waiting Bowden, guessed Levin. He rose from the chair, aware for the first time of the ache of tension in his back and legs. Sweating hands and tension sufficient to make him ache: would that have translated on to the recordings? Possibly, but he’d tried enough to throw the needles with his answers, so hopefully the two would correlate and be explainable: if he were given the chance to explain, that is. He stood at the window, gazing out over the trimmed and sensored grounds, the tension still gripping him, the perspiration increasing. This really was testing time: the moment when he either passed, to be accepted. Or failed to satisfy them. What happened then? There were accounts of some distrusted defectors being held and interrogated in solitary confinement for months on end. And he didn’t have months. Everything was very carefully timed. The contradiction was immediate. If everything was so carefully timed, why had the signal come with Natalia still in the Soviet Union?
It was a full hour before anyone entered the room again, an hour for Levin’s mood to plunge from fragile confidence to worry to fear. And then to go almost beyond simple fear into terror as his mind focused upon Galina and Petr. What would happen to them if he hadn’t been clever enough? Imprisonment? Unlikely but possible, he supposed. Maybe repatriation, which would be as big a disaster because if they were once further split Levin couldn’t see how they would ever be reunited. Maybe… The jostling fears stopped at a sound, and Levin turned to face Bowden. The American was serious-faced and the usual bonhomie, which Levin suspected was forced anyway, was missing.
‘Well?’ asked Levin again. There was the metallic taste of blood in his mouth and he realized he had mistakenly bitten through his lip somewhere. He’d have to be careful it didn’t show.
‘One or two inconsistencies, Yevgennie. Quite a bunch, in fact.’
In addition to a file of his own, Levin saw the American was carrying the technician’s notebook and the paper upon which there was a criss-cross of different-coloured lines. The paper from the polygraph drum, Levin guessed. The reaction prepared, he said in apparent anger: ‘It was a ridiculous test! I was assured the questions would be phrased for yes or no answers but they weren’t. It was impossible!’
‘Why don’t we talk it through a little?’
It was important to maintain the indignation longer. Levin said: ‘I was promised by Proctor to be treated properly. Considerately. Promised by you, too. It isn’t happening. If you do not want me then I will go back to my own country!’ He hoped he had not over-pitched the outrage.
‘Slow down, Yevgennie. Slow down,’ placated Bowden. ‘Let’s just talk it through, like I said. Sit down and take it easy.’
Levin walked further into the room with apparent reluctance, going not to the upright chair in which he had sat for the polygraph but to a low, easy chair to one side of the desk. Bowden eased his huge frame on to the chair in which the technician had sat, awkwardly too large for it.
‘Inconsistencies,’ opened Bowden. ‘Maybe there are simple explanations.’
‘What inconsistencies?’ demanded Levin, feigning the anger.
Bowden bent over the notebook he arranged alongside the polygraph reading: the paper was numbered, for the queries to accord with the entries in the notebook, which was specially printed, numerically. He said: ‘Found it strange that you should regard yourself as a traitor?’
He’d succeeded there, realized Levin, relieved. He said: ‘I was being tested for honesty? To see if I could be trusted?’
‘Just that,’ agreed Bowden.
‘So I told the truth,’ insisted Levin. ‘I am a traitor. To my country. And to you. Let’s not pretend: wrap things up in other words, like coloured ribbon: call me a defector like it’s an honourable description. You and Proctor and anyone else I might meet will pretend to be friendly but you’ll always despise me, for betraying my service
…’ He paused, trying to discern a reaction from the other man. He thought there was a slight flush to the man’s face but he wasn’t sure. He pressed on: ‘So now you be honest with me! That’s how you think of me, isn’t it?’
There was a pause and then Bowden said: ‘I guess something like that.’
He couldn’t let the American get away. ‘Not something like that: exactly like that. So to have answered no would not have been the right reply, would it?’
‘Let’s move on,’ urged Bowden uneasily. ‘You approached our people, in the beginning. Offering stuff. And approached us again, asking to come over, when you got the recall notice. So why did you say you were unwilling to come across? That doesn’t make sense.’
‘It makes every sense!’ disputed Levin. ‘I’ve abandoned a daughter, whom I love. That’s why I am unwilling. If she had been here the answer would have been the opposite.’
Bowden nodded, making some sort of entry against the notebook log. He said: ‘You’ve come over to our side now, Yevgennie. Decided to settle in America?’
‘Yes.’
‘So how come you don’t regret spying against the United States? That’s what you said. When you were asked…’
‘I know what I was asked,’ interrupted Levin, mentally ticking off the man’s uncertainties, every one of which he had so far anticipated. ‘I was being honest again. At the time I carried out those activities I was an officer of the KGB, properly performing my assigned functions. So why should I regret it? Again, I was trying to answer in complete honesty.’
Bowden made another entry. The American was bending over the records, not bothering – or not wanting – to look up at Levin. He jabbed several times at the query sheet with the tip of his pencil, and said: ‘There’s something here that we don’t understand at all. Not at all…’ He came up at last, appearing to seek some facial reaction from the Russian. ‘You said you imagine you’ll regret coming across.’
‘But of course I will!’ said Levin, as if he found the query surprising. ‘I’ll never stop being a Russian. Thinking like a Russian. Feeling like a Russian. I might have become disillusioned with it and what I was being called upon to do but there’s always going to be a part of me uncertain if I made the right decision by coming across. And it’s a regret that is going to be a very positive attitude until I get Natalia here, with us.’
‘Disillusioned?’ picked up Bowden. ‘You say you’ve come across because you’re disillusioned but you said on the polygraph that you’ve done it for money.’
‘And then I made it clear that was not the primary cause,’ came back Levin confidently. ‘I had to answer yes – the honest answer – because that was the order in which the question was asked.’
Bowden sat nodding but Levin was unsure whether the gesture was in acceptance of the reply. The American said: ‘There were some responses to questions about truth and honesty that just worry the hell out of me.’
‘Let’s get the sequence right,’ insisted Levin. ‘It was honesty first, then truth. I replied no when I was asked if I considered myself an honest man because it was the right reply. How can I consider myself honest when I have betrayed my country? Which is what I have done and will always carry, as a burden. But I do intend to cooperate honestly if there is a proper debriefing. And I was accurate when I replied to the question about truth. We are trained not to tell the truth, you and I: to lie, if the occasion or the need arises. But again I intend to tell the truth if we debrief.’ Levin wondered if the perspiration would be visible against the back of his jacket, when he stood: trying to reduce the risk, he leaned forward slightly, to enable air to get between himself and the back of the chair.
‘Why did you find the polygraph difficult?’ Bowden snapped the question out sharply.
Remembering that the room was doubtless wired and that there would be a recording of his conversation with the technician, Levin said: ‘Before the test began, the operator asked me if I were familiar with the polygraph. I wasn’t and said so. I did not like being strapped in as I was and I did not like the restriction of yes or no answers. It’s too easy to convey a misleading impression by giving an absolutely accurate answer to a wrongly phrased question.’
Bowden’s head was moving again but Levin was still unsure whether or not it was in acceptance of what he was saying. The American said: ‘Why won’t you cooperate with the counter-intelligence services of other countries?’
‘I’m not setting myself up as a performing monkey,’ said Levin at once. ‘When I told Proctor I was being recalled he immediately suggested I should return to Moscow and act there for the CIA. Quite apart from the fact that it would not have been possible – because I believed I was being taken back for investigation – I refused. It would have meant switching to a different agency, spreading my identity: just like cooperating with other counter- intelligence would risk my being further exposed…’ He hesitated. ‘Russia – and the KGB – never forgive anyone who defects: you know that! There’s always an attempt at retribution, as an example to others.’ The ache now was
