‘No.’
‘Natalia was supposed to be allowed to come with us. And she wasn’t. Now this,’ protested Galina. ‘I don’t like things happening that we’re not prepared for. It’s difficult enough as it is.’
‘It can only be to make me seem more important to the Americans,’ said Levin.
‘Was that really necessary?’
‘What else can it be?’ he demanded.
‘I worry about Petr going out alone, to school.’
‘He isn’t alone.’
‘OK, so he’s driven there and back,’ Galina conceded. ‘But there’s no guard when he’s there: we decided that to avoid the curiosity of the other kids.’
‘Darling,’ said Levin patiently. ‘Not fifteen minutes ago we both agreed we never thought Petr would settle down. Now he has. And he’s doing exceptionally well. You telling me you want me to risk it all by insisting he’s tutored back in the house again?’
‘I suppose not,’ she said.
‘Everything is going fine,’ assured Levin.
There was the sound of another helicopter, this time the machine that was to carry him to Washington. Galina tried to protect her hair again and said: ‘Any idea what time you’ll be coming back?’
‘No,’ said Levin.
‘You will come back?’ she said. ‘You won’t be kept in Washington?’
She really was nervous, Levin recognized irritably. Why the hell had Moscow introduced something for which they were unprepared! He said: ‘There’s never any suggestion of my staying over.’
David Proctor ran towards them, bent double under the rotor blades, blown by the downdraft which flattened the grass. How deafening would the sound be on those unseen sensors, wondered Levin.
‘All set?’ shouted the American.
Levin nodded, making towards the machine. Because of his size it was more difficult for Levin to bend than it was for Proctor and by the time he belted himself in he was panting. Levin was no longer worried by helicopter travelling: in fact he rather enjoyed it. He gazed down at the bulging hills of the immediate Connecticut countryside, seeing how much thinner the tree covering was now from how it had been the first time he had made the trip, only the firs and some of the maple retaining any thatch. He switched his headrest button, enabling him to talk to Proctor during flight and said, nodding downwards: ‘Looks cold.’
The FBI supervisor nodded back and said: ‘You ski?’
‘Not any more.’
‘What about Petr?’
‘Yes.’
‘There are some great ski lodges in Connecticut,’ came in Bowden, sitting on his other side. ‘When the snows come we can make a trip.’
‘When will that be?’
‘A month,’ promised Bowden. ‘Maybe six weeks.’
‘Any news about Natalia?’ demanded Levin predictably.
‘Still pressing,’ said Proctor, giving the usual reply.
Levin went familiarly from the Langley helicopter pad towards the debriefing building, mentally parading what he had to disclose today. It was difficult for him to be absolutely sure but he believed himself to be precisely on the schedule devised by the KGB. At the entrance to his debriefing room Levin glanced back to the main CIA complex. There’d never been an indentity – a protection against his revealing it under hostile, drugged interrogation – but somewhere in there was a man who was going to cause a volcanic upheaval within America’s overseas intelligence agency.
‘It’s names we want, Yevgennie,’ opened Myers at once. ‘What you’re telling us is invaluable but we need better direction.’ The checks were continuing through the personnel on both the Caribbean and Latin American desks and extending on into the analysis sections but so far there had not been the slightest breakthrough.
‘I know,’ said the Russian. Don’t hurry, he thought; let it come bit by bit, as it would from a deeply searched memory.
‘Let’s go back to those mess hall meetings with Shelenkov,’ suggested Norris patiently. ‘What time of year was it?’
‘Summer. June I think. Then the Fall. September, maybe October,’ said Levin.
‘Hot then, the first time?’
‘Very,’ agreed the Russian. ‘Humid, too.’
‘Always a bitch,’ coaxed Norris. ‘Guess you felt like a drink when he suggested it?’
‘I hadn’t thought about it,’ said Levin. ‘When he did it seemed a good idea.’
‘He drank Scotch?’
A comparing question, Levin recognized: they were still testing him. He said: ‘Yes.’
‘A lot?’
‘Difficult to remember.’ Frighteningly, Levin saw the trick when it was almost too late and added: ‘He must have done, mustn’t he?’
‘Why’s that, Yevgennie?’ came in Crookshank. There was no antagonism yet.
‘I told you before, he used to boast when he got drunk.’
‘So you did,’ said the lawyer. ‘So how many do you remember his having?’
‘I can’t be positive, about an actual number. Five or six perhaps.’
‘Five or six Scotches!’ echoed Crookshank. ‘The guy must have been on a bender?’
‘He drank like a Russian.’
‘How’s that?’ asked Myers.
‘Quickly. It’s custom to drain a glass, when there’s a toast.’
‘There were toasts?’
‘The second time.’
‘To what?’
Levin feigned the difficulty. He said: ‘Shelenkov was given to being melodramatic’
‘Want to spell that out for us?’ said Norris.
‘He toasted the progress of communism…’ Levin paused for effect, and said: ‘I found it embarrassing. He was very loud: I thought it all unnecessary.’
‘Where, exactly, to the progress of communism?’ isolated Crookshank.
The man might be the least convinced but he was the one who picked up the carefully dangled carrots, decided Levin. He said: ‘That was how Latin America came into the conversation.’
Both Myers and Norris came perceptibly forward in their seats. Myers said: ‘Let’s get this into sequence, Yevgennie. What did he begin talking about first, Latin America or the Caribbean?’
Levin appeared to give the question consideration. Then he said: ‘I think Latin America… yes, it was definitely Latin America.’
‘Think you could remember the exact words?’ suggested Norris.
Levin laughed, guessing at another disguised pit. ‘How could I possibly remember the exact words after all this time!’
‘Paraphrase it then,’ shrugged Norris.
‘He lifted up his glass – showing off, like I said – and toasted the progress of communism. He said Latin American. Then Nicaragua…’
‘Nicaragua!’ Myers spoke lightly ahead of Norris but it was the suspicious Crookshank who pounced with the question.
‘We asked you specifically about countries last time!’ he challenged. ‘You said you couldn’t remember!’
‘You asked me to try to remember,’ corrected Levin. ‘I’ve done so, as best I can. I recall Shelenkov making that toast and mentioning Nicaragua. He was laughing, like I told you, about the people you trusted. He said there was no danger to the Sandinista regime while the main opposition was the Nicaraguan Democratic Force. And then there was a name.’
‘What name!’ demanded the lawyer.
Levin shook his head, in supposed apology. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘I’ve tried to recall it precisely, but I can’t. I’m not sure which it was.’
‘Give it to us!’ said Myers.
‘It was either Hernandez or Fernandez,’ offered Levin. ‘They both seem to be among the commonest names in the region, so I don’t think it means anything… I’m sorry.’
The identity was, in fact, Ramon Hernandez and he was deputy operational commander of the CIA-backed Democratic Force and regarded by the Agency as their leading asset in the attempted overthrow of the Sandinistas. All of which Moscow knew from their support and infiltration of the Managua government and none of which had come from any encounter with Shelenkov, whose sole responsibility had been running the CIA spy John Willick.
Already on the pads in front of them Myers and Norris had a ring around the name Hernandez. On his sheet Myers wrote ‘We’ve got a trace’ with several exclamation marks and thrust it sideways, to Norris.