Patriots

by Kevin Doherty

  She stopped as suddenly as she had begun, seemingly taken by surprise by her own outburst. Then she wrapped her arms about herself and returned to Andrei. Kunaev was watching her with unconcealed pride.

  It was time, Knight decided, to tighten the screw a little more. He turned his attention back to Kunaev.

  ‘Very well, Mr Kunaev. I think you and your wife have made it clear why you want to join our capitalist society. But capitalism is about trade. What have you got to trade?’

  ‘I have already told you.’

  ‘A few titbits about the rezidentura? Mr Kunaev, you’re proposing defection, not a trip to the seaside. Defection is an emotive word. It gets politicians ruffled. Especially when our two governments are feeling their way towards some kind of working relationship again.’

  ‘You worry that my defection might upset the process of détente?’ Kunaev laughed. ‘You flatter me. I am not that important.’

  ‘That’s just my point. You don’t seem to be important at all. But your defection will still cause some political discomfort.’

  ‘What are you trying to tell me? That you refuse my appeal for asylum because I am not an important man?’

  ‘It’s not up to me either way. But you may not have much to offer to make the political fuss worthwhile.’ He saw Kunaev’s face darken. ‘Let me explain it like this. We’ve got satellites than can tell us if a Soviet SS-20 missile shifts the angle it’s pointing by half a degree. We can count every soldier you deploy anywhere in the world. Those things are important, but technology means we can find them out for ourselves. What’s important nowadays, Mr Kunaev, is the political motive behind things – what’s actually in a leader’s mind when he deploys his troops. When the warships start moving, is it really only a military exercise or something more? Now in that context, political motive – what can you offer us?’

  There was a long silence. Again the exchange of glances between Kunaev and his wife.

  ‘I went through the rezidentura files last night,’ Kunaev said at last. ‘I brought out a lot of material.’

  Knight shook his head. ‘If what’s in the files came in on the airwaves, we probably monitored most of it anyway.’

  ‘There is more. I have certain information.’

  ‘Let’s hear it.’

  Kunaev made no response. His whole body had tightened. His eyes slid away from Knight’s. Knight recognised the signs. He’d brought Kunaev to the brink. Now he had to leave him no choice but to jump.

  ‘You may as well tell me, Mr Kunaev. It’s going to be a bit difficult for you to go back to your friends now. What would you do? Return whatever you stole from the files and say you didn’t mean to take it?’ He paused before delivering the body blow. ‘How would you explain your visit here if your friends found out about it? When they find out?’

  Kunaev let out a long breath of air as if he’d just pushed to the surface of deep water. Anna was watching him like a hawk.

  ‘You’d do that?’ he whispered.

  ‘Just tell me the other information, Mr Kunaev, and we won’t have to hypothesise.’

  Kunaev bit his lip, then looked up. ‘There would be conditions.’

  He had just launched himself on the jump.

  ‘Conditions?’ Knight repeated comfortably. ‘State them.’

  Kunaev sat quietly for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts. When he looked up, the tension of his body and face had gone.

  ‘They are not difficult to meet, Mr Knight. First, you must give me your undertaking that my family and I will be put under the immediate protection of the police or secret services.’

  ‘The police don’t involve themselves in this sort of thing. But I’ll arrange for the protection you require.’

  ‘Can you move us to a safe house during today?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘My last condition is that there must be at least two people present when I tell you my information.’

  ‘Why is that important to you?’

  Kunaev shrugged and avoided his gaze, looking instead at Anna. ‘I am on trial, Mr Knight. I just want it to be a fair one, with witnesses – that is all.’

  ‘On trial?’

  Kunaev smiled humourlessly. ‘In our profession, we are always on trial. Never more so than when we change allegiances. Would you not say so?’ He waited but Knight said nothing. ‘Those are my conditions. Will you meet them, Mr Knight?’

  Knight shrugged. ‘I anticipate no problems.’

  *

  It was time to let Gaunt know about the Kunaevs and have him prepare the politicians.

  He wasn’t at home; Knight left a message for him to call back.

  Dick Sumner was at home. There was surprise in his tone when he recognised Knight’s voice.

  ‘Problems, Edmund?’

  ‘Hard to be sure. Go on scramble, please.’ As soon as he heard the click on the line he pressed the button on his own phone. ‘I need you to get here as soon as possible. You’ll be here for the rest of the day, including the evening. Details when you arrive.’

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘Make some calls for me before you leave. First, get hold of Protective Security. We need a couple of men here, plus a woman officer. Armed. At the double but tell them to be discreet. Any fuss around here will stick out like a sore thumb. Tell them to pack a bag – they’ll be on duty for the rest of the weekend. And to come in a couple of cars – they’ll have three passengers. Next, we need one of the safe houses. In the countryside would be best but within reasonable reach of London.’ He thought of the Kunaev boy. ‘Somewhere with space. Maybe a bit of garden that’d suit a young kid. Anywhere come to mind?’

  Sumner thought for a minute. ‘What about the place at Stratfield Saye? There’s play equipment in the garden and a big games room.’

  ‘Anyone there at present?’

  ‘As far as I know, only the staff.’

  ‘Tell them they’ve got customers from tonight. Two adults and a child, plus the security people. They’ll be staying until further notice.’

  By now Sumner was beginning to form some rough idea of what was going on. ‘You’re having an interesting weekend, Edmund, by the sound of it.’

  ‘You could say that. Last of all, get hold of a staff stenographer and bring him with you.’

  ‘The calls will take ten or fifteen minutes. I’ll be with you in an hour or so.’

  Knight returned to the living room, where the Kunaevs were sitting side by side on a settee with the boy between them. Anna was reading him a story; Kunaev was deep in his own thoughts.

  ‘The arrangements are made,’ Knight told them. ‘We can make a start probably an hour from now.’

  It was coming up to lunchtime and it seemed an appropriate time to break. He wondered what food he had in the house. As if reading his mind, Anna looked up from the storybook.

  ‘You live alone, Mr Knight? My husband says you do.’

  ‘Your husband seems to know a lot about me. Including where I live, for a start.’

  ‘No doubt your people in Moscow know the same about his superiors. The reason I ask is – would you like me to prepare us some lunch? It seems unfair to expect you to do it.’ He must have looked uncertain, for she laughed gently. ‘We have not come here to poison you, you know.’

  He smiled apologetically. ‘Let me show you where everything is.’

  They went through to the kitchen. He suggested a few sandwiches and showed her where to find meats and salad.

  ‘How old is your little boy?’ he asked.

  ‘Four. Do you have children, Mr Knight? Perhaps you were married once?’

  He looked at her for a moment before answering. ‘I’ve never been married. Families aren’t such a good idea in my line of work.’

  She flashed him a shy smile. ‘I too am learning that.’

  The phone rang. Knight took the call in the privacy of the study. It was Gaunt, calling from his car. As with Sumner, Knight asked him to switch to scramble.

>   ‘Take a deep breath, Horace. I’ve got a visitor. A Soviet who wants to defect. Someone from the embassy. I think he’s genuine.’

  ‘Good Lord. Diplomatic or rezident?’

  ‘Rezident apparently, but no one very big. A cipher clerk. He just rolled up to my door this morning. Plus wife and kid.’

  ‘Do we know him?’

  ‘I don’t. Dick Sumner might.’ He updated Gaunt on the morning’s events, concluding by stating his intention to conduct Kunaev’s preliminary debrief himself.

  ‘Where will you take him?’ Gaunt asked.

  ‘We’ll make a start here. Then I’ll move him to a safe house from this evening. Probably Stratfield Saye.’

  ‘A cipher clerk. I wonder how much use he’ll be.’ Gaunt didn’t sound enthusiastic. ‘I’ll be home for the rest of the day, Edmund. I’d like you to keep me informed. I won’t raise any balloons with the politicians until we see what your debrief brings.’

  Knight hung up but remained in the study, realising that he’d forgotten about Bill Clarke; talking to Gaunt about politicians had reminded him.

  This time the number rang for a long time before someone answered.

  ‘Yes?’

  It was the same voice as before. Knight hung up.

  22

  They were finishing lunch when Sumner arrived. The stenographer who came with him was an elderly man whom Knight had met once or twice before.

  Knight and Sumner spoke privately in the study. Sumner recognised Kunaev’s name from the diplomatic record index; but that was all.

  ‘Looks like you’ve landed a rezident we didn’t know about, Edmund.’

  ‘He’s no big deal.’

  The security people arrived as they were talking. On Knight’s instructions, one officer stationed himself in his car outside the front door while the other agreed to take up position in a rear bedroom overlooking the garden. As the man was opening the car’s boot Knight realised what was about to happen and went to him; sure enough, a rifle lay in the boot.

  ‘Break that down and case it before you lift it out,’ he told the man. He nodded his head towards the front door, where the Kunaev boy and his mother were watching the goings-on. ‘They’ll be in the kitchen later, but for now have a care.’

  The debrief took place in the living room, still with its curtains closed. Knight did the questioning. Sumner listened and watched, jotting his own notes and comments. The stenographer made a verbatim record; later he would present two versions: the verbatim one and another that had been distilled into coherent prose, with all the hesitations and repetitions edited out. The cassette machine would prove a cross-check for his work but it was also there to capture the spoken nuances of tone or emphasis that no written record could provide; later the psychologists from PsyOps would comb through it.

  The first ten minutes were devoted to Kunaev’s general background, both personal and career. It was no more than a preliminary canter through dates and places so that an early check could be made to verify that he was who he said he was. In his weeks ahead with a specialist interrogator – months if he proved worth the trouble – a more searching investigation would be made. It would cover events great and small in his life, the people he’d known, descriptions of locations and people: nothing would be too insignificant.

  It was when Knight reached the question of how Kunaev had chosen the method and timing of his defection that they came to the heart of the interview.

  ‘Why did you come to me, Mr Kunaev? It’s brought you well beyond the Greater London zone permitted to your rank. If any of your people had spotted you, you’d have been in difficulty to explain what you were up to.’

  ‘You are the head of counter-espionage. I know of you. Also your address. Not those below you.’

  ‘Why not walk into one of our offices any day of the week?’

  ‘The information I have cannot wait until offices are open.

  ‘Better tell us then.’

  ‘Our rezidentura has just had a security audit. Major-General Valyukev descended on us from Yasyenevo.’

  Knight glanced over at Sumner, sitting slightly behind Kunaev and out of his view. Sumner coloured. His section should have picked up on the arrival of someone as big as Valyukev, whatever cover had been used to get him into or out of the country.

  ‘We came through satisfactorily,’ Kunaev continued. ‘But yesterday afternoon I overheard Valyukev and the head of our rezidentura, Colonel Lyulkin, talking together. I heard Valyukev say something about illegal rules.’

  Knight looked sharply at him. ‘You said yourself that you people have nothing to do with the illegals. So what did Valyukev mean?’

  ‘What I said was true. I know next to nothing about our illegals network in this or any country. But I know the operational principles. All the rezidenti do. That is essential. Illegals spend years to build their cover identities. Everything would be put at risk if there was any contact between them and KGB personnel from the rezidentura. The rezidenti might be known to your people and under surveillance; they would lead you right to the illegal. So, under no circumstances is there ever such contact.’

  Knight nodded. ‘And this was what Valyukev was referring to?’

  ‘No, I do not think so. Lyulkin said something such as: “If that is what Moscow wants for this operation, then certainly I have no problem with that.” Do you see? It suggests that they were talking about an operation that is out of the ordinary, not just an existing situation involving illegals.’

  ‘Did you hear what this operation might be?’

  ‘No. But I know what it is associated with. The OPEC conference begins on Tuesday. They referred to that.’

  Knight leant forward. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I then heard Lyulkin ask about a mobile unit – I could not hear everything but he asked when it will arrive in London. Valyukev said it was here already, to be here in time for the conference. He called it the oil meeting. He said the unit had to have time to orientate itself well before the meeting begins.’ Kunaev paused. ‘I think you must know what a mobile unit is?’

  ‘Where your people are concerned, it usually means an assassination squad.’

  ‘I doubt if you would accept that as a description of an SAS unit, which would be your closest equivalent. This particular unit, you see, is a Spetznaz team.’

  ‘Sabotage, kidnapping or assassination then. What size is the unit?’

  Kunaev shrugged. ‘Neither of them said.’

  Knight scrutinised the man’s face closely. There was no hint that he was telling anything but the truth in terms of both all he had said and the things he claimed not to know.

  ‘I have now told you all I heard, Mr Knight – and that the rezidenti are to stay well clear.’

  In the silence that followed there was only the distant and incongruous sound of Andrei’s laughter. Knight sat looking at Kunaev for some time before carrying on.

  ‘Why did Valyukev tell Lyulkin anything? Why not just let this Spetznaz operation go ahead on its independent course with Lyulkin none the wiser? Wouldn’t that have been the best and easiest thing to do?’

  ‘Illegal rules include an escape provision. I think the same arrangement must apply in this case.’

  ‘How would that work?’

  ‘Every illegal, if he must abort his assignment, has the right as a last resort to secure help from the Soviet diplomatic mission. There are arrangements regarding codes which only the ambassador and his head of rezidentura know. Both of them must be involved, and both of them must be satisfied with the arrangements that are made to give the illegal safe passage.’

  Knight nodded. Kunaev had described a standard network cut-out. Only if the ambassador and the head of rezidentura had both been compromised would the illegal be at risk.

  ‘The Soviet Union places great importance on looking after its illegals, Mr Knight. It goes to great lengths to protect them or get them back. It is an important factor in maintaining their morale. These people need every suc
h consideration. Theirs is the loneliest job in the world.’

  ‘Spare us, Mr Kunaev.’

  ‘I would assume that the Spetznaz unit has been provided with similar escape facilities, so this is why Lyulkin had to be told. Before you ask, I do not know what the code arrangements are. Valyukev could have told them to our ambassador anytime last week. They met two, three times. He could have told Lyulkin either before or after the conversation that I overheard. I cannot help you on that matter.’

  ‘What else can you help us with?’

  Kunaev laughed. ‘What else do you hope for?’ He became serious again. ‘Perhaps you would like to see my files now?’

  Knight was still enmeshed in the implications of what he had just learnt. ‘What?’

  ‘The files I told you about, Mr Knight – that I took from the rezidentura. That you are convinced are probably so worthless. I need to step outside this room for them.’

  Knight nodded. ‘Go ahead.’

  When Kunaev had left he nodded for the stenographer to stop the tape, and turned to Sumner.

  ‘Take over the rest of this session, Dick. I’d better pass this on.’

  Kunaev reappeared in the doorway, carrying a stack of papers.

  ‘From the cardboard toy box?’ Knight asked him.

  Kunaev nodded. ‘I could not walk out of our apartment this morning with a fat briefcase. I would not have got twenty paces. I went to much trouble to acquire these, Mr Knight, so I was not going to leave them behind either. Whatever your opinion of their worth.’