The Memory Trap

what? Astonishing — ? Outrageous? The synonyms shunted each other almost violently enough to de-rail his train of thought, leaving him finally with incomprehensible for choice. 'But — for Christ's sake, Jack! — what — ?' Only then he realized that 'What am I supposed to have done?' was redundant: Jack Butler knew as well as he did that neither his Washington activities nor any others in which he had recently been involved could remotely be tagged even as annoying to the Russians, let alone dangerous. 'What sort of contact?'

'A defection.' Butler was ready for him.

Well . . . yes, thought Audley, relaxing slightly. Defections were certainly on the cards these days: ever since the winds of change had started to blow through the Soviet Union and its satellites the possibility of picking up a useful defector or two had been widely canvassed. He had even written a paper on that very subject for the use of station commanders. But that had been all of eighteen months ago, in the early days oiglosnost and perestroika. And, in any case — but the hell with that!

'Why us, though? Jaggard knows we're not usually into field-work. And, come to that, he doesn't even like us to be, anyway.'

'Yes.' In the matter of the duties and scope of the Department dummy1

of Intelligence Research and Development, Jack Butler was at one with Henry Jaggard, however much they disagreed on other matters. 'But, in this case, the defector asked for us.' He sighed. 'Or, to be exact, he asked for you, David. By name.'

It had been that damned defection paper, thought Audley wrathfully: it had carried a routine follow-up request, for those who wanted more information or who had information to give, so that he could up-date it subsequently; and anyone with an ounce of knowledge could have traced it back to him from its style and content; so some imperial idiot down the line had been careless with it, and it had fetched up on someone's desk at GRU headquarters.

'His name was Kulik.' Butler returned to his point. 'Oleg Filipovitch Kulik.'

Kulik — Then the past tense registered. 'Oleg Filipovitch Kulik . . . deceased, I take it?'

Butler nodded.

'Kulik?' That wasn't so very surprising, because defecting was a high-risk enterprise, as Oleg Filipovitch must have known.

However, what Butler was expecting was that he would now pick that name out of the memory-bank. But the only Kulik he could recall from the paying-in slips of thirty years was a third-rate Red Army general who had never been close to military intelligence (but rather, from his long and disastrous career, the opposite); and who, in any case, must be long-since dead.

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'Yes?' Butler looked at him expectantly.

'Never heard of him. What was he offering?'

'He didn't say. He merely said that it was of the highest importance.' Butler stopped there, compressing his lips.

'And?' Audley recognized the sign. Beneath that worrying apology and the customary politeness, Sir Jack Butler was incandescent with that special red-headed rage which always smouldered within him, but which he never failed to control no matter what the provocation. Hot heart, cool head, as old Fred had been so fond of saying: Butler was the sort of man he had liked best of all.

'They're not sure that he was GRU.' Butler released his lips.

'But they think there was a man named Kulik in their computer records department, liaising with KGB Central Records. Only, since they aren't sure about the value of what he was offering they're not prepared to be certain.'

'They' were Jaggard's Moscow contacts presumably. And in this instance they were quite right. Because if Kulik's lost goodies were peanuts it wasn't worth risking their necks for him. But if the goodies really had been dynamite, then Kulik's bosses would be just waiting to pounce on whoever started to ask questions about him now.

But now, also, he was beginning to see the shape of the game, even though the ball was hidden under the usual ruck of disorderly, bloody-minded, dirty-playing players who knew that the referee was hovering near, whistle-in-mouth. 'So we dummy1

know sod-all about him really — right?'

'That's about the size of it, yes.' Butler looked as though he was about to pull rank. With reluctance, of course (and especially with Audley, who had once been his superior officer; but with Kulik dead and thirty-minus-minutes at his back and a plane somewhere on the tarmac out there, if it had to be pulled, then he would pull it). 'They're working on him now.'

'I'll bet they are.' Audley knew he would loyally do whatever Jack Butler wanted him to do. Because that was the way he felt about Butler, in spite of all appearances to the contrary: in an uncertain world, Butler had somehow become his sheet-anchor over the years, much to his own surprise. Only, in the meantime, he was going to have his pound of flesh, with or without blood. 'But all they know as of now is that Kulik wanted me. And now he's dead — ?' Flesh with blood, he decided. 'And, of course, you didn't offer me up for the slaughter . . . Was that the 'error of judgement', Jack?

Because, if it was, then I forgive you for it — ' He refused to quail before Butler's displeasure ' — was that the way it was, Jack?'

Butler looked at his watch. 'The way it was . . . was that I didn't think I could get you back quickly enough from Washington.' He looked up again. 'Besides which, Jaggard said it was just a routine pick-up.'

There was no such thing as a routine pick-up. 'So you smelt a rat, did you?'

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'No. That was what Jaggard said. And I had no reason to disbelieve him.'

'No?' No excuses, of course. Where others would be looking to avoid blame, if not actually seeking credit for