Алистер Маклин - Borrowed Time

‘Thank you, Mr Whitlock.’ The clerk handed the papers across. Ms Lawrence looked along the table. ‘Try to keep your contributions positive, Mr Crane. Petulant outbursts use up time and they’re entirely counter-productive.’ She nodded for Whitlock to continue.

‘Skuttnik’s in-place handler in New York was Adam Korwin, whose standing as a Soviet spy-master is well known among members of our own intelligence community. What is less well known is something I only recently learned: in the mid-seventies Korwin suffered a stroke. At that time Arno Skuttnik was a sleeper, working a six-day week on a garbage disposal truck in Brooklyn.

‘After the stroke Korwin believed he could still control agents and deploy espionage talent, but apparently Russia had by then accepted the obvious. Korwin was a nice old man, good at keeping out of trouble, but as far as spying went, he had lost it. Skuttnik and a few others remained sleepers without guidance, much less motivation. What’s more, Skuttnik began to enjoy the American way of life, although at the same time he longed, in a passive kind of way, to be of some service to the USSR. Korwin kept in touch with him but no assignments were floated.

‘I will summarize the other significant details of Skuttnik’s life as tightly as I can. In 1970 he married a woman who knew nothing of his double life. They had a daughter the following year. The wife died tragically young in 1972; the daughter was brought up by Skuttnik with the active assistance of Korwin, to whom the child became very attached. She was raised on good wholesome food and an ideological diet of Marx and Engels. She grew up a dedicated communist.

‘In time she married a schoolteacher, another communist, who three years into the marriage was fired from his post for spreading communist propaganda among school children. He was hounded by the press and by his neighbours and eventually lost his reason and killed himself. This made his wife regard him as a martyr for the cause, and it toughened her own resolve to fight for the survival of a dying regime.’

Whitlock went on to explain that Skuttnik’s daughter had been identified from a recent photograph taken with her father on the occasion of his birthday. Her face was only partially visible on the picture, but careful blowing up of the image made it possible to identify a jacket she wore; the retailer was also the manufacturer, and he had kept a copy of the bill of sale. The design of one of the rings she wore was also used to identify her. It was her engagement ring, which was tracked down to the Armenian jeweller who had made it. Whitlock made no mention of the clinching handwriting on the photograph, since he’d had no official access to the print.

‘I really must interrupt,’ Lubbock said testily. ‘Does this tale of domestic tragedy and tenacious political conviction lead us anywhere?’

‘Oh, indeed it does,’ Whitlock said. ‘And I may say it only exists as a story because unlike Policy Control, who took the word of the police that Arno Skuttnik was of no consequence, we at UNACO took the entire matter seriously. Instead of firing off accusatory remarks or instigating back-stabbing campaigns, we investigated. In depth.’

Whitlock paused. As if she were taking a cue, Sarah Lawrence said, ‘And what did you find, in the end?’

‘We found that a dossier of photographs and basic job descriptions had been assembled from the entire New York base of the United Nations. It was carefully guarded by Arno Skuttnik, even though by now there was no Soviet Union to make use of such an archive.’

‘Hang on!’ Crane shouted. ‘Are you saying there was more than one photograph? If that’s what you’re saying, I hope you can produce the others, and I hope you can prove they were in the possession of Arno Skuttnik.’

‘There was indeed more than one photograph,’ Whitlock said. ‘The single picture found by the police had somehow escaped from the main batch of several hundred. I can produce them.’ Whitlock held up a concertina file. ‘Here they are. They’re all in here. And yes, they were in Skuttnik’s possession. I have the corroboration of three senior NYPD officers, who stood by while I dug up the floor in his room and retrieved them.’

‘How did you know they were there?’ Ms Lawrence said.

‘The person who put together the archive told me. The same person told me all about Arno Skuttnik’s fallow years as a spy, and his gradual absorption into the American way of life. I’m talking about Arno Skuttnik’s daughter, Bridget. Married name Bridget Jones.’

Crane sat back sharply in his chair. Lubbock gave him a puzzled look.

‘Bridget Jones is a clerical officer here at the UN,’ Whitlock said. ‘She works in personnel records, which as you’re aware, Ms Lawrence, is just packed with photographs of UN employees, including all the members of Policy Control, whose pictures are in the illicit archive along with everybody else’s.’

Ms Lawrence was already mumbling into her mobile phone. She put it down after a moment and looked pointedly at Lubbock. ‘Bridget Jones didn’t show up for work yesterday or today,’ she said coldly. ‘There’s no response from her home number, apparently.’

Whitlock squared his notes. ‘I don’t think I have anything to add, except to point out that Mrs Jones’s appointment to the UN was endorsed by, among others, Mr Crane of Policy Control.’

Whitlock turned away from the lectern, then stopped. He faced the long table again.

‘In defence of UNACO’s present administrative and operational arrangements,’ he said, ‘I would add only this. Our freedom from restriction produces a special quality of planning and of procedure, unhampered by the dulling effects of communal policy-making. The record speaks for the success of the regime. Our system nurtures and develops the flowering of individuality – true individuality, capable of seeing the wood in spite of the trees.’

Amrit Datta was less than ten kilometres from the Chinese border when a motorcycle policeman stopped him. The bike had freewheeled from the top of a sloping hillside road and was beside Amrit before he realized anything was happening.

‘Papers.’ The policeman got off the bike.

Amrit nodded several times, too quickly, playing the anxious peasant, examining the man’s uniform as he dug in his pocket for his ID documents. As with a number of border police units, there was a strong American influence here: the officer wore a short-sleeved pale green shirt, darker green riding breeches with knee-high shiny boots, a white helmet with a green stripe, and very dark Ray-Bans.

‘You are Opu Hikmet, is that correct?’ The officer flipped through the papers, frowning as if they offended him.

‘Opu Hikmet, sir. That is correct, sir.’

‘Where are you travelling to?’

Amrit took back the papers. ‘I am looking for work, sir. I am not going anywhere special. As soon as I find work I stop until the work is done, then I move on again.’

The officer pointed at the sack on Amrit’s shoulder. ‘What’s in there?’

‘My few belongings, sir.’

‘Show me.’

Amrit didn’t move. ‘I would rather not.’

The officer took off the Ray-Bans. He had red-rimmed eyes. They were wide and staring. ‘What did you say?’

‘My things are private, sir. I would rather not show them to you.’

The officer kicked Amrit on the shin. The sound of it was like something being snapped. Amrit dropped to one knee, rubbing his shin.

‘Open the bag.’

Amrit stood up slowly. ‘I do not think you have the right to treat me in such a way, officer.’

‘It is not your place to think , guttersnipe!’

The officer kicked him again, on the other leg. This time it was harder and he broke the skin. Blood seeped through the leg of Amrit’s baggy trousers. He set his teeth against the pain and unslung the bag from his shoulder. He handed it to the policeman.