Part 21 (1/2)

”My mother,” he began, as we stood in the suns.h.i.+ne outside the back of our building.

”She would like so much to meet you.

She asks, please come to supper one evening.”

”Sasha! You haven't told her about yesterday?”

”Konechno nyet! She knows nothing about yesterday. She knows nothing about my work. This invitation is from many days old.”

”Well thanks. I'd like to meet her.”

”Good! Good!”

”When would it be?”

”She suggest Friday. And please, bring one friend.”

”Thank you. That's really nice. Now look I've got something for you. Hang on there a minute.”

I nipped inside to fetch his dollars. It wasn't the ideal moment, because it looked slightly as if I was trying to pay in advance for a couple of dinners, but I thought it best to get the presentation over with.

”Listen,” I said.

”We want to give you this.”

When he saw the money he blushed bright red and tried to push it away.

”No, Zheordie. No, please...”

”Take it.” I caught his right hand with my left and pushed the notes into it.

”You know where it came from. We got more than we need. We want you to have a share. And change it quickly, before somebody decides it's fake.”

For a second or two I thought the silly b.u.g.g.e.r was going to cry, as he blinked and looked down at the notes. But he soon got hold of himself and said, ”Too much. Too much.”

”Put it in your pocket and shut up!” I grinned and gave him a clip on the shoulder.

”It's time we got the lads down to the range.

The students were in fine form, and gave an ironic cheer when we appeared. Apparently there'd been a clip about the raid on the morning's TV news, and bush telegraph had whizzed a full account of it round more efficiently than the Internet. n.o.body seemed in the least put out by the loss of Misha, least of all his former colleague in SOBR, who appeared to regard him as entirely dispensable.

I'd been intending to play the whole thing down, and I asked Anna to explain that, for political reasons, it was essential that Brit involvement in the bust remained under wraps. But the Russians were so enthusiastic about the hit that I decided to make a virtue of it and called a special seminar at which we took everyone the students who hadn't been there, and our own guys through all the stages of the raid: planning, equipment, preparations, execution.

It proved an inspired idea: everybody was gripped by the a.n.a.lysis and discussion, and learned useful lessons. Of course I said nothing about the handout of dollars, but I did deplore the lack of a formal debriefing session.

”I'm not criticising anyone, I said.

”That isn't my business. But at home we'd have done it a different way and in fact it's what we're doing now. It's always important to talk through what's happened. That's the way you avoid mistakes in future.”

”Misha,” somebody started.

”Why did he fall? Why no safety rope?”

”He was supposed to have one. I told everyone to rope up, but it seems he hadn't bothered. Your special forces people are like us: you don't take kindly to orders.”

I saw two of the Russians exchange glances, and added, ”That's not criticism. It's a statement of fact.” Finally I said, ”I must emphasise that our partic.i.p.ation in the raid was completely unofficial, so we can't have any mention of it leaking to the media. Otherwise we'll be in the s.h.i.+t with our own people.

Understood?”

All through that day I felt I was blundering deeper and deeper into a moral maze.

Almost making matters worse was the fact that the course was going really well. Our relations.h.i.+p with the students had never been better. Maybe it was the success of the hit that fired them up; whatever, a lot of jokes were flying about and morale was great. Sasha was all over the place in his desire to be helpful.

At lunchtime Anna and I went for a walk. I'd already had some food when she appeared at the back of the building, yet I offered her lunch G.o.d knows what we would have given her if she'd accepted. But she said she'd had an apple, and otherwise didn't intend to eat until the evening.

So it was that we strolled off down one of the tracks into the training area.

I think her intention was just to be friendly, and to thank us again for leading the raid; but gradually her talk turned to the present good relations between East and West, and the contrast with the bad old days of the Cold War, when the KGB was crazily suspicious and went to fantastic lengths to penetrate foreign emba.s.sies in Moscow.

”You know what happened in the j.a.panese Emba.s.sy?” she asked.

I shook my head.

”It was an old merchant's house, like your British Emba.s.sy. It still had fireplaces and chimneys. So the KGB decided that the way to penetrate it was by sending a man down a chimney to plant microphones. They found a very thin man, trained him to climb, and sent him off' She stopped, looking at me.

”And what happened?”

”Nothing! The man was never seen again. That was the end of him. Did he get stuck? Is he still there, perhaps? Did the j.a.panese catch him and feed him to their tame fish? n.o.body knows. Of course the KGB couldn't ask, so they never found out.

I laughed and said, ”When you worked in London, I suppose you were spying too?”

”Naturally! All Russians abroad were spies then. We were running the Intourist office, of course, but every day we were sending in reports to the KGB.”

”What about?”

”Oh, prominent people who booked air tickets or tours, foreign visitors to London, economic activity in general... I'm sure most of the information was useless, but we thought we were tremendously important.”

”But how did you get into spying in the first place?”

”To see the world. Isn't that what you say about your navy?

”Join the navy and see the world”? That was it with the KGB, exactly. In those days, the only chance you had of getting out of the Soviet Union was by joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the KGB. Those were the two best careers on offer.”

Several times during our chat I almost challenged her about the business of our lap-top. But I decided on balance that it was better not to stir things up.

So, on the surface, everything was brilliant; and yet, undermining the cheerful atmosphere, was the presence of Apple and Orange, sitting there in the Emba.s.sy lock-up.

The CNDs were a lead weight on my mind, and Sasha's invitation to supper made everything worse. How could I chat up his old mother with this in the back of my brain?