Popovich turned the volume down. ‘We’ve adapted this set for ourselves,’ he said very softly. ‘And we’ve had a little help on the other side from one of their electronics people. You see what we’re into here? All the private circuits in the building: the hotel’s closed-circuit TV system, the FBI bugging lines, and also a return line to a hidden micro in their central recording rooms in the basement. We can play it all back through this set, if we keep the volume low enough. So there’s no feedback.’
Popovich moved the selector again. They were back on the main lobby downstairs. ‘Now watch — you’re in luck,’ he said. ‘Watch who they get. They’ve just called for him in the recording room. He’s in the lounge — there, to the left.’
Harper watched carefully. A man crossed the screen from reception and returned a moment later with another American — a big, tall, balding man, genial in a creased Cabot Lodge tropical outfit, abundantly American, folding up the Leisure and Arts section of the New York Sunday Times.
‘There he is. That’s him. Adam Wheel.’
‘So?’ Harper was completely at sea.
‘He’s Guy Jackson’s CIA control. Works with him at the UN. Russian specialist. That’s why he’s here. Listening in on this wheat deal we’re fixing with the Americans. Well, he’s the fellow that’s set up this plan with Jackson in England. And that’s what we want — really as much as we want Flitlianov. And I think we can get both together — two birds, one stone. Put on your shirt and I’ll tell you about it.’
‘What deal? What deal in Cheltenham?’
‘Communications. A new system they have been working at the Foreign Office Communications headquarters there. So far an unbreakable system of satellite-directed code transmissions. The Americans want it — that’s why they got Jackson on it. They found out he was being posted there. And we want it, too, of course. That’s where you come in. And Mr Marlow.’
‘How did they get Jackson?’
‘The oldest way. The oldest profession. Blackmail, call-girls in New York. Jackson has some very peculiar habits. They photographed him, taped him, the usual things. He was very susceptible.’
‘Photographed him with them?’
‘Well, that and looking at them.’
‘Is that a crime?’
‘He thought so.’
‘How did you come on all this?’ Harper asked.
‘You don’t really need to know, Harper. But — through this.’ Popovich tapped the television set. ‘Here in the hotel — this is where they set the whole thing up. Call-girls, photographs, everything. We listened in.’
Harper turned his collar down, straightened his tie and looked out at the patch of leaden summer sky. ‘Something is wrong.’ He turned to Popovich. ‘An experienced officer like Jackson would never have fallen for that old trick in the first place. And if he had he’d have told us in London. There must have been something else.’
‘There was. The CIA told him they’d found out his wife worked for the KGB — that they’d get him as an accessory on that if he didn’t cooperate.’
‘How did they find that out?’
‘I don’t think they did. They invented it.’
‘Come on. She does work for the KGB. It couldn’t be coincidence. And in any case, when you heard that, why didn’t you close with her sooner?’
‘We did, Harper. We checked her out completely. But we’d nothing on her in Moscow — no traces, no associations with us. We went right through her. It wasn’t until Flitlianov arrived here and started to follow her that we started to add things up. Until then we assumed that the CIA were bluffing, or had cooked up some evidence. You see, they wanted Jackson badly: the British aren’t sharing this information with anyone. And Jackson, they knew, was going back to England — the one man who could get them into the centre of this business.’
‘Well how in hell do we get the information? Turn Jackson a second time?’
‘He wouldn’t buy it a second time. But that’s beside the point — which is that I don’t think for a moment that Jackson is going to go along with the Americans anyway. He’ll drop them, but not until he’s clear of them, out of America and back home. He is far too experienced an operator. On the other hand that’s just the quality which your man Marlow lacks — from what you’ve told us. There’s where we can bring pressure, with twenty years jail hanging over him.’
Harper looked numb, quite distant.
‘They’re really quite like one another, too,’ Popovich went on. ‘Not that it matters. But it helps.’ He went over to his coat and produced two photographs, New York street shots, of Marlow and Jackson. He gave them to Harper.
‘Well, the same height —’ Harper said.
‘Same age, build, weight, thinning hair, rather English-looking,’ Popovich continued.
‘I don’t see it.’ Harper paused. Then it hit him. ‘You’re not thinking of —’
‘Yes. Yes, of course I am. They switched him for George Graham; we’ll switch him for Jackson.’
Harper laughed. ‘Not in a million years! It won’t work. They must know the man they’re getting in Cheltenham, know what he looks like. And you forget, Jackson’s married — he’ll be going back with his wife and family. What are they going to say about taking a new husband back with them?’
‘We’ve checked, Harper,’ Popovich said, calm again now, quietly hard. ‘And you’ll do some more for us, personnel details and so on in Cheltenham — and as far as we know they don’t know anything about Jackson in Cheltenham. His work with British Intelligence has been entirely in Africa, a few months in London and here with the UN. And as for his wife, well she’s with us, isn’t she? She can be made to respond. Of course it’s a big risk. Someone may know Jackson in Cheltenham. Or they may check Marlow against a photograph of Jackson when he arrives. He may never get beyond the front gate. But it’s no more of a risk than the British took in substituting Marlow for Graham in the first place. In this business small risks never pay. Big ones sometimes do.’
‘And Flitlianov? The names of his group? I thought that was the most important thing.’
‘Well, he fits in with this too. Think about it: how can we move on those letters? Force her now? No. The Jackson deal would fall through. Force Flitlianov? How? We’ve no idea when he’s going to get them from her. Go through the house upstate — or her apartment here? Impossible. So what? Well, there’s one time we know she’ll have those papers: when she moves back to England — to some empty house or apartment in Cheltenham. That’s certain. She’ll take them with her. And that’s when we can get them. And take Flitlianov as well. Since of course he’ll follow her back there.’
‘What if Flitlianov gets the letters from her before she leaves? He may even have had them off her already, if he’s up there now.’
‘No. Not on our information. Our men say he’s just sounding the ground out this weekend. And he won’t have the time to get it before she leaves — she’s leaving next week, getting out of the summer here, going ahead to England with the children. Her husband is not joining her for several weeks.’
‘The whole thing seems risky and unlikely to me, Andrei.’ Harper moved away a little, but Popovich drew up with him at once, gesturing towards the bathroom. They ran the taps again and Popovich took the opportunity of brushing his teeth.