Brian Freemantle: The Bearpit

The words and phrases forced themselves into Yuri’s mind. He doesn’t know the truth, not yet was the first. And then the second: There will have to be a meeting between you. And perhaps the most telling of all. You will have to tell him if I can’t. Except that Vasili Dmitrevich Malik had never told anyone that the child born to his lawful wife in the Bakovka maternity unit that June day in 1965 had been the son of Victor Ivanovich Kazin.

And then the final, complete awareness engulfed Yuri. Victor Ivanovich Kazin, who had hated and tried to destroy him, had been his real father. Whom he, in turn, had put before a firing squad in Lefortovo.

Yuri destroyed the letters and the photographs in a demolition brazier on a Bronx reconstruction site, two days later, and from a public call box there telephoned Caroline at her apartment on 53rd Street, talking over her surprise that he was back so soon.

‘One question,’ he said.

‘What?’ she demanded.

‘How much do you love me?’

‘More than I have ever loved anyone: could love anyone, ever again,’ she replied simply. When he didn’t immediately reply, she said: ‘Why?’

‘I needed to know,’ he said.

‘Are you coming home?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m coming home.’

Natalia Levin arrived at Kennedy Airport blinking her nervousness, her even more uncertain grandmother beside her. They both gazed around expectantly for her parents and became more disorientated when they were greeted instead by Votrin, the Ukrainian who had liaised the letter exchange with the Americans at the UN. There was special immigration dispensation, through which he accompanied them, and immediately beyond the luggage reclaim he handed them over to David Proctor, who said to Natalia: ‘Welcome to America, Miss Levin. Your parents are waiting.’

‘Where?’ she demanded at once, her English heavily accented.

‘Somewhere safe,’ said Proctor, in familiar assurance. ‘You’ll be with them soon.’

The FBI supervisor did not lead them further out but back into the airport complex, where the helicopter waited, its engines already started. ‘Quicker this way,’ said the man.

The sun hurt Natalia’s eyes, so she put on darker sunglasses and squinted behind them, not trying to see whatever it was they were overflying. Beside her the old woman, who had never been in a helicopter before, said: ‘I’m frightened.’

‘Not long now,’ promised Proctor.

It wasn’t.

The family, Galina leading, ran from the Connecticut house before the rotor blades settled and had to be restrained from getting too near, too quickly. Levin cried and Galina cried and Natalia cried and the old woman cried, hugging each other and kissing and then hugging more, holding each other at arm’s length as if they were unable to believe what they saw.

Petr joined in the embraces, but more controlled, and he didn’t cry, either.

Eventually they turned, Natalia encompassed between her mother and father on either side, and started to make their way back inside the house. But Petr hung back.

‘Mr Proctor?’ said the boy. ‘I know I’m too young at the moment; that there is still college. But I’ve been thinking about the future.’

‘What about it?’

‘You know how good my grades are?’

‘Brilliant.’

‘And I’ve got perfect Russian?’

‘Yes.’

‘What do you imagine my chances would be of joining the Bureau, when I graduate?’

The bespectacled man smiled. ‘Excellent,’ he said.

‘Would you help me: sponsor me?’ asked the boy.

‘Consider it done,’ said Proctor. He took his spectacles off, to polish them. Petr Levin would be a fantastic recruit to the Bureau: just fantastic.