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Authors: Robert Ludlum
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that has to be unlocked. Without that door you can’t reach the others.”
“A maze with doors?”
“More than you can count. The beginning … It was nuts, but there it was and Taleniekov and I were caught up in it. There were two extraordinary kills, two assassinations. On our side there was General Anthony Blackburn, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and on the Soviet’s, Dimitri Yurievich, their leading nuclear physicist.”
“Deputy Director Shields mentioned that one, and I remembered it. A famous Russian torn apart by a crazed bear.”
“That was the popular version, yes. A
wounded
bear shot by men who whipped it into Yurievich’s trail. There’s nothing on earth more ferocious than a huge maimed bear, his nostrils filled with the scent of his own blood. He’ll smell out a group of hunters and tear them all to pieces until he’s killed.… Wait a minute.
Frank
Shields? Old bulldog-face with those creased eyes nobody’s ever seen. He’s still around?”
“He holds you in high regard—”
“Perhaps in retrospect, not when we were current. Frank’s a purist; he never tolerated men like me. However, analysts tend to cloak themselves in contradictory alternatives.”
“You were saying,” interrupted Pryce, “about the two assassinations?”
“Here I must digress, Cameron. Have you ever heard the phrase ‘the banality of evil’?”
“Of course.”
“What does it mean to you?”
“I suppose horrible acts repeated with such frequency they become commonplace—banal.”
“Very good. That’s what happened to Taleniekov and me. You see, the considered wisdom of the times regarding black operations was that Vasili and I were the leading players in those kinds of kills. It was more myth than reality. In truth, except for what we did to each other, between us we were responsible for only fourteen fairly well-publicized assassinations over twenty years, he with eight kills, me with six. Hardly in Carlos the Jackal’s league, but myths take on lives of their own, growing rapidly, far too persuasively. They’re terrible things, myths.”
“I think I see where you’re going,” said Pryce. “Each side blamed the other’s presumed chief assassin—you and Taleniekov.”
“Precisely, but neither of us had anything to do with those assassinations. However, they had been set up as if we’d left our calling cards.”
“But how did you get together? Surely you didn’t pick up phones and call each other.”
“It would have been comical. ‘Hello, KGB switchboard? This is Beowulf Agate, and if you’ll kindly reach the illustrious Comrade Colonel Taleniekov, code name Serpent, and tell him I’m on the line, he’ll agree we should have a chat. You see, we’re both about to be eliminated for the wrong reasons. Silly, isn’t it?’ ”
“The ‘Beowulf Agate’ is … inspired,” noted the CIA officer.
“Yes, I always thought it was rather imaginative,” said Scofield. “Even Russian in its way. As you know, they more often than not use a person’s first two names and omit the last.”
“Brandon Alan … Beowulf Agate. You’re right. But since you didn’t make that phone call to the KGB, how
did
you meet?”
“With extreme caution, each thinking the other would shoot to kill, speaking of banal expressions. Vasili made thefirst move in our lethal chess game. To begin with, he had to get out of the Soviet Union because he was marked for a firing squad—the reasons are too serpentine to go into; and second, a dying, once all-powerful KGB director told him about the Matarese—”
“I don’t get the connection,” Pryce broke in.
“Think about it. You’ve got five seconds.”
“Good Lord,” said Cameron softly, narrowing his eyes. “The
Matarese? They
assassinated both men? Yurievich and Blackburn?”
“On the money, Field Officer Pryce.”
“
Why?
”
“Because their tentacles reached into the war rooms on both sides, and the hotheads on both sides thought each
“A maze with doors?”
“More than you can count. The beginning … It was nuts, but there it was and Taleniekov and I were caught up in it. There were two extraordinary kills, two assassinations. On our side there was General Anthony Blackburn, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and on the Soviet’s, Dimitri Yurievich, their leading nuclear physicist.”
“Deputy Director Shields mentioned that one, and I remembered it. A famous Russian torn apart by a crazed bear.”
“That was the popular version, yes. A
wounded
bear shot by men who whipped it into Yurievich’s trail. There’s nothing on earth more ferocious than a huge maimed bear, his nostrils filled with the scent of his own blood. He’ll smell out a group of hunters and tear them all to pieces until he’s killed.… Wait a minute.
Frank
Shields? Old bulldog-face with those creased eyes nobody’s ever seen. He’s still around?”
“He holds you in high regard—”
“Perhaps in retrospect, not when we were current. Frank’s a purist; he never tolerated men like me. However, analysts tend to cloak themselves in contradictory alternatives.”
“You were saying,” interrupted Pryce, “about the two assassinations?”
“Here I must digress, Cameron. Have you ever heard the phrase ‘the banality of evil’?”
“Of course.”
“What does it mean to you?”
“I suppose horrible acts repeated with such frequency they become commonplace—banal.”
“Very good. That’s what happened to Taleniekov and me. You see, the considered wisdom of the times regarding black operations was that Vasili and I were the leading players in those kinds of kills. It was more myth than reality. In truth, except for what we did to each other, between us we were responsible for only fourteen fairly well-publicized assassinations over twenty years, he with eight kills, me with six. Hardly in Carlos the Jackal’s league, but myths take on lives of their own, growing rapidly, far too persuasively. They’re terrible things, myths.”
“I think I see where you’re going,” said Pryce. “Each side blamed the other’s presumed chief assassin—you and Taleniekov.”
“Precisely, but neither of us had anything to do with those assassinations. However, they had been set up as if we’d left our calling cards.”
“But how did you get together? Surely you didn’t pick up phones and call each other.”
“It would have been comical. ‘Hello, KGB switchboard? This is Beowulf Agate, and if you’ll kindly reach the illustrious Comrade Colonel Taleniekov, code name Serpent, and tell him I’m on the line, he’ll agree we should have a chat. You see, we’re both about to be eliminated for the wrong reasons. Silly, isn’t it?’ ”
“The ‘Beowulf Agate’ is … inspired,” noted the CIA officer.
“Yes, I always thought it was rather imaginative,” said Scofield. “Even Russian in its way. As you know, they more often than not use a person’s first two names and omit the last.”
“Brandon Alan … Beowulf Agate. You’re right. But since you didn’t make that phone call to the KGB, how
did
you meet?”
“With extreme caution, each thinking the other would shoot to kill, speaking of banal expressions. Vasili made thefirst move in our lethal chess game. To begin with, he had to get out of the Soviet Union because he was marked for a firing squad—the reasons are too serpentine to go into; and second, a dying, once all-powerful KGB director told him about the Matarese—”
“I don’t get the connection,” Pryce broke in.
“Think about it. You’ve got five seconds.”
“Good Lord,” said Cameron softly, narrowing his eyes. “The
Matarese? They
assassinated both men? Yurievich and Blackburn?”
“On the money, Field Officer Pryce.”
“
Why?
”
“Because their tentacles reached into the war rooms on both sides, and the hotheads on both sides thought each
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