Goodbye to an Old Friend

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘I think so, too,’ he said.

  Pavel was waiting for him in the room where they had had all their meetings, like a tourist expecting a holiday coach, his raincoat over the chair, a small cardboard suitcase at his feet.

  He saw Adrian look at the case.

  ‘I did have a leather one,’ said the Russian, proudly. ‘It was very good. I’d had it for a long time. But I had to leave it behind in Paris.’

  Adrian nodded. ‘Of course,’ he said.

  ‘I could only bring the photograph,’ Pavel went on. He reached into his raincoat and pulled out the silver frame and opened it.

  ‘Soon,’ he said, as if he were making himself a promise. ‘Very soon now.’

  He looked back to Adrian.

  ‘I’ve seen a lot of people since our last meeting.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘There were two Englishmen and then some Americans. All the Americans could talk about was how much money I could earn in the United States. They said they would award me three hundred thousand dollars a year. Is that a high salary for the United States?’

  ‘Very,’ said Adrian. Christ, he thought, they weren’t just desperate. They were frantic.

  ‘And they also said I could have some stock options in a company. What is that?’

  Adrian smiled. ‘It’s like owning part of a company,’ he said. ‘Everyone has a share and you get paid a dividend on your share holdings.’

  ‘Owning part of the company?’ queried Pavel. ‘Like communism?’

  Adrian laughed outright. ‘Not quite,’ he said. He wondered if they were still recording the conversations. He hoped so.

  ‘Were you surprised I wanted to see you?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘I was worried.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Alexandre. Have you seen him?’

  Adrian nodded.

  ‘How has he taken it?’

  ‘Badly.’

  Adrian confined himself to an easy answer. Badly: that’s putting it mildly, he thought. Bennovitch had retreated completely, barely communicating with the security men guarding him, refusing food, almost having to be forced to wash and shave himself.

  The tiny Russian was bowed under an enormous guilt complex, made aware by Pavel’s decision to return that the persecution of those still in Russia and of the older scientist stemmed from his initial defection. It was a burden that Adrian doubted Bennovitch was mentally able to support. The breakdown wasn’t months away now. It couldn’t be more than a few weeks.

  ‘Alexandre is not well,’ said Pavel, suddenly.

  ‘Not well?’

  The Russian tapped his head. ‘His work is a strain,’ he said, expressing himself badly. ‘He has a brilliant mind, but he can’t accept it. He seems to think that he should not possess the gifts he has and so, for no reason, he feels guilty. He will produce some outstanding work and then apologize when he’s presenting it. Do you know sometimes I suspect he purposely made mistakes in calculations, knowing I would spot them, so that he would be shown to be fallible.’

  So the depression was registering, even in Russia, thought Adrian. He wondered if anybody else had noticed it from the transcription of the tapes.

  ‘I have a favour to ask,’ said Pavel.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I have written Alexandre a letter. Would you see that he gets it?’

  Adrian hesitated. ‘I will have to read it,’ he said, doubtfully. ‘And then, the decision will not be wholly mine.’

  ‘Of course.’

  The Russian held out the unsealed envelope and Adrian took it.

  ‘I’d like to read it now,’ said Adrian.

  ‘Please.’

  It was a short note, without any introduction, barely covering half a sheet of paper:

  Forgive me for what I have done. But my family mean more to me than life itself. I shall care for Valentina. I promise you that. Goodbye, dear Friend.

  ‘Will he be allowed to have it?’ asked Pavel.

  Adrian looked up. ‘I don’t see why not.’

  ‘Today?’

  ‘That might not be possible,’ replied Adrian, cautiously.

  ‘As soon as you can?’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  A security man entered and Pavel got up eagerly. He seemed surprised when Adrian got into the car with him.

  ‘You’re not coming to the embassy?’ he said.

  ‘No. I’m just travelling part of the way.’

  The enclosed vehicle edged out into the traffic and began the northward journey. Pavel sat quite relaxed, the case between his legs, the raincoat across his lap. He kept looking at his watch, as if eager for the journey to be completed.

  Going home to die, thought Adrian. Going home to die and he was impatient about it. Still the uncertainty nagged at Adrian’s mind.

  ‘Viktor,’ he said, abruptly.

  The Russian looked at him.

  ‘Do you know, I doubted you from the very beginning.’

  Pavel just stared.

  ‘I never believed you had any intention of permanently defecting,’ continued Adrian. ‘I said so, in my first report.’

  ‘Were you believed?’ asked Pavel, guardedly.

  ‘No,’ Adrian shook his head. ‘No. I was overruled.’

  ‘And now you’re vindicated?’

  ‘I wish it were as simple as that,’ said Adrian, smiling. ‘No, I’ve not been vindicated.’

  Pavel frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I do, completely,’ said the Englishman. They drove for several miles without speaking. Then Adrian said, ‘Was it genuine, Viktor? Did you intend to defect?’

  Pavel took a long time to answer and when he did so, he looked directly at Adrian.

  ‘Believe me,’ he said, ‘if I could get my family out of the Soviet Union, I would choose to work here.’

  ‘That wasn’t the question.’

  ‘But that is my answer.’

  The car slowed and Adrian saw they had reached the spot where he was to leave.

  ‘I’m getting out here,’ he said.

  ‘You’ll see Alexandre gets the letter?’

  ‘I’ll do my utmost.’

  ‘It’s important.’

  Adrian nodded. He hesitated, half out of the car, then turned back, aware of the impatience of the security cars in front and behind.

  ‘I’m right, aren’t I, Viktor? You never intended to stay?’

  The Russian stared at him, expressionless.

  ‘Goodbye,’ he said.

  ‘Goodbye.’ said Adrian.

  He stood in the side-road that had been selected as a safe disembarkation point. There were motorcycle policemen at either end and he would be overlooked from several windows, he knew. The Rover pulled away, rejoined the traffic stream and disappeared from view after a few moments. I’ll never know, thought Adrian. Now, I’ll never know.

  Chapter Twelve

  They sat in the small room again, off the Cabinet chamber, and met as before, Ebbetts and the Foreign Secretary on one side of the table, Binns and Adrian on the other.

  Between them lay the transcripts of every conversation that had been held with the two defectors, an unnecessary reminder of failure. But this time there was an anonymous secretary sitting at the far end of the table, notebook and pen before him.

  History will have its records, thought Adrian. When the archives are opened in thirty years’ time the blunder of failing to keep two of the most important defectors ever to leave Russia working together as a team would be shown to be that of Adrian Dodds, thirty-five, a senior debriefing officer at the Home Office.

  He wondered if that were the sole reason for this afternoon’s summons, the need to get the blame established for later reference. Was he getting too cynical? Perhaps. Then again, perhaps not.

  Ebbetts sat hunched in his chair, tapping the papers before him with a thin gold pencil, like a conductor trying to get a choir t
o sing in tune. His tune, thought Adrian. Ebbetts would have to be the composer, ensuring everyone got the words right.

  The Foreign Secretary kept darting glances sideways, awaiting cues. Adrian suddenly thought how much better Sir William would be as premier than Ebbetts.

  Ebbetts began speaking slowly, almost as if he were mouthing carefully rehearsed lines.

  ‘In all my years as a politician,’ he said, ‘including those as Foreign Secretary when we previously held office, I do not think I have ever encountered a worse example of ineffectual, stupid blundering than it’s been my misfortune to witness over the last two weeks. I’ve made this clear at the previous meeting, Dodds, and I’m going to say it again, just to get the record straight …’

  He paused, glancing sideways almost imperceptibly at the secretary, ‘… that I hold you completely and utterly responsible for the failure to get Pavel to stay in this country.’

  ‘… utterly responsible …’ echoed Fornham.

  Ebbetts extended his hand, palm upwards, theatrically. ‘We held in our hands the greatest opportunity for a decade, perhaps longer. If we could have successfully debriefed Pavel and Bennovitch together, there is nothing we could not have known about the space plans of the Warsaw Pact countries for years to come.’

  He slapped the extended hand down on the papers.

  ‘It’s all been thrown away,’ he said.

  ‘… thrown away,’ intoned the Foreign Secretary.

  Adrian was breathing evenly, feeling quite composed.

  He was surprised that there was no nervousness. Seven, maybe eight days ago there would have been. His hands would have been wet with anxiety and the words would have jumbled incoherently in his mind, like leaves in a wind. But not any more. He didn’t need a lavatory, either. If Ebbetts wanted the record straight, then let it be.

  ‘When we met in this room, a few days ago,’ he started out, ‘I warned you that I did not think Pavel’s defection was genuine …’

  ‘… a stupid impression,’ Sir William cut in.

  ‘… a stupid impression that proved to be one hundred per cent accurate. As we are getting records straight, let another thing be noted. I said then that there was an ulterior motive in Viktor Pavel’s defection and I repeat it again …’

  ‘What ulterior motive?’

  Ebbetts, the practised politician, saw the weak spot and struck at it.

  Adrian swallowed. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, ignoring Ebbetts’s expression of disgust. ‘But I would have known. I would have known if I had been allowed to conduct the debriefing properly and under my own terms of reference instead of being forced to rush the two men together, grab what we could from them and then offer them like bait to America, all for political expediency.’

  ‘That’s impertinence,’ snapped Ebbetts, looking again at the secretary.

  ‘Dodds, really …’ began Sir Jocelyn, from his right.

  ‘Impertinent, maybe,’ admitted Adrian. ‘But true. Completely and utterly true. Pavel wasn’t a stupid man. He was, I think, one of the most intelligent men I have ever met. It was ridiculous, laughable even, to expect that we could get anything from him in two or three days, like a country policeman questioning a child stealing apples. I should have had a month with the man, at least, a month with just the two of us together, before we even considered linking him with Bennovitch.’

  He paused, breathless. He was destroying a career and enjoying every moment of it.

  ‘You said a few moments ago that we had missed the opportunity of a decade in losing Pavel. I’ll extend that. We’ve lost the opportunity of a lifetime. I saw him work, albeit briefly, with Bennovitch and it was staggering. Their worth to the West would have been incalculable. But I completely refuse to accept any responsibility or blame for losing that opportunity. You ordered the debriefing to be speeded up and you stipulated the manner in which it would be done. I merely followed those instructions – under protest.’

  When the meeting had begun Ebbetts had been pale, white-faced almost, and completely under control. Now he was flushed with anger and Adrian noticed that his earlobes were bright red, as if he were wearing earrings. He was suddenly seized with the desire to laugh and immediately recognized the tip of hysteria. Consciously he controlled it. Don’t let me break down now, he thought, there’ll never be another moment like this and I don’t want it dismissed as the outburst that precluded a nervous breakdown.

  Another thought came, completely sobering him. If he collapsed, then Ebbetts would have a reason for destroying the record of the meeting.

  ‘Have you forgotten who I am?’ began Ebbetts, pompously.

  ‘No, sir, I have not. Neither have I lost sight of the fact that I have been impertinent and also disrespectful to your office. For that, I apologize.’

  ‘But not to me?’

  Adrian hesitated. The opportunity was there and if he took it, he could retreat. For what? I’ve finished running, he decided. He stayed silent.

  ‘I see,’ said Ebbetts, stiffly. The colour was leaving his face now. He spread his hands, another practised move, and said, ‘All right. Then let’s examine the facts.’

  Suddenly Adrian felt scared. He was more intelligent than Ebbetts, he was sure of that. But he did not think he was cleverer. Neither did he think he could match him in debate, certainly not a debate that would centre around a weakness in his argument, the ulterior reason for which Pavel had defected. In a point by point examination of the facts, Ebbetts would win.

  ‘I will concede,’ started the Prime Minister, ‘that your hunch about his deciding to go back to his own country has proved correct. The point I have been making and which I feel is brought out in these transcripts’– he patted the papers in front of him – ‘is that because of your lamentable handling of the man, the idea of returning was allowed to build up in his mind. Look at the first interview. Your confirming his fears about his family, rather than trying to subdue them …’

  Adrian sighed. ‘How many more times do we have to go over this? There was a point in doing that, a point which I think is also shown in the transcript. I have already said Pavel was an intelligent man. The only way to conduct a debriefing of a man of that intellect is to gain his respect and the only way to do that is to be honest with him. He knew what would happen to his family if he stayed here. His questions to me were little more than rhetorical. For me to have dismissed them as unfounded would have destroyed any hope of establishing a relationship.’

  Ebbetts nodded. ‘But that’s no explanation for your arrogance,’ he said, definitely. ‘You set out, consciously, to dismiss Pavel’s importance in his own eyes, importance you now admit is unrivalled in the West …’

  ‘But I didn’t,’ protested Adrian, exasperated, ‘I’ve explained that, too. I had to dominate the examination. If I’d let Pavel lead, it could have taken months to reach the limited points we got to in less than a week. He was so over-confident …’

  ‘Over-confident!’ sneered Ebbetts. ‘Crying at your second meeting … refusing to go out for exercise until it was dark. Is that your idea of over-confidence?’

  Suddenly Adrian laughed. It was an odd, disjointed sound that jarred in the quietness of the room.

  Ebbetts stared at him, the beginning of a smile on his face, imagining the hysteria that had frightened Adrian earlier.

  ‘Dodds?’ he said, doubtfully, ‘are you all right?’

  The question was perfectly pitched, showing just the right degree of solicitude.

  Adrian laughed again, the sound controlled now, shaking his head.

  ‘Oh my God,’ he said. ‘How brilliant. How incredibly, utterly brilliant.’

  The three men looked blankly at him. Even the secretary, sitting at the end of the table, had stopped writing and was staring.

  ‘I know it,’ he said, softly. ‘The reason. I know the reason. It was obvious all along, and we missed it.’

  He straightened, looking straight at the Premier.

  ‘We’ve just w
itnessed the most incredible attempt ever made by the Soviet Union to liquidate a defector,’ he announced.

  Ebbetts was serious now, head cocked, alert.

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘How could the Russians get to Bennovitch?’ asked Adrian. ‘How could they possibly get to the man, discover what he’d told us and liquidate him? There was no way, no way at all. Except by offering a bigger bait and we took it, like amateurs, like stumbling, idiotic amateurs. For the past week all we’ve thought about was Pavel and Pavel never intended to stay here. They knew we’d put them together …’

  He paused, allowing himself the sarcasm. ‘Perhaps not as quickly as we did, but they knew we would link them. And we sat and let them talk and I thought they were working out some new problem that had arisen and all Pavel was doing was determining to what degree we’d progressed with Bennovitch’s debriefing …’

  He thought back to Pavel’s remark in the car taking them to London for the meeting with the embassy official, the clue that had been given him and which he’d ignored – ‘they just glitter there, the winning posts for a race of giants.’

  ‘You pinpointed it,’ he said to Ebbetts. ‘You said it and even now you don’t realize it. The stars. It’s the stars.’

  The room was completely silent. Everyone sat motionless.

  ‘Pavel didn’t go out only at night because he was scared. He went out at night because only then was there any point in his doing so.’

  Ebbetts shook his head.

  ‘You’re not making sense …’

  ‘Stars,’ shouted Adrian. ‘That’s what he wanted to see, stars. What was Pavel before he entered space science? What did he read at university? It was all there for us to see, in his history, but we missed it. He studied navigation, with the emphasis on stellar navigation. Pavel knew just where he was in England within minutes of walking out into the garden at Pulborough on the first night, just by looking upwards. And he knows where Bennovitch is being held, by the same method. It was dark when we left Petworth after the meeting and we paused by the car and I thought he was just getting a breath of air. But he wasn’t. He was checking the star reference again. Put against the timed distance it took to drive back from one house to the other, which he simply had to time by checking his wrist watch and the aerial description of the house which he got from the helicopter, which they’ll compare with satellite shots of southern England, the Russians will by now know exactly where Bennovitch is being held. He’s got the aerial picture and the triangular fix, London, Pulborough and Petworth.’