November Man

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘Stop it, Hannah,’ he pleaded urgently. It was understandable, he supposed, that her mind had seized upon the worst of the many outrages against her body.

  ‘I would understand it if you … if you wanted … if there was another woman,’ she stumbled, her eyes damp in immediate contradiction. ‘It’s only natural, after all.’

  She still thought of him as a young man, he realized, someone to whom sex would be a frequent thought.

  He smiled, bending over to kiss her cheek. Her skin felt hot and wet, although there was no perspiration.

  ‘There will only be one person in my bed,’ he assured her softly.

  She answered his smile, child-like in her gratitude for the reassurance.

  ‘Any more new clients?’ she tried brightly, wanting to show interest in his affairs.

  Altmann hesitated, catching her expression.

  ‘I hope so,’ he said, sincerely. Softly, so that she didn’t hear, he added, ‘God, I hope so.’

  ‘You were quiet tonight,’ accused Marion, sitting at the dressing table and looking at her husband in the reflection of the mirror. They were staying overnight at the apartment in Rue de Chanaleilles after James’s farewell party. Hollis stayed silent by the bedside, documents from a briefcase littering the counterpane. He didn’t seem to be reading them, she thought.

  ‘What?’

  It seemed difficult for him to concentrate upon her.

  ‘I said you were quiet tonight.’

  Hollis went back to the paper-work, not bothering to reply. Marion pulled a face to herself in the mirror. Was she succeeding in bruising his feelings towards her, she wondered hopefully. She grew apprehensive, knowing how tightly the nightdress clung to her body.

  ‘I’m tired,’ she announced. She should have worn something fuller; he was too easily aroused. And that was the last thing she wanted.

  Without protest, he gathered the documents and bundled them carelessly into the briefcase, hardly looking at her getting into bed. This wasn’t the time to force their difference into open discussion, he decided, putting aside the resolution he had made in Germany. He’d wait until they got back to London.

  ‘Is James going to run for President?’ he demanded, without warning.

  ‘Yes,’ she confirmed shortly, alert for his reaction.

  He placed his watch on the bedside table and sat with his back supported by the headboard. She waited for him to speak, but he said nothing.

  ‘He wants it kept a secret,’ added the woman.

  ‘Deals to be made and people to fix?’ jibed Hollis.

  ‘It’s a system of democracy that works,’ she resisted.

  ‘If you don’t look too hard.’

  ‘Why the hell are you jealous of him?’ she erupted angrily, her immediate response exploding because of their collapsing relationship. He laughed, like a child embarrassed at being caught stealing sweets.

  ‘Jealous? Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘It’s not ridiculous,’ she snapped. ‘It’s downright fucking childish, the way you behave. I’m ashamed to be in the same room when you’re with him.’

  It was stupid to shout, she thought. There was bravado about the swearing, too. She gripped her hands tightly, trying to control herself. And she was wrong, she knew. It was she who was at fault, not him.

  The admonition frightened him. I don’t want the marriage to fail, he thought honestly. And it was failing, he accepted. Why couldn’t she realize how much he loved her?

  ‘Darling,’ he said. ‘If I’ve any feelings about American politics, it’s a suspicion of a system that relies so heavily upon patronage.’

  ‘Crap,’ she yelled. The outburst had confused her. Like a fat woman confronting a box of chocolates, she could not curb the temptation to excess. And arguments were never won by people who lost control.

  ‘What can I do to prove I’m not jealous?’ he asked, responding poorly.

  She laughed at him, an ugly sound. She would lose her attractiveness when she grew older, he thought It wouldn’t matter, though: he would still love her.

  ‘You couldn’t convince me with a signed affidavit,’ she said. Her responses were getting as banal as his, she decided.

  ‘Do you think he’ll win?’ asked Hollis, turning away from the attack.

  Marion shrugged. Suddenly it didn’t seem important to win the dispute. Just to get away: to get away, to America, to a life she should never have abandoned because of an infatuation that had begun at Oxford, and grown as Jocelyn had become the best-known businessman in England.

  ‘He seems confident,’ she said.

  ‘He always does.’

  For a moment, they gazed at each other, like children staring each other out, each reluctant to be the loser by looking away first. Finally she reached up, turning off the light on her side of the bed and settling with her back to him.

  ‘Goodnight,’ she said. She lay waiting, breathing shallowly. He’d been away for a week and there was always the ritual of sex on their first night together. The thought of his touch repulsed her. She’d plead tiredness, she decided. Or say she had the curse. She heard him click off the light and the bed moved as he edged down.

  ‘Goodnight,’ he said, his back to her.

  It was going to be a long time until the November election, she thought, lying in the darkness. Thank God he hadn’t wanted her.

  Turgonev sat back, trying to ease the cramp from between his shoulder-blades. Paper littered his desk, cascading on to the floor, but the K.G.B. colonel was smiling, very satisfied.

  Melkovsky had been very stupid, giving the clue all those months ago. By isolating Zurich as the city where his spy had reported on Altmann, he’d provided the link that Turgonev, a meticulous man, had needed.

  It had meant studying every exit visa and travel document the K.G.B. had authorized for every operative over the past two years, and he had had to carry out the mind-numbing check alone, because he could not risk the involvement of anyone else until he knew the extent of Melkovsky’s network.

  But it had been worth while, he congratulated himself, staring down at the piece of paper before him.

  Konrad Bauer, the man selected by Melkovsky to be Hollis’s escort in East Germany, had made six trips to Switzerland in the past two and a half years. And three, saw Turgonev, consulting another file, coincided with operations in which Altmann had been involved.

  A pity, thought Turgonev. He’d actually selected Bauer as an operative to be promoted to a foreign embassy.

  He stood up, gazing out over the Kremlin sidestreets at the barbushka leaning on their brooms. How, he wondered, was he going to dispose of the minister’s protégé and escape retribution himself? It wasn’t going to be easy.

  (9)

  Prague was a beautiful city, thought Altmann, staring across the Vltava River towards Hradcany Castle from the eighteenth-century Knights of the Cross Monastery where the Czechoslovak secret service, the Statni Tajna Bezpecnost, maintained their headquarters in the baroque splendour of an era they despised.

  The secret service resented his presence, he knew, irritated. Their instructions came from Moscow, which made their truculence ridiculous. A man who had always bent with any prevailing wind, Altmann could never understand people who confronted the inevitable. He turned away from the window of the office the S.T.B. had made available for him, wondering where the recording devices would be concealed. In numerous places, he knew, dismissing the speculation.

  The Czech capital had been Turgonev’s choice. He believed an abrupt change both from the surroundings of Lubyanka, and from the Russian instructing them, would be the right way to maintain the pressure on Junkers and Kodes. The Austrian felt the meeting was pointless, an exercise in bullying that would achieve nothing.

  There was a hesitant knock at the door, and Altmann waited until he had seated himself behind the desk before yelling permission to enter. Altmann recognized the man from photographs Turgonev had supplied weeks before in the Vienna apartment. The
suspicious one, he knew.

  ‘Good morning,’ he greeted Stefan Kodes.

  The Czech Trade Minister nodded, moving uncertainly into the room towards the chair Altmann indicated. Turgonev had dictated the seating arrangements.

  The opposition was there, Altmann realized, as it was in all the Czechs. Why couldn’t they forget Dubček and 1968: it was their own fault they’d bungled it, after all. If they hadn’t charged like a bull at a matador’s cape they might have succeeded. Kodes sat stiffly in the chair, like a junior clerk in the managing director’s office. Resistant, but frightened, assessed Altmann.

  ‘The Germans are coming, too,’ opened the Austrian. ‘I want everyone to know what’s going on.’

  Turgonev was right, decided Altmann, looking at the man sitting before him. Kodes was the man who would collapse under sustained pressure. Thinkers always did. As if to prove his nervousness, the Czech started at the sound from the doorway, but avoided turning as Konrad Bauer entered slightly ahead of the East German Trade Secretary. Everyone was apprehensive, judged Altmann, making the introductions. He wondered why it hadn’t occurred to them that he was as exposed as they were. More so, in fact. Attempts weren’t being made on their lives.

  ‘Does everything go ahead?’ asked Bauer, as they settled themselves in a tiny arc before his desk. The sun reflected on his spectacles, giving him an odd appearance of being sightless. Altmann examined the man whom he knew least Bauer appeared less frightened than the other two, he thought.

  ‘At the moment, I don’t know,’ replied Altmann inadequately.

  They sat, waiting.

  ‘Everything has been done,’ added Altmann. ‘You all played your parts well. Now we can only wait.’

  ‘What if he doesn’t react?’ asked Kodes. A slight nervous twitch jumped on the left side of his face. I hope whoever listens later to the hidden tape doesn’t detect the note of hope in the man’s voice, thought Altmann.

  ‘Then you’ve wasted your time,’ replied Altmann. And I will be exposed again, he thought. Turgonev was insistent the Russian inquiries in Austria had uncovered nothing and dismissed the attack as the accident that the police already believed it to be. They were wrong, Altmann knew.

  He directed his entire attention upon Kodes.

  ‘They approached the embassy in London,’ he reported. ‘Establishing your credibility and importance within the Party.’

  ‘I know,’ said the Czech minister.

  ‘Which indicates that although he might make mistakes in some areas, Hollis is a thorough man. If this thing progresses and there is further contact, there can be no errors,’ said Altmann.

  ‘There is no criticism of the trade negotiations so far?’ asked Junkers. The East German was a stout, over-fed man. Saturday nights would be beer, wurst and vomit, guessed Altmann. And secretaries, of course.

  ‘None,’ said the Austrian. ‘That’s the main point I want to stress at this meeting: both the East German and the Czech deals must progress quite properly as genuine trade interest.’

  ‘But ultimately the deals will collapse, won’t they?’ demanded Kodes.

  Was it stupidity or over-caution? wondered Altmann.

  ‘No,’ rejected the Austrian. ‘It’s vital they don’t. The deals are to be properly negotiated and contracted. For them to be shown as phoney would destroy the entire operation.’

  ‘It’s been very cleverly planned, hasn’t it?’ said Bauer admiringly, so that Altmann would be aware of his complete grasp of the scheme. Bauer would know of the recording devices, too, thought Altmann. The Austrian nodded, conscious of Kodes looking directly at him, his body stiff with nervousness.

  ‘It’s been conceived against all foreseeable error,’ Altmann stressed. He waited, but no one seemed surprised at the gross exaggeration.

  ‘What will happen to us if everything succeeds?’ demanded the Czech. The anxiety infected his voice, making it girlish. It would sound bad when others heard, thought Altmann sadly.

  ‘Why should anything happen?’ he avoided.

  ‘If there’s a show trial it won’t be sufficient just for him to be charged,’ insisted Kodes. He was sweating and his hands were in constant movement, as if he were washing them, moving one over the other.

  Altmann sighed, glad Turgonev had warned him of the man’s attitude.

  ‘I am instructed,’ he replied formally, looking directly at the Czech, ‘upon the authority not only of Comrade Turgonev, but Minister Melkovsky himself, that I can categorically assure all three of you that there will be no question of criminal proceedings. I thought you already had that guarantee.’

  They relaxed slightly, as if a taut rope against which they had been leaning had slightly loosened. The gullibility of people was astonishing, decided Altmann, gazing at them. Didn’t it occur to them that any undertaking he gave would be utterly without support and could be disdained by the Russians the moment it became expedient for them to do so? He hadn’t even lied, promising they would avoid prosecution. To have them tried would be to risk any desperate defiance they might show at a trial that was to be made as public as possible, for the maximum impact in the West.

  Their judgment would be far more immediate, which was what his reply had truthfully indicated. But they hadn’t realized it. They were amateurs, like those fervent men in the Finnish hotel. He concentrated upon Kodes. It would be wrong for any of them to think too deeply, and the initial assault had to be made upon the Czech, the most suspicious of the three.

  ‘You’ve provided a lot of information about your country’s needs?’

  ‘Only what I was instructed to disclose by Comrade Turgonev,’ defended the minister.

  Altmann nodded soothingly.

  ‘Comrade Turgonev’s instructions were explicit?’ he urged.

  ‘Yes,’ said Kodes.

  ‘I want to emphasize them,’ continued the Austrian. ‘I want copied in your own hand details of your discussions with the Englishman. But not in the style of an official report … almost as if they were in note form.’

  Kodes eyed him warily. Probably he had been too direct, regretted Altmann. It was very easy to become a bully and steamroller people into submission.

  ‘I want him to have upon him a document that can be proved to have come from Czechoslovakia,’ bustled Altmann, talking rapidly, trying to move the man’s mind beyond the doubt.

  ‘I want you all to have material in his handwriting,’ he instructed. ‘Take notes of conversations, ensuring you make minor mistakes, then ask him to check, pleading insufficient knowledge of English. When he picks up the errors, get him to write in the corrections.’

  ‘For your photographs?’ suggested Junkers accurately.

  Altmann nodded. The man would know all about incriminating photographs, he thought cynically.

  ‘And even though we provide documents that can be traced to us and will appear in pictures, no criminal action will be taken against us?’ pressed Bauer. It appeared to be a question asked for the benefit of the others, thought Altmann curiously.

  Altmann turned fully to the escort. He was a thin rigid-featured man who practised precise dress and speech. An ardent official of the communist youth, Altmann knew, from the records supplied by Turgonev. Forty years before he would have worn a brown shirt and shown similar unswerving allegiance to a man with a brief moustache and a strident voice. He hoped it wouldn’t be necessary to frighten them into co-operation by convincing them they were already committed sufficiently to merit arrest on a charge of supplying information to a Westerner. They would perform so much better without open coercion, he knew.

  ‘If you wish I will get Comrade Turgonev to repeat the undertaking,’ said Altmann. He hesitated, exerting the pressure. ‘Either in writing,’ he added, ‘or personally.’

  There were embarrassed side-glances between the men, each unwilling to challenge the Russian assurance so openly. Individually, they shrugged acceptance of Altmann’s promise. They were concentrating too heavily upon the danger, t
he Austrian decided.

  ‘Kodes,’ he demanded, using the surname to emphasize his authority. ‘Give me a complete outline of the conversation with Hollis.’

  ‘But …’, the Czech began protesting, imagining Altmann would have Turgonev’s instructions.

  ‘… A complete outline …’, hurried the Austrian.

  Hesitantly, occasionally seizing up completely under the attention of the other two, Kodes recited the information he had provided. As soon as Kodes finished, Altmann repeated the performance with Junkers and then Bauer. The accounts over, Altmann hunched over the papers on the desk before him, as if checking for errors. There wouldn’t be any more awkward questions, he assessed.

  Hollis was getting information which was perfect for a show trial, he realized. It was almost as if it were being scientifically measured.

  When he looked up, it was Bauer who spoke again.

  ‘So what do we do now?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Altmann, abruptly. ‘Just return to your jobs and await the normal approaches from Hollis Industries to secure the openings. Remember, everything is completely legal and binding. I’ll know of the negotiations. So I’ll contact you when it’s necessary.’

  Kodes started to speak, but then changed his mind. It would be wrong protracting the meeting further, decided Altmann, standing.

  ‘Do nothing,’ he repeated, in parting. ‘Just behave normally until you hear from me.’

  He stood waiting in the room after the three men had left. Within minutes Turgonev entered from an adjoining chamber where he had monitored the meeting.

  ‘Well?’ demanded Altmann.

  ‘I’ve heard better-conducted meetings,’ criticized the Russian.

  ‘I’d be delighted to step down,’ came back the Austrian, refusing to be frightened.

  There would be some recordings over which Turgonev would have no control, and the rejection would be unfortunate for him, Altmann knew, showing a senior colonel in the K.G.B. being treated contemptuously by a lesser operative. Turgonev appeared to realize it at the same time and smiled, trying to temper the hostility.