Berlin nodded. ‘All correct, yes.’ Hart turned to stare out of the window. For a moment or two he was silent.
‘Here’s this man, probably one of the most powerful in the Soviet Union, who can snap his fingers and have any number of professionals do his bidding – so what does he do? Does he take his concerns to the Central Committee? In your version of events, he doesn’t. Does he face the wrath of the First Secretary by telling him a few home truths? Again, no. He’s tried that too many times in the recent past, you tell us, and on every occasion he has failed. Does he choose a KGB professional to bring this most important of messages to the West, someone who would carry conviction? Or does he employ someone from the Soviet Embassy here? Strangely, he does neither. Does he send a soldier, a senior officer, perhaps someone known to us from some previous contact whom we can easily verify to bring this message to us? Again, to our bafflement, he doesn’t. What does he do? He chooses an academic historian who has never done anything like this before and whose only claim for the job is that he happens to be travelling to Cambridge at the right time. He entrusts this inexperienced man with information of the very highest importance.’ Hart paused and looked at Berlin. ‘Surely you can see our concerns.’
‘What can I say?’ Berlin replied. ‘I do not know his reasons, I can only speculate.’
‘Speculate, then.’
‘He came to his decision that this information should be given to the West quite suddenly. The political situation in Berlin is deteriorating rapidly. He sees the West and the East sliding towards war. He knows that if he approaches any official organisation like the KGB, he risks betrayal. His only certainty then is that his message will never reach the West. He will have achieved nothing. So what does he do? He looks around for someone no one will suspect, the last person anyone would imagine acting as a messenger for him. He learns that I am travelling to the West. He approaches me in secret. If I can be persuaded to perform this task for him, he has more than an even chance of getting the truth to you. That is a risk he is prepared to take.’
‘Do you have any evidence to sustain your theory?’
‘Only a chance remark the marshal made.’
‘What was that?’
‘He told me I was not the right person to do this job but that he had no choice. There was no one else.’
‘Why did he say that?’
‘I suspect the reason he said it and the reason he chose me are one and the same. I am the least likely candidate. My visit to England already had the official sanction of both the British and the Soviet authorities, therefore my departure would arouse no suspicion, least of all from his political enemies. There is nothing to link my name with his.’
‘Who are these enemies?’
‘I am sure there are people both here and in Moscow who he would rather did not know what he was doing.’
‘His fellow officers?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Politicians?’
‘Certainly. The army has lost a great deal of political influence recently.’
‘And presumably KGB officers, either in Moscow or at the embassy in London?’
‘Gerasimov specifically instructed me to make no contact with the Soviet Embassy here.’
‘Why did he say that?’
‘I think he suspected that some of them are less trustworthy than we would like them to be.’
‘They might betray him to his political masters, is that it?’
‘Yes.’
Hart pondered Berlin’s reply.
‘We hear rumours that there is a group in Moscow opposed to the First Secretary.’
‘I know there is a growing body of opinion opposed to the First Secretary’s methods and pronouncements.’
‘How powerful is this opposition?’
‘There is no such thing as a formal opposition in my country.’
If Hart heard his answer, he ignored it. ‘Is Gerasimov its leader?’
‘Leader of what?’
‘You’re not being very helpful, are you?’
‘You are asking me questions I am not qualified to answer.’
It was the first antagonistic exchange they had had since the interview began. Hart waited for the moment to pass.
‘Let me put it to you a different way. Is Gerasimov a member of a growing body within the Soviet élite who oppose your leader’s publicly declared policies?’
‘I cannot answer that because I have no information. Gerasimov is a humane man. There are others like him in my country, some of them in positions of power. He will not waste human life to no purpose. That is why he has always been popular with his troops. They know he will not ask them to sacrifice their lives needlessly. He made it clear to me that he opposes the official Soviet line on West Berlin. He believes it to be wrong. I know of no evidence to suggest that in this case he is acting other than on his own initiative. He wants to prevent people from dying. He wants to save lives. Is that so hard to understand?’
‘All of which is very laudable. But I come back to my point. If this is so important, why you? Why not someone known to us? He must know you would carry no credibility here. You can understand our difficulty, can’t you?’
Berlin shrugged his shoulders. There was nothing more to say. Hart’s questions lay beyond his competence to answer. The room was still. Outside he could hear the distant sound of a motor-mower.
*
Tea was brought, three mugs on a tray, all sweetened with sugar which Berlin found hard to swallow, but his throat was dry and he needed liquid. The silent man – Berlin was sure he was American – whispered something in Hart’s ear and left the room. Hart smiled at Berlin, a wistful, distant smile. They drank their tea in silence.
As soon as the silent American returned – his tea remained untouched, Berlin noticed – the interrogation began again.
‘On many occasions in recent weeks,’ Hart said, ‘your First Secretary has been publicly very belligerent towards the West. He’s made remarks like, “I want to bury imperialism”, and “I will bring the West to its knees.” He boasts of the huge Soviet missile advantage over the West. Your engineers have put the first man into space. Now they are about to surprise us with an orbiting craft that will be able to fire nuclear missiles at any target in the Western world. He has signed a treaty with the GDR that threatens the position of the Western Allies in Berlin. He is your leader. He knows your military capability better than anyone. If the situation were as dire as you and Marshal Gerasimov claim it is, I very much doubt that he would take the line he does. He would temper his aggression to bring it in line with reality.’
The more Hart spoke, the more Berlin felt what small advantage he had slipping away. Somehow he had to wrest control of this meeting from his interrogators.
‘It is the First Secretary’s wild and unjustified statements that have built this opposition to him,’ Berlin said. ‘That is what has forced Marshal Gerasimov to send me to you.’
‘You say that, when only a few months ago you were celebrating sending the first man into space.’ Hart sounded incredulous. ‘It doesn’t fit, does it, this modest approach, this sudden burst of truth about the few weapons you have at your disposal.’
Berlin remained silent. He could guess what was coming next.
‘That brings us to the notoriously invisible Professor Radin. How is the professor? We hear he’s not been in the best of health lately.’
‘Viktor Radin is dead.’
‘That’s not what your people are saying. Very much the opposite, in fact. The message we’re getting is that he’s alive and well and working on this orbiting platform.’
‘He was my friend for years. I knew him very well. I can assure you he is dead.’
‘Why should we believe you?’ The silent man uttered his first words since they had come into the room. He spoke with an American accent. Berlin felt he was under attack from both sides. ‘What proof have you got?’
‘Radin was suffering from cancer of the liver.
The disease was diagnosed as terminal in May. He was not given long to live. None the less, the Kremlin ordered that a number of different cures be tried, some of them extreme. Viktor suffered. He begged the doctors to stop experimenting on him. They were not allowed to do so. He died two months ago.’
‘Our evidence contradicts everything you say.’ The American again. ‘All our intelligence suggests that Radin is very much alive and at work.’
‘Your intelligence is wrong.’
‘Did you go to his funeral?’
‘He did not have a funeral. There has been no public announcement of his death in the Soviet Union. This was deliberate policy to conceal the fact of his death.’
‘Why would you want us to believe he is still alive?’ the American asked.
‘In order to sustain your belief in the threats that the First Secretary has made. I can assure you, the orbiting space platform is a dream, and whoever dreamed it up was not Radin. I know for certain that he did not even embark upon any preliminary studies for such a vehicle. If Viktor Radin were here now, he would tell you that such an idea is years away from realisation.’
‘Then why did the First Secretary boast in front of the world that you are close to making this space platform a reality?’
‘To intimidate the West. It would appear that he has been successful.’
‘And to keep the opposition at home at bay?’ the American suggested. ‘To show he’s not soft on the Americans?’
‘Quite possibly,’ Berlin said. ‘Quite possibly.’
He was suddenly overcome with a desire to sleep, to close his eyes and drift away out of these men’s cynical power, to escape the constant battering of questions to which he did not know the answers.
*
The light was fading. Berlin had lost all sense of time now. The urge to sleep was overwhelming. But the questions continued. Hart was tireless in his interrogation.
‘I want to return to your relationship with Viktor Radin. You say you were a close friend of his. How close?’
Berlin hesitated. What was he supposed to say? ‘I saw him when he was in Moscow. We would eat together sometimes in his apartment. Viktor was divorced. He never remarried. He liked company in the evenings, when he was not working. He took an interest in my career. He encouraged me.’
‘Did he talk to you about his work?’
‘No. He never mentioned anything he was engaged in.’
‘He never complained about the bureaucracy, about his impatience with red tape? Nothing like that?’
‘Never to me.’
‘So you’d meet in his apartment, have something to eat, talk about history, and politics too, I suppose?’
‘Viktor had little time for politics. His whole life was driven by a single vision, to get men into space. His relaxation was to discuss history with me. I would test my ideas on him. He was a very well-read man.’
Hart leaned forwards and handed Berlin a photograph. ‘If I am not mistaken, this is a photograph of a meeting you had with Radin when he was ill.’
He saw himself sitting on the grass beside Viktor in his wheelchair. How ill Viktor looked. He wondered how British Intelligence had got hold of the photograph.
Berlin nodded. ‘Yes. That was the last time I saw him alive. He died a few days later.’
‘What did you talk about? Were there any last things he needed to say to you?’
Last things. Why did that phrase keep recurring?
‘He knew he was dying.’ He hesitated. What should he say? Nothing mattered more than that they should believe him. Should he mention Kuzmin’s report? ‘He gave me a document. He made me swear I would show it to no one.’
‘What kind of document?’
‘It was a report by a senior engineer at the Baikonur Cosmodrome on a number of design failures in Radin’s new rocket that had not been fixed before the scheduled date of the rocket launch.’
‘Can you explain that further, please?’ the American asked.
‘Peter Kuzmin was the Flight Engineer on Viktor’s last project. They had worked together for a number of years. They trusted each other. Kuzmin was alarmed at the drop in standards since Viktor’s absence due to ill-health. He was concerned for the safety of the launch. He wrote a secret report to Viktor to bring this to his attention.’
‘Was he right to be concerned?’
‘Viktor told me that afternoon that his rocket had blown up on the launch pad. Kuzmin died in the disaster, along with nearly two hundred other people.’
‘When did this occur? Can you put a date on it?’
‘In May of this year.’
Hart looked at the silent American. ‘May, George. Do you hear that? May.’ He turned back to Berlin. ‘What can you tell us about the rocket that exploded?’
‘I can only describe it as Viktor described it to me.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘He said it was the biggest rocket in the world, far bigger than anything that had flown before, and at least twice as powerful as that which lifted Gagarin into space. He knew it was the last launch he would ever see, and he wanted it to fly. He was greatly distressed at the disaster. He said this disaster would set Soviet plans back by at least a year, probably more.’
The room was silent. Hart walked away to the window and looked out into the evening darkness. ‘What exploded that day,’ he repeated, ‘was the biggest rocket in the world.’
Berlin knew that, in some way he did not understand, his attempt to tell the truth had destroyed his case.
*
He had supper alone. Hart had explained that he and George had ‘to put their heads together’. He imagined they would return after he had eaten but they didn’t. He waited. He skimmed a magazine about life in the English countryside, full of houses for sale and pictures of young women announcing their engagements. He tried to examine his responses, to see where he had gone wrong, whether his mistake had been avoidable – ‘all mistakes are avoidable’, a voice from his schooldays repeated in his mind. ‘Our task is to achieve perfection.’ To his surprise he found that he was unable to reconstruct his interrogation. Mysteriously, his memory seemed to have been wiped clean. After a while, he was overcome once more by a feeling of intense fatigue. His eyes closed and he slept
*
The lights came on and Berlin awoke suddenly. For a moment he could not remember where he was. He heard Hart saying, ‘We’re sorry to have kept you so long. Do you realise, it’s after midnight, George. You gave us a lot to think about.’
‘Well?’ It was all Berlin could find to say. He felt like a man about to receive a sentence for a crime of which he was innocent.
‘Do we accept your story? That is the big question that has been preoccupying us. Do we trust you as a bona fide messenger from the Marshal of the Red Army? The short answer, Dr Berlin, is no, we don’t. We believe that you are faithfully giving us the story you were told to give us. Our difficulty is, we don’t accept the motives of the man who sent you, therefore we don’t accept your story. That’s our difficulty in a nutshell, isn’t it, George? What you’ve told us doesn’t add up. We think it’s a nice try to make us lower our guard at a moment of great political tension but it’s not one we’re going to fall for.’
‘Nice try,’ George repeated. ‘That’s right.’
IVAN’S SEARCH FOR HIS FATHER
He found it impossible to sleep. It was not just the heat, though there was not a breath of wind and the humidity was high, it was a sense that something significant was about to happen, an event of such magnitude that he knew it would change his life for ever. He was afraid to tell anyone about his sudden premonition, certainly not Anton, who would have mocked him mercilessly in front of all his friends, especially Igor, and they would have joined his brother in laughing at him.
For a day or two his mother watched him closely as if he was sickening for something. She fussed over him more than usual, touching his forehead to see if he had a temperature. ‘You look flushed, Andrei. Are you
all right?’ She brushed his hair away from his forehead, and left a glass of water by his bed. Once, in the middle of the night, she crept into his room and for a few moments lay beside him. He pretended to be asleep.
For two days and nights nothing happened. He fell asleep at dawn and had to be woken by his mother, who worried about his pale appearance and the darkening shadows under his eyes.
‘It’s the heat,’ he told her. ‘It’s so difficult to get to sleep.’
On the third night, he was sitting up in bed holding the glass against his cheek – even that was warm now – when he heard the sound of a car drawing up in the street below. Doors opened and slammed shut. Boots rang on the pavement. Voices came, though he couldn’t make out what they were saying. He crept to the window and looked out. He counted four men in dark suits before they disappeared into his building.
He went to the bedroom door, opened it quietly and listened. The flat was silent, The only sound he heard was that of his brother Anton snoring heavily in the other bed. Then he heard footsteps running up the stairs, fists hammering heavily on the front door of the apartment. Someone pressed the bell continuously. He heard his father’s name called. The light went on in his parents’ bedroom. His father came out, followed by his mother. How young she was, he thought, how delicate and vulnerable.
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