Paul looked into his face and said flatly, "Any amount, period. It
doesn't have to be particularly reasonable. Our only qualification would
be a guarantee it is going into the attempt to overthrow the
Soviets--not into private pockets."
The waiter was approaching. Shvernik drew some brochures from his
pocket, spread them before Paul Koslov and began to point out with a
fountain pen various features of the Mikoyan camera.
The waiter put the order on the table and stood by for a moment for
further orders.
Shvernik said, "First you take a sizable portion of vodka, like this."
He poured them two jolts. "And drink it down, ah, bottoms up, you
Americans say. Then you spread butter on a small slice of raisin bread,
and cover it with a liberal portion of caviar. Good? Then you eat your
little sandwich and drink another glass of vodka. Then you start all
over again."
"I can see it could be fairly easy to get stoned, eating caviar Russian
style," Paul laughed.
They went through the procedure and the waiter wandered off.
Paul said, "I can take several days arranging the camera deal with you.
Then I can take a tour of the country, supposedly giving it a tourist
look-see, but actually making contact with more of your organization. I
can then return in the future, supposedly to make further orders. I can
assure you, these cameras are going to sell very well in the States.
I'll be coming back, time and again--for business reasons. Meanwhile, do
you have any members among the interpreter-guides in the local Intourist
offices?"
Shvernik nodded. "Yes. And, yes, that would be a good idea. We'll assign
Ana Furtseva to you, if we can arrange it. And possibly she can even
have a chauffeur assigned you who'll also be one of our people."
That was the first time Paul Koslov heard the name Ana Furtseva.
* * * * *
In the morning Leonid Shvernik came to the hotel in a Mikoyan Camera
Works car loaded with cameras and the various accessories that were
available for the basic model. He began gushing the advantages of the
Mikoyan before they were well out of the hotel.
The last thing he said, as they trailed out of the hotel's portals was,
"We'll drive about town, giving you an opportunity to do some snapshots
and then possibly to my country dacha where we can have lunch--"
At the car he said, "May I introduce Ana Furtseva, who's been assigned
as your guide-interpreter by Intourist for the balance of your stay?
Ana, Mr. John Smith."
Paul shook hands.
She was blond as almost all Russian girls are blond, and with the
startling blue eyes. A touch chubby, by Western standards, but less so
than the Russian average. She had a disturbing pixie touch around the
mouth, out of place in a dedicated revolutionist.
The car took off with Shvernik at the wheel. "You're actually going to
have to take pictures as we go along. We'll have them developed later at
the plant. I've told them that you are potentially a very big order.
Possibly they'll try and assign one of my superiors to your account
after a day or two. If so, I suggest that you merely insist that you
feel I am competent and you would rather continue with me."
"Of course," Paul said. "Now then, how quickly can our assistance to you
get underway?"
"The question is," Shvernik said, "just how much you can do in the way
of helping our movement. For instance, can you get advanced type weapons
to us?"
The .38 Noiseless slid easily into Paul's hands. "Obviously, we can't
smuggle sizable military equipment across the border. But here, for
instance, is a noiseless, recoilless hand gun. We could deliver any
reasonable amount within a month."
"Five thousand?" Shvernik asked.
"I think so. You'd have to cover once they got across the border, of
course. How well organized are you? If you aren't, possibly we can help
there, but not in time to get five thousand guns to you in a month."
Ana was puzzled. "How could you possibly get that number across the
Soviet borders?" Her voice had a disturbing Slavic throatiness. It
occurred to Paul Koslov that she was one of the most attractive women he
had ever met. He was amused. Women had never played a great part in his
life. There had never been anyone who had really, basically, appealed.
But evidently blood was telling. Here he had to come back to Russia to
find such attractiveness.
He said, "The Yugoslavs are comparatively open and smuggling across the
Adriatic from Italy, commonplace. We'd bring the things you want in that
way. Yugoslavia and Poland are on good terms, currently, with lots of
trade. We'd ship them by rail from Yugoslavia to Warsaw. Trade between
Poland and U.S.S.R. is on massive scale. Our agents in Warsaw would send
on the guns in well concealed shipments. Freight cars aren't searched at
the Polish-Russian border. However, your agents would have to pick up
the deliveries in Brest or Kobryn, before they got as far as Pinsk."
Ana said, her voice very low, "Visiting in Sweden at the Soviet Embassy
in Stockholm is a colonel who is at the head of the Leningrad branch of
the KGB department in charge of counter-revolution, as they call it. Can
you eliminate him?"
"Is it necessary? Are you sure that if it's done it might not raise such
a stink that the KGB might concentrate more attention on you?" Paul
didn't like this sort of thing. It seldom accomplished anything.