (the last ever!) and make his contribution to the Minute records (never read!) and supported a recommendation for a conservation proposal for the rain forests of Brazil (meaningless!) and sought Solov’s approval for the outing that night with Galina and Petr (approved!) and still he watched himself, unable after so long actually to believe it was happening. Judgement so far? Acting entirely as he should have been, unobtrusively, properly, making all the necessary and proper moves.
Levin’s control wavered the moment he arrived back at the apartment, with Natalia’s shyly smiling photograph on a table and another on the mantelpiece, and felt Galina’s concentration burning into him when he announced to her and Petr that they were dining out.
‘Great!’ responded Petr in English, immediately enthusiastic.
Petr was a fervent American television watcher and was wearing American jeans and a sweatshirt proclaiming UCLA, which occurred to Levin – why did such small things intrude, at a time like this? – to be 3,000 miles out of place. Like he and Galina and Petr were 3,000 miles out of place: more, to be geographically accurate.
‘Where?’ asked Galina. She asked the question with dulled expectation.
‘The Plaza,’ announced Levin.
Galina said nothing. Petr said: ‘Neat!’
Petr wore his American suit – the one he’d bought at Bloomingdale’s – and Levin changed, too: a new suit for a new life. Galina remained in the clothes she was already wearing. They got a cab immediately and the crosstown traffic was unaccountably light, with no holdups or gridlocks. Levin, unthinking and anxious to make conversation, said: ‘Easy tonight, isn’t it?’ and at once Galina said: ‘No, it isn’t easy at all.’
It was two minutes before seven when Levin guided his wife and son through the narrow side doors off Central Park South but Proctor was already there, waiting by the promised jewellery display directly beyond the central elevator bank.
Three other people – one a woman and none of whom Levin had seen at any previous meeting – moved protectively and at the same time as the American came forward. Proctor didn’t smile. He said: ‘OK?’
‘I think so,’ said Levin.
‘Ma’am,’ greeted Proctor politely.
Galina did not respond.
‘Hi, Petr,’ tried Proctor.
The boy looked curiously between his parents and the strangers but didn’t speak either.
‘We’d better go,’ said Proctor.
‘Dadda, what is this?’ asked the boy at last.
‘You must come,’ said Levin.
All but Galina started off.
‘Please!’ Levin implored her, stopping.
‘I want to know what’s happening,’ insisted Petr weakly.
‘I can’t,’ protested Galina, unmoving.
‘Don’t abandon me! Not now!’ said Levin, imploring more.
Petr began to back away, frightened. One of the escorts reached out towards him and Galina said, too loud: ‘Don’t you touch him! Don’t you dare touch him!’
The man stopped the gesture and Proctor said: ‘This isn’t the way, Yevgennie. You know this isn’t the way.’
‘Galina!’ begged Levin.
There were isolated looks from people in the crowded foyer.
‘There’s no going back, not now,’ said Proctor.
‘Going back where?’ demanded Petr, halfway between belligerence and bewilderment.
‘We should go now,’ said Proctor, alert to the woman’s weakening.
Levin was conscious of it too. He said: ‘I promise I’ll get her out.’
‘Who?’ intruded Petr.
The boy was ignored again.
‘Ready, Yevgennie?’ asked Proctor.
‘Yes,’ said the Russian with a sigh of finality.
The group started to move in a slow, inviting way and after a moment’s hesitation Galina started to walk with them, head bent in an effort to hide the sobbing. The unidentified woman immediately went to her, both comforting and concealing. Petr was in the middle, his head in constant movement, eyes bulged. They rounded the Palm Court lobby cafe to go through the swing doors instead of the central, revolving exit. Two of a fleet of three or maybe four window-blackened limousines pulled immediately away from the far pavement to come against their kerb and Levin felt a push, urging him into the back. Proctor got in to his left and Galina was helped in to his right. Petr was ushered into the front, alongside the driver, with one of the escorts protectively against the door, arm outstretched.
The cavalcade immediately took off across town, eastwards. Petr said: ‘Please tell me what is happening!’
‘We’re going to live in America,’ said Levin simply.
There was a moment of silence and then the boy tried to turn in the front seat, arms flailing. ‘Defector!’ he shouted. ‘Traitor!’
The man beside him easily but carefully encompassed the boy in the already outstretched arm. He said: ‘Easy does it, kid. Easy does it.’
‘I brought a photograph,’ announced Galina, broken-voiced. ‘I brought a photograph of Natalia.’ Now that it no longer mattered, she wept uncontrollably.
It was to take five days of frantic but unsuccessful searching through New York by a United Nations rezidentura frightened of recrimination before the defection of Yevgennie Pavlovich Levin was reluctantly admitted to Moscow.