‘I believe the Americans are heavy on the ground,’ said Charlie.
‘If you confirm, you’ll get all the help you want,’ insisted Wilson. ‘And don’t you take any chances yourself.’
‘I never do,’ said Charlie, sincerely.
‘Sometimes, Charlie, sometimes,’ disputed the Director.
‘Don’t forget the passport,’ said Charlie, anxious to move what he knew to be a London-recorded conversation beyond the point where the refusal might later prove to be a positive order.
‘I won’t,’ undertook Wilson, who was as anxious as Charlie to progress, not wanting to restrict the man either. ‘And pouch the original photographs of Kozlov from your end. The quality of those you’ve wired is good but the originals will be better.’
‘I’d like to get something, before I meet Kozlov,’ said Charlie.
‘It’s been a good start,’ praised Wilson. ‘And there’s something else. Herbert Bell was positive. Well done.’
‘Brought him in?’
‘Better as a conduit at the moment,’ said Wilson. ‘Do as well on this. But be careful.’
‘It’s the same thing as not taking chances.’
After breaking the London connection Charlie packaged and sealed the photographs that Fredericks had supplied and signalled his emergence to the waiting Cartright.
‘London want this in the diplomatic bag,’ he said.
‘It’ll go tonight,’ guaranteed Cartright. Pointedly, the man said: ‘No problems?’
‘I asked London if there had been any change of heart about your involvement. Wilson forbade it,’ said Charlie. If the man were playing Sneaky Pete on Harkness’s instruction, invoking the Director’s authority might reduce his enthusiasm.
‘Why did you do that?’ asked Cartright.
‘Thought maybe that things should be re-clarified,’ said Charlie. He hoped Cartright got the message. He wondered if the man would attempt to open the sealed envelope of Kozlov’s pictures, to see what was inside. That’s what he would have done, in Cartright’s position. He knew Harry Lu would have opened it, as well.
Kozlov thoroughly swept his car electronically for any listening devices with Irena watching, but she was dissatisfied and insisted upon carrying out a second, independent check. When she was finally sure, they drove aimlessly around the streets of the darkened city, feeling safe to talk about Irena’s weekly encounter with Olga Balan.
‘You satisfied her?’ demanded Kozlov.
‘I’m positive,’ said his wife, at once.
Kozlov glanced briefly across the vehicle at the woman. ‘We shouldn’t be too confident,’ he warned.
‘What’s that supposed to mean!’ she said.
‘Just what it said.’
‘That
‘Both of us,’ said Kozlov, avoiding the dispute.
‘It was Kamakura, like you,’ said Irena. ‘She’d checked and it was obvious she didn’t like it that the CIA identification had the approval of Moscow.’
‘What about Kamakura?’
‘How we travelled,’ remembered the woman. ‘Whether I was aware of what you were doing all the time? And if you were aware of what I was doing.’
‘She believed you?’
‘I told you – she was satisfied,’ insisted Irena.
‘I think we should cover ourselves further,’ said the man.
‘How?’
‘Moscow knows how successful this apparent surveillance of the Americans has been. We should suggest extending the evaluation to the British.’
‘Why?’
‘The Americans want to meet again,’ disclosed Kozlov. ‘I’ve said the day after tomorrow.’
‘So the British have been brought in!’
‘It has to be that,’ agreed Kozlov. i want to take every precaution. Suggesting identifying the British will give us the same explanation that’s worked with the Americans.’
‘Nothing from Hayashi at the airport?’
‘Not yet. But I’ll tell him again what I want.’ Kozlov paused and said: ‘We know they’ll try to cheat. So I’ve guarded against that, too.’
‘How?’ she said.
‘I’ve got our own “safe” house,’ he said. Twisting the professional use of the word, Kozlov said: it’s going to keep you safe and it’s going to keep me safe.’
In the Rezidentura office at the Soviet embassy, Boris Filiatov rose to greet Olga Balan, smiling a greeting and offering vodka, which she refused. He didn’t take one either, because he was nervous of her reputation, like everyone else.
‘You consider we have a problem?’ he said. He was overly fat and greasy-skinned, the sort of man who perspired under the shower.
‘I do not like this operation that Irena Kozlov has initiated,’ announced the woman.
Identifying the man called Yuri Kozlov turned out to be remarkably – and in a truly literal sense comparatively – simple. And there was an irony in the fact that it was made so by the American pictures from which Washington appeared to have learned nothing. Britain’s counter-espionage service, MI5, has since 1965 maintained current and past photofiles on all known Soviet personnel who have served in any capacity, either diplomatic or trade, in the country. In 1976, for speed analysis, the entire system was computerized under a system in which photographs can be compared not side by side but from physiognomy characteristics, and four years later it was updated with technological improvements which enable a thousand images an hour to be considered. General Sir Alistair Wilson, who in the 1950s Malaysian campaign led his Ghurka troops on horseback and wore a regimental sword, was a committed believer – and user – of technology. While he was still considering the incoming cable from Charlie – before, even, they talked on the secure line – Wilson invoked the internal agency’s technical help at Director-to- Director level but guided by Charlie restricted the picture comparison to Russians appointed to trade rather than diplomatic positions.
The computer recognition is not positive; it singles out similar or matching characteristics, requiring final identification to be made by visual examination. By mid-afternoon, London time, thirty possibilities had been electronically pulled from MI5’s picture library, and by the time Wilson summoned his deputy to Earl Grey tea and digestive biscuits the photographs which Charlie had wired only hours before lay beside three separate stock prints of a Russian attached to the Highgate Trade Centre from 1976 until 1981.
‘The name then,’ disclosed Wilson, consulting the accompanying files, ‘was Gordik: Ivan Gordik.’
Harkness stood at the Director’s side, staring down. Two of the London prints illustrated the man they knew to be Kozlov at what appeared to be reception-like functions. The other, obviously snatched by a concealed camera, showed his getting into a car. ‘It’s the same man,’ Harkness said. ‘There can’t be the slightest doubt.’
‘There isn’t,’ said Wilson. ‘To be absolutely sure I’ve had our analysts confirm it. Gordik is Kozlov: or Kozlov is
