November Man

by Brian Freemantle

  They were like two men facing each other with revolvers, unsure which gun contained the last bullet, thought Dennison.

  ‘No,’ agreed the Russian, after several minutes. ‘Neither of us would want to risk that.’

  We’ve won, realized Dennison suddenly. Melkovsky wasn’t willing to pull the trigger.

  The man had to have some room in which to appear to manoeuvre, Murray knew.

  ‘Already Russia has benefited greatly from the agreement,’ he repeated, like a man releasing, hand over hand, a bedsheet rope to allow escape.

  Melkovsky nodded, grateful for the opportunity to save his face.

  ‘I would like to be able to announce the breakthrough within three weeks …’, repeated Murray. He waited, but there was no reaction from the pale-faced man sitting opposite. ‘And I would like to be able to predict a date for the actual troop-withdrawals.’

  ‘That doesn’t seem unreasonable,’ conceded the Russian.

  ‘A date this year,’ insisted Murray definitely.

  ‘How about some time in October?’ suggested Melkovsky, smiling his awareness of the timing.

  Murray answered the expression, but Dennison made no reaction, staring curiously at the Soviet Minister. Too easy, decided the scholar.

  ‘What about that?’ enthused Murray in the car taking them back to the military airfield for the flight to Washington. Dennison did not reply. Murray looked at him: the man was jealous, he decided. And annoyed at being put into his place during the anteroom argument.

  ‘I said what about that?’ bullied Murray. ‘I can announce the breakthrough at the convention nomination, and time the declaration about the withdrawal of troops from Europe and missile inspection at just the right moment before the election. Absolutely perfect.’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ warned Dennison softly.

  For a moment, Murray was quietened by the other man’s pessimism.

  ‘Rubbish,’ he refused. ‘I had them by the balls and they knew it.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Dennison, unconvinced. ‘Even holding them by the balls it was still too easy. I know the Russians.’

  He had been wrong, decided Murray, as the car pulled into the airfield. Dennison was too old. And too tired. He’d have to be replaced, like all the rest.

  ‘It’s just not working,’ insisted Marion. They’d avoided it for too long, she decided finally, the words colliding in her nervousness. She and Jocelyn were like bantam cocks, forever circling, seeking an opening. Sod it if she lost face with the family: she couldn’t stand the pretence any longer. And it wasn’t fair to Jocelyn.

  ‘What?’ responded Hollis, trying to avoid the confrontation.

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ shouted his wife, the dam breaking with her decision. ‘Don’t be so fucking stupid … us, we’re not working … the marriage … and we both know it …’

  She saw him look sideways and slammed her fists angrily against her legs.

  ‘The servants can’t hear, Jocelyn,’ she screamed. ‘And neither can the children. So don’t worry about the bad impression that might be created.’

  She walked over to the window, staring out over the autumn-aged Buckinghamshire countryside, hands cupping her elbows as if she were cold. She didn’t want to look at him, she told herself. Because, if she saw his pain, the guilt would choke her and she would be persuaded against the decision she had made.

  She had chosen a bad moment, she decided, the doubts arising like targets in a funfair shooting gallery, so close to the return to Eastern Europe. But there would never be a good time: there would always be some deal or other occupying his mind. And could there ever be a good time to announce the practical end of a marriage?

  Where were all the well-rehearsed phrases and apologies, she asked herself; the expressions that would enable the whole thing to be discussed amicably, like resigning from a tennis club because one was moving house.

  Hollis stared at her, unwilling to take up the conversation, as a child stands quite still to avoid punishment.

  ‘But darling …’

  ‘… Please, Jocelyn,’ she pleaded, more controlled now. ‘Don’t pretend. Let’s be adult, both of us.’

  He nipped at the inside of his mouth nervously. She couldn’t leave him. She couldn’t possibly walk out.

  ‘Marion, honestly …’ He broke off, waiting for another outburst, but she just stood at the window, refusing to look back.

  ‘… I really don’t understand why,’ he groped sincerely. It was their marriage they were talking about, he told himself. Their marriage. The only thing of which he was sure.

  ‘You embarrass me, Jocelyn,’ she said. She was speaking evenly, enunciating the words, determined to allow no misunderstandings, but knowing as she spoke she was expressing herself wrongly.

  ‘I’m bored by your pretence … the need to look sideways in mirrors to see your own reflection … the need to be liked so that you’re never rude to anyone … You’re just too perfect!’

  What would he do, he asked himself. If she left, he could make the announcements, showing he was the innocent partner. He’d get the sympathy. That would be important, to get the sympathy.

  ‘So what do you want?’ he asked sullenly. He would have expected to have felt more emotion. Perhaps it would come later.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, obscurely.

  He waited, hopefully. She wasn’t completely certain, he thought.

  ‘But separate bedrooms,’ she blurted suddenly, confused.

  Was that it, sex? Did he make too many demands? Surely not. He’d read all the books, rated himself even. Normal feelings, he knew. Nothing excessive. Whenever she refused, he always accepted without any argument.

  ‘But …’

  ‘I don’t want to sleep with you any more, Jocelyn.’

  ‘I won’t become a joke,’ he announced.

  She turned, shaking her head sadly.

  ‘That’s the trouble, isn’t it, Jocelyn?’ she said. Seriously, she added, ‘You’ve never laughed at yourself in your life.’

  ‘I won’t become a joke,’ he insisted mechanically, unable to find better words.

  He’d fight for the children, he determined. A nanny could care for them and they would be permanently at boarding-school very soon. They were his, after all. Yes, he’d definitely fight for the children. If she left him, he’d have an excellent case in court.

  ‘There’s no need for us to become bad friends,’ she said, almost conversationally.

  It was unreal, he told himself. He stared at her, waiting for her to laugh and say it was all a joke. She didn’t move. There was something he didn’t understand. She was using him and he couldn’t see how.

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘What apart from separate bedrooms?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said.

  He waited, expecting from the expression in her voice that she would continue, but she didn’t.

  ‘Until when?’ he queried, with gradual realization.

  She moved closer to the window, jerking her shoulders, confirming his suspicion.

  ‘Until November,’ guessed Hollis. ‘So that James can have a perfect election, unembarrassed by any messy suggestions of a separation or divorce within the immediate family.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said, without conviction. ‘Ford was married to a divorcee. Rockefeller’s marriage ended so he could marry another woman.’

  Hollis glared at her back, feeling the anger scald through him. He knew he was right.

  ‘I want to make sure,’ elaborated the woman, believing herself. ‘… I … I don’t want the children hurt.’

  Or myself, she added mentally.

  Damn the children. What about me, thought Hollis.

  She turned again and Hollis saw she was crying, the tears making tiny channels through her make-up.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she said, urgently. About what, she asked herself. The marriage? Or how the family back in Boston would react to her admission of failure? She’d never kn
own failure before, she realized. Not once in her entire life. James would laugh. Not to her face, of course. Outwardly his behaviour would be perfect, the tender consideration of a thoughtful brother to a bruised sister. But secretly he’d laugh at her, like he had when they were children.

  ‘Then …’

  She waved him to silence.

  ‘I want to see, Jocelyn,’ she stumbled. ‘… I want to be completely sure before I do anything else … but I don’t want … I don’t want you touching me until I’ve made that decision …’

  It wasn’t sex, he knew. Or anything else that he’d done. It was James. James had always been the trouble, the man with whom he was always being compared. The relationship between them was almost unnatural. The bloody man had led the opposition to the marriage, he knew, and had always been a barrier between him and Marion. Had they …? He shook his head, refusing the thought.

  For the first time ever, Altmann was impatient for the visit with Hannah to end, so that he could consider fully the Russian involvement in the attempt to kill him. He was ashamed by the feeling, trying to push it from his mind.

  ‘You’ve been a fine husband, Hugo,’ said the woman emptily, breaking into his thoughts.

  The redness around her eyes had deepened to purple, Altmann saw, and her breathing was more difficult, gasping almost. So much for the new treatment.

  ‘It’s been a good marriage, hasn’t it, darling?’ Hannah went on. A smile was playing on her face. She was hallucinating, he decided, watching her helplessly. Or speaking aloud an open-eyed dream she was having.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed, placating. ‘A good marriage. No man could have wanted more.’

  She blinked, as if she had been awakened by his voice.

  ‘Hello,’ she said.

  ‘Hello.’

  Immediately the curtain came down.

  But for the need for these weekly visits, he thought – unable to ignore the feeling – he could run. Or could he? Wasn’t he trapped by his own insistence that the Russians provide a round-the-clock guard?

  ‘It’s good to know you’re here,’ said the woman, in a brief moment of rationality.

  ‘I’ll always be here,’ he promised. And he would be, he determined. He wouldn’t fail her, not this time. No matter what the cost, he wouldn’t abandon her again.

  She was asleep again, jerking and whimpering in the grip of some private nightmare. She hadn’t awakened by the time the nurses came to prepare her for the night, and he left sadly, resolved in the determination to return the following week. There were still four hours before his plane to Vienna, so he walked into town from the clinic, sure because of his knowledge that there was no risk now of another attempt against him.

  It was cold and he shrugged the topcoat around him as he started the descent into Zurich.

  Had he stumbled upon the explanation back in the clinic that had eluded him for almost a fortnight? Had the Russian attack been staged to ensure Moscow could place a twenty-four-hour watch upon him to guarantee absolutely the success of what was unquestionably the most important operation in which he had been engaged?

  He dismissed it immediately. They could have done that anyway, without inventing a reason. The clumsiness of it was inexplicable. Why stage an assault he would have to recognize? A warning? But against what? There was no benefit from their frightening him. Only one certainty was clear, he thought, as he entered a better-lit part of the city. This had to be the last operation. It would be difficult to quit, he knew.

  In the circumstances, there was only one way he could do it, in fact.

  How easy, he wondered, would it be to defect to America?

  (11)

  Hollis respected Herr Junkers for his tenacity. Too many government ministers would have accepted the initial refusal of the British government to grant an export licence for the landing-system.

  Across the tiny private dining-room of the Stadt Hotel on Alexandreplatz he made a helpless gesture. The minister and the persistent Konrad Bauer had insisted on the hospitality, even though Hollis had stressed the tightness of their schedules later that day in Prague.

  ‘A great pity,’ said Bauer, nodding at Hollis’s apology.

  The official escort constantly exceeded his position, decided Hollis. He would have expected Junkers to rebuke him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the millionaire, pointedly talking to Junkers. ‘I really am. It was an exciting prospect.’

  ‘We’ve made two applications,’ endorsed Ellidge, who had eaten with them.

  ‘Perhaps’, suggested the German, ‘you didn’t make the proper case …’ He smiled apologetically. ‘… No criticism, of course. But there was so little time at the Fair. Another day or two and I could have briefed you so much better on our needs.’

  ‘I had enough for the application,’ ensured Hollis sympathetically. He’d had more details than were necessary, he recalled. There was even a reference in the Department of Trade and Industry letter to the amount available. ‘Unusually informative,’ the letter had said. The trip wouldn’t be completely wasted, he decided confidently. There was still their video-tape deal, and from the provisional reports he would be able to supply Czechoslovakia completely with the oil it needed.

  With difficulty, Junkers bent beside the table, his face reddening, pulling the briefcase on to his lap. He pulled out papers, pushing them across the table. The wording was in German, but from a silhouette of the aircraft Hollis saw it was a Russian-built Mikoyan MIG 25.

  ‘The Foxbat?’ identified Hollis, using the NATO code-name. It pleased him to be able to display such instant recognition.

  Junkers nodded.

  ‘A wonderful plane,’ said Bauer enthusiastically, eager to show his knowledge. ‘Far better than any American Phantom. It performed brilliantly in the Middle East in the 1973 war.’

  Hollis nodded, leaving the documents before him.

  ‘So I believe,’ he said.

  ‘Our scientists want to experiment,’ enlarged Junkers. ‘We believe your landing-system would be better than the existing equipment.’

  Hollis gazed at the other man, with growing surprise.

  ‘They think with the 40-foot wing-span and 69-foot length, it would be easily modified. The basic operational weight of 34,000 lbs would be well within the capabilities of your equipment,’ added the German.

  Hollis had imagined they wanted the landing-device for a prototype aircraft. He would need technical advice but, despite Junkers’s easy assertion, he would have thought it unlikely such a major modification could have been made to a production fighter.

  It was hardly likely the British government would be prepared to improve Russia’s leading assault aircraft, he thought.

  ‘I am sorry,’ insisted the millionaire. ‘No matter what argument I propose, I know the Department of Trade will remain adamant.’

  ‘So it’s true, then?’ demanded Junkers.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That the guidance and landing-systems are to be adopted completely by NATO.’

  Ellidge shifted uncomfortably at the table, putting the papers that Junkers had offered into the semblance of order.

  ‘I can’t discuss that,’ sidestepped Hollis. ‘But no real secret has been made about the NATO proposal.’

  ‘You’re very discreet,’ congratulated the German. He sighed, smiling regretfully, as if accepting defeat. ‘I understand,’ he said.

  He straightened, discarding the disappointment.

  ‘But there will be no problem with the educational cassette system?’ he asked.

  ‘None,’ assured Hollis. ‘I can supply not only the prerecorded video-tapes, but the properly adapted television equipment.’

  ‘Could we make it here, under licence?’

  ‘I’d hoped it would be possible,’ said Hollis.

  Junkers nodded. ‘It can be arranged,’ he said positively. ‘The Deutsche Demokratische Republik plan to have the method installed in all our universities and schools to become an educational mo
del for the world …’, he paused. ‘… Both East and West,’ he added.

  Hollis looked at Ellidge. That would be a mammoth undertaking, he knew. Another multi-million-pound deal. The publicity department would have to be told immediately they returned. It was a reasonable assumption that other Eastern-bloc countries would follow. And he had the world-wide patent; there was no way it could be pirated.

  ‘Almost immediately’, said Hollis, ‘I would like my lawyers and engineers to come, to begin the detailed discussions …’ He paused. ‘Perhaps next week?’

  ‘Of course,’ agreed the minister. ‘This will mark great co-operation between us.’

  ‘That is important,’ intoned Bauer, wanting to contribute. ‘Working together for mutual benefit.’

  Parrot-like propaganda, thought Hollis. Ellidge, conscious as always of Hollis’s moods, began scuffing the chair away from the table.

  ‘Only an hour to the plane,’ he warned.

  Junkers and Bauer stood, with almost Prussian politeness.

  ‘Again, I’m sorry about the aircraft system,’ said Hollis. ‘But I know we are going to work very well together with other matters.’

  Junkers shrugged, reaching for his briefcase.

  ‘One more attempt?’ he invited, offering the documents again. ‘I’ve written a position paper on our aims.’

  Hollis shook his head, handing the papers back.

  ‘Pointless,’ he advised.

  Junkers escorted them to the exit promising that arrangements for the lawyers would be made within twenty-four hours.

  It was an official car, provided with escort vehicles, and they quickly cleared the traffic for the ten-mile journey to Schönefeld. Because Bauer was with them, even taking them through the Customs formalities, it was not until they had unclasped their seat-belts in the Aeroflot Ilyushin that Hollis turned to Ellidge.

  ‘Very worthwhile,’ he judged.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Ellidge.

  ‘Considered objectively,’ mused the millionaire, ‘it was ridiculous for them to expect to get that landing-system, linked so closely to a guidance-system that was still on the restricted list.’