Frederick Forsyth - The Deceiver

“I don’t believe what I’m seeing,” whispered Roth. “That’s Nikolai Gorodov. He’s the head of the whole goddam KGB Rezidentura in Britain.”

“In the flesh. And he works for us, has done for four years. You’ve had all his product, source disguised, but pure. And he says Orlov is lying.”

“Prove it,” said Roth. “You’re always telling Orlov to prove it. Now you prove it. Prove he’s really yours.”

“If Gorodov scratches his left ear with his right hand before he gets into the car, he’s our man,” said McCready.

The black limousine was abreast of the portico. Gorodov never glanced toward the Jaguar. He just raised his right hand, reached across his chest, tugged at his left earlobe, and climbed in. The embassy car purred away.

Roth leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. He breathed deeply several times, then raised his face.

“I have to tell the DCI,” he said. “Personally. I can fly back.”

“No deal,” said McCready. “I have given Gorodov my word, and ten minutes ago you gave me yours.”

“I have to tell the DCI. Otherwise, the die is cast. There’s no going back now.”

“Then delay. You can get other proof, or at least grounds for delay. I want to tell you about the ashtray theory.”

He told Roth what Keepsake had told him on the river steamer two days earlier.

“Ask Orlov for the name of the Fifth Man. He knows, but he will not tell you. But Keepsake will get it and bring it with him when he comes over.”

“When is that to be?”

“Soon now. A few weeks at most. Moscow is suspicious. The net is closing.”

“One week,” said Roth. “Bailey leaves for Salzburg and Vienna in one week. He must not reach Vienna. The DCI thinks he’s going to slip into Hungary.”

“Have him recalled as a matter of urgency. Have him recalled to Washington. If he obeys, that merits a further delay. If he refuses, I’ll throw in the towel.”

Roth considered the proposition. “I’ll try it,” he said. “First I’m going to Alconbury. Tomorrow, when I get back, if Orlov has refused to name the Fifth Man, I’ll send a cable to the DCI saying the Brits have produced fresh evidence that Orlov may be lying and asking for Bailey’s instant recall to Langley. As a test. I think the DCI will grant that, at least. It will cause a delay of several weeks.”

“Enough, old friend,” said McCready. “More than enough. Keepsake will have come across by then, and we can all level with the DCI. Trust me.”

Roth was at Alconbury just after sundown. He found Orlov in his room, lying on his bed, reading and listening to music. He had exhausted Simon and Garfunkel—Kroll said the body­guard team had memorized nearly every word of the twenty top hits—and had passed on to the Seekers. He switched off “Morningtown” as Roth entered and jackknifed off the bed with a grin.

“We go back to the States?” he asked. “I am bored here. The Ranch was better, despite the risks.”

He had put on weight from the lying around without a chance of exercise. His reference to the Ranch was a joke. For a while, after the dummy assassination attempt, Roth had kept up the pretense that it was a KGB project, and that Moscow must have learned details of the Ranch from Urchenko, who had been debriefed there before he foolishly went back to the KGB. Then he had admitted to Orlov that it had all been a CIA ploy to test the Russian’s reactions. Orlov had been angry at first—“You bastards, I thought I was going to die,” he had yelled—but later he had begun to laugh at the incident.

“Soon,” said Roth. “Soon we will be finished here.”

He dined with Orlov that night and put to him the notion of the Memory Room in Moscow.

Orlov nodded. “Sure, I have seen it. All inducted officers are taken there. To see the heroes and admire them.”

Roth steered the conversation to the portraits of the Mag­nificent Five.

Chewing on a mouthful of steak, Orlov shook his head. “Four,” he said. “Only four pictures. Burgess, Philby, Ma­clean, and Blunt. Four Stars.”

“But there’s a fifth frame, with just black paper in it?” suggested Roth.

Orlov was chewing much more slowly. “Yes,” he admitted as he swallowed. “A frame, but no picture.”

“So there was a Fifth Man?”

“Apparently.”

Roth’s conversational tone did not vary, but he watched Orlov over the top of his fork.

“But you were a full major in the Illegals Directorate. You must have seen the name in the Black Book.”

Something flickered in Orlov’s eyes. “They never showed me any Black Book,” he said evenly.

“Peter, who was the Fifth Man? His name, please.”

“I do not know, my friend. I swear that to you.” He smiled again, his wide and attractive grin. “You want me to take the lie detector on it?”

Roth smiled back, but he thought, No, Peter, I rather think you can beat the lie detector—when you want to. He resolved to return to London in the morning and send his cable asking for a delay and a recall of Bailey to Washington—as a test. If there was one tiny element of doubt—and despite Kellogg’s pulverizing case, he now entertained an element of doubt—Roth would not carry out the order, not even for the DCI and his own flowering career. Some prices were just too high.

* * *

The following morning, the cleaners came in to the Alconbury quarters. These were local Huntingdon ladies, the same as those used by the rest of the base. Each had been security-cleared and given a pass to enter the cordoned area. Roth was eating breakfast opposite Orlov in the mess hall, trying to talk above the noise of a rotary floor-buffer polishing the corridor outside. The insistent hum of the machine went up and down as the buffing head swirled around and around.

Orlov wiped the coffee from his lips, mentioned that he needed to go to the men’s room, and left. In later life, Roth would never again mock the notion of a sixth sense. Seconds after Orlov had left, Roth noticed a change in the tone of the buffing machine. He walked out into the corridor to look at it. The buffer stood alone, its brushes turning, its motor emitting a single, high whine.

He had seen the cleaner when he went in for breakfast—a thin lady in print overalls, curlers in her hair, and a scarf wrapped over them. She had stepped aside to let him pass, then continued with her drudgery without raising her eyes. Now she was gone. At the end of the corridor, the men’s room door was still swinging gently.

Roth yelled, “Kroll!” at the top of his voice and raced down the corridor. She was on her knees in the middle of the men’s room floor, her plastic bucket of cleaning fluids and dusters spilled around her. In her hand she had the silenced Sig Sauer that the dusters had hidden. From the far end of the room, a cubicle door opened, and Orlov stepped out. The kneeling assassin raised the gun.

Roth did not speak Russian, but he knew a few words. He yelled “ Stoi !” at the top of his voice.

She turned on her knees, Roth threw himself to the floor, there was a low phut , and Roth felt the shock waves near his head. He was still on the tiles when there was a crashing boom from behind him, and he felt more waves of reverbera­tion beating around him. An enclosed toilet is no place to loose off a .44 Magnum.

Behind him, Kroll stood in the doorway, his Colt gripped two-handed. There was no need for a second shot. The woman lay on her back on the tiles, a blooming red stain vying with the roses on her overalls. Later, they would discover the real charlady bound and gagged at her home in Huntingdon.

Orlov still stood by the door of the cubicle, white-faced.

“More games!” he shouted. “It is enough of CIA games!”