Petr’s tuition. Professionally the Russian felt an enormous satisfaction at having apparently succeeded, but there was an equal relief at Petr’s adjustment. Straight As in every subject, without exception, and a completely changed demeanour, too: polite and respectful, both to him and Galina, actually ready to laugh, which had been impossible for them all, for too long. He seemed anxious, as well, to make friends with the FBI and CIA protective personnel whose now increased presence was almost claustrophobic. Only about Natalia did there remain a difficulty and even here there was no longer from the boy the resentful, hostile attitude of the early weeks. He talked of when, not if, she would be able to join them, actually boasting of what he would show her in that part of Connecticut he was getting to know, now that he was going daily into Litchfield to school.
Levin felt Galina slip her arm through his at the door of the house as they watched the car carrying Petr crunch down the drive and go out of sight, between the trees that concealed the largest of the guardhouses.
‘I never thought he’d settle,’ she said.
‘Neither did I,’ confessed Levin.
He felt her pressure, urging him further away from the house and people who might overhear. Having got far enough away from the house to talk it was momentarily impossible because of the overhead stutter from one of the guarding helicopters. The woman grimaced up in its direction, her free hand trying to hold her hair in place, and when she was able to speak said: ‘Why the supposed hunt?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Levin, in further confession.
‘Was it ever discussed?’
‘No.’
‘Natalia was supposed to be allowed to come with us. And she wasn’t. Now this,’ protested Galina. ‘I don’t like things happening that we’re not prepared for. It’s difficult enough as it is.’
‘It can only be to make me seem more important to the Americans,’ said Levin.
‘Was that really necessary?’
‘What else can it be?’ he demanded.
‘I worry about Petr going out alone, to school.’
‘He isn’t alone.’
‘OK, so he’s driven there and back,’ Galina conceded. ‘But there’s no guard when he’s there: we decided that to avoid the curiosity of the other kids.’
‘Darling,’ said Levin patiently. ‘Not fifteen minutes ago we both agreed we never thought Petr would settle down. Now he has. And he’s doing exceptionally well. You telling me you want me to risk it all by insisting he’s tutored back in the house again?’
‘I suppose not,’ she said.
‘Everything is going fine,’ assured Levin.
There was the sound of another helicopter, this time the machine that was to carry him to Washington. Galina tried to protect her hair again and said: ‘Any idea what time you’ll be coming back?’
‘No,’ said Levin.
‘You will come back?’ she said. ‘You won’t be kept in Washington?’
She really was nervous, Levin recognized irritably. Why the hell had Moscow introduced something for which they were unprepared! He said: ‘There’s never any suggestion of my staying over.’
David Proctor ran towards them, bent double under the rotor blades, blown by the downdraft which flattened the grass. How deafening would the sound be on those unseen sensors, wondered Levin.
‘All set?’ shouted the American.
Levin nodded, making towards the machine. Because of his size it was more difficult for Levin to bend than it was for Proctor and by the time he belted himself in he was panting. Levin was no longer worried by helicopter travelling: in fact he rather enjoyed it. He gazed down at the bulging hills of the immediate Connecticut countryside, seeing how much thinner the tree covering was now from how it had been the first time he had made the trip, only the firs and some of the maple retaining any thatch. He switched his headrest button, enabling him to talk to Proctor during flight and said, nodding downwards: ‘Looks cold.’
The FBI supervisor nodded back and said: ‘You ski?’
‘Not any more.’
‘What about Petr?’
‘Yes.’
‘There are some great ski lodges in Connecticut,’ came in Bowden, sitting on his other side. ‘When the snows come we can make a trip.’
‘When will that be?’
‘A month,’ promised Bowden. ‘Maybe six weeks.’
‘Any news about Natalia?’ demanded Levin predictably.
‘Still pressing,’ said Proctor, giving the usual reply.
Levin went familiarly from the Langley helicopter pad towards the debriefing building, mentally parading what he had to disclose today. It was difficult for him to be absolutely sure but he believed himself to be precisely on the schedule devised by the KGB. At the entrance to his debriefing room Levin glanced back to the main CIA complex. There’d never been an indentity – a protection against his revealing it under hostile, drugged interrogation – but somewhere in there was a man who was going to cause a volcanic upheaval within America’s overseas intelligence agency.
‘It’s names we want, Yevgennie,’ opened Myers at once. ‘What you’re telling us is invaluable but we need better direction.’ The checks were continuing through the personnel on both the Caribbean and Latin American desks and extending on into the analysis sections but so far there had not been the slightest breakthrough.
‘I know,’ said the Russian. Don’t hurry, he thought; let it come bit by bit, as it would from a deeply searched memory.
‘Let’s go back to those mess hall meetings with Shelenkov,’ suggested Norris patiently. ‘What time of year was it?’
‘Summer. June I think. Then the Fall. September, maybe October,’ said Levin.
‘Hot then, the first time?’
‘Very,’ agreed the Russian. ‘Humid, too.’
‘Always a bitch,’ coaxed Norris. ‘Guess you felt like a drink when he suggested it?’
‘I hadn’t thought about it,’ said Levin. ‘When he did it seemed a good idea.’
‘He drank Scotch?’
A comparing question, Levin recognized: they were still testing him. He said: ‘Yes.’
‘A lot?’
‘Difficult to remember.’ Frighteningly, Levin saw the trick when it was almost too late and added: ‘He must have done, mustn’t he?’
‘Why’s that, Yevgennie?’ came in Crookshank. There was no antagonism yet.
‘I told you before, he used to boast when he got drunk.’
‘So you did,’ said the lawyer. ‘So how many do you remember his having?’
‘I can’t be positive, about an actual number. Five or six perhaps.’
‘Five or six Scotches!’ echoed Crookshank. ‘The guy must have been on a bender?’
‘He drank like a Russian.’
‘How’s that?’ asked Myers.
‘Quickly. It’s custom to drain a glass, when there’s a toast.’
‘There were toasts?’
‘The second time.’
‘To what?’
Levin feigned the difficulty. He said: ‘Shelenkov was given to being melodramatic’
‘Want to spell that out for us?’ said Norris.
‘He toasted the progress of communism…’ Levin paused for effect, and said: ‘I found it embarrassing. He was very loud: I thought it all unnecessary.’
‘Where, exactly, to the progress of communism?’ isolated Crookshank.
The man might be the least convinced but he was the one who picked up the carefully dangled carrots, decided Levin. He said: ‘That was how Latin America came into the conversation.’
