Comrade Charlie

by Brian Freemantle

  Petrin advanced easily through the restaurant, smiling slightly, very self-assured, and sat down in the facing chair.

  ‘You’ve been lost in thought,’ said the Russian, confirming at once the protective observation.

  ‘I’d say I had a lot to think about, wouldn’t you?’ said Krogh.

  ‘But not to worry about,’ said Petrin.

  ‘So you keep telling me,’ said the American.

  ‘I want you to believe it,’ said Petrin sincerely. He’d heard from Moscow three days before of the official commendation going on his KGB record and considered Krogh very important to his career. ‘What is it today?’

  ‘Gyro housings: the system is equipped with two sets, with a third for emergency. This is the first.’

  ‘That’s very good,’ said Petrin.

  Krogh believed he was being patronized and it irritated him. He said: ‘It’ll only take about another month: that was one of the things I was thinking about.’

  ‘And it’s gone as smoothly as I promised it would, hasn’t it?’

  ‘I want it to be over,’ said Krogh.

  There was a break while they ordered and it enabled Petrin time to reflect. Poor fool, thought the Russian, although without the slightest genuine sympathy. Krogh was theirs – more precisely his – to do with what they liked when they liked and how they liked. From now on Moscow had permanent access to every US classified document or defence contract with which Krogh and his company ever became associated, a forever-bubbling spring of secret information that Petrin was going to do his best to see never dried up. Because Petrin had already recognized the personal benefit that went way beyond the most recent commendation. That, he’d decided, was just the first of many that was going to come from each new disclosure he was going to get from this man, long after all Star Wars material. Which was not the end of that personal benefit. To remain Krogh’s case officer would naturally entail his staying on in Los Angeles long after his expected tour of duty would normally have finished. Which Petrin, who liked America and the Californian climate and most of all the Californian girls, was more than happy to do. He said: ‘I liked the cover article, in Newsweek.’

  So had Krogh, despite what was happening to him. The photograph had been very good, making him look younger than he was, and the focus of the main article was of his epitomizing the American dream, the thrusting shopfloor worker rising to become the millionaire boss. With forced modesty Krogh shrugged and said: ‘It was OK.’

  ‘Help me with something beyond the drawings,’ said Petrin. ‘How’s the actual construction work going?’

  Krogh had wondered how long this sort of questioning would take: the bastard could go to hell. He said: ‘Well enough.’

  ‘That’s not a direct answer, Emil.’ The Russian had discarded the supposed politeness of surnames after the first meeting.

  ‘That’s the best there is,’ insisted Krogh.

  ‘No major snags or hold-ups?’ persisted Petrin.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not at all?’

  ‘Not so far.’

  Petrin stopped the impatience becoming obvious: he didn’t want, this soon in their relationship, to have to let Krogh know he didn’t have any independence any more. For the moment Krogh had to be allowed to retain some slight degree of self-respect. Petrin said: ‘So what’s the scheduled launch date?’

  ‘It’s too soon to be firm on that,’ Krogh continued to evade. ‘There still could too easily be hold-ups we can’t anticipate. There’s a lot of shopfloor testing to go through yet.’

  ‘Provisionally then?’ pressed Petrin.

  ‘Maybe a year.’

  ‘The Pentagon wouldn’t go along with something as vague as that, Emil, would they?’ said Petrin, finally deciding there had to be some correction after all. ‘I know and you know that on a document or in a letter I haven’t seen yet there’s a suggested date when this thing is going to be put into space. So what is it?’

  The man was a bastard, slapping him down like some junior clerk. Miserably he said: ‘September, next year.’

  ‘How’s Barbara?’ said Petrin. ‘And Cindy?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about them,’ refused Krogh.

  ‘Well then I think it’s important that you talk to me properly about other things when I ask,’ said Petrin. ‘I don’t want to have to prise things out like that in future. You understand?’

  Krogh flushed with anger but their food arrived, delaying the response. Krogh had only ordered Cobb salad and he pushed it aside almost at once. Lying, he said: ‘I wasn’t trying to be difficult.’

  ‘It wouldn’t benefit anyone for you to be, would it?’ said Petrin. ‘There’s nothing to be gained by us falling out, is there?’

  Patronizing again, thought Krogh. He said: ‘What the hell do you expect! For us to be friends?’

  ‘Why not?’ said Petrin, open-faced. ‘We’ve got to work together, haven’t we?’

  ‘Only for about another month, like I said.’

  Now was as convenient a moment as any, thought the Russian. He said: ‘We’ll still have to meet regularly, won’t we?’

  ‘What do you mean!’ demanded Krogh, fresh alarm flaring through him.

  ‘I’ll want to keep in touch,’ said Petrin. ‘Some of your testings might show the need for redesign, for instance. I’d need those redesign drawings, wouldn’t I? I’m going to want the results of all the testings, too.’

  ‘Nothing will go wrong,’ insisted Krogh. ‘Everything ends with the last drawing.’

  Let the poor fool dream, thought Petrin, recalling his earlier thoughts.

  He said: ‘Just as long as it takes, that’s all. That’s why I don’t want any antagonistic nonsense beween us. It doesn’t achieve anything: gets in the way.’

  Christ, how he’d like to teach this son-of-a-bitch a lesson, Krogh thought: physically beat the shit out of him, get the satisfaction of hurting him. He said: ‘Suits me, I guess.’

  Petrin smiled brightly, finishing his lobster. He said: ‘Shouldn’t I have the gyro drawing then?’

  Krogh passed the package across the table and Petrin put it quickly into his briefcase. Krogh said: ‘I’ll have the drawings of the other two sets in a week.’

  ‘You know that little park where the cable cars terminate on the other side of the hill, near Saks?’ demanded Petrin.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s where we’ll meet, next Friday. You be there by noon.’

  Just like a junior clerk, every time a finger-snapping command. He said: ‘All right.’

  ‘I’m glad we’ve had this little talk,’ said Petrin. ‘Cleared the air between us. I think that’s a good thing, don’t you?’

  Krogh lifted and dropped his shoulders, wanting to get away from the other man. He said: ‘I suppose so. I’ve got to get back to the plant.’

  Petrin smiled again, signalling for the waiter. ‘Let me settle the bill this time,’ he said. ‘After all, I’m the satisfied customer, aren’t I?’

  It was just the sort of luck that Henry Blackstone was seeking and he seized it at once, actually feeling more excited than guilty when it happened. There was scarcely guilt at all.

  He never found out the reason but late one Thursday the request came from the secret project section to the general drawing office for some specimen and no-longer-classified blueprints of a fin design for which the firm had unsuccessfully tendered during the European Ariane space programme. And Blackstone, who’d taken part in the European development, was deputed to be the intermediary. Which gave him temporary security accreditation to get inside the fenced-off area.

  Blackstone carried more drawings than were necessary, all enclosed in cardboard storage tubes. Inside the secure building he intentionally took the wrong route along the wrong corridor, trawling for anything he could find. There were a number of small offices equipped with drawing boards, built around a larger, communal design and tracing area. He stopped at two on the pretext of getting directions for where
he wanted to go, and saw the chance at once. Blackstone had timed his entry to be very close to clocking-off time, when everyone was packing up for the day, and at both small offices Blackstone identified the procedure being followed to protect what was being created. Each draughtsman and tracer was taking whatever was on his board into the larger, communal room to be logged and stored in a drawing locker sealed by a combination device. But only the top sheet design, leaving the impressedupon backing paper still upon the board. Blackstone lingered in the corridor near the second office, supposedly checking the tubes he was carrying to decide which he had to hand over, until the occupant of the second office left to secure his day’s work. It took Blackstone less than a minute to re-enter the room, roll up the undipped backing paper and fit it into one of the superfluous tubes and regain the corridor again.

  Heart hammering, Blackstone completed what he was officially there to do, apologized for bringing the unnecessary extra drawings and was back in his own office within the half hour. Done it! he thought euphorically: he’d done it and got away with it!

  By working lightly over the paper with a softleaded pencil Blackstone was able to trace the outline of the blueprint that had been created on top of it – of a support arm and connecting rods – although some of the specification lettering was too indistinct for him to decipher. It was not important, he decided. He had sufficient to re-create the blueprint. And not just one. He’d divide it into two and deliver them separately, to get two payments. And the temporary security access lasted until he had to collect the Ariane designs! So he could go inside again, before he was summoned to make that collection!

  17

  When the summons came for Berenkov to meet directly with scientific officials utilizing the American Star Wars information, without having everything filtered through Kalenin, the circumstances emerged to be not at all what he wanted, in any respect. There was initially, however, no hint of what was to come. The demand that he be prepared within two hours to leave Moscow, for the space centre at Baikonur, was perhaps peremptory but there had been such short-notice requests in the past, on other things, so he felt no particular concern driving out to Vnukovo airport. Rather, there was a satisfied anticipation: the first blueprint from England had arrived three days before so they were receiving material from the two sources at last. The likeliest explanation could only be personal congratulation, although another commendation so soon was probably too much to expect. His rank and position placed Berenkov beyond the airport formalities required even for internal travelling in the Soviet Union. That he expected. He did not expect it to be a special military flight: it was the first indication of an emergency suggested by the two-hour departure limit. Kalenin was already in a VIP lounge reserved for government officials, serious-faced but calm, one of the Havana cigars he so much enjoyed filling the room with its aroma.

  ‘What is it?’ demanded Berenkov at once.

  Kalenin made an uncertain shoulder movement. ‘I’ve not been told. Just to come, like you.’

  Berenkov’s customary ebullient confidence dipped. He said: ‘It has to be serious for us to be called all the way to Baikonur.’

  ‘That’s pretty obvious,’ said Kalenin.

  ‘But what!’ said Berenkov. ‘We’re getting it all now, from both sources!’

  Kalenin shook his head. ‘It’s ludicrous, trying to speculate. We’ll just have to wait.’

  An airport official came hesitantly into the room, accompanied by a man in an undesignated military uniform to say their flight was ready. Berenkov hunched behind the other man out to the transporter, a shrouded grey-green shape in the darkness. There was no pretence at all about comfort. Only three sets of webbing seats had been rigged across the empty hull, which elsewhere remained cavernous and empty. The chemical toilet was behind a pull-round canvas curtain, the smell of its germicidal disinfectant quite heavy already. A coarse strap was looped across the seats to secure themselves for take-off. Neither Kalenin nor Berenkov bothered. A flight sergeant came to them almost at once after they cleared Moscow airspace to offer food but neither Kalenin nor Berenkov bothered about that, either. Fleetingly Berenkov considered asking if there were anything to drink but decided against it.

  Kalenin shifted uncomfortably in his seat and said: ‘It would have been good if we could have got some rest.’

  ‘There’s no point in trying,’ said Berenkov. Could Kalenin really have slept, going towards so much uncertainty? The other man had lighted another cigar and Berenkov was grateful because it smelled better than the toilet chemicals. There appeared to be no heating and Berenkov thrust his hands into his topcoat pockets and burrowed his head down deeply into its collar. What! he demanded of himself. What could have gone wrong, so soon after the praise of the commendation? Kalenin was right about the stupidity of speculating, but Berenkov wanted something, some warning how to prepare himself for what was to come. He looked across the cold, vibrating aircraft to where Kalenin was huddled, like himself apart from the hand holding the cigar. It might be safer to follow Kalenin’s lead, Berenkov thought, with rare modesty. The bearded man was a survivor of several previous regimes, adept at adjusting to headquarter circumstances and politics. One thought prompted another, this one disquieting. He’d been excluded from all such meetings until now, when it appeared there might be a problem. Was his inclusion the decision of the KGB chairman or the Politburo? Or of Kalenin, seeking a scapegoat?

  A curtained limousine, a Zil, was already drawing towards the steps when the door swung back for their disembarkation. As he descended towards it Berenkov saw they were at neither a civilian nor a military airfield but at the facility for the space centre itself. It was far more extensive in ground area than a normal airport and there was none of the usual closetogether cluster of administration buildings or hangars. What office quarters there were appeared very distant, to their left. There were at least three radar towers, each with static and revolving antennae, and a fenced-off expanse of various-sized storage tanks. Around the fencing were a lot of signs warning of the danger of highly inflammable contents: some of the bigger tanks had a shimmering aura of mist or steam, the sort of reaction Berenkov associated with something very cold being exposed to air.

  It was thankfully warm inside the car. The vehicle set off towards the far-away office block and as they got nearer Berenkov saw quite close to it an odd assortment of crane-like structures which he assumed at once to be mobile support gantries, for rockets, but which to him looked more like the skeletal derricks of oil exploration equipment.

  ‘You know what this looks like to me?’ said Kalenin, beside him. ‘This is how I’d imagine some moon station to be. You see how very few people there are about?’

  The place was oddly deserted, acknowledged Berenkov. He said: ‘I suppose it’s a fitting appearance for the sort of work that goes on.’

  At the main buildings, which turned out to be of two storeys with a glassed dome forming a third level, they were escorted by security personnel through a zig-zag of corridors before being ushered into a small conference room. Already waiting inside were four men, all civilians. They were grouped around a table set in front of a slightly elevated second section upon which there were two blackboards, on stands, with diagrams and charts already neatly pinned up. There were other papers strewn about the table and Berenkov believed he recognized some at least to be what had arrived from Petrin, in America. Kalenin pushed into the room ahead of Berenkov, nodding although not smiling to the assembled men, and Berenkov guessed there had been earlier meetings between them. Berenkov was only introduced formally to one of the four and assumed the man to be the senior of the group. His name was Nikolai Noskov. He was a stooped, carelessly dressed man with a difficult speech impediment: he had to struggle to get most words out, eyes closed with a combination of effort and frustration. It necessarily made him economical in everything he said, although another impression could have been that Noskov was rudely autocratic.

  There were hand waves tow
ards seats, almost impatient gestures of politeness. Noskov made several attempts and at last managed: ‘Your coming here is very necessary.’

  Berenkov waited for a response to come from Kalenin, the senior officer, but the man said nothing so Berenkov didn’t speak either.

  Noskov shuffled through the disordered documents on the table, finally locating what he wanted. He pitched it slightly forwards, towards them, and said: ‘Useless! Absolutely useless!’

  Still Kalenin did not move so Berenkov reached for it, identifying it instantly as the blueprint that had arrived from England. It was of some type of armature. He said: ‘Useless how?’

  ‘Look at the side,’ stuttered Noskov: the L was particularly difficult for him to pronounce.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Berenkov.

  ‘Each drawing has to have a specification instruction accompanying it,’ said the scientist. ‘A design drawing is no good without guidance to where it fits. Its function. Its component relationship to everything else.’ He stopped, breathless, and from the discernible wheezing Berenkov guessed the man to be afflicted by asthma, as well.

  ‘There are instructions,’ insisted Berenkov, immediately abandoning the aircraft reflection to let Kalenin lead.

  ‘Incomplete,’ came back Noskov, just as insistent and without interruption on this one occasion. ‘Impossible safely to incorporate.’

  The problem, isolated Berenkov: at last! His mind moved immediately on from that realization, throwing up other, connected thoughts and there was, too, a surge of annoyance at being before this anonymous group of men in this fashion, paraded literally like some guilty incompetent. He didn’t know the role of any of them, any more than he knew their names apart from Noskov, but he guessed they didn’t have any more influence than he did. It was a protection exercise, he decided, guessing further. He didn’t doubt there was something incomplete with the British drawing – they wouldn’t risk being caught out on something so easily challenged – but whatever was missing was the excuse, not the reason, for this overly dramatic summons. This group – an inner committee, probably – were taking out insurance against any disasters in the future. The arguments at this meeting could be produced in future – which meant it was being witnessed or recorded – if anything went wrong, hopefully to show that the fault had been that of the information-gatherers, not of the technicians and specialists assigned to translate that information into viable space equipment. Time to provide lessons in practical, personal survival, thought Berenkov, feeling relaxed for the first time in hours. He said: ‘I’m not at all surprised.’ Everyone else was: even Kalenin, Berenkov suspected.