Lost American

by Brian Freemantle

  Blair sat silent under the onslaught. He had misunderstood. He’d had some idea of her unhappiness but not that it was as bad as this. Not the obvious, bulging-eyed, nostril-flared hatred. Or had he? Hadn’t he known it all along and chosen to ignore or minimise it? Wasn’t it another cop out, like it had been with the boys, a refusal to let anything interfere with what he, Eddie Blair, ultimately wanted to happen? ‘It might not be any longer than three years,’ he said, in an attempt at recovery, remembering the search for his own reassurances. ‘You know the uncertainty that exists here. That’s why they want me to stay. If the leadership is settled we’d hold the aces and the kings …’ Abandoning the aircraft resolution, he said, ‘And you get to choose. Wherever you want, we’ll go.’

  ‘Christ!’ said Ann, striding without direction around the room. ‘I can’t believe it! I just can’t believe it! What if everything isn’t settled? We could be stuck here for years …’

  ‘No,’ said Blair, at once. ‘I made that clear. It’s not an open ticket.’

  She stopped abruptly in front of him, staring down. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘So how long? How long if it’s not an open ticket?’

  ‘Not more than another three years,’ promised Blair, the first figure that came into his head.

  ‘Three years!’ echoed Ann, the outrage flooding back. ‘You mean you expect me to stay here for another three fucking years?’

  ‘No,’ said Blair, his own temper finally giving way. ‘I don’t expect you to stay here for another three fucking years. If Moscow and your dislike of it – OK, your hatred of it – is the biggest thing in your life then I don’t expect you to stay.’

  His reaction quietened her at once, the thrust striking the rawest and most exposed nerve. She felt her face burn red and hoped Blair would believe it was her anger. ‘You’re telling me to get out?’ she demanded.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘And you know I’m not. I love you and I want you to stay. It’s for you to decide whether you love me enough to stay.’

  He sat, waiting. For several moments she stared down at him and then she burst into tears.

  Brinkman responsed at once to Blair’s invitation, knowing of course that the American wanted an update on anything that had happened while he’d been away and hoping he might get a lead to what Blair had been doing from the man’s questions. Because it was Blair’s invitation, the meeting was at the American embassy, at their usual table in the cafeteria. Brinkman felt the briefest spurt of embarrassment at the moment of shaking hands but almost at once it went. Private life was private life but this was business and quite separate. If that made him a cunt – if cuckolding Blair made him a cunt – then OK, he was a cunt. Successful men often were.

  There was the customary shadow boxing, the inconsequential smalltalk and then realistic enough to know he wouldn’t get anything unless he gave something, Blair said, ‘May be staying here longer than I planned.’

  ‘What?’ said Brinkman.

  ‘Been asked to extend. Feeling is that the current leadership uncertainty makes this an important place to be.’

  Bollocks, thought Brinkman. They’d discussed the leadership a dozen times. Blair’s disclosure about extending meant he was on to something but he was bloody sure it wasn’t on something as unfocussed as leadership interpretation. They’d interpreted that already, both of them. Was the suspicion true? Did Blair have a source, buried deep? ‘How long for?’

  ‘No specified time.’

  How would Ann react to that? he thought suddenly. Private, he thought, quickly shutting the door. Deciding he wouldn’t get anything by direct questioning, Brinkman tried to offer something that had occurred – professionally – while the man had been away, discomfited at once because he knew the gesture was pointless because bugger all had happened. Chebrakin had appeared publicly ahead of Serada at a photographed session of the Central Committee – which confirmed what they already guessed – and there had been increasing criticism in Pravda of food shortages, which was a rare admission but an indication that someone was soon publicly to be blamed for them.

  ‘Not much then,’ discerned Blair, when Brinkman finished.

  ‘Not really,’ conceded Brinkman. ‘Still not the slightest indication of what’s happening beyond Chebrakin.’

  ‘That’s the kicker,’ said Blair. ‘That’s what everybody wants to know.’

  And Blair did, decided Brinkman. Somehow – he didn’t know how – Blair had a lead on what the other moves were and that’s why he’d been recalled to Washington. But that wouldn’t have been enough, to be recalled. That could have been covered in a normal cable. Something about the leadership but important enough to go back to Washington personally to discuss it. But what? What in the name of Christ was it?

  ‘Thanks, incidentally, for looking after Ann while I was away,’ said Blair.

  Brinkman met the American’s gaze across the table. ‘I enjoyed doing it,’ he said easily.

  Two days later Serada was removed from the Politburo and the leadership of the Soviet Union. Anatoli Chebrakin was named as successor.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Ann telephoned him at the embassy, which she hadn’t done before, and Brinkman was momentarily irritated because it blurred the divisions he’d created. And then he accepted divisions were an infantile effort on his part somehow to ease his conscience and that there couldn’t be any divide.

  ‘I’ve got to see you,’ she announced.

  ‘That’s not going to be easy any more, is it?’

  ‘Do you know what’s happened?’

  ‘Yes’, said Brinkman. ‘And we shouldn’t be talking on an open line.’

  ‘Damn an open line!’

  ‘I’ll try to think of something.’

  ‘I want to see you now! We had the most terrible row.’

  People who had terrible rows sometimes said things they didn’t mean to say. It was still only eleven o’clock. ‘No chance of Eddie coming home to lunch?’

  ‘He never does. He’d phone if he decided to.’

  ‘I’ll come.’

  ‘Thank you, darling. There isn’t anybody else I can talk to.’

  As Brinkman drove back to the compound he determined his initial reaction to her call had been the right one. Now Blair was back in Moscow it wasn’t going to be easy to see Ann any more. To attempt to was virtual madness. Did he want to anyway? Although he’d disguised it better, Brinkman had been as bewildered and confused as Ann by what occurred after the Bolshoi and made the same resolutions about mistakes and forgetting them. So why had it been he who made the first approach, afterwards? He’d told her it wasn’t a casual fuck and it wasn’t Romeo and Juliet either, so OK, what was it? A personal involvement hadn’t featured in his plans for Moscow. Without thinking positively about it he’d imagined affairs, pleasant conclusions to pleasant evenings – which is how this had started, he remembered – but he hadn’t wanted telephone-at-work, see-me-at-once situations. And not with the wife of a man doing the same job as he was doing at the American embassy. So what was he doing driving across Moscow for lunchtime assignations? It wasn’t an assignation, he thought, in immediate correction. And there was a purpose – what about the divisions now? – if Blair had inadvertently said something during their argument. Which was an excuse for what? Brinkman couldn’t decide and Brinkman didn’t like being unable to decide anything: certainly not about himself.

  There was no hesitation any more. As soon as she let him into the apartment Ann clung to him and kissed him and Brinkman held her and kissed her back and realised he was even more undecided.

  ‘When did he tell you?’ she asked.

  ‘We had lunch at the embassy.’

  ‘Can you believe it!’

  ‘Professionally, yes,’ said Brinkman. He was trying to be fair as well as guide the conversation.

  ‘But he knew how I felt!’

  ‘It’s a very important time here, just now,’ said Brinkman, steering still.

  ‘That all I bloody w
ell hear! I couldn’t give a damn about how important situations are here at the moment. I came willingly here because I knew how much it mattered to Eddie’s career and I’ve endured it here, for the same reason. To be with him I’ve been virtually cut off by my family and I abandoned all my friends and until now I’ve tried not to complain too much …’ Ann held up her hand, a physical correction. ‘I let him know, clearly enough. But I tried not to go on about it, like some spoilt brat. And all right, I know that’s how I might sound now, to you and to him. But at least we could have discussed it! Didn’t I deserve that, at least?’

  Brinkman supposed she did. She appeared to have lobotomised herself to what had happened between them while Blair was away in her equations about who had let whom down. Maybe he wasn’t the only one to try to create divisions. ‘It wouldn’t have been easy, talking on the telephone from Washington, would it?’

  ‘Why not! What’s all this crap about open lines and secure lines? We wouldn’t have been talking about anything secret. We’d have been talking about our future. And why was it so important to get a decision there and then? Why couldn’t he have come back here to Moscow so we could have talked it through?’

  No reason at all, conceded Brinkman. Except that wasn’t how these things were done. He wouldn’t be able to make her understand. It was time to try to get the conversation back on course again. He said, ‘How long’s the extension?’

  She snorted a laugh. ‘He says no longer than three years but I don’t believe him. Or that it could be sooner: maybe that we’d be able to keep to the original schedule if the leadership thing is sorted out.’

  When the hell was he going to get a lead he could understand and follow? He said, ‘So you could be getting upset about nothing?’

  ‘Will it be?’

  ‘Chebrakin has been declared the new leader,’ he said.

  She smiled up, in sudden hope. ‘So it is sorted out!’

  ‘What does Eddie say?’ he asked, directly and hopefully.

  ‘We haven’t talked about it. We haven’t talked about anything much since he came back,’ she confessed.

  Seeing a route to follow Brinkman said, ‘Knowing – as he does now – how you feel about staying on I would have thought he would have said something if everything had been solved by Chebrakin’s election.’

  ‘So would I,’ she agreed.

  Come on! thought Brinkman, the exasperation practically constant now. He said, ‘Hasn’t he?’

  ‘No’, she said, shortly.

  Brinkman knew his conjecture in the embassy cafeteria was right. But what in the name of God was sufficiently important beyond Chebrakin personally to go back to Washington? And likely to keep Blair here longer than his scheduled posting, as much as three years longer? Ann hadn’t believed that, remembered Brinkman. Maybe longer then. It had been worth the risk, coming here today. Wanting more and remembering his earlier thoughts about what happened during arguments, Brinkman said, ‘So it was a bad row?’

  ‘Terrible,’ she said. ‘The worst ever.’

  ‘What did he say?’ asked Brinkman, another direct question.

  Ann looked away. ‘That if I didn’t like it, I could leave.’

  Not only important enough to go back to Washington; important enough to consider sacrificing his marriage. Jesus! thought Brinkman. Trying for still more he said, ‘People say things they don’t mean when they’re shouting at each other.’

  Ann came against him once more and knowing her need he reached out and held her. ‘Oh darling,’ she said. ‘I’m so unsure of everything!’

  So am I, thought Brinkman. So am I.

  Until now Orlov’s deception of the old man had been unavoidable; Sevin led and Orlov had no alternative but to follow. Today it was going to have to become calculated and deliberate. Orlov had wanted it otherwise. He’d tried to think of every other way, every alternative avenue, but there was none he could attempt without the risk of arousing curiosity. He waited for the customary summons and entered Sevin’s suite with the approach carefully prepared. There was the progress discussion on the agricultural project and when the conversation began to flag Orlov said, ‘There’s something I think you should know.’

  Sevin smiled at him, waiting.

  ‘Natalia and I have decided to divorce,’ announced Orlov. ‘Everything is well advanced, actually.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Sevin, curtly. There was no stigma to divorce within the Soviet Union but the news unsettled Sevin. He’d wanted Pietr Orlov perfect in every way and this was a blemish and an unnecessary blemish. Why couldn’t the man have maintained a pretence, aware as he was of the future that was planned for him! A lot of other people did.

  Orlov knew that Sevin, a widower now, had been married for forty years. He said, ‘I thought you should know … in case of any embarrassment.’ Orlov had no religion but he knew the book. Judas, he thought.

  Sevin’s mind was way ahead of the immediate discussion. People got divorced for a lot of different reasons but often because of some outside liaison but nowhere in the checks that he’d made was there a suggestion of Orlov being involved in any sort of extra-marital activity. Feeling he had the right, Sevin asked directly, ‘Is there anybody else?’

  Orlov was stiff-faced with control: double Judas, he thought. He said, ‘No. Not on either side.’

  ‘Why then?’ persisted Sevin.

  Prepared, Orlov said, ‘I suppose we were too long apart. We’re strangers to each other. There are constant arguments.’

  ‘Married people argue,’ said Sevin.

  ‘You’ve made it clear to me what you intend. How important it is for all appearances to be right. I did not consider the relationship between Natalia and myself sufficient to maintain that sort of public appearance, when the time comes.’ Judas, hypocrite, liar and cheat, he thought, miserably.

  Sevin nodded at the explanation. Orlov had never done anything to create the slightest suspicion. Objectively Sevin decided it was an honest explanation and it was a completely acceptable – politically acceptable – explanation at that. He said, ‘I think you made the right decision. Divorce is one of the few things in this society that doesn’t cause problems.’

  ‘I just thought you should know,’ said the relieved Orlov, discerning the old man’s acceptance. Moving to further deceit, Orlov said, ‘I realise from what I’ve learned since I’ve been back how important it is for things properly to be seen to be right, by those who matter.’

  Sevin smiled, taking the bait. ‘It is astonishing,’ he agreed, ‘how puerile things like positioning at conference tables and arrangements of photographs are considered to matter by men who are supposed to be making decisions that can affect the world.’

  Orlov hesitated before the final move and said, ‘Who will be attending the reception at the American embassy?’

  ‘It’s important,’ insisted the old man. ‘First outing since Chebrakin’s accession. Chebrakin himself doesn’t plan to attend, of course. Didenko is definitely going but then he’s a man under pressure anxious to prove himself still a viable figure. I’ve been proposed but I think I’ll decline. Zebin will go. Okulov, too. There’ll be others, of course.’

  Orlov hadn’t expected the advantage of one of the men about whom there had already been speculation in the West, in advance of Chebrakin’s appointment. He said, ‘There’ll be a lot of concentration upon Didenko: there were forecasts that he had a better chance than Chebrakin on this occasion.’

  Sevin grew serious. ‘That’s a good point,’ he said. ‘An extremely good point.’

  Delicately, not wanting the line to break, Orlov said, ‘Would it matter?’

  ‘Like I said,’ reminded Sevin, the educator. ‘Positioning at tables and in photographs and at public functions are considered important.’ The old man stopped, for a moment’s further reflection and then he said, ‘I think you should go.’

  ‘Me!’ said Orlov, as if the proposal startled him.

  ‘The first outing sin
ce Chebrakin’s accession,’ repeated Sevin. ‘It might seem premature but sides will be taken – contenders considered or dismissed as unimportant – as early as now. And Pietr?’

  ‘Yes?’ said Orlov.

  ‘Don’t make it obvious but try to stay as close as possible to Didenko. Let’s get the idea established now among the uncommitted on the Central Committee and actually within the Politburo that there’s an equality in stature between the two of you.’

  What was he doing to this man? thought Orlov, agonised. Despising himself, he said, ‘If you think it’s important.’

  ‘Yes,’ insisted Sevin. ‘I think it’s important.’

  Sokol accepted objectively that the cause of Blair’s return to Washington could be absolutely innocent but with matching objectivity never regarded anything a known and identified intelligence agent did as absolutely innocent. He annotated Blair’s file for the man to be subjected to surveillance tighter than normally imposed, even on someone named on the special Watch List.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  They had not met all together, either on any public occasions or privately, since Blair’s return from Washington and Brinkman was glad. The telephone calls from Ann – always her to him because he could never know when Blair would be at home – were quite frequent and Brinkman knew that Ann was glad, too, neither sure how they would handle the moment when Blair was included. It had to happen eventually, of course – for it not to have done, after their earlier closeness, would have made Blair suspicious – and Brinkman was grateful it was going to be at a reception, crowded with people and distraction, so that any awkwardness wouldn’t be obvious.