Ivan Plodsky was a very ordinary copper on the beat in Moscow during the nineteen sixties. Walking the pavement in the city one day, his thoughts faraway, paying little attention to where he was walking, he tripped on an uneven paving slab and fell heavily forward. As he fell, he clumsily knocked a pedestrian to the pavement who was rendered unconscious as his head hit the stone. Perchance the man happened to be an assassin with drawn revolver on the point of firing at the head of the KGB whose car was passing. Before Plodsky knew it the place was swarming with KGB agents and he was hailed a hero for saving the life of the KGB boss. He was duly rewarded with a placement in the KGB.
Plodsky eventually arrived at the Russian embassy in a Western capital as second assistant to the trade attache. In fact he did not have a lot to do. His main duty, because of his simple nondescript appearance was to collect messages from dead letterboxes. Embassy staff were usually closely watched by the security services in the countries where they were located and any contact with agents already spying within those countries had to be avoided, so the dead letterbox system was a simple way of passing information on, hopefully without detection.
The trade attache, Igor Evetkin, was in fact a KGB colonel responsible for clandestine operations in the country they were located in. He was a nasty piece of work who had risen through the ranks by regularly shopping his colleagues. Only Evetkin knew the full details of the agents, but his first assistant Peter Rodnikov was responsible for sending coded messages to the agents. These coded messages were posted to box number addresses and would request what information was required and detail the time and specific whereabouts of dead letterboxes the replies were to be left at. Evetkin thought the system was fool proof.
For poor Plodsky things never seemed to go quite right. There was the day when someone was to appear casually reading a newspaper seated on a park bench, then get up and leave the paper behind for Plodsky to pick up a few minutes later; the paper contained leaves of secret information hidden between its pages. Just before Plodsky reached the bench someone else sat down picked up the paper and turning to the back page pulled out a pen and started doing the crossword puzzle, then turning to Plodsky muttered something about completing it on the train and stuffed it in his pocket and walked off.
Then there was the microfilm hidden in a tennis ball and dropped on the edge of a playing field. Just as Plodsky was about to pick it he was beaten to it by a big black Labrador dog who with wagging tail raced off with it to his owner. His owner kept throwing it for him to retrieve before they walked off home the dog possessively retaining the ball.
Incidents like this continued with Plodsky failing to collect the goods. At the same time the country’s small but effective security service were starting to round up and arrest Evetkin’s well placed agents. Evetkin began to suspect Plodsky had been turned and become a double agent. His office was next door to Plodsky’s and Rodnikov’s was on the far side. In typically Russian orderly style the layout of each office was identical and if the thin plasterboard walls were removed the desks of the three men would be seen in a precise row.
A loud shout from Evetkin summoned Plodsky to his office. Although lacking proof Evetkin stormed at Plodsky airing his suspicions. He was warned that anymore failures would result in his immediate return to Moscow where he would be interrogated by the dreaded Olga Korsitsoff, feared throughout the service. If Olga didn’t liquidate him he’d probably end his days in a Siberian gulag. However Plodsky was to be given one more chance to redeem himself.
In a quiet backstreet on a neglected building plot was a forgotten pallet of bricks. If Plodsky lifted the brick at the top right- hand corner he would find a small canister lying in the frog, the indentation of the brick below. All he had to do was retrieve this – no crossword addicts, no Labrador dogs, it all sounded simple.
Plodsky entered the deserted street going towards the derelict building plot, only as he arrived he watched with dismay as a forklift raised the pallet of bricks onto a lorry which drove off before he could reach it.
It was late afternoon when Plodsky got back to the embassy and most of the staff had finished work, though light seeping under their doors indicated Evetkin and Peter Rodnikov were still there. Plodsky entered his own office quietly. He pulled a vodka bottle from his pocket; he’d had several swigs at it on the way back and now he drained it to the last. He sat down at his desk thinking of what Olga could do was too much to bear He opened a drawer and took out the standard issue pistol, flicked off the safety catch and stared down the barrel.
With a very shaky hand he squeezed the trigger and was almost deafened by the explosive sound of the shot and sat at his desk in a dazed state of half- drunk bewilderment, a small round hole in the plasterboard behind him. Poor Plodsky could he get nothing right – he couldn’t even terminate his own being.
He must have sat there for three or four minutes in total confusion expecting Evetkin to come storming in, but it was Peter Rodnikov who entered. As the bewildered Plodsky looked vacantly on Rodniknov picked up the pistol and with a cloth carefully wiped off all the fingerprints. Then taking another pistol from his pocket put it in the drawer of Plodsky’s desk. “Come with me” said Rodnikov “and don’t hang about.” Still in a daze Plodsky followed him into Evetkin’s office. The drawer where Evetkin kept his pistol was open and empty and Evetkin was slumped on his desk, a small red hole in his forehead oozing blood across the papers he’d been working on. A fearful Plodsky suddenly realised his shot must have passed through the wall to find a different victim. Rodnikov laid Plodsky’s wiped clean pistol close to the late Igor Evetkin’s hand.
“I’m about to defect” said Rodnikov.”I think you might be looking for a way out too now. Want to join me?” Dull as he was, it didn’t take Plodsky much thought to nod in agreement. Seated in a taxi speeding to the other side of the city, Rodnikov said apologetically “I’m afraid I am in some ways the cause of your predicament, so the least I can do is help you out of it. Shortly all will be revealed.”
The taxi dropped them off and after walking a short way they entered an office in a plain undistinguished building. Two men were seated in the office and Rodnikov said to them “Can you look after my friend for a few minutes while I go and chat with the Major.” Plodsky was given a chair and a sobering coffee he was sorely in need of. As he gazed at the two men he thought he had seen them before and slowly it began to dawn on him – the fork lift operator and the lorry driver.
Then Rodnikov called from an inner office “Plodsky, come through and meet the Major”. Plodsky went through and was soon seated beside Rodnikov facing the major across his desk. Again Plodsky thought there was something familiar about the Major, a paper folded to an unfinished crossword on his desk and a black Labrador dog sprawled on the floor beside him.
The Major looked cheerfully across his desk and said “Mr Plodsky we are a small country not a super-power and our counter-intelligence service too is small but we pride ourselves on our efficiency and between you and your comrade, you have helped us rid ourselves of a network of spies and traitors so we are prepared to offer you asylum, new identities and employment. Mr Rodniknov will enlighten you a little bit more.”
Peter Rodnikov continued the story “Soon after I arrived here I committed a most unfortunate indiscretion. If it had become public knowledge it would have caused a major diplomatic incident and if the embassy had found out I would have been sent home to face a terrible fate at the hands of Olga Korsitsoff. The Major most kindly offered to arrange for the whole matter to remain secret if I would switch sides. What else could I do? I gave the Major the code and every time I was detailed to send out a message to an agent, which would of course have included details of the dead letter box to be used, I also sent a copy to the Major.”
The Major interjected “…and then it didn’t take long for our small team to put the pieces together and round up all the agents operating in our country”.
In Russian Intelligence circles today when Evetkin’s name is mentioned someone will usually remark “Oh yes, wasn’t he the chap who lost all his agents, then his assistants defected, so he did the only honourable thing.”
In their country of asylum under completely new identities Rodnikov and Plodsky were employed by the local postal service in an area seldom if ever visited by foreigners. Rodnikov goes from door to door delivering the mail. Plodsky has been given a little van and a bunch of keys and travels round emptying public letterboxes and he’s never missed a collection yet.
About the author
Guy Pratt is a retired octogenarian second hand bookseller who enjoys gardening, long walks with his dog and travel. He gravitated into the book trade after earlier years in farming, the army Intelligence Corps and the civil service.
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