Goodbye to an Old Friend Read online

  ‘Oh.’ The woman took another look at the suit.

  ‘Any messages?’

  ‘Sir Jocelyn wants to see you at three-thirty,’ said the secretary. ‘I’ve typed yesterday’s debriefing, and the resulting questions have come across from the Technical Section.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘There was a note on your reminder pad.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘On your reminder pad, you’d written my name. Was there something you wanted to talk to me about?’

  Adrian recalled her early departure from the office the previous evening and the resolution to make a protest to re-establish his position with the woman. He turned. Inevitably she was patting those rigid iron grey furrows. He wondered if he would ever satisfy his curiosity about that hairpiece.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It was nothing.’

  ‘Sure?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, quite sure.’

  The cleared line from Binns buzzed and Adrian picked up the grey telephone.

  ‘How did it go?’ asked the Permanent Secretary.

  ‘Better,’ said Adrian. ‘Haven’t you heard all the tape?’

  ‘Up to the moment he lapsed into Russian.’

  Adrian had forgotten the language change. It would mean translation and cause several hours’ delay.

  ‘He was much more forthcoming,’ he said.

  ‘Well, that’s progress.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Adrian.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll explain it when we meet.’

  ‘That’s the point of this call,’ said Binns. ‘This thing is creating the most incredible international outcry from practically everyone. We’ve even had some of our men expelled from Moscow now, alleging that we are actually enticing their scientists across. It’s far far worse than when Oleg Lyalin defected and we expelled the majority of their Trade Mission. America has been asked to pressure us privately to return both Bennovitch and Pavel, in return for future closer space co-operation. The Russians have even offered to let some people from Houston visit Baikonur …’

  ‘I don’t believe it would ever come off,’ interrupted Adrian.

  ‘Neither do I,’ picked up Binns. ‘But it’s an impressive offer and the Americans are nibbling hard at the bait.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Every newspaper in the world is advancing every sort of speculation you can imagine on the importance of these two. The Prime Minister wants to see us this afternoon.’

  Adrian looked down at his creased suit. He wouldn’t have time to have it pressed.

  ‘The Prime Minister?’ he queried.

  ‘Yes,’ said Binns. ‘He’s taken over personal control.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Adrian. ‘What time does he want to see us?’

  ‘Four,’ said Binns. ‘So you’d better come across here at three to brief me fully before the meeting.’

  Adrian replaced the receiver and saw Miss Aimes smiling across the desk at him.

  ‘Going all afternoon?’ she asked.

  He nodded, aware she was planning another early night. Perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps then he’d talk to her.

  ‘Let’s review what we’ve done so far,’ said Kaganov, an unnecessary list of reminders before him. ‘Because Pavel defected in Paris, we’ve protested to France and threatened the cancellation of the trade agreement negotiated by Pompidou. We’ve made every official protest to Britain, brought pressure through Washington with the Baikonur promise, recalled our ambassador to London for consultations and expelled the British military attaché and two first secretaries.’

  ‘It was brilliant to hint the attaché was in some way involved with enticing both men over,’ admitted Minevsky. The move had earned a lot of praise, but people were forgetting it was his idea.

  ‘Is there anything else that needs doing to keep it bubbling?’ said Heirar. ‘We can’t allow the tension to relax for a moment. Who’s debriefing Pavel? Do we know?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Kaganov. ‘It’s the man the British always use. His name is Adrian Dodds. According to our embassy, he’s quite brilliant.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we do something there?’ continued Heirar. ‘Shouldn’t we move against him?’

  ‘Good God, no,’ said Minevsky, anticipating by a few seconds the reaction that would come from the chairman.

  ‘What the hell are you suggesting?’ took up Kaganov.

  Heirar pressed on. ‘Surely we could stage-manage an attempted assassination?’

  ‘You must be mad,’ said Minevsky. ‘They’d immediately take Dodds away from the debriefing. It could take the embassy weeks to discover who his replacement would be. And anyway, we only know his name. We don’t know his identity or where he is.’

  Chapter Six

  Adrian and Sir Jocelyn walked from their office, threading their way through the labyrinth of passages at the rear of the Foreign Office. They ignored the front entrance of Downing Street, going down the steps to loop back through Horseguards Parade to enter, from habit, through the rear entrance.

  In St James’s Park, sun worshippers were prostrate on the grass and Adrian studied them enviously. No worries, he thought. No broken marriages, no bewigged secretaries, no laundry problems. And they’d have eaten as well.

  Both knew the inside of the Prime Minister’s official house from previous visits and confidently followed the male secretary through the corridors and into the small office off the larger Cabinet Room.

  Although they were ten minutes early, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary were waiting.

  ‘Here you are, here you are,’ said the Premier, Arnold Ebbetts, impatiently, as if they were at least an hour late for the appointment.

  He was a fat, fleshy man, who affected a pipe he rarely lit and the sort of tweed suits that cost thirty pounds from multiple tailors and could be recognized as such. He cultivated a reputation for bluntness, which he practised when it would cause no harm, and always invited the press to his summer cottage in Yorkshire for duty pictures of him with flat cap and briar stick, a man of the people who’d made good but hadn’t forgotten his humble origins of grammar school and Barnsley Technical College. He had a mind like a computer, an ambition to be remembered as one of Britain’s ablest premiers and rarely in public speeches did he forget to drop his aitches.

  Arnold Ebbetts was a politician’s politician. The man he most admired was Arnold Ebbetts.

  ‘Here you are,’ echoed the Foreign Minister. Predictably, Adrian felt sorry for him. Sir William Fornham was a cartoonist’s dream, a caricature of a British aristocrat, so that people judged him – quite wrongly – from a commentator’s drawing rather than his performance. He was a tall, bony man, who had forsaken his hereditary title to serve his country, which he did well but for which he got little recognition. He suffered the disadvantage of believing through tradition, breeding and education that all men were gentlemen who told the truth and was constantly offended to discover otherwise. Apart from that his only other failing was that he often appeared to be thinking of something else, which he wasn’t, and so to prove his attention he had developed the habit of repeating the final five or six words of the person who spoke before him.

  He was Foreign Secretary because the government needed a man of wealth to capture the intellectual right wing of the party. Sir William was aware of it, but he knew his worth and was prepared to be used by an ambitious prime minister because it had been the role of his family for three centuries to serve their country. History, hoped Sir William, would correctly assess his contribution to be as great as that of any of his ancestors.

  Ebbetts had decided upon bluntness.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ he demanded, looking at Adrian. ‘Don’t like the way this debriefing is going, don’t like it at all.’

  Sir William reserved judgment by failing to pick up the end of the sentence.

  ‘What don’t you like?’

  Adrian felt the glance of Sir Jocelyn at the lack of respect and menta
lly shrugged it aside. He was right about Pavel. He knew he was. And he knew that time would prove him correct. He hoped he could maintain his attitude throughout the meeting.

  ‘You’re handling the man wrong, all wrong,’ said Ebbetts. ‘He’s hostile. And we haven’t got time to muck about. Speed is the element here.’

  ‘… element here,’ intoned Sir William.

  ‘But why?’ queried Adrian. ‘I’m sure Sir Jocelyn has made it clear that speed is just the thing to avoid in a debriefing. Answers have got to be checked, then crosschecked, then analysed …’

  ‘Rubbish.’ The Premier cut him off with a wave of his hand. ‘Is Bennovitch genuine?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Adrian, ‘I believe he is.’

  ‘Is Pavel genuine?’

  ‘Depends what you mean by genuine,’ countered Adrian.

  ‘Don’t play with me, Dodds,’ said Ebbetts, irritably. ‘Say what you mean.’

  ‘I believe the man who defected to our embassy in Paris and whom I have spent two days debriefing in Sussex is Viktor Pavel, who, with Alexandre Bennovitch, forms Russia’s most important space team,’ replied Adrian, formally. He was irritated by the posturing of the other man and determined not to be pressured.

  ‘What then?’ asked the Premier and Sir William came in with ‘What then?’

  ‘I am suspicious of the man …’ began Adrian, but the Premier cut him off. ‘I know, I know. I’ve heard from Binns all about your impressions that don’t have an ounce of evidence to back them up.’

  Adrian sighed, feeling that the Premier had made up his mind on a course of action before the meeting began.

  He tried again. ‘In any defector, the impressions, the feelings, if you like, that you are dismissing so quickly are important. Often men who are anxious to get asylum give the impression that their importance is far greater than it is …’

  ‘For God’s sake, man, Viktor Pavel is probably the cleverest space scientist Russia has ever produced … the cleverest man there’s been for years. He’d make Einstein look like a fifth-former. Bennovitch is important, but even he doesn’t compare. You’ve said that yourself. We can’t begin to challenge Pavel’s knowledge because we haven’t got anyone in this country, or in the West for that matter, on the same level. What the hell’s all this talk about “impressions of importance”?’

  Adrian experienced a wave of nervousness and tried to subdue it. This meeting could decide his future with the department.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m expressing myself badly, but I meant to go on, beyond that. I’m not questioning Pavel’s brilliance. I’m not questioning, either, the incredible value he could have for Western space advances. I’m unsure of the motives of the man in coming across.’

  ‘What other motives can a man have when he runs to the embassy of a foreign country and begs asylum?’

  ‘I don’t believe Pavel wants to defect,’ Adrian blurted out, accepting the stupidity of the words as he uttered them, desperation moving his tongue ahead of his thoughts.

  ‘Wants to defect?’ queried the Prime Minister and when Sir William echoed ‘Wants to defect?’ the incredulity indicated greater feeling than he usually expressed.

  ‘What Dodds means, I think,’ said Sir Jocelyn, trying to come to his assistant’s aid, ‘is that some uncertainty has arisen in Pavel since he crossed over. You’ve read the transcripts. The uncertainty is obviously there.’ The nerve irritated under his eye.

  ‘Any uncertainty that has arisen in Pavel is the direct result of the way he’s been treated, in my opinion,’ snapped Ebbetts.

  ‘… way he’s been treated …’ came from Sir William.

  Adrian laid his hands flat on the table, looking down for concentration. The meeting was falling away from him. He was appearing a rambling fool.

  ‘Please,’ he said, the desperation edging in again. ‘Please let me speak, for a moment, without interruption, so that I can try and communicate completely what I feel.’

  He paused. The other men stayed silent. Even in complete silence, Ebbetts seemed to be challenging him.

  ‘Certainly it’s possible,’ he began, ‘for a defector – for Pavel – to experience a change of heart. In fact, it is ridiculous for him to expect and for us to expect that some doubt, some homesickness or guilt, won’t arise. Bennovitch said, as you’ll have heard from his recordings, that he felt guilty and had some regrets. But for him it was easy, because he had no family upon whom he knew retribution would be carried out. Pavel protected his sister. Any defector with a family knows that they will be made pariahs in the Soviet Union. Pavel is an intelligent man, someone who deeply loves his family. According to Bennovitch, Pavel’s only interest, apart from his work, was his wife and two children. Imagine what’s going to happen to that woman now – first her brother, then her husband, together the two most important men in the Russian space programme. It will be a miracle if she doesn’t face trial …’

  ‘I’ve tried to be patient,’ burst in Ebbetts, ‘but I can’t see the point you’re trying to make. Of course we all know what is likely to happen to Pavel’s wife … that it will probably be far worse than what happens to relatives of most defectors …’

  ‘And that’s exactly the point,’ said Adrian, with the vehemence of a man who has scored an advantage in a debate. ‘Pavel knows what will happen to her. And he knew it before he even considered coming across. Is that the action of a man deeply devoted to his wife? Would such a man abandon a woman he loves to a life sentence in a labour camp at Potma?’

  ‘But he has,’ pointed out Ebbetts. ‘I accept the point you’re making and I agree that if this had been a hypothetical discussion on the likelihood of Pavel following Bennovitch, then I would have agreed completely with you and dismissed as ludicrous the merest suggestion that Pavel would defect. But he has defected. You’re arguing philosophy. I’m arguing facts.’

  ‘Wait,’ pleaded Adrian. ‘Please wait. Knowing, upon your acceptance of my point, that his wife would be punished, Pavel goes ahead and defects. And then, belatedly, becomes covered with remorse. You’ve seen the reports of the men guarding him, you’ve read the transcripts of the conversations he has had with them …’

  Ebbetts staged a theatrical sigh.

  Adrian hesitated, then forced himself on. ‘I’ve rarely known a more painstaking man. He flies into a rage if a cleaner so much as moves a hair-brush an inch from where he’s decided it should rest. Twice he’s carried out an entire inventory against the list he’s prepared and always has with him of what he’s been allowed to keep in his room …’

  Another sigh. ‘Get on with it, man,’ implored Ebbetts.

  ‘It’s an analytical mind,’ said Adrian. ‘He thinks, considers, makes notes and refers to them … he’s painfully old womanish, if you like. But the point is he calculates everything before he moves, not afterwards. For Pavel to become concerned about what effect his defection will have upon his wife and family after he’s come across is so out of character and unreal as to be suspicious.’

  ‘Psychological poppycock,’ dismissed Ebbetts.

  ‘And there’s more,’ went on Adrian. ‘I believe Sir Jocelyn has told you about the man’s attitude …’

  ‘Resulting from your own. A man reacts in attitude to the way he’s treated,’ interrupted the Premier, quoting elementary Dale Carnegie.

  Adrian was breathing heavily, losing ground. He could feel perspiration rivering beneath his shirt.

  ‘No, that’s not it,’ he said. ‘Listen to the first tape again, please. Pavel’s attitude was formed from our first word. Over-confident and protective …’

  ‘Protective.’ Ebbetts seized the word, rushing in like a ferret. ‘That’s just it. Wouldn’t you be protective, wouldn’t you be afraid but try not to show it if you’d defected to Moscow? I’m amazed, I really am. I’d had the highest regard for your ability, Dodds, until now. You’ve had courses in psychology and according to what Binns tells me, one of the commonest indications of fear or in
feriority is a show of shallow self-confidence.’

  ‘But Pavel’s self-confidence isn’t shallow. I’ve debriefed defectors before who’ve shown the symptoms you talk about. I can recognize that sort of confidence within minutes. And it usually evaporates within the first hour of the initial meeting. Pavel is confident.’

  ‘And why the hell shouldn’t he be?’ asked Ebbetts. ‘He’s a genius. And he knows it. He can look upon this initial debriefing as a formality, the necessary form-filling, like taking out a television licence at a post office …’

  Ebbetts paused and smiled. ‘No disrespect to your role, of course, but that’s what it is. He knows our technical men are dying to get their hands on him and he’ll know the Americans feel the same way. Usually your defectors are frightened, unsure of their worth. That’s exactly the reason Pavel isn’t frightened. He’s led a pampered life in Russia for nearly twenty years which tells him just how valuable he is. Good God man, you’ve heard of prima donnas, haven’t you? That’s what Pavel is, a conceited prima donna.’

  Yes, thought Adrian, I’ve heard of prima donnas. He shook his head in disagreement with Ebbetts’s opinion, but said nothing. Ebbetts knew he had destroyed the other man’s argument and carried on, the bully emerging at the recognition of a weaker character.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s examine your points.’

  He stood up and splayed his fingers, like a schoolmaster addressing a backward class.

  ‘Point one – Pavel adores his family and would never leave them behind for harassment by the Russians. Answer – he has. I don’t care if it’s out of character. I don’t care if Pavel makes notes of everything, even about going to the lavatory before he does it. The fact which cannot be ignored is that Pavel deserted his family. Point two – he’s not nervous, but just the opposite, insufferably self-confident. Answer – he’s got every right to be.’

  A heavy silence settled in the room. Adrian sat, realizing his objections had been reduced to nonsense. He’d lost. Again.

  Ebbetts continued in the role of politician, winning back a man he’d just defeated.