The Blind Run

by Brian Freemantle

  Moscow was to have been Cecil Wainwright’s swansong as an intelligence officer, the concluding grading guaranteeing him an index linked pension of £15,000 a year upon which he had decided he could live comfortably in the already purchased and paid for bungalow on the outskirts of Bognor, the dark-room already installed and equipped for the hobby of photography that he intended to pursue. Wainwright was a sparse-haired, precise man whose delight in detail made him an efficient fact gatherer and extended to always sharpened pencils and always filled fountain pens to record those details. He had begun in army intelligence in Germany, which meant he saw the bestiality of Bergen, Belsen and Dachau and learned through the interviews with the maimed and crippled survivors in preparation for the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal of the torture ability of the Gestapo.

  Wainwright was a brave man because he was a coward and tried not to be. He had been terrified by what he saw and heard in Germany and terrified further by the accounts that had leaked from Russia – long before his posting there – of precisely the same things happening under Stalin and his successors: terrified because Wainwright knew there was no way – if ever he had to confront it – that he could withstand torture. Fully aware of the fear – which he saw as cowardice – he had always rejected any idea of transferring from the service to a branch where the demand for him to find out – and worse, show – just how scared he was might never arise.

  He had lived for three years in Moscow, had six months to go before the Bognor retirement and had, as the days and weeks been ticked off from the carefully consulted calendar, begun to convince himself that it was a personal test he was never going to have to confront or an admission never to be known by anyone.

  He actually squealed, in fright, when the car pulled up alongside him on the north side of the museum and he realised, in the initial seconds of being manhandled into the back and surrounded by a grappling mob of men, that he hadn’t got away with it and that it had happened – the biggest terror – after all.

  He recognised Lefortovo, as they swept through the gates, and Wainwright had to sit tight-buttocked and with his legs pressed together against any immediate, personally embarrassing collapse. He knew he’d mess himself – always known it – when the pain started, the agony that would make him scream and weep – but he determined to hold out as long as possible, just like he’d refused to give in all these years.

  There is a procedure about interrogation – a method of obtaining the most, quickest – and it begins by letting the victim’s own fear work against him. Wainwright’s high-voiced demands for an explanation or for access to the British embassy were ignored. He was put into a windowless room, a tiny metal-shuttered grill set into the steel door, without lavatory facilities and with only a box-like table and two chairs beneath a harsh, ceiling-mounted light. Wainwright’s hopeless abandonment was accentuated by the reflection of his loneliness in a large mirror set into the wall facing the door, in which he was reflected from whatever part of the room he attempted to occupy, and unseen behind which, because it was a two-way mirror, Kalenin and Berenkov sat waiting for the interrogation to begin.

  They watched Wainwright sit, stand, sit, then stand again, come directly up to the mirror and stare into it, as if he suspected its proper function and instead closely study his own face, for indications of strain. He walked tight-legged, the discomfort obvious and twice actually felt down vaguely in the direction of his bladder, as if to hold himself would suppress the need. Once, with the apparent need to reassure himself, he went intimately through everything in his pockets, examining things of which he should have already been familiar, carefully returning each item to the pocket from which he took it in the first place. He sat, stood, then sat again. The need to urinate appeared to become increasingly more urgent.

  ‘I almost peed myself,’ remembered Berenkov. ‘Funny reaction. Nearly always happens.’

  ‘Did you?’ asked Kalenin.

  ‘Managed to stop it happening.’

  ‘Don’t think he’ll be able to,’ judged Kalenin. ‘This shouldn’t be too protracted.’

  ‘I’m surprised the British left him on station,’ said Berenkov.

  ‘Who knows how anyone will react, until the arrest actually happens?’

  ‘It’s time we had some luck,’ said Berenkov.

  ‘Sampson did well,’ said Kalenin, in reminder.

  ‘I was wrong,’ repeated Berenkov. ‘It was right to use him: I shouldn’t have argued against it, from the beginning.’

  The interrogation continued its defined course. The interrogator, whose name was Koblov although Wainwright was never to know it, burst suddenly into the room, an impatient man in a hurry, walking by the British diplomat without bothering to look closely at him, just nodding curtly and saying ‘Sit down.’

  Wainwright made a valiant effort. He straightened, striving for the stance of outraged importance, and said, ‘My name is Cecil Wainwright. I am accredited to your Government as the first secretary to the embassy of Her Britannic Majesty, Queen Elizabeth. I am covered by full protocol of the Vienna Convention. I demand a full explanation of your conduct and access immediately to the British embassy.’

  ‘Sit down,’ repeated Koblov.

  ‘I said I demand an explanation,’ said Wainwright, still upright.

  ‘Sit down!’ shouted Koblov.

  Wainwright did.

  From a brief-case Koblov extracted a purposely thickened file, moving to another stage of questioning, the impression of knowing everything, so that the questioning becomes only a formality, the need for confirmation. Without bothering to look up, he dictated. ‘Your name is Cecil Roy Wainwright. Your accredited position as first secretary is, in fact, a cover for your true function as an agent, actively working against the free interests of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. You are, in fact, the resident for MI-6. Throughout your period in Moscow you have carried out your function as a spy …’ The Russian turned the page, the attitude still one of impatience. He picked up the fifteen messages listed against Wainwright’s name, which had been typed out, in English, in their entirety, including the decipherment of both the mathematician cryptologists and Sampson. Koblov offered Wainwright the first and said, ‘This was transmitted from the British embassy on May 6th. It is classified, restricted information concerning the governing Politburo of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics …’ Koblov dealt the second message. ‘This was transmitted on May 18th, further information about the composition and attitudes of the Soviet Government, concerning the attitude of the Soviet Government towards NATO aggression in Europe …’ Koblov maintained the attack and the delivery, a dealer holding all the marked cards, taking Wainwright in chronological progression through the messages he had transmitted.

  The British diplomat sat rigid, practically to attention, legs tightly closed again. From where Kalenin and Berenkov sat they could see the perspiration picked out in tiny bubbles on Wainwright’s forehead and upper lip. As they watched a tiny drop broke away, meandering a rivulet down the side of the man’s face and creating a delta on his chin. Hurriedly, as if he thought the interrogator might not see, Wainwright scrubbed his hand over his face.

  ‘There won’t need to be any physical pressure,’ said Berenkov.

  ‘That might have been difficult anyway,’ said Kalenin. ‘We’ll have to let him go.’

  ‘When?

  ‘Only when I’m completely satisfied,’ insisted Kalenin, determined. ‘I don’t give a damn about the Vienna Convention or any other convention. I’ve got a leak that’s got to be plugged.’

  Would Kalenin have officially informed the Politburo? Since Krushchev they had maintained overall control, after all. Despite their friendship, Berenkov decided he could not openly ask Kalenin. Knowing as little as Kalenin did about how to stop it, Berenkov didn’t think he would, if he had been in Kalenin’s position. He didn’t envy his friend.

  On the other side of the screen, Koblov completed the recital. Wainwright had watched, bl
inking increasingly, as one piece of evidence was piled on the other, finally creating a stack in front of him but making no effort to accept the Russian’s invitation, personally to look at them. Koblov waited and when Wainwright still made no move he reached forward, retrieving them and tapped them back into a neater arrangement and returned them to the file. ‘Well?’ Koblov demanded.

  ‘As an accredited diplomat to your country I demand access to my embassy,’ insisted Wainwright. His voice was weak and wavering.

  Koblov leaned forward, across the small table. ‘You’re not a diplomat,’ he said. ‘You are a spy and you will be treated as one. You will make a full admission and answer all my questions.’

  ‘I will not,’ fought Wainwright, desperately. ‘I deny every accusation and demand to be released.’

  ‘Fool!’ shouted Koblov, in sudden anger, so unexpectedly that Wainwright visibly jumped. ‘I wanted to help!’ Koblov stood, just as abruptly, gathered up his file and strode from the room as quickly as he had entered, slamming the door behind him and leaving Wainwright alone once more.

  For several moments the Briton did not move, remaining just as stiffly on the chair. Then he sagged, as if unseen support holding him in shape had suddenly been taken away. His teeth worried his bottom lip and from behind the mirror Berenkov and Kalenin heard the first whimper of despair. Wainwright stood, looking to the door through which Koblov had left and then, the increasing feeling of helplessness obvious, around the bare room. Wainwright started at the scream – as he was meant to – as if an electrical current had suddenly been charged through his body. It was a recording but there was no way of his knowing that: an actual recording, however, of physical torture, mind-destroyed, animal sounds of a human being from whom everything had been racked, sanity, shape, dignity, and almost existence. The sound of agony continued, unintelligible gibberish, and there were other sounds, muttering of men more controlled and scraping and dragging which grew and then diminished, conveying the audible impression that the victim had actually been hauled directly outside Wainwright’s cell.

  Wainwright’s bladder went. A deepening, dark stain began to grow and he looked down at himself and the watching Russians heard him say ‘Oh no …’ Almost at once, in private conversation with himself, Wainwright said, ‘Knew it would happen: always knew it would happen.’ He slumped back in the chair again, legs apart now for a different sort of comfort.

  The torture recording had been made under psychological supervision. The sounds didn’t end, at once. They seemed to come from a distance, fresh sounds of agony and then gradually subsiding groaning, the screams becoming sobs, then discernible, helpless crying.

  Wainwright sat comparatively upright but with his head lolled forward, as if he were examining the wetness of his lap, hands together in a loose praying gesture. Despite the sensitivity of the listening devices, Wainwright’s words were at first difficult for Kalenin or Berenkov to hear. They strained and at last identified it, a mantra to which he was still trying to cling.

  ‘… accredited as the first secretary to the embassy of Her Britannic Majesty, Queen Elizabeth … protected by Vienna Convention … accredited as the first secretary to the embassy of Her Britannic Majesty, Queen Elizabeth …’

  Kalenin jabbed at the console in front of him, depressing the button that would send Koblov back into the room. The Russian’s entry was different this time – a continuation of technique – no longer curtly abrupt but less hurried, more sympathetic.

  ‘They’ll be here soon,’ he said, soft-voiced also. ‘Maybe fifteen minutes. I’m sorry. It’s not my way.’

  ‘No!’ said Wainwright, pleading.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ repeated Koblov. ‘I don’t decide.’

  ‘Please no.’

  ‘They’re impatient.’

  ‘Let me tell you: let me tell you now.’

  Because the room was completely wired, they were ready outside. The sound at the door was not a knock but the flat-handed thump of a familiar workman demanding access to a repetitive job. Wainwright cringed from the sound. There was fresh wetness and he reached out to Koblov and said again ‘Please no. Please!’

  Koblov appeared to consider the plea and then shouted, in Russian. ‘Wait! In a moment.’ The response from outside was gutteral, a muttered protest of impatience and Koblov shouted, ‘I said wait. Give me a moment.’ He actually smiled at Wainwright and said, ‘You’ll have to hurry.’

  ‘What?’ said Wainwright, emptily. ‘Tell me what you want.’

  ‘Everything,’ urged Koblov. ‘Tell me everything, from the very beginning.’

  Wainwright did. He started at the moment of contact, when he received the note in the pocket of a coat he retrieved from the cloakroom at the Bolshoi and of the information that accompanied it, alerting them to level of intelligence available. And then of the subsequent drops, every item as startling and as important as that which preceded it. Wainwright recounted London’s excited, anxious response and the establishment of the special code and the decision, after he had made fifteen pick-ups, to transfer the control to another of their station men, Brian Richardson, because London was determined against losing the source by detection.

  ‘That’s when I stopped being control,’ said Wainwright. ‘Two and a half months ago.’

  Koblov didn’t hurry or depart from the procedure, despite the need for urgency, of which he was well aware. He took Wainright back to the beginning again, the Bolshoi itself, and filled in the gaps that Wainwright had hurried by, in his anxiety, establishing that the drops were always dictated to and never by Wainwright. He took the slips from the file again and went through them, one by one, formally establishing each in their order of transmission and at last approached the essential of the arrest and the interrogation, the identity of the source. Koblov even did that circumlocutiously.

  ‘What was the code cover: the name by which he was known?’

  ‘Rose,’ said Wainwright and behind the mirror Berenkov smiled wryly and shook his head.

  ‘Always Rose? The code never altered?’

  ‘It may have done, when Richardson took over. I would have expected it to be changed, with a new control. That is the procedure.’

  ‘What’s the real name?’ Koblov asked the vital question quietly, dismissively almost, continuing the impression that all he was doing anyway was confirming what they already knew.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Wainwright, at once.

  Beside him Berenkov felt Kalenin stiffen.

  Koblov, the professional questioner, showed no reaction. ‘The person who made contact at the Bolshoi. And then on the other fourteen occasions,’ he elaborated, as if he imagined Wainwright had misunderstood the initial question. ‘Who was he? What was his name?’

  Wainwright looked back curiously at the Russian. ‘But I thought I made that clear,’ he said. ‘There was never a meeting; an open contact. It was a blind approach at the Bolshoi and that was the way it continued. When we picked up from each drop there would be the next one specified. He – if it is a he – was only ever Rose.’

  ‘We were wrong to pick him up,’ said Kalenin, distantly. ‘We knew the other man had already gone; we should have let Wainwright run.’

  In the interview room, Koblov was continuing smoothly on, his outward demeanour giving no indication of his inward frustration: he was aware of being literally under the eyes of the chairman himself and wanted the interrogation to be a triumph. ‘After you ceased being control, Richardson took over?’

  ‘Yes,’ reiterated Wainwright.

  ‘But you’re station chief: the resident?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you were in charge of Richardson?’

  Wainwright shook his head. ‘I told you that, too,’ he said. ‘When London realised what it had they suspended some of the normal procedures. Richardson worked entirely independently: taking over the cipher codes. The Rose operation itself. I was actually told not to become involved, so that I wouldn’t know.’

&nb
sp; ‘You must have talked,’ persisted Koblov, still gentle. ‘It had been your operation, to begin with. And it was a spectacular one, according to London’s reaction. You must have talked about it to Richardson.’

  Wainwright smiled, an unusual expression for the man. ‘Not about the subsequent information. I was banned from that. And there wasn’t anything to talk about anyway. They continued to be blind contacts.’

  ‘So you discussed the identity!’ seized Koblov.

  ‘I asked him if he’d met Rose,’ qualified Wainwright. ‘I’ve never known an operation like this before; neither had Richardson.’

  ‘And?’ prompted Koblov.

  ‘Richardson said it was the same for him as it had been for me: he’d never met Rose.’

  ‘Did you believe him?’

  Wainwright hesitated. ‘I had no reason not to.’

  ‘But you’d been moved from control,’ reminded Koblov. ‘Distanced from what was happening. Richardson would have lied to you, wouldn’t he, if he’d been told to?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ agreed Wainwright at once. ‘But I didn’t get the impression that he was. I think I would have known.’