Goodbye to an Old Friend (4 page)

‘It's like watching an animal feed, at the zoo,' he said to the man who stood alongside. The security official shrugged. ‘Your department fixed the classification,' he said. ‘We just do as we're told and hope to Christ nothing goes wrong.'

Adrian didn't reply. He stood in the hallway until the breakfast was cleared and then gave the scientist ten minutes before moving into the room. The Russian looked up, acknowledging a new face.

‘Good morning,' said Adrian, smiling, his accent perfect.

Pavel smiled and ducked his head in appreciation. ‘I speak English,' he said.

‘As you wish,' responded Adrian.

‘But I wish my English were as good as your Russian.'

Adrian smiled at the compliment. ‘Perhaps I have more practice.'

‘Perhaps.'

Adrian half turned to the security men, who rose together. One nodded and said, ‘Think we'll take a break.'

He spoke in Russian, too, and Pavel laughed, aloud. ‘Perhaps I should start awarding marks.'

Adrian sat in a deep leather armchair bordering the fire, studying the other man, marking the contrasts with Bennovitch. Pavel was medium height, but quite thin, unlike his squat, rotund partner, and the fastidiousness showed. He appeared quite relaxed, hands cupped in his lap, nails clean and well manicured, his suit crisp and pressed and better cut than that of Bennovitch, showing almost Western tailoring. The eyes were blank and unrevealing behind the spectacles, the receding hair separated by a parting that was ruler-straight.

‘You must be one of the important men,' said Pavel. ‘What would the word be – quizmaster?'

Adrian felt he was being laughed at. He smiled at the irony. Unusual confidence, he thought. Normally there was more uncertainty. He shrugged, adopting the diffident attitude so necessary to question arrogant men who made mistakes because they thought they dominated the interview.

‘I wouldn't say that,' he replied. ‘I'm just convenient because I speak languages.'

‘How many?' asked Pavel, immediately.

Unusual again, thought Adrian. He'd used the dismissive ploy several times in the past, but never been challenged on it. As a rule they were nervous, concerned only with questions revolving around their own safety.

‘Quite a few,' he said, still modest.

‘But how many?' There was an edge of impatience in the query, showing a man used to questions being specifically answered the first time, without prevarication.

‘Twelve,' replied Adrian, immediately. Let him dominate the interview, initially, just to gather more confidence.

‘Chinese?'

The question was a surprise until Adrian remembered the boy on the Chinese border. ‘Mandarin and Cantonese, and one dialect.'

Pavel nodded, as if the answers had solved some secret questions.

‘Are you worried about Georgi?' asked Adrian, shifting the initiative.

Pavel smiled. ‘Georgi? You know of my son?' Then without awaiting an answer, he said confidently, ‘Alexandre has been talking.'

Adrian wondered whether to disclose that the fact had come from the Moscow embassy and decided against it. Let him think Bennovitch was being co-operative.

‘He's very fond of you,' said Adrian. ‘He refers to you almost as a father.'

Clever, thought Adrian. So far he's effortlessly avoided the only question.

‘Is Alexandre happy?'

Adrian shrugged again, still allowing the control to slide away from him.

‘Of course not,' he said. ‘Any more than you are now or will be for some months yet. There's too much uncertainty and anxiety yet for there to be any enjoyment apart from the exhilaration of getting away.'

It had been a tenet of his psychology training to be as honest as possible with any interviewee. The moment the subject caught the questioner in a basic dishonesty, any hope of co-operation disappeared. Pavel nodded, accepting the attitude.

‘Does it get better? How long does the uncertainty last?'

Adrian thought he saw a gap in the confidence and moved to widen it.

‘It depends on the person,' he said.

‘I feel guilty,' admitted Pavel suddenly, and Adrian stepped in, accepting the opening.

‘That's inevitable,' he said, ‘and it'll be more difficult for you than it was for Alexandre. He only left a sister. And being your wife, she was protected. But now she isn't. Neither are Georgi or Valentina.'

Adrian had spoken purposely, trying to shatter the man's demeanour, accepting the frowns that the abrupt questions and statements would later cause among the people who argued that there should be as few reminders as possible of the difficulties that a defection caused an émigré's family. Pavel was going to be difficult, perhaps the most difficult yet. The reaction is worth the risk, judged Adrian.

‘You're not taking any notes,' said Pavel, suddenly.

‘No.'

‘So everything is being recorded?'

Adrian sighed. It
was
going to be the most difficult.

‘Yes,' he said.

‘Funny,' mused Pavel. ‘I knew it was done in Russia, but I never imagined it being done here …'

‘… It's for convenience,' broke in Adrian. It was important to establish a guide to this drifting conversation. ‘Notebooks or unspeaking shorthand writers in the corner of a room unsettle people, make them aware that every word is being noted. A tape recording is a convenience, that's all. We make no secret of it. I
could
have lied.'

‘But that would have been pointless, wouldn't it?' said Pavel. ‘And endangered any confidence growing between us.'

Adrian frowned, unsettled by the other man's knowledge. Where had a space scientist learned psychology? Pavel stared around the elegant breakfast room. ‘There are observation points, of course.'

Adrian hesitated, momentarily, feeling himself blush. He decided to maintain the honesty and said, ‘Of course.'

He paused, then added, ‘It's a protection device, for your safety …'

Pavel's ridicule cut him off.

‘Hah! That was a mistake,' snorted Pavel. ‘So far you've been honest with me and I've recognized it. But that was stupid. I came to England in the dead of night, by helicopter from the Continent. So no one in the world knows exactly where I am except the people you choose to know. It's not
my
safety you're worried about at the moment.'

Adrian decided he had to jar the other man's confidence.

‘For a man who has abandoned his family and his country and knowingly become a traitor, you're remarkably unconcerned,' he said. That question would cause more than frowns. There would be complaints now.

Pavel looked at him, solidly, measuring his reply.

‘Are people usually nervous then?'

Adrian refused to let the initiative get away from him.

‘Aren't you?' he retorted.

Pavel smiled. ‘Yes – very,' he admitted. There was a pause, and then he added, ‘And I'm very conscious of what I've done to my family.'

‘Then why have you come over?' Adrian maintained the aggression, anxious to establish supremacy.

Again Pavel took time to reply and spoke haltingly, uttering the thoughts as they came to him. ‘I thought my work was more important to me than anything else … even before Alexandre defected from the congress in Helsinki. I was getting more and more frustrated at the restrictions that were being imposed upon me … I'd even thought of trying to get away, not knowing Alexandre was thinking the same way …'

The Russian smiled, suddenly. ‘Alexandre never indicated a thing,' he said. ‘I had no idea what he was planning. Me! – He wouldn't even trust me.'

He sounded hurt.

‘I know,' said Adrian.

Pavel took up the explanation again. ‘With Alexandre gone, our programme was broken. I could have got another colleague, certainly, but it would have taken too long – years – to get to the level at which Alexandre and I were working.'

‘Why did the Russians let you go to the air show, so soon after Bennovitch's defection?'

Adrian spaced his question, the most important he had to put initially to the scientist.

Pavel shrugged, accepting the emphasis that the Englishman placed upon it, but dismissing it. ‘But whyever shouldn't they?' he said, rhetorically. ‘As far as the authorities are concerned, my return was guaranteed … my wife and daughter in Moscow … my son at Alma Ata. They thought they had enough hostages to let me take up my exit visa …'

‘But they were wrong?'

Pavel didn't reply. Adrian was quite relaxed now, analysing everything the Russian said.

‘You spoke in a strange tense a little while ago,' continued Adrian. ‘You said you thought your work was more important than your family, as if you'd changed your mind now. Have you?'

Pavel humped his shoulders in uncertainty. ‘I don't know,' he said. ‘It's just that … that I don't have the feeling I expected to have. I keep thinking of Valentina … of the girl … of what will happen to them …'

He trailed off, swallowing. Adrian let him recover, knowing the Russian would sense the gesture and appreciate it, perhaps become less hostile.

‘See.'

Pavel took a large wallet from inside his jacket, the size making it difficult to get from his pocket.

‘My children,' identified the scientist, proudly.

Adrian examined the boy in soldier's uniform and the girl in her stiff graduation dress.

‘Georgi is a lieutenant,' said Pavel, the proud father. ‘They've let Valentina stay on at the academy. They say she's so good that she could become a concert violinist.'

‘Nice children,' said Adrian, inadequately.

‘I miss them,' said Pavel, softly, his voice reflective.

‘Bennovitch doesn't know you're here yet,' said Adrian, wanting to break the other man's mood. ‘He'll be excited. His chief regret is the thought of not seeing you again …'

Adrian paused, then extended the lure. ‘He was reminiscing yesterday, talking of your wedding …'

He stopped, purposely, and waited. Pavel smiled. ‘God, he got me drunk,' he said. And then, in snatches, repeated the story that the other Russian had told, confirming details that it would never have occurred to the Russians to furnish any assassin impostor.

But unlike Bennovitch, the memory saddened Pavel. ‘I thought I had let Valentina down then,' he said, disgustedly. ‘Now look.'

Adrian glanced at his watch and realized he had been with the Russian for three hours. It surprised him. Pavel saw the move and recovered some of his earlier arrogance.

‘Satisfied?' he asked.

‘This was only a preliminary meeting …' began Adrian, but the other man completed the sentence: ‘… to make sure I was genuine.'

‘… to make sure you were genuine,' agreed Adrian.

‘And am I?'

‘I think so.'

‘And they'll take your word alone?'

‘We'll meet again,' said Adrian and once more the Russian cut in.

‘For more recordings to be made and examined for accuracy.'

‘… for more recordings to be made and examined for accuracy,' echoed Adrian. ‘But ultimately the decision on whether or not you're granted permanent asylum will be made upon my report.'

‘I was right,' said Pavel. ‘You are one of the important ones.'

‘I get the feeling you enjoy being right all the time, don't you Viktor?'

The Russian reacted to the sarcasm, frowning. Adrian wondered whether the response was at the irony or the intentional disrespect of using his Christian name.

‘Are you often rude?' snapped Pavel.

‘Not often,' said Adrian, honestly.

‘I don't think you and I are going to establish a relationship,' said the Russian pompously. ‘I want someone else to examine me.'

Adrian laughed, the amusement genuine but protracted to arouse the other man's anger.

‘But you're not in a position to make demands, Viktor,' he said, carefully stressing the Christian name again.

‘You want my help,' reminded Pavel, almost triumphantly, like a man laying a winning card in a whist game.

‘Not as much as you need ours,' trumped Adrian.

Pavel stood up and walked to the window, speaking with his back to Adrian.

‘I expected to be treated differently from this,' he said, but there was an uncertainty in his voice. The confidence was being chipped away.

‘Perhaps we both did,' remarked Adrian, mildly, a note of dismissal in his voice.

He stood up and when he spoke again his attitude was one of complete superiority, calculated to annoy the Russian.

‘I'll be here again at nine tomorrow morning,' he said, curtly. ‘Try and be ready, will you? I had to wait twenty minutes for you today.'

He heard the Russian turn, to reply, but swept out of the room before he had chance to speak, ending the interview on his own terms.

Adrian drove slowly back to London, allowing the motorcycle dispatch-rider ahead of him adequate time to deliver the tape, so that his conversation with Sir Jocelyn would not be a parrot-like recital of facts.

Adrian was uneasy.

The man he had just left was definitely Viktor Pavel, the other half of the most important space scientist team that the Russians had ever established. He was the man in Bennovitch's photograph and the personal account that the man had provided tallied with every detail from the first defector and from the Moscow embassy.

Unquestionably, once the confidence had been eroded, the man would co-operate, filling in the gaps of Bennovitch's debriefing, giving the West the most comprehensive account of the Russians' space development and future planning.

And yet?

Adrian edged through the early afternoon traffic, towards Westminster Bridge, unable to isolate the doubt in his mind. Or remove it.

Binns was waiting for him in his office, characteristically hunched, his face expressionless. Adrian lowered himself into his usual chair and then remembered his cuffs, lowering his arms uncomfortably by his side. Sir Jocelyn did not appear to notice.