Jane strode over and ripped it out of his hand. ‘And for Christ’s sake, stop cleaning up after me! You’re like a fucking housewife!’
Staggered at her outburst he watched as she threw the cloth on the floor. Too stunned to retaliate, he let the cloth lie there, drew a deep breath and said as calmly as he could, ‘Now, if you don’t mind I’m going to get something to eat.’
‘You’ll have to make toast.’
‘You ate all the food? I made a whole stew.’ Teschmaker turned and stared at her. She was leaning against the kitchen door, the look on her face one of pure anger.
‘So? I didn’t know what time you were coming back. You could have eaten out for all I knew. I had to feed my father and Oliver’s men.’
‘Yes, Edwards told me they got your father . . .’ He stopped, trying to work out what else was going on. ‘Jane, I realise you’re stressed about your father and Melanie —’
‘Stressed!’ Jane blazed. ‘I am worried out of my fucking mind. Do you know that they killed someone tonight?’ She didn’t wait for Teschmaker to respond. ‘What do you think Rusak is going to do to Melanie now? I have no idea where she is and Oliver’s animals have just made the situation worse. They kill one of Rusak’s men and then they tell me to relax. And to top it off, you waltz in, start fussing around like a fucking obsessive compulsive and then expect me to have a meal ready?’
‘I never said that.’ Teschmaker struggled to stay calm. ‘I’m quite happy to eat toast.’
‘Well, after you’ve had something to eat maybe you’ll tell me what you were doing. Obviously drinking was part of it, just like your stupid father.’
‘Are you quite finished? Or are you going to go on like this all night? I’m perfectly happy to go somewhere else. I can book into a hotel and come back in the morning when you’ve calmed down.’
He strode to the front door and picked up the keys. Damn the woman, this was not his affair and he certainly didn’t have to put up with being castigated when he had been trying to assist.
‘You’d do that? You’d walk out and leave me with this?’
The vitriol and disgust in Jane’s voice was too much for Teschmaker. He spun around and only just stopped himself from hitting her. Instead he took her by the shoulders. ‘Listen, Jane. I can come or I can go. But I’m not staying to be abused. I’m trying to help so either you let me do that or I do walk out. And one other thing, don’t insult my father like that.’
But she wasn’t ready to capitulate. She shrugged herself free of him and stormed out of the kitchen. A couple of seconds later he heard the door to her room slam. For a moment he thought of going after her, but knew there was nothing he could say to placate her. ‘Great,’ he said to himself. ‘Just great.’
He went back into the kitchen but after looking around at the empty pots and dirty dishes piled up on the bench decided that he no longer felt hungry. He wanted a cigarette but knew that would mean going out into the cold on the balcony and so abandoned that idea as well. Then it came to him why he felt so churned up by Jane’s outburst of anger. It was like being married — all arguments and no sex. To his surprise, Teschmaker found himself smiling at the notion, but realised as he did so that it wasn’t entirely accurate. With Gwenda the battle had always been conducted in icy silence, the most tangible evidence of her disapproval being her withering looks of scorn. And the sex? What there had been of it had been dispensed rather than shared and always clinically performed as though it were a burdensome task rather than an act of pleasure.
He bent down to pick up the dishcloth but stopped himself. Obsessive compulsive? What the fuck was that supposed to mean? I’ll show her obsessive fucking compulsive, he thought grimly, and with a single sweep of his arm brushed the dishes from the bench onto the floor. For some strange reason the act gave him intense satisfaction. Fuck the mess! I’m sick of tidying up after everyone. For a second he had a flash of the chaos his father had lived in, the filth and broken-bottle squalor. Not me, he thought; but no more cleaning up either. And he knew as he thought it that it was true: all of his adult life, even the nature of his work, had been about cleaning up other people’s messes.
Teschmaker turned his back on the wreckage and walked through to the darkened lounge room and took a bottle of scotch and a glass from the drinks cabinet. He knew he had already had enough to drink but decided he no longer cared. Deliberately he avoided the coaster and with a sense of liberation put the glass straight onto the coffee table. It will need to be wiped now, part of his mind scolded. Fuck off, the other part responded. In that moment he saw with absolute clarity that his life had been all about appearances. Carefully he and his mother had wallpapered over every crack his father had caused in their middle-class facade. Keeping up appearances, his mother would stress. Upholding standards. A place for everything and everything in its place. And inside? In him? The same pattern. Cover the cracks, keep the exterior ‘ship shape’ — another of his mother’s phrases. Well, not any more. He dipped his finger in the scotch and licked it. If he ever got out of this mess . . .
For several minutes he sat in the dark nursing his glass, feeling pleasantly numb. Each time his mind began to replay the day’s events he gently pushed the thoughts away and sipped at his drink. It was good scotch, a single malt with a mellow peaty tang and a hint of seaweed, probably from some godforsaken island. Maybe that’s what he should do: pack up and find himself a cottage in the Hebrides, or the Orkney Islands. The idea of hibernation seemed like a good option. He imagined himself walking on windswept beaches, hunting the drift for salt-bleached firewood. Or going for long hikes amidst tarns and craggy rocks before returning to a crackling fire and a bowl of steaming soup.
Teschmaker had drifted so far into his fantasy that he didn’t hear the door open. And when he did hear the voice, he thought it was his imagination.
‘Would you mind if I joined you?’ the voice repeated.
Teschmaker sat forward and looked around at the figure silhouetted in the wedge of light that spilled from the bedroom.
The man stepped forward. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.’
It was Sydney Morris. He wore pyjamas and was pulling a dressing gown around his shoulders. Teschmaker got rather groggily to his feet. ‘It’s fine. I just dozed off for a moment.’ He put his glass down on the coffee table and went to the cabinet to get another. ‘I take it you would like a scotch?’
‘Yes, thanks. I’m afraid my previous hosts didn’t run to such luxuries, preferring to keep me doped up.’ He walked over to the lounge and sat. ‘You’re Teschmaker, right?’
‘Yes.’ Teschmaker nodded and then, unsure of how much the old man remembered, added, ‘I visited you a couple of times.’
‘I know. And I should apologise for being so vague with you. I wasn’t clear what your role was, or who you were working for, so I stuck to the script I’d developed for dealing with Rusak.’
Teschmaker poured a scotch and handed it to Sydney. The transformation was remarkable. There was no sign of his previous incapacity, and though the hand that accepted the drink shook a little, the eyes that followed him were sharp and alert. ‘Well, you had me well and truly fooled.’
‘A matter of self-preservation, I’m afraid. My memory isn’t all that good these days, but I certainly don’t have any problems other than too many miles on the clock. I was living in the Czech Republic for a while and one of my neighbours had Alzheimer’s. And when Rusak came on the scene, I thought it was the best defence. Unfortunately the drugs Rusak’s people forced into me made it very difficult. I wasn’t even making sense to myself a lot of the time. You probably thought I was a babbling idiot.’ He peered at Teschmaker. ‘I can’t say that I remember you as a child, but from what Jane has said you appear to have turned out all right.’
‘Really? I gained the impression that Jane saw me as a meddling pain in the arse.’
‘Somehow I think that marrying Oliver Sinclair has made her a bit wary and certainly sharpened he
r tongue. Nevertheless, we are in rather a nasty bind now that Rusak has my granddaughter, Melanie. You know, I’ve never seen her.’ The old man lapsed into silence, sipping his drink and looking at Teschmaker as though waiting for a solution to his problems.
Teschmaker topped up his glass and came back to his chair. ‘I don’t really understand what’s going on. But from what I can piece together, Rusak is after information from you about something you were involved with back in the Soviet Union. If I knew what that was, then maybe we could come up with a way of dealing with him.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t help. You see, it’s not a matter of my memory; I simply don’t have the information he wants.’
‘So why does Rusak think you do?’
Sydney Morris put down his glass and pulled the dressing gown tighter. ‘When Rusak bought his way into the Duma he came across some information that related to KGB activities during the Cold War. Rusak has a well-developed nose for opportunities and, sensing that the information could be worth a lot, used his position to gain access to files of the personnel involved. After he left the Duma, he removed the files and set about tracing the people. I was the only one still alive. He refused to believe that I didn’t know what he wanted, and still does.’
Sydney Morris paused as they both heard the door to Jane’s bedroom open.
For a moment Jane stood in the doorway, watching the two men sitting in the darkened room, then came over and sat beside her father. She avoided looking at Teschmaker but even in the dim light he could tell that she had been crying.
Sydney patted her knee affectionately and then continued. ‘I had worked on a very sensitive project and though it was unusual for the science people to have any knowledge, let alone contact, with the operational teams, the technical problems necessitated my being involved in briefing and training. I spent several months with these people and became very fond of them and so when Rusak told me that they were all dead, I was devastated. Alberto Garcia, Jacob Sedov, Marcia Zanda, Guy Greenglass, Georg Bella, Andrei Yakunin, Hugh Cowgill. All dead.’
‘The dead gardeners,’ Teschmaker said quietly. ‘Sadovnik.’
Sydney Morris peered at him suspiciously. ‘Who told you that word?’
‘You did. The first time I came to see you. Whatever they had given you must have been doing something because you mentioned the names of the saboteurs.’
‘Maybe I wasn’t as in control as I thought.’ There was a momentary look of confusion on his face. ‘What else did I say?’
‘You didn’t seem to make any sense at the time, but along with the gardeners, you did talk about the lilies, the bouquet and the little flower or tsvetok.’ He sensed Sydney Morris suddenly stiffen. Jane also picked up on the mood change and looked directly at Teschmaker for the first time since she had come into the room.
‘Hearing the words is one thing, Mr Teschmaker, but I’m wondering how you come to know what those words signify.’ The previously soft tone had evaporated in the face of the old man’s sudden suspicion, to be replaced by an abrupt terseness.
‘I went out tonight and spoke with a Russian friend, a man who has studied these things all his life. He explained to me about the DRGs, the sabotage teams, and the code they used. Relax, I’m on the side of the angels.’
‘Are you?’ Sydney Morris looked as though he was far from convinced. ‘I suppose I really don’t have any choice but to trust you. Jane does and so that will have to suffice.’
Teschmaker looked at Jane but she had gone back to assiduously avoiding his eyes.
Sydney Morris took his daughter’s hand and decided to continue. ‘After I had trained the teams they were dispatched to the target countries, and once they had set up bases the devices were delivered to them. It was the lowest point of my life. The only way I could deal with it was to believe that the devices were simply a deterrent and would never actually be detonated. I understood that I would never see the people I had trained again, but I thought that was because our paths would never cross. But when Rusak told me . . .’
His voice choked and he reached for his glass. He gulped at the scotch and turned to Jane. ‘It was as if I had killed them. I had no idea . . .’ He stopped as he struggled with the memory. ‘I knew I hadn’t killed them, but I felt responsible. From what I now understand, it seems that once they had put the device in place they were killed so that the exact locations were known only to very few people at Moscow Centre. As the years went by I took some comfort in the thought that my original belief was right and not one of the devices would ever be detonated. Then in 1997 General Lebed told the world that we had lost track of a large number of them. It had been so long since they were planted that most observers were sceptical about Lebed’s comments, doubting that the weapons ever existed. It was an understandable reaction, but I knew he was telling the truth. And in fact I was relieved, because if there was nobody left alive who knew where the devices were, then at least my team’s deaths had achieved something. In the larger scheme of things, it was arguably a small price to pay for the fact that the devices could never be detonated or fall into the wrong hands. However, Rusak is a very determined man. He believes that if he can get his hands on one of these devices he could sell it for millions. Fortunately, I don’t know where any of them are.’
Teschmaker could hardly believe what he was hearing. He recalled the fuss over General Lebed’s comments, but also remembered how quickly the issue had been dismissed. ‘Sydney, are you saying that you worked on the nuclear suitcase bombs?’
‘Suitcase . . . I wish that people wouldn’t call them that. I was good at my work, but nobody could make one that small. The devices I designed were about the size of one of those old-fashioned trunks that people used to travel with.’
‘But we are talking about nuclear explosives?’
‘One kiloton.’
‘And they’re planted in different countries around the world?’
Sydney nodded. ‘I wasn’t briefed on the politics, but it seemed clear that they were to serve a double purpose. Threat in the first place, and if that was not enough they could be used as an extreme means of sabotage if the need arose.’
Teschmaker tried to remember what he had read about the devices. The Chechen leaders had claimed to have possession of two of the missing bombs, and he vaguely remembered a claim by the Palestinians of having found several, but neither claim had ever been substantiated or, in fact, given much credence. They were probably bluffing. Then he remembered something else he had read.
‘Sydney, suppose Rusak did locate one, would it still function? I thought one of Yeltsin’s advisors had said something about the half-life of some of the materials being a factor?’
‘The tritium? No, that story surfaced later. The man you’re referring to is Alexei Yablokov, who used to be Yeltsin’s science advisor. He validated the existence of the bombs but the Russian military went on the defensive, denied their existence and then claimed that if they existed at all they would be dangerous because of deterioration.’
‘And?’ Teschmaker prompted.
‘Nobody knows. As the core decays, a slight amount of americium contamination is created, but it tends to stabilise the plutonium rather than seriously impact its explosive power. Storage and retrieval of the weapons would be hazardous because of accumulating radioactive helium gas, but really it would be in such minute quantities that it would matter little. All of which means nothing in terms of a terrorist’s use of the weapons. I think the issue was raised as a ploy to deter anyone who had one from using it.’
‘And if they did? What kind of destruction would it cause?’
‘One kiloton?’ The old man sipped his drink and then shut his eyes as if savouring the flavour. ‘It would destroy a major inner-city area. Huge loss of life and, because they were not built to be clean, massive radioactive contamination. But the point is that if one should fall into the hands of a terrorist group or one of the Russian fascist organisations, they don’t actually have to detonat
e it. The threat alone would be sufficient.’
Teschmaker looked at the old man in the pyjamas and dressing gown, glass of scotch in one hand, the other clasping his daughter’s hand — it was hardly an image anyone would associate with the designer of the weapons they were discussing. ‘Why in God’s name did you make them, Sydney?’
‘Intellectual pride,’ Sydney answered, with only a momentary hesitation. ‘Because they told me it was impossible to create a reaction with such small amounts of material. I had been working at Krasnoyarsk-45 on another project and in my spare time was struggling with the theory of miniaturisation. It was almost a hobby, until one day I heard that all work in that area had been discontinued because it was deemed to be impossible below a certain limit. I worked up my theory and presented it, and a couple of months later I was transferred to the design laboratories at Chelyabinsk-70.’
Teschmaker noticed the sudden animation in Sydney’s voice. Despite what he was describing, the old man was obviously proud of his achievements. For her part, Jane was looking at her father with a mixture of bemusement and horror. Teschmaker thought of interrupting Sydney but he was in full flight, reliving what he clearly saw as his scientific triumph.
‘The brief was to come up with something that Soviet Army Intelligence Units, the GRU, could transport with relative ease. Much of the preliminary work had been done but it had hit a brick wall. Finally my team came up with a device that was a mere 60 x 40 x 20 centimetres. We worked from the premise that the smallest possible object would be a single critical mass of plutonium, or U-233. An unreflected spherical alpha-phase critical mass of Pu-239 weighs 10.5 kilograms and is 10.1 centimetres across. But of course a single critical mass cannot cause an explosion because there is no fission multiplication. But as little as ten per cent more can produce explosions of ten to twenty tons.’
Teschmaker was struggling to keep up. ‘But isn’t that a reasonably small yield?’
‘Of course, but far more dangerous than conventional weapons because of the intense radiation emitted. A twenty-ton fission explosion, for example, produces a very dangerous 500 rem radiation exposure at 400 metres from burst point, and a hundred per cent lethal 1350 rem exposure at 300 metres. But we were going bigger than that anyway. But that wasn’t the point of what I was trying to do.’ Sydney waved his hand at Teschmaker, indicating that he didn’t want any further interruptions. ‘Listen. The whole concept of critical mass is dependent on the density of the fissile material and the type of neutron reflector. High explosive implosion can compress fissile material to greater density, thus reducing the critical mass. A neutron reflector reduces neutron loss and reduces the critical mass at a constant density. But in all the previous experiments they’d found that adding explosives or neutron reflectors to the core added much more mass to the system than it saved. My idea was to use a thin beryllium reflector, and I was able to show that with one of even a few centimetres thickness, the radius of a plutonium core was reduced by forty to sixty per cent of the reflector thickness. There was a limit of course, and a point at which increasing the thickness of the reflector began to add more mass than it saved. But we had the problem beaten. With all the components — plutonium, beryllium reflector, high explosive and triggering system — we had a package below fifteen kilograms.’ Sydney stopped and looked at Jane, his face flushed. ‘Two years it took, but I did it.’
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