Brian Freemantle - The Lost American

Sokol smiled down, wearily shaking his head. Sometimes he wondered why any of them – Russia included – bothered with the ridiculous pretence. Each side – the professionals at least – invariably knew what the other was doing, who was doing it and what the covers were. Cultural attache was the favourite. So the intelligence replacement for the British was someone named Jeremy Brinkman. Sokol routinely marked it for a file to be opened and went back to the grain reports. They were the important consideration, at the moment: a new intelligence Resident could wait.

Farewell parties were usually the best. There was a purpose to them, a positive reason for going beyond the customary excuse of escaping from one set of four walls to another set of four walls. There was the official ceremony for Ingram, at the embassy on Morisa Toreza, but the bigger gathering was at the man’s own apartment, in the official diplomatic compound off Kutuzovsky Prospekt. It wasn’t limited to the British but included all Ingram’s friends from the other embassies as well, and this was the one Ingram assured Brinkman he would find the most useful. Ingram was a small, rotund man given to quick, fussy movements; he wore spectacles which Brinkman considered wrongly designed, with large round frames which made the man look like an owl, an owl in an unfamiliar hurry. Towards Brinkman the attitude was clearly that of mentor to pupil; Brinkman resented the patronising attitude but gave no indication of doing so.

Brinkman, who was taking over the Ingram apartment, arrived late from his temporary accommodation at the embassy, looking proprietorially around the smoke-filled, noisy rooms and hoping there wouldn’t be too much damage or too many stains to get repaired, afterwards. He knew – miserably – the smell of smoke would last for days. A temporary bar was set up along a wall directly adjacent to the kitchen, and Ingram stood beside it, urging people to take fresh drinks, eye-flickering around in happy contentment at being the object of so much attention. His wife bustled back and forth from the kitchen, ferrying food to a separate table near the window. Lucinda, remembered Brinkman, from their brief embassy encounter. Taller than her husband and not so obviously excited as he was by all the fuss; short, practical hairstyle and flat-heeled, practical shoes and a practical day dress instead of the cocktail creations all about her. Brinkman identified Lucinda Ingram as the sort of woman whom, at another time in another place, the natives would have instinctively addressed as ‘Mem-sahib’.

It was she who saw Brinkman first, standing just inside the door. She smiled and beckoned through the crush for him to come further in. As he started forward he saw her speak to her husband on the way to the kitchen on another food mission and at once Ingram looked in his direction.

‘Come in, come in,’ urged Ingram, thrusting through the crowd to meet him. The departing intelligence man cupped Brinkman’s arm with his hand and propelled him towards the drinks and Brinkman wished he hadn’t because he didn’t like that sort of physical contact. Brinkman chose scotch, frowning as the other man gushed an overly large measure into a tumbler and gave it to him without ice or water. Brinkman took it but didn’t drink.

‘Quite a crowd,’ he said.

‘More to come yet,’ said Ingram. ‘More to come. Lucky to have made a lot of friends.’

‘Certainly looks like it.’

Briefly the owl settled on a perch. ‘Important that some of them become your friends, too,’ said Ingram.

‘Who, for instance?’ said Brinkman, obediently.

‘Australians are useful, although not for the obvious reason. Get a lot of playback from Canberra on what’s happening in Peking…’ Ingram smiled, a man about to impart a secret. ‘No reason to consider yourself limited by the boundaries of the country you happen to be in, is there?’

‘None at all,’ agreed Brinkman. He decided that as irritating as Ingram might be, he wasn’t a fool.

‘Canada is important, too. By the same token. Ottowa was the first to recognise Mao, way back. So there’s a lot of playback through here: analysis requests on how something or other that appears to be emerging in Peking will be viewed in Moscow. It’s a worthwhile tennis game to watch.’

With China the subject Brinkman thought ping-pong would have been a more appropriate metaphor. He said, ‘Anyone else?’

‘French are pretty good but they’re an awkward bunch of bastards, all give and no take,’ judged Ingram. ‘Always a one-sided affair, dealing with them.’

Only if you let it be so, thought Brinkman. ‘Sounds typically French,’ he said.

‘And there’s the ace,’ said Ingram.

Brinkman followed Ingram’s look. The object of it was on the far side of the room, actually leaning against the wall, a tall, loose-limbed man. He wore an open-necked plaid shirt and jeans and appeared to be feeling the heat, from the flush of his face: the fair hair was already disordered, falling forward over his face.

‘Name’s Blair,’ said Ingram, from his side. ‘Eddie Blair. Been the CIA Resident here for a couple of years. Hell of a guy.’

Brinkman looked back curiously to Ingram at the open admiration. ‘In what way?’

‘Every way,’ said Ingram. ‘Straight as a die, first of all. He’ll help, if he can, but if it interferes with anything he’s doing or he can’t, because of orders from above, then he’ll say so, straight out. There isn’t a member of the Politburo he can’t quote chapter and verse about, going back as far as their grandfathers and his political judgment is superb.’

‘Like you said, a hell of a guy,’ said Brinkman.

‘It doesn’t end there,’ said Ingram, enjoying the lecture. ‘Technology is the name of the game: that’s what the Russians want, to catch up with us. But with America most of all. And technically Blair’s got a mind like a computer. He actually understands all of it. Do you know what the joke is?’

‘What?’ said Brinkman, politely.

‘That Washington doesn’t bother to send in the electronic people any more, to sweep the embassy and the apartment for bugs. Because Eddie Blair knows more about it and can do it better than any of them.’

Brinkman looked idly about him. There were a hundred places where listening devices could be concealed: there always were. The jabber of this crowd would nullify anything tonight.

‘Blair’s the man to watch’, said Ingram.

Brinkman wondered if the Russians were doing just that. ‘I’ll remember,’ he said.

‘Why not meet him now?’

‘Why not?’ agreed Brinkman. Before leaving the drinks table he put as much water as possible into his scotch and sipped it. Still not enough, he thought. Ingram had already opened the introduction by the time Brinkman got across the room and the American was smiling towards him, invitingly.

‘Hi,’ said Blair. ‘Welcome to fun city.’

The handshake was strong but not artificially so. ‘This usual?’ asked Brinkman, gesturing back into the room.

‘Better than usual,’ said Blair. As Ingram, his mission completed, eased back towards the bar, Blair added, ‘How you settling in?’

‘Not at all, at the moment,’ admitted Brinkman. ‘Living out of a suitcase at the embassy and going everywhere with a map in my hand.’

Blair smiled at the self-deprecation, as he was supposed to. ‘Takes time,’ he said. ‘Actually didn’t like the place in the first few months. Thought I’d made a mistake in accepting the posting.’

‘And now?’ said Brinkman.

‘Moscow’s a good place to be,’ said the American. ‘It’s always got the attention of a lot of important people.’