Charlie Muffin: The Blind Run Part 15

'Georgi may qualify to become an exchange student,' said Berenkov, the pride obvious.

'England?' queried Charlie, curiously.

'Possibly,' said the boy. 'Or America.'

'The experience will be good for him,' insisted Berenkov.

Could it be this easy! Charlie thought. He was aware of the looks that went between Berenkov and his wife. To Georgi, he said, 'Do you want to go?'

'I want to do what my father considers best,' replied the boy, dutifully.

Berenkov insisted upon refilling their gla.s.ses twice before they ate. The trouble to which Valentina had gone with the meal was obvious and Charlie complimented her on the borsch and then the veal aware the family had extensive concessionary facilities to obtain everything on the table, another indication of Berenkov's importance and smiled over his winegla.s.s at the Russian. 'French?' he guessed.

'A little indulgence I allow myself,' confirmed Berenkov. 'I always regretted not being able to teach you about wine, Charlie ...' Berenkov paused, appearing to consider the statement. He added, 'It was, I guess, the only thing that I knew better than you.'

'Maybe there'll be time now,' said Charlie.

'Maybe,' agreed Berenkov.

After the meal Georgi excused himself to study in his room and Valentina made much of clearing the table, to leave them alone. Berenkov offered brandy French again which Charlie accepted, and an imported Havana cigar, which he didn't. Berenkov savoured the ritual of wetting the leaf and clipping the end, lighting it in a billow of bluish smoke and said, 'The greatest advantage of having Cuba as an obedient satellite.'

'You've a nice family, Alexei,' coaxed Charlie. 'It must be good to be home?'

'Yes,' agreed Berenkov, reflectively. 'It's good.' He smiled across at the other man. 'I never expected to be entertaining you here in Moscow, Charlie.'

'I didn't expect to be entertained.' Why didn't Berenkov come out with Chekhov's innocent remark about the weather!

'I never had the chance to thank you, either,' said Berenkov. He raised his brandy bowl. 'I've made the toast before, in your absence, but I'll make it again, now you're here. Thanks, for making the repatriation possible.'

'I'm glad somebody benefited,' said Charlie.

'Was it bad?'

'I would never have done it, if I'd known just how bad,' admitted Charlie. If Berenkov were thinking of running Charlie realised that what he was saying could actually be a disincentive, but again it would provide an opening for the identification if the Russian would accept it. He told the other man, in greater detail than he'd bothered during the debriefing with Natalia, because he knew Berenkov would understand. He talked about dragging around Europe, on the run with Edith, jumping at shadows and of the pursuit when they were discovered and Edith's death and of the loneliness and the drinking afterwards, just occasionally interrupted by doing things for Willoughby's son.

'Remember what you told me, when I debriefed you in jail?' he asked Berenkov.

The Russian frowned, shaking his head.

'How glad you were, in the end, that I'd got you? That you were getting scared you couldn't go on much longer?'

'I remember,' said Berenkov. He hadn't until now. He didn't think he'd admitted that to anyone: Charlie must have been a better, more insidious debriefer than he recalled.

'That's how I felt, in Italy,' said Charlie. 'I'd have gone on running, if I'd had the chance, but I was really very tired. The feeling I remember, when I knew they had me, was of relief.'

'I know that feeling,' said Berenkov, fully confessional too.

'Then prison,' said Charlie, bitterly. 'Jesus, how I hated prison!'

'I told you about that,' reminded Berenkov. 'When I was there. I told you never to get caught.'

'I know,' recalled Charlie. Openly he said, 'I suppose formally being a defector is different. There's protection. Security.'

Berenkov smiled but said nothing.

Valentina came from the kitchen with coffee, put the pot between them and then appearing aware of the depth of their talk withdrew again.

'Still surprised you came here, Charlie,' said Berenkov.

'You told me I'd go mad in prison; something like that,' said Charlie, still in memories. 'You were right. I would have done. b.l.o.o.d.y nearly did.'

'Still didn't expect you to come to Moscow,' insisted Berenkov.

'I'm here now,' said Charlie, with obviously forced brightness.

'And?'

'Tonight's been the first good time,' admitted Charlie. 'The apartment stinks literally but I accept I can't expect anything better. The debriefings I accept are necessary too: part of the procedure. But they're becoming repet.i.tive. At least, I suppose, I'm lucky to have got rid of that a.s.shole Sampson.'

'He's a very clever a.s.shole, Charlie.'

'a.s.sholes often are.' It would be too much to hope for an indication from Berenkov of what the man was doing but there was something instinctive about trying, with the disparaging remark.

'What are you going to do, Charlie?' asked Berenkov, casually disregarding the lure.

It had been too much to expect, conceded Charlie: offensive almost. He said, 'You tell me. What am I going to be allowed to do?'

'There could be something,' said Berenkov. 'Something that might not create a conflict.'

So the man had studied the debriefing and knew about his refusal to Natalia, that first day. Charlie carefully put the brandy bowl on the table between them, knowing the gesture wasn't over-demonstrative. Was it going to be the approach for which he'd been waiting or the offer of a job? 'What?' he said.

'I don't want to make promises I can't fulfil,' withdrew Berenkov. 'I wanted us to meet and to talk. To get an idea of how you felt. I need to talk to other people, before I go any further.'

'Will you?' urged Charlie. He was unsure about Berenkov but knew he had to maintain the link.

Berenkov hesitated, appearing to consider the question. Then he said, 'Yes. It's not a commitment, you understand: it could be rejected, by other people.'

'I understand,' said Charlie. 'I'd appreciate it. I don't want to atrophy, like I was atrophying in prison.'

'I owe you a favour, Charlie,' said Berenkov. 'A very big favour.'

Georgi emerged from his room, to bid them goodnight and Charlie wished him luck with the examinations which could qualify the boy for the exchange course. And then he looked back over the table where the French wine stood and accepted some more French brandy from his hospitable host and decided he should try further. To Berenkov Charlie said, 'If Georgi pa.s.ses, when would he go?'

'This year, sometime,' said Berenkov, rekindling his cigar. 'About nine months, I supposed. Maybe sooner.'

According to Wilson, whoever their mystery informant was wanted all his family out. With Georgi freed by the exchange, that would only leave Valentina. Charlie looked around the s.p.a.cious apartment and at the books again. He had a delicate game to play, Charlie realised; probably a game more delicate than he'd ever played before in his life. If he made the slightest, infinitesimal mistake and a monstrous mistake like wrongly believing it was Berenkov who wanted to cross back to the West where he'd lived for so long then the Russian would identify it, immediately. And being the absolutely dedicated professional he was, Berenkov would see him inside a gulag so fast there'd be scorch marks left on the ground. Remembering the look that had earlier pa.s.sed between Berenkov and his wife, Charlie said, 'How would Valentina feel about his going?'

'You still don't miss a lot, do you Charlie?'

'Like you, it's automatic.'

'Valentina thinks of the West as some sort of monster that swallows up people she loves.'

'How do you think of it?' risked Charlie.

'I had a h.e.l.l of a time,' admitted Berenkov, nostalgically. 'I got nervous, in the end. And it was always unreal, without Valentina. Georgi, too. But it was good to me. d.a.m.ned good.'

Careful, decided Charlie. He was going to have to be very, very careful.

'Whatever happens about the job, I mean we'll have to meet some more,' said Berenkov.

'I'd like that,' said Charlie.

Tanks had been in the forefront of the Ardennes offensive, the last attempt in the Second World War to break through the Allied front in the West, seize Antwerp and bottleneck supplies for the British and American armies about to invade Germany, and so the Battle of the Bulge was one frequently recreated by Kalenin. He'd had papier mache models created, to scale, of the contours and the geography, with towns like Charleville and Sedan and Revin picked out and he had his tank forces to scale, as well. Kalenin admired von Rundstedt's strategy bringing the vehicles across terrain supposedly impossible for them and regarded Montgomery's success more due to luck than tactics. Another hour, another day, another person looking in another direction and the outcome might have been completely different, he thought. To test the theory, he moved the American tanks that Montgomery controlled just fifty kilometres from where they'd actually been, using Reims as the marker, and timed von Rundstedt's a.s.sault twenty four hours earlier. Completely different, he thought again. Was he looking in the right direction, to find the traitor opening a window for the British to look right inside his very own headquarters? Kalenin had permanent, twenty-four hour surveillance on the deputies and their immediate subordinates everyone with likely access and the reports were being channelled directly to him, even here, at night. The observation reports from the British emba.s.sy, too. And discovering nothing, not the slightest squeak from an unseen, unsuspected tank track. The feeling of impotence and that vaguer feeling of uncertainty beyond was worsening, as every day pa.s.sed. When, oh when, was he going to be able to realise where the break had been made? Kalenin rearranged the tanks, in the properly recorded formations and divisions. It hadn't been necessary in the Ardennes, at the very end of 1944, but it was always possible to detect an a.s.sault by inviting one, remembered Kalenin: it had even been an earlier strategy successfully practised by von Rundstedt.

The KGB chairman straightened from his war-games table and crossed to the desk upon which lay the latest batch of meaningless surveillance reports. Beside them lay the master-list of the people under suspicion. He'd have to invite an attack, Kalenin decided, staring down at the twelve names. To each but exclusively to each would have to be given specific and apparently vitally sensitive material. They'd broken the key, after all. As soon as they intercepted the message, they'd know the source. Kalenin was irritated that the subterfuge hadn't occurred to him before. Commanders who took too long to think of strategies usually lost battles. Sometimes even the war.

Chapter Nineteen.

Although there are many natural varieties, botanists recognise 250 distinct species of rose, which is perfectly divisible by a factor of two. Sampson summoned the mathematicians who broke the earlier code and instructed them what he was looking for suggesting the ripple attempt which had been successful before and had to wait a full, irritating week because there weren't the necessarily complete listings available in any Soviet textbook. Even when the books from the West were provided, there were still variations which had to be cross-computed and the initial reaction from men accustomed to working within the conforming rigidity of patterned figures was one of scepticism at the aberrations of a clearly deranged romantic. The final entry into the machines began with the hybrid Agnes and concluded with the Zephirine Drouhin, officially designated a rambling, climbing rose. The first week's failures were confirmation for the men of practical science that they were dealing with a madman. Sampson insisted upon further cross-referencing discovering, for instance, that the hybrid tea Michele Meilland had been omitted because the programmer had considered the floribunda Mich.e.l.le to be the same flower and listing in full, instead of by general description, the spinossima species. The att.i.tude of the mathematicians men of patterns and design after all changed when they realised a shape was appearing and by the end of the second week Sampson told Berenkov he considered he had broken the hitherto unintelligible ident.i.ty line. From the first indication, Berenkov spent all the time with Sampson, watching the designation of operative and sender of the secret messages gradually emerge from the mora.s.s. There was practically euphoria with the completion of the sender's name, which was Wainwright and whom Berenkov knew immediately, from the complete Soviet awareness of the British emba.s.sy staffing, was the designated first secretary whom Sampsom had already identified, from his debriefing with Natalia Fedova, as the British intelligence chief of station, the Resident. Wainwright was involved in fifteen of the most immediate messages but then the control changed, the name now appearing as Richardson, whom it was equally easy to identify as someone who served as cultural attache. The early excitement an excitement with which the ebullient Berenkov immediately infected Kalenin, who was anxious for just this sort of breakthrough faded within hours with the discovery that while Wainwright was still on station, Richardson had been withdrawn to London a month earlier, at the conclusion of a normal and accepted diplomatic tour of duty.

Sampson had completely deciphered the ident.i.ty logo on every message by ten in the morning. The planning conference with Kalenin took place at noon. By four, Wainwright had been arrested during a late lunch return as he pa.s.sed the Tropinin Museum, on his leisurely way back to the emba.s.sy and by six the British diplomat was in jail. Lubyanka would have been more convenient, directly attached as it was to the KGB headquarters in Dzerzhinsky Square, but from the time of its notoriety as a slaughterhouse under YaG.o.da and Beria, the yard-bordering cells and torture chambers at the rear had been converted into miniscule office accommodation for the burgeoning intelligence organisation. Convinced that Wainwright needed to be immediately frightened and knowing the need for speed, because of the inevitable and difficult-officially-to confront British protests when they began and increasingly anxious to start moving against their traitor as soon as possible Kalenin had the Briton taken instead to Lefortovo, a more modern prison still conveniently in the centre of the capital and with a matching, more up-to-date notoriety from post-war dissidents.

Moscow was to have been Cecil Wainwright's swansong as an intelligence officer, the concluding grading guaranteeing him an index linked pension of 15,000 a year upon which he had decided he could live comfortably in the already purchased and paid for bungalow on the outskirts of Bognor, the dark-room already installed and equipped for the hobby of photography that he intended to pursue. Wainwright was a spa.r.s.e-haired, precise man whose delight in detail made him an efficient fact gatherer and extended to always sharpened pencils and always filled fountain pens to record those details. He had begun in army intelligence in Germany, which meant he saw the b.e.s.t.i.a.lity of Bergen, Belsen and Dachau and learned through the interviews with the maimed and crippled survivors in preparation for the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal of the torture ability of the Gestapo.

Wainwright was a brave man because he was a coward and tried not to be. He had been terrified by what he saw and heard in Germany and terrified further by the accounts that had leaked from Russia long before his posting there of precisely the same things happening under Stalin and his successors: terrified because Wainwright knew there was no way if ever he had to confront it that he could withstand torture. Fully aware of the fear which he saw as cowardice he had always rejected any idea of transferring from the service to a branch where the demand for him to find out and worse, show just how scared he was might never arise.

He had lived for three years in Moscow, had six months to go before the Bognor retirement and had, as the days and weeks been ticked off from the carefully consulted calendar, begun to convince himself that it was a personal test he was never going to have to confront or an admission never to be known by anyone.

He actually squealed, in fright, when the car pulled up alongside him on the north side of the museum and he realised, in the initial seconds of being manhandled into the back and surrounded by a grappling mob of men, that he hadn't got away with it and that it had happened the biggest terror after all.

He recognised Lefortovo, as they swept through the gates, and Wainwright had to sit tight-b.u.t.tocked and with his legs pressed together against any immediate, personally embarra.s.sing collapse. He knew he'd mess himself always known it when the pain started, the agony that would make him scream and weep but he determined to hold out as long as possible, just like he'd refused to give in all these years.

There is a procedure about interrogation a method of obtaining the most, quickest and it begins by letting the victim's own fear work against him. Wainwright's high-voiced demands for an explanation or for access to the British emba.s.sy were ignored. He was put into a windowless room, a tiny metal-shuttered grill set into the steel door, without lavatory facilities and with only a box-like table and two chairs beneath a harsh, ceiling-mounted light. Wainwright's hopeless abandonment was accentuated by the reflection of his loneliness in a large mirror set into the wall facing the door, in which he was reflected from whatever part of the room he attempted to occupy, and unseen behind which, because it was a two-way mirror, Kalenin and Berenkov sat waiting for the interrogation to begin.

They watched Wainwright sit, stand, sit, then stand again, come directly up to the mirror and stare into it, as if he suspected its proper function and instead closely study his own face, for indications of strain. He walked tight-legged, the discomfort obvious and twice actually felt down vaguely in the direction of his bladder, as if to hold himself would suppress the need. Once, with the apparent need to rea.s.sure himself, he went intimately through everything in his pockets, examining things of which he should have already been familiar, carefully returning each item to the pocket from which he took it in the first place. He sat, stood, then sat again. The need to urinate appeared to become increasingly more urgent.

'I almost peed myself,' remembered Berenkov. 'Funny reaction. Nearly always happens.'

'Did you?' asked Kalenin.

'Managed to stop it happening.'

'Don't think he'll be able to,' judged Kalenin. 'This shouldn't be too protracted.'

'I'm surprised the British left him on station,' said Berenkov.

'Who knows how anyone will react, until the arrest actually happens?'

'It's time we had some luck,' said Berenkov.

'Sampson did well,' said Kalenin, in reminder.

'I was wrong,' repeated Berenkov. 'It was right to use him: I shouldn't have argued against it, from the beginning.'

The interrogation continued its defined course. The interrogator, whose name was Koblov although Wainwright was never to know it, burst suddenly into the room, an impatient man in a hurry, walking by the British diplomat without bothering to look closely at him, just nodding curtly and saying 'Sit down.'

Wainwright made a valiant effort. He straightened, striving for the stance of outraged importance, and said, 'My name is Cecil Wainwright. I am accredited to your Government as the first secretary to the emba.s.sy of Her Britannic Majesty, Queen Elizabeth. I am covered by full protocol of the Vienna Convention. I demand a full explanation of your conduct and access immediately to the British emba.s.sy.'

'Sit down,' repeated Koblov.

'I said I demand an explanation,' said Wainwright, still upright.

'Sit down!' shouted Koblov.

Wainwright did.

From a brief-case Koblov extracted a purposely thickened file, moving to another stage of questioning, the impression of knowing everything, so that the questioning becomes only a formality, the need for confirmation. Without bothering to look up, he dictated. 'Your name is Cecil Roy Wainwright. Your accredited position as first secretary is, in fact, a cover for your true function as an agent, actively working against the free interests of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. You are, in fact, the resident for MI-6. Throughout your period in Moscow you have carried out your function as a spy ...' The Russian turned the page, the att.i.tude still one of impatience. He picked up the fifteen messages listed against Wainwright's name, which had been typed out, in English, in their entirety, including the decipherment of both the mathematician cryptologists and Sampson. Koblov offered Wainwright the first and said, 'This was transmitted from the British emba.s.sy on May 6th. It is cla.s.sified, restricted information concerning the governing Politburo of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ...' Koblov dealt the second message. 'This was transmitted on May 18th, further information about the composition and att.i.tudes of the Soviet Government, concerning the att.i.tude of the Soviet Government towards NATO aggression in Europe ...' Koblov maintained the attack and the delivery, a dealer holding all the marked cards, taking Wainwright in chronological progression through the messages he had transmitted.

The British diplomat sat rigid, practically to attention, legs tightly closed again. From where Kalenin and Berenkov sat they could see the perspiration picked out in tiny bubbles on Wainwright's forehead and upper lip. As they watched a tiny drop broke away, meandering a rivulet down the side of the man's face and creating a delta on his chin. Hurriedly, as if he thought the interrogator might not see, Wainwright scrubbed his hand over his face.

'There won't need to be any physical pressure,' said Berenkov.

'That might have been difficult anyway,' said Kalenin. 'We'll have to let him go.'

'When?

'Only when I'm completely satisfied,' insisted Kalenin, determined. 'I don't give a d.a.m.n about the Vienna Convention or any other convention. I've got a leak that's got to be plugged.'

Would Kalenin have officially informed the Politburo? Since Krushchev they had maintained overall control, after all. Despite their friends.h.i.+p, Berenkov decided he could not openly ask Kalenin. Knowing as little as Kalenin did about how to stop it, Berenkov didn't think he would, if he had been in Kalenin's position. He didn't envy his friend.

On the other side of the screen, Koblov completed the recital. Wainwright had watched, blinking increasingly, as one piece of evidence was piled on the other, finally creating a stack in front of him but making no effort to accept the Russian's invitation, personally to look at them. Koblov waited and when Wainwright still made no move he reached forward, retrieving them and tapped them back into a neater arrangement and returned them to the file. 'Well?' Koblov demanded.

'As an accredited diplomat to your country I demand access to my emba.s.sy,' insisted Wainwright. His voice was weak and wavering.

Koblov leaned forward, across the small table. 'You're not a diplomat,' he said. 'You are a spy and you will be treated as one. You will make a full admission and answer all my questions.'

'I will not,' fought Wainwright, desperately. 'I deny every accusation and demand to be released.'

'Fool!' shouted Koblov, in sudden anger, so unexpectedly that Wainwright visibly jumped. 'I wanted to help!' Koblov stood, just as abruptly, gathered up his file and strode from the room as quickly as he had entered, slamming the door behind him and leaving Wainwright alone once more.

For several moments the Briton did not move, remaining just as stiffly on the chair. Then he sagged, as if unseen support holding him in shape had suddenly been taken away. His teeth worried his bottom lip and from behind the mirror Berenkov and Kalenin heard the first whimper of despair. Wainwright stood, looking to the door through which Koblov had left and then, the increasing feeling of helplessness obvious, around the bare room. Wainwright started at the scream as he was meant to as if an electrical current had suddenly been charged through his body. It was a recording but there was no way of his knowing that: an actual recording, however, of physical torture, mind-destroyed, animal sounds of a human being from whom everything had been racked, sanity, shape, dignity, and almost existence. The sound of agony continued, unintelligible gibberish, and there were other sounds, muttering of men more controlled and sc.r.a.ping and dragging which grew and then diminished, conveying the audible impression that the victim had actually been hauled directly outside Wainwright's cell.