"...To watch over Maxwell, Kryuchkov decided he needed his most trusted operative in Bulgaria. He was Andrei Lukanov. Still not fifty years of age, he had been a member of Bulgaria's Central Committee for over a decade. Soft-spoken, he bore a broad Slav face, its most noticeable feature being his expressive eyes. Like Maxwell, Lukanov had long buried his peasant background. He dressed, walked and spoke in an aristocratic manner. Those he favoured, he greeted with a hug for the men, a hand-kiss for the women. Others he no longer favoured often disappeared from one day to the next. No one would ever know how many persons he had got rid of with a few whispered words or a nod. He was cast in the mould of a Mafia godfather.
Before Maxwell had been given his special coded account in the Bank of Bulgaria, Kryuchkov had sent for Lukanov.
For a moment the Bulgar had wondered if, at long last, he was to suffer the fate of so many others - a KGB execution for some misdemeanour. His fear may well have increased when the limousine that had been waiting for him on the tan-nac at Moscow's Sherementeyevo Airport drove into a side

entrance of the Lubyanka, known as 'Traitor's Gate'. It was through its portals that many a dissident or Russian spying for the West had been brought.
Kryuchkov had been waiting. With only a perfunctory greeting, he had led Lukanov down into the basement, along dimly lit corridors, past closed doors with no numbers. Finally Kryuchkov had opened a door into a small office. It was furnished only with a pine table and a chair. On the table was a bulky file.
Kryuchkov would remember: 'I told him to sit. I told him to open the file. I told him to start reading. He did. I told him he had an hour to read it all. I closed the door and left him to it.'
Andrei Lukanov read the KGB's file on Robert Maxwell. There were hundreds of pages of transcripts of telephone calls from Maxwell's penthouse in London, from hotels all over the world. Interspersed with the paperwork were vivid descriptions of Maxwell's sexual peccadilloes.
It was, Kryuchkov would say, 'a standard KGB file on someone we had more than a passing interest in'.
One hour later to the minute, Kryuchkov returned. Lukanov was looking at the now closed file, transfixed by what he had read. Kryuchkov picked up the file and led him from the office to his own well-appointed suite on an upper floor. An aide served coffee and plum brandy, then closed the door on the two men. Kryuchkov later recalled he had told Lukanov, 'Maxwell has enough money to buy most countries. It is good for our image in the West the more he invests here. He has the approval of people in the highest places of power in Moscow, so help him in every way you can. If you bring someone else in on this, you must keep me informed. I want a record kept of his financial dealings and of his lifestyle. Treat him like one who is important. You know how to handle him.'
Lukanov flew back to Sofia on the aircraft the KGB reserved for those it looked upon with favour.
Next morning he had a meeting with the country's leader, President Todor Zhivkov. He told him what had been decided in Moscow.
Zhivkov had been excited. For years he had financially robbed his own country, secretly storing the money in accounts in Switzerland, using the same route out of the Bank of Bulgaria that was used to finance terrorist activities. That someone of the stature of Robert Maxwell was ready to place money in Bulgaria brought one of his braying laughs from the President.
Lukanov had cautioned Zhivkov that the biggest investor Bulgaria had ever known was no fool. While Maxwell would invest huge sums in the economy to finance a variety of projects - part of the deal that Kryuchkov had finally brokered with Maxwell - he would also hide many millions in hard currency of his own money and would watch over it like one of the

predatory birds in the mountains beyond Sofia. They would not be able to touch those funds. But there would still be ample money left to skim off from the projects in which Maxwell was going to invest.
So Robert Maxwell's Bulgarian odyssey had begun.

Maxwell's arrival in Sofia for the first time was treated with the deference that would be accorded to the Chairman of the Soviet Union. A red carpet had been rolled out from the aircraft steps to the waiting ceremonial guard. Like a potentate, Maxwell had marched along their serried ranks, pausing to glance briefly into a face, then lumbering on. That night at a state banquet, guest and hosts showered each other with effusive compliments. A motorcycle escort brought Maxwell's limousine to the palace set aside for him on the slope of the Vitoshi mountain overlooking Sofia.
There, on a balcony overlooking the city, he may well have thought he now had two spiritual homes - his suite in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, and this altogether grander one.

When Lukanov fully realised the scope of what Maxwell was planning virtually to reinvent the Bulgarian economy - he decided to bring in someone to assist him in the management of matters.
His name was Ognian Doinov, and people said that he may once have been good-looking. But excess had bloated his face and he had a debauched look that concealed a still shrewd mind. He was Bulgaria's Minister for Industry. Like Lukanov and the country's President, Doinov had an eye for a deal from which he could personally profit.
In Maxwell- he saw the proverbial milch cow. In one of his customary crude asides in a telephone call to Lukanov, the minister said, 'There are enough tits on Maxwell for all of us to have a good drink.'
The call had been recorded by the Bulgarian secret service. From now on it would assign a team to eavesdrop on Maxwell every time he came to the country.
In London, M15 and M16 were keeping a watchful eye on Maxwell. In Tel Aviv, Mossad was doing the same. Each had very different reasons for doing so. Robert Maxwell, consumed by both a craving for secrecy and publicity, had become one of the most watched individuals on earth..."