Aces Abroad

"Those not held for trial in the West, yes," Polyakov said. "Berlin is a wasteland for us now. Most of Germany is barren and will be for years."

"Carthage."

"But we have other assets. Deep-cover assets that have not been utilized in years. I propose to activate one known as the Dancer."

The chairman drew out pen and made a note to have the Dancer file brought up from the registry. He nodded. "How much time will this… recovery take, in your honest estimation?"

"At least two years."

The chairman's gaze drifted off. "Which brings me to a question of my own," Polyakov persisted. "My retirement."

"Yes, your retirement." The chairman sighed. "I think the only course is to bring Yurchenko in on this as soon as possible, since he'll be the one who has to finish the job."

"Unless I postpone my retirement." Polyakov had said the unspeakable. He watched the chairman make an unaccustomed search for an unprogrammed response. "Well. That would be a problem, wouldn't it? All the papers have been signed. Yurchenko's promotion is already approved. You will be promoted to general and will receive your third Hero's medal. We're prepared to a

It wasn't going to work. The chairman might be a political hack, but he was not without his skills. He had been ordered to clean house at the KGB and clean house he would. Right now he feared Gorbachev more than he feared an old spy.

Polyakov sighed. "I only want to finish my job. If that is not the

… desire of the Party, I will retire as agreed."

The chairman had been anticipating a fight and was relieved to have won so quickly. "I understand the difficulty of your situation, Georgy Vladimirovich. We all know your tenacity. We don't have enough like you. But Yurchenko is capable. After all… you trained him."

"I'll brief him."

"I tell you what," the chairman said. "Your retirement doesn't take effect until the end of August."

"My sixty-third birthday."

"I see no reason why we should deprive ourselves of your talents until that date." The chairman was writing notes to himself again. "This is highly unusual, as you well know, but why don't you go with Yurchenko? Hmm? Where is this Dancer?"

"France, at the moment, or England."

The chairman was pleased. "I'm sure we can think of worse places for a business trip." He wrote another note with his pen. " I will authorize you to accompany Yurchenko… to assist in the transition. Charming bureaucratic phrase."

"Thank you."

"Nonsense, you've earned it." The chairman got up and went to the sideboard. That, at least, had not changed. He drew out a bottle of vodka that was almost empty, pouring two glasses full, which finished it. "A forbidden toast-the end of an era!" They drank.

The chairman sat down again. "What will happen to Molniya? No matter how badly he bungled Berlin, he's too valuable to waste in that horrible furnace of theirs."

"He's teaching tactics now, here in Moscow In time, if he's good, they may let him return to fieldwork."

The chairman shuddered visibly. "What a mess." His tight smile -showed a pair of steel teeth. "Having a wild card working for you! I wonder, would one ever sleep?"

Polyakov drained his glass. "I wouldn't."

III.

Polyakov loved the English newspapers. The Sun… The Mirror… The Globe… with their screaming three-inch headlines about the latest royal rows and their naked women, they were bread and circus rolled into one. At the moment some M P was on trial, accused of hiring a prostitute for fifty pounds and then, in The Sun's typically restrained words, "Not getting his money's worth!" ("'it was over so fast,' tart claims!") Which was the greater sin? Polyakov wondered.

A tiny deck on that same front page mentioned that the Aces Tour had arrived in London.

Perhaps Polyakov's affection for the papers derived from professional appreciation. Whenever he was in the West, his legend or cover was that of a Tass correspondent, which had required him to master enough rudimentary journalistic skills to pass, though most Western reporters he met assumed he was a spy. He had never learned to write well-certainly not with the drunken eloquence of his Fleet Street colleaguesbut he could hold his liquor and he could find a story.

At that level, at least, journalism and intelligence were not mutually exclusive.

Alas, Polyakov's old haunts were unsuitable for a rendezvous with the Dancer. Recognition of either of them would be disastrous for both. They could not, in fact, use a public house of any kind.

To make matters worse, the Dancer was an uncontrolled agent -a "cooperative asset" to use Moscow Center's increasingly bland jargon. Polyakov had not even seen him in over twenty years, and that had been an accidental encounter following even more years of separation. There were no prearranged signals, no message drops, no intermediaries, no cha

Though the Dancer's notoriety made certain kinds of contacts impossible, it made Polyakov's job easier in one respect: If he wanted to know how to find this particular asset-all he had to do was pick up a paper.

His assistant, and future successor, Yurchenko, was busy ingratiating himself with the London rezident; both men showed only a passing interest in Polyakov's comings and goings, joking that their soon-to-be- retired friend was spending his time with King's Cross whores-"Just be sure you don't wind up in the newspapers, Georgy Vladimirovich," Yurchenko had teased. "If you do… at least get your money's worth!"-since such behavior by Polyakov was not unprecedented. Well… he had never married. And years in Germany, particularly in Hamburg, had given him a taste for pretty young mouths at affordable prices. It was also quite true that the KGB did not trust an agent who possessed no notable weakness. One vice was tolerated, so long as it was one of the controllable ones-alcohol, money, or women-rather than, say, religion. A dinosaur such as Polyakov-who had worked for Beria, for God's sake!-having a taste for honey… well, that was considered rakish, even charming.

From the Tass office near Fleet, Polyakov went alone to the Grosvenor House Hotel, riding in one of the famous English black cabs this one actually belonged to the Embassy down Park Lane to Knightsbridge to Kensington Road. It was early on a work day and the cab crawled through a sea of vehicles and humanity. The sun was up, burning off the morning haze. It was going to be a beautiful London spring day.

At Grosvenor House, Polyakov had to talk his way past several very obvious guards while noting the presence of several discreet ones. He was allowed as far as the concierge station, where he found, to his a

The concierge frowned and framed a reply. Clearly the tour's presence here was not common knowledge, but Polyakov preempted her questions, as he had gotten past the guards, by presenting his press credentials. She examined them-they were genuine in any case-then guided him to the telephones. "They might not be answering at this hour, but these lines are direct."

"Thank you." He waited until she had withdrawn, then asked the operator to ring through to the room number one of the Embassy's footmen had already provided.

"Yes?" Polyakov had not expected the voice to change, yet he was surprised that it had not.

"It's been a long time… Dancer."