‘I thought you’d have more time.’
‘There’ll be all the time in the world, later,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said distantly. ‘All the time in the world.’
‘A week?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘I’ll be waiting. It’s going to be wonderful, Ann. Believe me, everything is going to be wonderful.’ Did Orlov love Harriet as much as he loved Ann? He must do, Brinkman supposed.
The moment of actual parting was difficult for them both, each holding to the other, reluctant to sever the physical contact but Brinkman knew he had to: it would be ludicrously stupid to ruin everything by staying here an extra thirty minutes when they had a whole lifetime ahead of them.
‘I’ll be waiting,’ he reminded her.
‘I know.’
‘I love you.’ He waited but she didn’t respond and he smiled and kissed her, unconcerned. She’d pleaded with him not to pressure her and he wouldn’t.
By his very absence the Soviet authorities would identify him with what happened – so the consideration was really unnecessary but Brinkman didn’t take an embassy vehicle to the airport, deciding instead upon one of the officially approved airport taxis. As the vehicle started to clear the Moscow suburbs a clock-tower suddenly appeared before him. Six, he saw. Orlov would be at Sheremetyevo now, maybe going through the routine of a departure ceremony. Brinkman hoped the man’s nerve held. It was the one uncertainty that remained, whether Orlov would actually be able to go through with it without someone in the party and there would be KGB guardians in the party because there were on every overseas Russian trip – becoming aware of his anxiety. Maybe he should have gone earlier to the airport, to see the man through. But why? There was nothing he could have done. They hadn’t arranged that he should be there, during the last meeting, so his unexpected appearance might have had the reverse of that intended, alarming the man even more.
There was nothing he could do now. Nothing except hope. If Orlov made the plane, then everything would be all right. All he had to do then was wait until Paris and let himself be spirited away by men who would already be in place now, calm and expert and trained and waiting.
They began leaving the city behind and Brinkman strained around, realising it would be his last sight of the Soviet capital. A good memory, he thought again. Now it was time to move on. To what? he wondered.
The day was in the half-light when Brinkman reached the airport. He remained inside the taxi, to pay the driver, and then stepped out on to the wide pavement in front of the departure building. The large car park was filled, as it always appeared to be, and cars and taxis formed a solid line against the pavement edge. Brinkman picked his path through them, making his way towards the identifiable insignia of British Airways which would lead him to the desk inside. It was about five doors ahead and Brinkman thought, in passing, that he should have had the driver bring him nearer.
He’d practically reached it when he heard the shout and at first gave no reaction because there was no one who could be shouting for him. And then he heard it again and stared beyond the door into the British Airways desk. Orlov had been walking, waving to attract his attention, but suddenly the Russian began to run and as he did so Brinkman saw uniformed security guards a long way beyond him but plainclothes men who appeared to be moving with some co-ordination much nearer, fanning out into an embracing movement. Brinkman thought he heard stoitye but wasn’t sure because ordinary passengers were becoming aware of the scene and there were other shouts. Orlov was only about twenty yards away and Brinkman knew everything had gone disastrously wrong and that he should feign ignorance of the man but then Orlov was upon him and Brinkman couldn’t shake the man off.
‘What is it?’ demanded Orlov. ‘What’s the problem?’
Brinkman stared at the man, unable to comprehend what was happening. ‘The plane!’ he shouted. ‘Why aren’t you on the plane?’
‘The message,’ said Orlov. ‘The message at the desk telling me not to board … Why did you leave a message ..? It was madness. Insanity ..!’
‘But I didn’t …’ tried Brinkman, but the security police were much nearer now, ordered by the plainclothes men. Brinkman heard stoitye plainly this time and Orlov heard it too, but he didn’t stop, like he was told. All control gone, fear whimpering from him, the Russian pulled himself away from Brinkman and started running mindlessly through the line of parked cars. There were more demands to stop and Orlov’s hand thrust out, a physical gesture of rejection which the later enquiry determined made the security men in the confusion of the moment imagine that the fleeing Russian had a weapon clutched in his hand and intended using it because for them to start shooting was a mistake, against every order. Instinctively Brinkman had snatched out, trying to hold the thrusting-away man and when he missed he began going through the cars, too, so they were both running. The bullets from the first misunderstanding soldiers were wide, warning shots. But other security men believed they were actually being fired at now. With the breath groaning from him Brinkman shouted, too, for Orlov to stop but the Russian was beyond reach, encompassed and completely driven by the fear he’d tried so hard to control. Brinkman was the first to be hit when everyone started firing, an agonising pain in his thigh, like a punch that after the first spurt of pain took all feeling away and he screamed but the sound was cut short because the weapons started firing on automatic and he was caught by the first swathe. The same arc caught Orlov, too, tipping them both over the lip of the car-park perimeter.
It was about a five foot drop and both were dead when they reached the bottom.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Blair started moving when he saw them hit – knowing they were dead – wanting to get out on to the road before the Russians cordoned the airport, because it shouldn’t have happened like this and he was shaking, from the shock of it and he knew he couldn’t withstand or pass any examination. He kept just within the limit to avoid attracting any attention: about a mile towards Moscow a lot of police and military vehicles hurtled past in the opposite direction, sirens blaring, but no one tried to stop him. It was another fives miles before he felt he was safe. The shaking was still as bad. He intended going to the embassy anyway, but it was essential now, for him to recover.
He drove directly to Chaykovskovo, sure that at this time of night the embassy would be deserted apart from the skeleton night staff; certainly Art Blakey and King wouldn’t be there. He wanted the CIA Residency within the embassy to himself. Its innermost room was steel-lined, for security, and it was there he went, sitting at the desk and physically holding himself, trying to quieten the reaction. He stared around the room, willing himself back to normality by the normality of accustomed surroundings. There were duplicate cipher machines for direct contact with Langley if necessary and a radio receiver and transmitter against the far wall. Adjoining that was the special equipment Blair had created and assembled, with his electronic expertise. He’d start to dismantle it tomorrow, thought the American, as he recovered; begin packing everything, in fact. They’d said he could pull out early, so why not? Reminded he called the duty clerk to ensure that the diplomatic pouch hadn’t gone and said he had a letter to enclose in it and could they wait. The clerk said there was plenty of time; there was some sort of flap out at the airport and all the planes were delayed anyway. Writing to Paul would help, Blair decided; something else that was normal. He always typed his letters, because his handwriting was so bad. He apologised to Paul for not replying earlier to his letters but said he had been extremely busy. The Moscow trip didn’t look like coming off now because unexpectedly he was being reassigned but that was great because at the moment it looked like Washington which meant they could see each other all the time. When he and John got to know Ann – and Blair underlined his conviction they were going to like her – they could stay over weekends and things like that. He was sorry about the Moscow vacation but thinking about it they might have found it dull, after a while. An
n didn’t like it all that much: in fact very little. To make up for Moscow, why didn’t they go away for a vacation in America? As a kid his own father had taken him on horseback and by canoe through a lot of the Grand Canyon. Why didn’t they do that, camping and stuff? Something mat hadn’t been available when he was a kid were the special flights out of Las Vegas, flying right along the Canyon. They could do that, if they preferred it. Why didn’t he talk it through with John and let him know as soon as he got back, which wouldn’t be long now? He sent his love to John and to Ruth, read it through and sealed it. As a test, to ensure he had recovered, he took it along to the duty clerk. The man repeated there was no hurry: latest news was that the airport was closed. From the man’s demeanour towards him, Blair was sure he’d passed his own test.
The door leading into the inner, top security room was steel-lined, of course, and fitted with a designation window into which coloured strips could be operated from the inside, indicating the degree of security applicable to whatever was going on inside. Crimson was absolute security, excluding even the ambassador. Blair locked the door – using all the devices – and although the embassy was empty put up the crimson code. He sat for a long time at the desk, staring at the electrical equipment he created but not really aware of the apparatus, deep in thought. Gradually, recovering further, he stirred, reaching back into the cabinet and taking out a burn-bag. He erected it carefully upon its tripod and with more care prepared the phosporus compound which operated upon contact with air and incinerated whatever was put inside. Satisfied, he went to the safe for which – for the last few hours – only he had the combination; they’d change it, after he left, giving Blakey a new one. There were a lot of tapes because as an internal precaution Blair installed nine listening devices in his apartment. Intention – at the time – was to have detected any Soviet entry, when they might have been away from the flat.
They were in those ridiculous matroyshka dolls sets that Ann seemed to like so much and in the light socket by the bed and again in the living room and every telephone was monitored, not in the instrument itself – which the Russians would have discovered attempting the inevitable bug – but back along the connecting wire. All were voice and noise activated, so the installation was automatic, feeding directly into the electronic equipment that Blair put into the office and which he intended to dismantle the following day.
The tapes were numbered and dated, because Blair was a ruthlessly methodical man. Tape one was recorded while he was in America the first time, when he’d been recalled for Paul’s initial problem. Blair picked it up and was moving towards the bag when he hesitated, changing his mind. Instead he slotted it into the machine and depressed the button, listening to the first dinner party that Ann and Brinkman had in the apartment. ‘Christ, it hasn’t been bloody easy!’ he heard Ann say. Then their meeting and their love – did she really think of him as all John Wayne and howdy? – ‘Anywhere but here! If there were an embassy at the North Pole I’d happily swop it for here.’ Blair ran the tape on, sadly knowing the stop points. It was Brinkman’s voice. ‘It’s allowed, for special friends.’ Blair snatched the tape from the machine and dropped it into the burn bag. There was a faint skein of black smoke and a brief acrid smell. The next tape was from the telephone, where the installation was better and the quality clearer.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing much. Nothing at all, in fact. Just sitting here. Thinking.’
‘What about?’
‘I would have thought that was obvious.’
‘Sorry. Stupid question.’
There’d been a lot of talk about regret upon the tape, Blair thought; he wondered if it were genuine.
‘Sorry?’
‘Of course I’m sorry! Aren’t you?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘You haven’t got so much to be sorry about.’
‘I don‘t think I would be, even if I had.’
The quality was slightly lower on the second section, because he’d been in the apartment then. The living room first: elsewhere later. Blair winced, in physical pain, at the bedroom sounds. And at the conversation.
‘Don’t you think I’m a whore?’
‘What!’
‘A whore!’
‘Of course I don’t think you’re a whore.’
‘What then?’
‘I think you’re lonely. I think you’re very unhappy. I think you’re looking for something you haven’t got: maybe can’t have. I think you’re very beautiful. And I think you are a fantastic lover.’
And more: hatefully – except that he couldn’t hate, only love – more.
‘No, it isn’t a casual fuck. And it isn’t Romeo and Juliet, either. What’s wrong with you?’ and then quality improved, from her end at least, because it was the telephone again.
‘It was Eddie. He’s coming home.’
Blair realised just how upset Ann had been, during that homecoming argument, when he’d announced he was staying on – ‘You know damned well how I hate it here. How I’ve always hated it.’ But then, he’d lost his temper, as well. ‘I don’t expect you to stay.’ Thank God she had: he loved her so much. So very much.
Brinkman had been right about warning her of talking on an open line, when she’d called the man at the embassy and told him of their row. And Ann had been so honest. ‘Oh darling, I’m so unsure of everything.’
Suddenly impatient, Blair stopped reminding himself of the tapes, of the whispered telephone conversations and the bedroom sounds, abruptly discarding one after another into the destruct bag, stopping at one he knew better than all the others, the one he’d replayed over and over again.
‘Do you love me?’ Brinkman’s voice.
‘I don’t know.’ Ann.
‘Do you love me?’ Brinkman.
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ Ann again.
‘What about Eddie?’ Brinkman: awful, fucking Brinkman.
‘That’s it! I love him, too.’
Blair had heard it so often that he didn’t think he could cry now but he did, not breaking down into sobs but feeling the tears move irritatingly down his face.
‘You can’t love two people at the same time.’ The insistent Brinkman.
‘Who says? Where are the rules that everyone obeys that say you can’t love two people?’ A desperate Ann.
‘You’re going to have to make a choice.’ Cocky, pushing fucking Brinkman.
‘I don’t want to. I’m frightened.’ Poor, lovely, confused Ann.
Because everything was so carefully annotated, it was something other than a tape next in line for destruction. Blair gazed down at a piece of paper that the sad, nervous, knowingly sacrificed Orlov slipped to him in the Krasnaya Park, with Harriet Johnson’s telephone extension at the United Nations. It had been an impromptu, improperly thought-out decision openly to leave the copy like he had on the apartment desk because by then – what else – he’d known he had to destroy Brinkman. But still wasn’t sure how to hook him. Brinkman must have been desperate: certainly the questions seemed that way, a desperation not to have realised the impossibility of his ever having made a mistake like leaving around the most important part of an emerging intelligence operation. But then, Brinkman had other distractions. What a bastard the man had been!
Blair threw Orlov’s pitiful note into the bag and it was destroyed so swiftly that there wasn’t a wisp of smoke.
The American stretched, aware that he had been sitting at the desk for almost two hours and that it was getting late. Did he need any more reminders? No more. Now the need was to forget. He loved Ann so much; so very much. More than she would ever know.
There was only one tape left, the one that had been made that afternoon. Blair made himself do it, needing to hear of her uncertainty; needing to know of her love.
‘Don’t pressure me all the time!’
‘You know what you want. So do it!’
‘Why did you ever have to come to Moscow? If you hadn’t come here e
verything would have been all right’
You know that isn’t true.’
‘I’ll decide.’
‘When? And don’t say soon; don’t try to run away again.’
‘A week. I’ll decide in a week. I promise.’
Now she wouldn’t have to decide – to be undecided – thought Blair, taking the final tape from the machine and putting it into the bag. The equipment was extremely efficient and there was only a miniscule amount of detritus. He shook it into the special container and sealed it, along with the remaining, exhausted phosphorus, for collection and disposal the following morning.
Blair rose, stretching again and looked at the telephone, unsure whether to call Ann to tell her he was on his way. No reason any more, he realised: no longer any need for discretion.
He collected his solitary car from the pound and eased out on to the near deserted night streets of Moscow. Where, he wondered, were all the cars with all the observers who had made themselves so obvious, so obvious that he would have aborted the mission anyway if he hadn’t decided to handle it another way.
The recall to Washington was a bonus, something he hadn’t anticipated. But everything else had gone exactly as planned. Until the absolute end, that is. It had been easy, from the intercepted conversations and Brinkman’s hurried return to England to know that the man had correctly interpreted the extension and imagined he could win. Blair wondered if the surveillance team would still be in place in New York and whether they had seen the British make contact. Had it been Brinkman, personally? The man had been away long enough; and was ambitious enough.
Blair guessed Orlov had gained the agricultural delegation he’d read about in Pravda and Brinkman confirmed it by the sudden departure so easily set out upon the tape. The airport message had been impromptu – like leaving the United Nations number in his apartment – once he positively identified Orlov arriving. But it had worked, like everything else. Except the shooting. Blair had not expected that: wanted it. Blair had imagined an arrest: a trial and an imprisonment, until an exchange deal had been worked out, like exchange deals were always worked out. Long enough for Ann to forget. But not that the man should get killed. Panic, thought Blair. It was always fatal to panic.
Lost American Page 30