The driver continued on Pennsylvannia, going by Lafayette Square and the White House, and Yuri had his first disappointment. Set against the grandeur of the Washington public buildings – without even bringing the massive and grandiose Kremlin into the comparison – the official residence of the President of the United States seemed insignificant in size and presence. Just not important enough. In front of railings which could have been scaled by a determined ten-year-old (surely there had to be better protection than that!) a bearded, many-coated man was camped beneath a wedge of tarpaulin, surrounded by banners and placards protesting the plight of America’s homeless. Yuri reckoned that despite the supposed new freedoms within the Soviet Union it would have taken the KGB internal militia about three seconds on a slow day to find the man very permanent accommodation indeed if he’d attempted the gesture outside the Kremlin’s Trinity Gate.
Yuri was ready when the vehicle started to climb the tree-bordered George Washington Memorial Parkway to leave the city, intent for what he had been assured in at least half a dozen lectures existed but which he’d always found difficult completely to accept. And then he saw it, the signpost actually indicating the location of the CIA’s headquarters at Langley.
That’s where the spooks hang out,’ identified the driver unnecessarily. ‘Must be a strange job, being a spook.’
‘I just can’t imagine it,’ said Yuri.
At Dulles Airport he used the William Bell passport, took the camera bag unhindered and unquestioned through the x-ray examination of the Concorde check-in and accepted the offer of Dom Perignon champagne at the pre-flight invitation. Before his execution the condemned man ate a hearty meal, he thought. How would his father react to a positive demand to explain what the hatred was between himself and Kazin? The temptation was growing in Yuri to make it.
The choice of Concorde was not an indulgence. The three-hour flight got him to Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport with ninety minutes to make the Amsterdam connection, for which he again used the British passport. It was only at Schipol, for the Moscow transfer, that he reverted back to Soviet documentation and he used his KGB accreditation at Sheremet’yevo to avoid any Customs delay. Despite going through two (or was it three?) time changes Yuri did not feel tired, and knew why. The entire identity-switching, pursuit-avoiding journey had been uneventful, not even a flight delay, but all the time he’d known an adrenaline-pumping tenseness, the necessary professional awareness of everything and everybody around him. Would his first mission end with champagne or hemlock, he wondered.
His taxi driver had a full and drooped moustache, a topcoat with the collar black with grease, and emitted a permanent smell of tobacco: closer, inside the car, Yuri saw the moustache was browned with nicotine, so that it looked artificial, as if the man were wearing some clumsy and obvious disguise.
‘Come far?’
‘Far enough,’ said Yuri. In the reflection of the rear-view mirror he saw the man frown at the refusal.
‘Know Moscow well?’
‘Well enough,’ said Yuri. Would his father be at the dacha or the apartment? He should have telephoned from the airport.
‘You want anything, you let me know.’ The man, who was driving dangerously fast, swivelled in his seat and grinned; his mouth was a graveyard of cracked and stained teeth.
‘Want anything?’ queried Yuri, concentrating on the man for the first time.
‘Man on your own: special company maybe. Nice girls.’
Yuri had forgotten that propelling a vehicle was not considered the primary employment of Moscow cab drivers: would the man have anything to prevent knives going into backs? He said: ‘No thanks.’
The car swerved as the man reached across the front passenger seat and stretched back, holding a bottle. ‘Take it,’ offered the driver. ‘Have a drink. See I’m not offering horse piss. It’s good vodka.’
Yuri accepted the bottle to get the man’s hands back on the wheel but didn’t open it. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said.
‘Haven’t you heard about the alcohol restrictions that Gorbachov’s introduced?’ demanded the driver, appearing offended at the rejection. ‘Lot of vodka stalls have been closed completely and the liquor shops have restricted licences now.’
‘I heard,’ said Yuri.
‘It’s a good offer,’ persisted the driver. ‘Twelve roubles. Cost you more than that on the black market anywhere.’
Yuri saw there was no label on the bottle and that the seal was broken. The liquid inside was reddish, as if something metallic had rusted in it. It probably was horse piss. He said: ‘I’m not interested.’
The driver gave the grunt of a frustrated salesman, feeling back for the bottle, which Yuri returned. So much for reforms, he thought.
‘How about dollars?’ demanded the driver suddenly. ‘You come from America, I’ll give you the best exchange rate for your dollars? Twice the official price. No argument.’
‘I don’t want to sell any dollars,’ said Yuri.
‘That’s an American suit,’ accused the man, with easy expertise. ‘You’ve come from America.’
‘So?’
‘Maybe you want to buy some?’
‘No,’ sighed Yuri.
‘You won’t get a better rate anywhere.’
‘I don’t need them.’
‘Everyone needs dollars.’
‘I don’t.’ Yuri wished he knew what he did need.
‘That luggage American?’
‘Yes.’
‘You want to sell it?’
‘No, I don’t want to sell it,’ said Yuri. He was grateful for the approaching grey outline marking the beginning of the city.
‘American jeans?’
‘No.’
‘American records?’
‘No.’
‘You travel between America and Russia a lot?’
Yuri hesitated. ‘No,’ he said.
‘That’s got to be a lie, dressed like you are and carrying American luggage,’ rejected the driver. ‘You like, you and I, we could come to a very profitable arrangement.’
‘I said I’m not interested.’ In America this man would have been a millionaire, several times over. Perhaps he was here.
‘You could make a lot of money.’
‘What would you do if I reported you?’
The man snickered a laugh. ‘Deny the conversation. Or buy the policeman off. Whatever was easier.’
‘I thought that sort of thing was all over?’
‘Forget it!’ dismissed the man. ‘My regular stand is at the airport. You want to come to a deal, you look me up.’
‘This is a KGB building,’ said Yuri as they halted.
‘I know,’ said the man. ‘Don’t forget: the airport stand.’
The Soviet Union lags at least fifteen years behind the West in technology development, so the value of the IBM information fully justified Yuri’s courier return, but Belov sought a different, personal benefit in bringing Yuri back. The expected approach from the man’s father, at which Belov could have more obviously declared himself, hadn’t happened, not even when he’d advised the man of his son’s homecoming. Belov knew it could only mean he wasn’t trusted, because of his earlier association with Kazin. So it was essential he correct the impression.
Yuri was intrigued, as he was intended to be, to find Belov awaiting him at the directorate headquarters. The division head accepted the already exposed films and the camera and returned unexposed cassettes and a complete replacement camera. The exchange took less than a minute.
