As he sat down, the feeling of sickness gripped him. He’d drunk too fast, he thought. Hollis was going to save him, he decided.
‘I said I want it,’ repeated the Briton, raising his hand for silence as he saw Altmann prepare to reply. ‘And I’m prepared to pay for it.’
‘Pay?’ queried Altmann, amazed.
‘Yes,’ said Hollis. ‘One hundred thousand pounds, payable in any currency and in any country of your choosing.’
He sat back, smiling, knowing the old man would accept. Everything was right, he decided, confidently: the expensiveness of the apartment, reflecting the love of riches. And the man’s age, a factor he hadn’t considered before. Altmann was getting old. And old men worried about the future. Money was an impenetrable shield, decided the millionaire.
Hollis meant it, Altmann realized. Ironical, he thought, that the one thing he didn’t need was money. But Hollis could provide the escape, he decided, his idea hardening.
When Hollis left the apartment, with him would go his lifeline. And the Americans here were still refusing positive commitment. So he’d abandon that afternoon’s appointment, embarrassing them into reaction. His safety lay in remaining with the British millionaire, not with a C.I.A. section who had dangled him on a string for two months.
Hollis could have the file, Altmann decided. And in return, he would get from the millionaire the guarantee that they could travel together to London. The move would throw the Russians off-balance, making them hesitate. And give him sufficient time to demand protection from the United States embassy in London: they’d accept his defection. He could go straight from England to Washington. Hannah was safe in Zurich, he knew, until he could arrange her evacuation.
‘I don’t want your money …’ he began badly, stopping at the anger that registered on Hollis’s face. He started to speak again, but the Briton talked over him.
‘Two hundred thousand,’ snapped Hollis.
Altmann smiled, trying to defuse the feeling. Hollis was overwrought, misunderstanding him.
The bastard is laughing at me, thought Hollis. He wouldn’t be laughed at. He should be respected, not treated as a joke. Didn’t the man understand? He was offering him a fortune, comfort for the rest of his life.
‘Mr Hollis,’ said Altmann. ‘I’m not interested in your money … I want …’
There it was again, the accent on the ‘Mister’. ‘Three hundred thousand.’ shouted Hollis. His mouth was tight, making the words difficult to hear.
The man was like Burke, a committed communist. If he left the apartment without the material they had fabricated against him, they’d always have a lever upon him. He had to retrieve it.
‘I’m determined to have it,’ he stressed. His voice was hoarse, as if he had a sore throat.
Hollis’s face was purple with emotion, saw Altmann.
‘Mister Hollis,’ said Altmann, ‘please listen to me.’
If he said ‘Mister’ once more with that derogatory inflection, he’d hit him, decided the millionaire. The urge to do so was very strong, like it had been the previous day with Ellidge in the Prague hotel-corridor.
‘A million pounds,’ blurted Hollis. The desperation leaked into his voice, cracking it.
Altmann laughed aloud, unable to prevent it. Immediately he stopped, worried at the anger he could see in the other man.
Carefully he placed the waterglass on a small table alongside the chair and stood up, walking forward, smiling reassurance. The way to stop the ridiculous conversation was to hand over the documents, then set the demands. Hollis would accept, in his gratitude, he knew.
‘Mr Hollis …’ he began, and Hollis hit him.
The millionaire came out of the chair in a rush, hand thrust almost clumsily towards the old man, catching him squarely in the face. Altmann smashed backwards, fear and pain screaming from him, and struck the chair in which he had been sitting, toppling it over with him. Blood filled his throat and he knew his nose was broken.
There was a sharp sensation in his side and he realized Hollis was kicking him repeatedly, driving the breath from him. He tried curling up, to get away from the pounding feet, but Hollis kept kicking, thumping into his back. Altmann groped for the chair, to lever himself up, trying to speak, but his throat and mouth were blocked with blood and he had no breath to make the sounds. He waved his hand, trying to gesture the man away, shaking his head to indicate the mistake. He had difficulty in focusing and knew his face was cut. Through the red blur he saw Hollis standing over him, eyes bulging. He was shouting something, but Altmann couldn’t hear the words, just something that sounded like ‘respect’, but that had to be wrong. Hollis stood back, swinging his foot again, catching Altmann in the throat. He crumpled, choking, and then felt the crushing weight and knew Hollis was on top of him. He tried to move, but the man was too heavy, squeezing what little air there was from his lungs. And then he felt the hands around his neck. He pawed at the man’s wrists but they were too powerful and he felt tired and he couldn’t see anything except blackness that seemed to get darker and darker.
Hollis kept squeezing, driving his fingers into the man’s neck, bearing down with all his strength. Wouldn’t be mocked any more. Never. Had to learn. They all had to learn.
He suddenly became aware of the ugly gurgling beneath his hands and realized they were smeared with blood and beneath the mess there was the distorted face of the Austrian.
He jerked up, repulsed. Trying to scramble away, he tripped on the body, so that he landed in a crouch. On his hands and knees he stared sideways at the prostrate, unmoving man. Hesitantly, he reached out, tugging at his shoulder, urging movement.
‘Get up,’ he said.
The body rolled back and forth, the head lolling. Altmann’s eyes were open, gazing at him. There couldn’t be anything wrong with the man if he were staring. Shock. That’s all it was, shock. Stupid to have attacked him like that. Have to apologize.
‘Get up,’ he commanded again. ‘Please get up. I’m sorry … really I am …’
He shook him again. The man’s head made a soft, bumping sound against the floor. Why didn’t he move? Say something, even? Because he’d killed him. Hollis whimpered at the realization, the sound jamming in his throat. A murderer, he thought: I’m a murderer. Dear God, oh please dear God, don’t let it be true. He pushed up off his hands, so that he was in a kneeling praying position. He clenched his eyes, wanting to shut out the sight of the dead man. His lips were trembling and he bit against them, trying to control the sound that wouldn’t stop leaking from him.
Let me open my eyes and see him move, God. Let him just be hurt. Just hurt, that’s all. I’ll get him help, pay for his treatment. Give him any money he wants. Honestly I’ll do anything. Only don’t let him be dead. Please God.
He slowly opened his eyes, watching not Altmann’s face but his hands and body, trying to detect the flicker of life. The sightless eyes looked back, always fixed upon him accusingly.
He was dead, Hollis accepted. The millionaire snatched himself upright, angrily. Served him right. Dirty spy. Tried to ensnare him. Enemy of his country. Would have been executed if they’d caught him. Did they execute spies? He didn’t know. Didn’t matter. Nothing to feel guilty about. Proud, in fact. Killed a dangerous man. Perhaps he’d be honoured for it, given a knighthood or a peerage.
He stared at his hands. The blood was drying, making his fingers stiff. Had to get away, he knew. No one had seen him arrive. He had no provable association with Altmann. Could never be traced to him. Just get away. No, wait. Couldn’t run, not immediately. There was evidence against him. The file … the file he’d come to retrieve. Had to find the file.
He ran to the bathroom, washing the blood from his hands. On his face, too, he saw. He shuddered, disgusted, scrubbing at the skin. Had to be cleaned, completely clean. No risk of detection if he were clean. Carefully he wiped the taps and basin-surround with the towel in case he’d touched them. They could discover amazing things forensical
ly, he remembered, minutely examining his clothes. No blood splashes, except on his shoes. A lot of it there. He wiped the blood away, folding the towel into a sharp corner and forcing it into the welt to extract the faintest trace. Again he examined himself. Clean.
He began the search in the bedroom, moving from article to article in an orderly progression. Furnishings were very very feminine, he thought. Altmann was probably a homosexual. Another good reason for killing him. He ripped pointlessly at the bed, overwhelmed by a sudden violence, tearing at the chintz and bordering that Altmann had prepared so carefully upon the memory of the bedroom he and Hannah had nervously occupied for the brief two weeks of their marriage. Hollis snatched at the bed linen, pulling at the pillows and mattress for a hiding-place. Nothing. He turned to the bedroom furniture, dragging the drawers out and upending their contents on to the floor, always covering the handles with a scrap of bed linen to guarantee there would be no fingerprints. The grey suits were cast out of the wardrobes and their pockets pulled inside out for any scrap of paper. Empty, like the apartment itself. He ran into the lounge and stood, confused, refusing to look directly at the body. He felt very angry, the emotion making him physically hot. Altmann was still mocking him with those empty eyes. He fought against the urge to kick the body.
He saw another door to the right and went towards it, fumbling for the light. The study. He jerked at the drawers, cascading papers in a heap, sorting through them. Almost immediately he found it. His name was even on the file, he saw, sniggering. Gently, he opened the lid and began sorting through the contents. They had been very determined, he realized. There were at least a dozen pictures, various poses of him apparently examining documents with Junkers and Kodes and again at the Prague reception with the party hierarchy. There were four spools of tape and transcripts beneath them in English and another language he didn’t immediately recognize. Gradually he identified Cyrillic letters. Russian, he realized. Every encounter had been taperecorded, he accepted; for months he had moved as if beneath a microscope, every movement or gesture noted. He scooped everything up, replacing it in the box, and then re-entered the lounge. Distastefully he stepped over the body and put the false evidence in his briefcase. He tried to stop it but the laughter came, mingling with the tears, and it was a long time before he could control the sobbing. He looked down at the body, hesitated and then kicked, pulling back at the last moment so there was hardly any force when he struck the body.
‘Couldn’t beat me,’ he said, to the corpse. ‘Stupid to have tried.’
Still covering the doorhandle with the rag, he let himself from the apartment and walked softly down the stairs. At the bottom he started to giggle, then laugh.
Careful, he thought, steadying himself against the damp brickwork of the apartment building. Couldn’t lose control now. Almost safe. Just have to get back to England. Safe then. The realization excited him and he began to laugh again.
Hollis was leaning, still laughing, against the outside of the apartment block when Turgonev received the telephone-call at the Viennese embassy from the man who had followed the millionaire from Prague and maintained, with a team of ten, the surveillance outside the apartment.
The colonel frowned, uncertain. It was becoming far too confused, he decided. The correct decision could ensure his career for years; a mistake would mean a labour camp by the following day.
The risk was too great, he thought. It had to be Melkovsky’s decision.
‘Ring me back in thirty minutes,’ he instructed the caller, moving to the direct line to Moscow, drumming his fingers impatiently on the desk as he waited for the connection to the minister.
(18)
It was three days before Maître Willy Ornisher acted upon Altmann’s detailed instructions, and therefore a week elapsed before the forty-two files arrived at the destinations the Austrian had stipulated.
Within twenty-four hours, the mutual distrust accumulated between East and West over a period of twenty years exploded throughout the world.
America was the first to react, Murray and Bell realizing at their emergency meeting in the Oval Office with Dennison, the C.I.A. executive and the five-man National Security Committee, that they could capitalize from the apparent disaster.
It was Bell, the outgoing President, who made the solemn announcement in a nationwide, peak-time television appearance on the night of the disclosure. Surveys later showed no other Presidential address in immediate American history, even including Nixon’s resignation speech or Kennedy’s defence of the Cuban confrontation with Khrushchev, had attracted such an audience rating.
Rarely, asserted the President, his face mirroring the gravity of the moment, his voice snagging occasionally with feeling, had events shown the need for vigilance as had those during the previous twenty-four hours. The documents disclosed an amazing, inexplicable distrust from a world power with which America had sincerely believed it was creating an atmosphere of friendship. It was true, he conceded, that they also showed that America had spied. But it had done so defensively, he insisted, the nearness to tears clearly visible. To have dropped its guard would have shown it to be a country of weakness, and America was never that. There was no intention, nor would there ever be, to further the causes of aggression. No one knew more than he, because of their close friendship, how the events of the past day had saddened James Murray, that tireless worker for peace. Bell was sure that Murray would continue unceasingly to attempt to achieve that aim. But until the climate of distrust was eradicated between the two nations, America was reluctantly suspending the concept of missile-site inspection. And American troops would have to stay in Europe. He called the viewers ‘friends’, described them as part of a great and free nation and repeated that tonight was the greatest moment of personal sadness he had known in a lifetime of public service.
Murray and Dennison watched the performance in the small study adjoining the Oval Office, slumped relaxed with their jackets off.
‘Great speech,’ judged Murray.
‘Excellent,’ agreed Dennison.
‘Couldn’t have worked out better, could it?’ mused Murray. ‘All it cost us was wheat we didn’t want and some heavy engineering equipment for which we’ve been paid in oil.’
Would Murray ever discover the mistake he’d made in refusing Altmann sanctuary, wondered Dennison. Aloud he said, ‘I wish every deal ended so well.’
‘And Europe will be delighted,’ pointed out Murray. ‘They were shit-scared at having to look after themselves.’
‘I think we should call a European Summit,’ advised Dennison. ‘We’ll need to increase our influence there now.’
‘Good idea,’ enthused Murray. ‘Fix it. The sooner the better. The momentum of the thing should be kept up. I could do a tour to Paris, Bonn and London as the man of peace.’
He stood up, taking his jacket from the chair-back upon which it had been hung to prevent it creasing.
‘Pity about those Russian peasants,’ said Dennison suddenly.
Murray turned to him, his face creased in puzzlement.
‘The Russian peasants,’ enlarged Dennison, in growing discomfort ‘Without the wheat, I suppose they’ll die.’
Murray shrugged casually. ‘The Russians invented sacrifice,’ he said. ‘The communists have just taken over a system perfected by the Czars.’
‘It’s always the people who suffer,’ reflected the Secretary of State, embarrassed now that he had begun the discussion.
‘How long will the freeze last?’ asked Murray, impatient with the conversation.
‘Not long,’ guessed Dennison. ‘Perhaps six months.’
Murray looked at his watch.
‘I’ve got a press conference in fifteen minutes to talk about my regret at the collapse of two years of effort,’ reminded Murray needlessly.
‘Don’t you think that tie is a bit bright?’ cautioned Dennison, trying to recover.
Murray looked down at the red-and-green-spotted Gucci design.
&nb
sp; ‘Yes,’ he agreed, looking across at Dennison. ‘Swop with me.’
Murray went into the conference wearing a plain blue handknit and a week later was elected President of the United States of America with a majority exceeding that of Richard Nixon in 1972.
Ellidge wondered if he should put a comforting arm around Marion Hollis. Perhaps not, he decided. It might suggest over-familiarity.
And she was showing few outward signs of distress. Grieving inwardly, he decided. Brave woman.
He walked with her into the psychiatrist’s office, helped her into a chair and then seated himself along side. The doctor, a middle-aged, bespectacled man, made a cage with his fingers, then collapsed it before looking up at them.
‘It’s quite serious,’ he said abruptly.
We know that, thought Ellidge irritably. Hollis had looked horrifying, his mouth slack and drooling, his eyes empty and his sweat-matted hair still patched with the conductor-adhesive with which they had clamped the pads to his head for the erasing electrical-shock treatment.
‘He’s retreating completely into an existence of his own creation,’ said the doctor. ‘There appears no way we can penetrate the barrier.’
‘How long?’ asked Marion directly. It was the most important question, she decided. The only one.
‘Many months, I’m afraid,’ said the psychiatrist. He believed in the absolute truth about mental illness, offering no false hopes.
‘And I cannot guarantee a full recovery even then. I’m afraid you are going to have to accept the likelihood he will never again be able to resume the life you once knew.’
‘Oh my God,’ said Marion softly. She shuddered, trying to avoid the doubt prodding itself into her mind. Had she brought about the collapse? she wondered. She knew he’d loved her, absolutely: had even anticipated the divorce would affect him badly. So it was likely, she allowed guiltily: more than likely, in fact. She felt suddenly very ashamed. Not once, she recriminated, had she really thought of Jocelyn. Only herself. And James.
November Man Page 20
