‘In other words,’ Hart said, ‘do we give in or do we outface them?’
‘The dilemma hasn’t changed over the years,’ Carswell said thoughtfully. ‘The difference is, the stakes have been raised to a very high level.’
‘And time is now very much against us.’
Outside a clock chimed the half-hour. Both men were silent, troubled by the judgements they would have to make before the day ended.
‘One last thing,’ Hart said. ‘I’d like you to take a look at this.’
‘What is it?’
‘Our unexpected present from Koliakov which arrived yesterday. It’s the minutes of a meeting of a KGB planning committee that took place in July. The document asserts that Radin is dead and outlines the Soviet strategy to keep us thinking that he remains alive. It explains much of what is happening now.’
Carswell held the paper up to the light and studied it. ‘Consistency of blotting paper. Unmistakably Soviet.’ He held it under his nose and sniffed. ‘It’s got that familiar gluey smell. Nothing changes, does it?’
‘Is it genuine?’
‘The paper’s genuine. So is the typewriter. If it’s not the real thing, it’s a bloody good imitation.’ He took his pipe out of his mouth to inspect the bowl. It appeared to have gone out. ‘Do you have a translation?’
‘Right here.’
Carswell skimmed it. ‘Good God,’ he exclaimed. ‘Peter the Great. I never expected to hear that name again. There can’t be many Soviets who know about Peter.’ He lit his pipe again, disappearing briefly behind a cloud of blue smoke. ‘I’d better get down to work. I’d like a word with Koliakov first, if I may.’
4
‘Over there.’
Pountney raced forward. His cameraman and soundman followed, struggling with their equipment. From their vantage point, they could look down Friedrichstrasse to the crossing point as the Soviet tanks hove into view in the distance and rumbled towards the border.
Pountney spoke breathlessly into his microphone. ‘The main force of thirty or more Soviet tanks has halted near the Brandenburg Gate. A smaller force often has peeled away and is now advancing menacingly up Friedrichstrasse towards the crossing point at Checkpoint Charlie. They appear to be halting on either side of the street only yards from the border between East and West Berlin.’
From below he heard the rumble of American tanks as they prepared to move into position.
‘Below me, I can see the Americans mobilising in response. They too are advancing up Friedrichstrasse.’
As he spoke, ten American M-48s rolled forward into view, the earth throbbing to the sound of their engines,
‘The roar of the engines is deafening.’ Pountney was shouting now. ‘There are blue clouds of diesel smoke on both sides of the crossing point. The Americans too are moving up to the border. There is less than a hundred yards between the two forces as they face each other.’
They were like athletes, he thought, waiting in their blocks for the gun to sound to start the race. Only now, the sound of the first shot would precipitate a war.
‘All forces in Berlin are now on full alert. The situation is fraught with danger. This is a real confrontation. The gun barrels on each side contain live ammunition. If someone does not pull back soon, we may be only minutes away from the start of war.’
5
‘If these minutes are genuine,’ Carswell said.
‘Of course they are genuine.’
‘They would appear to be convincing evidence that Viktor Radin is dead and that therefore the present show of Soviet strength over Berlin may be no more than bluff.’
Koliakov lit a cigarette. ‘I cannot tell you what is bluff and what is not. All I can say is that I was present at the meeting described in those minutes. I can confirm that what you have read is an accurate record of what happened. The policy proposed by Colonel Medvedev was agreed.’
‘There is no doubt therefore that Professor Radin is dead.’
‘No doubt at all.’
‘Why is the Soviet Union so keen to conceal his death?’
Koliakov laughed. ‘I would have thought the answer was obvious.’
‘I would still like to hear your explanation.’
‘With Radin gone, our space programme no longer has its visionary driving force. Power will now move from a courageous and inspired leader to the bureaucrats. Do I have to describe the consequences?’
Carswell wrote on the paper in front of him. Koliakov waited.
‘What puzzles me,’ Carswell said quietly, ‘is why you are prepared to tell us this. Aren’t you giving us a very valuable secret?’
‘Of course.’
‘You don’t strike me as a defector or a traitor.’
‘I am neither.’
‘Then why are you doing this?’
‘I am giving you this information because I am a patriot.’
‘Some of your colleagues might find that hard to accept.’
Koliakov shrugged his shoulders. ‘That may be so.’
‘That doesn’t answer my questions.’
‘I am opposed to senseless slaughter.’
‘You believe that Soviet policy will lead to senseless slaughter?’
‘If Berlin explodes, yes.’
‘What brought you to such a view, Colonel?’
‘If I convince you, you will believe me. Is that it?’
‘Probably.’
‘Very well.’ Koliakov stubbed out his cigarette and immediately lit another one. ‘I must take you back a few years. In 1947, the Soviet Union was building its first nuclear bomb. It was a slow and difficult process. Our politicians were very unhappy at the pace of progress. We had to do something to make the West feel safe enough to slow its own hectic rate of development. So we manufactured an explosion in the laboratory where the bomb was being built. Many died, not just technicians, civilians too. The news was deliberately leaked to the West through the spy Peter the Great whom, by this time, we had turned. The West’s assessment was that the Soviet Union’s nuclear policy was in grave difficulty. That was what we wanted you to believe, and for a time you did. And much to our advantage.’
‘I remember,’ Carswell said. There was an edge of bitterness in his voice.
‘Our deception was very successful. Its effect lasted for months. You slowed your nuclear development while we hastened ours. A sense of complacency emerged in the West. Little need to worry about the Soviets. They were far behind.’
‘The question I asked was what brought you to your current position,’ Carswell reminded him.
‘I am coming to that. Let me take you back to the so-called explosion. It was set up by members of the KGB at the instructions of certain members of the Central Committee. The men and women who died were real people, civilians. Old age pensioners mostly, who lived in a block of flats near the laboratory. They died in a separate explosion which was made to look as if it had been caused by the explosion in the laboratory.’
‘What happened?’
‘The old people were rounded up one night, driven to a forest clearing outside Moscow and murdered in cold blood. Their bodies were buried in a trench near where they were killed. My father was one of those who died that night.’
‘I see.’ Carswell puffed at his pipe.
‘I am a communist because I believe in the teachings of Marx and Lenin. I am opposed to the realisation of their goals through the senseless slaughter of civilians.’
‘A conflict in Berlin would come under your definition of senseless slaughter?’
Koliakov nodded. ‘Such a conflict would rapidly become nuclear. Many millions of our peoples would die unnecessarily. It is a sickening thought – particularly when one man’s hubris will have caused so much destruction. Now do you understand why I call myself a patriot?’
‘Thank you, Colonel. You’ve been most helpful.’
*
‘Does the name Peter the Great mean anything to you?’ Carswell asked.
‘As a hist
orical character?’ Berlin replied.
‘As a code name.’
‘Nothing, no.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes.’
Carswell wrote in a notebook. ‘I understand you know Marshal Gerasimov.’
‘I have met him once.’
‘In a graveyard – am I right?’
Berlin nodded.
‘Tell me something about him that will convince me that what you are telling us is true.’
Berlin took his time to reply. ‘He is a convinced communist, an idealist. Communism for him is the only way to universal human justice. His wife was an artist. He discovered, after she was dead, that she destroyed many of her pictures to protect him.’
‘How?’
‘Because they showed too much truth. She painted life in our country as it is, not as our government would have us believe it is.’
Berlin saw the old man clearing the undergrowth from his wife’s grave and standing in silence before it. He knew now that Gerasimov was not remembering Yelena. That was not why he visited her grave. It was to rededicate himself to the need to act on the truth, not to be deceived by lies.
‘Every year he visits her grave to remind himself of what she sacrificed for him.’
‘What did his wife die of?’
‘Gerasimov would say she died of a broken heart. She sacrificed her painting to her love for him. In fact it was cancer.’
He thought back to the painting of the young man on his way to the front, and the mixture of anxiety and anticipation on his face. His father had disliked the picture. It had been too real for him. It brought back fears he had tried to banish from his life.
‘Gerasimov, you’re saying, is a humane man.’
‘He is opposed to the indiscriminate killing of civilians. He says our people have suffered enough.’
‘That certainly is true,’ Carswell said. He looked up at Berlin. ‘Thank you. You’ve told me all I need to know.’
*
‘What’s your verdict?’ Hart asked.
Carswell took his time to answer. ‘I think on balance Koliakov is telling the truth. He has a motive.’
‘And Berlin doesn’t?
‘I think he is lying. I have no doubt that he is who he says he is. I do not believe for one moment his story about Marshal Gerasimov. Nothing rings true. I think Berlin is a vain man who saw an opportunity to gain himself a role. The sooner he clears off back to Moscow, the better.’
6
Berlin looked out at the deserted court: the soft red-brick buildings, almost pink in the sunlight, were covered in places by dark green ivy, and flanked by neatly trimmed flower beds filled with late summer flowers, deep red roses, purple Michaelmas daisies and pink anemones; the well-cut grass was bisected by a worn stone path tucked in with cobbles; a clock over the entrance to the hall struck the half-hour, sounding the same note it had struck over the centuries.
‘Dr Berlin, sir? You’re wanted on the telephone.’
He came down the stairs two at a time and followed Wilkins into the porter’s lodge. He was sure it was Pountney.
‘Andrei? Gerry Pountney. Not good news, I’m afraid. I’ve seen Hugh Hart. In fact, I spent most of last night with him. I can’t get him to budge. I’m sorry about that. I think the Americans have got at him. It’s a setback, but it’s not the end of the line. Give me a few hours. I’ll be in touch, all right?’
‘Thank you for trying,’ Berlin said. ‘I am grateful.’
He put the phone down. The message was unequivocal. He had failed. His heart felt like stone.
7
They sit on steel-framed chairs in the airport lounge, holding hands. Occasionally she leans her head against him and he puts his arm round her. They say nothing – there is nothing new that can be said.
I am a convicted prisoner, she thinks to herself. I am waiting for the last minutes of my life to pass before my execution. Soon a voice will summon me and I will stand up, kiss the man I love for the last time, hold him briefly in my arms, and then I will walk away and that will be it, the end of everything. No more light, only darkness.
‘Will you write to me?’ she asks suddenly.
‘Yes.’
She squeezes his hand, a gesture of reassurance that she doesn’t feel. He may write but will the letters reach her?
There is an announcement over the tannoy that she cannot understand. He looks up at the board. The boarding sign is flashing against her flight number.
‘Is it time?’ she asks, knowing it is, but hoping for a reprieve.
‘Yes.’ He stands up. ‘You must go now.’
She has thought of this moment so many times, rehearsed it in her mind with a thousand variations. Should she be brave and embrace him without crying? Should she break down with declarations of undying love? But what she has imagined is not what happens.
‘Come here,’ he says, gathering her in his arms. She feels his warmth around her. His lips are close to her ear and he is whispering urgently to her. ‘When you are alone, remember this. You made me understand who I am. There is no greater gift than that. I can never thank you enough. Never in a hundred lifetimes. I dedicate my life to you.’
Why do you tell me this now? she wants to ask. You’ve never said anything like it before. What does it mean?
Before her lips can frame the questions, she is walking away from him, holding her passport and her boarding card and a Russian bag that he has bought her. She refuses to turn round. She knows that if she does so something terrible will happen. All her energies must be concentrated on getting onto the plane. Nothing is more important than that.
‘Tell my father you’ve seen me,’ she hears a voice call after her. ‘Tell him I’m alive.’
As she walks across the tarmac, she hears the wind in the grass, sees the river flashing in the sunlight as it breaks over the stones; she watches dragonflies hovering above the reeds, fishing darting into the shadows, birds wheeling above her.
Suddenly she starts to sing quietly to herself.
8
For hours nothing has happened. The two sides have faced each other. But there has been no movement, no sound. Suddenly the eerie silence is broken by the firing up of an engine on the Soviet side. Will the tank move forward or back? Nerves are stretched to breaking point.
Pountney whispers into his microphone, as if any sound might cause the stand-off to end in a withering hail of file. ‘I have lost count of the hours we have waited here, certainly twelve. But it’s more like fifteen, sixteen. Each side has stared down the gun barrels of the other. But no shots have been fired. There is total stillness. Now one of the Soviet tanks has started its engines. What will it do? Will it move forward or back?’
He watches. The Soviet tank remains where it is, its engine turning over. Then it is put into reverse, and it moves back five yards. It is no more than a gesture, but it is enough.
From somewhere a faint cheer breaks out.
9
‘Professor Stevens? Hello. You won’t know me. My name is Kate Buchanan. I’ve just returned from Moscow. I met your son while I was there. He asked me to tell you that he is well. I would like to come and see you, if I might. I wondered if we could arrange a time.’
*
Our policy (Valery Marchenko writes, addressing his open letter to the First Secretary and to the Soviet newspapers) is based on the myth that the Chief Designer of our space programme, Viktor Radin, is still alive. He is not. He died of cancer last July. Since then, no appointment has been made to replace him. Instead, the attitudes he held have been allowed to govern our policy decisions as if he were still alive. That is wrong, naive and certain to be catastrophic in the long run. I am a victim of this refusal to face the truth. My own project – to use robotics rather than humans for the exploration of space – which saves lives and money – was rejected because it opposed Viktor Radin’s profoundly held belief in the value of the human cosmonaut in performing every task, and reflects his scorn for the
remarkably versatile machines we have built. My project was not rejected on the grounds of its merits nor its costs, but on the basis that, since it did not emanate from Professor Radin, it could have no validity at all.
This letter calls for the urgent reform of our space administration, the appointment of a new Director and the adoption of a new policy based on reality as we perceive it now.
10
What shall I tell Gerasimov?
Berlin stares out of the window. The plane has not moved. He looks at his watch. They are delayed, though no one has explained why. He tries to concentrate on what he can see from his window seat of the life of the airport but he sees nothing. His thoughts return to Marion and his eyes fill with tears. His arms are still warm from Marion’s embrace, his lips still burning from her kisses. How impossible it was to leave her – she had tears in her eyes and a startled, hopeless look on her face.
‘Come back,’ she had begged, ‘please come back. Don’t leave me alone.’
With each step he took as he walked away from her, he felt as if he was dragging the world behind him.
What shall I tell Gerasimov?
He has failed in his mission. Whoever caused those tanks to withdraw, it was not him. A historic moment that he wanted to claim as his own has nothing to do with him. He has saved no one, not even himself. That is the truth he will have to live with.
‘Well,’ the old general will say when they met in Moscow, ‘it worked, didn’t it?’
‘I didn’t think it was going to,’ he will reply. ‘For a long time I had my doubts. The British were slow to recognise what I was saying. But in the end it was all right.’
‘I warned you they would be,’ Gerasimov will reply.
‘They believed me,’ Berlin says. ‘That’s all that matters, isn’t it?’
Dr Berlin Page 38