‘When?’ demanded Paul, forcefully.
Blair remembered the counsellor’s warning about breaking promises and thought how occupied he was going to be by what was happening in Moscow. He said, ‘We’ll plan around the next long vacation. And around Paul’s programme, of course. I’ll fix it, with the counsellors.’
The vacation was close, not more than a few weeks. So much could be changed in a few weeks, he thought.
‘How often do you think you’ll be able to get back like this?’ asked Ruth.
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Blair. It would be wrong to make her any false promises, like it would be with the boys.
‘Will I see a spy in Moscow?’ said John, who did not know what his father did.
‘Maybe,’ said Blair.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
By the time Brinkman reached the apartment Harriet had realised her stupidity. She retained the door on its security chain, staring out at him – not just his face but how he was dressed, as if she wanted to establish a complete image – and keeping most of herself hidden behind the door itself.
‘What do you want?’ she said.
‘I told you, it’s about Pietr,’ he said.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, pitifully too late.
‘Why did you let me up then?’
‘I misunderstood,’ she said, even more pitifully.
‘I know, Harriet,’ said Brinkman. ‘Let me in, so we can talk.’
‘Who are you?’
Brinkman anticipated the question. He took easily from his pocket his accreditation and identification, designating him a cultural attaché at the British Embassy, passing it through the narrow gap to her. She hesitated and took it, reading not just the English but the Russian as well. She was extremely careful, digesting it all. She handed it back to him finally, her throat working.
‘What do you want?’ she repeated.
‘Not like this,’ said Brinkman, sure of himself. ‘Not out here in the corridor.’
There was a further hesitation and she slipped the chain, holding the door open further. Brinkman nodded his thanks and went in. It was a comparatively small apartment, one main room with a bedroom annex, an open kitchen area and beyond a door he presumed led to the bathroom. It was on an actual corner of the building, so there were windows on two sides, but it was not high enough for the view to be truly impressive. She’d obviously been preparing a meal. There was a table near the window half-laid and there were cooking sounds from the kitchen.
‘Well?’ she said.
‘Hadn’t you better turn off the things on the stove?’ said Brinkman. ‘We’ve got a lot to talk about.’
‘Stop being so damned condescending and tell me what it is you have to say!’ she said, in a sudden burst of anger, as much at herself as at him.
He was sure – absolutely convinced – that he was right but at the moment of challenge Brinkman momentarily held back. Just one miscalculation, just one variance in the interpretation, and he would be doing what he told Maxwell, in London. Making a fool of himself. Trying to allow himself the widest margin possible he said, ‘We know all about you and Pietr Orlov. We know what happened here and we know what he’s trying to do in Moscow. And we want to help.’
Harriet had been holding herself stiff, defensively, but suddenly she sagged, not at this confrontation but as the tension of the past months went from her. She actually put out her hand against a chair back, for support. From her photographs and from her appearance at the United Nations Brinkman had thought her quite a tall woman but now she didn’t appear to be. She’d taken off the jacket of the suit she had been wearing, just leaving the white blouse, ruffled and laced at the neck. Her face was drained now but Brinkman guessed she would never have a lot of colour. The whiteness was accentuated by her hair, which was deeply black. She wore it strained back, like Ann had the night at the embassy when Orlov had made his approach.
‘The stove,’ he reminded. ‘You’d better turn off the stove.’
Harriet straightened, trying for her earlier forced demeanour, appeared to consider what he said and then went to the kitchen. As she came back she smiled and said, ‘I’m sorry, for behaving like I did. We thought we knew what it was going to be like but we didn’t. I didn’t at least. These last months have been hell: I don’t feel like I’ve been alive at all. I’ve felt outside of myself, watching a person called Harriet Johnson go through the motions of everyday life but not really being part of it.’
Brinkman smiled, trying for the sympathy. ‘It’ll all be over soon,’ he said. He hadn’t won yet; he hadn’t even drawn level but he was narrowing the gap every minute.
‘I thought he was going to go to the Americans,’ admitted Harriet.
Brinkman knew there was no way to disguise it, to make it pleasant. It had to be brutal and she had to hate him. Just like Orlov would hate him. It was something he had already accepted and that they were going to have to adjust to. He said, ‘He did.’
Harriet’s smile flickered uncertainly, like a faulty light, and then went out. She lowered herself into the chair against which she had earlier leaned for support and said, shaking her head, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t understand.’
‘Pietr did go to the Americans. Last week, at an embassy reception.’
‘I saw the photograph …’ started Harriet and then stopped. ‘But your documentation …’
‘Is British,’ he finished for her.
‘What’s happening?’ she said. ‘Please tell me what’s happening.’
‘Pietr has gone to the Americans, to defect. They’ll be making plans, to bring him across. I know they’ve withdrawn someone from their embassy in Moscow,’ said Brinkman. ‘But we don’t want Pietr to go to America. We want him to defect to Britain.’
Harriet looked up at him warily, with the beginning of suspicion. ‘You’re not working with them? You’re not cooperating with the Americans?
‘No,’ said Brinkman. ‘And we don’t want Pietr to continue doing so. Or you, if any approach is made.’
Harriet jerked up, more aware now, faced flushed. ‘Get out!’ she said. ‘Get out of my apartment. You tricked your way in here. Get out!’
Brinkman made no attempt to move. ‘We’ll match every offer the Americans will make,’ he promised. ‘You and Pietr will be completely protected. There’ll be accommodation and whatever money you want, for as long as you want. In time you’ll be set up with new identities … new everything …’
‘Why?’ she said, unable to sustain the outburst, the plea coming back into her voice. ‘Why?’
‘I’ve already told you,’ said Brinkman. ‘We want Pietr.’
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head more determinedly this time. ‘No. Not until I’ve had a chance to talk it over with Pietr. I won’t do anything until I know what he wants.’
‘That can’t happen,’ said Brinkman. ‘Isn’t possible.’
‘Why not?’ she demanded defiantly.
‘Because if Pietr doesn’t come to us he’s not going anywhere. You’re never going to see him again.’
‘What!’
‘You heard what I said.’
‘No,’ she said again, holding her hands together before her, as if she were praying. ‘No. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe any of this. I don’t know what you want or what you’re doing but it’s some sort of trick.’
‘It isn’t, Harriet,’ said Brinkman evenly. ‘This is the way – the only way – that you’ll ever get Pietr out of Moscow. Our way.’
She leaned forward, determined to concentrate. ‘Tell me what you mean,’ she said. ‘Tell me exactly what you mean.’
One of the highest hurdles of them all, thought Brinkman. ‘You’ve a way to contact Pietr?’ he said.
Her uncertainty was just a moment too long. ‘No,’ she said.
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Pietr said it would be dangerous; too dangerous. That I had to trust him.’
‘Pity,’ said Br
inkman.
‘Why?’
‘Like I said, if we can’t have him, no one’s going to.’
‘How can you stop it?’
Brinkman laughed at the innocence of her question. ‘By ensuring that the Soviet authorities come to know what’s happening, before Pietr has a chance to get out.’
‘What!’ erupted the woman.
‘You haven’t listened to me,’ remonstrated Brinkman. ‘I’ve already told you – several times – that if he doesn’t come to the British he isn’t going anywhere.’
‘You wouldn’t!’
‘You prepared to take that chance?’ said Brinkman. ‘Please don’t. Because I would. Really I would.’
‘Mother-fucker!’ she shouted, the worst abscenity she could find.
‘Yes,’ agreed Brinkman, unoffended, his voice conversational.
‘But … but … I can’t believe you. I just can’t believe that anyone would think …’ Her voice trailed as her mind blocked, refusing the words to express her disgust.
‘I would,’ said Brinkman. ‘Really I would. Now, what’s the way of contacting Pietr?’
Harriet started to cry and Brinkman sat back easily, letting her. She seemed suddenly aware of his calmly being there, watching her and brought herself to a snuffling halt. She blew her nose and scrubbed her hands across her eyes. ‘Mother-fucker,’ she repeated, broken-voiced.
Brinkman let her have the last moment of defiance. ‘The system,’ he said. ‘What’s the system?’
She blew her nose a second time, composing herself. ‘Pietr knew he was going back to a favoured position …’ she began, haltingly. ‘I don’t think he anticipated what would happen – he never said so and I know he would have done – but he expected the privileges. He was allowed some here. One was books. He was allowed to keep a book account here, through the UN service. And to let it stay open, when he went back to Moscow. If there were an emergency – but only the most extreme emergency – I was to get myself a book … it didn’t matter what because if he hadn’t ordered it himself he’d know it was from me … and go through my own copy picking out letters in the third chapter that spelled out what I wanted to say. Under the letters I had to put a tiny pin-prick. When the book reached him, he’d search the third chapter and pick out the message.’
Not brilliant but not bad either, conceded Brinkman. He said, ‘How could you get the marked book back into the UN system?’
‘It had to be one with several copies in the bookshop there,’ she explained. ‘Having made my message, I had to go back and switch. Take an unmarked one for myself – for which I’d have the purchase ticket anyway – and personally hand the marked copy to the desk clerk and tell her it had to be charged to Pietr Orlov’s account.’
‘Send him a book tomorrow,’ ordered Brinkman. He wished there were something more guaranteed.
‘Saying what?’
It was a good question and he hadn’t worked it out, realised Brinkman. For safety, it had to be kept to the minimum. Just a meeting then; knowing it was from Harriet, Orlov would make a meeting. And if the KGB intercepted it, they’d keep it too. As Maxwell said, the risk was appalling. ‘Have you a paper and pen?’ he said.
While she fetched it, Brinkman tried to think of a meeting place. It had to be somewhere public, with as many people as possible. A place where Orlov could explainably be, if he were seen. Himself, too. He smiled, when it came to him. Appropriate, too. The Bolshoi was one of his favourite places, after all. When Harriet returned he printed out the name in block capitals, then paused. The place. What about the date and time? A date was impossible, because he didn’t know how long it would take the book to reach the Russian. Every Tuesday, he wrote. Then, seven-thirty, north entrance. Anything else? He looked up at the woman and said, ‘Only in an emergency?’
‘That was the arrangement,’ she said. ‘I’ve never used it.’
To the message Brinkman added ‘urgent’. Orlov would come, if he got it, Brinkman decided. It was still uncertain; too uncertain. ‘There was no other way?’ he said.
‘No,’ said the woman.
What about Harriet? thought Brinkman. Was there any need to get her out of New York? Not really. Orlov was the one who mattered. If they got him, arrangements for a reunion could be made anywhere, anywhen. Suddenly for her to disappear would only alarm the CIA and cause unnecessary ripples. What if the Agency changed the operation and made a direct approach? And she told them? A gamble, Brinkman recognised. He said, ‘You want to see Pietr again?’
‘That’s a ridiculous question.’
‘Then do what I’ve told you and we’ll get him out and he’ll be with you, for good. But try anything else … adding something extra to the message, for instance. Or imagining some protection if you make a direct approach to the Americans and I guarantee – I absolutely guarantee – that you’ll never see him again.’
Brinkman didn’t enjoy the bullying but decided it was necessary. In front of him the woman’s lip quivered, briefly, but she managed to hold back from actually breaking down.
‘What happens, when he gets out?’ she said.
‘We’ll put you together,’ said Brinkman. ‘I’ve promised you that.’
‘I meant about Pietr. Do you imagine he’ll cooperate with you – and that’s why you’re doing all this, I know, in the hope that he’ll cooperate – after what you’ve done!’
Brinkman smiled sympathetically at her attempted threat. ‘Of course he will,’ he said.
‘Don’t be a bloody fool!’ she said.
‘Don’t you be a bloody fool, Harriet. The houses in which you’ll live for the rest of your lives and the money you’ll have and the protection you’ll have will all depend on the degree of cooperation that Pietr provides. You should know what the Russians are like. How long do you think he’d survive – you’d survive – if your whereabouts became known and there was no protection?’
Harriet looked at him, eyes bulged with a combination of astonishment and horror. ‘You are,’ she said, as if she still couldn’t believe it, ‘you are an absolute fucking bastard.’
‘Don’t let me have to prove just how much of one,’ said Brinkman.
The strain was showing and because he was aware of it Orlov became further unsettled, discourteous to secretaries and chauffeurs – which he’d never been before – and unnecessarily critical to assistants and aides, blaming them for his own oversights and mistakes.
Habits had grown within habits for his regular meetings with Sevin. Determined that the agricultural policy paper should be the document firmly to establish Orlov’s ascendancy, Sevin had initiated the practice of Orlov taking for their nightly encounters draft pages for the old man to criticise and improve, until he was entirely satisfied with them.
Orlov was conscious of an attitude as soon as he entered Sevin’s quarters. The old man remained as his desk, which he normally left for the more comfortable conference area near the window. As he approached Orlov saw the last ten pages he had presented spread out in front of the other man, heavily annotated with margin notes and corrections.
‘What is it, Pietr?’
‘I don’t understand the question.’
‘The document began so well. Clear and concise, honestly confronting the stupidity of a system of insisting upon norms from antiquated methods and machinery, without a sensible decision to suffer for two years while everything is reequipped and more land put over for private, peasant cultivation. We’ve talked it through, night after night …’ Sevin gestured disparagingly to the sheets before him. ‘This is terrible, Pietr. Your arguments ramble and are inconclusive. In at least three instances I have found your figures demonstrably wrong. What is supposed to be a treatise that will revolutionise Soviet agriculture is lapsing into the sort of meaningless polemic we’ve had and suffered from for the last fifty years.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Orlov humbly.
‘So am I,’ said Sevin. ‘Deeply sorry. This isn’t going to establish a reputation
for you. It’s going to destroy one.’ Sevin left unsaid that it could destroy him, too. What the hell was wrong with the man!
‘I’ll rework it.’
‘Don’t rework it,’ refused Sevin. ‘Scrap it and start again. Which is what we’ve got to do with our agriculture.’
‘All right,’ agreed Orlov.
‘So what is it?’ prompted the old man again. ‘Is there a problem?’
Orlov searched desperately for an excuse, hating himself for it when it came. ‘The divorce,’ he said. ‘It’s amicable, to a degree. But it’s always upsetting. You said so yourself.’
Upsetting, thought Sevin: but not to this degree. And if it were true, what sort of leader would Orlov make if a simple thing like a divorce anyway so distressed the man. Had he missed something? worried Sevin. If he had, then it was too late; his sponsorship was known now, to those who mattered. It was impossible to withdraw without losing his position of influence on the Politburo and that was all Sevin lived for any more. He said urgently, ‘The marriage is over. Accept it. Put it behind you and start concentrating upon the important thing. Your future.’
‘That’s what I am thinking of,’ said Orlov. ‘My future.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ann’s affair with Jeremy Brinkman created claustrophobia within claustrophobia: she hadn’t felt able to breathe or think or move. So he had been right, about his absence giving her time to think. She’d accustomed if not adjusted to the greater claustrophobia – Moscow – but without Jeremy and without Eddie the tighter feeling had gone. She’d been able to examine things – everything – calmly and clearly. She thought. She did love both. If that wasn’t usual then it wasn’t usual but for her it was possible. And real love; not dependence upon Eddie and the excitement of the illicit with Jeremy. So it came down to whom she loved better. Which it always had, she supposed. She’d been wrong – so very wrong – treating Eddie as she had. He should have discussed staying on – she did deserve that – but she’d been unjustified raging as she had. Remorse, for what else was happening. And she deserved to feel remorseful. He was kind and gentle and he did love her, like he’d said just before he left for Washington. And she believed he’d never cheated on her and never told her a lie; not an important, mattering-between-them sort of lie. It served her right, after the way she’d been behaving, if he were being drawn back to Ruth. Had she tried hard enough, with Moscow? She thought she had – she didn’t know what else she could have done but she wasn’t completely sure. Maybe what she hadn’t done was talk it through enough with Eddie. She thought he’d known but he clearly hadn’t. If she’d talked it out with him then maybe he wouldn’t have made the commitment in Washington, last time. But he had and now she had to live with it. Or did she? He’d told her she didn’t have to. Which had frightened her, she admitted. The thought of being alone frightened her and the told-you-it-wouldn’t-work attitude of her family frightened her. Like her love for Jeremy frightened her. If only he hadn’t come to Moscow in the first place! And hadn’t been so much fun and been to Cambridge like she had and known the city like she did and liked ballet like she did and that night they hadn’t … Ann halted the torrent, confronting the effort to avoid the responsibility. He had come to Moscow and he had done all those things and they had done all those things and now she loved him, too. Did he love her, like he said he did? She had no way of knowing. He was funnier than Eddie – even when Eddie was trying, which he didn’t very often any more – and more comfortable at dinner parties and wonderful in bed but if she were comparing- which was what she had to do, surely? – she felt that Jeremy was the harder of the two. Ann tried to make the equation a different way. Given the choice, between her and his career, which would Jeremy choose? As she posed the question she realised she already knew how Eddie would choose and then decided that wasn’t fair. He hadn’t completely known. Jeremy did. Ann suspected it would still be the career for Jeremy. But wasn’t that how it should be? No. Or maybe yes. She didn’t know. Dear God, she thought desperately, why did every hopeful answer produce two more unanswerable questions?
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