'But you must know that's plainly out of the question, not feasible, indeed little short of impossible!' Explosive-seeming words, yet uttered quietly, coldly, even with a measure of calculation. A calculated attempt to dissuade Zharov from his course, or perhaps re-route it a little, even knowing that he wasn't the author of the 'request' he'd made but merely the delivery boy.
And the Russian had obviously expected as much. 'Wrong,' he answered, just as quietly, but with something of a cold smile to counter the other's flush. 'Not only is it entirely possible but imperative. If as you have reported Harry Keogh is on the verge of developing new and hitherto unsuspected talents, then he must be stopped. It is as simple as that. He has been a veritable plague on Soviet ESPionage, Norman. A disaster, a mental hurricane ... a psiclone? Oh, our E-Branch survives, lives on despite all his efforts, but barely.' Zharov shrugged. 'On the other hand, perhaps we should be grateful to him: his, er, successes have made us more than ever aware of the power of parapsychology - its importance - in the field of spying. The problem is that as a weapon he gives your side far too much of an edge. Which is why he has to go.'
If Wellesley had been paying any real attention to Zharov's argument it hardly showed. 'You will recall,' he now started to reply, ' -1 mean, you have probably been informed - that my initial liability was a small one? Very well, I owe your masters a small favour - I'm in their debt, let's say - but not such a large debt even now. And their interest rates are way too high, my friend. Beyond my limited ability to pay. I'm afraid that's my answer, Nikolai, which you must take back with you to Moscow.'
Zharov sighed, put down his drink and leaned back in his chair. He stretched his long legs, folded his arms across his chest and pursed his lips; he allowed his heavy eyelids to droop more yet. The pupils of his dark eyes glinted from their cores, and for several long moments he studied Wellesley where he was seated on the opposite side of a small occasional table.
Wellesley's red hair was receding fast. At forty-five he was perhaps six or seven years the Russian's senior, and looked every day of it. A generally unattractive man, his one redeeming feature was his mouth: it was firm, well-shaped and housed an immaculate set of teeth. Other than that his nose was bulbous and fleshy, his watery blue eyes too round and staring, and his excess of colouring brought the large freckles of his forehead into glaring yellow prominence. Zharov concentrated on Wellesley's freckles a moment more before straightening up again.
'Ah, detente!' he tut-tutted. 'Glasnost! What have they brought us to when we must bargain with debtors? Why, in the good old days we would simply send in the debt-collectors! Or perhaps the bully-boys? But now ... the gentleman's way out: bankruptcy, receivership! Norman, I'm very much afraid you're about to go bankrupt. Your cover is about to be - ' he formed his mouth into a tube and puffed cigarette smoke through it in a series of perfect rings,' - blown!'
'Cover?' Wellesley's eyes narrowed suspiciously and his colour deepened more yet. 'I have no cover. I am what I appear to be. Look, I made a mistake and I understand I must pay for it. Fine - but I'm not about to kill for you! Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you - for me to turn a small debt into a massive great overdraft! But it's not on, Nikolai. So go ahead, Comrade, drop me in it. "Bankrupt" me, if that's the threat. I'll lose my job and maybe my liberty for a while, but not forever. But if I play your game I'm a goner. I'd be in even deeper. And what will it be next time, eh? More treachery? Another murder? What you're doing is blackmail and you know it, but I'm not having any. So do your worst and kiss any "favours" I owe you goodbye forever!'
'Bluff,' Zharov smiled. 'And nicely played, too. But bluff all the same.' His smile fell from his face and he stood up. 'Very well, I calclass="underline" you are a mole, a sleeper!'
'A sleeper?' Wellesley's fists shook where he held them clenched at his sides. 'Well, and maybe I was - but never activated. I've done nothing wrong.'
Zharov smiled again but it was more a grimace. He gave a small shrug of his thin shoulders and headed for the door. 'That will be your side of it, of course.'
Wellesley jumped to his feet and got to the door first. 'And where the hell do you think you're going?' he rasped. 'We've resolved nothing!'
'I have said all I had to say,' said the other, coming to a halt and standing perfectly still. After a moment's pause he carefully reached out and took his overcoat from a peg. 'And now - ' his voice had deepened a little and his thin mouth twitched in one corner,' - now I am leaving.' He took thin, black leather gloves from a pocket of the overcoat and swiftly pulled them on. 'And will you try to stop me, Norman? Believe me, that would be something of an error.'
Wellesley had never been much for the physical side of things; he believed the other well enough. He backed off a little, said: 'So what will happen now?'
'I shall report your reticence,' Zharov was forthright. 'I shall say you no longer consider your debt outstanding, that you wish it written off. And they shall reply: no, we wish him written off! Your file will be "leaked" to someone of responsibility in one of your own intelligence branches, and -'
'My file?' Wellesley's watery eyes began a rapid, nervous blinking. 'A few dirty pictures of me and a whore snapped through one-way glass in a grubby Moscow hotel all of twelve years ago? Why, in those days that sort of stuff was ten-a-penny! It was dealt with on a day-to-day basis. Tomorrow I shall go and make a clean breast of that old ... affair! And what will your side do then, eh? Moreover, I'll name names - yours specifically - and there'll be no more courier jobs for you, Nikolai!'
Zharov gave a small, sad shake of his head. 'Your file is somewhat thicker than that, Norman. Why, it's quite full of little tidbits of intelligence information you've passed on to us over the years. Make a clean breast of it? Oh, I should think you'll be doing that - or at least trying to - for quite a few years to come.'
'Tidbits of - ?' Wellesley was now almost purple. 'I've given you nothing - not a thing! What tidbits of - ?'
Zharov watched him shaking like a leaf, shaking from a combination of rage and frustration; and slowly the Russian's smile returned. 7 know you've given us nothing,' he said, quietly. 'Until now we haven't asked for anything. / also know you're innocent, more or less - but the people who count don't. And now, finally, we are asking for something. So you can either pay up, or ..." And again his shrug. 'It's your life, my friend.'
As Zharov reached to open the door Wellesley caught at his arm. 'I need to think about it,' he gasped.
'Fair enough, only don't take too long.'
Wellesley nodded, gulped: 'Don't go out that way. Go out the back.' He led the way through the flat. 'How did you come here anyway? Christ, if anyone saw you, I - '
'No one saw me, Norman. And anyway, I'm not much known over here. I was at a casino in the Cromwell Road. I came by taxi and let him drop me off a few blocks away. I walked. Now I shall walk again, and eventually get another cab.'
Wellesley let him out the back door and went with him down the dark garden path to the gate. Before pulling the gate to behind him, Zharov took out a manila envelope from his overcoat pocket and handed it over. 'Some photographs you haven't seen before,' he said. 'Just a reminder that you shouldn't take too long making up your mind, Norman. We're in a bit of a hurry, as you see. And don't try to contact me; I shall be in touch with you. Meanwhile... I'll have a night or two to kill. I might even find myself a nice clean whore.' He chuckled dryly. 'And if your lot take any pictures of me with her... why, I'll just keep them as souvenirs!'