Her! Surely Orlov wasn’t thinking of abandoning everything for a woman! Would he, for Ann? He’d abandoned his first marriage and two kids, he realised. But told her she could leave, if she didn’t like the idea of backing him in Moscow. Except that he hadn’t meant it and been terrified she might call his bluff. Blair looked quickly at the Russian again. The man was supposed to be married, he remembered, from the file.
‘Who?’ he said.
‘There is someone in New York,’ said Orlov awkwardly.
‘She’ll need to be contacted,’ said Blair. ‘Protected.’
‘Not yet,’ insisted Orlov. ‘I don’t want her alarmed until everything is settled and confirmed.’
Could he give such a positive assurance? Langley were going to go apeshit over something like this and he couldn’t predict what promises they’d keep. He said, ‘Is that a condition?’
‘Yes,’ said Orlov at once.
‘Do you have any others?’ asked the American, avoiding the commitment.
The question seemed to surprise Orlov. ‘Just to be got safely out,’ he said.
In contradiction to what Orlov had done and the echelon he’d reached, Blair decided there was almost a naivety about the man. The records were full of cases of defectors demanding millions of dollars, houses with three-car garages and every car a Cadillac. ‘We’ll need to know the name of the person in New York,’ said Blair.
‘She will not be pressured?’ demanded Orlov.
‘I will let my people know fully how you feel,’ said Blair. It was the best he could do.
‘I’ll want their assurance, before I will consider going any further.’
Naive or not he was a pretty good negotiator. ‘Of course,’ accepted Blair. ‘I need the name.’
‘Johnson,’ said Orlov shortly. ‘Harriet Johnson. She is a senior translator at the United Nations.’
Wanting to move the Russian on and knowing the man’s needs, he said, ‘I will contact Washington tonight. But it will be necessary for us to meet again, obviously.’
‘Of course,’ said Orlov. ‘Where?’
Blair looked around him and said, ‘Public places are good. But not here again.’ Remembering the trip up river he said, ‘Do you know the Krasnaya Park?’
‘Of course.’
‘There is a statue, near the central walkway. An archer. There.’
‘When?’
‘It isn’t possible now to fix times. So we’ll make floating arrangements.’
‘Floating arrangements?’
‘Which is best, day or evening?’
‘Day,’ replied Orlov at once. It had been difficult tonight avoiding the meeting with Sevin.
‘Noon then, every Friday. This week it is only two days away, by which time I’ll have a full reaction from Washington.’
‘Everything will be arranged quickly?’
‘As quickly as possible,’ said Blair, giving the repeated assurance. It would understandably be the man’s main preoccupation.
‘It isn’t easy,’ said Orlov.
‘No.’
‘I’m very frightened.’
‘Everything will be all right,’ promised Blair.
‘I will be accused of being a traitor, won’t I?’
Blair was unsure what response the man wanted. Orlov wasn’t a fool, he thought. He said, ‘Yes, you will be labelled a traitor.’
Momentarily Orlov’s head went forward on to his chest. He said, his voice muffled, ‘I won’t betray my country. I will talk to your people because I know I must give something but I won’t betray my country, not completely.’
He would, thought Blair. He might set out not intending to – have assurances that it wasn’t expected – but the debriefings would go on and on, chipping and prodding until Orlov had been picked clean, like a skeleton after the vultures had left. ‘I understand,’ said Blair. It wasn’t a discussion – or even a consideration-for him.
‘Noon, at Krasnaya,’ confirmed Orlov.
‘And let neither of us panic, if for any reason it’s impossible. It won’t be for me, I can assure you. But it might be for you. If you can’t make it, then I’ll be there again the same time the following Friday. That’s what floating arrangement means.’
‘I’m not sure I could wait that long,’ said Orlov.
‘Don’t take any chances,’ warned Blair. ‘If you panic everything could be destroyed.’
‘I won’t panic,’ promised Orlov.
‘It’s important,’ stressed Blair.
‘It’s a strange feeling,’ said Orlov. ‘Frightened, like I said. I can’t imagine how my life is going to change, not really.’
I know just how mine is going to change, thought Blair.
Washington’s reaction was as frantic as Blair expected it to be. It took a long time to make the exchanges, because they used the highest security ciphers and during a lull in transmission Blair telephoned Ann to tell her not to wait up and she said she wouldn’t. Langley cabled for him to give any undertaking Orlov required and to assure the man of their complete and absolute protection. Halfway through the exchanges the cables started to be signed by the Director himself, congratulations first, then demands for clarification on points Blair felt he had already made clear. One of the last messages was the demand that he return personally to Washington, which Blair agreed to do but successfully argued against immediate recall, to enable him to make the Friday meeting with Orlov.
It was late, almost four in the morning, before Blair eased himself as carefully as possible beside Ann, into a bed that Brinkman had vacated five hours before.
Brinkman was awake, in another part of the foreign complex. Ann hadn’t known anything – he hadn’t expected her to – but Blair’s earlier-than-ever departure and later-than-ever return meant something important was happening; vitally important. He’d requested a lot from London without giving any reason – because he didn’t know any reason – and he expected it to arrive during the day in the diplomatic pouch, because he’d designated it fullest priority. But Brinkman had no idea of what he was looking for. Like trying to find the right road in a thick fog, he thought; Brinkman hated the feeling of helplessness.
The KGB surveillance squad who lost Blair before he got to the Ploshchad Metro knew something of the same discomfort. But they were street operators who spent all the time in apparently meaningless pursuits which always produced nothing and their feeling was fleeting. Just like their uncertainty about what to do. To report the loss would create an inquest – even a charge and an enquiry – and it wasn’t worth it. Among themselves they agreed to be more careful in future and not report this time their failing.
Pravda named Orlov as being one of the Russians who attended the American embassy reception and because it was the first public occasion since die elections and had been a quiet day for foreign news, the New York Times carried a small picture from which she was able to identify him, unsmiling and upright alongside Didenko. Harriet read both reports several times and then stared at the picture, wanting it to tell her something. They’d agreed, during their innocent, grossly incomplete planning that because she was in New York, the approach when he made it would have to be to the Americans. So this had to be it! It had to mean that all her doubts and uncertainties had been stupid and that Pietr was coming, as he’d always promised he would. Harriet felt embarrassed now, at not trusting him. A contradiction came into her mind, the first small cloud that indicates a storm. The picture could also mean that he was being groomed for greater promotion; he was, after all, directly next to Didenko. And that he might be finding the choice difficult. No, she thought, positively. It didn’t mean that at all. It meant he was coming, like she’d always known he would.
‘Hurry,’ she whispered aloud. ‘Please hurry, my darling.’
Chapter Twenty-Five
