Lost American

by Brian Freemantle

  Ruth hesitated further. ‘Won’t it look a bit unusual?’

  ‘If you don’t want me …’

  ‘… Oh no!’ she stopped him. ‘Maybe I’ll ask Charlie not to bother.’

  ‘We should not use him as a stop-gap,’ said Blair.

  ‘I’ll talk to him about it,’ she said.

  The greeting from the boys this time was different from the earlier visit. John ran at Blair and threw himself into his father’s arms and although he didn’t run Paul allowed himself to be picked up, as well. Blair had to put them down quickly because together they were heavy. He gave them their gifts and both children strapped them on, their delight obvious.

  ‘Is this really what proper divers wear, Dad?’ asked John.

  ‘All the time,’ assured Blair.

  ‘It’s terrific having you back home,’ said Paul.

  ‘It’s terrific to be home,’ said Blair.

  Brinkman was on the Watch List and the encouraged and congratulated surveillance squad at the airport responded the moment that the Englishman was identified, boarding the London-bound plane. There was a telephone alert – upon which Sokol now insisted – in advance of the report and the photographs. Sokol studied the dossier, comparing photographs of the other passengers against the names and agreeing with the airport assessment that Brinkman’s departure was not connected with anybody else on the same flight. So why should the American intelligence Resident, whom he regarded as one of the – if not the – best operators in Moscow leave just ahead of the British intelligence Resident, whom he regarded as a close second in ability? Coincidence? Not to be discounted but unlikely, decided Sokol. A joint operation? Another possibility, conceded the KGB deputy. Certainly it had happened before. But rarely. And they’d been successful over the last few years, actually publicising their infiltration of the British service to sow distrust in any cooperation with America. So the conclusion was that there could be not one but two separate operations, being run at the same time. Sokol was a self-confident man, sure of his ability. Despite which he felt a sink of despair and it took a long time for his normal attitude to predominate: and even then it wasn’t a complete recovery.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Brinkman was disappointed – actually worried – that Maxwell didn’t appear to share his convictions. The division chief’s office was in the inner quadrangle, away from any traffic. It was possible to hear the ticking of the antique clock on the mantle-shelf and Maxwell’s sighed uncertainty as he looked down at the evidence Brinkman placed before him.

  ‘It’s very circumstantial,’ judged Maxwell.

  ‘No,’ disputed Brinkman, risking the impertinence of coming around to the side of the desk to argue his case. ‘Orlov has returned within months from the United Nations, in New York …’ He isolated three of the pictures that had been airfreighted to him in Moscow, each showing Orlov at UN receptions. ‘At the United States embassy I positively saw Orlov make an approach to the CIA Resident, Edward Blair. I’m quite definite about it. Blair has made two visits to Washington: he’s there now and this time it was a panicked recall. On his desk was this …’ Brinkman paused again, producing a piece of paper upon which he’d written UNXT 481. ‘You know from the checks that I asked you to make that extension 481 at the United Nations is the direct line to a woman called Harriet Johnson, a British-born senior translator …’ There was another break while Brinkman selected two photographs of Harriet that had been sent with the second batch of material. ‘Harriet Johnson,’ he identified, unnecessarily dramatic. One was a posed, full-faced picture, taken for her official accreditation. There was another, obviously at a UN party, and a third of her at the point of leaving the skyscraper building. Brinkman made another selection, placing the picures of the girl by herself against two of Orlov, both at UN receptions. ‘Pietr Orlov,’ went on Brinkman, still dramatic. He moved his finger, to someone in the immediate background of both prints. ‘Harriet Johnson,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t dispute it’s the woman,’ said Maxwell. ‘So Harriet Johnson attended UN functions and was photographed with a senior Soviet official. Russian is her predominant language: we know that from the files.’

  ‘What is the private extension of a senior Soviet translator doing on the desk of a CIA Resident in Moscow?’ said Brinkman.

  ‘How did you get that?’

  Brinkman hesitated. ‘I’m a friend,’ he said. ‘I went to the apartment the night Blair left: within an hour or two.’

  ‘He left something like that on the desk of his apartment?’

  Brinkman paused again, remembering Ann’s account of the row. Remembering, too, the part of it she recalled best. He said he laved me. Brinkman said, ‘There was a lot of panic. Some personal confusion too, I think.’

  ‘There must have been,’ said Maxwell. He looked back to the display before him. ‘So what is it, in your opinion?’

  ‘I don’t know, not definitely,’ conceded Brinkman. ‘At the moment I think it’s a defection.’

  Maxwell frowned up. ‘Someone of Orlov’s rank?’

  ‘Which was why I judged it important enough to come back here personally.’ said Brinkman. Maxwell was moving, he guessed. Very slightly but moving.

  Maxwell opened the tub on his desk, lighted the cigarette and coughed. ‘So what do you want to do about it?’ he asked, directly.

  ‘Make him come to us, instead,’ said Brinkman, just as direct.

  A smile, vaguely patronising, touched Maxwell’s mouth. ‘Just like that!’ he said.

  ‘No, not just like that,’ said Brinkman, irritated at his superior. ‘I think I could make it happen.’

  ‘How?’

  Brinkman told him, setting out the proposal he had carefully formulated on the flight from Moscow, intent upon Maxwell’s facial reaction. There was none. When he finished Maxwell, who had served at the embassy in Washington before his promotion said, ‘Do you know the American expression “dirty pool”?’

  ‘No,’ said Brinkman.

  ‘Loosely translated, it means shitting on someone from a great height. What you’re planning is dirty pool.’

  ‘I’m suggesting we get Orlov for ourselves!’

  ‘I know what you’re suggesting,’ said Maxwell. ‘But why? There’s liaison, between us and Washington. We’ll get what Orlov has to say, in time. If they get him across it’s a coup but if they make a mistake it’s an international incident. What’s wrong with letting America take the risk?’

  Chair-bound bloody beaurocrat, interested only in lunches at the club and whether his pension was index-linked, thought Brinkman. The departure lecture about taking chances hadn’t anything to do with his safety: Maxwell was only interested in his own back. As forcefully as he dared he said, ‘We won’t get what Orlov has to say. We’ll get what Washington condescends to let us have, sanitised and packaged, like processed cheese. And about as tasteless. And I agree, in time: their time. Which will be years from now, when any usefulness will have long gone. Why must we wait around all the time, cap in hand, grateful for American handouts? What’s wrong with their coming to us for a change?’

  Instead of answering, Maxwell persisted, ‘What about the risk?’

  Fuck the man, thought Brinkman. He wouldn’t be blocked. He said, ‘My father says repeatedly that knowing when to take risks in diplomacy – intelligent risks – is a finer part of the art.’

  Maxwell stubbed out his cigarette, the force with which he did it his only reaction to the threat. ‘You’d be appallingly exposed,’ he said. ‘In New York and in Moscow.’

  ‘I know the difficulties,’ assured Brinkman.

  ‘What if you’re wrong, about Orlov and the girl?’ said Maxwell.

  ‘Then I’ll realise that in New York, where I’ll do nothing more harmful than make a fool of myself, and any danger in Moscow won’t exist any more,’ said Brinkman, the argument prepared.

  ‘Be careful,’ said Maxwell, predictably. ‘Be very careful indeed.’

  Brinkm
an went directly from his meeting with Maxwell to the airport, with no reason for remaining any longer in London and anxious to close the gap between himself and Blair as quickly as possible. Maxwell would take out insurance, Brinkman knew. He couldn’t guess what or how, but the bloody man would evolve something to get himself as far back from the spray as possible if anything hit the fan. Maybe he wouldn’t let the threat invoking his father remain as empty as he intended it to be. It was a late flight from London but Brinkman benefited from the time difference for his arrival in New York. Wanting to maximise that benefit he refused everything on the flight, determined only upon sleeping. The necessity of booking into an hotel was an irritating delay but he was still at the United Nations building by eight in the evening. The Assembly was in session, so Harriet Johnson was working split shifts. According to the information he’d already assembled, that meant the woman had another two hours of duty. He tried, from the public gallery, to detect her in the line of translation booths but the glass was smoked and he was too far away anyway. He listened to a debate about Third World starvation, knowing it would not alleviate that starvation in the slightest and reflecting what a useless world forum it was. He left the chamber with an hour to spare, with more to find than the door through which she would emerge into the corridor. There was a lot of movement in the passageway, which offered him concealment but made more difficult finding those he guessed would already be in place because of Blair’s head start. He guessed at a man in a fawn seersucker suit but wasn’t sure about another in a blue sports jacket. Brinkman bought Newsweek from a bookstand and managed to get a bench near a wall support, which furthered his concealment. If he were mistaken about the fawn seersucker and the sports jacket – if she weren’t under some sort of protective surveillance – then it could mean that he was completely wrong, Brinkman realised. If she were still here at all. If it was what he thought it was, Harriet Johnson would already be under wraps. The uncertainties irritated him, nibbling away at his absolute conviction. Harriet Johnson was the essential key – the only key – for everything to work out as he wanted it to. If they already had her, then everything changed. To a dirtier pool than even Maxwell suspected.

  But they didn’t have her. Harriet Johnson emerged from the translation area at ten past ten, a crisply-suited, crisply-mannered woman he recognised immediately from the photographs. She paused to speak to an attendant and then set off in the direction of the elevators that would take her from the building, not towards the secretariat offices to which he thought she might go first. Brinkman made no effort to follow at once, waiting to see what would happen. He was wrong about the fawn seersucker but right about the sports jacket. There was also a man in a brown suit and a woman, which he should have anticipated but hadn’t. Brinkman allowed them to get expertly in position, the man in the brown suit actually preceding Harriet to enter the elevator ahead of her and guarantee cover at all times. Brinkman slotted himself comfortably behind them, admiring their professionalism. Halfway along the corridor brown suit allowed himself to be overtaken and the woman took his place. Had he not been trained – and then positively expecting it – Brinkman didn’t think he would have isolated the surveillance. He didn’t try for the same elevator – knowing they would register faces in such an enclosed area – but caught one sufficiently quickly to reach ground level before she went through the revolving doors. Brinkman followed the followers at an easy pace. Did she have a car or would she take a taxi? Neither, he saw, surprised. Harriet Johnson walked through the waiting vehicles and across the forecourt, passing almost directly beneath the statue of a man supposedly beating a sword into a ploughshare presented to the United Nations by the Soviet Union. She went to the left, to the break with FDR Drive, where it was easier to cross and Brinkman realised, further surprised, that she intended to walk the four blocks to where she lived. Harriet Johnson must be a very assured woman to walk four blocks in Manhattan after ten o’clock at night, reflected Brinkman. With that reflection came another. He wondered if the attacker would know what hit him if there were an attempt to mug her. She wasn’t entirely uncaring. Having crossed the difficult expanse of road right outside the United Nations she backtracked, to get to Second Avenue along the broad, well-lighted Forty-Second Street. Brinkman didn’t turn immediately right, as she did from practice, but continued across to the Sam Goody side of the avenue, keeping parallel but about ten yards behind. The American surveillance was practically choreographed, he thought admiringly. They obviously hadn’t been sure how she would travel, as he hadn’t been, so there were several vehicles, three at least that he identified. Although they didn’t need them for a driven observation, the Americans still utilised them, and cleverly, too, never keeping their people in the street around Harriet for more than one block but chopping and changing with the car occupants. They even bothered with the people ahead of him, walking parallel like he was.

  Harriet Johnson’s apartment block was on Second and Forty-Sixth Street, a modern, obviously new building. From across the avenue, Brinkman watched, easily able to see through the expansive clear glass as the woman went in, smiled in recognition to the guard, collected her mail from the deskman and then disappeared towards what had to be the elevators.

  Employing his own tradecraft Brinkman went into a bar on the opposite corner, the first requirement to get himself off the street with so much other surveillance in operation. There was a table strip arranged directly beneath the window looking out over the apartment block and Brinkman took his drink there, standing with the glass held lightly between both hands, gazing out towards it. Six sixty-seven, he knew, from the already obtained information. It was easy enough to count up but with no way of knowing which way the numbering went from there it was impossible to isolate which of the lighted windows belonged to the woman. The CIA would have done so, by now. So why didn’t they have her under open protection, if not away from the UN completely? It was obvious, from the homeward journey, that she didn’t have any idea of what had been going on all about her. It didn’t make sense. There were cars lining either side of Forty-Sixth but it was too far away and too dark for him to see how many were occupied. There would be several, he knew. Would they have managed to get an apartment, within the building? It would have been an obvious move, if they intended to continue the cover they seemed to be employing now. And putting their own people in, as desk staff. And installing a monitor on her telephone. Brinkman stopped mentally turning the pages of the manual. Blair was barely forty-eight hours ahead of him, if the panicked return had been the beginning. He flicked the pages back, for another look. The street cover was in place because he’d seen it, but that took little preparation. Not enough time to get themselves an apartment. Or install themselves as desk staff. What about the telephone? he wondered, looking to where the bar booth was, at the end by the restrooms. It would have been quick, but not impossible. Too uncertain to take the risk, though. He looked back across the road, towards the apartment block. Hundreds of people lived there, he thought. Hundreds they might try to identify, one by one, if they considered the operation important enough and if they had the time. But they wouldn’t have had the time yet.

  The decision made, Brinkman left the bar and purposefully crossed the road, not a stranger to the area but someone approaching his own home. He thrust through the doors, nodding to the guard but not slowing his momentum until he got to the desk and here he maintained the demeanour of confidence which would have confused anyone watching from outside.

  ‘This the housephone?’ he said to the desk, lifting the white receiver.

  ‘Yes sir,’ said the man.

  The woman answered on the second ring.

  ‘I need to see you,’ said Brinkman, without introduction. ‘It’s about Pietr.’

  There was silence from the other end of the line. Then she said, ‘Give me the deskman.’

  Brinkman handed the guard the receiver. The man smiled up, putting it almost at once back on to the cradle. ‘She says you’re to
go up.’

  The surveillance had been confirmation that he was right, decided Brinkman, going towards the elevators. Harriet Johnson’s reaction doubly confirmed it. He was drawing level.

  The contingency planning was far more extensive than Blair envisaged. Overnight the Director decided to send a Special Forces group on standby to one of the German bases, from which within hours they could get to the Finnish border if there had to be an incursion to get Orlov out. Five unmarked CIA helicopters – large capacity Chinooks – were also sent on, in advance, flying with a Boeing 727, also unmarked, which was planned to be the transport vehicle for Orlov’s eventual Atlantic crossing to the United States, however the man got out. Blair addressed the assembled group leaders, self-consciously, standing in front of them like a teacher, baton in hand, identifying Orlov from the hugely enlarged photographs that had been made. There was renewed pressure from Hubble to provide back-up within the Soviet Union and Blair conceded that an effort should be made if the cross-over appeared to be taking longer than they expected, which would enable the applications to be made for entry permission without attracting any special attention. With the number of American diplomats permitted in Moscow strictly limited by the Russians, it meant the Director had to persuade the State Department to surrender some of their allocation and Blair wondered how successful Perelmen would be.

  He was away from Langley in good time for the parents’ meeting at the drug programme. Blair couldn’t see that the gathering achieved much practical benefit, apart from showing die kids they had support – which was, he supposed, the practical benefit intended – and afterwards he gave them a choice and they went for the Mexican cafe in the Georgetown mall. Ruth put Charlie Rogers off and Blair wished she hadn’t. Both boys wore their watches and kept looking at them, with the pride of new ownership.

  ‘Can we really come to Moscow, Dad?’ said John.

  ‘That’s a deal.’