Natalia looked despairingly around her polished, pin-neat home and tried to imagine who Eduard might bring with him to an apartment he knew to be empty and what they would do once they got there. And physically shuddered at the thought. The day after receiving the second letter Natalia sat for an hour trying to compose a note to leave for Eduard, running the gamut from a mother disappointed to a mother pleading through to a mother demanding change. And then threw all the drafts away, guessing at best Eduard would laugh with his friends at her efforts or at worst do something stupid or disgusting or both, just to defy her.
A conference was called, for the last week, at which the delegation members were introduced to each other and they all had to sit through a lecture now familiar to Natalia on the expected behaviour of Russians engaged on overseas visits. The stress was upon absolute propriety, with no excessive drinking or exuberant, attention gaining embarrassments. At no time were they to forget they were representatives of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Natalia didn’t count heads but it was clearly the largest contingent with which she had so far travelled. Idly she tried to isolate the KGB escorts appointed to impose the discipline about which they were being warned, and decided at once upon a fidgeting, hunch-shouldered little man who constantly chewed his fingernails and whose name she remembered to be Gennadi Redin. She guessed there would be two more, at least.
Although there would have been little reason for it, Natalia wondered throughout the build-up if there would be any summons from Berenkov, like before. But there wasn’t and she felt relieved. There would have been nothing for them properly to discuss and the huge man made her feel uncomfortable.
Alexei Berenkov did consider a meeting with the woman. And it was because there was no valid reason for it – which would have been obvious to her – that he decided against it. With everything constructed just as he intended, an intricate house of matches with only two or three more tiny sticks to be added, the customarily irrepressible Berenkov was apprehensive now of anything happening to bring it all crashing down. It was absolutely essential that she remain the unknowing, unwitting bait, not someone allowed the slightest suspicion: he didn’t want her protecting Charlie Muffin again, as he was convinced she had protected him once before.
He set out to create further protection, in fact, actually on the day Natalia attended her delegation meeting, going early into Dzerzhinsky Square to meet with Kalenin. Berenkov did not, however, come at once to the point. Characteristically he allowed himself the boast and announced the London confirmation of Charlie Muffin’s reservation at the delegation hotel, adding at once their positive awareness of the British breaking the communication code. Wanting the concession from his doubting friend, Berenkov said: ‘It is encouraging, don’t you think?’
‘Situations often look encouraging at the preliminary planning stage,’ refused Kalenin. ‘I would not say we were anywhere beyond preliminary planning at the moment, would you?’
‘Yes!’ came back Berenkov abruptly, his impatience with Kalenin finally spilling over. ‘I consider we are a very long way past that stage.’
‘You’ve combined the two operations, brought them too close together,’ insisted the First Deputy. ‘You’ve created a danger where there was no need for one to be created, Alexei. It worries me.’
‘And you’ve made that obvious for a considerable time now,’ said Berenkov. He realized that, incredibly, it was their first positive argument.
The awareness seemed to come to Kalenin at the same time. Sadly he said: ‘This really does seem to be a period of great change, in everything, doesn’t it?’
‘I hope not in everything,’ said Berenkov sincerely. He would regret losing the man’s friendship absolutely: it was something to which he was accustomed, so accustomed that he took it for granted. Despite their increasing disagreements over this current assignment it came as a shock to think of any split between them being permanent.
‘So do I, old friend,’ said Kalenin, still sadly.
‘I’m considering the safety of both of us today,’ offered Berenkov, extending a threadbare olive branch.
‘How?’
‘Baikonur,’ declared Berenkov simply. ‘I think we should take out insurance against any more sniping from the scientists, like they tried to take out insurance against us by complaining over our heads to the Politburo Secretariat.’
‘I’m interested,’ said Kalenin, smiling slightly.
‘Why don’t we fully remove the threat of any attack from there?’ suggested Berenkov. ‘The fact they haven’t complained since must mean they’re satisifed with everything we got from America. Which we now know to be complete. And which only leaves what Krogh is due to get from England. Why don’t we move Nikolai Noskov, who led the attack against us, and Guzins, who seemed a pretty enthusiastic and senior supporter, to England?’
‘What!’ exclaimed Kalenin, astonished.
‘Send them to England,’ repeated Berenkov. ‘I could get them there easily enough, by circuitous routing and on false documentation. They could monitor and approve everything that Krogh produces, on the spot, before it gets here. That way – if anything is missed, if there is a problem we can’t anticipate – the responsibility is theirs, as the experts. Not ours.’
‘That’s brilliant,’ admired Kalenin, smiling more broadly and matching the other man’s simplicity now. ‘But Noskov is the Strategic Defence Initiative expert! We couldn’t risk exposing him to Western detection. It would be unthinkable.’
‘What’s the greater risk, to ourselves?’ demanded Berenkov, who had thought his argument through. ‘Is it failing to get the Star Wars missile in its entirety? Or the minimal possibility of Noskov being detected?’
Kalenin shook his head doubtfully. ‘It’s an impossible equation,’ he protested. ‘Of course we can’t risk failing to get everything. But the Politburo would never risk Noskov: minimal or not, the danger is too great.’
‘Insurance!’ insisted Berenkov, undeterred. ‘Let the Politburo make the refusal, which affords us some lessening of responsibility. And then, if they do refuse, propose that Guzins, still an expert but of lesser importance, be sent instead. More insurance still.’
Kalenin shook his head but this time it was a gesture continuing the earlier admiration. ‘You’ve always frightened me with the chances you’re prepared to take but sometimes you think like someone who’s survived here in Dzerzhinsky Square and in Moscow all his life.’
‘You’re going to propose it?’
‘Exactly as you’ve suggested it.’
‘It’s all going to work out fine: everything, I mean,’ said Berenkov, sensing a slight reconciliation between them.
‘I hope, Alexei,’ said Kalenin, the doubt coming back up like a briefly lowered shield. ‘I hope.’
Emil Krogh rationalized it all in his confused mind and it came out fine – well, nearly fine – and he was suffused by an enveloping calm, the first mental peace that he’d known since he couldn’t remember when. Of course it wasn’t perfect. There’d be the stigma of taking his own life when he was mentally disturbed but there’d be a lot of evidence about how hard he’d worked, and people sympathized with dedicated men who drove themselves over the edge like that, so there wasn’t much to sneer about there. He worried for a while about the life insurance for Peggy, because that was negated by suicide. But he calculated that the insurance was really for the corporation anyway – for their loss of a dynamic chairman – rather than anything personal, for Peggy. With the Monterey estate paid for completely and the stock he owned on the open market, she’d be a millionairess twice over. And that before he took into account the stock options in the company itself, which totted up to another million and a half. He’d read carefully through the fine print of the pension agreement and was sure that would be unaffected, so the income would be more than enough for her to live on, without her having to cash in anything. It would leave Cindy with the condo and the car, but he’d already said goodbye to that anyway: he didn’t even think about Cindy or the property any more. Certainly there’d be no chance of what he’d done ever becoming public, because there was no gain in the Russians exposing the empty blackmail. And so he would have defeated them, after all. Finally fucked them like they’d fucked him, because without the British contribution they’d have nothing. And now they weren’t going to get the British contribution.