Frederick Forsyth - The Deceiver

“Fine, fine,” said the DCI. “One last thing. They keep asking for access. Over there. This time around, I’m prepared to indulge them. I think we can go that far.”

“I’d prefer to keep him over here. He’s safe here.”

“We can keep him safe over there. Look, we can put him on an American air base. Upper Heyford, Lakenheath, Alconbury. Whatever. They can see him, talk to him under super­vision, then we bring him back.”

“I don’t like it,” said Bailey.

“Cal—” there was a hint of steel in the DCI’s voice—“I’ve agreed to it. Just see to it.”

Calvin Bailey drove down to the Ranch for a personal talk with Joe Roth. They talked in Roth’s suite of rooms above the central portico of the Ranch house. Bailey found his subordi­nate tired and drawn. Debriefing a defector is a tiring busi­ness, involving long hours with the defector followed by long nights spent working through the next day’s line of question­ing. Relaxing is not usually on the menu, and when, as often happens, the defector has established a personal relationship with his chief debriefing officer, it is not easy to give that officer time off and replace him with a substitute.

“Washington is pleased,” Bailey told him. “More than pleased—delighted. Everything he says checks out. Soviet Army, Navy, and Air Force deployments, confirmed by other sources of satellite coverage. Weapons levels, readiness states, the Afghan mess—Pentagon loves it all. You’ve done well, Joe. Very well.”

“There’s still a long way to go,” said Roth. “Lots more still to come. There must be. The man’s an encyclopedia. Phenomenal memory. Sometimes stuck for a detail, but usu­ally recalls it sooner or later. But ...”

“But what? Look, Joe, he’s pulling apart years of patient KGB work in Central and South America. Our friends down there are closing down network after network. It’s okay. I know you’re tired. Just keep at it.”

He went on to tell Roth of the hint the DCI had given him about the forthcoming vacancy as Deputy Director Opera­tions. He was not usually a confiding man, but he saw no reason not to give his subordinate the same kind of boost the DCI had given him.

“If it goes through, Joe, there’ll be a second vacancy, head of Special Projects. My recommendation will count for a lot. It’ll be for you, Joe. I wanted you to know that.”

Roth was grateful but not ecstatic. He seemed more than tired. There was something else on his mind.

“Is he causing problems?” asked Bailey. “Has he got everything he wants? Does he need female company? Do you? It’s isolated down here. It’s been a month. These things can be arranged.”

He knew Roth was divorced and single. The Agency has a legendary divorce rate. As they say at Langley, it comes with the territory.

“No, I’ve offered him that. He just shook his head. We work out together. It helps. Run through the woods until we can hardly stand. I’ve never been in such good shape. He’s older, but he’s fitter. That’s one of the things that worries me, Calvin. He’s got no flaws, no weaknesses. If he got drunk, screwed around, got maudlin for thinking about his homeland, lost his temper—”

“You’ve tried to provoke him?” asked Bailey. Provoking a defector into a rage, an outburst of pent-up emotions, can sometimes work as a release, a therapy. According to the in-house psychiatrists, anyway.

“Yes. I’ve taunted him with being a rat, a turncoat. Noth­ing. He just ran me into the ground and laughed at me. Then he got on with what he calls “the job.” Blowing away KGB assets worldwide. He’s a total pro.”

“That’s why he’s the best we’ve ever had, Joe. Don’t knock it. Be grateful.”

“Calvin, that’s not the main reason he bugs me. As a guy, I like him. I even respect him. I never thought I would respect a defector. But there’s something else. He’s holding some­thing back.”

Calvin Bailey went very quiet and very still. “The poly­graph tests don’t say so.”

“No, they don’t. That’s why I can’t be sure I’m right. I just feel it. There’s something he’s not saying.”

Bailey leaned across and stared hard into Roth’s face. An awful lot hung on the question he was about to ask.

“Joe, could there be any chance, in your considered view, that despite all the tests, he might still be a phony, a KGB plant?”

Roth sighed. What had been troubling him had finally come out.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I don’t know . For me, there’s a ten-percent area of doubt. A gut feeling that he’s holding something back. And I can’t work out, if I’m right, why.”

“Then find out, Joe. Find out,” said Calvin Bailey. He did not need to point out that if there was anything phony about Colonel Pyotr Orlov, two careers in the CIA were likely to go straight into the trash can. He rose.

“Personally I think it’s nonsense, Joe. But do what you have to do.”

Roth found Orlov in his living room, lying on a settee, listening to his favorite music. Despite the fact that he was virtually a prisoner, the Ranch was equipped like a well-appointed country club. Apart from his daily runs in the forest, always flanked by four of the young athletes from Quantico, he had access to the gymnasium, the sauna and pool, an excellent chef, and a well-stocked bar that he used spar­ingly.

Soon after arriving, he had admitted to a taste for the ballad singers of the sixties and early seventies. Now, whenever he visited the Russian, Roth was accustomed to hearing Simon and Garfunkel, the Seekers, or the slow honeyed tones of Elvis Presley coming from the tape deck.

That evening when he walked in, the clear childlike voice of Mary Hopkin was filling the room. It was her one famous song. Orlov jackknifed himself off the settee with a grin of pleasure. He gestured at the tape deck.

“You like it? Listen.”

Roth listened. “ ‘Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end . ...’ ”

“Yeah, it’s nice,” said Roth, who preferred traditional and mainstream jazz.

“You know what it is?”

“That British girl, isn’t it?” said Roth.

“No, no—not the singer, the tune. You think it is British tune, yes? From the Beatles, perhaps.”

“Guess so,” said Roth, now also smiling.

“Wrong,” said Orlov triumphantly. “It is old Russian song. Dorogoy dlinnoyu da nochkoy lunayu . ‘By a long road on a moonlit night.’ You didn’t know that?”

“No, I certainly didn’t.”

The jaunty little tune ran to its end, and Orlov switched off the tape.

“You want we should talk some more?” asked Orlov.

“No,” said Roth. “I just stopped by to see if you were okay. I’m going to turn in. It’s been a long day. By the way, we are going back to England soon. Let the Limeys have a chance to talk to you for a little while. All right by you?”

Orlov frowned. “My deal was to come here. Only here.”

“It’s okay, Peter. We’ll be staying for a short while on an American Air Force base. To all intents and purposes, still in America. I’ll be there to protect you from the big bad Brits.”

Orlov did not smile at the joke.

Roth became serious. “Peter, is there a reason you don’t want to go back to England? Something I should know?”

Orlov shrugged. “Nothing specific, Joe. Just gut feeling. The farther I am away from the USSR, the safer I feel.”

“Nothing will happen to you in England. I give you my word. You going to turn in now?”

“I stay up for a while. Read, play music,” said the Russian.

In fact, the light burned in Orlov’s room until half-past one in the morning. When the KGB assassination team struck, it was a few minutes before three.