Bearpit

by Brian Freemantle

  He returned the file to its wooden envelope and slotted it snugly and imperceptibly into place in the base of the trunk, balancing the weight of it in one hand against the suitcase in the other to walk out into the complete blackness of the night.

  So what, he asked himself, was he going to do?

  As always the meeting was to be in a public place, this time the Museum of American History, and Willick hurried early in off Constitution Avenue, anxious for the encounter with the Russian. Had he been too greedy in demanding $2,000? He needed the money – Christ how he needed the money! – but he wished now he’d tried to get it a different way. Asking, in fact: not demanding. The man he knew only as Oleg had been right in reminding him of the pressure they could exert, if they chose. What was he going to do if they refused? And not only refused the increase but held back the $1,000 upon which he had become so dependent, blackmailing him into working for nothing? He’d be destroyed, Willick accepted: utterly destroyed. Christ, what a mess!

  ‘In reality, the life of an American cowboy was very dirty, wasn’t it?’ said the Russian, approaching as Willick stood unseeing before some original photographs of a cattle drive to Chicago.

  ‘Very,’ agreed Willick. Who the fuck wanted to talk about dumb-assed cowboys!

  ‘You were early.’

  ‘Found a parking place first time,’ mumbled Willick, trying not to disclose his anxiety.

  ‘Moscow were extremely pleased with the names you provided,’ announced the Russian.

  Hope flared at once through Willick. He said: ‘It has proved my worth?’

  ‘Oh, absolutely,’ said Oleg mildly.

  ‘So what was their reaction?’

  ‘They’ve agreed the increase as from this meeting,’ said the Russian, quite matter of fact.

  Willick had to bite his mouth closed to prevent the mew of relief. He’d made it! Everything was going to be all right! That’s good,’ he said tightly.

  ‘But in return we want very specific things,’ said the man.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘The complete structure, names and biographies … on everyone possible within the CIA. From the Director downwards …’

  ‘That’s not all held in the records to which I have access!’

  ‘Everything that there is,’ insisted the Russian. ‘For the increase to $2,000 we want absolutely everything. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Willick emptily. ‘I understand.’

  24

  Yevgennie Levin had never before travelled in a helicopter and the moment it lifted off he decided he didn’t like it; his stomach dropped with the sudden upward movement, so that he had to swallow against the risk of being sick and when that passed he grew uncomfortable at the fragility of everything. There seemed to be more glass than protective metal. The control panel did not appear big enough and the constant vibration jarred through him, shaking a machine too flimsy to withstand that sort of disturbance. He forced himself to concentrate upon landmarks, trying to lose himself in tradecraft. From above he saw again the withered, stripped-bare trees he had described to Natalia and then the black snake of the Naugatuck and realized there was river along the valley floor. From its direction he was able to isolate Litchfield and because the pilot initially took a south-easterly route, to pick up the coast, Levin knew how accurate he had been in describing the captain’s walks as look-outs to watch the sea where there was no sea.

  Bowden, who was sitting to his right, gestured and mouthed the name when they approached New York but it was an unnecessary identification: Levin had already isolated the sprawl of Queens and Brooklyn and New Jersey and the jammed-together centrepiece of Manhattan. From the air there hardly looked to be any roads or avenues at all between the stuck-together skyscrapers, as if all the buildings had been neatly packaged up to be shipped elsewhere. It was easy for him to pick out the United Nations, its greenness obvious even from this height. What would have happened to Vadim Dolya? And Lubiakov, the other sacrifice? Would the FBI surveillance still be on Onukhov, for when he made his mistake? Always questions.

  The pilot continued to fly south with the shoreline in view and Levin stared down, thinking how vast a country America was. Of course the Soviet Union was as large – larger – but Levin had never flown over it like this, from literally a bird’s-eye vantage point. My home now, he thought. Forever. Providing he did not make any sort of mistake: never relaxed. At least the worry – and distraction – with Petr was over. He had actually begun to fear that the rift between them was permanent and would worsen, and knew Galina thought the same. Her mood had visibly improved with Petr’s acceptance of the situation. Only one major distraction remained. Would Natalia have got his last letter? Was there one on its way from her? More questions. It was important to go on stressing the concern over Natalia when he got to Langley.

  Which would not take much longer, Levin guessed. The pilot made a circular approach, looping over the Capitol and then coming back upon himself, giving Levin a tourist’s overflight of The Mall and the Washington Monument, and the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial, before picking up the Potomac and flying parallel with it to the headquarters of the CIA. There were three cross-marked landing areas; they came down upon the first, the nearest to the hotch-potched building, wings and extensions obviously added to the original, inadequate structure. With objective comparison, Levin supposed the additions here had been made with slightly more success than those built on to Dzerzhinsky Square by Stalin’s prisoner-of-war slaves.

  They were expected, Levin guessed from some radio warning from the pilot. Two unidentified men approached and nodded to Bowden and Proctor, but made no gesture towards Levin. The Russian walked in the middle of the group not towards the main complex but to a small, separate building to one side. He was not surprised to be kept from the most secret centre of America’s external intelligence organization; his surprise, in fact, was at being brought here at all. It would not have been the way a defector’s debriefing would have been conducted in the Soviet Union, even a defector apparently with information as important as his. The encounter would have taken place somewhere far removed from the organization headquarters.

  The route took them in front of the main building and directly by the statue of Nathan Hale, the American patriot hanged as a spy by the British during the American War of Independence. The history had naturally been part of Levin’s instruction, which was why he had immediately recognized the name of the American chief of intelligence during that war when they had toured Litchfield with the attendant Bowden as a guide, aware that Benjamin Tallmadge had been a friend of Hale’s.

  Levin glanced towards the memorial, showing no particular interest, recalling as he did so a forgotten part of that long-ago basic training. As he ascended the English gallows, Hale was supposed to have said: ‘I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.’

  Which was all he had, acknowledged Levin. Remembering his helicopter reflection on the journey from Connecticut, the Russian thought again how careful he was going to have to be, now he appeared to be within finger-touching distance of making work the operation he’d been sent to perform. If they found out what he was really doing then he really could lose his life, he realized.

  At the entrance to the outbuilding Proctor and Bowden went through the required identification and screening and Levin guessed he was being photographed by various unseen cameras positioned in the foyer. When the security officials completed their checks of the two Americans they took prints of Levin’s every finger and thumb, photographed him with an instantly produced Polaroid – which Levin thought created a very bad picture – and had him sign against it and the prints on a large, official-looking form. Levin wondered with whom or with what the details were going to be compared in a further effort to confirm his bona fides.

  The unspeaking escorts took them to a ground-floor room at the back, overlooking a packed car park which Levin thought larger than the square separating the KG
B headquarters from the GUM department store, back in Moscow. A Cona coffee machine steamed on a side table and Levin nodded acceptance to Bowden’s invitation.

  ‘Feel OK?’ asked Proctor.

  ‘Fine,’ lied Levin. Persist with his genuine concern over Natalia and volunteer no more than the very minimum to any question, he thought. String it out, in fact: ideally there had to be as many sessions as possible.

  Harry Myers led the committee into the room, with Norris immediately behind and Crookshank coming last. The formation told Levin that Myers was in charge, although no introductions were made, which he did not expect. Myers jerked his head to Proctor and Bowden with the familiarity of the earlier escorts and then smiled, with surface politeness, at the Russian.

  ‘Appreciate your coming here today, sir,’ said Myers. ‘Believe you might have things to tell us that we’d find extremely interesting.’

  Although he hoped for more meetings between them, Levin studied the three CIA officials with instinctively intense professionalism, trying to memorize in one interview every personal detail for later recall and possible – although now unknown – use. The chairman was a huge bear of a man, obese with neglect and indulgence, flowing beard unkempt, strained suit sagged and bagged around him. Maybe an intentionally careless appearance – as he judged Bowden’s appearance to be intentionally careless – to inculcate ill-judged contempt. Just like it would be ill-judgement to infer respect by the man’s use of the word ‘sir’, which Levin had come to recognize from his time in America to be a verbal mannerism, the equivalent of a comma or a full stop in a sentence and nothing to do with respect. The man to his right was contrastingly neat, crisply suited, crisply barbered, open-faced. The third member of the panel wore a suit and a club-striped tie but Levin was intrigued by the hair, long enough practically to reach his collar. Of the three only the last set out pens alongside the yellow lawyer’s pad, to take notes.

  Nodding towards Proctor, Levin said: ‘I have promised to help, in any way I can.’

  ‘You’ve said you believe there to be a spy within this agency?’ demanded Norris, direct.

  ‘I have also been promised help,’ avoided Levin, smoothly.

  ‘Sir?’ said Myers.

  ‘What progress has there been getting my daughter Natalia from the Soviet Union to join me?’

  ‘We’ve gone through all this, Yevgennie,’ came in Proctor. As he spoke he shrugged apologetically in Myers’ direction. Back to the Russian he said: ‘You know we’re doing all we can.’

  Ignoring the FBI supervisor, Levin said to Myers: ‘Have you heard anything from your sources?’

  Myers sighed. He said: ‘We know your concern – can understand your concern – but until today we haven’t been involved …’

  ‘… Can you do anything now that you are involved?’ interrupted Levin, finding no difficulty with the urgency.

  ‘Like what?’ demanded Norris, recognizing that the matter of the man’s daughter would have to be disposed of before they could go any further.

  ‘You’ve got a CIA residency at the American embassy in Moscow. Assets, presumably,’ said Levin. ‘Can’t you find out what’s happening to her?’

  ‘You’re getting letters telling you what’s happening to her,’ responded Norris carelessly. ‘She’s not under pressure.’

  The reply told Levin several things. From it he knew there was some liaison concerning him between the FBI and the CIA. Which therefore meant here at least there was not the animosity that existed in his own country between the KGB and the GRU. And that if they knew she was not under pressure they were opening and reading the letters before passing them on. Monitoring the correspondence was to be expected, he supposed: the KGB would be doing the same in Moscow. There would be a lot of curiosity about him in the American section of the First Chief Directorate. He would have liked to convey some message but knew any attempt at a code was impossible; particularly now he had confirmed the tampering. To extend the conversation, he said: ‘Couldn’t you make some inquiries?’

  ‘But would that be wise?’ demanded Myers at once. ‘You are trying to get her out, right? Can’t you see the danger, of Moscow discovering the CIA inquiring about her? They could stage a trial over something like that.’

  To explain the apparent thoughtlessness of the demand, Levin said: ‘I’m very worried about her. Desperate.’

  ‘We know, sir, we know,’ soothed Myers.

  ‘Will you tell your State Department how I’m helping: add to the FBI pressure?’ persisted Levin.

  ‘Sure,’ said Myers, the promise as glib as Proctor’s had been, that first day.

  ‘What is it that makes you think there’s a spy here?’ demanded Norris, maintaining his earlier insistence.

  ‘Things that happened when I was at the United Nations,’ started out Levin.

  ‘What things?’ It was the first time the long-haired man had spoken: Crookshank had an oddly high-pitched voice.

  ‘There was a KGB man, here in Washington …’

  ‘… Name?’ broke in Crookshank, pencil ready.

  ‘Shelenkov,’ identified Levin, as he had been instructed all those months ago, in Moscow. At that moment he was more alert than at any time since the interview began and was aware of the look of recognition that passed between Myers and Norris.

  ‘What do you know about him?’ said Norris.

  ‘He was ranked number three at the rezidentura … regarded as a good operator.’

  ‘How was he involved with you at the United Nations?’ asked Myers.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Levin, intentionally obtuse. ‘He wasn’t.’

  ‘I’m not following this,’ protested the CIA lawyer.

  ‘There is occasional liaison, between the embassy here and the UN mission,’ said Levin. ‘Just very occasional. There was a standing instruction, which could not be ignored, that Shelenkov should never, under whatever circumstances, be involved in any contact.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Norris.

  ‘For the risk of being compromised, in something else.’

  ‘Something else?’ It was Crookshank who asked the question.

  ‘It was understood that Shelenkov was completely seconded to just one job: that he could be considered for no other operation.’

  ‘Understood by whom?’ demanded Myers.

  ‘Everyone in New York.’

  ‘The mission in New York were told this?’

  Levin shook his head, conscious of the trap. ‘That is not the way intelligence is conducted … not KGB intelligence, anyway. Individual operations are boxed, agents working quite separately and unknown to each other.’

  ‘So how was it understood?’ said Myers.

  Levin allowed the impression of slight irritation. ‘Because of the hands-off order. A KGB officer is never … well, rarely … allowed the luxury of just one assignment. There are always several ongoing.’

  ‘If Shelenkov were so removed from everything, how do you know he was not active in several, ongoing operations?’ said Norris. ‘You explained yourself a few moments ago that the very principle of espionage is limiting the knowledge of operations.’

  ‘People talk,’ said Levin. ‘Other agents in the Washington embassy said he was removed from any normal, day-to-day functioning. Actually complained at the extra work load it imposed upon them.’ To convey the impression of strain, which he was genuinely feeling, Levin looked in the direction of the coffee and Proctor took the hint and moved to refill his cup.

  ‘We’re dealing with disgruntled gossip?’ said Crook-shank with a lawyer’s dogmatism.

  Levin shook his head. ‘With good reason for their being disgruntled,’ he said, in insistence of his own. ‘You must believe me when I say it’s unheard of for anyone in a rezidentura to be allowed to operate like that, without good reason.’

  ‘Gossip,’ said Crookshank dismissively.

  Concern moved through Levin at the thought that in his keenness to protract the interview over a period, to impre
ss them sufficiently, he might be risking the panel rejecting what he was saying. Before he could speak, Myers picked up: ‘What sort of good reason?’

  ‘An exceptional source,’ said Levin simply.

  ‘You think Shelenkov had such a source?’ said Norris.

  ‘I know he did.’

  ‘Know!’ The demand came simultaneously from Myers and Norris.

  ‘There are three ways of transmitting to Dzerzhinsky Square,’ recounted Levin. ‘The first is electronically, from the embassy. Secondly there is the diplomatic bag. Moscow are suspicious of both. Anything electrical can be intercepted, monitored …’ He paused, looking sideways at Proctor. ‘And the diplomatic bag is not regarded as being completely safe: there have been tests and from them we know that the FBI open them, although they are supposed to be protected by international agreement …’

  ‘What’s the third way?’ intruded the lawyer impatiently.

  Levin did not respond at once, staring across the intervening table and realizing that of the three, this longhaired man was the one he had to convince. He said: ‘Personal courier. It’s practice for people personally to transport things … encoded and concealed in microdots or hidden in some way. This was always the way that Shelenkov’s material was moved to Moscow.’

  ‘How do you know, if he were kept so separate from you?’ said Crookshank.

  ‘I was told, by people in Washington …’

  ‘… Gossip again,’ interrupted the lawyer.

  ‘Fact,’ rejected Levin, prepared. ‘On occasions the courier was from the United Nations. Always it was to move what Shelenkov had.’

  ‘Who was the courier at the United Nations?’ The question came from Bowden but the CIA group showed no annoyance at the questioning being taken away from them.

  ‘Vadim Alekseevich Dolya,’ identified Levin, the lie already prepared, knowing from Bowden’s disclosure in Connecticut of Dolya’s withdrawal to the Soviet Union that he could not be challenged.

  ‘Let’s accept for a moment that Shelenkov did have an exceptional source and that Dzerzhinsky Square were prepared to operate in the unusual way you’ve described,’ explored Norris. ‘You haven’t so far given us any indication why that source should be CIA.’