November Man

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘Foolproof,’ enthused Dennison, feeling it was time to contribute to the euphoria. ‘Absolutely foolproof.’

  ‘Oh no,’ corrected the President, immediately serious again. ‘Nothing is guaranteed. Never forget that. We’ve got to be careful, damned careful. I don’t want the slightest thing to go wrong.’

  Stop screwing secretaries then, thought Dennison. ‘You’re right, of course,’ he agreed. ‘It’ll be a politically dangerous time.’

  The President, who was uncomfortable with his feet on the desk, let them fall to the floor and bounded up, going to the drinks cabinet.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, let’s not get morbid about it,’ he chided. ‘We’ve achieved miracles already.’

  He poured more whisky into their glasses, then raised his tumbler.

  ‘A toast,’ he declared. ‘To everything going just as we’ve planned.’

  ‘To everything going as planned,’ echoed Murray.

  And to me being President two years from now, he thought.

  Igor Melkovsky, the Russian Foreign Minister who a week before had been engaged in the breakthrough negotiations with Dennison and Murray, sat in his Kremlin office, looking out over the Moscow skyline. Slowly, irritated at the inability to prove his suspicion, he mentally reviewed the report of the eight-man observation team that shadowed Altmann from America. Finally he spun the chair back into the room, facing the only other occupant.

  ‘So Altmann behaved exactly as we expected?’ he reflected. He sounded disappointed.

  ‘Absolutely,’ agreed Alexei Turgonev.

  ‘That’s a nuisance,’ said Melkovsky.

  ‘Why?’ asked Turgonev. He shrugged, hot in the Army uniform.

  ‘Because I think he’s a traitor,’ replied Melkovsky simply. ‘And I’d hoped America would provide the proof.’

  Turgonev looked at the minister incredulously.

  ‘Hugo? Impossible. He’s the best non-Russian operative we have.’

  Smiling, Melkovsky shook his head.

  ‘That’s what makes it so annoying,’ he said mildly.

  Turgonev, the deputy director of the K.G.B., sat analysing the conversation. So Melkovsky had his own intelligence source from within the organization. It would be pointless attempting an investigation, Turgonev knew. Melkovsky would have been sure it was undetectable before disclosing its existence.

  ‘Why annoying?’ asked the colonel.

  ‘Because he’s vital for an operation … one way or another.’

  ‘What proof do you have?’ asked Turgonev.

  ‘Nothing definite,’ admitted the minister.

  ‘There must be some mistake,’ insisted Turgonev, unconvinced.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ rejected Melkovsky.

  He’d have to find the leak, decided Turgonev. His own position could be too easily undermined.

  ‘We can’t kill him,’ said Turgonev, hoping the other man might give a clue to his source. ‘Don’t forget the records he keeps.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Melkovsky distantly. ‘The records are the last thing we should overlook.’

  ‘How can you be suspicious without proof?’ demanded Turgonev.

  ‘How many operations has Hugo conducted for us?’ returned the minister.

  Turgonev shrugged. ‘About ten,’ he said, ‘and all overwhelmingly successful.’

  ‘The exact number is twelve,’ stated Melkovsky.

  ‘So?’ asked Turgonev, annoyed at the correction. He should have known.

  ‘And after the first two he let it be known that he was keeping records that would embarrass us, guaranteeing his safety?’

  Turgonev nodded.

  ‘I’ve had Altmann watched constantly in Switzerland, the one place we know he’ll visit every month.’

  ‘And?’ questioned Turgonev, relaxing. Melkovsky had given him the clue he needed. He wondered if the minister would realize it.

  ‘More than twelve files have been counted going into the bank … nearer forty, in fact.’

  ‘Duplicates?’

  Melkovsky shook his head. ‘Too many,’ he insisted.

  It was sufficient reason for suspicion, agreed Turgonev. But only suspicion: nothing more. Altmann was one of the most indispensable men he had in the West.

  ‘What do we do?’ asked the K.G.B. colonel.

  ‘Do you know what happens if you light a circle of fire round a scorpion?’ asked Melkovsky.

  Turgonev sighed. Sometimes the minister tried too hard, he thought.

  ‘He stings himself to death,’ he replied.

  ‘Wrong,’ said Melkovsky. ‘It’s a myth. He just tries again and again to escape, scurrying for loop-holes.’

  Turgonev sat, waiting.

  ‘Let’s light a fire under Hugo,’ continued Melkovsky. ‘And see which way he’ll run.’

  ‘And what if he doesn’t run?’

  ‘Then we still use him for the job,’ responded Melkovsky immediately. ‘The most important one in which he’s ever been involved.’

  He pulled towards him a bulky file that lay on the desk, tapping it heavily with his thick fingers.

  ‘I wonder’, reflected the minister, ‘if just one or two men will be able to destroy a peace initiative that’s taken two years to formulate.’

  (3)

  Fifteen hundred miles away, the millionaire whose life had been dissected in that folder in Melkovsky’s Moscow office relaxed in a chair beside the swimming pool of his country home.

  It was developing, decided Jocelyn Hollis with relief, into an excellent interview. He had been quite right in disregarding his fears and granting it; everyone had forgotten the association with the disgraced politician. The interview was almost over and there had not even been a veiled reference.

  He became aware of the photographer feigning a casual movement behind him, so that the shot would frame him with the pool in the background, but he pretended not to notice.

  The interviewer cleared his throat and Hollis looked at him intently. The journalist smiled back nervously, flattered by Hollis’s undivided attention, sweeping his hand first towards the Queen Anne mansion in the background, then moving it to embrace the pool and the three thousand acres of superbly kept grounds and woodlands in which they were isolated.

  Far away, the dog patrols, handled by the permanent security guards, were just visible. Hollis wished they had been out of sight; it seemed too dramatic for the English countryside.

  ‘… You have this magnificent country estate here in Buckinghamshire …’ began the interviewer, whose name was William Bradford. ‘… There’s the two-floor apartment in Eaton Square, a chateau in Switzerland and the apartments in New York and Paris. You are perhaps the most successful – certainly the most famous – multinational figure in Britain. What does it mean to you, to be so rich and successful?’

  The tape-recorder revolved between them. Hollis hesitated, as if giving the question proper consideration, refilling the man’s glass from the wine-bottle in the cooler beside him for the benefit of the hovering photographer.

  ‘I’ve often thought about that, Bill,’ he said, deftly using the other’s name. He allowed another pause, waving to the other side of the pool where Marion and the two children were engaged in deep, before-tea discussion by the lounging chairs.

  ‘It means security,’ he took up. ‘Not for myself. I started with nothing but a public-school education paid for by a father who bankrupted himself to provide it, then committed suicide because of the disgrace …’

  He stopped, swallowing, as if the recollection were painful. He hoped Bradford wouldn’t pry deeper and uncover the verdict that the balance of the man’s mind had been disturbed and that he’d been going mad for years. The smear of insanity frightened him. He snapped his fingers, recovering.

  ‘… If I awoke penniless tomorrow, I know I could become rich again within two years. By security I mean the protection my wealth and position has provided for my wife and children.’

  Pity Marion didn’t appear t
o appreciate it any more, he thought. Her antagonism seemed to be increasing every day.

  Bradford looked towards the dog patrols which could still be seen from the stepped gardens.

  ‘Security seems a constant thought.’

  Hollis shrugged helplessly. ‘Because, I’m reasonably well known, I’m the object of some jealousy … a target for cranks. I don’t like it, honestly I don’t. But in my position it’s vital …’

  He paused. Was he sounding paranoid about safety?

  ‘I’m not the only person to guard my family and possessions like this, even in England,’ he said defensively.

  ‘Is it true that all three are multi-millionaires from the trust funds and financial provisions you’ve established?’ asked Bradford.

  Hollis looked across the pool and saw Marion pass the two children over to the nanny and move towards them. Would she behave? he wondered, worried. Bradford began to rise awkwardly, but she waved’ him down. The young man continued to look at her, admiringly, and Hollis felt a bubble of pride deep within himself. Marion was extraordinarily beautiful, he acknowledged, recognizing a frequent thought. Yet he felt no jealousy when other men stared at her, as Bradford was doing. Instead his emotion was pride, the knowledge of his complete possession, such as the owner of a Rembrandt painting or a Sèvres vase might feel. It was a wrong feeling, not properly allowing for the love, he thought. And he did love her. Perhaps too much.

  Because she had spent both pregnancies permanently under the care of a Swiss gynaecologist, the children had not marred her figure. She was still able to wear a bikini to emphasize her flat, hard stomach and heavy breasts, which some people might have thought too large, but which Hollis, a sensual man, enjoyed. But it was her face, perhaps more than her body, that was so arresting. She wore her black hair long, almost to her shoulders, framing the flawless oval face with its perfect, Grecian nose and startling green eyes. I could never lose her, thought Hollis, smiling up.

  Hollis gestured towards his wife.

  ‘Don’t forget Marion is a Murray and comes from one of America’s richest families,’ he reminded. ‘She had inherited millions before I met her. But financial arrangements do mean they are independently very wealthy.’

  He hoped the questioning wouldn’t concentrate on wealth. He particularly wanted to avoid the impression of boasting. Money wasn’t important, really. Position was, though.

  Bradford glanced back to the dog patrols.

  ‘Complete protection,’ he commented.

  Marion bent forward, kissing her husband lightly on the cheek, and the photographer caught the gesture. Hollis looked at her, uncertain at the movement. She hadn’t wanted the interview at the country house, and he was frightened her opposition would be sensed by the interviewer.

  ‘Thank you, darling,’ she said. She was playing with him, decided Hollis. He wondered if Bradford had detected her tone. Why was she doing it? He looked hard at her, wanting her to return his attention, but she seemed unaware.

  ‘Do you take much interest in politics?’ asked Bradford, departing from his prepared questions. ‘You married into a political family, after all.’

  Was that really what he meant, worried Hollis immediately, the doubts about the interview surfacing. Surely the innocuous meeting hadn’t been set up to trap him about political contributions and that embarrassment with the gaoled minister, Eric George? It couldn’t be, he tried to convince himself. That had happened years ago and he had managed to cover himself completely, he knew. Dozens of business-men gave money to political parties.

  ‘Jocelyn loves politics, particularly American politics, don’t you, darling?’ interjected Marion sarcastically.

  For once the bitchiness helped, he thought.

  ‘Not really,’ contradicted Hollis, concealing his alarm. ‘Naturally I follow the career of my brother-in-law. And because of the nature of the businesses I control, I come into contact with quite a number of government people, both permanent staff and those in the current administration.’

  He sat, waiting. If Bradford were going to raise the George affair it would be now, he knew. There had been a lot of speculation about his friendship when the minister was driven from office three years earlier; if Bradford had done his research properly, he must know about it.

  Instead, Bradford retreated, losing the chance. ‘But the collapse of your empire couldn’t happen now, could it?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ answered Hollis thankfully. It had been dose, though. Too close. Those bloody contributions had been a dreadful mistake, he thought, greeting a familiar regret …’

  ‘There were times, in the early days, when it might have happened. But our diversification makes that impossible now,’ he hurried on.

  ‘Is that a good feeling?’

  ‘A secure one,’ responded Hollis. It was true, he thought. Nothing could conceivably happen to penetrate the barriers his wealth had created. It was a warm feeling, like being in a room with a roaring fire and listening to a winter storm cry at the windows.

  Bradford looked at some notes on the clipboard he held, then up at the millionaire.

  ‘Tell me about Hollis Industries,’ he said, edging the recorder forward.

  Hollis splayed his hands, counting on his fingers.

  ‘The insurance company was the base factor, I suppose,’ he began. ‘It was there that I went after leaving Oxford and it was there I realized the way unit-trust funding would appeal to the small man who wanted to get into the stock market …’

  ‘Like Bernard Cornfield’s I.O.S.?’ interjected Bradford, anxious for a comparison when it came to writing the article.

  ‘… In a way,’ hedged Hollis, unhappy at the example. ‘But unlike Cornfield I didn’t stay in one business. The merchant bank naturally seemed to follow the insurance activities …’

  ‘What about the oil?’

  Hollis smiled.

  ‘The largest division,’ he agreed. ‘The fields in the North and Celtic Seas had been abandoned by the big companies who wrongly interpreted the initial test-bores. We could hardly get a better return if they were gold mines.’

  Hollis sipped from the glass of mineral water he had drunk throughout their meeting, knowing the eventual article would make a point of his abstinence.

  ‘By taking over the defunct Clyde shipyards I was able to get in early on the oil-drilling platforms which are used both in the North Sea and off the coast of Ireland,’ he went on. ‘I’m also selling to Scandinavia now and to the Gulf States.’

  He enjoyed listing the successes, like a child reciting a school report. Why shouldn’t he be proud of what he’d achieved? He’d done it alone, without any help.

  ‘What about the tankers?’

  ‘I don’t own them,’ said Hollins. ‘It’s not economical. I can charter a fleet of twelve super-tankers without tying up eighty million pounds in capital expenditure and loans …’

  Bradford waited expectantly. Hollis was glad this questioning had come when Marion was with him, so he could remind her that his success overwhelmed anything her family had achieved, even though they’d had their millions for four generations.

  Was that the basis for her emerging attitude? he wondered suddenly. Was she jealous of him? He hoped not. Jealousy wasn’t the emotion he wanted. Just her love. And respect, he added. What was more natural than to desire the respect of the one person he loved?

  ‘The electronic division and development plants are almost equal in importance to the oil,’ picked up the millionaire, pushing those thoughts away. ‘The parent company is registered in the United States and we’ve got factories in England, France and Belgium. And it was in the English factory that we perfected the electronic guidance-systems and the landing-device for fighter aircraft which has been greeted as a breakthrough …’

  He stopped, closing his eyes again for reflection. He opened them, spreading his arms widely.

  ‘There’s so many more … smaller things. Video-cassettes, for example, and the pre-recording o
f educational programmes. There’s particular interest in the communist countries in these educational tapes. I’m going to the Leipzig Fair in a few weeks, to negotiate the manufacture of them under licence in East Germany. And elsewhere, if possible …’

  Hollis heard Marion snigger, but didn’t look at her. He must have sounded pompous, and hoped it wouldn’t appear like that on the tape transcription. Because he wasn’t, not really; just properly proud, he thought. Why the hell was she behaving like this?

  ‘One thing keeps you very much in the public eye,’ said Bradford, starting out on a new approach. ‘It’s your habit of personally conducting all your own business negotiations, certainly in the initial stages. You could surely afford an army of negotiators and experts. Why do you always do things yourself?’

  ‘People trust me,’ Hollis asserted simply. ‘If a company or a country are dealing with Jocelyn Hollis, they know they will be treated honestly. I can achieve more with a day’s discussions and a handshake than a team of negotiators could manage in a week.’

  Again there was a sound from his wife. It could have been a sigh, he supposed.

  ‘What about the public recognition that goes with it?’ jabbed Bradford presciently.

  Hollis paused, then smiled. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘That too.’

  Marion would say something embarrassing soon, he anticipated. He looked pointedly at his watch and Bradford noted the movement.

  ‘Just one more thing,’ Bradford said, hunched over the clipboard, trying to find his prepared questions. ‘… Before the New Year’s Honours List last year there was a great deal of speculation that you’d be recognized with a knighthood … maybe even a peerage. Were you upset when nothing happened?’

  The George affair again, he recognized, hesitating with a reply. No one was aware how much money he had given the minister to attain the honour, Hollis knew. He’d been sure he was safe. He’d taken every precaution. George’s collapse had been because of a call-girl blackmail and illegal company directorships that had been thrown up by income-tax investigation. The fifty thousand pounds in George’s account had remained unexplained. But the silence had been expensive, he recalled. The bastard had always been cunning. Another ten thousand had been paid for the man’s legal defence. It had worked, though: no one knew.