The Matarese Circle by Robert Ludlum Page B

enemies within more defined. The despised Scofield did not have to put up with such amateurish maniacs as Group Nine, VKR. The American State Department had its share of madmen, but sterner controls were exercised, Vasili had to admit that. In a few years, if Scofield survived in Europe, he would retire to some remote place and grow chickens or oranges or drink himself into oblivion. He did not have to be concerned about surviving in Washington, just in Europe.
    Taleniekov had to worry about surviving in Moscow.
    Things … 
things
had changed in a quarter of a century. And he had changed; tonight was an example, but not the first. He had covertly thwarted the objectives of a fellow intelligence unit. He would not have done so five years ago—perhaps not even two years ago. He would have confronted the strategists of that unit, and strenuously objected on professional grounds. He was an expert, and in his expert judgment, the operation was not only miscalculated, but less vital than another with which it interfered.
    He did not take such action these days. He had not done so during the past two years as director of the Southwest Sectors. He had made his own decisions, caring little for the reactions of damn fools who knew far less than he did. Increasingly, those reactions caused minor furors back in Moscow; still he did what he believed was right. Ultimately, those minor furors became major grievances and he was recalled to the Kremlin and a desk where strategies were remote, dealing with progressive abstractions such as getting shadowy hooks into an American politician.
    Taleniekov had fallen, he knew that. It was only a question of time. How much time had he left? Would he be given a small
fverma
north of Grasnov and told to grow his crops and keep his own counsel? Or would the maniacs interfere with that course of action, too? Would they claim the “extraordinary Taleniekov” was, indeed, too dangerous?
    As he made his way along the street, Vasili felt tired. Even the loathing he felt for the American killer who had murdered his brother was muted in the twilight of his feelings. He had little feeling left.
    The sudden snowstorm reached blizzard proportions, the winds gale force, causing eruptions of huge white sprays through the expanse of Red Square. Lenin’s Tomb would be covered by morning. Taleniekov let the freezing particles massage his face as he trudged against the wind toward his flat. KGB had been considerate; his rooms were ten minutes from his office in Dzerzhinsky Square, three blocks away from the Kremlin. It was either consideration, or something less benevolent but infinitely more practical: his flat was ten minutes from the centers of crisis, three minutes in a fast automobile.
    He walked into the entranceway of his building, stamping his feet as he pulled the heavy door shut, cutting off the harsh sound of the wind. As he always did, he checked his mail slot in the wall and as always, there was nothing. It was a futile ritual that had become a meaningless habit for so many years, in so many mail slots, in so many different buildings.
    The only personal mail he ever received was in foreign countries—under strange names—when he was in deep cover. And then, the correspondence was in code and cipher, its meaning in no way related to the words on the paper. Yet sometimes those words were warm and friendly, and he would pretend for a few minutes that they meant what they said. But only for a few minutes; it did no good to pretend. Unless one was analyzing an enemy.
    He started up the narrow staircase, annoyed by the dim light of the low-wattage bulbs. He was quite sure the planners in Moscow’s Iliktrichiskaya did not live in such buildings.
    Then he heard the creak. It was not the result of structural stress; it had nothing to do with the subfreezing cold or the winds outside. It was the sound of a human being shifting his weight on a floorboard. His ears were the ears of a trained craftsman,