the overhead railway. Eager for omens of protection, Willick was relieved to get a seat at the bar directly abutting a corner, so that he could sit without the possibility of anyone approaching him unseen. How long would it be, before they did approach him? Try to rationalize, he told himself, striving for control. Try to assess. Couldn’t have isolated him yet: the request was general, for all the transfers. One of several then. But how many? Impossible to know, because he could not risk asking around any more than he already had. Eight, of which he knew. Probably more. Pointless attempting a possible figure. How were they being investigated? Alphabetically or…? Or how? Couldn’t think of another way. Had to be something like alphabetical, he supposed: they hadn’t got to him yet and from what he knew the first request had arrived three days before. Could have been earlier, of course. Thank God his name began with the initial letter that it did. When then? Tomorrow? The day after? No way of knowing. Jesus, where was Oleg? He gestured for a refill and when the barman came asked for a large one. Finished, he thought: he was finished. Christ, wouldn’t Eleanor laugh! Actually enjoy it. Keep cuttings of newspaper reports and go on all the breakfast TV shows. Bitch would probably write a book: My Unsuspecting Life with a Russian Spy. Make a fortune. Jesus, where was Oleg! He held the glass up, as a signal to the barman.
The Russian came bowed-headed into the bar and directly to the corner where Willick was sitting: the two adjoining bar stools were empty and Oleg sat on the furthest one, so there was a gap between them.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ demanded Willick.
Instead of replying Oleg ordered draught beer from the returning barman and waited until it was served and the man moved away before he spoke. He said: ‘You were extremely careless. Foolish.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘There is an inquiry going on at Langley?’
‘You know damned well there is.’
‘And you are suspect?’
‘All the transfers, around the time of Aleksandr’s recall, have been pulled from records.’
‘Yet you come directly here without checking in the most rudimentary way whether or not you are under surveillance and complain when I don’t immediately join you!’
Instinctively, feeling stupid halfway through the gesture, Willick jerked around towards the door and back again.
‘You’re not being followed,’ assured the Russian. He took the top off his beer, making a loud sucking sound. ‘ We followed you.’
‘They’re on to me,’ insisted Willick impatiently. ‘They’re checking transfers, around the June date.’
Oleg drank further, nodding in calm agreement as he replaced the handled mug. ‘I think you’re probably right.’
‘I don’t know what to do,’ protested the American. ‘You said you were my friend. Wouldn’t abandon me.’
‘And we won’t,’ said Oleg.
‘So what can I do?’ moaned Willick.
‘Cross, whenever you want.’
‘Cross?’ The American looked blankly at the hunched roly-poly figure beside him, genuinely confused.
‘To the Soviet Union,’ expanded Oleg.
Willick continued to look blankly at the other man. Never, once, had the idea of defecting – of leaving America – occurred to him. He’d made the approach to the Russians because he was desperate for money. But naively he’d only ever regarded it as a temporary expediency, something he would be able to abandon once he straightened himself out. Jagged-voiced, unable to stop the giggle, he said: ‘Defect! To Moscow!’
‘Have you thought about what would happen when they arrest you?’ demanded the Russian. ‘You’re a traitor, John. The worse kind of traitor. There won’t be any rules, any kindness. They’ll stretch you anyway they feel like – lie detector, chemicals, whatever – and when they’ve got all they want they’ll put you up before a court and you’ll get life. Can you imagine that, John? Life inside some penitentiary. Fresh meat, to be passed around and raped. Or maybe you’d get lucky: find someone with power inside who’d want to keep you for himself. Still have to sleep with him of course. Be his wife. Better than being gang-banged, though. Less chance of catching a disease: lot of disease in American jails, so I believe. AIDS.’
‘Stop it!’ pleaded Willick. ‘Please stop it!’
‘You like another drink?’
‘Yes.’
‘Large?’
‘Yes.’
As the fresh glasses were put before them the Russian said: ‘Not much of a choice really, is it?’
‘What would I have to do in Moscow?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Oleg honestly. ‘I was simply told that we would accept you, if you asked.’
‘When?’
‘How much time do you think you’ve got?’ asked Oleg.
‘I don’t know,’ said Willick despairingly.
‘Tomorrow might be too late,’ said the Russian. ‘What’s to stop you coming now?’
Nothing! thought Willick, in mounting excitement. All he had here were debts and hassle and an ex-wife in two weeks’ time due alimony that he didn’t have. It would be wonderful to turn his back on it all! Actually dump on Eleanor. He said: ‘How would I do it?’
‘You’ve got a passport?’
‘Yes.’
‘There’s a plane leaving here at eleven tonight, for Paris. Just go to our embassy there and you will be told the rest.’
‘You planned this?’ demanded Willick.
‘I told you before that we were your friends,’ reminded Oleg. ‘When I got your call I found out how it could be done. You’ve got a lot of time.’
‘I don’t have money for a ticket,’ remembered Willick.
Oleg passed a sealed envelope across the intervening chair, his hand concealed beneath the bar top. ‘Enough for first class.’
‘I could do it,’ said Willick, like a child trying to encourage its own endeavours.
‘Of course you could do it,’ supported Oleg.
‘I would go to jail, wouldn’t I?’
‘For life,’ said the Russian positively.
Willick shuddered and said: ‘I’ll never be able to repay you.’
‘I’m sure you will,’ said the man.
On the credit side Yuri decided there were advantages to being assigned special duties by the head of the First Chief Directorate. Unquestioningly Granov granted him monitoring authority to the UN-channelled correspondences, but more importantly the rezident did not object to Yuri living more at the 53rd Street apartment than at Riverdale. It meant Yuri was able to spend as much time as he wanted with Caroline, which he did rarely thinking of the breach of regulations or of any inherent dangers. He was guilty of so many breaches of regulations and faced so much inherent danger that the nights they were together seemed by comparison oases of normality and safety.
In no way, however, did he neglect the search for Yevgennie Levin because he realized that an obvious attack if he failed could be the accusation under some disciplinary code of professional incompetence in carrying out an order.
He grew convinced that the letters were the key. He assembled the family’s to Natalia and hers to them separately by date but connected them through a central graph upon which he listed what he regarded as potential clues to Levin’s whereabouts.
The punctuality of their replies confirmed what he regarded as the most positive indicator that Levin was on the east coast of America and not too far from New York. Because he controlled the letter flow, he was able to time precisely the handover of Natalia’s first letter after his return from Moscow, at three o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon. The intercepted response – from Galina – was not only dated the same day but timed, at eight o’clock the same evening. There had to be subtracted, of course, some unknown time against the delivery not being initiated immediately and for the period it would have taken for the mother to have read it, even guessing that she
