Brian Freemantle: The Bearpit

‘I wanted it to be you,’ she said.

‘I’m lonely,’ said Yuri. And inquisitive, he thought.

‘So am I.’

‘The Bolshoi, the State Circus or just a quiet dinner at the Aragvi?’ said Yuri. The Aragvi, on the Ulitza Gor’kovo, served the best Georgian food in Moscow. It had been one of Yuri’s favourite restaurants, with a table always available because of whose son he was.

She giggled, responding to the irony, and said: ‘Why don’t we eat in, just to be different for once?’

‘Maybe some lamb?’

‘And I’ve got lamb! What a coincidence!’

What were the Muslems going to do when they’d eaten all the sheep in the world, wondered Yuri. Camel maybe? He said: ‘Looks like lamb for a change then.’

‘What about afterwards?’ said the woman coquettishly.

‘We can talk about this and that,’ said Yuri, another remark for his own benefit. The woman misunderstood, of course, and laughed.

Victor Kazin savoured the intrigue he was initiating and was sure of winning. He felt like one of the jugglers at the State Circus, keeping more and more coloured balls in the air until it was difficult to see how many there were aloft at any one time. No, he corrected, at once. Not a juggler. Not a clever enough analogy. A chess player. Grand master class, all the pieces set out, a classic game already formulated in his mind and Malik without any defence. Agayans, he decided, was definitely a pawn. Fittingly the first move then. The Directorate security man, Major Panchenko, had soon to be introduced defensively into the game. A rook perhaps. What about the brat of a son? Another pawn. And Yevgennie Levin? A knight, maybe: possibly a king, eventually. Certainly the piece to be moved next.

Kazin snorted contemptuously at Vladislav Belov’s recommendation that the operation be delayed because Levin’s daughter was here in Moscow undergoing medical treatment. It had been one of Stalin’s most basic principles that people performed better under the pressure of retribution if they failed. Old styles – old practices – were still the best.

He signed the authorization, because it was essential this operation was one with which he should be provably linked, and marked it for immediate transmission to America.

The Central Intelligence Agency weren’t just going to be thrown into turmoil, reflected Kazin, remembering further his conversation with Belov. They were going to be wrecked.

Moscow’s signal, activating the mission for which most of his operational life had been spent in preparation, bewildered Yevgennie Levin. Galina had always been part of it and was prepared but the children, Natalia and Petr, were always going to be confused, unknowing. Which the planning had allowed for with the positive agreement that they would remain together, as a family, never divided. So the signal coming when Natalia was in Moscow was nonsense!

Levin’s was a cell-like room, a small box within a bigger box at the United Nations headquarters, but his seniority at least gave him a view of the East River. A linked line of barges, flat in the water, made a disjointed, arthritic line downstream in the direction of the unseen Statue of Liberty and the sea beyond, pushed officiously by a fat-bellied tug that seemed inadequate for the job. What about his adequacy for the job towards which he was now being prematurely pushed? At the self-question the nervousness positively vibrated through him, making the supposed recall cable shake in his hand. Despite all the training he didn’t really know what was to come: they had only been able to guess and to suggest and now the moment was here – the moment he had grown increasingly frightened would actually arrive – it all seemed utterly insufficient. Enough uncertainties then, without the inexplicable complication of Natalia trapped in Moscow. It could only be a mistake, an oversight. But there was no way he could query it, get it resolved before he had to move, because to everyone at the UN mission his defection had to appear genuine. Just as the need for absolute security dictated it had to appear that way to almost everyone in Dzerzhinsky Square, as well. So he was trapped, like Natalia, before he even began. Why! agonized Levin. Why! Why! Why!

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut against the river view, striving for control before he confronted the rezident, which protocol decreed he do immediately. He contacted Vadim Dolya on the internal telephone and as he expected the rezident agreed to see him within thirty minutes; although the cable was designated for his attention only, Levin knew a copy would have been sent separately to the controller, who would therefore have been waiting for the approach. Levin replaced one receiver and looked at the other, the outside line, wanting to speak to Galina but never forgetting the standard, insisted-upon procedure always was to act in the belief that open Soviet connections in the United Nations were monitored by the FBI. Which after all would have been a sensible precaution for America’s counter-intelligence service to take. Russians attached to the UN had the status of international civil servants, were not governed by the radius-to-city limitations imposed upon other Soviet installations within the United States and so it was regarded – and used – by the KGB and GRU as the most important intelligence base anywhere in the world.

Levin left his cramped office to make his way to the more spacious quarters of the UN’s mineral resources unit, where his official designation as economic affairs officer had enabled him during his tenure to advise Dzerzhinsky Square of every major – and some not so major – natural mineral deposit in Western and Third World countries. He made the pretence of looking at the incoming mail and the diary of that day’s events, relieved there were no committee meetings demanding his presence, and left for the appointment with Dolya still with time to spare. Always being on time was a trait of Levin’s, which sometimes surprised people who did not know him well because he was a shambling, untidy man, stray-haired and baggily suited; not someone who would immediately appear a stickler for appointments. But then Yevgennie Levin’s entire training had been to appear different from the person he was. And forever had to remain.

Dolya’s attachment – and cover – was to the UN’s peace and security studies section, but they did not meet there because the precautions against eavesdropping extended beyond telephone lines to include the offices they occupied. Instead they talked as most of the other delegations talked when they sought conversations they did not want overheard, pacing head-bent the wide, art-donated and decorated corridors of the skyscraper building.

‘Back to Moscow, then?’ said Dolya, at once. In contrast to Levin, the rezident was a fussily neat, bespectacled man given to studying his reflection in passing mirrors, constantly to ensure everything about himself was properly in place.

‘Earlier than I expected,’ said Levin. It was essential – safer – always to be as honest as possible. So much to remember!

‘The normal tour is two years,’ pointed out Dolya.

‘I have only been here eighteen months,’ said Levin.

‘No indication of any posting beyond Moscow?’

If there had been it would have breached security to have disclosed it to Dolya, which the man knew, and Levin was surprised at the question. He wondered what would happen to the man after the defection: he was a required victim. Levin said: ‘None at all.’

‘You’ll be missed,’ said Dolya.

Levin guessed there was truth as well as politeness in the platitude. His posting within the minerals section had provided Moscow with an enormous amount of information from which the government ministries had been able to make economic calculations and assessments extending at least three years into the future, particularly involving their own oil and natural gas deposits. Matching platitude with platitude Levin said: ‘I shall miss being here.’ Then he added: ‘The recall stipulates two weeks.’