“That must have been quite a shock, Joe.”
“It was. I’d always had him in my mind as a baby. It sounds terrible but I found I didn’t have the right feeling for him. He was a real nice fellow—but that was all.”
“What happened?”
“I never told him that he was my son. I got false papers for him and he joined the British Army. Because of his intelligence and his languages he was transferred into the Intelligence Corps. Then, as you know, he was transferred to us, to SIS, because he was a fluent Russian speaker. When Hodgkins was looking for a volunteer to be infiltrated into Poland he volunteered. I’d not seen him more than half a dozen times in all that time but it fell to me to provide his legend and documentation. I did it all very, very carefully. The only thing I did that was out of line was to tell him that I knew that his mother had been murdered by Bolsheviks. I showed him the old cuttings from the Berlin newspaper.” He paused. “I shouldn’t have done that. Not as a father. It was unforgivable. It was baiting a trap. And it wasn’t even necessary. He’d got all the guts you needed. I put the Polish documents in his mother’s family name—Kretski. His British passport and his papers were in my real name of Summers.” Shapiro took a deep breath. “That’s it, Peter. That’s about it. I might as well have cut his throat.”
“There’s nothing more than that?”
“Maybe just one last thing for the record.”
“Tell me.”
“When I went to Washington to try and persuade them to exchange Abel for Phoenix there was a problem. The CIA had discussed a possible exchange with Abel and he said he would refuse to be part of an exchange. I asked if I could talk to Abel. I’m not sure why but I thought I could persuade him.” Shapiro took a deep breath. “When we met at the prison it was unbelievable. Colonel Abel was my old friend Zagorsky. That’s how he came to agree to the exchange.”
“How is your son now?”
“Physically he’s not too bad. They say he’ll improve. But mentally he’s in a bad way. The quacks say there’s nothing clinically or surgically that they can do.”
“Don’t they hold out any hope?”
“You know doctors, Peter. Yes. Plenty of hope. Could come all right in a few years. Even over-night. But the prognosis is pessimistic.”
“And you feel you are obliged to take him over?”
“I’ve no doubt about that. He’s my son. It may not feel like it. But he is. That’s the least I can do for him.”
“What can you do?”
“Just be around. Wake when he has his nightmares. Hold his hand when he starts screaming. Pray for his soul. And mine.” Sir Peter noticed the quaver in Shapiro’s voice and decided that practicalities were the best cure.
“Let’s deal with the practicalities first, Joe. You can leave the service in two months’ time. I say two months so that we can put you up to full colonel in Part Two orders and your pension will go up accordingly. Early retirement will not affect your pension. It amounts to taking years of accrued leave. I’ll see to that.
“So far as your son is concerned, he can be back-dated as a major from when he was caught. His disabilities came on active service so there will be an increased pension for him. His medical bills will be paid by the department and I’ll arrange a bounty payment so that there will be enough to buy a house.
“I hope that will relieve you of the day-to-day worries we all have. But I’m worried about you.”
“In what way?”
“You’ve got a guilt complex, my friend. And like all those things they’re never founded on fact but on fantasy. The more rational the man is normally, the wider and deeper the complex.”
“So?”
“Let’s look at the chicken’s entrails, Joe. Your son was forcibly taken away and there was nothing you could have done to get him back.”
“I could have offered to go back to Moscow if he was released.”
“And who would have cared for him after you’d died in a Gulag camp? Nobody. And then when you saw him again after over twenty years you couldn’t relate to a healthy young man when all those years in your mind he was a baby. Irrational maybe but I suspect it’s par for the course. And you had no family or anyone else around you to support you and take some of the load. So you did what you could for him.”
“And then sent him to his death.”
“Did you know that Hodgkins was looking for a volunteer?”
“No.”
“Did you suggest to your boy that he should volunteer?”
“No.”
“And when it was all cut and dried and put on your plate to provide his cover did you do it to the best of your ability?”
“Of course I did.”
“And is it fair to say that if you had not been his father and an old friend of Abel Zagorsky he would still be in the labour camp or in his grave?”
“It’s possible.”
“Joe. Don’t be so stupid. You know it is so. When you were that small boy, a cabin-boy on a broken-down merchant ship, you were about to be sucked up by a whirlwind that was sweeping over Europe. Was that the fault of a teenage boy, for God’s sake?”
“I appreciate what you’ve said. I know that it’s meant to be helpful but it still leaves me as a very poor specimen of a man.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Joe. With a mind like yours, how
