The Blind Spy

directed events rather than being directed by them.

Logan had been urged by a butler to sit in a chair on the far side of the table where he now half slouched, sipping a glass of water and contemplating how this approach from Taras Tur had suddenly and perhaps fortuitously, put him at the centre of events. Burt turned from studying some papers Logan couldn’t see and rested his eyes for a minute on his brilliant, if sometimes wayward, operative.

“Do you believe him?” Burt asked mildly. “That’s what I want to know. What does your instinct tell you, Logan? How could this SBU officer possibly know the identity of our agent?”

As Logan looked back into Burt’s eyes he saw they contained an expressionless stare that was unusual for him, but there was none of the hostility he’d received at their last meeting. Burt was the picture of calm, his genial self apparently unruffled by the prospect of time trickling away towards the deadline.

“I don’t know if we can afford not to believe him,” Logan replied. “It seems he has all the cards. We disbelieve him at our peril.”

“But that isn’t the same thing,” Burt replied with what seemed to Logan a deliberately exaggerated patience, like a long-suffering schoolteacher’s. “It’s not the answer to the question I asked you, in fact. Never mind ‘affording not to.’ Do you believe him?” he repeated. “That’s what I most want to know. You were there, my boy. As always, I value your judgement of human character.”

Logan thought for a moment about his meeting with Taras and the two times he had met the Ukrainian before. If you forgot he worked for a foreign intelligence service, Taras was an honest man, at least in Logan’s opinion. He found he liked him, despite his recent—and out of character—aggression towards him at the meeting in the car. There was a quality of innocence in Taras that, perhaps, reawakened some lost innocence of Logan’s own. But if it did, he drove it underground again; it was too painful to look in the face. Nevertheless, Taras’s obvious sincerity had made Logan feel connected in a way that he hadn’t felt when he’d met Taras on previous occasions. In fact, in his opinion—now that he thought about it more closely—Taras seemed to be operating at a personal level rather than being the dumb automaton of the SBU. Logan didn’t understand why he thought that—or why the Ukrainian would be acting outside the parameters of his job at all. It was just an instinct. There was something about Taras’s brand of anxiety in the car that went beyond the regular strictures of a job and into the realm of the personal. It was a fine distinction, but it made all the difference.

“If I had to say one thing or the other,” Logan said carefully, “I’d have to say I believed him. He knows, though God knows how he knows.”

“Good,” Burt said and stood up to his full five feet nine inches, his eyes alight with possibilities and a beaming smile fixed once more on his chubby face.

Why the news that a Ukrainian spy knew the identity of one of Burt’s Russian agents in Moscow should make Burt content, however, Logan couldn’t fathom.

“Good?” he queried, in genuine incomprehension. “How is it good?”

“We know where we stand,” Burt said. “If you’re right—and I trust your instincts—we know what’s happening. Let’s say he knows exactly who our agent is. That’s very valuable to him. And it’s valuable to us that we know it about him. We can use this Taras, perhaps.”

Logan didn’t ask Burt how he intended to do that when the boot seemed to be firmly on the other foot. Taras was in a winning position, in Logan’s view.

“Are you going to let Anna make the contact with him, then?” he asked.

Burt stroked his chins. “We must,” he said at last. “We must treat it as good fortune. We must see what happens when they meet.”

“But revealing the agent’s identity is going to be a threat he’ll always be able to hold over Cougar’s head,” Logan said. “Not just this time. If we deal with him now, he can use the threat again and again.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Burt said, and he evinced an almost complete lack of concern at the prospect. Then he turned to Logan. He looked at him for a long time, until Logan began to feel uncomfortable. “Logan, I’m going to ask you something very important,” Burt said. “A change of plan. It’s something of personal importance to me, not just to Cougar’s business. I want you to go down there, to Sevastopol. I can’t withdraw Larry to brief him, he’s needed there, on the spot, looking after Anna’s back. So I want it to be you, Logan. Let’s say I want it to be you anyway, Larry or no Larry. This could be the most important assignment of your life.”

“She won’t like it. Neither will Larry. You know that. Neither of them trust me.” Logan’s voice betrayed some bitterness, despite his attempt to be unemotional.

“Maybe they won’t. She doesn’t trust you, that’s true. But she has her reasons. Here’s a chance to start rebuilding that trust. Look at it that way.”

“What’s she doing in the Crimea?” Logan asked bluntly.

“That I can’t say,” Burt replied. “It’s unimportant. It’s not relevant,” he added, correcting himself.

“I’m not in the need-to-know loop, you mean.”

Burt raised his eyebrows slightly, but his voice was regulated, friendly, paying Logan compliments he hadn’t paid him in some time. “Look, Logan. I’m doing everything possible to square a complicated situation. You can help me. I will value it highly.”

“Theo wants Cougar out of the area completely. You know that. We shouldn’t be there at all.”

“I’m glad you said ‘we,’” Burt replied slyly. “Theo will also want to be squared about the situation—and other things—shortly. But we’ll come to that later, when this is over.”

“They’re going to board the Pride of Corsica by force,” Logan said.

“I had heard. Who’s they?” Burt said, ignoring what the CIA chief wanted Cougar to do, to vacate the Crimea and leave it free for the CIA, the Russians, the Brits…anybody, it seemed, as long as it wasn’t Cougar.

“Us—the CIA, the Russians, and the British. It’s going to be a joint assault team just like the recce was.”

“Of course,” Burt said, and appeared deep in thought. “The Russians have got the CIA and the British involved in a joint operation.” He looked back at Logan. “That’s the way they’d do it,” he said mysteriously. “Do we have a date for this assault?” Burt asked.

“No,” Logan said. “Not as far as I know.”

“Then I’ll speak to Theo,” Burt replied. He looked hard at Logan again. “You think you can do this right?” he said. “Meet with Larry and Anna? It’s you who will pick up Taras’s message at this drugstore in Sevastopol, then relay it to Anna. I don’t want her walking into an ambush, so it has to be someone else. You’re ideal, Logan. You’ve always been one of the best.”

“Why wouldn’t I be able to do it?” Logan said, ignoring more of Burt’s easy flattery. “It’s just being a messenger boy, isn’t it? Just the usual job of Burt’s bagman.”

Burt leaned down to the table, putting his big hands palms down flat against the surface. “It may be the most important thing you ever do for Cougar, Logan. For me, too. And certainly for Anna. Not to mention our agent in Moscow, of course, whose life may well depend on it.” Burt surveyed Logan once again before continuing. “But it also may be the most important thing you ever do for yourself. Think about that. Understand where your best interests lie. This may well be a moment of truth for you. You understand the importance of this? It’s not just conveying a message to Anna so that she can meet the Ukrainian. It’s about the implications of the message and the actions that will follow. In my opinion, we’re nearing the point of explosion.”

“If you say so, Burt,” Logan replied and stood up to peel off the top of a cold beer that was standing in an ice bucket.

“At times like this,” Burt said, “we all behave in character, no matter what happens.”

Logan had no idea what he meant by this, but he automatically felt himself under some critical glare and it made him defensive.

“When do I go?” he asked.

“At once,” Burt said. “Talk to our travel people, they’re expecting you.” He handed Logan a ship phone. “Get a flight to Odessa, then a flight to Simferol. A car from there.” He took out a pen and wrote a coded number on a scrap of paper. “This is Larry,” he said, indicating the number. “I’ll tell him you’re on the way.”

“I’m sure he’ll be delighted.”

Logan took an afternoon flight from Athens to Istanbul and then connected to a flight for Odessa. He checked into a small hotel on Odessa’s waterfront, drank at several bars along the strip that were just waking up for the summer, chatted to two pretty teenage girls who said they were dancers, slept a little, and took the first flight to Simferol on the following morning. From there it was a long taxi ride to Sevastopol.