‘Great, Yevgennie. You’re doing great,’ encouraged Myers. ‘What else?’
‘Shelenkov said Nicaragua was going to be a communist success and then he said he thought there would be some success in the Caribbean, like there had been with Cuba…’
‘Another country you’ve specifically remembered!’ cut in Crookshank.
‘Having remembered one, I remembered the other, because of what was said,’ replied Levin.
‘I don’t follow that,’ complained Norris.
‘A lot of it was history,’ said Levin. Despite the hours and weeks of rehearsal and training, he was beginning to ache again, from the strain of necessarily presenting everything piecemeal and convoluted and jumbled.
‘Take us through it,’ said the soothing Myers. ‘Your pace, your way. Just so that we get some idea of the picture.’
‘It was confused; I still don’t fully understand the significance. Even if it’s significant at all,’ set out Levin.
‘He talked about the missiles that we put on Cuba and how President Kennedy was able to face Castro down and get them removed. Said American strength was not in the U-2 overflight photographs that you obtained, here at the Agency. It was in having as an asset in Russia Oleg Penkovsky, who was able to confirm that at that stage of development our rockets had ineffective guidance systems… that there was no real danger and that Krushchev had to back off…’
‘You’ve lost me,’ interrupted Crookshank. ‘I haven’t a clue where we’re supposed to be going here.’
‘I said I did not know if it had any significance,’ apologized Levin once more.
‘Don’t stop,’ urged Norris. ‘Let’s hear it all, no matter how confusing it seems.’
‘He said it would never happen again. That we were aware exactly how much you knew about our main rocket centre at Semipalatinsk…’ Levin was conscious of the reaction from the three men, unknowingly coordinating the supposed information passed on weeks before by Sergei Kapalet, in Paris. ‘… And not just in Semipalatinsk… at our other installations, too…’
‘I’ve got to stop you here, because it’s important,’ broke in Norris. ‘What, exactly, did you think Shelenkov was telling you at that moment? Was he telling you that we were being fed disinformation, from assets we think we’ve got within the Soviet Union? That we were getting it all wrong?’
Almost there, thought Levin. ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘That was something else Shelenkov laughed about. I can’t remember the precise words, of course. But he said something like “And it’s all coming from the Company themselves” and then added that you were never going to know it.’
‘But now we do,’ said Myers distantly. ‘And we’re going to screw the motherfucker into the ground.’
John Willick felt better than he had in weeks; months. More months than he could remember; wanted to remember. The last $2,000 had got Eleanor and her fleshstripping piranha lawyer off his back at least for a while, he’d picked three out of five winners at Aqueduct during the weekend trip to New York, and today the metals were showing two points above what he’d bought in at. He intended to gamble up to a four-point increase and sell. Maybe just take the profit and sit back a while, not be in a hurry to get back into something too quickly. Money in the bank. It was wonderful to be free of pressure. He’d always known it would get better, one day. Just taken longer than he’d expected, that’s all. Christ, he felt good.
Willick joined the line and filed behind the guide on to the viewing gallery of the Library of Congress, looking down at the readers at their circular reading benches and listening to the hushed commentary of the number of books stored in the honeycomb vaults of Capitol Hill. He thought the woman said twenty-four million, but he wasn’t sure. At her suggestion they all gazed up at the intricate mosaic ceiling and Willick did so in genuine admiration, able at last to think of something outside his own personal problems. Didn’t have any personal problems, not any more.
‘It’s magnificent, isn’t it?’ said Oleg, arriving beside him.
‘Wonderful,’ agreed Willick.
‘Ever been to Rome?’
‘No.’
‘There are some roofs and mosaics there that remind me of this.’
Willick filed after the Russian from the gallery, down the steps to the ground floor and across the zodiac-signed marble floor to the exit. The wind howled up the hill, biting into them, and both men huddled down into topcoats. Oleg went into the direction of Independence Avenue and the CIA man caught up, falling into step.
‘Moscow were very pleased with that last batch,’ praised Oleg.
‘I’m glad.’
‘What else have you got?’
‘Files on a lot of the senior analysts. Twenty-four.’
‘But not all?’
‘I warned you my Records Section wouldn’t have everything, for Christ’s sake!’
‘We’re not complaining,’ placated the Russian. ‘That’s very good. But you’ll try to get more, won’t you?’
‘Yes,’ sighed Willick.
‘The biographies are complete of those you have got? Particularly their specialities?’
‘Yes,’ assured the American.
‘That’s good, John. Very good.’
Willick passed over the envelope to the other man and said: ‘Don’t I get something in return?’
‘Money,’ agreed the Russian, handing over a smaller envelope. ‘And advice.’
‘Advice?’
‘We want you to be careful, John. Very careful.’
‘Why?’ demanded Willick, feeling the beginning of that familiar stomach churn.
‘Nothing unusual happening up there at Langley?’
‘No,’ said Willick doubtfully.
‘You sure?’
‘Unusual like what?’
‘We listen to a lot of radio traffic at the embassy,’ said Oleg, which was true although not the source of this conversation, which was specifically timed instructions from Moscow. ‘The way we read it there’s a pretty intensive investigation under way.’
‘Investigation?’
‘One intercept talked of Agency penetration.’
‘Oh dear God!’ said Willick. Why couldn’t the feeling of relief, of well-being, have lasted longer! It wasn’t fair; why wasn’t anything ever fair!
‘Don’t panic,’ said the Russian. ‘Panic and you’ll give yourself away. There’s no reason to think it’s directed at you.’
‘It’s got to be, hasn’t it?’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘It is!’ insisted Willick, already convinced.
‘Remember something,’ urged Oleg. ‘Whatever happens, we won’t abandon you.’
‘What’s that mean?’
‘That we’re your friends. And that we’ll go on being your friends.’
Kapalet was irritated that the floor show at the Crazy Horse was unchanged, wishing they’d chosen a different meeting place. He turned away from the transvestite and the rope trick and said: ‘It looks as if Shelenkov knows things about Latin America.’
‘Like what?’
‘No specifics, like names.’
‘What then?’
‘Says you guys don’t stand a chance in Nicaragua. That you didn’t, even before Irangate.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know.’
Wilson Drew jabbed impatiently at the drink coaster on the bar with his cocktail stick.
‘Who’s he talking about when he says there’s a foul-up in Nicaragua?’
‘The Agency. It’s always the Agency.’
‘Shit!’
‘I wish there were more.’
‘I must have a name!’
‘You know there’s no way I can get that.’
‘Something… anything!’
‘That’s why I asked for this meeting,’ disclosed the Russian, grinning.
The huge American looked savagely sideways at him and said: ‘Don’t jerk me about, Sergei! This ain’t no fucking game we’re playing here!’ If it hadn’t been so necessary to keep the guy sugar sweet he’d have stuffed that ass-sweaty piece of rope from the cabaret act down the Russian’s stupid throat.
‘It seems he was being moved,’ announced Kapalet.
‘Who?’
‘Shelenkov’s source.’
‘Where from?’
‘I don’t know.’
To where?’
‘I don’t know that, either,’ said the Russian. ‘Shelenkov simply said, two nights ago, that his man was being shifted, within the Agency.’