Brian Freemantle - The Blind Run

‘I don’t know,’ said Wainwright, at once.

Beside him Berenkov felt Kalenin stiffen.

Koblov, the professional questioner, showed no reaction. ‘The person who made contact at the Bolshoi. And then on the other fourteen occasions,’ he elaborated, as if he imagined Wainwright had misunderstood the initial question. ‘Who was he? What was his name?’

Wainwright looked back curiously at the Russian. ‘But I thought I made that clear,’ he said. ‘There was never a meeting; an open contact. It was a blind approach at the Bolshoi and that was the way it continued. When we picked up from each drop there would be the next one specified. He – if it is a he – was only ever Rose.’

‘We were wrong to pick him up,’ said Kalenin, distantly. ‘We knew the other man had already gone; we should have let Wainwright run.’

In the interview room, Koblov was continuing smoothly on, his outward demeanour giving no indication of his inward frustration: he was aware of being literally under the eyes of the chairman himself and wanted the interrogation to be a triumph. ‘After you ceased being control, Richardson took over?’

‘Yes,’ reiterated Wainwright.

‘But you’re station chief: the resident?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you were in charge of Richardson?’

Wainwright shook his head. ‘I told you that, too,’ he said. ‘When London realised what it had they suspended some of the normal procedures. Richardson worked entirely independently: taking over the cipher codes. The Rose operation itself. I was actually told not to become involved, so that I wouldn’t know.’

‘You must have talked,’ persisted Koblov, still gentle. ‘It had been your operation, to begin with. And it was a spectacular one, according to London’s reaction. You must have talked about it to Richardson.’

Wainwright smiled, an unusual expression for the man. ‘Not about the subsequent information. I was banned from that. And there wasn’t anything to talk about anyway. They continued to be blind contacts.’

‘So you discussed the identity!’ seized Koblov.

‘I asked him if he’d met Rose,’ qualified Wainwright. ‘I’ve never known an operation like this before; neither had Richardson.’

‘And?’ prompted Koblov.

‘Richardson said it was the same for him as it had been for me: he’d never met Rose.’

‘Did you believe him?’

Wainwright hesitated. ‘I had no reason not to.’

‘But you’d been moved from control,’ reminded Koblov. ‘Distanced from what was happening. Richardson would have lied to you, wouldn’t he, if he’d been told to?’

‘Oh yes,’ agreed Wainwright at once. ‘But I didn’t get the impression that he was. I think I would have known.’

‘Richardson’s been withdrawn,’ reminded Koblov.

‘Yes.’

‘So who’s the new control? Richardson took over from you. Who’s taken over from Richardson?’

‘I don’t think anyone has,’ said Wainwright.

‘You wouldn’t think,’ said Koblov, minutely increasing the pressure because he felt the Briton was relaxing. ‘You’re still the resident. You’d know.’

‘I’m unaware of anyone taking over control.’

‘Are you saying that the Rose operation is over?’ demanded Koblov.

‘No,’ said Wainwright.

‘What then?’

‘We didn’t talk about the messages, like I said,’ explained Wainwright. ‘But from the quickness in the way things happened – and from the impression I got from Richardson although he didn’t actually say anything – I thought he’d gone back to arrange a crossing.’

In the viewing room Kalenin said, ‘If that were to happen it would mean disaster on top of disaster.’

‘Crossing?’ said Koblov.

‘Defection,’ provided Wainwright, needlessly. ‘One of the last conversations I had with Richardson he said “I wonder how much longer Rose can carry on?” It struck me as odd at the time.’

‘Those were the exact words? “I wonder how much longer Rose can carry on?”’

‘I don’t remember exactly,’ said Wainwright. ‘That was the meaning of what he said.’

‘We shouldn’t have openly arrested the damned man,’ said Kalenin, exasperated. ‘We should have trapped him; turned him, so that he could have told us if a new control were being imposed.’

‘If his inference is right, then there won’t be a new control,’ said Berenkov. ‘There’ll be a defection.’

‘They don’t just happen,’ said Kalenin. ‘A crossing has to be arranged and someone has to do the arranging. And that will have to be through the embassy. Picking up Wainwright was a disaster.’

‘I’m sorry,’ apologised Berenkov. ‘It seemed the right thing to do, in the circumstances.’

‘It is as much my fault as yours,’ said Kalenin. ‘I approved the decision, before it was put into operation.’

Although he did not doubt the friendship, Berenkov wondered if Kalenin would share the guilt before any Politburo enquiry. And the way this was going, a Politburo enquiry looked increasingly likely. It got worse.

Determined to strip Wainwright to the bone – in case he were a consummate professional rather than a pant-wetting man wrongly retained beyond his time – Kalenin held the diplomat far longer than was acceptable even by the usual disregarding Russian standards against the British diplomatic protests. There was no physical indication of pressure when the man was finally released into British protection from Lefortovo – because no physical pressure had been necessary – but mentally he had been reduced to admitting and confronting every weakness, fear and cowardice in that perpetually reflecting mirror in that stark interrogation room. Moscow publicly named Wainwright and announced the smashing of a major Western-inspired spy ring – actually recalling the Soviet ambassador from London for an undisclosed period, which was unprecedented – and Whitehall responded with a contemptuous denial.

Moscow announced Wainwright’s expulsion – and in another rare departure it was fully reported in Pravda and Izvestia and upon Moscow television, because Kalenin was grabbing at straws and thought the publicity might frighten whoever their spy was from defection until they found another way to locate him – and in the customary tit-for-tat response London declared a senior trade counsellor at the Soviet trade delegation at Highgate persona non grata.

No one thought – properly thought – of Wainwright. A brave man who had known he was a coward but tried instead to be a brave man – and failed an abject coward – Wainwright on the night before his recall locked the door of the embassy residence room in which, womb-like, he felt quite secure. Completely aware that courage was a quality he lacked, he consciously drank half a bottle of vodka to obtain it falsely and when that proved insufficient drank more, so that when they broke the door down the following morning more than three quarters of the bottle had gone. Like the defiance of his interrogation, Wainwright’s attempt at suicide was a miserable, clumsy, near failure. The embassy beam was more than sufficient to support his body weight and the belt didn’t break, either. But he placed the buckle wrongly, in the final, drunkenly brave seconds and so when he kicked away the chair he didn’t die quickly, from the neck-break of hanging, but twisted and turned in the sort of agony that had always been his ultimate fear and which was confirmed by later autopsy and died slowly, from strangulation.

It was, therefore, a month before Berenkov felt able to raise positively the suggestion he had mentioned in passing to Kalenin and even then, from Kalenin’s absent-minded reaction, Berenkov knew it was premature.

‘Spy school?’ queried Kalenin, the distraction obvious.