[Quinn 04] - The Silenced

Though the Winters Quinn had seen was much older, there was definitely a resemblance. He shot Orlando a look.

“At the other table. The one sitting in back. You know him, too. Kenneth Moody.”

The skin at the back of Quinn’s neck began to tingle.

“The man sitting with him is David Thomas,” she said. “Missing and most likely dead.” She paused. “Behind Thomas, Freddy Chang. Dead. The woman next to Winters, Stacy McKitrick. Dead. The two women at the bar, Alicia Anderson and Sara Hirschy. Both dead.” She looked at Quinn. “All of them murdered or presumed murdered. Most within the last six weeks. The only exceptions are the two men at either end of the bar, and the older man near the door.”

Quinn took a closer look at the two men at the bar. They look like brothers, he thought. If one’s hair hadn’t been darker and wavier than the other’s, Quinn would have thought they could almost be twins.

“The photo was taken in 1964 in Hong Kong. A youth meeting.”

“Youth meeting?” Quinn said. That was a term he hadn’t heard used since his days back in Warroad. “You mean like church?”

“A political youth meeting,” Petra said. “The kind you wouldn’t advertise in a British colony in the mid-sixties. Or anywhere in the West for that matter.”

“A Communist Party meeting.”

She nodded. “Exactly. There were hundreds of these kinds of groups all around the world at that time. I think the Soviets thought these would be the catalysts for revolutions, and since the groups were Russian backed, the USSR would be able to control the eventual outcome. But most weren’t more than opportunities to complain and argue.” She looked back at the photo. “This group called itself the Young Leninists.”

Quinn shrugged. “The Cold War is ancient history.”

“In this case, not so ancient.” Petra paused. “The older man at the door was named Yuri Kabulov. KGB.”

Quinn took a look at the man. “If he’s alive, he must be over one hundred now.”

“Kabulov died of a state-sanctioned heart attack in 1973. It is the dark-haired one at the bar we are really looking for.”

Quinn took a good look at the wavy-haired boy. It wasn’t hard to imagine the man he would become. Quinn had actually seen him as an adult. The third photo in the folder from Annabel Taplin’s briefcase. “Palavin,” he said. “Your Ghost.”

Petra smiled without humor. “A name of convenience.”

“How did he get involved with a youth group in Hong Kong?”

“The first question is really, how did Kabulov get involved with them?” she said. “He generally didn’t deal with these groups. His specialty was coordinating agent infiltration into enemy governments. At the height of his career, it was said he had dozens placed throughout Western Europe.”

“Okay. So why was he there?”

She pointed first at the Ghost, then at the straight-haired boy who looked like him.

“Are they brothers?” Quinn asked.

Petra shook her head. “Not brothers. Not even related. Palavin was born in Moscow, and was actually twenty-three when this was taken. All we know about the other one is that he was born in London, but lived most of his life in Hong Kong. If we knew his name, we wouldn’t have been looking for you.”

“Why not?”

“Because in 1988, the Ghost,” she said, her finger hovering over the wavy-haired youth on the right, “became this man.” She moved her finger to his doppelgänger.

“HOW DID PALAVIN STEAL SOMEONE ELSE’S IDENTITY?” Quinn asked.

Petra looked back at the photograph. “The look-alike came to the attention of Kabulov in the early 1960s through a KGB agent named Glinka working in Hong Kong,” she said. “Glinka had met Palavin on a previous trip to Moscow, and noticed the resemblance between the two men.”

Quinn nodded.

“Kabulov was always looking for infiltration opportunities,” she went on. “He investigated, and agreed with Glinka. He arranged for Palavin to be transferred to Hong Kong and to be assigned as Russian youth advisor to the Young Leninists. Palavin’s real job, though, was to get close to the young man, get to know him and his habits.”

“So the Ghost could eventually assume the other man’s identity,” Quinn said.

“Exactly,” she said, nodding. “It was Kabulov’s ultimate plan, the piece that would be the crown jewel of his career. In his mind, once the Ghost had become the Englishman, he would return to the U.K. and begin a rapidly advancing career within the British government.”

“But things didn’t work out that way,” Quinn said, making an educated guess.

“No. Kabulov became involved in a series of failures, and was eventually declared an enemy of the party, and disposed of. Palavin, on the other hand, had been smart. He had taken a position in Moscow while waiting for the day Kabulov would decide it was time for him to become the Englishman. It was a job that obviously fed the sadist inside him. He became an internal security officer based out of Lubyanka Prison, and built his reputation within the party. He was able to use that to shield himself from Kabulov’s downfall.”