Kolymsky Heights

by Lionel Davidson

  ‘Or how I get back.’

  ‘That isn’t fixed, either. Obviously it won’t be the way you go in. But a number of options will be arranged for you, and you would have back-up.’

  ‘What back-up?’

  ‘Operatives on the ground. You don’t need to worry about that. I stay with you through training, and anything that isn’t clear, I get it clear. That’s right up to when you go.’

  Porter stubbed his cigarette out.

  ‘This job I’m supposed to be expert at out there,’ he said. ‘You know I’ve never done it before.’

  ‘Yes sir, I know that. At camp you’ll be doing it in your sleep.’

  ‘I would need to know the area. If nobody has been there, how do I get to know it?’

  ‘All I can say is that if you don’t, you won’t go. That applies to any stage of this operation. If you don’t feel you can do it, you cut out – right up to the drop-off. Because at that point you’ll be on your own.’

  ‘What about that back-up?’

  ‘Just then there isn’t any … but I can assure you there’s no way you’ll go in unless you’ll feel one hundred per cent at home in the place.’

  ‘With my own apartment.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I just turn the key and walk in?’

  ‘That’s what you do.’

  ‘In this sealed area where nobody’s been?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘What do the neighbours say?’

  ‘You’ll learn about the neighbours. We’re working on it.’

  Porter thought about this.

  ‘What information is there on the place?’

  ‘It’s being collected. Is there something special you’d want to know?’

  ‘Sure, the slang, the dialect. What they talk about there. Knowing the languages isn’t everything.’

  ‘Okay.’ Walters produced a small book and made a note. ‘I’ll try and get you it,’ he said.

  ‘From this sealed area you can get it?’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  Porter took out his tobacco sack again.

  ‘Who are the operatives on the ground?’ he said.

  Walters smiled. ‘Even if I knew that, sir,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t tell you. You know what you have to know. That protects the operation, and it also protects you.’

  Porter slowly rolled a cigarette.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I don’t believe that without me you have any operation.’

  ‘Yes, sir, that’s right.’

  Porter lit the cigarette. ‘Why the end of August?’ he said.

  ‘That’s the date for getting you in position on time. The schedule is very exact. After that there’s no point in getting you out there at all.’

  ‘Why do you want to get me out there?’

  Walters smiled again. ‘I don’t know the object of this mission, sir. I was not authorised to see the papers you have. I do know we’re the only ones that can get you there. But my orders are not to press you in any way. If you want to go, you go. But if so, I’ve got to know fast. Could you be available right away?’

  ‘No. I’ve got to run down to Prince George,’ Porter said. ‘I’ll be there until – maybe ten days from now.’

  ‘That’s too long,’ Walters said.

  ‘That’s too bad.’

  ‘Can’t you drop it? We really don’t have that margin.’

  ‘I can’t drop it … Maybe I could cut it a little.’ The Indian thought a while. ‘This stuff you’re going to get me – when would you have it?’

  ‘In a few days, perhaps. Where are you staying there?’

  ‘The general post office,’ Porter said.

  Walters made no comment on this but merely noted it in his book. ‘Well, do I tell them to start?’ he said.

  The Indian paused.

  ‘I’ll see this stuff first,’ he said. ‘Tell me again – it’s guaranteed I can pull out any time?’

  ‘That’s guaranteed.’

  ‘With no arm-twisting, no funny stories planted about me in funny places?’

  Walters put his book away. ‘Look, sir,’ he said, ‘I know you have problems over contacts with us. It’s certainly not in our interest to reveal them.’

  ‘Not at this time,’ Porter said.

  ‘Not any time. We have other critical relationships. It would be counter-productive even to try.’

  ‘So long as we both know that.’

  ‘I think we do. Well, thanks for this meeting, anyway. We got over that one,’ Walters said smiling.

  ‘Sure,’ Porter said, and for the first time smiled back.

  ‘Well, now,’ Lazenby said. ‘What do you think?’

  They had the room to themselves, and the Indian was carefully rolling himself another cigarette.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe I’m being fixed.’

  ‘Fixed? In what way fixed?’

  ‘I don’t know the way, just the smell.’ He neatly licked the cigarette. ‘I expect you know I’m a big pain in the ass out here. This government we have, they’d like me far away and in deep shit. But could they set up something like this, with their brains and resources? I doubt it. The CIA, now – that’s a different story. So what is with them, I wonder?’

  ‘Well, I don’t think,’ Lazenby said, ‘that there is anything with them. I gave you a very fair summary, I believe, of events as I saw them for myself.’

  ‘You didn’t see any events yourself.’ Porter lit the cigarette. ‘You saw what they showed you. All this rigmarole with satellites, lead pencils, ballpoints. You analysed any of it personally?’

  ‘Obviously I didn’t.’

  ‘That’s right. They did. Don’t trust the bastards – governments, government agencies. They rig things, they fake things.’

  ‘You’re not suggesting somebody faked all this?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I didn’t receive these bizarre papers from Rogachev?’

  ‘You received bizarre papers from somebody.’

  ‘Then if not Rogachev that somebody was certainly a most gifted clairvoyant. There were things there that couldn’t possibly have been known – things I barely remembered myself.’

  ‘Pissing up against the wall?’

  ‘That, yes. Who else could have known it?’

  ‘My room mate at Oxford? The guy I told next morning – the Yankee Rhodes scholar who went into their State Department. He couldn’t have remembered the crazy story and passed it on to the Department of Spooks?’

  Lazenby stared at him.

  ‘You told somebody about it next morning?’

  The Indian blew out smoke and shook his head. ‘No. There was no Yank. I merely illustrate a point, Goldilocks. Take nothing on trust. Many tricky dicks walk the trail. You want a drink?’ He had taken a half-pint flask from his jeans jacket.

  Lazenby gazed at this most cautiously.

  ‘A very small one, perhaps. What is it?’

  ‘Rye.’ He poured for them both into tooth mugs. ‘This is a weird plan they make for me, Goldilocks,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t tell me about it. I don’t want to know.’

  ‘Okay.’ He took a long drink. Then he took the two papers from his pocket. ‘This the stuff they showed you?’

  Lazenby examined the sheets. ‘Yes. The same.’

  ‘What do they think it means?’

  ‘Well – what it says. That he obviously believes he has something important and thinks you can get to him.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘Do you think otherwise?’

  The Indian poured himself another glass.

  ‘Maybe. These are tricky tricky dicks,’ he said.

  Lazenby watched him drink the whisky.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said mildly, ‘why you suppose anyone should go to such great labours to insert you into trouble in a distant place?’

  ‘Scenarios?’ Porter nodded. ‘Sure. Maybe they want somebody in that place. But nobody can get to the place. So they look in th
e computer, and bingo, I can get to it. I’m just the girl. I have the looks, I have the patter. For what? God knows for what. To take something, bring something? You’d never know even while you were doing it.’

  Lazenby gazed at the Indian. The sudden loquacity, after his reserve at dinner, did not disguise an essential stillness about the man. There was an austere, watchful quality about him.

  ‘Well,’ he said, terminating the discussion, ‘I’ve told you what I came to tell you. All I can add is that at one time I also didn’t think much of it. But not any more.’

  ‘You think a lot now, eh?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Certainly.’

  ‘Would you go yourself?’

  ‘I?’ Lazenby stared at him. ‘I wouldn’t. Good God, no!’

  The Indian didn’t say any more. He didn’t even look at him. He just sat and smoked his cigarette. He did this until it was finished and then pocketed the bottle, and nodded, and went.

  13

  And two days later, job completed, Lazenby himself went – home. He watched most contentedly as portions of British Columbia receded at 600 miles an hour.

  What the Indian had decided to do he had no idea. A very complicated fellow, tricky. Suspected everybody of tricks. Up to plenty himself, of course. He’d decide nothing in a hurry.

  In Prince George it was raining and the girl came in drenched, with a dripping umbrella and a bag of groceries.

  ‘Oh God, are you still watching that?’ she said.

  Porter’s eyes hadn’t left the screen.

  ‘Quiet. The man is making a joke.’

  ‘He was making the joke when I left.’

  ‘That was another joke.’

  ‘Who is that little bastard? Why are you watching him?’

  ‘He’s a jolly little bastard. I like him.’

  The little man on the screen was very jolly. He wore high reindeer boots and was smacking them as he laughed. His male companions were also smacking theirs. The women’s boots couldn’t be seen, but they were all elaborately dressed and just as jolly, dark eyes sparkling under their centre partings. They were taking part in a talk show.

  ‘Is that Eskimo they’re talking or what?’ the girl said.

  ‘Eskimo is Inuit. The people are also called Inuit. This isn’t Inuit,’ he said. The leggy blonde was an ex-student of his and should have known better. At the present time she should have known much better for she was editing a book, his last, which was about the Inuit. ‘Go and take that bath,’ he said.

  ‘You said you were going to take it with me.’

  ‘All right.’ Porter reluctantly switched the tape off. There were about twenty snippets on it, bits of newscasts, talks, chat shows. Snatched by satellite evidently. No information had come with the tape. Just the tape. He’d watched it a few times and would watch it some more.

  He reached for his wallet and took out the much-folded messages again, comparing them side by side.

  I am he that liveth/ I am yet Go up, thou baldhead/ How is

  alive/ in the north country/ it that ye do not underin dark waters/ in the waste stand?/ I want that man/ that

  howling wilderness/ Where-speaketh the tongues of the

  fore do you not answer me?/ families of the north/ him that

  Behold new things do I pisseth against the wall/ As to

  declare/ The eyes of all shall my abode/ it was written

  be opened/ Send me therefore plainly in the beginning/ I dwell

  the man/ understanding in/ dark waters/ Shew him all

  science/ of every living thing/ my words/ that the people

  Let me hear thy voice con-shall no more/sit in darkness/

  cerning this matter/ the first nor like the blind/ stumble at

  day at midnight/ Voice of noonday/ Make speed/

  America. Baldhead.

  What the hell! Had they really not seen it, the geniuses of the CIA? Or had they manufactured the thing themselves? He still couldn’t tell. There were phrases here meant only for him, to be understood solely by him. Could they possibly have known what had been discussed?

  He wasn’t clear what to do. Drop the whole thing and go back to Montreal, east? Or find out more at the training camp the young spook had mentioned, south?

  He followed the girl into the bathroom, brooding. Sleep on it, and then decide.

  East, south, where?

  Three

  NORTH BY NORTH-WEST

  14

  On 28 August Porter arrived at Narita airport, picked up his bags, negotiated Immigration and Customs, and descended to the train. A car was waiting for him outside, as he knew. He had no intention of taking it. The airport express could get him where he wanted, which was Tokyo central station.

  He made it by five o’clock, to find the rush hour in progress. This was the second rushawa of the day, the homeward-streaming one, and the familiar riot was in progress. He spent some minutes getting his bearings, and located the Lucky Strike. It looked no different from the other Business Efficiencies round the station but it stood on a corner and had two entrances. This was its attraction, and he remembered it. They wouldn’t remember him.

  ‘How many nights?’ the Lucky Strike clerk asked him.

  ‘I’m not sure, say four.’

  ‘Say four you pay up front four.’

  ‘Okay,’ Porter said, and gave him a credit card.

  The man looked at it and turned it over.

  ‘You American, Australian, what?’ he said. He had been shouting in slow Japanese himself.

  ‘Canadian.’

  ‘Ah. Sorry. Thought Korean,’ the clerk apologised.

  Porter was pleased about that. ‘Give me some telephone tokens,’ he said. ‘Give me ten. I’ll pay now.’

  ‘Sure. Canadian is all right,’ the man said. He gave the tokens and Porter waited while his card was checked out. It was very hot and steamy and he was sweating under the wig. His pigtail was fixed tight inside. ‘Isn’t the air conditioning working here?’ he said.

  ‘Sure, everything working. Only it gives me a cold so I turn it off. And if you want service,’ the clerk said, ‘service is extra.’

  ‘I don’t want service.’

  ‘Okay. Room 303. The elevator’s round the corner.’

  ‘Where are the stairs?’ Porter said.

  ‘Past the elevator. Next to the coffee bar. Go round the corner, you’ll see.’

  Porter went round the corner and found the stairs, also the coffee bar. Also the other entrance. It was as he remembered. It wasn’t necessary to go through the lobby to get in or out of the place.

  He skipped the stairs and rode up to 303. It was a neat small Efficiency. Compact kitchen and shower room. European bed, not a futon for the floor. Normal furniture. Phone. He switched the air conditioning on, and used the phone. Then he unpacked and had a shower. He took the wig off in the shower.

  He was resting in a towel, with his wig back on, when the doorbell went.

  ‘Excuse me,’ murmured the Jap outside. He was a neat individual with tortoise-shell glasses and a briefcase. ‘I don’t know if it’s right. I am looking for a Mr Peterson.’

  ‘Okay, come in,’ Porter said. They were both speaking Japanese.

  The Jap came cautiously in.

  ‘You drink rye?’ Porter asked. He was drinking some himself already.

  The man did not disclose what he drank. He carefully looked the Efficiency over, and then he looked Porter over. ‘Maybe you have something to show me?’ he said.

  Porter reached for his jacket, and took the headed letter out. It introduced James B. Peterson of New Age Technology, Vancouver to Makosha Microchip KK of Tokyo.

  The man carefully examined the letter. ‘Some other details? Some details you have to say yourself to Makosha?’

  ‘Oh, well, shit … ’ Porter said, but he gave the details.

  ‘Hey,’ the man said. He seemed nonplussed. ‘We were waiting with a car at the airport. What are you doing here?’

  ‘I thought I�
�d come here,’ Porter said.

  ‘This isn’t good. We don’t make changes.’

  ‘I’ll remember,’ Porter said, and gave him his drink. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Just Yoshi. On the phone also you just say Yoshi. You don’t say all the things you said.’

  ‘Okay,’ Porter said. ‘What have you brought me?’

  Yoshi was looking round the room. ‘You can’t stay here,’ he said. ‘There’s a place waiting for you. You have to wait in that place. I’ve brought the material but I can’t leave it.’

  ‘Just show me what you’ve got,’ Porter said.

  Yoshi opened his briefcase and took out a passport and a seaman’s pay book. Both were South Korean and in the name of a Sung Won Choo. Porter had a look at them. They were well-thumbed and greasy. His photograph was slightly different in each but the same bug-eyed seaman stared out, bushy-moustached. His pigtail was over his shoulder in one and up in a bun on the other.

  ‘And the ship blueprints,’ he said.

  Yoshi took a transistor radio out of his case and turned it on. ‘You don’t need them,’ he said, over the row. ‘There’s better material. It’s waiting for you. In the place where you have to be.’

  ‘Where’s the ship?’

  ‘At Nagasaki. It’s still in dry dock.’

  ‘What’s the sailing date?’

  ‘The thirty-first. You’ll learn all this.’

  ‘That gives me only two days in between.’

  ‘It’s a week before you’re needed. You’ll be briefed on it. We have to keep to plans.’

  ‘Okay,’ Porter said. He took a cigarette, and offered Yoshi his pack.

  ‘I shouldn’t, it’s not healthy,’ Yoshi said. But he accepted a cigarette, and blew out a stream of smoke.

  ‘What’s the stop-off schedule?’ Porter asked.

  ‘You do not need this,’ Yoshi said, mouthing above the din. ‘Not here. It’s not finalised, anyway.’

  ‘What have you got?’

  Yoshi put down his cigarette and took out a map. A sheet of scrawled Japanese was attached to it. He opened the map out on his knee.

  ‘The west coast – you know it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No, it isn’t used much by international lines. This is a cheap line. It does cheap business. Here, Nagasaki.’ Yoshi put a finger on it. ‘And here, Niigata – the first stop, about seven hundred miles up. In Niigata it discharges and loads.’