The Blind Run (22 page)

Wainwright smiled, an unusual expression for the man. ‘Not about the subsequent information. I was banned from that. And there wasn’t anything to talk about anyway. They continued to be blind contacts.’

‘So you discussed the identity!’ seized Koblov.

‘I asked him if he’d met Rose,’ qualified Wainwright. ‘I’ve never known an operation like this before; neither had Richardson.’

‘And?’ prompted Koblov.

‘Richardson said it was the same for him as it had been for me: he’d never met Rose.’

‘Did you believe him?’

Wainwright hesitated. ‘I had no reason not to.’

‘But you’d been moved from control,’ reminded Koblov. ‘Distanced from what was happening. Richardson would have lied to you, wouldn’t he, if he’d been told to?’

‘Oh yes,’ agreed Wainwright at once. ‘But I didn’t get the impression that he was. I think I would have known.’

‘Richardson’s been withdrawn,’ reminded Koblov.

‘Yes.’

‘So who’s the new control? Richardson took over from you. Who’s taken over from Richardson?’

‘I don’t think anyone has,’ said Wainwright.

‘You wouldn’t think,’ said Koblov, minutely increasing the pressure because he felt the Briton was relaxing. ‘You’re still the resident. You’d know.’

‘I’m unaware of anyone taking over control.’

‘Are you saying that the Rose operation is over?’ demanded Koblov.

‘No,’ said Wainwright.

‘What then?’

‘We didn’t talk about the messages, like I said,’ explained Wainwright. ‘But from the quickness in the way things happened – and from the impression I got from Richardson although he didn’t actually say anything – I thought he’d gone back to arrange a crossing.’

In the viewing room Kalenin said, ‘If that were to happen it would mean disaster on top of disaster.’

‘Crossing?’ said Koblov.

‘Defection,’ provided Wainwright, needlessly. ‘One of the last conversations I had with Richardson he said “I wonder how much longer Rose can carry on?” It struck me as odd at the time.’

‘Those were the exact words? “I wonder how much longer Rose can carry on?”’

‘I don’t remember exactly,’ said Wainwright. ‘That was the meaning of what he said.’

‘We shouldn’t have openly arrested the damned man,’ said Kalenin, exasperated. ‘We should have trapped him; turned him, so that he could have told us if a new control were being imposed.’

‘If his inference is right, then there won’t be a new control,’ said Berenkov. ‘There’ll be a defection.’

‘They don’t just happen,’ said Kalenin. ‘A crossing has to be arranged and someone has to do the arranging. And that will have to be through the embassy. Picking up Wainwright was a disaster.’

‘I’m sorry,’ apologised Berenkov. ‘It seemed the right thing to do, in the circumstances.’

‘It is as much my fault as yours,’ said Kalenin. ‘I approved the decision, before it was put into operation.’

Although he did not doubt the friendship, Berenkov wondered if Kalenin would share the guilt before any Politburo enquiry. And the way this was going, a Politburo enquiry looked increasingly likely. It got worse.

Determined to strip Wainwright to the bone – in case he were a consummate professional rather than a pant-wetting man wrongly retained beyond his time – Kalenin held the diplomat far longer than was acceptable even by the usual disregarding Russian standards against the British diplomatic protests. There was no physical indication of pressure when the man was finally released into British protection from Lefortovo – because no physical pressure had been necessary – but mentally he had been reduced to admitting and confronting every weakness, fear and cowardice in that perpetually reflecting mirror in that stark interrogation room. Moscow publicly named Wainwright and announced the smashing of a major Western-inspired spy ring – actually recalling the Soviet ambassador from London for an undisclosed period, which was unprecedented – and Whitehall responded with a contemptuous denial.

Moscow announced Wainwright’s expulsion – and in another rare departure it was fully reported in
Pravda
and
Izvestia
and upon Moscow television, because Kalenin was grabbing at straws and thought the publicity might frighten whoever their spy was from defection until they found another way to locate him – and in the customary tit-for-tat response London declared a senior trade counsellor at the Soviet trade delegation at Highgate
persona non grata.

No one thought – properly thought – of Wainwright. A brave man who had known he was a coward but tried instead to be a brave man – and failed an abject coward – Wainwright on the night before his recall locked the door of the embassy residence room in which, womb-like, he felt quite secure. Completely aware that courage was a quality he lacked, he consciously drank half a bottle of vodka to obtain it falsely and when that proved insufficient drank more, so that when they broke the door down the following morning more than three quarters of the bottle had gone. Like the defiance of his interrogation, Wainwright’s attempt at suicide was a miserable, clumsy, near failure. The embassy beam was more than sufficient to support his body weight and the belt didn’t break, either. But he placed the buckle wrongly, in the final, drunkenly brave seconds and so when he kicked away the chair he didn’t die quickly, from the neck-break of hanging, but twisted and turned in the sort of agony that had always been his ultimate fear and which was confirmed by later autopsy and died slowly, from strangulation.

It was, therefore, a month before Berenkov felt able to raise positively the suggestion he had mentioned in passing to Kalenin and even then, from Kalenin’s absent-minded reaction, Berenkov knew it was premature.

‘Spy school?’ queried Kalenin, the distraction obvious.

‘Charlie Muffin,’ reminded Berenkov. ‘The debriefing is finished now. I think he’d be an asset.’

‘He can be your responsibility,’ agreed Kalenin, distracted still. ‘If you think he can be of some use, put him to it.’

Chapter Twenty

It was a long month for Charlie. Frustrating, too. Increasingly so. There was no formal announcement from Natalia Fedova that the debriefing was ending. They had become repetitive, certainly, but that was not infrequent with such interviews and Charlie had become to rely upon them, his only source of outside, daily contact. He left the by now familiar building by the peripheral one evening expecting another summons – getting up at the regularly established time and bathing and waiting for the telephone to ring on several subsequent days – but nothing happened. Charlie was disorientated by the abrupt halt, recognising that his reliance upon the encounters extended beyond the simple fact of meeting another human being. He recognised, too, his was a predictable response: there’d even been lectures about it, during the instructional sessions, the attachment that a subservient interviewee psychologically develops towards his debriefer in situations of stress, cut off and far from home. Knowing the attitude, Charlie was surprised it had happened to him; the instructional sessions were, after all, warnings to prevent it. Had it been what the psychologists had warned about? OK, so he was cut off and far from home but he knew the way back. And the stress of the unstarted mission wasn’t anything he didn’t think he could handle. Charlie didn’t like falling into categories evolved by mind doctors, most of whom he thought were a bloody sight dafter than the people they were supposed to treat anyway. So what was it then? Had he fancied her? She was the first woman he’d seen – been near at all – for a long time because of the circumstances. And he had, on several occasions, got the impression that she was responding to the flirta tion: wasn’t offended by it at least. Yes, he answered himself finally: he had fancied her. Which was dafter than he’d just considered all psychologists to be. The debriefed didn’t pull their debriefers; Charlie smiled, realising another definition for the word. Debriefers kept their briefs on, he thought. He supposed there was nothing wrong in fantasising as long as he didn’t lose sight of the fact that that was exactly what it was, a fantasy. Still a bloody attractive woman: big tits, too. And the termination meant he was imprisoned again, stuck inside the smelly flat.

He was disappointed, too – on a professional as well as a social level – that there was no further contact with Berenkov. He’d expected it – they’d arranged it that night, after all – but no calls came. After the first four empty, echoing days, Charlie decided upon another rebellion and found things different there, as well. No one tried to stop him.

Charlie had an excellent, inherent sense of direction and he had the advantage of the drive – even though it had been at night – on his way to Berenkov’s apartment so he set off confidently towards the centre of the city. The excursion began as the test to see if he were still under restriction but as he walked he realised what he’d find in the centre of the city and thought why not? It was the only contact point he had. And it was the reason for his being in Moscow at all. Having decided actually to go to the GUM complex, Charlie wondered about clearing his trail, smiling as he had earlier in the apartment as the tradecraft expression came automatically to mind. No, he determined. Not on this, the first outing. He didn’t have any doubt that there was surveillance but if he evaded it they’d become suspicious and that was the last thing he wanted. It was better to make the journey just that, an apparently aimless outing of someone trying to relieve his boredom – and he genuinely felt that, after all – by visiting the most obvious tourist spots in the city. Which naturally – unsuspiciously – included the largest department store in the Soviet Union. For those who watched unseen – and he didn’t intend even trying to see them – it would be nothing. For Charlie, it would be a useful reconnoitre for the real thing. If the real thing ever happened.

The streets were drab and uniform and depressing and Charlie thought how crushing it would be to imagine having to spend the rest of his life here. Which was what Sampson would do. Enthusiastically. For how long? Charlie wondered. The stupid bugger was eager enough now, full of cliche and cant but Charlie couldn’t believe that later – a year, maybe two, maybe five but some time later – he wouldn’t realise he’d just changed prisons. Serve the bastard right. Charlie hoped the realisation came sooner, rather than later. Christ, how Charlie wished there were some way he could really find out if Sampson were involved in trying to trace the Russian traitor. He thought – he bloody well knew – that he’d rather confront and defeat Sampson in a competition of professional ability than he would compete in the best of three falls in Natalia Fedova. It would be a hell of an experience, falling on to Natalia Fedova. Silly, fantasising sod, he thought.

The massive expanse of Red Square opened up before him and Charlie experienced a spurt of satisfaction at having found his way unfailingly there. He hoped – after the absence – that all the other abilities were still as good. For the benefit of those dutifully observing, Charlie meandered without any apparent direction through Kitav-Gorod, the oldest part of the Soviet capital. Charlie remembered the Russian for what was now the dominating area, pleased once more that things were coming back so well. It was, he was sure, Krasnaya Ploshchad. And it meant Beautiful Square. And it was beautiful, compared to the drab boxes upon boxes arranged around the regimented rectangles through which he’d walked on his way there. The very centre of Soviet history, for four hundred years, reflected Charlie. Here had been enacted slaughters and executions and triumphs and failures. And only a few hundred yards away – maybe not even that – was the meeting place with an unknown stranger through whom, if he were very clever and very devious and very lucky, he was going to be able to rehabilitate himself completely and go back to a life he should never – in a moment of conceited vindictiveness – have considered abandoning. Another ‘if, held like an admonishing finger. Would Red Square – Beautiful Square – be for him a triumph or a failure? Charlie wondered. And was the Russian really unknown? If it were Berenkov – and circumstantially there were enough pointers – then the man would have been astonished to find Charlie in Moscow. And until his actual appearance at GUM wouldn’t anyway know he was the deputed route-master. Charlie hoped very much it was Berenkov.

Charlie had forgotten, from his previous, long-ago visit, how vast the architecture was. Gulliver’s houses in the land of Lilliput. No, he thought, unhappy with the impression. All around were the despised edifices of the Tsars and Tsarinas and the oppressive, heel-crushing rich which the new tsars and tsarinas and oppressors chose not to hate but to occupy, like grateful hermit crabs warm and safe inside the shells that had once been the homes of bigger, better crabs. Charlie grimaced, to himself. He wasn’t sure the succeeding impression was any better than the first. Maybe he should stop trying; trying so hard at least.

Lenin’s mausoleum didn’t accord with the surroundings. The memorial to the goatee-bearded opportunist who chased away the bigger crabs was an ill-fitting apology of a place. If they were going to bother, they should have got it right, thought Charlie. Whether Lenin had been an opportunist or a dedicated revolutionary against an unjust régime – and Charlie thought he was more of an opportunist than dedicated revolutionary – he had caused a pretty dramatic body swerve in world history. So he deserved more than something that looked like a 1940s bomb shelter against a chance air raid. Charlie wondered if the always-present, dutifully waiting queue – were they really genuine visiting Soviet territory tourists or permanently employed actors, on a job for life? – were as disappointed as he was.

Deciding that he had appeared aimless for long enough, Charlie turned away from the unimpressive resting place for the father of the revolution and went at last towards what had now become the object of his visit. Outside of the store, in towering identity, was the full name from the initials of which the acronym is created,
Gosudarstvennyy Universal’nyy Magazin.
Once, thought Charlie, as he approached, the concentration of more than 1,000 different stores, each competing, each surviving. Now, like everything else – almost everything – a collective. But positioned where it was and with the captive market it had, perhaps a more successful collective than most within the system.