‘OK,’ agreed Levin. Poor man, he thought.
‘I don’t like it,’ insisted Crookshank.
‘I sure as fuck don’t like it either,’ said Myers. ‘I’m supposed to be head of internal security, don’t forget. This isn’t a can of worms: it’s a whole fucking drum full.’
‘I mean Levin himself,’ argued the lawyer.
‘What’s not to like?’
‘The last time we talked of gossip and rumour, so that we have to drag from him the fact that he was a go- between,’ reminded Crookshank. ‘From what he said today, he was hugger-mugger enough with Shelenkov to be best buddies.’
‘That’s an exaggeration and you know it,’ disputed Norris. ‘I don’t find any difficulty at all in accepting his nervousness, the first time, against what he told us today. Kapalet came back with every confirmation we asked for. And look what more has come out today
…’ The Soviet expert extended his hand, ticking the points off by collapsing his fingers one by one. ‘He said Shelenkov prefers Scotch whisky, which from Kapalet we know he does. He said sometimes Shelenkov shifts to vodka, which from Kapalet we know he does. He said Shelenkov is a boastful son-of-a-bitch which from Kapalet we know he is because that’s how we started this whole affair in the first place. He describes Shelenkov as Kapalet describes him, physically…’ He was aware of Crookshank about to speak but shook his head against interruption. ‘Don’t tell me they’re small, unimportant points. They’re exactly the sort of small, important points which convince me that Levin is genuine and he’s got a lot to tell. And if you don’t like the unimportant points, don’t forget the most positive proof yet to come from Paris. According to Kapalet, Moscow has issued a kill order against the guy. You’re telling me they’d do that if Levin were a plant! Come on, Walt, for Christ’s sake!’
‘I agree, one hundred per cent,’ said Myers. ‘I just wish to hell he’d hurry up and show us the way to go.’
‘What can we do about the Caribbean and Latin America?’ asked Norris.
‘Check the desks, like you suggested,’ said the security chief. ‘But discreetly: I don’t want to drive anyone into the woodwork.’
‘What about analysis divisions?’
‘Those too,’ agreed Myers.
‘We could play it back to Paris, in the hope Kapalet can offer something?’ suggested Crookshank.
‘It’s worth trying,’ said Myers.
‘At this stage anything is worth trying,’ said Norris. ‘What about the hunt that Moscow’s started for Levin? Do you tell the FBI?’
‘I don’t want to,’ said Myers. ‘There’s a risk of it spooking the Bureau. I don’t want them running all over the country, trying to find a new place to hide and delaying our access to him.’
‘It would be a bigger problem if the Russians did get a lead and blew him away before he told us what we need to know,’ said Norris.
‘I guess you’re right,’ said Myers reluctantly. ‘If they get jumpy, volunteer some protection from us.’
‘The improvement – the change – is remarkable,’ praised Sylvester Burns. Petr Levin’s tutor was practically a caricature of an academic, fair, disordered hair almost to the collar of a suit of expensive material and cut but seeming to have been tailored for someone at least two sizes smaller: the sleeves rode up his forearms and the trouser cuffs were ankle length. There was a hole in the heel of his left sock.
‘I’m glad you’re pleased,’ said the boy.
‘Pleased!’ echoed the man. ‘I’m delighted. I’m sure your parents will be, too. Everyone.’
Never once during their one-to-one lessons had Burns referred to the FBI by title, used the word defection or shown any reaction to the unusual circumstances of his teaching. Petr supposed Burns was a contract employee of the agency. He said: ‘You think I’ll have no difficulty, achieving my grades?’
‘I’d be shocked if you didn’t.’
‘I’ll be able to do it all, from here?’ asked Petr, directing the conversation the way he wanted it to continue.
‘Tutoring like this most definitely has its drawbacks,’ said Burns. ‘Apparatus for science, particularly. And there’s a physical limitation on the number of textbooks I can transport.’
‘I’ve not found it easy, denied reference text,’ said Petr impromptu.
‘Maybe I should speak to someone,’ said the tutor.
As soon as you like, thought the boy; as soon as you like.
27
Knowing the side road off Novaya Street in which his father had been killed made it easy for Yuri to identify the nearest civilian militia post from which officers would have been summoned and his impulse was to go there immediately to find and question whoever had initially been called to the scene that night. But he didn’t. Although he was conscious of the convoluted irony, Yuri decided the best way to discover what really lay behind Kazin’s instruction to locate Yevgennie Levin was actually to attempt such an investigation and by so doing set himself up as a knowing bait. And having done that, to spend more time looking behind than in front. So Natalia Levin had priority.
Before setting out for Mytishchi, he went through the material Kazin had made available, almost at once disappointed. And then equally quickly irritated at himself for expecting a lead where to start in America. If Russian security attached to the UN mission had suspected the remotest contact with the FBI, Levin would have been arrested and hauled back to Moscow on the next available plane. Muddled thinking – and he couldn’t afford muddled thinking. He concentrated upon what information there was, memorizing the biographical details that were available and particularly studying the photographs: Levin and his wife both fat, heavy people, the black-haired fourteen- year-old girl he was going to see squinting myopically at the camera through thick-lensed spectacles, but quite pretty apart from them, the boy smirking self-consciously, dressed up for officialdom.
It was not until he got to the copies of the correspondence between the girl and her family – and then not until, according to the date, he was halfway through the first letter that Levin had been allowed – that Yuri thought he’d found something. He stopped and went back to the beginning and then read steadily through in the order in which they had been written and replied to, building up the points in his mind, his reaction a mix of curiosity and bewilderment. Illogic upon illogic, he thought: if he resolved the doubts about these letters would he get any nearer to discovering what Kazin intended? A possible route, maybe; at the moment the only route. He wished there were more clearly marked signposts.
Accustomed always because of his father’s position to the accommodation of the Soviet elite, Yuri was repelled by the concrete forest estate at Mytishchi. Apart from the absence of any spray-canned graffiti, it could easily have been one of those worn-down, worn-away parts of Manhattan he’d found it so easy to criticize when he’d first arrived in New York. How much his thinking and his attitudes about everything had changed: how much everything had changed.
The blocks were identical and unmarked, so it took him thirty minutes to locate the section where Natalia Levin’s apartment was listed. He waited a further five minutes for the lift to arrive and when it didn’t climbed the stairs instead: there were puddles on a lot of the steps and tiny lakes on two of the intervening landings, where the roofs leaked. The pervading odour was of cabbage and paraffin and maybe urine and Yuri decided some of the landing wet was not all rainwater. On the wall at the second level someone had crayoned ‘Raisa for Minister of Fashion’ and Yuri decided the similarity with America was complete: American graffiti-writers had just served a longer and wittier apprenticeship.
There was no immediate response to his knock but Yuri detected a sound, a shuffling movement, beyond the door and so he knocked again. When it opened it was only by a crack. The apartment was dark, so that Yuri had difficulty in seeing: an old lady, a babushka, heavily shawled, all in black.
‘I want Natalia Yevgennova Levin,’ he said.
‘Who are you?’
‘Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti,’ Yuri announced formally. He found the effect startling. The old
