Shaw nodded. “Right, I’ll be guided by you.” He swung round. “Mr Chaffinch, have you an office in Moltsk?”
“More’s the pity — no. I’m sorry.”
“Hm. That’s awkward.” Shaw rubbed his chin. “Is there any reason, any completely convincing reason, why a WIOCA man should go there, then? I’ve got to have cover.”
Chaffinch shook his head doubtfully. “You might be able to say you were looking over the possibilities of setting up an office in Moltsk, I suppose—”
Hart interrupted. “There’s always old Godov.”
“Professor Godov?” Chaffinch’s eyebrows went up. “He’s very much out of things these days. He’s a very old man, and anyway—”
“Yes,” Hart said urgently, “but couldn’t Shaw pay him a visit? He’s by way of being your Grand Old Man, isn’t he? It’d be natural for a WIOCA man out from home to go along and make his number with the G.O.M., wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, certainly — you have a point there,” Chaffinch agreed, looking happier. “I wonder…”
“Who is this Godov?” Shaw asked.
“Well, as Hart says, he’s our Grand Old Man. A charming old gentleman, an old-fashioned liberal — and not too happy with the regime, actually. He’s been a big name in WIOCA right from the start… and, you see, he lives not far from Moltsk, in what one might call splendid isolation!” For the first time Chaffinch’s anxious face creased into a tired half smile. “You see, he incurred official displeasure some years ago, when he deviated from the Party line in one of his books. He was banished from Moscow as a result and sent to his childhood home near Moltsk. It’s in a kind of swamp, I believe, rather a dreadful place really, on the Kola Peninsula north of Ponoy. All that was some time ago, as I said, and he’s considered harmless enough now — he’s over ninety, after all, and I expect he’s somewhat senile. But he’s still very much alive, and I agree with Hart, he could be a good enough excuse for your going to Moltsk. Very fortuitous indeed.”
Shaw nodded. “Sounds all right,” he said thoughtfully. “Look, Mr Chaffinch. When I spoke to Rudintsev back in London, he told me that a number of people inside Russia think along the same lines as he does.” He gave Chaffinch a resume of Rudintsev’s remarks. “Now, you say Godov’s not happy with the regime. Do you think, then, that he could be considered as a possible Rudintsev sympathizer?” Chaffinch shrugged. “I really couldn’t say, but I would consider it a possibility, I think — yes. Rudintsev’s right, there are many people who do feel like that. As for Godov… well, of course, he’s never really toed the line all his life. He got up against the Czars in the first place, I believe. Mind you, I haven’t seen him for years, or even heard from him, so I really can’t say what his views are now. In any case, whatever his sympathies may be, I can’t really see him being the least actual use to you — beyond his value as an excuse for your visit.”
“You never know how people can help if they really want to. He’s well worth contacting, in my opinion. Would you fix me up with a letter of introduction, Mr Chaffinch?”
“Why yes, certainly. I’ll see to that right away.”
“Thank you. And Hart — would you radio my chief in London, tell him I’m going direct to Moltsk as soon as possible?”
“Yes, I’ll see to that. By the way,” Hart added, “I’d advise you to be very careful in Moltsk. Like all the Kola Peninsula except Murmansk and Iokanga, it’s an open area, but being a naval port it’s naturally full of naval men and also a considerable number of Red Army personnel seem to have moved in over the last few months. And even though it’s open, they’ve had restrictions on aliens’ movements in part of the area for some years. That’s why it’s always been hard for anyone to get much reliable and useful information out of the place, of course.” He added more encouragingly, “You’ll find W.I.O.CA.’s a good password on the whole, though, even where there’s no office — at least you’ll be a highly respected official, and that’s always useful!” Hart stood up. “As soon as you’ve got something to report, call us up. We’ll be keeping a constant if highly unconstitutional listening watch, but don’t overdo it, of course. We don’t want them to home on to your transmissions. And don’t expect us to acknowledge anything. Just repeat any message twice through and leave it at that. Once we’ve got it, you can rely on it that we’ll retransmit at once to London.” He held out his hand. “Good luck, Shaw. Remember time’s desperately short now. We’ll be relying on you.”
The train for Arkhangelsk, whence he would go on to Moltsk by ferry, did not leave until late afternoon and so Shaw arranged to meet Chaffinch for lunch — Moscow, Chaffinch said, was full of eyes and ears and it would be a good thing for the two of them to be seen together in public, just in case some of those eyes and ears were in touch with the Kremlin — and meanwhile he did some sight-seeing around the capital, letting the Russian scene sink in. He spent part of the morning visiting the great red granite bulk of the Lenin Mausoleum amid the crowding spires of Red Square; he looked in at the waxen corpse of the leader in its sarcophagus, saw the mouth of the dark subterranean tunnel through which the dishonoured corpse of Stalin had gone on its final journey to a grass plot on the Kremlin wall. Not having been in Russia before he couldn’t make any comparisons, but the general impression he got was one of complete normality. The streets were austere, the people poorly dressed, the women in the main frumpy and frowzy-looking, but there were no signs of alarm, or of jubilation, or of tenseness. Hart was probably right; nothing of coming events, of any attempt to seize the supreme power behind the scenes, had leaked out here in Moscow. No wonder London hadn’t known anything…
One pointer that didn’t fit Shaw’s impressions came when he met Chaffinch and the WIOCA man remarked quite casually that there seemed to be many more police about that day… and Shaw recalled what Rudintsev had said about the MVD being in with the extremists.
When lunch was over and they were sipping at coffee and liqueurs, Chaffinch coughed a little and then said quietly, almost diffidently, “I don’t want to sound… mawkish, Alison. That’s not my way, and I know quite well that you’re doing everything you possibly can. But… well. I’ll come right out with it. I’ve got three children at school in England. Alan Hart’s got two, and his wife’s back there at the moment as well. It… er… it’s rather a worry.”
And that, Shaw thought bitterly, looking at the man’s haggard eyes, just about put it in a nutshell.
He was already extremely worried about the shortness of time left, and then, as he went to the station for his train, he saw the newspaper placards:
FOREIGN MINISTERS ARRIVE IN LONDON.
Even though the Conference date had been constantly in his thoughts, that still gave him a jolt.
Ten
Hart had been absolutely right in one thing at all events. When Shaw arrived in Moltsk two days after leaving Moscow — and after surviving another snap check on the train and yet another on the night ferry from Arkhangelsk — he found that the place was full of uniformed men. Oddly for a naval port, it was in fact the Red Army that appeared to predominate, and the majority of the men seemed to belong to artillery and technical units.
Shaw decided to walk from the ferry terminal so that he could become familiar with the layout and character of the port as quickly as possible. It was, he found, a dreary, windswept place of grey and ugly buildings, utterly unwelcoming. The people looked miserable, haggard, pinched with the cold of that biting wind. The civilians looked as though they hadn’t enough to eat, though the troops and sailors certainly appeared fit and healthy. Those civilians crept about like dogs, as if they were on sufferance and might at any moment be kicked into the gutter by a bellicose officer.