Brian Freemantle - The Lost American

Brinkman smiled too, at the older man’s outrage. ‘At least they didn’t fall over at the reception.’

‘You did very well, incidently,’ said the ambassador. ‘Afraid the demands can become a bit irritating at times.’

‘No problem,’ assured Brinkman. ‘No problem at all.’

It could have become one, if he had allowed it, but Brinkman met every request and every need, from a bath plug where there wasn’t one at the Metropole to souvenir shopping at GUM to simultaneous and superbly accurate transcription of everything that passed between Birdwood’s party and the Russians they met. In addition to that first day there were five more separate occasions when he had the opportunity to be within touching distance of almost every one of the Russian leaders and remove from his mind any doubt about Serada’s decline: at two Orlov was present and briefly Brinkman regretted that his translator status did not permit him to try to get the Russian involved in some sort of discussion.

Although Leningrad took Brinkman away from his immediate focus of interest it was still useful because of the restriction of travel imposed upon embassy personnel. They toured the shipyards – for the visiting Englishmen a necessary chore – and actually went into some of the repair sheds, to which Brinkman would never normally have gained access. What he saw in the yards and the machine shops enabled a whole separate file to London reporting firsthand about apparent disrepair and backward operating methods in the Soviet engineering works, which by itself was sufficient to impress Maxwell. There was no period of Brinkman’s life when he could remember working so consistently hard or so consistently concentrated, intent on catching every crumb that fell from the table. And it did not end, of course, with the conclusion of each day’s chaperoning. After settling the British party he always returned to the embassy to transmit that day’s file. They were always extremely long and always had to be encoded into a secret designated cipher and for over a week Brinkman existed on never more than three hours sleep a night. Returning the final day from the farewells at Sheremetyevo – wondering, greedily, if he would ever again be able to get as close for so long to the Soviet leaders as he had during the past few days – Brinkman allowed himself to relax for the first time and was engulfed in a physical ache of fatigue. Utterly exhausted, he realised; and worth every moment of it. Brinkman knew – confidently, not conceitedly – that in months he had achieved more in Moscow than most other intelligence officers achieved in years. So he’d proved himself again. He’d proved himself to his father and he’d proved himself to those in the department who carped about favouritism and prayed he was going to fall flat on his ass but most important of all – always the most important of all – he’d proved himself to himself.

There wasn’t much time for immediate rest. The intelligence community in Moscow discovered from the first day what he was doing and the approaches began practically before the British aircraft cleared Soviet air space, the professional attitudes those of some envy and some jealousy but predominantly those of admiration for being clever enough to get himself into such a position. He was the most open with Blair – although he held back from disclosing the apparent friendship between Sevin and Orlov – and comparatively helpful to Mark Harrison. The contact from the Canadian coincided with that from the Australians and Brinkman helped them, too. He even offered something to the one-sided French, feeling he could be generous because he had done so well. And he never knew when he might need to call favours in.

There was a personal letter of thanks within weeks from Birdwood and Brinkman was picked out by name in a letter of gratitude the Opposition leader wrote to the ambassador. Maxwell wrote from London, too, enclosing the letter in the safety of the diplomatic bag.

‘An outstanding success,’ the controller called it.

Brinkman wondered how difficult it was going to be maintaining the standard he set himself.

The KGB identified Brinkman as the interpreter on the first day but because of his distraction in the provinces it was several days before Sokol caught up with it. He frowned down, irritated that the leaders had come under such close scrutiny of an intelligence operator. There was nothing, now, that he could do about it: maybe there wouldn’t have been at the time, apart from staging some accident involving the man, physically removing him. Jeremy Brinkman appeared to have progressed beyond the settling-in stage, reflected the Russian. He made a notation to place the man upon the priority Watch List.

Ruth drove Paul back from the court hollowed by what she heard, unspeaking because she didn’t trust herself to speak to the boy and not knowing the words anyway. He remained silent beside her. She couldn’t handle this alone, she determined, taking the car across the Memorial Bridge. She was prepared to do most things – indeed, she’d argued custodial responsibility during the divorce because she considered it was her responsibility – but there had to be a cutoff point and this was it. Paul was Eddie’s son, as much as hers; so his liability was as great as hers, even though he was on the other side of the world. They had established the method of communication through Langley in the event of any emergency, in the overly-polite aftermath of the divorce and Ruth had always determined never to use it, looking upon it as an admission of failure. Which perhaps was the reason Paul had done what he had. So if she failed it was time for Eddie to see if he could do better. The CIA personnel official was courteous and helpful and tried to commiserate by saying it was the most common problem parents had to face in America today which didn’t help Ruth at all because she wasn’t interested in anyone else’s problems. The official promised to get a message to Blair overnight, which he did.

‘Drugs!’ exclaimed Ann, when Blair told her that evening in their Moscow apartment.

‘Marijuana, apparently. And cocaine,’ said Blair. ‘There wasn’t a complete run down, obviously, but it seems to have been going on for quite a long time.’

‘Oh darling, I’m sorry,’ said Ann. ‘I’m really very sorry.’

‘Yeah,’ said Blair, distantly, and she wondered if he were thinking it might not have happened if he hadn’t become involved with her.

‘What are you going to do?’ she said.

‘They’ve been very good,’ he said. ‘Immediate compassionate leave.’

‘Of course,’ said Ann. Why hadn’t she thought of his going back to Washington? It was the obvious thing for him to do.

‘I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ She suddenly remembered the coveted tickets to the Bolshoi and realised he’d miss the performance. It was too inconsequential to mention; too inconsequential to think about at a time like this. ‘I wish there was something I could do,’ she said.

Blair looked at her grave-faced. ‘I was just thinking the same thing,’ he said. ‘About myself.’

Blair flew on a KLM flight, which enabled a convenient transfer for the Washington flight at Amsterdam. Because of Blair’s listing on the Watch List, the KGB knew of his departure within three hours. It was the same Watch List on which Jeremy Brinkman’s name had been entered.

Blair arrived at Dulles airport unshaven and crumpled. He didn’t enjoy flying and sleep would have been impossible anyway, so he was jetlagged, his head feeling as if it were stuffed with cotton wool. He went mechanically through the process of renting a car, blinking to concentrate when he reached the Beltway on his way into Washington; Muscovites drove faster than this – often dangerously so – but here there seemed so many more cars and Blair got his first reminder of how long he had been out of the country. He guessed there would be many more; like the reason for his being summoned home. He felt easier when he was able to leave the Beltway for the Memorial route. It took him directly by the CIA headquarters – openly signposted – and he stared in its direction, unable to see the familiar building through the screen of trees. He’d make contact, obviously. But not yet. For the moment the career for which he’d made so many sacrifices could be put on the back burner. Blair halted the slide, recognising the search for excuses and irritated at himself for the weakness. Getting Paul sorted out was the only consideration; the excuses and the who-and-what-was-to-blame recriminations could wait until later. And his commitment to the Agency would be pretty low on the list anyway.