Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spy

'An hour to shave, shower and dress?'

'He listens to the news and reads his mail.'

'You let him have mail?'

'Hi-fi magazines, Newsweek, Time, two sci-fi magazines advertising crap from the places he bought his record-player and stuff, little notes from his wife, a Russian-language weekly from New York, all of it goes via the accommodation address of course…'

'You keep a photocopy of the notes from his wife?'

'And then the envelope is resealed — he doesn't know, I'm sure.'

'Let me see it.'

'Do you read Russian?'

'And hurry it along, will you.'

'You'd better come down to the microfilm reader.'

The letters from Bekuv's wife — and even all the pages of the magazines etc. - were recorded on microfilm.

'The translator looked at it. He looks at everything. He said it was just the usual sort of thing.'

The spidery writing in the labyrinth of Russian script was made even more difficult to decipher when projected in negative upon the glass screen of the reader.

My love,

I hope you are well. Don't take sleeping tablets every night or you might become dependent on them. A milk drink used to be all you ever needed to sleep, why not try that again.

Here the weather is very cold and there is much rain, but they are being very kind to me. I was wrong about Miss Bancroft, she is a really wonderful girl. She is doing all she can to arrange that you and I can have a serious talk but for the present it is better we are separate. It is important, Andrei.

Your ever loving K.

I read a rough translation aloud to the man they called Jonathan.

'Nothing there — right?'

'Nothing,' I said.

'You don't sound very convinced. You think that they might have some sort of code?' he said.

'Every man and wife talk in code,' I said.

'Don't go philosophical on me, pal. I majored in chemistry.'

'It might mean something to him,' I said.

'Mean something that would make him want to take that whole jar of goofballs?'

'Could be.'

Jonathan sighed. From next door there came the buzz of the telex alarm and the chatter of the printer. He went to answer it.

I began to see Andrei Bekuv in a new light, and I felt a little guilty at the way I'd treated him. His querulous complaints, and the studied interest in music and hi-fi equipment, I saw now as desperate attempts to prevent himself thinking about his lesbian wife, and how much he needed her. This letter/would be more than enough to tell him she was in love with Red Bancroft.

Jonathan interrupted this line of thought with a telex that he'd torn off the printer. It was coded and headed-up with the arranged cipher, but the signature was in clear triplicate.

MESSAGE BEGINS MOVE FABIAN TO AIRPORT IMMEDIATELY FOR AIR MOVEMENT FOXGLOVE STOP CIA REPRESENTATIVE AT TERMINAL STOP AMBROSE WILL TAKE LUCIUS THERE STOP YOU WILL TAKE CHARGE STOP AT YOUR DISPOSAL LIKEWISE AMBROSE JONATHAN AND STAFFS STOP WAIT FOR ME AND TAKE ORDERS FROM NO OTHER PERSON STOP HOLD THIS AS YOUR AUTHORITY STOP MESSAGE PRIORITY SANDMAN OPERATION PRIORITY PRESIDENTIAL REPEAT PRESIDENTIAL MESSAGE ENDS MANN MANN MANN ACKNOWLEDGE '

Acknowledge?' said Jonathan.

'Is there anyone there at the other end?'

'Only the operator.'

'Acknowledge it. Then ask Langley to give us scrambled telex facilities at the airport and some back-up. What have you got here?'

'Two cars and fourteen men, but six are on three-day lay-offs.'

'Armoured cars?'

'Windshield and gas tank — the usual agency design.'

'We'll need more cars. Get a couple of your people to use their own. Don't tell Bekuv what's happening.'

'What is happening?' he asked.

'We're moving, that's what's happening.'

'You know what I think,' Jonathan said. 'I think this is an alarm. I think the Russians are going to hit this place and try snatching the professor from us.'

'Send the acknowledge.'

'You mean don't let Bekuv know until we're ready to go?'

'I mean don't let Bekuv know. You're setting up this wagon-train, and I want you to make it look really impressive. Bekuv will be travelling with me in the Stingray and we won't be anywhere near you.'

'I'll want that in writing, you know. It's dangerous. And on your own, you might have trouble getting Bekuv to move his ass.'

'I don't see why I should,' I said. 'He's going to see his missus, isn't he?'

Chapter Twenty

Incoming flights were being diverted and delayed. Planes were circling and stacked all the way from Chesapeake Bay to the Allegheny Mountains. Outgoing flights were hours behind their scheduled tunes. The terminal buildings were a noisy chaos of irate travellers but we were half a mile away, and the airport seemed very still from the service area where Mann had improvised an emergency control room. There were half a dozen phones there, constantly ringing as C.I.A. clerks lied to the press and deflected official inquiries. A quarter of a mile along the apron an Algerian Airways Ilyushin jet was parked. It was surrounded by service vehicles, and men were topping up its kerosene, pumping its sewage, loading hundreds of plastic meals, respooling its movies, generating its electricity, removing its baggage and loading its freight I delivered Bekuv to a C.I. A. man and went into Mann's makeshift office.

Mann was making monosyllabic noises into a phone when I went into the room. 'What's going on?' I said.

He indicated a chair and, when he'd hung up the phone, he said, 'Gerry Hart is out there, with a Colt Combat Magnum in one hand and Senator Greenwood's necktie in the other.'

'You're kidding.'

'Yeah, I'm kidding — it's only a Centennial Airweight' We watched a jumbo lumber past us round the perimeter.

'You made him run then.'

He gave me a sour smile. 'He's taking the four o'clock direct flight to Algiers, and I do mean taking it. He wants the Bekuvs with him, and he's threatening to blow Greenwood's head off if they are not delivered to him.'

'You're going to hand them over?'

'I'm not going to call his bluff. Everything points to Hart as a long-time commie agent He's a pro — I believe he'd do it, don't you?'

'I don't know,' I said. I pulled a chair close to where he was sitting at the desk. 'This is not an escape. A guy like Hart must have a dozen good passports under the floorboards. And using Greenwood's name he could bump his