George Bartram - Under the Freeze

“Oh?” Tarp set the glass down next to him, untasted.

“Oh, indeed.” There was a sharpness in Carrington’s voice. He had remained standing; his left hand clenched and unclenched, probably unconsciously. “I had a little speech prepared, you see, but… Oh, damn it.” He drank off the Armagnac at a gulp. “What’s going on?” he said hoarsely. His face flushed, and he suddenly looked middle-aged and burned out.

“I don’t understand the question,” Tarp said easily.

Johnnie was pouring himself another. “Come off it, Tarp. All hell’s breaking loose in Moscow, and your name’s in it.” He dropped the stopper back into the decanter with clink. “I’ve been deputed to ask you the question: Have you been recruited to the other side?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Answer the question, please do. Because we’re friends. Did Repin recruit you?”

“Repin’s dead, they say.”

“Please answer me.”

“You wouldn’t have used that tone of voice two years ago, Johnnie. Maybe authority doesn’t sit well on you.”

Carrington sagged. He pushed his glasses up his nose, and then the hand continued up his forehead to smooth his dark hair back. “Please forgive me,” he said simply. “This is damned difficult for me. I owe you — almost everything. But one of the things I owe you is the lesson that nobody can be trusted all the time.”

“Meaning, you don’t trust me now?”

“Meaning, have you been recruited?”

“What makes you think so?”

“A hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in gold showed up in your bank vault Thursday last.”

“Bank transactions are supposed to be confidential.”

“Oh, come!” Carrington drank off half of the second Armagnac. “I used to work in economics branch; I know the banks damned well. Confidentiality is a relative term.”

“Where did my gold come from?”

“It came from a KGB front called Bjornson-Bors Holding Company, Limited.”

“Are you sure it’s KGB?”

“Oh, come.”

“Oh, come, yourself. How do you know I did something for the gold?”

Carrington started to speak, then checked himself. “Oh, I see — you think somebody’s priming us.” He reached for the decanter again, and Tarp said coldly:

“Don’t drink any more.”

“ What ?”

“If you’re going to accuse me of things, I’d prefer you were fairly sober.”

“ Damn you!”

Tarp looked at him, quite unmoved. “There are three things that ruin a career like yours, Johnnie — laziness, selfishness, and alcohol. You’re not lazy and you’re too decent to serve yourself and let the rest go hang. But you’d better watch out for the third.”

Carrington stared at him and then put the little glass down on the tray, empty. He pulled a chair into the circle of lamplight near Tarp and sat down, his hands clasped between his knees and his shoulders rounded. “It’s been a terrible few months,” he said. The raggedness was gone. He sounded desolate. “We’ve got a leak and we can’t plug it. Everybody’s on tenterhooks. HM’s government have taken the tack that Moscow can be hoisted on its own petard with their current mess, so when I saw the message traffic implicating you, it was the last straw.” He raised his head and smiled apologetically. “You’re rather a hero to me.”

“Why did you believe I’d been recruited?”

“A report had you in Cuba at the same time as Repin.”

“That’s very interesting. There seem to be leaks in both directions. But I haven’t gone over. Johnnie, come on! I haven’t gone over.”

Carrington’s face was haggard. Tarp knew that the man was fighting the self-knowledge that he wanted to believe Tarp; he had to be forcing himself, therefore, to be especially skeptical.

“How high up are you now?” Tarp asked.

“Five. Number five.”

“Who made the decision about your government’s tilt in the Moscow mess?”

“There are three committees. It came out of the Foreign Office Policy Advisory Sub-Committee, I suppose. One’s never quite sure.”

“You weren’t involved?”

“I drafted some papers. I never sit on committee.”

“I’ve agreed to do a job for the Soviets for money, Johnnie. Now you tell me that it’s a job that your government disapproves of. Do you want me to leave?”

Carrington gave him a half grin. “I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I sent away everybody my government disapproved of.”

“Somebody killed Repin, Johnnie. That somebody is in Moscow. Somebody tried to kill me in Havana and somebody tried in Buenos Aires. I think that’s connected to Moscow, too. I haven’t gone over. Part of Moscow is trying to kill me. The other part — may be tolerant of me, nothing more.”

“But you took KGB money.”

“Yes.”

“To help the KGB?”

“How much do you know?”

“We know they’re in hot water — and we love it.”

“You wouldn’t love it if they panicked and decided to start a war.”

“That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t think so when I took the job. I don’t think so now. It’s a choice of evils, I admit. Nothing’s easier and more noble than backing away from a choice of evils, I know — I don’t touch such filth, one says; let them stew in their own juice. I’m not backing away.”

Carrington hunched his shoulders more and squeezed his hands between his thighs. “What is it you want?” he said abjectly. “You want something from me, I know. What?”

“Information.”

“What sort?”

Tarp shook his head. “First I have to have your word that you’ll say nothing to anybody. Nothing . Absolute confidentiality.”

“I can’t.”

“You say you’ve got leaks, Johnnie! I’ve got a problem that’s as tangled as a head of dirty hair; I can’t afford to let anything go. No, I’ve got to have your word: absolute confidentiality.”

Carrington thought a long time. He took his hands from between his thighs and put them on his knees and then he gave Tarp a halfhearted smile. “I’ll keep confidential the subjects of the information you want. Then I’ll think it over. I may then refuse to give you any information.”

“Will you keep quiet even if you do?”

Carrington made a face. “All right.”

“I want what you’ve got on Argentine nuclear armament.”

“That’s no good. They haven’t got anything.”

“They’re not supposed to have anything, I know. But your people must have such a thing as a contingency. You must have people down there looking into it. I want to know what you have, that’s all. If your reports show they haven’t anything, then I’ll be satisfied.”

“This is part of the Moscow business?”

“I think it is.”

“Well, I’ll think about it. I’d be a dreadful servant of the crown if I gave you such information for free.”

“I’ll make it a trade, of course. What I learn when it’s all over for what you’ve got now.”

“You think it really involves Argentina?”

“It may.”

“That’s an awfully sore spot for us, you know. The Franks Report didn’t deal too kindly with us. There’s an Argentine Committee now. I suppose I oughtn’t tell you that.”

“Are you on it?”

“As a matter of fact, I’m not. I’m more European.”

“There seem to be lots of committees you’re not on.”

“Well, it’s a question of rank. The Argentine is very important now.”

“Who’s on the Argentine Committee? Matthiessen?”

Carrington flushed and gave his old horsey laugh of embarrassment. “As a matter of fact, yes. You never liked Matthiessen, I know. But he’s awfully good. Awfully good.”