Lost American

by Brian Freemantle

  Serada made a speech of platitudes and Birdwood made a matching speech of platitudes and then Chebrakin – appearing almost as if he wanted to harden the speculation – made a speech of platitudes and the Shadow Foreign Secretary, a broad-accented Yorkshireman named Moss, rounded everything off the same way. Brinkman devoted his undivided attention to the translation, because that was the most immediate job at hand, but it was hardly necessary.

  There were a lot of glass-emptying toasts and the vodka and the champagne was good and by the time the evening ended Moss was straining back from the edge of drunkenness and two of the wives had already fallen over the edge, giggling and then laughing uproariously at some secret joke in the car going back to the hotel and one of them stumbling over the pavement edge when they arrived. Nursemaid now, Brinkman supervised the key allocation and personally escorted Birdwood to his rooms, he one side, the ambassador the other. Birdwood offered them a nightcap which they both declined and within fifteen minutes Brinkman was back in the ambassador’s official car, en route to the diplomatic compound.

  ‘God knows how many groups like this I’ve had to handle throughout the world,’ said Brace distantly. ‘And I’ve never gone through one without wondering what the British public reaction would be if they knew how their elected leaders conducted themselves.’

  The permanent politician’s contempt for the passing amateur, thought Brinkman; it could have been his father talking. He said, ‘I didn’t think they were too bad.’

  ‘Do you know what those stupid women were laughing at?’ demanded the ambassador.

  ‘No,’ admitted Brinkman.

  ‘Breaking wind,’ said Brace disgustedly. ‘One broke wind and the other heard her and they thought it was funny.’

  Brinkman smiled too, at the older man’s outrage. ‘At least they didn’t fall over at the reception.’

  ‘You did very well, incidently,’ said the ambassador. ‘Afraid the demands can become a bit irritating at times.’

  ‘No problem,’ assured Brinkman. ‘No problem at all.’

  It could have become one, if he had allowed it, but Brinkman met every request and every need, from a bath plug where there wasn’t one at the Metropole to souvenir shopping at GUM to simultaneous and superbly accurate transcription of everything that passed between Birdwood’s party and the Russians they met. In addition to that first day there were five more separate occasions when he had the opportunity to be within touching distance of almost every one of the Russian leaders and remove from his mind any doubt about Serada’s decline: at two Orlov was present and briefly Brinkman regretted that his translator status did not permit him to try to get the Russian involved in some sort of discussion.

  Although Leningrad took Brinkman away from his immediate focus of interest it was still useful because of the restriction of travel imposed upon embassy personnel. They toured the shipyards – for the visiting Englishmen a necessary chore – and actually went into some of the repair sheds, to which Brinkman would never normally have gained access. What he saw in the yards and the machine shops enabled a whole separate file to London reporting firsthand about apparent disrepair and backward operating methods in the Soviet engineering works, which by itself was sufficient to impress Maxwell. There was no period of Brinkman’s life when he could remember working so consistently hard or so consistently concentrated, intent on catching every crumb that fell from the table. And it did not end, of course, with the conclusion of each day’s chaperoning. After settling the British party he always returned to the embassy to transmit that day’s file. They were always extremely long and always had to be encoded into a secret designated cipher and for over a week Brinkman existed on never more than three hours sleep a night. Returning the final day from the farewells at Sheremetyevo – wondering, greedily, if he would ever again be able to get as close for so long to the Soviet leaders as he had during the past few days – Brinkman allowed himself to relax for the first time and was engulfed in a physical ache of fatigue. Utterly exhausted, he realised; and worth every moment of it. Brinkman knew – confidently, not conceitedly – that in months he had achieved more in Moscow than most other intelligence officers achieved in years. So he’d proved himself again. He’d proved himself to his father and he’d proved himself to those in the department who carped about favouritism and prayed he was going to fall flat on his ass but most important of all – always the most important of all – he’d proved himself to himself.

  There wasn’t much time for immediate rest. The intelligence community in Moscow discovered from the first day what he was doing and the approaches began practically before the British aircraft cleared Soviet air space, the professional attitudes those of some envy and some jealousy but predominantly those of admiration for being clever enough to get himself into such a position. He was the most open with Blair – although he held back from disclosing the apparent friendship between Sevin and Orlov – and comparatively helpful to Mark Harrison. The contact from the Canadian coincided with that from the Australians and Brinkman helped them, too. He even offered something to the one-sided French, feeling he could be generous because he had done so well. And he never knew when he might need to call favours in.

  There was a personal letter of thanks within weeks from Birdwood and Brinkman was picked out by name in a letter of gratitude the Opposition leader wrote to the ambassador. Maxwell wrote from London, too, enclosing the letter in the safety of the diplomatic bag.

  ‘An outstanding success,’ the controller called it.

  Brinkman wondered how difficult it was going to be maintaining the standard he set himself.

  The KGB identified Brinkman as the interpreter on the first day but because of his distraction in the provinces it was several days before Sokol caught up with it. He frowned down, irritated that the leaders had come under such close scrutiny of an intelligence operator. There was nothing, now, that he could do about it: maybe there wouldn’t have been at the time, apart from staging some accident involving the man, physically removing him. Jeremy Brinkman appeared to have progressed beyond the settling-in stage, reflected the Russian. He made a notation to place the man upon the priority Watch List.

  Ruth drove Paul back from the court hollowed by what she heard, unspeaking because she didn’t trust herself to speak to the boy and not knowing the words anyway. He remained silent beside her. She couldn’t handle this alone, she determined, taking the car across the Memorial Bridge. She was prepared to do most things – indeed, she’d argued custodial responsibility during the divorce because she considered it was her responsibility – but there had to be a cutoff point and this was it. Paul was Eddie’s son, as much as hers; so his liability was as great as hers, even though he was on the other side of the world. They had established the method of communication through Langley in the event of any emergency, in the overly-polite aftermath of the divorce and Ruth had always determined never to use it, looking upon it as an admission of failure. Which perhaps was the reason Paul had done what he had. So if she failed it was time for Eddie to see if he could do better. The CIA personnel official was courteous and helpful and tried to commiserate by saying it was the most common problem parents had to face in America today which didn’t help Ruth at all because she wasn’t interested in anyone else’s problems. The official promised to get a message to Blair overnight, which he did.

  ‘Drugs!’ exclaimed Ann, when Blair told her that evening in their Moscow apartment.

  ‘Marijuana, apparently. And cocaine,’ said Blair. ‘There wasn’t a complete run down, obviously, but it seems to have been going on for quite a long time.’

  ‘Oh darling, I’m sorry,’ said Ann. ‘I’m really very sorry.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Blair, distantly, and she wondered if he were thinking it might not have happened if he hadn’t become involved with her.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she said.

  ‘They’ve been very good,’ he said. ‘Immediate compassionate leave.’

 
‘Of course,’ said Ann. Why hadn’t she thought of his going back to Washington? It was the obvious thing for him to do.

  ‘I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She suddenly remembered the coveted tickets to the Bolshoi and realised he’d miss the performance. It was too inconsequential to mention; too inconsequential to think about at a time like this. ‘I wish there was something I could do,’ she said.

  Blair looked at her grave-faced. ‘I was just thinking the same thing,’ he said. ‘About myself.’

  Blair flew on a KLM flight, which enabled a convenient transfer for the Washington flight at Amsterdam. Because of Blair’s listing on the Watch List, the KGB knew of his departure within three hours. It was the same Watch List on which Jeremy Brinkman’s name had been entered.

  Chapter Twelve

  Blair arrived at Dulles airport unshaven and crumpled. He didn’t enjoy flying and sleep would have been impossible anyway, so he was jetlagged, his head feeling as if it were stuffed with cotton wool. He went mechanically through the process of renting a car, blinking to concentrate when he reached the Beltway on his way into Washington; Muscovites drove faster than this – often dangerously so – but here there seemed so many more cars and Blair got his first reminder of how long he had been out of the country. He guessed there would be many more; like the reason for his being summoned home. He felt easier when he was able to leave the Beltway for the Memorial route. It took him directly by the CIA headquarters – openly signposted – and he stared in its direction, unable to see the familiar building through the screen of trees. He’d make contact, obviously. But not yet. For the moment the career for which he’d made so many sacrifices could be put on the back burner. Blair halted the slide, recognising the search for excuses and irritated at himself for the weakness. Getting Paul sorted out was the only consideration; the excuses and the who-and-what-was-to-blame recriminations could wait until later. And his commitment to the Agency would be pretty low on the list anyway.

  He approached Washington looking for landmarks, the widening thread of the Potomac and by the bridge the topsy turvey canoe club building he always expected to fall down but which never did, the cathedral beyond, proudly grand, and far away, misted by the heat haze, the most familiar markers of all, the wedding cake dome of the Capitol and the exclamation mark of the Washington Memorial. He took the Key Bridge exit to get into Rosslyn, conscious at once of the change. It was really the road system, the huge roundabout directly in front of the Key Bridge leading across into Georgetown, but he got the impression that there where more buildings, too. There never seemed anything being newly built in Moscow.

  Ruth was in jeans and a workshirt and without any make-up – actually with a smudge of dust against her nose – when she answered the door to him, frowning when she saw who it was. She looked down at herself in instant embarrassment and said, ‘I thought you’d call, from the airport.’

  He should have done, Blair realised. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I forgot: wasn’t thinking.’

  They stood momentarily staring at each other, each unsure. Then she stepped back into the house and said, ‘Sorry. You’d better come in.’

  Blair entered hesitantly, stopping in the hallway and there was another moment of uncertainty between them. Despite the disarrayed hair and dirt on her nose, Blair thought she was very pretty; it wouldn’t be right to tell her so. He’d had two hours to kill at Schipol, waiting for the Washington connection and spent it in the bar; he should have looked at the airport shops instead and got her a gift. The boys, too, for Christ’s sake! Why the hell hadn’t he thought of doing so!

  Ruth broke the moment by going into the living room and he followed. She said, ‘I’m glad you’re here at this time, though. With the boys at school, I mean. We can talk.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Blair. Everything was extremely neat and tidy. But then Ruth had always been neat and tidy. Ann was always cleaning but … Blair closed his mind against the comparison. That wasn’t what he was here for. He said, unnecessarily polite, ‘Can I sit down?’

  ‘Sorry. Of course,’ she said.

  They each had an eagerness to apologise, thought Blair, and as he did so Ruth said on cue, ‘Sorry. What about some coffee? It must have been a long flight.’

  ‘Coffee would be good,’ he accepted. As she started to leave the room he said, ‘Can I help?’ and wished he hadn’t, as soon as he spoke.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ll do it.’

  Alone, he looked around the room again. There were fresh flowers in two vases, one on a low table in the middle of the room and another more elaborate display on a stand near the main window. On the mantle was a picture of the two boys that he hadn’t seen before. It was stiffly posed and he guessed it was a school photograph: John was wearing a brace, he saw, remembering Ann’s remark. Ruth returned with the coffee prepared on a cloth-covered tray, in a pot, with the cups and the cream.

  ‘You haven’t started taking sugar yet, have you?’ she said, pouring.

  ‘No,’ he said. She had a good memory. Then again, maybe not. They had been married eighteen years.

  ‘Sorry I had to do it,’ said Ruth, apologising still. ‘Get you back, I mean. It seemed the only thing to do.’ Now the immediate shock of the police interviews and the court appearance was passing she was unsure whether she shouldn’t have tried to handle it herself.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Blair at once. ‘Of course you should have got me back. How bad it is?’

  She shrugged, an indication of helplessness, and said, ‘I don’t know, not really. He’s closed right up, after the initial shock. Frightened, I guess.’

  ‘What happened?’ prompted Blair gently. ‘Tell me what happened from the beginning.’

  Ruth hesitated, arranging the story in her mind and Blair saw that while she was in the kitchen she’d cleaned the smudge off her nose. She said simply, ‘He got caught, trying to rob a pharmacy. He and three others, all from the same class. After pills, they said later. Any sort of pills, it didn’t matter. Cocaine, too, if it was there. They didn’t know if it was carried or not but they were trying to find it Intended to set themselves up …’

  ‘Set themselves up?’ queried Blair.

  ‘As dealers, in the school.’

  ‘Jesus!’ said Blair.

  Ruth was more comfortable now, still embarrassed at his finding her in workclothes but better than she had been; after getting the house ready she’d wanted to shower and change and be prepared – absolutely – before he arrived. She dismissed the obvious tiredness as the effect of the non-stop flight; he didn’t seem to have changed much. Not at all, in fact. Had it really been eighteen months, since their last meeting? It didn’t seem that long. She went on, ‘Like I said, they were shocked at being arrested by the police …’ She smiled for no reason and said, ‘The cop didn’t know what he was confronting, apparently; actually had his gun out and was threatening to shoot …’

  ‘And if they’d run he probably would have done,’ said Blair, sick at the thought.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Ruth. ‘That was when it all came out, when they were scared. Seems they had been doing a lot of stealing, stuff from stores that they could sell on, to get money. Forcing coinboxes on newstands. They even robbed an old man of his welfare money, but Paul wasn’t involved that time, just the others …’ She hesitated and said, ‘I suppose we should get some consolation out of that although I don’t know if I do.’

  ‘All for drugs?’

  Ruth nodded at the question. ‘Marijuana,’ she said. ‘Seems he’s been smoking it for a long time. Now I’ve gone back through it, checked it out with the teachers, it is the most likely reason for the poor grades. Pills, too. And there’s been some cocaine, although I don’t think a lot.’

  ‘What the hell sort of school is this!’ demanded Blair, needing to be angry at something.

  Ruth, who had had longer to recover, said calmly, ‘Your average American school, no worse and no better
than any other. The problem is so bad that it runs a drug programme and has a full-time counsellor. He’s a nice guy. Erickson. He wants to meet you.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Blair automatically, not yet wanting to move on. ‘You said Paul’s been smoking for a long time?’

  ‘One of the court orders was urinalysis,’ said the woman. ‘He had a high count. I had our own doctor check him out, too. There was some irritation of the nasal membrane, because of the cocaine – or maybe the crap they cut it with, before selling it – but not a lot …’ She stopped and then disclosing her abrupt new education she said, ‘You’ve got to do it for years, apparently, for it to cause real damage. Then it can actually rot your nose away.’

  ‘They were going to set themselves up as dealers?’ persisted the man, wanting to understand everything.

  Ruth swallowed, arriving at the worst part. ‘Paul told the police he’d decided it was dumb to go on as they were. That dealing was where the money was.’

  ‘Paul decided.’

  Ruth nodded, at the demand for qualification. ‘He was the leader, Eddie. Actually set it up: checked out the pharmacy for the busy and slack times …’ Ruth stopped, lower lip trapped between her teeth, trying to stop herself crying. Of all the resolutions, this was the strongest, the one she’d repeated and repeated to herself, not wanting him to know how lost she felt. The threat passed, although her voice was still unsteady. She said, ‘He’d even planned the getaway, checked the times of the trains on the Metro and worked it out that they could make a connection and be halfway across Washington before the police had time to get there.’