Comrade Charlie

Krogh lifted and dropped his shoulders, wanting to get away from the other man. He said: ‘I suppose so. I’ve got to get back to the plant.’

Petrin smiled again, signalling for the waiter. ‘Let me settle the bill this time,’ he said. ‘After all, I’m the satisfied customer, aren’t I?’

It was just the sort of luck that Henry Blackstone was seeking and he seized it at once, actually feeling more excited than guilty when it happened. There was scarcely guilt at all.

He never found out the reason but late one Thursday the request came from the secret project section to the general drawing office for some specimen and no-longer-classified blueprints of a fin design for which the firm had unsuccessfully tendered during the European Ariane space programme. And Blackstone, who’d taken part in the European development, was deputed to be the intermediary. Which gave him temporary security accreditation to get inside the fenced-off area.

Blackstone carried more drawings than were necessary, all enclosed in cardboard storage tubes. Inside the secure building he intentionally took the wrong route along the wrong corridor, trawling for anything he could find. There were a number of small offices equipped with drawing boards, built around a larger, communal design and tracing area. He stopped at two on the pretext of getting directions for where he wanted to go, and saw the chance at once. Blackstone had timed his entry to be very close to clocking-off time, when everyone was packing up for the day, and at both small offices Blackstone identified the procedure being followed to protect what was being created. Each draughtsman and tracer was taking whatever was on his board into the larger, communal room to be logged and stored in a drawing locker sealed by a combination device. But only the top sheet design, leaving the impressedupon backing paper still upon the board. Blackstone lingered in the corridor near the second office, supposedly checking the tubes he was carrying to decide which he had to hand over, until the occupant of the second office left to secure his day’s work. It took Blackstone less than a minute to re-enter the room, roll up the undipped backing paper and fit it into one of the superfluous tubes and regain the corridor again.

Heart hammering, Blackstone completed what he was officially there to do, apologized for bringing the unnecessary extra drawings and was back in his own office within the half hour. Done it! he thought euphorically: he’d done it and got away with it!

By working lightly over the paper with a softleaded pencil Blackstone was able to trace the outline of the blueprint that had been created on top of it – of a support arm and connecting rods – although some of the specification lettering was too indistinct for him to decipher. It was not important, he decided. He had sufficient to re-create the blueprint. And not just one. He’d divide it into two and deliver them separately, to get two payments. And the temporary security access lasted until he had to collect the Ariane designs! So he could go inside again, before he was summoned to make that collection!

17

When the summons came for Berenkov to meet directly with scientific officials utilizing the American Star Wars information, without having everything filtered through Kalenin, the circumstances emerged to be not at all what he wanted, in any respect. There was initially, however, no hint of what was to come. The demand that he be prepared within two hours to leave Moscow, for the space centre at Baikonur, was perhaps peremptory but there had been such short-notice requests in the past, on other things, so he felt no particular concern driving out to Vnukovo airport. Rather, there was a satisfied anticipation: the first blueprint from England had arrived three days before so they were receiving material from the two sources at last. The likeliest explanation could only be personal congratulation, although another commendation so soon was probably too much to expect. His rank and position placed Berenkov beyond the airport formalities required even for internal travelling in the Soviet Union. That he expected. He did not expect it to be a special military flight: it was the first indication of an emergency suggested by the two-hour departure limit. Kalenin was already in a VIP lounge reserved for government officials, serious- faced but calm, one of the Havana cigars he so much enjoyed filling the room with its aroma.

‘What is it?’ demanded Berenkov at once.

Kalenin made an uncertain shoulder movement. ‘I’ve not been told. Just to come, like you.’

Berenkov’s customary ebullient confidence dipped. He said: ‘It has to be serious for us to be called all the way to Baikonur.’

‘That’s pretty obvious,’ said Kalenin.

‘But what!’ said Berenkov. ‘We’re getting it all now, from both sources!’

Kalenin shook his head. ‘It’s ludicrous, trying to speculate. We’ll just have to wait.’

An airport official came hesitantly into the room, accompanied by a man in an undesignated military uniform to say their flight was ready. Berenkov hunched behind the other man out to the transporter, a shrouded grey-green shape in the darkness. There was no pretence at all about comfort. Only three sets of webbing seats had been rigged across the empty hull, which elsewhere remained cavernous and empty. The chemical toilet was behind a pull-round canvas curtain, the smell of its germicidal disinfectant quite heavy already. A coarse strap was looped across the seats to secure themselves for take-off. Neither Kalenin nor Berenkov bothered. A flight sergeant came to them almost at once after they cleared Moscow airspace to offer food but neither Kalenin nor Berenkov bothered about that, either. Fleetingly Berenkov considered asking if there were anything to drink but decided against it.

Kalenin shifted uncomfortably in his seat and said: ‘It would have been good if we could have got some rest.’

‘There’s no point in trying,’ said Berenkov. Could Kalenin really have slept, going towards so much uncertainty? The other man had lighted another cigar and Berenkov was grateful because it smelled better than the toilet chemicals. There appeared to be no heating and Berenkov thrust his hands into his topcoat pockets and burrowed his head down deeply into its collar. What! he demanded of himself. What could have gone wrong, so soon after the praise of the commendation? Kalenin was right about the stupidity of speculating, but Berenkov wanted something, some warning how to prepare himself for what was to come. He looked across the cold, vibrating aircraft to where Kalenin was huddled, like himself apart from the hand holding the cigar. It might be safer to follow Kalenin’s lead, Berenkov thought, with rare modesty. The bearded man was a survivor of several previous regimes, adept at adjusting to headquarter circumstances and politics. One thought prompted another, this one disquieting. He’d been excluded from all such meetings until now, when it appeared there might be a problem. Was his inclusion the decision of the KGB chairman or the Politburo? Or of Kalenin, seeking a scapegoat?

A curtained limousine, a Zil, was already drawing towards the steps when the door swung back for their disembarkation. As he descended towards it Berenkov saw they were at neither a civilian nor a military airfield but at the facility for the space centre itself. It was far more extensive in ground area than a normal airport and there was none of the usual closetogether cluster of administration buildings or hangars. What office quarters there were appeared very distant, to their left. There were at least three radar towers, each with static and revolving antennae, and a fenced-off expanse of various-sized storage tanks. Around the fencing were a lot of signs warning of the danger of highly inflammable contents: some of the bigger tanks had a shimmering aura of mist or steam, the sort of reaction Berenkov associated with something very cold being exposed to air.

It was thankfully warm inside the car. The vehicle set off towards the far-away office block and as they got nearer Berenkov saw quite close to it an odd assortment of crane-like structures which he assumed at once to be mobile support gantries, for rockets, but which to him looked more like the skeletal derricks of oil exploration equipment.

‘You know what this looks like to me?’ said Kalenin, beside him. ‘This is how I’d imagine some moon station to be. You see how very few people there are about?’

The place was oddly deserted, acknowledged Berenkov. He said: ‘I suppose it’s a fitting appearance for the sort of work that goes on.’

At the main buildings, which turned out to be of two storeys with a glassed dome forming a third level, they were escorted by security personnel through a zig-zag of corridors before being ushered into a small conference