Brian Freemantle - The Lost American

‘Yes,’ said Brinkman at once, maintaining brutal honesty. ‘After we think we’ve got every last thing it’s possible to get from you. I’ve been utterly and completely truthful with you. I don’t know – or care – what the Americans have told you. You know what you’re doing and you know what we want for helping you… for making it possible. I want you to believe me. And I want you to believe me when I say that if you don’t come with me then you won’t go with anyone.’

‘Do you enjoy what you do, Mr Brinkman?’

‘I’m prepared to argue philosophy and morals if you want to,’ said Brinkman, easily. ‘Would you like to argue the morality of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan? Or the psychiatric prisons in which you incarcerate and make mindless your dissidents? Or the Siberian gulags? All right, you are not personally involved. Governments and members of those governments never are. In America there’s even an accepted phrase, freeing the President from any culpability for anything that goes wrong and becomes public knowledge. It’s called plausible denial. I’m the sort of person who’s denied and cast aside, if anything does go wrong. Despite knowing which, yes, I like it. I’m not doing you any harm, Comrade Orlov. You want to cross to the West to be with someone you love and I’m making that possible for you. I don’t see anything to be ashamed of in that.’

‘You evaded the criticism and you know it,’ said Orlov. ‘I was talking about your threats, if I don’t agree to cooperate with you.’

‘What are you prepared to do, to get to the West? demanded Brinkman.

Orlov considered the question. ‘Anything,’ he said. ‘I am quite determined.’

‘Which is what I am, professionally determined,’ said Brinkman. ‘So I am prepared to do what needs to be done, to achieve the objective.’

‘Do you know what would happen to me, if you exposed me to the authorities?’

The last time he’d walked along this road it had been with Ann, remembered Brinkman. He said, ‘Yes, I know what would happen to you. And so do you. Which is why I know, after you’ve made the protests and the arguments, you’ll do exactly as I say.’

‘Yes,’ conceded Orlov, sag-shouldered. ‘I suppose I will, won’t I? There’s really no alternative, is there?’

‘Not now, no,’ said Brinkman. ‘But it isn’t as if you aren’t achieving what you want, is it?’

‘Should I be comforted by that?’

‘I don’t see why not.’ Brinkman paused, then demanded, ‘Tell me all the arrangements you’ve so far reached with the Americans. All the plans that have been made.’

It took a long time and before Orlov had finished they had walked a considerable distance from the centre of the city and actually turned back upon themselves. When Orlov finished Brinkman said, ‘What about a delegation?’

‘It hasn’t been possible, not yet. The occasion hasn’t occurred even to make discussing it possible.’

‘It’s the best way, so try for that if you can,’ said Brinkman. ‘Somewhere in the East if actually getting out into Western Europe isn’t possible. I’ll ensure that London create an incursion operation to get you out, if a delegation is not possible.’

‘You are so similar, to the American,’ said Orlov.

We even share the same wife, thought Brinkman. He said, ‘You must break all contact, of course. No more meetings.’

‘What if his response is to do what you threaten?’

‘It won’t be,’ said Brinkman, confidently. ‘He won’t know you’re with me. He’ll imagine some internal difficulty.’

‘Which could arise,’ said Orlov.

‘How?’ asked Brinkman, his confidence dipping.

Orlov recounted the fears of his affair with Harriet being suspected and a danger arising if she were contacted and in the darkness Brinkman smiled to himself, the reason why the Americans had not put the woman under agreed protection finally explained. He wasn’t behind in the race any more, he thought. He was way out ahead and could actually see the finishing line, with the white tape stretched out invitingly. He said, ‘No one was aware of my approaching her. If the KGB had known, they wouldn’t have let the book reach you. And if they had, we’d have both been arrested by now.’

Orlov stared abruptly around him, at the realisation. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I suppose you are right.’

‘So there’s no danger to Harriet and there’s no danger to you. You’re going to get out, like you want to.’

‘I suppose you’ll want to maintain this sort of contact?’ said Orlov wearily.

‘Contact,’ agreed Brinkman. ‘But not personal meetings, like Blair wanted. They’re too dangerous…’ He took the Russian’s hand and placed in it a list of the public telephone numbers he’d laboriously copied after leaving the cinema. ‘They’re all street kiosks,’ Brinkman explained. ‘All untraceable. We’ll keep Tuesdays. Every Tuesday, at three o’clock precisely, you telephone me, starting with the number at the top of the list I’ve given you. If there’s a problem, wait until the succeeding Tuesday, at the same time, and move one number down. There’ll be no proveable connection between us: you’ll be quite safe.’

Brinkman was conscious of the other man nodding, in the darkness. ‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘That’s very good. I was getting extremely frightened, having to make personal meetings.’

‘The only purpose of the calls will be for you to tell me that you’ve succeeded in getting on a delegation. Once you do, I’ll set everything up.’

Orlov sighed. ‘I understand,’ he said.

‘It’s going to be all right,’ said Brinkman, trying to encourage the other man.

Orlov stopped walking again and turned to confront the Englishman. ‘I’m sick of hearing that,’ he said. ‘And phrases like that. Shall I tell you something, Mr Brinkman? I know I’m trapped now. Trapped without any possibility of going back. But if I had that opportunity I think I would. I think I’d abandon Harriet and remain in Russia.’

It was difficult – almost impossible in the first, gut-churning hours – for Sokol to subdue his fear-driven fury. But he did. It would have been easy but pointless to punish the street men, like he’d punished the others. It was his fault, for not taking personal charge to the point of face-to-face briefings and control room command, leaving it instead to subordinates who in turn left it to the ground personnel. Embassy surveillance was regarded within the serice as the most menial – although it shouldn’t have been -the place for rejects from other departments. Which was an attitude he’s also known and disregarded. No mistakes, Sokol remembered. And he’d gone on making them. Would it be possible to catch up?

With Sokol in personal control, the surveillance was complete. There were rotating squads attached to Blair and Brinkman, the schedule devised so that at no time, day or night, did the number in those squads fall below thirty men. Each group was supported – again on a twenty-four hour basis – by a fleet of radio cars which were linked through individual studio vans. There were disguised television vehicles employed whenever possible, picturing the Englishman and the American as they moved openly about the city. On the first Friday Blair tried to leave the embassy by the same method as before but this time every vehicle was followed and he was seen getting out on the Ulitza Neglinnaya. Before the American successfully crossed and entered the foyer of the Metropole Hotel, going into his avoidance pattern, the alarm had been raised. The central control room in Dzerzhinsky Square was the centrepiece of the voice traffic and Sokol worked from there, a map spread out before him to coordinate the operation. He swamped the Sverdlova area, bringing in all his prepared units. The vast building was surrounded, twenty people in place and more en route, when Blair emerged from the west door on to the Marksa Prospekt and started north, towards Ostankino. He was identified immediately and around him formed a phalanx of unseen, unrealised watchers. By the time Blair reached the main metro station serving Dzerzhinsky Square a television van was in place but it was useless because Blair ducked down into the underground system.