Red Square - Martin Cruz Smith [68]
“I’d be in Munich.”
“Munich?” Albov cocked his head as if a new bird note had issued from the woods. “What would you look for in Munich?”
“Boris Benz,” Arkady said. He didn’t use the woman’s name because he wasn’t sure of her identification.
In the silence Rodionov stiffened, like a man who had missed a step.
Albov looked down, around and finally raised a smile of astonishment mixed with admiration. “You know, it’s in the blood,” he told Rodionov. “When the Germans invaded and rolled to the gates of Leningrad and Moscow, and Stalin lost millions of men and the entire Red Army fell into disorder and retreat, one tank commander never stepped back. The Germans thought they had trapped General Renko. What they didn’t understand was that he was happy behind their lines, and the bloodier and more confused the action, the better. The son is exactly the same. Is he trapped? No, he’s here, there. God only knows where he will turn up next.”
“There’s a direct flight to Munich at seven forty-five tomorrow morning,” Arkady said.
“You truly believe the prosecutor’s office will let you leave the country?” Albov asked.
“I’m absolutely sure,” Arkady said. He was, as soon as he saw Rodionov’s reaction to Boris Benz’s name, an instinctive flinch that had expressed the anger and fear of a stuck pig. Until then, the name could have meant nothing, but in an instant Arkady had ascertained, as Rudy might have put it, the high market value of Boris Benz.
“Even if the Ministry wanted to, it’s not up to us,” Rodionov said. “Foreign investigation is the responsibility of State Security.”
“You were saying at Petrovka the other day that now we’re members of Interpol, we work directly with foreign colleagues. I’ll only have a carry-on bag. No inspection.”
“I couldn’t go tomorrow, if I wanted to,” Rodionov said. “There’s arranging an external passport and Ministry orders. It would take weeks.”
“There are twelve rooms at the Central Committee. All they do is make up passports and visas on the spot. Lufthansa flight eighty-four,” Arkady said. “Remember, Germans are punctual.”
“There is a way,” Albov said. “If you don’t travel as an investigator, as an official of the prosecutor’s office, but as a private individual. If the Ministry can generate a passport and if you had the American dollars or German marks, then you could simply buy a seat on the plane and take off. In fact, we’ve just opened a consulate in Munich; you could make contact and receive travel expenses there. The question is only where you’d get hard currency for the ticket.”
“And the answer is …?” Arkady asked.
“I could lend it to you. In Munich you could pay me back.”
Arkady said, “The money has to come from the prosecutor.”
Albov said, “Then, that’s the way it will be done.”
“Why?” Rodionov protested.
“Because this is a more delicate investigation than we were first aware of,” Albov said. “Foreign investors, especially Germans, are sensitive to the messy scandals of the new Soviet capitalism. We want to clear everybody’s name, even the names of people we’ve never heard of. Because, even though the investigator may be chasing phantoms, we don’t want to place obstacles in his path. Besides, we don’t know everything the investigator knows or what rash steps he thinks he has to take to preserve his independence.”
“He never said what he knew.”
“Because he’s only desperate, he’s not an utter fool. He stuffed your pocket with telegrams and you didn’t even notice. I support Renko. More and more, I’m impressed by his adaptability. Still, I wonder,” Albov said, turning toward Arkady. “I wonder if you’ve considered the fact that as soon as you step onto the plane you lose your authority. In Germany you’ll be a common citizen—less, a Soviet citizen. To Germans you’ll be nothing but a refugee, because to them all Russians are refugees. Secondly, you will lose your credibility here. You won’t be a hero to your friends anymore. No one will believe any warnings, alarms or information that you left behind, because here too you will be regarded as a refugee.