Northlight q-11

by Adam Hall

  'Not really, but I'll get some if you like.'

  'If I blow him, he'll only bring other people in. That's all right at the moment but when Karasov makes contact I'll want to be free to move.'

  A long pause. There was a very faint voice on the line and it occurred to me that he was blocking the mouthpiece and talking to someone else; but it sounded like Russian. I couldn't be sure.

  'Fane?'

  'I was thinking.'

  'All right.'

  'Is he worrying you?'

  'He'd worry me less if he stopped searching my room.'

  'You think it was him?'

  'If it wasn't Galina.'

  A heavy man came through the doors and banged the snow off his boots.

  'See what you can find out,' Fane said, 'and let me know.'

  'I can't find much out unless I blow him.'

  While Fane was thinking again the heavy man came over and stood stolidly in front of me, flipping a two-kopeck coin. This was the only telephone in the place.

  'Don't blow him,' Fane said. 'That would complicate things, as you say. Just see what he does.'

  'All right.'

  I rang off and went to the doors and out into the yellow twilight and the scent of wood smoke. Fane had sounded so very certain that the KGB hadn't caught my vibrations, and this tied in with the denial they'd made at their headquarters; but Fane could be wrong and they could be lying. I didn't feel comfortable yet: there were too many things going wrong with this mission and I couldn't trust anyone. Or maybe it was the strange light here: at noon it was either dark with snow clouds or shimmering with the first ripples of the aurora flowing from the northern ice cap. Nothing seemed acceptable; everything seemed suspect in some way.

  I don't like the cold. I felt cold now, under the thick fleece-lined coat and the astrakhan hat. I was shivering with it.

  He wasn't where I'd left him. He was in a doorway of the next block, barely an outline in the shadows, and I took the same route back to the hotel, never looking behind me but sighting him twice in reflections as. we passed windows, climbing snow drifts and crunching through scabs of ice along the gutters while a snow plough followed us, lumbering down the middle of the deserted road and sending up clouds of diesel gas. The staff at the hotel were complaining bitterly about the traffic conditions, and the city's sanitation commissioner was being criticized in the local paper for not doing his job. Before we reached the hotel I saw a whole party of skiers gliding down the street, overtaking a tractor hauling a bus out of a drift.

  I stopped once or twice to watch, and again saw Rinker's silhouette in the window of a workers' outfitting shop before I went on. He held back at the last corner and I quickened my pace through the lobby and got to the first floor balcony in time to see him come in through the doors.

  This is a time for understanding.

  You many wonder why we appear so truculent, and so suspicious, and so seemingly unready to sit at a conference table with the peoples of the West. It is perhaps because our Motherland has seen so much suffering at the hands of the peoples of the West, by France, when only our will to resist and wear down the forces of Napoleon saved us from defeat, and by Germany, when that same will, together with our own greater force of arms, turned back the forces of Hitler. But the cost was high. We lost twenty million of our young sons in the Second World War alone.

  We ask you, today, to think of that.

  It had been slipped under my door.

  We ask you to try to understand why we appear so 'paranoiac', as you call us. Perhaps we are, especially to the people of the United States, who have never known the setting foot of one single enemy on their shores, who have never known the meaning of rape, massacre and the burning down of whole cities across their sacred land, as we have.

  The follies and mistakes recorded in the history of the American nation are often said to be due — and in all truth are due — to the fact that it is a 'young' nation, and this we understand. But we would like it also to be understood that our Soviet nation too is young, in terms of the yean since the yoke of Csarist oppression and injustice was thrown aside. In those brief years we too have made great progress, from the inception of a just, orderly and fulfilled society to the placing of the first human being into space.

  It was on white paper with a red border and a small hammer and sickle in the corner, nothing else. It wasn't one of those quaint, pidgin-English pamphlets that get Xeroxed for discreet circulation at embassy cocktail parties to get a cheap laugh.

  We understand that since Mr Carter relinquished the presidency of the United States it has been felt necessary to increase the production of armaments and bring America to equality with the Soviet Union in military strength. But we do not understand why President Reagan continues to vilify our nation and its leaders by verbal abuse. We would ask that we are accepted as a strong, young and successful society emerging from the shadows of oppression into the light of a common understanding with the rest of the world — if the rest of the world is ready to hear our voice. Only if we are seen as a fellow nation, with worth to offer the world, with goods to trade, with ideas to exchange and with the future to share on an equal footing, can it also be seen that we are ready, yes and again yes, to go to the conference tables and join with others in drawing the world back from the abyss of war and mutual annihilation that lies in our path.

  There are follies and mistakes, too, in our own short history as an emerging nation, but we ask that they be seen as such, and not as 'evil' and aggressiveness. It is simply that we are fearful, as America is fearful, of war and rumours of war. Today we stand equal in terms of military strength, as powerful enemies. We are prepared, if others are prepared, to ensure that tomorrow we stand as powerful neighbours, and later, even, as powerful friends.

  Meanwhile we say to you these words that you do not believe we mean, but which we mean in all truth and from the bottom of our hearts.

  Peace be with you.

  'Bullshit?'

  Liz Benedixsen dug for another meatball with her fork.

  'They don't think so.'

  'The Soviets don't think so?'

  She had drawn her chestnut hair back and fixed it with a ribbon, and it left her face unframed, stark in the cold light, her cheekbones casting shadows. It didn't give her the mien of a sculpting; she looked somehow more alive, more defined.

  'I don't think we're talking about the Soviets,' I told her. 'They didn't write this stuff.'

  'Who did?'

  'Some kind of human activist group.'

  'You mean underground?'

  'Yes. They'd get arrested for pushing pacifism under people's doors.'

  He was sitting at the other side of the room: he'd come in soon after I had. Liz had already been here and had invited me to join her. The curfew hour was for nine o'clock, in fifty minutes from now. Before then, I was going to take a trudge through the snow, and if he followed, lose him, and then see what he'd do, where he'd go.

  'But it doesn't sound-' she waved her fork in the air — 'subversive. Wouldn't the Russian people agree with the main content? Peace?'

  If he came back to the hotel I'd leave it at that. But if he went to telephone someone and report losing me, then I'd at least know they had a net to throw over me.

  'Certainly the Russian people would agree with it. But they can't tell their government to lay down their arms, any more than the Americans can.'

  'I suppose I'm just a crummy idealist.'

  'Don't lose it. It's our only hope.'

  I felt her eyes on me for a while. 'What else do you do, Clive, apart from journalism?'

  'Eat and sleep.'

  'You don't look like a journalist. You look like an actor. You know, the face crumpled in a good cause, the eyes experienced. You're quite attractive to women, did you know that?'

  'It takes all sorts.'

  'And there's this look of-' she waved her fork again, and dropped a blob of beef onto the cloth. 'Shit.' She speared it impatiently. 'A look o
f privacy. Guardedness. You look like a man with past tragedies under the skin, and scars that won't ever quite heal.'

  'That really is the most appalling journalism.'

  'And you're a creep.'

  I would need to leave here in fifteen minutes, to do what I wanted to do and beat the curfew. Most of all I wanted to come back to the hotel before he did and see if he were worried enough about losing me to stay out after nine o'clock to make his report. And then I wanted to see how the KGB men in the lobby handled him when he came in late. That would tell me a lot. This was what Fane had meant when he'd told me to find out about Rinker: it was routine but informative.

  'Are you divorced?'

  'That's right.'

  'For whoring around?'

  'What else is there?'

  She laughed suddenly, with that rather private, confiding laugh she had, and I found myself thinking about her for a moment instead of about Rinker, but only for a moment because this wasn't the time for any diversions. Once I was out there in the street I could find myself in a red sector: it was dark now, with snow clouds lying across the city, and the moment I manoeuvred him into losing track of me he could call others in and bring the net down, and it would be too late to do anything. They'd done that to me in Berlin and Seoul and Hong Kong and I'd got out from under, but it had been close. Among the back alleys of this trade I'd used up my nine lives long ago, and every new risk was a step closer to death.

  She was watching me with her green eyes narrowed.

  'Did I blow it, Clive?'

  'In what way?'

  I had five minutes.

  'Trying to get under your skin.'

  'As long as it amuses you.'

  'How about a drink, when we've finished here?'

  'I've got to work for half an hour. Say nine-thirty?'

  'Okay.'

  I saw her into die bar before I got my coat from the cloakroom attendant and shrugged into it and went across to the main entrance. If anything went wrong, how would she put it? I know I was fired but I've got something that could develop into a story. One of the journalists here was found dead in the snow last night, and they believe he was murdered. If you'll hire me back on the payroll again you can have the follow-up.

  Epitaphs vary: some are shorter than others.

  When I went out through the main doors it was exactly 8:45.1 saw a plain van with steel grilles at the windows parked at an angle against the snow bank that had been piled up by the ploughs earlier in the day, and when I heard movement behind me I didn't look round until I reached the first corner, letting my foot slip into a snow rut and falling down so dial I could look behind me as I got onto my feet again, but I needn't have bothered to make it look natural because they were too busy outside the hotel, and I walked back slowly, getting a rough idea of what was happening.

  It looked as though Rinker had followed me down the steps at about the same time as I'd reached the corner. His coat was still only half on because the two KGB men from the lobby had moved in on him and two more had come across from the van to help. It was a typical street snatch: they hadn't wanted to do it inside the hotel. It looked as if Rinker was trying to fight them off, which wasn't very bright for a professional spook, but when I got closer I saw what he was really doing, and they weren't in time to stop him. One of them tried to catch him as he fell, but he went down like a dead weight with his arms flung out across the snow and his skin already turning blue from the cyanide as he stared up at me and saw no one.

  12 INCENSE

  'Were you seen coming in here?'

  'Not by any professionals.' We kneeled together, our heads bowed.

  'He's made contact,' Fane said.

  My nerves tautened, then rebounded and went slack.

  'We haven't got much time.' His hand dug into his coat.

  I'd thought it would never happen, but now it was here with us, a cold fact, and the mission was suddenly swinging into a new phase, the most difficult, the most dangerous. We had access to the objective and now it was possible, achievable, after that first long run without real direction, four deaths in five days as we'd circled blindly in the dark with nothing to do but wait. Now the waiting was over. The sleeper had wakened.

  I would remember the Church of Saint Peter for a long time, and the way we had kneeled together on the cold marble while the others chanted around us, mostly women — white hair and black shawls and worn mottled furs, boots caked with snow — and one old man alone but not far from us, weeping as he prayed, perhaps for peace through the days whose number was growing small for him now in the chill of these deathly winters.

  I would remember the scent of wood smoke and incense, and the prismatic light flowing from the coloured glass windows above the dais where the priest stood, a white-bearded man of immense height, a brass ikon jangling on a chain from his neck as he moved in incantation. I would only know later why I would remember this time and this place so well, as a haven for the spirit that I would soon want desperately, and in vain, to return to.

  'Take this,' Fane said. 'It's your train coupon.'

  I put it away. 'Where to?'

  'He's in Kandalaksha, two hundred and twenty kilometres south of Murmansk, on the shore of the White Sea.'

  'What the hell is he doing there?'

  'He was trying to reach Leningrad and catch the Red Arrow to Moscow.'

  'Why Moscow?'

  'I think he just panicked and wanted to run.'

  Karasov had surfaced and we had access to the objective and on the board in London where the red lamp had been glowing since I'd accepted the mission there were hieroglyphs going up: Northlight was now proceeding as planned, but I' felt sudden anger because panic's got no place in deep operations and Karasov had made things more difficult for us all 'What condition is he in?'

  'He sounded frightened, on the phone. Badly frightened. You'll have to handle him with care.' He shifted on his knees. 'Tell me about Rinker. Are you absolutely certain it was a capsule?' I'd reported to Fane first thing this morning from the post office, but we'd been cut off; the snow was causing havoc to the telephone lines.

  'Yes. I was there when it happened.' I'd seen capsules used before, when Hideo Matsuda thought he was blown when he came through London airport and saw me waiting for him, and when Clifton had lost his nerve in the run out from Beirut. In the Caff they're called blue babies but it's not very funny..

  'So he was making sure the KGB didn't interrogate him,' Fane said. 'He was following instructions.'

  'Yes. A real pro.'

  He'd know what I meant. Rinker hadn't been operating alone: he was with a cell and it was highly disciplined. Only I the really professional networks can demand of an agent that he gives his life rather than information.

  'Have you any clues?' Fane's tone below the chanting of the faithful was very quiet, very controlled, and I knew by now that this was characteristic and consistent with the pressure that had come down on him. We'd assumed that our only opposition to getting Karasov across the frontier would be the KGB, and that was bad enough; but we knew now that some other network was putting its agents into the field. Rinker would be replaced — would already have been replaced.

  That was why Fane had asked me if anyone had seen me come in here. The KGB wasn't alert to us. Some other organization was.

  'No,' I told him. 'No clues at all.' That was his job, not mine: it was for local control to find out if the field had been breached. 'All I know is that he was Swiss-French with an address in Geneva, but that doesn't mean much: he could be working for any one of a dozen masters and on any level, from secret service to terrorist group."

  The priest began leading a canticle, and we all stood up.

  'He wasn't CIA,' Fane said. 'They're very keen to get our reports but they wouldn't put surveillance on you: that's been agreed in London.'

  I took a prayer-book from the ledge and opened it. 'I want instructions. If you think they've sent in a replacement it might not be possible to get on that train.'


  He gave one of his pauses. 'You've got to reach Karasov and get him out. That's paramount. So if anyone gets in your way…'

  'You'll have to spell it for me, Fane.'

  London is very touchy about taking life, unless the executive's own is endangered.

  'If anyone other than the KGB gets in your way, you must get him out of it by whatever means are available, including terminal.'

  'Understood.'

  He began briefing me, while the singing filled the cavernous stonework of the church, his voice a monotonous undertone as if he were reciting a psalm of his own faith. 'Your train leaves at eight tomorrow morning. It's the earliest available but you'll be quicker than going by road. Don't check out of the hotel: the lobby is under KGB surveillance, as you know. I'll try to get a courier to pick up your things before the staff reports your absence. Have you got a spare key to the room?'

  I gave it him.

  'I'll try to get someone to take your car down to Kandalaksha if the roads are still open, so that you'll have transport if you need it. I can't guarantee that: he might not get through. Your rendezvous is at noon tomorrow in the main post office. It isn't with Karasov: he's sending a contact.'

  'Why?'

  'I told you. He's badly frightened. The contact will be wearing smoked glasses with the left lens cracked, and using a white stick. You'll ask him where you can find imported cigarettes, and he'll tell you that those things, are only fit for women. He'll take you to Karasov.' His breath clouded against the prayer-book. 'Karasov told me he changed his identity when he left his unit at Severomorsk, and got someone to do him some new papers. They might be sloppy: you'd better check them over. I'm doing everything I can to get some good ones for him in Moscow, but it'll take time and we'll need a courier to fly them in by hand. Then I've got to send them from here to Kandalaksha. Your own clandestine papers are absolutely foolproof for the whole of the peninsular region, but if Karasov's look unreliable, hold him underground until I can get the new ones to you. Questions?'

  'I'll need a bag.'

  'Leave the car unlocked tonight outside the hotel. The bag will be put into a rear seat-well, packed for five days.' This time he paused so long that I half-turned to look at him. 'I hope you won't need that amount of time,' he said. 'Control wants the objective over the frontier just as soon as you can get him there.'