At Close Quarters

by Gerald Seymour

  For young Holt the first week flew. He would have sworn he had learned more from life in the capital of the Soviet Union in that one week than he had gathered togetherin two years shuttling paper, and calling it analysis, on the Soviet Desk at FCO.

  He went with the ambassador to the Foreign Ministry and was present at a preliminary planning meeting with the Secretariat of the Deputy Foreign Minister for the arrival in Moscow the following month of the Inter-Parliamentary Union from London. He attended a reception thrown by the Foreign Trade crowd for a Scots firm working on the natural gas pipeline across Siberia. He explored the Metro. He was taken out to dinner with Jane, by the Second Secretary Commercial andhis wife. He was invited to supper, with Jane, by the first Secretary Political and his wife. He went to the disco, with Jane, at the British Club. He drove out of the city, with Jane, in the British Leyland Maestro that he had been allocated, to the embassy's dacha for aweekend picnic with her boss, the military attache, and his wife. That he was determined to be circumspect, and that Jane had the curse, were the only drawbacks.

  At the end of that first week he had the programme for Yalta beaten, also the draft of the programme for thel Members of Parliament when they flew out, and he had persuaded Miss Davenport to restrict his coffee ration to two per day, and he had seen the wisdom of the ambassador.

  Because of his girl, he was the centre of attraction in the confined oasis that was the embassy community. Of n u r s e he didn't touch her, not in public, not where anyone could see. But they were light in the darkness.

  Their laughter and their fun and their togetherness were a lift to the embassy personnel who had endured the short day, long night misery of the Moscow winter.

  At his morning meeting with the ambassador, Holt presented the programme for Yalta.

  " There's one problem. Lady Armitage isn't back so her aircraft seats are extra; should we cancel them?"

  "Wouldn't have thought so."

  "Whom would you like to take, Ambassador?"

  "I'd like to have a hostess for our receptions, and I would like to take the most competent Russian linguist on my staff. To you she may, among other things, just be personal assistant to the military attache, to me she is a very highly regarded member of the t e a m . . . "

  "Jane?" A flood of pleasure.

  The ambassador's voice dropped, "Miss Davenport has hearing that puts to shame the most sophisticated state security audio systems . . . I fancy that a few days out of the clutches of our colleagues' wives would not distress you."

  "That's very good of you."

  "She's coming to work, and don't forget to make double sure that you've booked an extra single room for every hotel we're staying in."

  "Will be done."

  "Holt, it's a good programme, well presented. I learn more about the life blood of the Soviet Union from these visits than from anything else I do. And, most important, we are on show. We are the representatives of our country. You'll give Miss Canning my respects and request her to accompany us, having first checked with the military attache that he can spare her. You will fix the hotel accommodation, you will sort out the necessary travel permission for her from the Foreign Ministry . . . Get on with it, Holt."

  "Darling, nothing's what it seems . . . Ben's not an agony a u n t . . . "

  "He talked about us getting out of the clutches of the embassy wives."

  They were in the bar of the British Club, not up on the stools where the noise was, where the newspaper men and his buisness community gathered, but against the far wall.She was on her second campari and soda, and there was a strain about her that was new to him.

  He drank only tonic water with ice and lemon because besides cutting out cigarettes he had forsworn alcohol from Monday to Friday and he was suffering.

  ''Don't be silly, Holt, don't think he's taking me to Yaltajust so that we can have a cuddle in the corner without anyone knowing."

  ''Why is he taking you, then?"

  ''Put your thinking cap on, Holt. I'm a hell of a good linguist. At East European and Slavonic I actually had abetter mark in the oral than you did. Had you forgotten that? I 'm in Moscow. I'm personal assistant to the brigadier who is the military attache. An excuse has been found to take me down to the Crimea."

  He stared at her. She was taller than he was. She had fair hair to her shoulders. She had gun-metal grey eyes that he worshipped. She wore a powder blue blouse and a severe navy blue suit.

  ''Asi said, Ben's not thinking of you and me, Ben's thinking of the job."

  "And at Sevastopol there i s . . . "

  ''I don't want to talk about Sevastopol, nor do I want to talk about what's at Simferopol - I want to have a drink at the end of a vile day."

  He was bemused. "I honestly didn't know that that was your line."

  "When do you tell a bloke? First date? First time in bed? First night after you're married? Bit late then, Leave it... Raise your glass to Ben - curse is over tomorrow, poor darling..."

  His elbows were on the table, his chin rested on his knuckles. He didn't know whether to be shocked or proud. He'd always thought of Jane as a souped-up secretary, and now he had lit upon the truth that there wasenough toher line for her to be required in the Crimea. Bloody hell. She was probably on a higher grade than he was.

  "To Ben," she said. Holt raised his glass, clinked hers. "To adjoining rooms in Yalta." Under the table she squeezed his knee.

  "Why do you call the ambassador Ben?"

  Her voice sunk, and he had to crane to listen, and from the bar it would have seemed like sweet nothings from the love birds.

  "Remember the guy who tried to plummet the El Al, spring of '86? He was organised by Syrian Air Force Intelligence. Name of Nezar Hindawi. Nasty man, put his lady on a plane with three pounds of Czech-made explosive in the bottom of her hand baggage, timed to detonate over Austria. The Syrians didn't just burn their fingers, they were scorched right up to their armpits. Shouted like hell, but they were caught still smoking when Hindawi rattled off his confession. So we broke off diplomatic relations, big deal, told the Syrians that if they didn't behave like gentlemen then they were going to get booted out of the club. They were pretty upset, big loss of face, and they started doing their damnedest to get our ambassador back. They made their first overtures right here at a reception in the Kremlin. One of their diplomats sidled up to Sylvester and gave him the glad news that the El Al had all been a dreadful mistake, the wild fantasies of a couple of bottle washers, that Syria was dead against terrorism.

  What their little man didn't know was that Sylvester's beloved daughter was booked on that very same flight.

  He's got a big voice, right? Well, half the Kremlin heard him dismiss these fervent Syrian protestations of innocence with repeated and thunder-clap replies of

  'Bloody Nonsense'. You'd have thought he was a Guards sergeant at drill. Stopped the show, he did, they heard him all over the room. 'Bloody Nonsense . . .

  Bloody Nonsense Then your instructions are Bloody Nonsense', Just like that."

  ''Spirited stuff.''

  ''Everyone heard him. First world chaps and Second, and Third world, they all heard him. Within days he wasknown all over the place as Bloody Nonsense Armitage. It came down to B. N. Armitage, and from that to Ben. In this little-minded town he's Ben, half the time to his face,.''

  ''So our man in Moscow won't be taking his summer holidays in Damascus."

  ''You're very clever tonight, my darling."

  ''I wish I'd known how clever you were," Holt said.

  ''Cleverer even than you think. Clever enough to get Rose and Penny tickets for the ballet tomorrow. Will you by any chance be free for dinner?"

  He would like to have kissed her, but circumspection ruled and he simply smiled and gazed at her lovely grey and laughing eyes, and their wretched bloody secrets.

  ''So you're young Holt. I was going to look you up, but you've beaten me to it. What can I do for you?"

  It was his first visit to the secure s
ection of the embassy. Next to the diplomatic section the largest in the building was that of the security officers. The former policeman and army officers were a group apart, he had already recognised that. They had staked out their own corner in the British Club, and they had the ingrained habit of closing down their conversations when anyone came within earshot.

  Jane had pointed that out to him and said they were probably talking about the price their wives had paid for potatoes on the market stalls, or why the Whitbread draught had gone cloudy, but they still went silent.

  The security officer's face was florid, a jungle of blood vessels, and his head was lowered as he sat at his desk so that he could see over tiny half-moon spectacles. He wore a thick wool shirt, loud checks, with twisted collars, and a tie that was stained between the shield motifs. Holt took him for a regular army half colonel on secondment to the security services in London, and on double secondment to FCO.

  "I was letting you settle in for a bit. So much to learn, eh? I find if I rush in with the heavy security lecture the new chaps tend to get a bit frightened, best wait, eh? Sit down."

  They were in the heart of the building. Holt thought that further down the basement corridor would be the Safe Room. He had heard about the Safe Room in London, the underground steel walled room where the most sensitive conversations could be conducted without fear of electronic eavesdropping. He was disappointed that he had not yet been invited to attend a meeting in the Safe Room.

  "My wife was saying only last night that you must come round to supper, you and Miss Canning - super girl, that. My wife'll be in touch with Miss Canning, that's the way things get done here."

  Holt reckoned that he had spotted the security officer, allocated him his responsibility, by the second day he had been in Moscow. It was his little game, but he was still searching through the faces for the top spook, the guy from the Secret Intelligence Service who was Jane's real boss - might be the one in Trade with the Titian beard who looked like a naval officer, could be the one in Consular who always kissed Miss Davenport's hand when he came to see the ambassador.

  "I'm a busy man, youngster, so what's troubling you?"

  ''No crisis"

  ''Bea bit soon for a crisis."

  ''It'sonly that I'm going with the ambassador and Miss Canning to the Crimea on Saturday, and I wondered if there was anything I should know."

  ''About what?"

  ''Well about security, that sort of t h i n g . . . " He felt absurdly pompous. He should have stayed at his desk, The security officer looked sternly at him. "Just the obvious, What you'd naturally assume. You don't discuss anything of a confidential nature in your hotels, nor in any vehicle. You don't accept invitations late at night to a Soviet household - what they'd have told you in London. Your rooms might be bugged. There will probably be a KGB operative with you as chauffeur or interpreter, a natural assumption. But His Excellency and Miss Canning know the form. Should be rather a nice trip Good idea of H.E. to take in the battlefield, wish I was with him, if you could walk down that field with a metal detector, God, you'd make a fortune..."

  ''There's nothing else I should know?"

  ''Like what?''

  ''Well, I just wondered..." Holt stopped, making a fool of himself.

  ''Ah, , I get you." The security officer beamed, all avincular. "You wondered about security, your own security, eh?"

  ''Just that."

  ''This is not Beirut, young man. H.E. does not have minders in Russia. This is a very peaceable country.

  Hurts me to say it, but H.E. can walk the streets of any city in the Soviet Union, any time of day or night, and have less prospect of getting mugged, assaulted,stuck up than in a good many cities at home. This isa highly policed country. The moscow posting iscategorised as Low Risk. I'm not a bodyguard, the personal security

  of the staff here is about bottom of my agenda, and that's the same with every western embassy in town My job, young Holt, is to protect the confidentiality of this establishment, to block KGB attempts to compromise and recruit our staff, and that takes the bulk of my time. Right?"

  "That's all I wanted to know."

  "Good - well, as I say, my wife will be in touch with Miss Canning."

  "You're very kind."

  Holt left. He dreaded being summoned for the full security briefing. He thought it would be as hideous as the promise of dinner with the man and his woman.

  "A penny for them, lover."

  She lay on her side, and her clothes were on the floor and the street lights gleamed through the thin curtain, and her fingers played with the hairs on Holt's chest.

  What to tell her? To tell her that he had been rotten in bed, again, because he couldn't get it out of his reinforced concrete skull that this lovely girl of his worked with the embassy spook? To tell her that hi thought spooking was a shoddy, grubby way of life? To tell her that he had thought Bloody Nonsense Armitage was doing them a favour, when in reality he had con trived an opportunity for a well-qualified operative to run a trained eye over the port facilities of the Soviet Navy at Sevastopol, and over the cap badge insignia of the troops in the garrison town of Simferopol?

  He turned to face his Jane. He took his stranger in his arms. Over her shoulder he could see the travellinj clock - and no bloody time, because in half an hour the other girls would be back from the Bolshoi. No time to tell her. Body to body, and his head was buried in the softness of her breasts, and he ached with his love for her. He could think it out, he could work it through but it would take him an age. He had thought he knew everything about her, every mark of her mind and her body, and he knew nothing. What he thought he owned was not his. Clinging to her, holding her for the comfort.

  He fell away. Her head and the silk of her hair were on his arm.

  "Just a bit tired, that's a l l . . . "

  She kissed him, wet and sweet and belonging.

  "Stay safe, darling."

  "What else?" She laughed at him, head back, hair falling.

  3

  By rights they should have travelled in the embassy Range Rover out to Vnukovo airport from which the internal Aeroflot flights left. The Range Rover was supposed to be used for all the ambassador's journeys that were not official. But Holt had decided they would go in style, and so Valeri had been roused early, and the Silver Cloud Rolls Royce was at its polished best.

  The ambassador and Jane sat far back in the rear seat upholstery, while Holt shared the front with Valeri.

  Holt reckoned that the chauffeur was about his own age, He had expected an old retainer, had not anticipated that His Excellency's driver would be a smartly turned out young man with the sort of hair cut that any limousine man in Mayfair would boast. It was still dark when they pulled away from the embassy courtyard onto the riverside across from the Kremlin. There was no traffic. He had learned that at the best of times cars were in high demand and short supply, even at rush hour the streets were good for a pretty fast run, but at this time they were empty. The pavements showed life.

  The dribble of a night shift heading for the Metro tunnels, and street cleaners and the office advance guard appearing at street level, making darting runs across the wide streets.

  He had barely spoken to Jane when they had met while they waited for the ambassador. Mercifully the man had been punctual, striding down the steps from the main door with that unnecessary glance at his watch to demonstrate that he was on time. He hadn't knowr how to communicate or what to say. So there was a problem, last night's problem, and he didn't want to talk about it, not in whispers.

  He had known Jane for two weeks under three years.

  Met at the School. Met in the way that most young men meet the girl who will one day become their wife - one seat free at a canteen table, and a curled gammon steak that needed disguising, and a request for the tomato ketchup, please. Two young people, both older than the average students around them, the one shuffling the tomato ketchup and the other pushing the salt and pepper. What a meeting - the young ma
n thinking that the girl was quite beautiful, and the young girl thinking that he looked interesting. The young man able to say, quietly and without conceit, that he had done well in the Civil Service entrance examinations, and then well in the Diplomatic Corps entrance aptitude tests. She had said, looking straight at him, that she was just a secretary in Whitehall, nothing specific, and that she was damn lucky to have been plucked out of the pool and given the opportunity to learn Russian. More time together, and he'd thought she was struggling sometimes in the tutorials, and the relationship started when he made a habit of calling round at her Earls Court bed-sit to give her a hand with the essay that was the fortnightly chore. Fingers touching, mouths meeting, the unhurried building of something lovely. Weeks and months of learning to share lives, work and fun. A young until who was determined to be something special at his chosen career, and a young girl who was just a secretary in Whitehall. Right, no messing, he'd been pretty shattered by the marks she had won at the end of the course -

  not quite at his overall level, though pretty close - but young Holt had never questioned how it was that a girl who was just a secretary won marks that were pretty damned close to his own...

  "How do you like Moscow, Mr Holt?"

  "Very well indeed, thank you, Valeri."

  His thoughts drifted away from Jane, away from him being hopeless in bed with her, away from the deception. His thoughts were on the ambassador's driver. Be a chosen man, wouldn't he? Not chosen by the British, chosen by the Organ of State Security. Nice looking fellow, but he'd large ears, and they'd be well rinsed.

  They would hear everything said in the car. Holt wondered how it was done. Did the men from KGB call by on a Friday evening after Valeri's shift finished for a quick resume on what he'd learned that week while piloting the Rolls? Did he write out a little report every Saturday morning before he took his small kids to dancing class or the ice rink? He was far gone, concerned now with whether Valeri had a large wife, or an extra large wife, whether he was on Lady Armitage's list for tights with gusset.