Derek Lambert - The Red Dove

The footnote to the Hunter’s report read: ‘At the end of my duty I returned to the banya to check out the identity of the fat man. Luckily he is a regular. His name is Rybak and he is a Ukrainian. That was all they knew.’

A Ukrainian. Our Achilles Heel. Well, one of them.

The Ukrainians were, by Soviet standards, tightly-knit. Forty-five million of them. Which was why, unlike other non-Russians, they had been allowed to infiltrate the Soviet hierarchy. To share so they would not seek to destroy.

Rybak. If he was a suspected member of the OUN then he would be logged in a computer programme. Vlasov called Peslyak. It took Peslyak eight minutes to find out. No Rybak in the OUN data.

So they would have to check out every Rybak living in Moscow. Not such a gargantuan task: all the inhabitants of the Soviet Union were locked somewhere in the computers.

Vlasov called Peslyak again. ‘Think yourself lucky his name isn’t Ivanov,’ he said. While Peslyak launched into a catalogue of the precautions he had taken to suppress the OUN, Vlasov thought: ‘Phase Three… fat Ukrainian… We must take other safeguards.’

He interrupted Peslyak: ‘I want you and Moroz to cooperate on an Indirect Interrogation.’

‘On whom, Comrade Chairman?’

‘On Robert Massey,’ Vlasov said.

A snatched intake of breath. ‘When?’

‘Now. And Yuri…’

‘Nicolay?’

‘Make good use of that swallow of yours. Let her spread her wings.’

She was preceded by a waitress carrying a chromium-plated tray on which stood a bottle of champagne and two long-stemmed glasses.

Here it comes, thought Robert Massey. He began to muster the defensive tactics he had learned at Camp Peary. He wished he was wearing more than slacks and open-neck shirt, but it was insufferably hot in the room.

‘Good evening,’ said Natasha Uskova smiling at him. ‘I decided to celebrate.’

The waitress shut the door behind her.

‘Celebrate what?’

‘Your return to space.’

‘How did you know about that?’

‘There was an item about it in Pravda Ukrainy.’ From her purse she took a brief cutting. ‘There.’ She handed it to him. ‘Perhaps you have connections in the Ukraine?’

‘None.’ He glanced at the clipping: it could have been printed specially for this evening. ‘Well, the Ukrainians know all about you.’ She pointed at the bottle. ‘Will you open it, please?’

While he unscrewed the wire and began to prise off the cork she sat down and crossed her breathtaking legs. She wore a red knitted dress, buttoned from breast to hem, and black, ankle-strapped shoes. Her glossy black hair was parted in the middle, the bow of her lips was exaggerated with wet-look lipstick and her eyeliner was extravagantly applied. In the West her appearance would have been considered old-fashioned but in Russia style was dateless. Indisputably she was dressed for seduction. Effectively for a man who hadn’t had sex for months. Not that he would succumb: he had been trained not to.

The cork hit the ceiling. Champagne fizzed. He poured it frothing into the two glasses. ‘ Nasdarovya, here’s to you.’ She stood up. They touched glasses. They were so close that he could feel her body heat. She sat down again.

Massey sat on a green sofa opposite her. ‘Did you ever hear again from Herr Brasack?’ he asked conversationally.

‘No, he went to Rocket City to write an article. I expect he’ll contact me when he returns.’ Changing the subject from the very boring (and very dead) Herr Brasack, she asked: ‘So, what do you think of Soviet women, Robert?’

The Robert sounded incongruous.

‘You see a lot of them but you don’t see a lot of them.’

She frowned.

‘They’re all wrapped up for winter.’

She understood, carried the feeble joke a step further. ‘And underneath, I’m afraid, a lot of them are still all wrapped up. Too much bread, too many potatoes. But we’re changing,’ she said, leaning forward. Somehow the top button of her dress had come undone and he could see her breasts. ‘We’re finding ourselves, becoming more feminine.’

‘Women’s Lib?’

‘Up to a point. But we’ve always had a sort of equality. Lenin was all for it. You know, we do the same work as the men. The trouble is that married women have to come home and become housewives as well. Do two jobs while the man only does one.’

‘While he sits with his feet up watching television?’

‘Or tilting the vodka bottle.’

‘You should visit parts of Brooklyn.’

‘But we are beginning to assert ourselves. No help in the house, no…’ She hesitated.

‘Sex?’

‘Affection.’ She smiled demurely, a contradiction of the undone button. ‘Could I have some more champagne, Robert?’

As he refilled the glasses she said: ‘Russian men are becoming much more sophisticated in their attitude to women. At least the nachalstvo are,’ she corrected herself. ‘A peasant will always be a peasant. The nachalstvo, well, they have learned from the West how to treat women. Are you married, Robert?’ she asked abruptly.

‘Was.’

‘You didn’t leave anyone behind?’

‘Sure I left someone behind.’

‘But it doesn’t matter all that much?’

He drank champagne, shaking his head at the same time. They had taught him to renounce all ties.

‘You must get very lonely.’

A delightful euphemism. ‘Not too much.’ By now she must suspect that he was either gay or a eunuch.

‘You’re a very attractive man.’

When he didn’t reply she followed that up with: ‘I find you so, anyway. You exude – is that the right word? – virility.’

‘It’s the moustache,’ he said.

‘You look as if you’ve suffered. Your face has contradictions.’

She finished her champagne. ‘Here, let me,’ she said as he stretched out a hand to pour them both more. ‘Equality.’ She smiled at him, stood up and, with her back to him, poured the champagne.

His mistake, he realised a few minutes later, had been to let her pour the champagne shielding the glasses with her body.

Stupid!

The words of an instructor at Camp Peary, a willowy young pharmacologist, came back to him: ‘Don’t get totally sold on modern techniques. A few of the old tricks still work. So don’t let the bastards slug your drink.’

Well, he had let the bitch slug it. And it was too late to take evasive action – ‘Stick your fingers down your throat and throw up’ – but, because he had realised what had happened, it wasn’t too late to resist.

‘Even if you are dumb enough to take a slugged drink you’ve still got a lot going for you,’ the instructor had told him. ‘You’ve got the truth going for you. Force yourself to concentrate on what we did to you. The CIA, the Company, those fucks.’

Those fucks, he thought as she led him on folding legs to the bed. The ceiling wavered and he was so cold. Drugs. CIA or KGB, it was always drugs.

Closing his eyes, he saw the rim of the moon that was the earth. The stars chimed. If you had been up there you were different.

Drugs were dragging him to the threshold of madness again. If I topple over this time I shall never return.

The almost naked figure on the bed moaned. With practised hands she removed his shirt and underpants. Then began to take off her own clothes.

He opened his eyes. The stars withdrew. Her breasts were full, swinging as she undressed. Garter belt, panties, stockings… She touched her breasts, smoothed her flat belly.

With her naked body pressed against him she said: ‘Robert’ – not Roberto – ‘why did you come to the Soviet Union?’

Those fucks! ‘Because of what they did to me.’