Part 20 (1/2)

Chapter Twenty-Five.

Life for Charlie became an existence in separate, settled compartments and the most settled of all developed with Natalia. He was allocated another apartment, smaller but better than the first, and nearer the centre of the city and they alternated between the two, sometimes at her place, sometimes his. At the weekends they stayed together all the time, sometimes going on river trips or journeys into the hills outside Moscow in her Lada car and sometimes not bothering to do anything at all, remaining in whichever apartment they had chosen, to read or listen to music, just enjoying each other. On a weekend when Eduard was released from school they went to the circus again and slept apart, which seemed unnatural, so accustomed to each other had they become and Charlie tried to make friends with the boy but Eduard remained distant and reserved, instinctively sensing compet.i.tion for his mother's affections.

Charlie didn't mean it to develop like it did. It wasn't how he conducted affairs, not even when Edith had been alive and he'd been cheating. He'd always been a slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am operator, fun on both sides and fully recognised to be just that and no tears or regrets when the time came to say goodbye. He'd actually tried to keep it light, at the very beginning, but the awkward artificiality had been obvious and so he'd let everything grow, knowing it was pointless and knowing it was stupid but not wanting it to stop. Which was selfish as well as pointless and stupid and worst of all, dangerous.

It was because of his growing awareness of the danger to her that he changed his mind about asking her to accompany him when the next invitation came from Berenkov, quite apart from the difficulty she might have felt in the presence of someone so high in the service. Charlie dutifully congratulated Georgi on his examination results and was amused at Berenkov's boastful pride, joining in the toasts upon which Berenkov insisted, careless of the boy's blus.h.i.+ng discomfort. It was the first opportunity to thank the Russian since his appointment to the spy school and Charlie said how much he was enjoying it and Berenkov said he was impressed by what Charlie was doing and Charlie wondered if it were Natalia's report to which he was referring. He didn't think any praise would have come from Krysin.

His existence at the spy school was another compartment. The barrier still existed between Charlie and the other instructors but gradually, with their increasing and difficult-to-avoid acknowledgement of his expertise, some of them strayed beyond it and Charlie cultivated the approaches, draining everything he could from them.

He staged another pursuit exercise on the next contact Thursday and evaded them all again and won his bet with Natalia, because she lost him this time. By then he didn't feel any compet.i.tion between them, so it didn't seem much of a victory. More important was the time he spent lingering in the department store, waiting for an approach which never came. Charlie's feeling about that was ambivalent. Professionally he wanted the meeting. He wanted to identify the informant and make the crossing arrangements and to go back to England in complete and well deserved triumph. But if that happened it would mean leaving Natalia and increasingly the thought of leaving Natalia was becoming a burden. So as well as disappointment there was also relief when nothing happened in the GUM store that day and the relief was greater when he went there again, on the next appointed time and nothing happened then, either. By the time of that visit, he'd been given fresh operatives to work through their final training. It meant that the initial batch disappeared and he a.s.sumed might have been immediately infiltrated into Britain or America, which slightly unsettled Charlie, because he'd never actually intended them the opportunity to practise what he had taught them. He'd wanted to be back, in advance, able to issue the warnings and complete the photofits and get them swept up or turned. It also meant that Natalia left the cla.s.s, which Charlie welcomed because by the end, when they were together every night and every weekend, having to adopt the role of lecturer to pupil during the day became practically a farce. Charlie's dismay at suspecting some of those he had trained were already working, undetected, was tempered by the awareness that the second batch, six again, meant there were more agents whom he would subsequently be able to identify: and those that had gone ahead wouldn't be able to do much damage, anyway. An essential part of his training had been that the primary requirement for their being successful was first of all completely to install themselves in their country of placing, to obtain bona fide jobs and bona fide accommodation and as far as possible apparently bona fide respectability. He tried to rea.s.sure himself by the thought that even if they had been put into place, it would be six months, maybe as long as a year, before they began properly to operate.

And he'd be out in a year, thought Charlie. Which naturally brought him back to thinking about Natalia and having avoided and sidestepped and looked the other way for so long Charlie forced himself properly to think about it. Was he using her: enjoying the comfort and the security and the normality of an affair in an uncomfortable, insecure, abnormal situation? Or was it more than opportunism: love? Charlie confronted the word, one he'd avoided most of all. Charlie was frightened of love. Of admitting it. He'd always thought of being in love as exposing part of himself he didn't want anyone else to see, like sitting on a crowded bus with a trouser zip undone. Apart from the brief and soon-pa.s.sed excitement of variation, a lot of the affairs when Edith had been alive had been Charlie wanting to feel that he wasn't dependent upon one woman. Which he had been and which too late he'd accepted. Charlie, who always derided rules and formulae, wished to Christ there was a listed chart he could consult, a mathematically unarguable square root of love.

He kept the fifth date at the GUM store, as unsuccessful as all the others, and as he made his way back across Dzerzhinsky Square and past the headquarters of the KGB Charlie realised that according to the arrangements he'd made with Wilson, seemingly years before in the prison governor's office, he only had a month left. At once Charlie found an alternative argument. Six months had been an arbitrary period, plucked from nowhere and agreed anyway because by then he'd expected things to be difficult. Charlie carried the reflection on. He'd been concentrating upon the risk of his own detection. What if the informant had been found, weeks or months before? There'd been the highly publicised affair with the British first secretary: that was unusual. The detection of the would-be defector would be an explanation the obvious one for there not having been any contact. Logical, as well as obvious. Except that one logic extended to another. If the Russians had got their man they'd have broken him and if they'd broken him then Charlie would not have been allowed to hang around Moscow stores unarrested.

So where was he?

Charlie recognised he was incredibly well-placed gaining intelligence of an incalculable value, increasingly trusted and in no danger. He'd actually considered, within the first few days of being in Moscow, that he might have to remain longer than the period he'd agreed with the British Director. So he'd stay on, Charlie determined. Just for a while longer, if no approach were made. He was, after all, a complete professional; and to stay would be the professional thing to do. And meant he didn't have to consider the thought of losing Natalia. s.h.i.+t, he thought; why was nothing ever easy?

The absence of any further messages did nothing to relieve the pressure from the Politburo upon Kalenin and therefore his demands upon those answerable to him. Rather, they increased. The Politburo insisted on explanations the KGB chairman didn't have and his insistences permeated through his immediate deputies to division directors and their subordinates and spread the uncertainty not just throughout Dzerzhinsky Square but to the other divisional buildings in the capital. Even Charlie was aware of a change of att.i.tude from Krysin but was unable to discover the reason, so he wrongly a.s.sumed it was just a further indication of alienation between them.

Because of the indications that the leaks were coming from the operational or planning divisions, the concentration evolved particularly on to Berenkov. Edwin Sampson made a further examination, as unsuccessful as those before, and separate competing committees were set up independent of each other and the Briton's efforts to carry out their own enquiries. And were unsuccessful, too. The surveillance upon the British emba.s.sy became positive hara.s.sment. A car carrying an archivist and a secretary on a perfectly innocent outing to the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall on Sadovaya street was actually involved in a crash with a KGB observation group and the Britons were held for three hours in police custody before diplomatic pressure released them.

It is one of the anomalies of diplomacy that while no Soviet emba.s.sy in any Western capital will accept foreign nationals in any support capacity, in Moscow Western emba.s.sies employ Russian general help. The attempt was clumsily blatant and was realised almost at once by the internal security staff, who discovered two maids and a male cleaner within a week trying to install listening devices. The Foreign Office in London extended the protests beyond the natural complaint in Moscow itself by summoning the Russian amba.s.sador personally to Whitehall. In addition they released the details to the media and there was extensive newspaper coverage, to which the Kremlin responded with their cliched rejection that it was anti-Soviet propaganda.

Berenkov recognised the intrusion but knew he had no alternative, because his official position required him to inform Kalenin. He chose the end of their now customary, daily-inconclusive-conference after Kalenin had cast aside the equally inconclusive reports and suggested the vodka, the chairman's intake of which was noticeably increasing while the crisis continued unresolved.

Kalenin frowned when Berenkov began to talk of his son's qualification successes, not immediately understanding, so that Berenkov had to repeat himself and Kalenin said, 'Overseas?'

'There's a place for him, in Boston,' said Berenkov. Remembering there were towns in both countries and conscious of the chairman's apparent distraction, Berenkov hurriedly added 'Boston, America, not Boston, England.'

There was no immediate reaction from Kalenin. He finished pouring and handed Berenkov his gla.s.s and said, 'Going to the West?'

'I think he would benefit,' said Berenkov.

'Are you sure that's wise?'

'Which is why I felt I should officially raise it with you,' said Berenkov.

'What do you imagine would happen if the Western intelligence agencies were to discover who his father was?' said Kalenin.

'I did not think that was a serious risk,' said Berenkov.

'Then I don't think you've considered it sufficiently,' said Kalenin. 'The American Central Intelligence Agency actively recruits from universities: apparatus exists, for talent spotting. And if they're that well organised they'd naturally focus upon visiting Russian students. I'd consider there would be a serious risk of Georgi becoming compromised.'

'Are you telling me officially that he can't take up the place?' asked Berenkov, miserably.

'I'm saying that I want to think further about it,' said Kalenin. 'That maybe we both should.'

'He's worked extremely hard,' said Berenkov, emptily.

'We're currently experiencing enough difficulty,' said Kalenin. 'You're a deputy within the Committee for State Security, at the very highest echelon. And someone known in the West. I think we should seriously consider the risk of any embarra.s.sment beyond that which we are already suffering.'

That suffering and that embarra.s.sment worsened.

The messages to London resumed in a sudden flurry, three intercepted by the KGB monitoring services on succeeding nights. Each formed part of a sensational whole, the complete ident.i.ties and their cover designation of virtually the entire Soviet espionage system within Britain, from the emba.s.sy-based Resident under diplomatic t.i.tle down through every other diplomatic listing and extending to the Soviet trade mission at Highgate.

The last of the three messages promised further ident.i.ties of agents in the United States and France. And concluded, 'Shortly intend making promised personal contact.'

In London Wilson said, 'Well. Here we go.'

'We hope,' said the cautious Harkness.

Moscow intercepted London's radioed reply. It was 'People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy.'

Chapter Twenty-Six.

All his life Charlie felt he had been running; often literally. He had run in the department, always to stay ahead of the supercilious sods with their nose-lifted accents. He had run, to survive, when those same sods set him up. And run again, to survive again, after he set them up, instead. He'd run in prison, like a trapped animal runs, blindly, from one corner to another corner. And was aware he should have the impression of running here, involved in the most difficult and dangerous operation he'd encountered. But he didn't. He felt unhurried. Relaxed even. As if there were time all the time in the world to rest, with no danger of anyone catching up. It was Natalia, he knew. Just as he knew without having the rules to guide him, because there were no rules that he loved her. He loved her completely and absolutely and he wanted never to spend a moment of his no-longer running life apart from her. Which meant staying. Which he couldn't. Any more than he could consider leaving.

The conflicts of feelings and loyalty and att.i.tudes and professionalism crowded in upon him and every time he got halfway towards solving one he tripped over another. Keeping Natalia from the consideration which would have been a clash of love against professionalism Charlie became increasingly convinced, after two more failed rendezvous, that there never would be any contact. What had appeared in the Soviet newspapers about the British first secretary was inadequate and inconclusive, like accounts always were in Soviet newspapers, but Charlie guessed whatever had happened involved the person he was supposed to meet at the GUM store. The unanswerable was why, if they'd swept the defector up, he'd remained unaffected. But Charlie recognised there could be explanations, like the man dying rather than face arrest. Or dying under questioning. Or going mad under that same questioning, before he'd been able to disclose and therefore endanger the meeting spot. If that conjecture were correct, then there was no further purpose in remaining in Moscow another conflict teaching intended Soviet spies to be better than they were, which was a further conflict. Professionally, he should get out. Professionally he should stop b.u.g.g.e.ring about and start running again. Would she run with him? The idea had been a long time coming too long but why not? She hadn't said so which he hadn't, nervous of actually saying it but Charlie was absolutely sure that Natalia loved him. Why the h.e.l.l couldn't it have been her, that day in GUM, who wanted to defect? Or Berenkov, to whom all the signs pointed but who hadn't committed himself? If it had been Berenkov then Charlie would have been gone months ago, before getting so hopelessly entangled. He shook his head, a physical movement of irritation. What sort of thinking was that, wis.h.i.+ng things had or hadn't happened, like some child! It hadn't been Natalia and it hadn't been Berenkov and he had fallen in love and he had to sort it out by logical, sensible thinking, not flights of fancy. It wasn't just Natalia, of course. There was Eduard. She wouldn't consider leaving the boy why the h.e.l.l should she? so he'd have to get both of them out, at the same time. Difficult but not insurmountable. Charlie consciously braked the flow of thought. How difficult? Officially he was still British. But Natalia and Eduard weren't. They were Russian and Charlie doubted the British emba.s.sy would consider flying them out if they simply walked into the emba.s.sy with him. There would have to be diplomatic this and diplomatic that and a d.a.m.ned good chance that they'd hand them back if the Russian pressure became too heavy. Which it unquestionably would. Practically insurmountable then. What if he lied? What if he took Natalia and Eduard into the emba.s.sy and conned London that she was the source for which they were so anxious? They'd bend the rules then and smuggle her out eagerly enough. But what would happen when they got back to London? The Russians would chase, because Natalia was high ranking and because they always chased anyway. And when he realised he had been cheated, Wilson and the department wouldn't provide any sort of protection. So it would be like it had been before, with Edith, hara.s.sed and terrified, from place to place and country to country. Charlie knew he couldn't stand that. He couldn't stand it and he couldn't ask Natalia to endure it: certainly not with a young kid.

A further cla.s.s came and went, at the spy school, and Charlie knew he couldn't delay much longer. His confusion and distraction increasingly came between the two of them, like a barrier, marring the earlier tranquility and there were arguments not serious rows but quarrels of irritability just the same and it put Charlie under fresh pressure because he didn't want her to misunderstand and imagine the reverse of his feelings and that he was tired of the relations.h.i.+p.

He tried to plan the occasion. He took her to the Rossiya, where they had had their first meal and from which, on the subsequent occasion, they'd left to go back to her apartment and make love. Everything about Natalia had affected Charlie but a tangible part of their being together had been the reduction in the extent of Charlie's drinking. That night, however, he drank more than usual with her, needing the support but stayed far short of getting drunk. Completely confident with Russian now, Charlie ordered for them and it was a good choice and seeking omens he decided it was a good augury for later.

She was conscious of his effort and Natalia tried, too, so that the tenseness that had developed between them in the recent days and weeks eased away. Charlie was relieved that Natalia was relaxed again and relieved too that after all the unconcluded agonising the moment had come to be open with her.

'I've something to tell you,' he said, when the meal was over and they had started their coffee.

'What?'

'I love you.'

Natalia winced, which wasn't the response Charlie expected.

'I said I love you,' he repeated.

'Yes.'

'Is that all, just yes?'