The Defector (37 page)

“I will,” she said. Volkov put the glass down without drinking anything. He stubbed out his cigarette and pushed back his chair.

“I’ll answer your question,” he said to Alexei.

“I will let you go with Irina because she is doing something for me. You are her reward. if that’s what she wants.” He turned to her and said, “Now we will excuse ourselves. We shall say our goodbyes in private.” He caught her by the arm and pulled her to her feet.

“Antonyii - she began.

“Antonyii, please” I left my office early to be with you,” he said.

“I’m not going to waste my time.” He was asleep when Poliakov stabbed him. Irina pressed both hands to her mouth to stifle the scream that would have woken him and the tutor plunged the knife into his back, pulled it out and drove it in a second time. Volkov gurgled into the pillow; his body heaved and twitched as his punctured heart flooded and stopped. Irina rolled away from him as blood began to run down his naked back onto the sheets. She stood naked and trembling all over, whimpering with shock. The tutor came to her and gathered her in his arms. He was shaking.

“Get dressed,” he said.

“Hurry, my darling, and get dressed.”

“The guard,” she cried out.

“What about the guard?” Poliakov said quietly, “I gave him the tea. He’s unconscious. He’ll be dead soon. As dead as that pig. Did he hurt you?” The tears welled up and spilled down her face. She cried in his arms for a moment.

“No,” she said.

“No… Oh, Alexei, Alexei, how could you do it? I never thought you could do such a thing. Oh, God, what are we to do now?”

“Leave here,” he said. He bent and dragged a red soaked sheet over Volkov’s body.

“Don’t look at that,” he said.

“Put your clothes on and get your case. Hurry.” When she came into the kitchen, she gasped. Poliakov was dressed in the driver’s uniform. The coat hung big upon his narrow frame.

“I’ve got my own things on underneath,” he said.

“We’ll take his car. We’ll drive to the bus terminal and leave it somewhere. Then we’ll catch the flight to Simferopol. You look faint-you are all right? “

“I’m all right,” Irina said. She saw the driver’s legs sticking out behind the kitchen table, and looked quickly away.

“They won’t be found for a day or two,” she said.

“It’s Friday… He went to his dacha on Fridays.”

“We’ll be out of Russia before they look for him here,” Poliakov said.

“I’ll lock this door and the bedroom. Come on, let’s go now!” The old dez. huma. ya peered at the lift as it came to rest on the ground floor. She settled back in her seat when she saw the KGB uniform, and the girl who was the KGB General’s mistress. It didn’t do to seem curious about her now; she was too well-established. The old woman showed how tactful she was by closing her eyes and pretending to be asleep. Forty-five minutes later Volkov’s car was driven down a side street at the back of a warehouse. There Poliakov stripped off the uniform and the heavy boots, and hid them under the seat. He took Irina by the arm, and carried her suitcase. They walked to the bus depot and boarded the bus to Vnukovo airport. An hour and a half later, their passes and documents stamped, they climbed up the stairway to the Tupolev jet making the scheduled twice-daily flight to the Crimea. Jeremy Spencer-Barr had got two seats for the evening performance of the Bolshoi Ballet that Friday. The programme was Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, danced by the prima ballerina, Maya Plisetskaya. Jeremy had invited his secretary to go with him and he was back in his Embassy flat in the compound by Kutuzovsky Prospekt, getting changed for the evening, when his door bell rang. He scowled, wondering who had decided to drop in without being invited. He hated casual callers. He pulled on his jacket and opened his front door. The principal Trade Secretary and the Head of Chancery were standing there.

“Good evening,” Jeremy said.

“Do come in.” He wasn’t the type to be caught off-balance. He looked politely, but inquiringly at each of them.

“I’m afraid I’m going to the theatre in about fifteen minutes,” he said.

“What can I do for you?”

“We want to have a talk to you,” the senior Intelligence Officer said.

“I’ve got tickets for the Bolshoi,” Jeremy said.

“I’m taking my secretary. If we’re not in our seats when the curtain goes up, we won’t get in till the interval.” He looked annoyed.

“Sit down, Spencer-Barr,” the Head of Chancery said.

“We had a top-priority telex from your Chief in London. You’re suspended from all Embassy duties.” He couldn’t hide the shock; for once his composure deserted him; his mouth opened and he gaped at them.

“Suspended? What on earth do you mean?”

“We mean,” the Intelligence Officer said grimly, ‘that you’re off the case. When did you have your last contact with Daniel? ” Jeremy hesitated.

“It’s gone wrong,” he thought in panic, ‘they messed it up. “

“Yesterday,” he said.

“I gave him the message as instructed.”

“You gave him something else, didn’t you?” The Head of Chancery was leaving his subordinate to ask the questions. He merely listened, watching Spencer-Barr with a chill dislike.

“You didn’t pass London’s message on to Daniel, did you? I’d ring up your secretary and tell her you’ve got a sudden temperature. Summer flu she’ll believe you. I’m afraid you won’t be going to the ballet tonight.” Jeremy looked from one to the other.

“Very well,” he said.

“I’ll phone. Can I ask one question first?”

“Depends what it is,” his interrogator said.

“Has anything happened to Antonyii Volkov?”

“Not that we would know,” the answer was curt.

“If Daniel did what you told him, it’ll be kept very quiet indeed. Make the call.” Spencer-Barr dialled through to the girl’s number. He made his excuses and hung up before she could do more than say how sorry she was he was ill. Then he turned back to the two Embassy men.

“I’ll get you a drink. What would you like, sir?” he asked the Head of Chancery.

“Scotch and water.”

“I’ll have the same,” the Intelligence Officer volunteered. Jeremy poured the drinks and handed one to each of them. His manner was cool, even supercilious. He sat down and crossed one leg over the other.

“Well, gentlemen,” he said.

“What is it you want to know?” This time it was the Head of Chancery who spoke.

“How long have you been working for the CIA?” The submarine attached to the NATO naval base had sailed down through the Bosphorus to the coastal port of Midia. On the night of the 24th the craft submerged and left her moorings for the open sea. Her captain maintained a steady course at mid-depth; among the normal complement were three SAS commandos, specially trained in underwater combat; the officer in charge was a first-class yachtsman, and the submarine carried a very special piece of equipment. This consisted of a fibre-glass hull that could be assembled in sections to a span of twenty feet, complete with collapsible masthead, and a small, petrol-driven outboard motor. There were six inflatable life-jackets and an inflatable raft for emergencies. The commandos were equipped with small-arms. The captain was a former Polaris commander, who had been posted to Turkey after his tour of duty in the Atlantic was over. He had sealed orders which were broken only after they had submerged. He read them in his cabin. They gave him a specific destination and a time to reach it, surface, disgorge his special cargo and go below to wait. The orders stated that the commandos were to return exactly on schedule; the submarine was to take them on board and return to base immediately. The young commando captain had his orders; the last part tallied exactly with those issued to the commander of the submarine. His mission was to pick up three passengers in the port of Sebastopol and return with them to the rendezvous point. If they had not appeared within a waiting-time of fifteen minutes, he was to raise anchor and move off. Davina looked at her watch; it had a luminous dial, and the date showed as the 25th. The time was four a. m. It was the time Sasanov used to wake when they were in the Shepherds Bush flat, and his spirits were at their lowest. Often she felt his disquiet even in her sleep and stirred beside him, waking in sympathy. She thought of him more during the silent hours before dawn, when Peter Harrington snored on his own side of the bed and she huddled away from him. He had made no more attempts to sleep with her since they left West Berlin. He joked and flirted as usual, but he was tense and the falsity showed. He had become very nervous as the 25th approached. He often drank a lot at dinner now and fell quickly asleep. She stretched, crossing her arms behind her head and thought of Sasanov with her body as much as her mind. She longed for him in those sleepless hours, remembering the power of his lovemaking, the need for her which made up in passion what it lacked in subtlety. She would never want a subtle, premeditated lovemaking; Sasanov had spoiled her for anything but his own brand of bold desire. She wanted him so badly that she couldn’t rest and the man beside her was an irritant. Then commonsense rebuked her for permitting sensual fantasies that would never materialize again. She wouldn’t see Sasanov when she returned to England. It was over. The goodbye said in that squalid safe flat had been their real farewell to each other. Then the temptation whispered that perhaps when he met his daughter, he would want to thank her, see her just once more. And he’d said something in Russian to her and murmured! “I’ll say it to you in English when you come back.” But whatever it was, she wouldn’t hear it from him. There had to be a break and she had promised herself and the Chief that she would make it. There was no future for her with Sasanov. He would make his life with his daughter and wait in hope for his wife’s release. Better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all. The cliche came to mind to torment her. She had never loved before she met him. The realization sobered her; love for him was more than the ache in her body for his body, far more than the feeling she had had for the man she’d been ready to marry. She hadn’t loved Richard in any way as she loved Ivan Sasanov, and had loved him for months before they became lovers. She’d concealed it from herself, hiding behind her professionalism, her indifference to men after that one brutal disappointment. Only when she took him home to Marchwood, and saw her sister setting out to charm, then the pretence fell away and she suffered the worst pangs of jealousy. And because she loved him she was lying awake in an Intourist hotel on a highly dangerous mission in the middle of Russia. She hadn’t manoeuvred herself into this to convince Sasanov that her Department was genuine. She hadn’t placed herself at risk to back up his interrogators and round off her role for the Brigadier. She hadn’t really given a damn about any of that. She had gone to Russia because she couldn’t bear to see Sasanov suffering on account of his family. She had gone because she wanted him to be happy, and because his happiness was more precious to her than her own. And this was what love meant. What he had meant when he dismissed her sister with the simple sentence, “She only takes from a man. I needed a woman who gives.” Davina eased herself up on the pillow. She thought suddenly, “I don’t hate Charley any more. I can forgive Charley because she took something away that wasn’t worth having. She left me free to find the real man. Poor Charley. With all her beauty and success, I don’t think she’s ever felt what I feel now… or ever will. I feel quite sorry for her.” Davina slid over the edge of the bed and onto the floor. She wanted a cigarette and to be alone, away from the sound of harrington’s breathing. Above all she didn’t want him to wake and intrude. She found her dressing-gown and slipped into it. The night was very warm. She groped on the dressing-table and found the cigarettes and Harrington’s lighter. Then she opened the window very quietly, and stepped out onto the narrow balcony. There was a three-quarter moon and the view across to the shore and the sea was black and silver;

there were little regiments of waves advancing to the beach, crested with white foam. She could hear the soft hiss as they drew the sand and pebbles with them. A few lights glimmered from the street lamps immediately below. There was no sound but the gentle fall of the waves, and the moonlight fell on the black surface of the sea in a bright silver swathe that vanished on the horizon. She lit the cigarette and leaned against the window. Once when she was a child, the family had been on holiday in Cornwall and they had all gone for a swim in the darkness. She had swum out on a swathe of moonlight and imagined how easy it would be to swim for ever in the silver sea. She remembered her father coming alongside and telling her sharply to go back; she had swum out too far for safety. And then Davina saw the ship; it had crept round a headland and appeared on the dark sea glittering with tiny lights. She watched it moving very slowly, seeming to be almost stationary, until it reached the moonlit sea lane, and its lights were challenged. It was not a big ship and not very far out. It was gliding onward, making for the port. It must be one of the cruise ships run by Intourist, returning from a trip round the coast.

“Davina? Is that you?” She turned and the light in the bedroom flashed on. Harrington was sitting up in the bed. He looked tousled and bleary-eyed.

“What the hell are you doing out there?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. She came into the room, and rubbed the cigarette out in the tin ashtray.

“I didn’t want to wake you so I went onto the balcony. It’s a gorgeous night. I was watching a ship come in.”

“Oh?” He got up, pulling his pyjamas into place.

“Let’s have a look.” He went to the balcony and stepped out.

“It’s a cruise ship,” he said. He came back inside and pulled the curtains back. He fumbled for the cigarettes and snapped his lighter irritably till it flamed. He glanced across at her, puffing on the cigarette.

“You know what I think?” Davina shook her head.

“I think that’s our escape route.”

“The ship?”

“Yes; I just had a feeling, seeing it come in like that… right on time.” He went back to the window and stared out.

“They’d never get her out overland,” he said quietly; it was almost as if he were talking to himself.