Lost American

by Brian Freemantle

  Sokol bent over his maps in absolute concentration, becoming more and more convinced of the destination as he traced the route Blair and Blakey were independently taking. It had to be Krasnaya. He hesitated momentarily, unsure whether to consult Panov and then deciding against it, aware it would indicate his uncertainty. Through the transmitters linked to Panov’s monitoring apparatus, Sokol called up half of the waiting reserves of street and mobile personnel and despatched them to the park, in advance of the Americans’ arrival. Sokol would have liked the time to brief them in one of the lecture rooms but decided speed was more important. So he isolated himself briefly from the constantly incoming surveillance information and withdrew to another radio installation, although still one to which the listening chairman above had simultaneous access. Over a separate wavelength he specifically instructed every car, identifying by name the men in each and insisting upon a response so that everyone understood what he was demanding.

  Photographs had been taken of Blakey and King on their arrival at the airport and copies issued to every surveillance vehicle. It was from the photograph in the first car to arrive at Krasnaya that the occupants identified the undetected younger American already there, attempting to appear inconspicuous by the archer statue and when the information was relayed Sokol felt a warmth of satisfaction, at being right. The feeling grew with the news from the followers that both Blair and Blakey were approaching the park, as well. By the time the two older Americans entered Krasnaya it was completely under the control of- and sealed by -the KGB. All the attendants and staff- even staff at the solitary refreshment stall – were intelligence personnel and the apparently innocent pedestrians and users were KGB officers. There were radio-controlled pursuit cars in all of the five main approach routes, with extra men concealed in closed vans.

  Blair didn’t need to study any further the lay-out of the intended meeting place, so by arrangement he went directly to the bench where he’d sat before with Orlov, leaving Blakey and King to orientate themselves.

  At Sokol’s insistence there was a running commentary now being sent into the control room from four separate observers concealed within the park, operating mobile apparatus. There was no other sound whatsoever in the room; Sokol and the technicians all stared at the receivers through which the voices were coming, as if they expected to see as well as hear.

  In the park Blair saw Art Blakey approaching and rose, before the American reached him.

  ‘What do you think?’ he said.

  ‘Good a place as any,’ judged Blakey.

  The remark was picked up by a directional microphone aimed from about twenty-five yards away, by an operator hidden in dense shrubbery and Sokol couldn’t suppress the smile of triumph. He was glad Panov was listening to everything.

  King came into the area, smiling.

  ‘OK?’ said Blair.

  ‘Tell you on Friday,’ said the younger man.

  The second remark came clearly into the radio room and Sokol turned away from the technicians, not wanting the gossip to spread of his reaction to the absolute confirmation of everything.

  ‘Anything more you want to see?’ Blair asked both men.

  Blakey shook his head. King said, ‘Can’t think of anything. This looks like an ordinary park.’

  ‘What else should it look like?’ asked Blair, curiously.

  King shrugged, embarrassed at disclosing an idle thought. ‘Just felt it might somehow be different, really. You know what I thought, on my way here?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That the people physically seem different.’

  ‘Different how?’ asked Blakey, leading the way out of Krasnaya.

  King laughed dismissively, further embarrassment. ‘Square, somehow,’ he said. ‘Physically square.’

  ‘There’s a revolving restaurant on the top of the Ostankino TV tower,’ said Blair. ‘You can see something of Moscow.’

  They were beyond the range of the directional eavesdroppers now, so the remark was missed by the listening Russians.

  ‘Sounds like a good idea,’ said Blakey. ‘We’ve been going round and round for quite a while anyway.’

  On the Ulitza Akademika Korolyova, Blair led the way into the Sed’moye Nebo restaurant and in his fluent Russian engaged in the ritual of negotiating a favoured table with the head waiter and because those on either side of the window location were already occupied it meant that the pursuing KGB men were unable to get near enough to hear any conversation and long boomed microphones were impossible in such public surroundings.

  As they sat Blair warned, ‘I hope you’re not in a hurry. Or hungry. These things take quite a long time. It’s something you have to get accustomed to, in Moscow.’

  ‘You know what I’d like?’ demanded Blakey. ‘I’d like Orlov to turn up this week with a perfectly sensibly explanation of why he hasn’t been able to make the contacts. So that all those pricks at headquarters can realise they’d been just that. Pricks.’

  ‘It would be good,’ agreed Blair. He added, ‘Somehow I can’t see it happening. I’ve got a gut feeling that it’s gone cold.’

  ‘You think it was the watch upon the woman in New York?’ asked the other supervisor.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Blair. ‘I warned them as strongly as I could. I would have expected our people to have recognised any Soviet surveillance, if there’d been any.’

  ‘Wouldn’t there have been some sort of announcement, naming Orlov, if they’d moved against him because of what we were doing in New York?’ asked King, acknowledging Blair’s experience.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Blair. ‘Maybe not at all. Just something in a few months’ time saying that he’d been voted off a committee and then later dismissed from the Central Committee itself. He’ll be in jail by then, of course.’

  ‘Creepy country,’ said the inexperienced King. He stared out over the slowly revolving panorama of the Soviet capital and said, ‘That’s something else that occurred to me this morning. Everything’s grey: actually coloured grey, I mean.’

  ‘It’s not, really,’ said Blair. ‘But it’s a pretty common first impression.’

  ‘You know how it happened, don’t you?’ said Blakey to the CIA Resident. ‘How your balls got caught in the vice?’

  ‘How?’ said Blair.

  ‘Perelmen,’ disclosed Blakey. ‘George Bush was a CIA Director and made vice President. Perelmen thought the pathway looked pretty attractive. Set out to portray himself as the indispensible foreign affairs expert, better than State and better than anyone.’

  ‘Sorry I let him down,’ said Blair bitterly.

  ‘You didn’t,’ said Blatkey. ‘He let himself down announcing coups before they happened. This thing should have been kept under wraps so tight an Egyptian mummy would have looked naked.’

  ‘Pity it wasn’t,’ said Blair. He pulled back for the arrival of the tardy waiter, giving their order for bortsch in Russian.

  ‘Sure it’s a pity,’ agreed Blakey. ‘Now it’s blame time and you’re right at the end of the line. I’ve been at Langley for the last three years; know how the system works. You’re the one who fouled up, according to the book. All the panic and all the bullshit will be justified, the proper reaction to what seemed to be happening. You’re the one left carrying the can.’

  ‘Seems pretty shitty,’ said King, coming back from his examination of the Russian capital.

  ‘Believe me,’ said Blakey. ‘I’m right.’

  Just how right was proven by the message awaiting Blair when they got back to the embassy that afternoon. After further consideration, cabled Hubble, it had been decided there would be no purpose in Blair’s tour being extended longer than originally scheduled. Blakey was to remain, as acting intelligence Resident.

  Blair smiled wanly down at the decision, remembering it was what he’d told Ann to fob her off after his most recent return from Washington. She should be pleased: everything was turning out as she wanted it to.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said
Blakey, when Blair showed him the recall cable. ‘I didn’t try for this, you know?’

  ‘I know you didn’t,’ assured Blair. ‘Things could still turn out for the good.’

  ‘Reconnaissance?’ said Panov.

  ‘Unquestionably,’ said Sokol, recognising that Panov was speaking for the benefit of the record, to show his awareness. The KGB chairman’s attitude was remarkably changed. He’d stood smiling to greet him when he entered, directly from the control room, and within minutes of their conference beginning the vodka had been served. He went on, ‘From what we heard we know positively that there’s a meeting and we know it’s to be Friday.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ allowed Panov. ‘You’ve been proven right …’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Sokol, knowing the required modesty.

  ‘… About one man,’ balanced the chairman. ‘Nothing’s been resolved about the Englishman.’

  ‘It will be,’ undertook Sokol.

  It was not until he returned to his own department that Sokol reflected on the extent of the exaggeration. At the moment he only had half a success; and that was still positively to materialise.

  He cleared his desk of everything except the files on Jeremy Brinkman, right back to the first entry of the man’s arrival, looking for anything he might have missed. He stopped, curiously, going to Blair’s file for comparison and then calculating from the guard reports that the Englishman appeared to have visited the Blair apartment on more than one – several, in fact – occasions when the American was back in Washington. He made a note and put a genuine question mark after it, unsure if there was any significance. It was a pity that Blair was so good at cleansing his apartment of the listening devices so regularly planted and equally regularly found and jammed by the man.

  It took Sokol two hours to exhaust the written dossiers and then – exhausted himself – he lowered the lights and started on the videos and the attempted eavesdropping with the pistol microphones that had already proved so effective that day upon Blair as he moved about the city. He saw it, on the last film. At first he wasn’t sure, stopping and rewinding the film and then stopping it again on a freeze frame, at the actual moment of Brinkman putting the transistor on the kiosk edge. With the frame held, Sokol found the independent sound tape, coordinating it by date and time to the attempt to overhear the Tuesday conversation when Brinkman and Orlov had arranged the Russian’s escape. There was just the meaningless snarl of interfering static that Brinkman intended.

  Sokol picked out all the Tuesday films, looking for the kiosks now – all so brief they had been missed, until the latest, longer conversation – isolating the contact every time. He watched the most recent tape through again and then put the lights up, confident he’d found the method and the dating of liaison. And depressed by it. From the reports it was always a different kiosk. And so because they could never know in advance what the next box was going to be, they couldn’t put a tape on it, for next Tuesday. There was never any evidence of his dialling out. So it was always an incoming call, from another untraceable telephone. The Englishman had been clever; cleverer, in fact, than Blair. Next Tuesday the watch upon the Englishman would be very different and very concentrated and before it happened Sokol knew he needed an intensive session with the electronic experts. He had to have a listening van capable of connecting at once -within seconds – to the call if he were to be as successful here as he had been in Krasnaya Park. Sokol decided – until he talked to the experts – to keep this from Panov. The man had had sufficient with which to be impressed in one day.

  ‘He promised!’ protested Paul. ‘He promised he’d write and fix the trip.’

  ‘Your father’s a busy man, darling,’ said Ruth. ‘If he made a promise he’ll keep it.’

  ‘The vacation is soon now.’

  ‘Why not write again to remind him.’

  ‘I’ve written twice already. He hasn’t bothered to reply.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ defended Ruth. ‘He always replies.’

  ‘You know what I think?’ said Paul. ‘I think he’s dumped us, just like before.’

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Brinkman had acquired few possessions in Moscow. Wanting to travel lightly he bothered only with an overnight shoulder-bag – and that more for effect at the airport than for necessity – and left everything else to be shipped out as diplomatic luggage, by the embassy. He took particular care packing the icon that Ann gave him on his birthday, sure it was going to have special meaning for both of them. He was cleared up and ready early in the day, like a deprived child anxious for its first holiday. He remained careful, in everything. He paid Kabalin, the muttering maid, three weeks’ salary and said he looked forward to returning, to ensure that her inevitable report wouldn’t cause any uncertainty before he was able to leave, although he knew that in the few hours remaining it would be unlikely that any report would be properly channelled or assessed. She thanked him and promised to come in as she always did while he was away and Brinkman said he would appreciate it, knowing that she was lying. She hadn’t stolen as much as he expected and Brinkman reckoned he’d been lucky. He guessed she’d come under some severe investigation, which was unfortunate but unavoidable.

  Brinkman moved aimlessly around the apartment, impatient for Ann’s call, idly looking around to impress it upon his memory. It would be a good memory, he decided. He’d achieved everything he set out to do, on the posting; more, in fact. And no one could detract from that. He’d proved himself, to everyone. It didn’t matter what credit Maxwell attempted to claim; his reputation had been established before this. What was happening today was just planting the flag on top of the mountain, like the flags had been planted in that preposterous film he’d watched, waiting for contact with Orlov.

  He looked at his watch, calculating against the time difference. It would have already started by now, in London. The aircraft would have probably gone to France overnight. Maybe the snatch squads who were going to work outside the restricted areas, too. He wondered where those who were going to be on the inside picked up the international flight, to put them in the right terminal area. There’ll be a hell of a row, of course. France protesting – because they had to – about violation and invasion of sovereignty and Russia denouncing everything and everybody. All because of him, thought Brinkman, in private, gloating triumph. He pitied everyone he was leaving behind in Moscow. Life was going to be unbearable for a long time after this. He guessed Russia would insist upon some expulsions from the British embassy here and wondered who it would be. Someone senior, if they tried to equate the action against Orlov’s rank. Properly to do that would mean the ambassador, he supposed. All because of me, he thought again.

  He snatched at the telephone when it rang and promised Ann he would be with her in fifteen minutes. He made it in ten. She didn’t hold back when he kissed her and he thought her eyes were wet and wondered if she’d been crying at the thought of his going.

  ‘I never really thought you meant it,’ she said. ‘About leaving, I mean. I just thought it was something you said, to try to make me make a decision.’

  ‘Now you know it wasn’t,’ he said. He paused and said, ‘But I want you to make up your mind.’

  She shook her head, not in refusal but in perpetual uncertainty, looking away from him. If it had to be it had to be, thought Brinkman. He said, ‘Eddie lied to you, Ann. About how long you’re likely to be here. I can’t tell you how I know: all I ask is that you trust me. But there are going to be a lot of things happening here. Things which are going to upset a lot of forecasts. Eddie’s going to be kept on here not just for months but for years. Which means – if you stay – that you’ll be here for years. You’re going to become the den mother of the diplomatic wives, like Betty Harrison. You’re going to see them come and you’re going to see them go and you’ll still be here.’

  ‘No!’ she said. ‘Eddie’s never lied to me. He told me that and I believe him. He said it wouldn’t be as bad as I first t
hought.’

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’ he said, his anger slipping. ‘Bugger all, and you know it. He was trying to squeeze out of a corner and so he said something that sounded OK, to get you off his back. But it doesn’t mean anything. Can’t you see that?’

  Ann nodded, dumbly. It was vague, just like he said it was. ‘I’m not brave enough,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll make you brave,’ said Brinkman urgently, seeing the crack widen. ‘Just leave. Just leave Moscow – use whatever excuse you like – and then let him know you’re not coming back.’

  ‘I couldn’t do it like that,’ she said at once. ‘That wouldn’t be …’ she hesitated at the word ‘I know it doesn’t sound right, but that wouldn’t be honest. If I’m going to leave then I’ll tell him to his face.’

  ‘Tell him then.’

  ‘I don’t know if I want to.’

  ‘Don’t tell me again that you’re confused: I’m fed up with hearing it!’

  ‘Don’t pressure me all the time!’

  ‘You know what you want to do. So do it!’

  ‘Why did you ever have to come to Moscow? If you hadn’t come here everything would have been all right.’

  ‘You know that isn’t true.’

  ‘I’ll decide,’ she said.

  ‘When? And don’t say soon: don’t try to run away again.’

  ‘A week,’ she said. ‘I’ll decide in a week. I promise.’

  If she hadn’t intended to do it she would have refused now, here, on the spot, thought Brinkman. She was going to come with him, like he’d known she would all along. He held out his arms and she came to him, her arms tight around him. He wanted to make love to her and knew she wanted it too. There wasn’t time: not for how he wanted to make love. He didn’t want a snatched, illicit screw. That was all over. He wanted her to be his wife and now he knew she was going to be. ‘I must go,’ he said, seeing at once the frown of annoyance that he wasn’t going to do what she expected.