“But I don’t cover that sort of work any longer. You know that. You were there when they told me that my role was running an espionage network.”
“And they still want that. But I ask you to delegate as much of that work as you can and give me the information I need.”
“Why do they want me in Moscow?”
“Just a routine meeting. They’re satisfied with what you’re doing. I guess they’ll want to extend your brief. If any of them start fishing around on Kremlin politics … you don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s nothing to do with you. Your mind is on your network in New York. Understood?”
“Yes.”
“Will you help me?”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Was it all just a dream, and doomed to failure?”
“No. If I thought that I wouldn’t go back to Moscow. I’d just disappear. Mexico or Brazil. I want the dream to at least have a chance to succeed. If we can show that it works in the Soviet Union the rest of the world might be ready to try it themselves. Not by occupation or force of arms or threats. But because it’s good.”
“OK, Jakob. I’ll help you any way I can.”
Lensky smiled. “Tonight I’ll sleep in peace and I haven’t done that for a long while.”
“You’ve given me a lot to think about. How can we keep in touch without going through channels?”
“I’ve got a friend in New York. You can talk to her as if you were talking to me. She’ll pass on anything, verbal or otherwise. I’ll give you her address when I see you off on the plane from Moscow. You’ll be flying via Stockholm.”
The meetings in Moscow had been routine. They had added two more targets to his brief. One of them was a report on the FBI. Its structure and pay scales. And the other was a survey of the latest drugs available without prescription. He had previously sent them basic details of the FBI’s New York offices but it was obvious from their probing about what qualifications a man had to have to be recruited by the FBI, and the pay that various grades of FBI officers would earn, that they were hoping to recruit somebody from the FBI themselves. He had hinted that they would be wasting their time. If they ordered him to try it he’d ignore the order.
He had meetings with other Kremlin people, officials concerned with foreign policy and trade. He had spent three days in Moscow and there had been time for him to stroll around the centre of the city. He had been aware of the long queues and when he had chatted with people who were lined up he was surprised to learn that they sometimes didn’t even know what they were queuing for.
Lensky rode with him to the airport and handed him a book of poems and said quietly, “The name, telephone number and address are in this book. Burn it when you’ve memorised it.”
“Does she know the current passwords?”
“Yes.” He paused. “And she’s totally loyal. Disenchanted but loyal.”
CHAPTER 32
The bus from the airport dropped Aarons at Grand Central and he walked down 41st Street as it started to rain. At the shop he searched in his pockets for the keys and a man with an umbrella stood beside him, looking in the shop window and Aarons heard the man say, “Don’t look at me, Andrei, and don’t talk to me. It’s Myron. Myron Harper. I just wanted to tell you I’ve been subpoenaed to appear before McCarthy’s congressional committee. They’re already checking on all my friends and contacts. I just wanted to warn you. I won’t be giving them any names I promise you. But others might. You’ve got to be very careful.”
He walked away before Aarons could respond.
As Aarons made his way upstairs to his apartment he was shocked at Harper’s news. And grateful that he’d taken so much trouble to warn him. He found out later that Harper had watched the shop for four days.
There was a pile of mail on the table in the living room, most of it business mail. There was an envelope that had not gone through the mail with his name handwritten on the cover. When he opened it he found a note from Serov to say that he had tried to contact him and was coming to see him in a couple of days’ time at the weekend.
As he stirred his glass of hot chocolate he remembered seeing newspaper photographs of the Senator who was in charge of the committee. There was the Senator and a lawyer, his assistant. A man named Cohen, or was it Cohn? It was he who provided the Senator with his material for questioning witnesses. He would have to find out more about them. But there was nobody in his network who was a member of the Party and only two had been members way back. Harper and the longshoreman. But he’d had their Party records destroyed long ago.
The next day Aarons walked down to the address Lensky had given him in Greenwich Village. The name of the woman was Tania Orlovsky and the house was in what was more or less a lane not far from Washington Square. It was a row of houses that had once been the servants’ quarters of the big houses on the next street. Number 31 was a three-storey house in reasonable repair. At street level what had once been a stable had been converted into what looked like a garage. A flight of four stone steps led to a door painted a bright blue with brass fittings and on the wall beside the door was a plate with name labels. Apartment 3 gave the name Orlovsky.
Aarons pressed the bell and a few moments later there was a buzz and the blue door clicked open. The stairs were narrow but carpeted and the handrail was new and varnished. On the top
