Brinkman was very conscious of Orlov’s fear. He said, ‘Not on the flight from Moscow. The men who are going to snatch you are experts. There’s no need – no need at all – for you to be frightened that everything won’t go as I’ve said it will. An hour after the Aeroflot flight, there’s a British Airways service to London. I shall be on it. By the time you get to Northolt, I’ll be there to meet you.’
‘You promise?’ demanded Orlov, urgently.
‘I promise,’ assured Brinkman. It was fortunate they had time to consider everything and recognise Orlov would have the need for someone he knew. He said, ‘I’ll be there to meet you and I’ll stay with you.’ That hadn’t been part of the planning but Brinkman couldn’t imagine Maxwell objecting.
‘What about Harriet?’ said Orlov.
‘We’re doing exactly what you asked,’ said Brinkman. ‘The moment you’re safe people already waiting and ready in New York will bring her to you, in England…’ He allowed the pause. ‘Believe me,’ he said. ‘Everything has been thought of.’
‘I wish there wasn’t so long to wait.’
‘Only two days!’ insisted Brinkman. ‘You’ve waited a long time. You can wait just two more days.’
‘You mean what you say? You won’t try to cheat or trick me?’
He deserved the question, Brinkman accepted, unoffended. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll not cheat you. Everything will happen as I’ve promised it will.’
‘We will not see each other again, until London?’
Brinkman knew there was nothing he could do to allay Orlov’s fear of being left alone. He said, ‘Not until London. But you can do it!’
‘I hope I can,’ said Orlov, honestly.
‘Until London,’ said Brinkman.
‘There’s no way we can get into contact?’ blurted Orlov, not wanting Brinkman to put down the telephone.
‘You know there isn’t,’ said Brinkman sternly, trying to infuse confidence into the other man.
‘Until London,’ accepted Orlov, his voice uneven.
‘I’ll buy the champagne, for you and Harriet,’ said Brinkman, grandiosely.
He replaced the receiver, switched off his radio and hurried away from the kiosk in the direction of the nearest metro station. Everything settled, he thought complacently, settling himself into a seat and watching his own reflection in the darkened glass facing him. Everything except Ann. It was while he was thinking of her that his mind ran on and he realised, worriedly, that his planning might not be as perfect as he thought. Brinkman came slightly forward in his seat at the awareness, worried at the oversight. He had intended going back to the apartment but instead re-routed himself to the embassy, where the files were. It took him two hours of concentrated reading to go through the back copies of Pravda and Izvestia and the smaller publications and the Tass tapes, alert for any disclosure of the delegation. He found it in an issue of Pravda eight days earlier, his apprehension immediate until he read it through. It was an announcement of the delegation and the countries it was visiting but contained no details of its composition. With a date as a guide, Brinkman checked the Tass wires for that day. They’d carried the story but again omitted any names. He’d been lucky, Brinkman decided, relaxing; there was no way Blair could have learned that Orlov was among a group of people going abroad.
Now it really was only Ann. Brinkman risked the call to her apartment – something he didn’t normally do because of the danger of Blair being there – and, intent once more upon omens, decided from the tone in her voice that she was pleased to hear from him.
‘I’m leaving,’ he declared abruptly.
‘What!’
There couldn’t be any mistaking the feeling in her voice that time, thought Brinkman.
‘Thursday,’ he said. ‘Everything’s happened very suddenly.’
‘For good?’
‘Yes.’
It was what she wanted, thought Ann, at the other end of the telephone. Or what she imagined she wanted. Now it was happening – happening the way she’d prayed it would, when he was last in London – she wasn’t so sure. ‘Will I see you again?’
‘That’s the decision I’ve been asking you to make, for weeks.’
‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘I’m not going until Thursday night.’
‘I think Eddie is going to be at the embassy all day. I could telephone.’
‘I’ll wait for your call. And Ann?’
‘Yes?’
‘I want a decision.’
And he knew how to get it, Brinkman decided. He’d held back, until now, but he couldn’t any longer. He’d spell out to her how long she’d have to stay in Moscow – exaggerate if he had to – and tell her if she doubted him directly to challenge Blair to try to get a definite time. Brinkman was sure that would sway it. He wished he hadn’t had to use it, as the final pressure; that she’d found it easier to choose between them. But she hadn’t; so there it was.
He intended to leave Moscow with everything he wanted. Everything.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The senior of the two men whom Langley sent was a supervisor -the same grade as Blair – named Art Blakey. The younger man was Harry King who said please call him Hank: everybody did. There was an understandable embarrassment between them, more for the newcomers than for Blair. Blakey said they were sons of bitches at Langley, stretching the metaphor by saying all they did was piss up each other’s legs and that he was sorry they’d been sent and he knew damned well Blair didn’t need any help on anything. Blair said it didn’t matter, but thanks. He suggested they carry out a full reconnaissance of Krasnaya and they both agreed at once, deferring to him and making it quite clear they expected him to act as the leader of the group. It was obvious, of course, that they couldn’t go together. Blair identified Krasnaya on a map and explained the subway system and how the buses worked and what the route numbers were and isolated the hotels and the stores – GUM naturally first – which he thought best to clear their trail.
They let King go ahead. It was his first foreign assignment and the better experienced men realised he might need more time to find his way around an unfamiliar city. Paradoxically it was King who managed to evade the surveillance, cleverly mingling with a group of American tourists leaving the Druzhba Hotel on Vernadskovo Prospekt and managing to reach Red Square on their coach before the Intourist guide discovered him. King disembarked pleading confusion and spent more time losing himself among other visitors around Lenin’s tomb before setting out for the destination where they were to rendezvous.
The KGB observation team located Art Blakey as he left the embassy and by the time Sokol gained the communication centre the news had already been received of Blair’s departure. Sokol hunched over the now familiar table, unnecessarily reciting the coordinates of the two men’s movements around the capital as they were radioed in, marking fresh route marks on his map. Both were making obvious attempts at evasion. So could this be it, whatever it was? Sokol checked his duty roster, reminding himself that he had forty men assigned to the surveillance, deciding at once to increase the cover. He snapped out a series of orders to the men grouped around in the control room, ordering mobilisation of the street reserves and demanding access to every vehicle and operator in the basement motor-pool. As he issued the instructions Sokol realised that the information of such an assembly would naturally be communicated to the chairman four floors above so having made his dispositions he called Panov on the internal telephone. The KGB chairman listened without any interruption until Sokol finished and then said, ‘I think you’re right to take the precaution.’
It was obviously unthinkable that the chairman of the KGB should descend to the control room but he had the technicians activate the switching apparatus that enabled him to listen simultaneously to the information that was being relayed in and to Sokol’s instructions, on the outward channel.
