Bearpit by Brian Freemantle Page B

urgency. He said: ‘The GRU catastrophe was not the mujahideen ambush, the number of men and the amount of equipment we lost. It was the fact that the disaster – the apparent stupidity – was witnessed and broadcast in the West. The mujahideen know the value of such exposure. It will be impossible to disguise or hide the extent of the slaughter being planned: hundreds, thousands, will die. And they’ll smuggle cameras in again to record it and the Soviet Union will be pilloried again. But worse this time. Not just shown losing a battle. Shown like some sort of barbaric savages, killing women and children …’
    Solov was visibly sweating, subservient though he’d determined not to be. He said: ‘They are the orders, from Moscow.’
    â€˜From whom?’
    â€˜Comrade Director Agayans.’
    It was not a name Yuri knew but there was no reason why he should. Confident he controlled the meeting now, he said: ‘Initiated by Moscow?’
    Solov isolated the danger in the question. ‘Oh yes,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Definitely from Moscow.’
    Yuri decided it was necessary to frighten the other man further. Knowing the answer already, he said: ‘But there has been some liaison?’
    â€˜Communication, yes,’ agreed Solov reluctantly.
    â€˜So the inquiry will have evidence of your involvement, from your signed messages?’
    â€˜What inquiry?’
    â€˜Don’t you think there’ll be one?’ demanded Yuri, going back to answering a question with a question. ‘Can’t you honestly conceive this being anything but a debacle, resulting in a worse inquiry than last time? And punishment worse than last time?’
    â€˜It’s a possibility,’ Solov conceded. He’d abdicated almost completely, just wanting the conversation to continue, to hear what the other man had to say: to learn what the escape could be.
    But Yuri was not prepared to abandon the pressure quite so soon. He said: ‘You didn’t query the order?’
    Solov blinked at him. ‘One does not query Moscow. Not a Comrade Director.’
    â€˜Never!’
    â€˜Moscow is the authority: that is where the policy is determined and made.’
    Yuri sat across the desk, studying the other man curiously as one might look at an exhibit in a laboratory. Was this a typical senior officer of the country’s intelligence organization: a conditioned animal unquestioningly and unprotestingly obeying, like Pavlov’s dogs? He said: ‘This must be protested. Stopped.’
    â€˜How?’
    A dullness seemed to settle over Solov. Exactly like a conditioned dog, Yuri thought. One reflection directly followed another, but less critically: there was some explanation for Solov’s apparently docile helplessness. The enshrined regulations, as restrictive as the straps on an experimental animal, strictly dictated a pyramid order of communication: a field office could never exchange messages with an authority higher than the department, division or section director controlling that field office. In this case someone named Agayans. Who had initiated the operation. And was unlikely to accept any challenge to it, at this late stage. Or ever, if Solov’s belief in the infallibility of Moscow orders were correct. Certainly it precluded the use of the normal cable channels because they were automatically routed to the Director’s secretariat, with no allowance whatsoever for variance. He said: ‘The rezidentura ships to Moscow in the diplomatic pouch?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Every night?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    Yuri sighed, hesitating. Precisely the sort of action his father had urged him to avoid, during those final, mutually irritated days – ‘ don’t invoke our relationship … regard it as something to make life more difficult than easier … think politically …’ The last part of the injunction stayed with Yuri.