The Blind Run (18 page)

With ironic coincidence – considering the chance message that Berenkov had chosen to show Sampson – it was the change of code from Baikonur that was first detected, by America who did not understand the significance. Sir Alistair Wilson did, as soon as the information was relayed from the liaison officer at Cheltenham, because the British Director had made a special request to be informed immediately something like that happened. Within twenty-four hours there was confirmation, from changes of code being used along Soviet embassy microwave channels and its sea, air and land forces.

‘Took them longer to break than I thought it would,’ said Wilson.

‘But now they have,’ said Harkness. ‘I’m surprised they think it might be from something as simple as intercept but it means they are reading the messages coming to us and are taking every precaution they can think of: even changing their codes.’

‘Christ, they’ll be worried,’ said Wilson, expressing the familiar attitude.

‘So am I,’ admitted Harkness.

Chapter Sixteen

Sampson was tight with excitement and self-satisfaction, actually strutting around the apartment: Charlie was reminded of the proud pigeons who used to parade around Whitehall and Trafalgar Square. How long ago had it been since he’d seen proud pigeons, in Whitehall and Trafalgar Square? A million years? Two million?

‘Told you how important I was, didn’t I?’

‘Yes,’ said Charlie. What was the silly bugger on about now?

‘I suppose you saw the woman again?’

‘Didn’t you?’

Sampson smiled, smugly. ‘Gone beyond her now.’

Strut and boast, thought Charlie; strut and boast. He said ‘Who then?’

‘There wasn’t any identification,’ said Sampson. ‘Clearly someone important.’

‘A man?’

‘Of course it was a man,’ said Sampson, irritably. ‘Important, too. A senior officer.’

‘How do you know that, if there wasn’t identification?’

‘Everyone in the building was practically shitting themselves.’

Charlie’s outward attitude hadn’t changed but he was fully attentive now. ‘What was he like?’ he coaxed, gently.

‘Big man: very big,’ said Sampson. ‘High liver, by the look of him.’

That had been one of the first assessments of Berenkov, in the very early stages, long before the man was suspect: before they even knew his name, remembered Charlie. And Berenkov was back here: Wilson had made the point, during their meeting in the governor’s office.
Maybe you’d even get to him
, the Director had said. Surely it wouldn’t have been Berenkov! Wilson had hoped for contact because of what had happened before; their involvement. Sampson had never been involved. And then Charlie remembered something else. The Russian desk. Sampson had been number three on the Russian desk. Careful, he thought, halting the slide. Of course Sampson would be important, because of the Russian desk. But not this important, this quickly. Not days after they’d arrived. Unless there was a panic, making it necessary to abandon all the usual rules of procedure. What could cause a panic that big? The answer was obvious but Charlie didn’t at first want to confront it. Which he realised was stupid and so he did. If the Russians suspected a spy they’d abandon all rules of procedure; a spy as important as Wilson had made out the unknown man to be. For someone that important they’d rewrite the whole bloody regulation book. Still desperately circumstantial, Charlie attempted to rationalise. ‘High liver?’ he said, as if he hadn’t understood.

‘Florid-faced, that sort of thing,’ said Sampson, impatient again.

Berenkov had had a florid face: until jail, that is. Then he’d got the pallor that they all developed. Charlie hesitated, unsure how to proceed with the man. His conceit, he decided. He said, ‘Wonder if I’ll see him?’

Sampson gave a dismissive laugh, as if the idea were amusing. ‘You! Why should you see him?’

‘Just a thought,’ said Charlie, pushing ever so gently.

‘I told you,’ lectured Sampson. ‘This is important.’

‘But still only debriefing?’ said Charlie.

Sampson laughed again. ‘No, Charlie. This isn’t debriefing. This is me being fully and absolutely accepted …’ He held out his hand, a cupping gesture. ‘Right there,’ he said. ‘Right in the middle.’

Charlie wondered if he’d located all the bugs, during his search. If he hadn’t then those listening were going to be pissed off with Sampson’s boastful indiscretion. But still not indiscreet enough. ‘Bullshit,’ he jeered, in open challenge. ‘What reason would there be to do something like that?’

A look of wariness came into Sampson’s face. Shit, thought Charlie.

Sampson said, ‘There’s reason enough, believe me.’

‘What?’ said Charlie, with no alternative.

There was another dismissive laugh from the man. ‘Do you expect me to tell you that?’

‘Why not?’

‘Don’t be bloody stupid!’

He had been stupid, Charlie realised, in self-recrimination: he’d tried to push too hard too quickly. Still believing that Sampson’s conceit was the man’s weakness, he said, ‘I don’t believe you. I think you’re full of crap.’

It didn’t work. There was yet a further jeering laugh and Sampson said, ‘Full of crap, eh!’ He gestured around the ugly apartment. ‘You like it here?’

Charlie frowned, uncertain where the conversation was going. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t like it here. I think it stinks. Literally.’

‘Neither do I,’ said Sampson. ‘So I’m not staying. I’m going somewhere else – somewhere better – away from the smell of cooking …’ He paused, to make the point. ‘And away from you. It’s taken me long enough, maybe too long, but at last I’m getting away from you, you down-trodden, scruffy backward-looking little snob. I told them that’s what I wanted and that’s what I’m getting. That seem crap, to you?’

If Sampson had got that sort of concession agreed, so quickly – and there was no reason for the man to be lying, because he’d be seen to be a liar at once – then whatever he was involved in was important. Surely it could only be the would-be defector whom Wilson wanted him to find! Sampson’s so recent posting on the Russian desk dictated that it had to be. Would the bastard know enough, to uncover whoever it was before him? Always objective, Charlie recognised that from the simple chronology of how long he’d been away from the department, compared to Sampson, then Sampson had to have an advantage. If his surmise were correct – and he still wanted more, to be absolutely sure – it meant he and Sampson were working against each other. He’d like that, Charlie decided. He’d wanted to teach the snotty little sod a lesson and what better way than snatch a defector whom the man was seeking right out from under his nose. Almost at once came the balance. The chronology, remembered Charlie again. And not just the chronology. Official, Soviet backing and resources, too. The bastard had all the advantages. And more. Son of a bitch, thought Charlie. He said, ‘No, that doesn’t seem like crap. That seems like a two way deal in which I gain as much as you. I can stand the cabbage smells.’

‘Go to hell, Charlie,’ said the other man. ‘Go to hell and stay there.’

‘Up yours,’ said Charlie.

Kalenin listened patiently while Berenkov outlined the arrangements he had made with the Englishman, his face showing no reaction, so that it was impossible to gauge whether the KGB chairman approved or not. Finally he said, ‘You appear to have changed your mind about the man?’

‘Absolutely,’ admitted Berenkov at once. ‘He was completely honest – making no effort to exaggerate and impress me. I think we should use him and use him to the utmost.’

‘But he was excluded!’ protested Kalenin, driving a fist into the palm of his other hand, in an unusual show of emotion.

‘It would certainly seem that way,’ said Berenkov. ‘But I think if we make everything available to him then he might be able to find some intelligent assessments of something … transmission source, at least. At the moment we’ve got nothing.’

‘I don’t need reminding what we haven’t got,’ said Kalenin. Rarely at any time since his chairmanship – or even before – could he remember feeling so impotent. The feeling extended beyond impotence, to an uncertainty he couldn’t even define.

‘Then it’s certainly worth trying,’ insisted Berenkov.

‘Yes,’ agreed Kalenin. ‘It’s certainly worth trying …’ He hesitated and said, ‘If we make everything available to Sampson – and I accept that we must, to give the effort any point in the first place – then he’s going to become a very knowledgeable man, isn’t he?’ There was an even further pause. ‘Many might say too knowledgeable.’

‘I don’t have any doubt about him,’ repeated Berenkov.

‘It’s unusual, utilising a defector like this.’

‘The circumstances are unusual,’ reminded Berenkov. ‘And we’d have complete control over him, at all times.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Kalenin, the doubt still obvious. ‘We haven’t any alternative.’

‘There’s something else,’ said Berenkov.

The KGB chairman looked across his desk at the other man, waiting.

‘Do you have any official objection to my seeing Charlie?’

‘Officially seeing him?’ queried Kalenin.

‘No,’ said Berenkov, at once. ‘I was never able to thank him, for what happened before.’

‘You said that was for his benefit, not yours,’ remembered Kalenin.

‘I was the person who won,’ said Berenkov. ‘Charlie lost.’

Kalenin was silent for several moments. Then he said, ‘No, I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t meet him …’ He smiled up. ‘I wouldn’t mind seeing him again myself. I liked him.’

Chapter Seventeen

Sampson’s transfer was more of a leap than a move. The new apartment was directly off Pushkinskaya Ulitza, a smaller but far more modern and complete place than that he shared with Charlie. And without smell or neighbour intrusion, a special place for special people. The furnishings were modern – mostly from Finland he discovered, by turning them over and seeing their country of origin – and the decoration unmarked anywhere, so that he knew everything had been redone before his occupation. There was a modern refrigerator and stove in the kitchen – where the previous ones had been antiquated and barely running – and a disposal unit and a television in the lounge, neither of which had been available before. Sampson surveyed everything with smiling satisfaction. A special place for special people, he thought again. They’d even thought of providing alcohol, the inevitable vodka and imported whisky and gin. The initial satisfaction increased, with every day. He was allocated a car – a Lada and comparatively small, but still a car – and before the end of the first week was officially informed that he was being placed on salary, 4,000 roubles a month which he recognised – even without a gauge with which to compare – as being high. By some standards exceptionally so. And even higher if equated against the additional grant of access to the special concessionary stores. No day passed without there being for Sampson some reminder of the accepted and adjusted change in his importance but the most indicative was the selection of his place of work. Dzerzhinsky Square itself. There was a practical reason for the choice – Kalenin was there and Berenkov was there and the specially selected cryptologists were there – but for Sampson to gain admission to the KGB headquarters was for the man the most positive – and the most dramatic – evidence of what he was required to do. Sampson responded fittingly and properly, accepting the elevation but not becoming over-confident because of it.

Everything was provided for him: the raw, originally incomprehensible interceptions and then the increasing decipherment and from them he was able to distinguish that his original assessment – during the meeting with Berenkov – that the code was random computer choice was wrong. It was computer. But not random. It was a mathematical alternative, and then with an alternative built in. Within intelligence it was called a ripple code. A denominator figure was decided upon, from base – in this case London – and from it letters accorded to figures. The letter against figure numbers rippled twice, once from the origin of the original message and then upon a factor of two, to quadruple – two times two – the transmitted message. An additional precaution that the British had imposed – a precaution that had delayed the final translation for a month, even though with hindsight the protection was obvious – was that even from the dispatch from Moscow the receiving message had to be multiplied by a factor of two to be intelligible.

Sampson’s influence did not end with the apartment allocation or by the admission into Dzerzhinsky Square. There was an office staff – secretaries and two aides – and he utilised them completely, ordering easels and graph charts and spending days creating his own charts and maze paths, calling upon the advantage that the cryptologists and their computers did not – could not – possess. Which was his awareness of the customs of the British – and Russian desk – working pattern.

Employing their best technology – to confuse the first metaphor – the Russians had unpicked a haystack, straw by straw. And found not a pin but a needle. Without knowing what pattern the needle would knit. Further to mix the metaphor, Sampson recognised his function to be to continue the unravelling of that pattern and reverse the finished design. Metaphor was actually the word that Sampson used, in his by-now regular meetings with Berenkov – of whose identity he was finally aware, a further pointer to his importance – in a continuing admission of difficulty.

‘There’s somebody here, within these headquarters, with access from division to division,’ said Sampson. ‘It runs right throughout the building.’

‘We’re already aware of that,’ said Berenkov, disappointed. He’d swung completely behind the man: provided a guarantee almost. He’d expected more than this. And quicker.

‘You’re insisting that I work backwards, to find source,’ said the Englishman. ‘Why can’t you? The number of people who have access over that sort of range must be limited. It has to be.’

Berenkov had thought of that, too. It came down to six deputies and their immediate subordinates. Twelve people at most. Thirteen, if Kalenin were to be included. And he had to be included, unthinkable though it might be. Berenkov had imposed his own surveillance – and from it learned of other surveillance imposed upon himself. Kalenin, he guessed. He was not offended. It would not take long, Berenkov recognised, before the uncertainty started to become insidious and undermine the very centre of their organisation.