Bearpit (29 page)

He reached out, touching the unread correspondence again. How much more, beyond the fuzzy photograph, was there here about his mother's involvement with Kazin? And how much better would he know her – understand even – when he'd read everything? It was difficult to know. It would be like trying to understand someone from the pages of a book and Yuri had always found that difficult: from the contents of this box he would always be someone outside the window of his mother's and father's life, able to look in and catch the occasional word but never truly able to understand what really occurred between them.

Yuri replaced everything within the box exactly as it had been arranged when he opened it – even the photographs precisely where he'd found them – and depressed the hinges to lower the lid. He had his … had his what? Memories was not the right word. Legacy either. Momentos, he supposed, although that did not seem proper, either. Maybe a combination of all three. A small box (why did everything always seem inadequate?) that contained the life and the innermost secrets of two strangers who had been his parents. Maybe, after he'd read everything, they would not seem quite such strangers.

Yuri scraped the trunk across the floor after him and lowered himself ahead of it through the trap door, feeling about blindly for the foot-supporting slats. When his foot connected he eased through until he was supported by one arm, leaving his other hand free to pull the box finally to the lip of the hole. He was actually beneath it, feeling up to get a hold on its bottom, when his fingers encountered the unevenness. He managed to wedge the box on his shoulder to get it back on to the landing and having done so turned it over.

The concealment was very clever and almost perfect; Yuri guessed only his jerked hauling of the box across the attic floor had dislodged the intricately tooled wooden sleeve that formed an envelope for more papers and which was cut to fit as a false but very narrow base. He tugged at it, gently, freeing it completely and then tapping the papers into his lap. It was too dark to read them on the landing, so Yuri carried it all downstairs into the room in which the already packed suitcase lay, and lit a lamp near the stove.

I've made copies, of everything.

His father's words, that freak late summer day here at the dacha, echoed in Yuri's mind as he looked down at the documents in his hand. It had not been an exaggeration, Yuri decided. Here
was
everything: a memorandum in his father's name, within days of the GRU debacle in Afghanistan, a bundle of decoded messages to and from Kabul, aborting the insane retribution, the request for the inquiry in which he had been so disappointed and the result of that inquiry. And much more. There appeared to be a heavily annotated and queried report, from Colonel Panchenko, and another account, just as heavily marked, to point up apparent contradictions from a major named Chernov. And a top page which Yuri supposed to be some sort of index, a prompt sheet. There was a list of three men beneath the heading ‘Squad' and a date, in two weeks' time. Against Agayans' name was written ‘gun' with a query against it and there were question marks after notes about a post mortem and forensic examination.

Yuri sat as still as he had upstairs in the loft, this time gripped by a fury, an anger he consciously felt move through him. It was a sensation not of heat but of coldness: implacable coldness. He'd been sure his father had been killed and now he was equally sure he knew the reason; that he was physically holding it, in his hands. His father had continued to probe, as he'd said he would. And was uncovering the lies, as he'd said he would. And somehow they – Kazin or Panchenko or maybe both – had become aware what he was doing and killed or had him killed before he could obtain sufficient proof to reopen the inquiry and expose them.

And now he possessed it, Yuri recognized. So what? His fury deepened at the self-demand, because of the immediate awareness of his impotence. What he had was half an investigation, maybe more than half, but what could he do with it? He could only pass it on to be continued to someone in higher authority. And Kazin was that higher authority, the person through whom regulations decreed he always had to move, to any ultimate superior. And continued by whom? Those same regulations dictated that internal Directorate irregularities and crime be investigated by the security department headed by Colonel Lev Konstantinovich Panchenko. Helpless, thought Malik bitterly: he was absolutely and utterly helpless.

A question of choosing the greater or the lesser risk.

Something else his father had said that day: actually praising him for making the choice about intercession in Kabul. Different then, though. Then he had acted knowing he had the power and the prestige of his father behind him; had actually bullied the Kabul
rezident
with that power and prestige. Which he no longer had. Any more, as he had already frighteningly realized, than he no longer had the old man's protection.

He would do something! The conviction came quite rationally, not spurred by unthinking anger or I-will-avenge-my-father bombast. He did not know how – or what – it would be but Yuri determined to expose the two men as his father had intended to expose them.

The greater or lesser risk
, he thought again. His father had taken the risk and now his father was dead. Objectively, but strangely without the fear he was finding it easy to acknowledge at last, Yuri greeted the realization without concern. He felt that knowing the danger gave him some sort of advantage: like possessing everything his father had discovered – but which Kazin and Panchenko would never suspect – gave him some sort of advantage.

He returned the file to its wooden envelope and slotted it snugly and imperceptibly into place in the base of the trunk, balancing the weight of it in one hand against the suitcase in the other to walk out into the complete blackness of the night.

So what, he asked himself, was he going to do?

As always the meeting was to be in a public place, this time the Museum of American History, and Willick hurried early in off Constitution Avenue, anxious for the encounter with the Russian. Had he been too greedy in demanding $2,000? He needed the money – Christ how he needed the money! – but he wished now he'd tried to get it a different way. Asking, in fact: not demanding. The man he knew only as Oleg had been right in reminding him of the pressure they could exert, if they chose. What was he going to do if they refused? And not only refused the increase but held back the $1,000 upon which he had become so dependent, blackmailing him into working for nothing? He'd be destroyed, Willick accepted: utterly destroyed. Christ, what a mess!

‘In reality, the life of an American cowboy was very dirty, wasn't it?' said the Russian, approaching as Willick stood unseeing before some original photographs of a cattle drive to Chicago.

‘Very,' agreed Willick. Who the fuck wanted to talk about dumb-assed cowboys!

‘You were early.'

‘Found a parking place first time,' mumbled Willick, trying not to disclose his anxiety.

‘Moscow were extremely pleased with the names you provided,' announced the Russian.

Hope flared at once through Willick. He said: ‘It has proved my worth?'

‘Oh, absolutely,' said Oleg mildly.

‘So what was their reaction?'

‘They've agreed the increase as from this meeting,' said the Russian, quite matter of fact.

Willick had to bite his mouth closed to prevent the mew of relief. He'd made it! Everything was going to be all right! That's good,' he said tightly.

‘But in return we want very specific things,' said the man.

‘Like what?'

‘The complete structure, names and biographies … on everyone possible within the CIA. From the Director downwards …'

‘That's not all held in the records to which I have access!'

‘Everything that there is,' insisted the Russian. ‘For the increase to $2,000 we want absolutely everything. Do you understand?'

‘Yes,' said Willick emptily. ‘I understand.'

24

Yevgennie Levin had never before travelled in a helicopter and the moment it lifted off he decided he didn't like it; his stomach dropped with the sudden upward movement, so that he had to swallow against the risk of being sick and when that passed he grew uncomfortable at the fragility of everything. There seemed to be more glass than protective metal. The control panel did not appear big enough and the constant vibration jarred through him, shaking a machine too flimsy to withstand that sort of disturbance. He forced himself to concentrate upon landmarks, trying to lose himself in tradecraft. From above he saw again the withered, stripped-bare trees he had described to Natalia and then the black snake of the Naugatuck and realized there was river along the valley floor. From its direction he was able to isolate Litchfield and because the pilot initially took a south-easterly route, to pick up the coast, Levin knew how accurate he had been in describing the captain's walks as look-outs to watch the sea where there was no sea.

Bowden, who was sitting to his right, gestured and mouthed the name when they approached New York but it was an unnecessary identification: Levin had already isolated the sprawl of Queens and Brooklyn and New Jersey and the jammed-together centrepiece of Manhattan. From the air there hardly looked to be any roads or avenues at all between the stuck-together skyscrapers, as if all the buildings had been neatly packaged up to be shipped elsewhere. It was easy for him to pick out the United Nations, its greenness obvious even from this height. What would have happened to Vadim Dolya? And Lubiakov, the other sacrifice? Would the FBI surveillance still be on Onukhov, for when he made his mistake? Always questions.

The pilot continued to fly south with the shoreline in view and Levin stared down, thinking how vast a country America was. Of course the Soviet Union was as large – larger – but Levin had never flown over it like this, from literally a bird's-eye vantage point. My home now, he thought. Forever. Providing he did not make any sort of mistake: never relaxed. At least the worry – and distraction – with Petr was over. He had actually begun to fear that the rift between them was permanent and would worsen, and knew Galina thought the same. Her mood had visibly improved with Petr's acceptance of the situation. Only one major distraction remained. Would Natalia have got his last letter? Was there one on its way from her? More questions. It was important to go on stressing the concern over Natalia when he got to Langley.

Which would not take much longer, Levin guessed. The pilot made a circular approach, looping over the Capitol and then coming back upon himself, giving Levin a tourist's overflight of The Mall and the Washington Monument, and the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial, before picking up the Potomac and flying parallel with it to the headquarters of the CIA. There were three cross-marked landing areas; they came down upon the first, the nearest to the hotch-potched building, wings and extensions obviously added to the original, inadequate structure. With objective comparison, Levin supposed the additions here had been made with slightly more success than those built on to Dzerzhinsky Square by Stalin's prisoner-of-war slaves.

They were expected, Levin guessed from some radio warning from the pilot. Two unidentified men approached and nodded to Bowden and Proctor, but made no gesture towards Levin. The Russian walked in the middle of the group not towards the main complex but to a small, separate building to one side. He was not surprised to be kept from the most secret centre of America's external intelligence organization; his surprise, in fact, was at being brought here at all. It would not have been the way a defector's debriefing would have been conducted in the Soviet Union, even a defector apparently with information as important as his. The encounter would have taken place somewhere far removed from the organization headquarters.

The route took them in front of the main building and directly by the statue of Nathan Hale, the American patriot hanged as a spy by the British during the American War of Independence. The history had naturally been part of Levin's instruction, which was why he had immediately recognized the name of the American chief of intelligence during that war when they had toured Litchfield with the attendant Bowden as a guide, aware that Benjamin Tallmadge had been a friend of Hale's.

Levin glanced towards the memorial, showing no particular interest, recalling as he did so a forgotten part of that long-ago basic training. As he ascended the English gallows, Hale was supposed to have said: ‘I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.'

Which was all he had, acknowledged Levin. Remembering his helicopter reflection on the journey from Connecticut, the Russian thought again how careful he was going to have to be, now he appeared to be within finger-touching distance of making work the operation he'd been sent to perform. If they found out what he was really doing then he really could lose his life, he realized.

At the entrance to the outbuilding Proctor and Bowden went through the required identification and screening and Levin guessed he was being photographed by various unseen cameras positioned in the foyer. When the security officials completed their checks of the two Americans they took prints of Levin's every finger and thumb, photographed him with an instantly produced Polaroid – which Levin thought created a very bad picture – and had him sign against it and the prints on a large, official-looking form. Levin wondered with whom or with what the details were going to be compared in a further effort to confirm his bona fides.

The unspeaking escorts took them to a ground-floor room at the back, overlooking a packed car park which Levin thought larger than the square separating the KGB headquarters from the GUM department store, back in Moscow. A Cona coffee machine steamed on a side table and Levin nodded acceptance to Bowden's invitation.