‘You sure?’
‘Unusual like what?’
‘We listen to a lot of radio traffic at the embassy,’ said Oleg, which was true although not the source of this conversation, which was specifically timed instructions from Moscow. ‘The way we read it there’s a pretty intensive investigation under way.’
‘Investigation?’
‘One intercept talked of Agency penetration.’
‘Oh dear God!’ said Willick. Why couldn’t the feeling of relief, of well-being, have lasted longer! It wasn’t fair; why wasn’t anything ever fair!
‘Don’t panic,’ said the Russian. ‘Panic and you’ll give yourself away. There’s no reason to think it’s directed at you.’
‘It’s got to be, hasn’t it?’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘It is!’ insisted Willick, already convinced.
‘Remember something,’ urged Oleg. ‘Whatever happens, we won’t abandon you.’
‘What’s that mean?’
‘That we’re your friends. And that we’ll go on being your friends.’
Kapalet was irritated that the floor show at the Crazy Horse was unchanged, wishing they’d chosen a different meeting place. He turned away from the transvestite and the rope trick and said: ‘It looks as if Shelenkov knows things about Latin America.’
‘Like what?’
‘No specifics, like names.’
‘What then?’
‘Says you guys don’t stand a chance in Nicaragua. That you didn’t, even before Irangate.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know.’
Wilson Drew jabbed impatiently at the drink coaster on the bar with his cocktail stick.
‘Who’s he talking about when he says there’s a foul-up in Nicaragua?’
‘The Agency. It’s always the Agency.’
‘Shit!’
‘I wish there were more.’
‘I must have a name!’
‘You know there’s no way I can get that.’
‘Something… anything!’
‘That’s why I asked for this meeting,’ disclosed the Russian, grinning.
The huge American looked savagely sideways at him and said: ‘Don’t jerk me about, Sergei! This ain’t no fucking game we’re playing here!’ If it hadn’t been so necessary to keep the guy sugar sweet he’d have stuffed that ass-sweaty piece of rope from the cabaret act down the Russian’s stupid throat.
‘It seems he was being moved,’ announced Kapalet.
‘Who?’
‘Shelenkov’s source.’
‘Where from?’
‘I don’t know.’
To where?’
‘I don’t know that, either,’ said the Russian. ‘Shelenkov simply said, two nights ago, that his man was being shifted, within the Agency.’
There was another trace, maybe the best way, Drew realized. He said: ‘When was it happening?’
There wasn’t a positive date,’ said Kapalet. ‘He said the move almost coincided with his transfer.’
‘When did Shelenkov arrive here in Paris?’
‘June thirtieth.’
‘We’ve got him!’ said Drew triumphantly. ‘All we’ve got to do is sift all the Agency movements, a month before and a month after June thirtieth.’
‘One more thing,’ said the Russian. ‘Shelenkov said where the man was going could be as useful as where he had been.’
‘Where he was going was as useful as where he had been?’
‘That’s what he said.’
‘Sorry I ran off at the mouth there just now, Sergei. I was out of order.’
‘No offence,’ said Kapalet. ‘Be good to get this thing resolved, won’t it?’
‘You wouldn’t believe how good,’ said the American.
29
Militia Post 20 was on a corner, with the majority of the building extending along Petrovka Street, a gloomy, grime-windowed, barrack-like construction. The entrance hall was bisected from wall to wall by a separating barrier, elevated in its middle. Behind it sat an officer whose rank Yuri could not identify from his shoulder designations. On either side of him were men in civilian clothes, clerks hunched over ledgers. Yuri expected it to be a noisy, bustling place but it was strangely quiet: although he had never entered one, Yuri thought the atmosphere had to be something like a church. On the wall behind the division was a large photograph of Mikhail Gorbachov: it was an early, pre glasnost picture upon which the birthmark on the leader’s forehead had been brushed out by the printer, unlike today’s photographs. There was a large noticeboard with very little on it along the wall to Yuri’s right. To the left were unmarked doors to three offices. There was a smell, although different from that at Mytishchi: here it seemed to be an odour of chalk, which he didn’t understand, and dust and bodies, which he did.
Yuri had not determined his approach before he entered and was still undecided as he walked to the barrier. Once there, he had to look up, because of its height. The uniformed man continued reading something unseen behind a ledge and the clerks went on writing. Why was some sort of intimidation so important to so many people? With the word in mind and remembering the effect upon the woman at Mytishchi, Yuri announced: ‘Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti.’
The clerks wrote on and it was several moments before the officer looked up. ‘So?’ he said.
‘So I want information.’
‘I thought the KGB already knew everything.’
Yuri refused to pander to the man’s pretension. He said: ‘Vasili Dmitrevich Malik.’
Close now, Yuri realized that the man to whom he was talking was contributing heavily to the body smell of the building. The officer’s slight straightening in his chair was the only perceptible change in his attitude. He said: ‘Criminal division handled that.’
Yuri did not know what the differentiation signified. He said: ‘They are not here?’
‘Of course they are here.’
‘Where?’
The desk officer gestured vaguely behind him, to the rear of the building.
‘Who?’ demanded Yuri.
‘Investigator Bogaty.’
Yuri moved to speak, about to make it a polite question. Instead, responding to the hostility, he said: ‘Tell him I am here.’
The man did not move at once and briefly Yuri thought he was going to refuse. Then he lifted what must have been an internal telephone, leaning back to talk behind a cupped hand, so that Yuri was unable to hear all that was said. He managed to detect the identification of the KGB. The man replaced the instrument and gestured behind him but positively to the left this time. ‘You’re to go back. Room 12b.’ He seemed disappointed the meeting had been granted.
