and Pietr will be completely protected. There’ll be accommodation and whatever money you want, for as long as you want. In time you’ll be set up with new identities… new everything…’
‘Why?’ she said, unable to sustain the outburst, the plea coming back into her voice. ‘Why?’
‘I’ve already told you,’ said Brinkman. ‘ We want Pietr.’
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head more determinedly this time. ‘No. Not until I’ve had a chance to talk it over with Pietr. I won’t do anything until I know what he wants.’
‘That can’t happen,’ said Brinkman. ‘Isn’t possible.’
‘Why not?’ she demanded defiantly.
‘Because if Pietr doesn’t come to us he’s not going anywhere. You’re never going to see him again.’
‘What!’
‘You heard what I said.’
‘No,’ she said again, holding her hands together before her, as if she were praying. ‘No. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe any of this. I don’t know what you want or what you’re doing but it’s some sort of trick.’
‘It isn’t, Harriet,’ said Brinkman evenly. ‘This is the way – the only way – that you’ll ever get Pietr out of Moscow. Our way.’
She leaned forward, determined to concentrate. ‘Tell me what you mean,’ she said. ‘Tell me exactly what you mean.’
One of the highest hurdles of them all, thought Brinkman. ‘You’ve a way to contact Pietr?’ he said.
Her uncertainty was just a moment too long. ‘No,’ she said.
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Pietr said it would be dangerous; too dangerous. That I had to trust him.’
‘Pity,’ said Brinkman.
‘Why?’
‘Like I said, if we can’t have him, no one’s going to.’
‘How can you stop it?’
Brinkman laughed at the innocence of her question. ‘By ensuring that the Soviet authorities come to know what’s happening, before Pietr has a chance to get out.’
‘What!’ erupted the woman.
‘You haven’t listened to me,’ remonstrated Brinkman. ‘I’ve already told you – several times – that if he doesn’t come to the British he isn’t going anywhere.’
‘You wouldn’t!’
‘You prepared to take that chance?’ said Brinkman. ‘Please don’t. Because I would. Really I would.’
‘Mother-fucker!’ she shouted, the worst abscenity she could find.
‘Yes,’ agreed Brinkman, unoffended, his voice conversational.
‘But… but… I can’t believe you. I just can’t believe that anyone would think…’ Her voice trailed as her mind blocked, refusing the words to express her disgust.
‘I would,’ said Brinkman. ‘Really I would. Now, what’s the way of contacting Pietr?’
Harriet started to cry and Brinkman sat back easily, letting her. She seemed suddenly aware of his calmly being there, watching her and brought herself to a snuffling halt. She blew her nose and scrubbed her hands across her eyes. ‘Mother-fucker,’ she repeated, broken-voiced.
Brinkman let her have the last moment of defiance. ‘The system,’ he said. ‘What’s the system?’
She blew her nose a second time, composing herself. ‘Pietr knew he was going back to a favoured position…’ she began, haltingly. ‘I don’t think he anticipated what would happen – he never said so and I know he would have done – but he expected the privileges. He was allowed some here. One was books. He was allowed to keep a book account here, through the UN service. And to let it stay open, when he went back to Moscow. If there were an emergency – but only the most extreme emergency – I was to get myself a book… it didn’t matter what because if he hadn’t ordered it himself he’d know it was from me… and go through my own copy picking out letters in the third chapter that spelled out what I wanted to say. Under the letters I had to put a tiny pin-prick. When the book reached him, he’d search the third chapter and pick out the message.’
Not brilliant but not bad either, conceded Brinkman. He said, ‘How could you get the marked book back into the UN system?’
‘It had to be one with several copies in the bookshop there,’ she explained. ‘Having made my message, I had to go back and switch. Take an unmarked one for myself – for which I’d have the purchase ticket anyway – and personally hand the marked copy to the desk clerk and tell her it had to be charged to Pietr Orlov’s account.’
‘Send him a book tomorrow,’ ordered Brinkman. He wished there were something more guaranteed.
‘Saying what?’
It was a good question and he hadn’t worked it out, realised Brinkman. For safety, it had to be kept to the minimum. Just a meeting then; knowing it was from Harriet, Orlov would make a meeting. And if the KGB intercepted it, they’d keep it too. As Maxwell said, the risk was appalling. ‘Have you a paper and pen?’ he said.
While she fetched it, Brinkman tried to think of a meeting place. It had to be somewhere public, with as many people as possible. A place where Orlov could explainably be, if he were seen. Himself, too. He smiled, when it came to him. Appropriate, too. The Bolshoi was one of his favourite places, after all. When Harriet returned he printed out the name in block capitals, then paused. The place. What about the date and time? A date was impossible, because he didn’t know how long it would take the book to reach the Russian. Every Tuesday, he wrote. Then, seven-thirty, north entrance. Anything else? He looked up at the woman and said, ‘Only in an emergency?’
‘That was the arrangement,’ she said. ‘I’ve never used it.’
To the message Brinkman added ‘urgent’. Orlov would come, if he got it, Brinkman decided. It was still uncertain; too uncertain. ‘There was no other way?’ he said.
‘No,’ said the woman.
What about Harriet? thought Brinkman. Was there any need to get her out of New York? Not really. Orlov was the one who mattered. If they got him, arrangements for a reunion could be made anywhere, anywhen. Suddenly for her to disappear would only alarm the CIA and cause unnecessary ripples. What if the Agency changed the operation and made a direct approach? And she told them? A gamble, Brinkman recognised. He said, ‘You want to see Pietr again?’
‘That’s a ridiculous question.’
‘Then do what I’ve told you and we’ll get him out and he’ll be with you, for good. But try anything else… adding something extra to the message, for instance. Or imagining some protection if you make a direct approach to the Americans and I guarantee – I absolutely guarantee – that you’ll never see him again.’
Brinkman didn’t enjoy the bullying but decided it was necessary. In front of him the woman’s lip quivered, briefly, but she managed to hold back from actually breaking down.
‘What happens, when he gets out?’ she said.
‘We’ll put you together,’ said Brinkman. ‘I’ve promised you that.’
‘I meant about Pietr. Do you imagine he’ll cooperate with you – and that’s why you’re doing all this, I know, in the hope that he’ll cooperate – after what you’ve done!’
Brinkman smiled sympathetically at her attempted threat. ‘Of course he will,’ he said.
‘Don’t be a bloody fool!’ she said.
‘Don’t you be a bloody fool, Harriet. The houses in which you’ll live for the rest of your lives and the money you’ll have and the protection you’ll have will all depend on the degree of cooperation that Pietr provides. You should know what the Russians are like. How long do you think he’d survive – you’d survive – if your whereabouts became known and there was no protection?’
Harriet looked at him, eyes bulged with a combination of astonishment and horror. ‘You are,’ she said, as if she still couldn’t believe it, ‘you are an absolute fucking bastard.’
‘Don’t let me have to prove just how much of one,’ said Brinkman.
The strain was showing and because he was aware of it Orlov became further unsettled, discourteous to secretaries and chauffeurs – which he’d never been before – and unnecessarily critical to assistants and aides, blaming them for his own oversights and mistakes.
Habits had grown within habits for his regular meetings with Sevin. Determined that the agricultural policy paper should be the document firmly to establish Orlov’s ascendancy, Sevin had initiated the practice of Orlov taking
