Derek Lambert - The Red Dove

‘Frequently.’

‘I mean really crazy. I went really crazy. At least I was persuaded to think I was…’

Blow by blow, pill by pill, shot by shot, Massey told Talin what the CIA had done to him. ‘All because I was disorientated. A vestibular complication. It could have been put right just like that.’ Massey snapped his fingers. ‘But the CIA weren’t going to take the chance.’

‘And when you found out what they had done you decided to defect?’

‘Wouldn’t you?’

‘I doubt it.’ Talin stared through the window misted with condensation. Outside he could see a 100-foot high gantry built years ago to test a G-l-e rocket. ‘I doubt it,’ with unnecessary emphasis, hearing again the voice from Mission Control announcing the invasion, albeit short-lived, of Poland.

‘I don’t think you understand,’ Massey said. He put down his knife and fork. ‘You don’t understand my reasons. I’m not a traitor.’

‘What are you then, a patriot?’

‘I believe in Mankind. We are participants, you and I, in the greatest Revolution Man has ever known: he is stepping off the Planet Earth and establishing himself in space, in eternity. And he has a chance, this one chance, to share eternity in peace. To leave tribal warfare behind him on earth.’

Talin listened, fascinated, but all he said was: ‘I still don’t understand what any of this has got to do with your defection.’

‘To share space the super powers have got to have access to each other’s information. They’ve got to know if one or the other is planning a criminal act. I’ve brought that access.’

When he had explained about the computers Talin said: ‘But that’s one way traffic’

‘At the moment,’ Massey replied. He picked up his knife and fork and tackled his steak; it was the tenderest he had ever eaten.

Talin who always ate fast, a legacy of Siberia where, in the outdoors, you gobbled your food before your lips froze, started on his yoghourt. He was disturbed by the visions that Massey was conjuring up. An engineer whom Talin vaguely knew came to the table but Talin waved him away. He said: ‘When did you first have these ideas?’

‘You know where. In space.’ And when Talin looked puzzled: ‘Don’t forget I was listening to your lecture. You were talking about disorientation. Right, well I know all about that. A vestibular condition. I’ve got no reason to disbelieve the diagnosis. But there is something else up there, isn’t there, Nicolay? A vision?’

To disguise his confusion Talin asked Massey if he wanted tea. He went to the counter and turned the tap on a stainless steel urn. Scalding water hissed into two mugs containing tea bags. Talin took the cups to the table and returned for slices of lemon.

The canteen was filling up. They wouldn’t be able to keep the table to themselves much longer. Squeezing lemon into his tea, Talin said: ‘I got the impression to start with that your motives in defecting were far more commonplace.’

‘Revenge? You’re right. That was the detonator. The fuse had been lit a long time before.’

Talin finished his tea. He stood up. ‘I have to go. Three Doves are being brought in today.’ He didn’t say from where. As they collected their coats and fur hats from the cloakroom attendant he asked Massey about his cosmonaut training.

‘It’s a refresher course. Private tuition. Nothing too daunting because I’ll only be orbiting as an observer. Your lecture wasn’t part of my curriculum. I went along because I wanted to.’

Which, at the time, didn’t strike Talin as odd.

Driving back to Leninsk later that day, Massey brooded on the success of the first phase of the campaign drawn up in five stages by an expert in psychological warfare at Camp Peary.

Phase 1: Contact, common ground to be established.

Phase 2: Relationship development, sow seeds of doubt.

Phase 3: First hit, with devastating revelation, preferably personal.

Phase 4: Second hit. The clincher.

Phase 5: Exit.

The CIA psychologist had been one of the first to interrogate Lt Viktor Belenko who, on 6 September 1976, had defected to Japan at the controls of a top-secret MiG-25. He had based a lot of Massey’s campaign on that interrogation.

What disturbed Massey was the ease with which Phase 1 had been accomplished. The blandishments had flowed too freely. Why? Because I believed in them. I believed.

Worse, he knew that Talin also believed. They had both looked down! That was the ‘common ground’ of Stage 1 – idealism. And I’m using it to betray.

The only mitigation that Massey could summon was the genuine argument that what he proposed to do would curb Russia’s hostile intentions in space. He discovered that he was a hard man to convince.

He stopped the Zhiguli at the gates to the apartment block. He identified himself to the militiaman and drove into the parking lot.

It was dark now. Snow was no longer falling and teenagers and children were skating on the hosed area lit by the headlights of parked cars. A bonfire sent sparks spiralling into the night; skates flashed like yellow flames in its glow.

Massey drove the Zhiguli to a corner of the lot outside the penumbra of light. As he locked the door a figure approached through the parked cars. Massey tensed himself to fight or run.

‘Good evening, Mr Massey,’ Herr Brasack said. ‘Washington wants to know if you’ve made contact.’

On 29 November the President of the United States and the President of the Soviet Union both held private meetings to discuss Robert Massey.

The 72-year-old American President was sitting at the breakfast table in the residential quarters of the White House buttering a muffin when George Reynolds was ushered in.

On the table beside him were copies of the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. In front of him a tiny, dead-eyed TV set, and a bowl of freesias and anemones, his wife’s favourite flowers.

The President wore a silk Paisley dressing-gown over slacks and crisp white shirt, a very different man from the axe-wielding champion of the Great Outdoors on the West Coast, Reynolds thought. Thank God.

To the White House the President and his wife had brought elegance; a little self-conscious, perhaps – the style of the self-made man – but tailored to impress, not apologise like the style of his predecessor. There’s nothing wrong with success, the music of Society bandleader Lester Lanin seemed to throb at Society functions at the Executive Mansion.

The President waved the muffin and said: ‘Help yourself to coffee, George,’ and when Reynolds had sat down at the table: ‘So, how’s the spectacular progressing?’

‘Massey made contact. Phase One is complete.’

‘Phase Two?’

‘That should follow naturally from Phase One.’

The President drank some orange juice, tapped a black desk diary embossed with gold. ‘Less than one year of the Presidential term left. We need the spectacular pretty damn soon so that the smart-asses can’t say it was engineered as an election stunt.’

‘You can’t rush this one, Mr President.’

‘We both know that in a way it is an election stunt. But it’s more than that. The West needs our type of diplomacy, George. If a President who advocates appeasement is elected then we’ve lost the world. The Soviets don’t acknowledge compromise – to them it’s weakness and they use it. One of the saddest phenomena I’ve witnessed during this term is the manipulation of ideals. Kids demonstrating for disarmament encouraged indirectly by a régime hellbent on building a holocaust of weapons.’

Reynolds said: ‘A defection of this scale would knock hell out of their prestige. And, if Massey deals his cards skilfully, then Talin should bring back with him enough information to win the war in space.’