by Jeremy Duns
‘I apologise for the inconvenience,’ he went on, sounding less like a man who had left a corpse bleeding over a parquet floor and more like a British Rail driver announcing a delay. Perhaps that was where he’d picked up the expression, she thought. ‘It wasn’t my intention to cause trouble for you. Shall we start again?’ He extended a paw of a hand for her to shake. ‘Alexander Proshin. But you can call me Sasha.’
‘Sarah Severn.’
She wasn’t sure what reaction the name would elicit, but nothing immediately registered on his face. He simply replaced his hand on his lap. She decided to press.
‘I’ve read the memorandum you wrote about Miss Severn in 1969. I presume you were referring to her, anyway, and that she really is dead?’
Proshin shifted in his chair. ‘Yes,’ he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. ‘But this was my father’s doing, not mine. A very regrettable matter, I am sorry to say. When she became involved with Paul Dark, her fate was effectively sealed.’
‘But in the report you said you had killed her. Did you lie then or are you lying now?’
He clasped his hands together. ‘I was lying in the report. This was to protect my father’s good name.’
‘By taking the blame for it yourself?’ Proshin didn’t respond. ‘You also claimed that you killed Dark. Again, why did you lie?’
He sighed, thinking of the cross-examination he’d gone through in Moscow the day before. ‘At the time I was convinced that I had killed him. My radio operator, Cherneyev, felt his pulse and assured me Dark was dead. He was wrong. Cherneyev is the man I shot tonight. What have you done with his body?’
‘How nice of you to take an interest. Cremation. Let me see if I follow what you are telling me. This Cherneyev knew you lied about Dark being dead six years ago, so you killed him?’
Proshin flinched. ‘No. That is not it at all. But there are more important subjects for us to discuss. I must—’
‘Mr Proshin, I’m afraid I do need an explanation for why you murdered this man.’
He sighed again, then nodded and held up the palms of his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘Yes, I will answer. The fact are like this: I recently came under suspicion in Moscow. I realised I had only one choice: to defect at once. I had a chance to do this because I was sent here to find and kill Dark, accompanied by Cherneyev. This was the only way I could escape him to reach you.’
‘By killing him? There were easier ways, surely? You could have lost him somewhere or simply made an excuse, then jumped in a taxi to our embassy.’
Proshin shook his head. ‘Cherneyev was spetsnaz – special forces – and he was under orders not to let me out of his sight. I had no choice.’
‘What were you under suspicion of in Moscow?’
‘I have been under surveillance for some months, I do not know why. But yesterday Ivashutin’s chief investigator accused me to my face of being a British agent. Once such an idea is uttered, it is impossible to escape, believe me. It follows you wherever you go, it crawls its way into everything.’
Rachel wrinkled her nose, unimpressed. ‘And yet they let you travel to the West.’
‘Yes, but this was my chance to prove my loyalty, by finding Paul Dark. They evidently felt that Cherneyev’s watch on me would be sufficient. In most circumstances, it would have been, but I had no other options. I had to choose, as you say, between the devil and the deep blue sea. It will now take some time for Moscow to realise he is dead and send some other dogs to hunt me down. But by then I very much hope they will be too late and that you will have taken me from here and secured me a new life under a new name in England.’
She frowned. ‘But you told me London wasn’t safe for you.’ He didn’t reply and she leaned forward to press her point home. ‘I wonder if you can understand why I’m struggling to trust you, Mr Proshin. Nothing ever seems to be your fault, and your story is alarmingly inconsistent.’
‘I’ve risked my life to be here,’ he said, ‘and I’m risking it talking to you now. London is not safe for me at this very moment, no, but I am hoping that as a result of this conversation it will be. Once you understand the situation and have taken all the steps to deal with it.’ His eyelids flickered at her doubtful expression. ‘I understand your scepticism, and I respect it – it is of course the correct attitude. But you must realise that I am no ordinary defector.’
Rachel groaned inwardly. Would-be defectors were often self-important: if they could convince you their intelligence was crucial to the fate of the world you would whisk them away to safety and a new identity, pay them handsomely and – perhaps most importantly – they could convince themselves that their betrayal of former colleagues had been a matter of great principle overriding all patriotic considerations.
‘You’re far from ordinary,’ she said, humouring him, ‘but I need to establish some facts about you first.’
‘You already think you know all about me,’ he said, almost sneering. ‘You don’t. I see how you are looking at me, with this typical Western complacency. Is it because I have an accent when I speak your language? And how good is your spoken Russian, please?’
She didn’t say anything.
‘Well, then. I suppose you regard me as a dull, boastful Soviet with a narrow view of the world.’ He smiled as she squirmed. ‘Let me explain about my time in London. I was not a tourist travelling on the top of a double-decker bus with my camera poised to photograph Big Ben – I lived there. Over time, I came to love England. I do not mean in that silly way Americans love it, obsessed with shooting grouse or seeing Vivien Leigh at the Royal Court, although I did both of those. No, the real England for me was the jazz clubs of Soho or the beer at The Mayflower!’ His eyes gleamed. ‘On Friday nights, I used to treat myself to a packet of fish and chips from that little place in Tottenham Court Road. Do you know it? I can still taste the vinegar on my lips. Ah, your food, which people like to chastise so much. For me, it was a miracle. Do they still make Polos?’
She stared at him, not understanding for a second. ‘The mints, you mean? Yes, I think so.’
‘Ah.’ A wistful look came into his eye. ‘You don’t happen to have any on you now?’
She shook her head.
‘No matter. Something to look forward to. But please, I implore you to discard these prejudices and listen very carefully to what I have to say. I’ve been studying your agency for decades, and I know more than you can imagine. But if you and I work together, we can shatter the established order of intelligence in the West.’
She resisted the urge to stand and leave the room. For a few seconds, he had almost succeeded in luring her in – she did in fact know the chippie he meant, and had found herself licking her own lips at the mention of it – but his seduction had fallen at the final hurdle. This was far worse than delusions of grandeur, it was loony stuff, a train headed in the wrong direction.
‘That’s an unusual pitch, Mr Proshin,’ she said, picking her words carefully, ‘but I’m afraid I’m not especially interested in shattering intelligence in the West. In case you hadn’t noticed, I work for a Western intelligence agency, and it’s the Soviet Union we want to shatter. I’d rather hoped you’d tell us more about the workings of the GRU. Incidentally, I don’t dream for a moment that I know everything about you. Far from it. However, I think I do know a fair amount. I’ve studied your career in great detail.’
‘And I have studied yours, Miss Gold.’
A shiver ran through her.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘I know “a fair amount” about you, too. You’re the protégée, shall we say, of Sandy Harmigan, and a gifted analyst. I could not have requested a better choice to receive me – sincerely. But your vision is clouded by unwarranted suspicion. You know I am a very high-ranking officer in the GRU and that I was Paul Dark’s case officer. For fifteen years, everything he gave Moscow went through me, and of course I have studied his entire dossier. I suspect you would like to know more about that.’
She didn�
��t like the way he had turned the tables on her, and she especially didn’t like his ‘shall we say’ in reference to her being Sandy’s protégée. What exactly did this man know about her, and how did he know it?
‘Once upon a time we would have wanted to know all about that,’ she said coolly. ‘But I’m afraid you’re six years too late. Dark is on the run and at the moment what we want is him. And you have no better idea where he is than we do, Mr Proshin.’
‘Please, call me Sasha.’ He looked down at his shoes, then glanced up at her again and smiled. ‘You may have a point. I don’t know where Dark is and you may well now have better information. I understand the man in Brussels is an Africa expert, so I imagine Paul will now have figured out which country on that continent this relates to. My guess would be either South Africa or Rhodesia.’
‘What makes you say those two?’
He tilted his head. ‘Considering those involved, I think it is clear this concerns a white-majority nation, don’t you?’
She had no idea what he meant, and was growing irritated at his intimations that he was privy to information beyond her ken. She suddenly felt claustrophobic, shut up in this stuffy little room in Belgium with this ghastly Sov. To give herself time to think and to reassert her control, she took off her jacket and hung it over her chair, then stood and walked to the window. The curtains were drawn, but she peeked through them. The sky was black and starless, but down below she could see a thin stretch of beach, cold and grey and lit by the neon from the nearby casino. She turned back to Proshin. He was watching her deflection with an amused glint in his eye. She strode back towards him.
‘Mr Proshin – Sasha – I confess I’m still confused. A man of your experience must know that we aren’t looking for defectors. We want agents. Every minute you’re in the West is a minute you’re away from the centre of action, and a minute more that your intelligence is out of date.’ She wandered back to her chair and sat down. ‘But some of what you say is intriguing. You might be of use to us if you were to return to Moscow on our behalf. Is that something you would contemplate?’
A smirk played around his lips. ‘No, that is decidedly not something I would contemplate. Photographing documents in Moscow is nothing compared to what I can offer you right now in this room. Besides, I value my health.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that your agents-in-place in Moscow have the unfortunate habit of ending up dead. Penkovsky, Kotov . . .’
‘Kotov’s dead?’
He let out a hollow laugh. ‘What do you think they did, awarded him the Order of Lenin? Yes, they narrowed the field of suspects, gathered evidence, extracted a confession, then shot him.’ He spread his hands out in a gesture that said this was self-evident. ‘There is no way for me to return to Moscow again safely. I must get to England. But first I need to make you understand the situation so you can take all the steps necessary to deal with it.’
‘What situation?’
‘That the Service is under fascist control.’
Chapter 59
Rachel’s heart sank. Fascist control! She might as well wrap everything up now. For a minute she’d bought into his talk of being an all-knowing spymaster, but he must just have had some lucky guesses. The man was simply a nut.
She cursed herself for not having considered the possibility earlier, but the fact that he’d run Dark combined with Sandy’s forbidding her from interviewing him had blinded her. But it made all too much sense. The Russians had a conspiratorial mindset, but even experienced Service officers occasionally went potty like this. Too much time spent in the world of shadows and it could become hard to distinguish truth from lies. Indeed, Sandy had himself warned her several times of succumbing to it. With good reason, as it had led to her countermanding his direct orders and suspecting he was a traitor. What an idiot she’d been! Now she’d have to find a way of withdrawing from the situation, preferably without alerting Proshin that she wasn’t interested. Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise that Thorpe would play host to him for a while. Then they’d find a quiet little bungalow somewhere in Surrey where he could quietly nurse his madness.
As if reading her thoughts, Proshin shot out an arm and grabbed her sleeve.
‘You must listen to me,’ he said, and now his eyes were blazing with desperation. ‘Your life and mine, they depend on it.’
She broke free of his grip and stared at him. ‘Fascists? Really, Mr Proshin, I was expecting more from you than this. If you really believe that’s the case – and I can assure you it isn’t – why didn’t you defect to the Americans? Or the French?’
‘A good question.’ He said it as though he had been disappointed by her previous efforts. ‘I considered both of those options, but rejected them for two reasons. Firstly, I work – or rather, worked – in the British department of the GRU, and ran British agents, most notably Paul Dark, so naturally this dictates that my intelligence is most attractive to your Service. But secondly, I prefer fascists to Communists.’
She wanted to put her head in her hands and cry at how badly she had misjudged the potential worth of this man.
‘You think the French and Americans are Communists?’
He gave her a patronising smile. ‘You misunderstand me, Miss Gold. The GRU has penetrated the CIA and the SDECE at a high level. I know this very well, but I do not of course know the names or positions of most of the agents, as that is strictly compartmentalised. But I know they exist. So yes, I would certainly have enjoyed living in New York or the Côte d’Azur, but before that happened I might have found myself being interviewed by the wrong person, in which case they would have arranged for my convenient disappearance.’
‘But how do you know I’m not a Soviet agent? Or that whoever had come to interview you wouldn’t have been?’
He smiled. ‘I don’t, and I didn’t. I told you: I am risking my life. But as I have worked in the British department for many years I have an extremely good idea of who our agents are in your service. At the moment, none of them is in a position that would make it likely they would be sent here to interview me. As for the KGB, that is certainly possible, as I don’t know their agents, but I decided I must take the risk. I thought it was the best chance I had.’
‘Unless you were taken to London,’ she noted. ‘You were very insistent on that point.’
Proshin nodded, but didn’t speak. She felt that he was toying with her, as if his daft conspiracy theories were a puzzle for her to solve. Part of her wanted to leave him. She could take the safe-house car to the airfield, catch the flight home and pretend that none of this had happened. But she knew she wouldn’t. She was here now, and she had to see it out. Besides, Proshin had just claimed – almost in passing – to have information about Soviet penetration of the CIA, SDECE and the Service, and even if he were a complete madman it was at least worthy of probing. But before she got to that she had to dig into his most sensational claim so far.
‘These fascists you mentioned. What do you mean? What fascists?’
He nodded eagerly. ‘There is another service within your service: a faction at the top, controlling things. Ivashutin is the one who discovered it, about twenty years ago now.’ He caught her expression, and misinterpreted it. ‘Yes, it has been going on for a long time. Ivashutin was in the KGB then, and when he was appointed deputy chairman many agent reports crossed his desk. These included those of Kim Philby. He became intrigued by the excellent quality of Phiby’s intelligence and decided to review all of his reports, dating back to his recruitment as a student at Cambridge. He became fixated by one report in particular. When Philby had joined the Service during the war, he had informed his case officer in London that everything seemed so quiet there that he had the peculiar feeling that he’d been recruited into a front organisation – that the real Service remained hidden from him.’
Rachel shrugged, perplexed. This was the big mystery he thought would shatter Western intelligence?
‘It was clearly a joke,’ sh
e said. ‘Philby had that sort of humour.’
He shot her a sour look. ‘Naturally, this possibility was considered. But what if it were true? What if we were fighting the wrong enemy in England, cardboard cut-outs as with your famous tanks in the war, and all the while the real Service was hidden from us entirely, working on other operations we knew nothing about? This kept Ivashutin awake at night. He tried to raise it within the KGB, but nobody there was interested.’ He shrugged as if to say this was to be expected from the KGB. ‘At that time, Philby and other agents were providing a wealth of evidence to show that the Service not only existed but presented a serious threat to our activities. But when Ivashutin became head of the GRU, some other agents in Britain provided us with intelligence that corroborated Philby’s initial suspicion.’
‘Which agents?’
‘Pritchard, Gadlow and Dark.’
Rachel was sitting bolt upright now. ‘What did you say?’
Proshin smiled at her. ‘Yes, Paul Dark told us this, too.’
‘No, no, before that, the second name. You said Pritchard . . .’
The Russian raised his eyebrows. ‘Gadlow? Yes, he was an agent-in-place we had in Malaysia, your Head of Station there. I was his case officer briefly, just before I was recalled to Moscow to take up a new position in the directorate. It was presented to me as a promotion, but in reality I was being removed from fieldwork as I was no longer to be trusted.’
Rachel took this in, absorbing its implications. It made sense. It explained why the papers Kotov had taken from Proshin’s safe and photographed had included documents that had been seen by Gadlow. The pieces of the puzzle were slowly fitting together, but in a horrifying way. She registered, as if it were happening to someone else, a crawling sensation along her forearms. She closed her eyes, gathering her thoughts, then opened them again and looked at Proshin.