Derek Lambert - The Red House

The five of them stirred and sipped and waited.

Finally Gale Blair from Security and Consular Affairs said, ‘You shouldn’t take it so hard, Mr Walden. Think of all the successes.’ She was a smart, kindly woman.

They all thought hard.

Crawford from Politico-Military said, ‘The F.B.I. didn’t do too badly when they caught the Czechs trying to bug the office of Eastern European Affairs.’

‘Thank you,’ said Hardin, crossing elegant legs, flicking dust from a polished toecap. ‘But don’t forget to thank Frank Mrkua, the passport courier who made it possible by co-operating with us.’

‘And we should also be thankful to the F.B.I.,’ said Godwin, spilling coffee on his lived-in jacket, ‘for tapping the German Embassy and finding evidence of the Nazi-Soviet pact. In 1939,’ he added, timing it nicely.

Crawford, a diligent and enthusiastic man, said, ‘The F.B.I. also nailed Wennerstrom. They’ve got a whole bevy of defectors in the past couple of years. And what about this guy they caught making a drop under the railway bridge in Queens—he’s helped bust the Soviet network wide open. And the Soviets still think he’s working for them,’ Crawford supplied in case anyone present didn’t know.

‘Maybe he is,’ Godwin grunted.

Hardin sharpened his voice. ‘I sometimes wonder when they come to write the definitive history of the C.I.A. whether they’ll record the occasion when bugs were found inside the eagle the Soviets presented to the American Embassy in Moscow.’

Intelligence and Research spoke for the first time. ‘At least they were found.’ William Bruno, recognized as a shrewd nut; a reputation enhanced by his deep and golden silences. What went on in his Machiavellian mind during those contemplative periods? Bruno, thirty-fiveish with ambassadorial ambitions, was too shrewd a nut to tell anyone.

‘Jesus Christ …’ Godwin began.

Walden cut him short, ‘Let’s get back to the Goddam point before we start on Penkovsky or the U 2.’ He stuck his pipe in his mouth. ‘We have to find a substitute for Tardovsky. He’s so scared now he won’t ask an American the way to the john. Any ideas?’ He turned to Hardin. ‘How are the infiltration stakes on 16th?’

Hardin made neat replies. ‘Pretty much the same as usual. A few bugs installed, most of them discovered. It’s tricky when all the manual work is done by Russians and even the cleaning’s done by the wives. But as you know or should know—‘he looked at Godwin—‘most of our approaches are made these days through other embassies. They work through the Cubans or Czechs, we use the Canadians and the British.’

Walden said, ‘But we could do with a good defector with all the inside dope. A name to make a splash like Dotsenko. Another Krotkov. And we need him in the United States, right here in Washington. We need something good and powerful to counter some of the lousy publicity our country has been getting lately. Don’t forget,’ he stared at them individually, ‘that it’s a war we’re fighting here. A war in which nearly the whole world’s involved—114 ambassadors, 2,500 diplomats. It’s a war more important even than World War II because the enemy is more powerful. It’s a war democracy has to win.’ His fingers reached out and touched The Bible.

Gale Blair said she understood perfectly and she was sure she spoke for everyone.

Walden swept on, massaging the greying stubble of his hair, pouring himself a cardboard cup of ice water. ‘The Communists have determined on an all-out bid to penetrate our intelligence agencies, our departments of State and Defence, our technological organizations, Congress itself—and I’m quoting from the forth-coming F.B.I. report Subversion from Abroad. It’s essential that we find a way of penetrating their headquarters in Washington—the Goddam embassy itself. It’s my job to co-ordinate this operation. So please,’ he said holding up his hands, ‘no more internecine feuding. For Christ’s sake let’s not have any more foul-ups like last night. That wasn’t just any old foul-up, gentlemen, that was a military defeat.’ He tossed back the water as if it were neat vodka. ‘Now, any ideas?’ He picked up a folder on his desk. ‘What about this new man, for instance. What’s his name?’ He opened the folder. ‘Vladimir Zhukov. What do we know about him?’

Hardin extinguished his cigar with a quick stab. ‘I guess that’s your department, Godwin. How much did your guys in Moscow, get on him?’

Godwin pulled a folder identical to the one on Walden’s desk from a bulging briefcase that looked as if it might contain sandwiches. ‘As a matter of fact,’ he said in his loose voice, ‘Comrade Zhukov is a possibility. No more than that. A faint, faint possibility.’

‘If he’s any kind of a possibility,’ Walden said, ‘then it’s up to us to make him into a probability.’

‘It’s very vague,’ Godwin mumbled.

Hardin said, ‘Don’t play games. If you’ve got something tell us what it is.’

‘It’s just that he writes poetry,’ Godwin said.

Godwin and Hardin stopped to talk in the hallway a few yards from Walden’s office, beside a sign bearing the words ‘Fall-out shelter in this corridor.’

‘Jesus,’ Godwin said. ‘What a pompous bastard he is.’

Hardin nodded impatiently. ‘Maybe. A ruthless one, too. But he comes up with some good ideas. Like the little scheme we goofed on last night.’

‘We?’

‘Oh, come on, Godwin. Forget your worldwide network just this once. You’re here in Washington—the capital of the little old United States. Sure, we goofed. And you know it. And Walden’s right—we’ve got to come up with something. So let’s you and I go and have coffee and work on it together.’

Godwin regarded him with massive, rumpled suspicion. ‘Okay, let’s go,’ He was still holding his thin dossier on Vladimir Zhukov.

Hardin opened his expensive black and silver attaché case. ‘By the way, I’ve got one of those, too.’ He took out another folder marked Vladimir Zhukov.

‘I know,’ Godwin said, ‘we circulated it to you.’

4

IN a students’ livingroom in Alma-Ata near the Kazakh State University a girl of eighteen with braided hair—now loosened—and wide eyes, just a little Mongolian, surrendered her virginity with enthusiasm.

She anticipated the textbook possibility of pain and absence of sensual feeling—‘the pleasure will come later, my dear’. But it was there the first time. Insistent pressure from his hard muscle, then oh! like a finger through parchment. And as he filled her the pleasure was instant, mounting, so that she clawed and bit and cried out, ‘I love you, Georgi. Oh, I love you.’

Not that Natasha Zhukova did love Georgi Makarov. But, she decided, I am certainly going to enjoy sex. With a few selected and privileged men who were clean and strong, handsome and intelligent; particularly intelligent. Like Georgi with his muscled belly, arrogant features—a little petulant sometimes—and his defiantly shaggy hair. A few such selected affairs before marriage and children and fidelity. I hope I’m not pregnant, she thought in alarm as his fluid escaped; but still, abortion was a mere formality.

‘I’m sorry, Natasha Zhukova,’ Georgi said, lying back and lighting a cigarette and not looking sorry at all.

‘Don’t be so bourgeois,’ she said irritably. Beneath the coarse blanket she explored the expended muscle, limp and sad. Such was the transience of masculinity: she would have liked to try it again.

Her thoughts wandered from the satisfied body beside her and wondered what sex would be like with the man she loved. If mere physical attraction could produce such earthy pleasure what delight lay ahead when love partnered consummation?