The Devil's Alternative (22 page)

West of the ship, at the northern extremity of the port, lay the oil harbor and refinery, circled by chain-link fencing. To the south, the port was bounded by the protective arm of the great seaward mole. Ten miles beyond the mole the Dniester River flowed into the sea through the swampy marshes where, five months before, Miroslav Kaminsky had stolen his skiff and made a desperate bid for freedom. Now, thanks to him, Andrew Drake—Andriy Drach—had come home to the land of his ancestors. But this time he had come armed.

That evening, Captain Thanos was informed that he would be brought into port and moored alongside the following morning. Port health and customs officials visited the
Sanadria
, but they spent the hour on board closeted with Captain Thanos in his cabin, sampling his top-grade Scotch whisky, kept for the occasion. There was no search of the ship. Watching the launch leave the ship’s side, Drake wondered if Thanos had betrayed him. It would have been easy enough: Drake would be arrested ashore; Thanos would sail with his five thousand dollars.

It all depended, he thought, on whether Thanos had accepted his story of bringing money to his fiancée. If he had, there was no motive to betray him, for the offense was routine enough; his own sailors brought contraband goods into Odessa on every voyage, and dollar bills were only another form of contraband. And if the rifle and pistols had been discovered, the simple thing would have been to throw the lot into the sea and sling Drake off the ship, once back in Piraeus. Still, he could neither eat nor sleep that night.

Just after dawn, the pilot boarded. The
Sanadria
weighed anchor, took a tug in attendance, and moved slowly between the breakwaters and into her berth. Often, Drake had learned, there was a berthing delay in this, the most congested of the Soviet Union’s warm-water ports. They must want their Vac-U-Vators badly. He had no idea how badly. Once the shore cranes had started to unload the freighter, the watchkeepers among the crew were allowed to go ashore.

During the voyage Drake had become friendly with the
Sanadria’s
carpenter, a middle-aged Greek seaman who had visited Liverpool and was keen to practice his twenty words of English. He had repeated them continuously to his intense delight whenever he met Drake during the voyage, and each time Drake had nodded furious encouragement and approval. He had explained to Constantino in English and sign language that he had a girl friend in Odessa and was bringing her presents. Constantino approved. With a dozen others, they trooped down the gangway and headed for the dock gates. Drake was wearing one of his best suede sheepskin coats, although the day was reasonably warm. Constantino carried a duffel shoulder bag with a brace of bottles of export-proof Scotch whisky.

The whole port area of Odessa is cordoned off from the city and its citizens by a high chain

fence, topped with barbed wire and arc lights. The main dock gates habitually stand open in the daytime, the entrance being blocked only by a balanced red-and-white striped pole. This marks the passageway for lorries, with a customs official and two armed militiamen attending it.

Astride the entrance gate is a long, narrow shed, with one door inside the port area and one on the outside. The party from the
Sanadria
entered the first door, with Constantino in charge. There stood a long counter, attended by one customs man, and a passport desk, attended by an immigration officer and a militiaman. All three looked scruffy and exceptionally bored. Constantine approached the customs man and dumped his shoulder bag on the counter. The official opened it and extracted a bottle of whisky. Constantine gestured that it was a present from one to the other. The customs man managed a friendly nod and placed the bottle beneath his table.

Constantine clasped a brawny arm around Drake and pointed to him.

“
Droog
,” he said, and beamed widely. The customs man nodded that he understood the newcomer was the Greek carpenter’s friend and should be recognized as such. Drake smiled broadly. He stood back, eyeing the customs man as an outfitter eyes a customer. Then he stepped forward, slipped off the sheepskin coat and held it out, indicating that he and the customs man were about the same size. The official did not bother to try it on; it was a fine coat, worth a month’s salary at least. He smiled his acknowledgment, placed the coat under the table, and waved the entire party through.

The immigration officer and militiaman showed no surprise. The second bottle of whisky was for the pair of them. The
Sanadria
crew members surrendered their seaman’s books, and in the case of Drake his passport to the immigration officer, and each received in return a shore pass from a leather satchel the officer wore over his shoulder. Within a few minutes the
Sanadria
party emerged into the sunshine beyond the shed.

Drake’s rendezvous was in a small café in the dockland area of old, cobbled streets, not far from the Pushkin Monument, where the ground rises from the docks to the main city. He found it after thirty minutes of wandering, having separated himself from his fellow seamen on the grounds that he wanted to date his mythical girl friend. Constantino did not object; he had to contact his underworld friends to set up the delivery of his sackful of denim jeans.

It was Lev Mishkin who came, just after noon. He was wary, cautious, and sat alone, making no sign of recognition. When he had finished his coffee, he rose and left the café. Drake followed him. Only when the pair had reached the wide, sea-front highway of Primorsky Boulevard did he allow Drake to catch up. They spoke as they walked.

Drake agreed that he would make his first run, with the handguns stuck in his waistband and the image intensifier in a duffel bag with two clinking bottles of whisky, that evening. There would be plenty of Western ships’ crews coming through for an evening in the dockland bars at the same time. He would be wearing another sheepskin coat to cover the handguns in his belt, and the chill of the evening air would justify his keeping the coat buttoned at the front Mishkin and his friend David Lazareff would meet Drake in the darkness by the Pushkin Monument and take over the hardware.

Just after eight that evening, Drake came through with his first consignment. Jovially, he saluted the customs man, who waved him on and called to his colleague at the passport desk. The immigration man handed out a shore pass in exchange for his passport, jerked his chin toward the open door to the city of Odessa, and Drake was through. He was almost at the foot of the Pushkin Monument, seeing the writer’s head raised against the stars above, when two figures joined him out of the darkness between the plane trees that crowd Odessa’s open spaces.

“Any problems?” asked Lazareff. “None,” said Drake.

“Let’s get it over with,” said Mishkin. Both men were carrying the briefcases that everyone seems to carry in the Soviet Union. These cases, far from carrying documents, are the male version of the string bags the women carry, called “perhaps bags.” They get their name from the hope that the women carry with them that perhaps they may spot a worthwhile consumer article on sale and snap it up before it is sold out or the queues form. Mishkin took the image intensifier and stuffed it into his larger briefcase; Lazareff took both the handguns, the spare ammunition slips, and the box of rifle shells and put them in his own.

“We’re sailing tomorrow evening,” said Drake. “I’ll have to bring the rifle in the morning.” “Damn,” said Mishkin, “daylight is bad. David, you know the port area best. Where is it to be?” Lazareff considered. “There is an alley,” he said, “between two crane-maintenance workshops.” He described the mud-colored workshops, not far from the docks.

“The alley is short, narrow. One end looks toward the sea, the other to a third blank wall. Enter the seaward end of the alley on the dot of eleven A.M. I will enter the other end. If there is anyone else in the alley, walk on, go around the block, and try again. If the alley is empty, well take de- livery.”

“How will you be carrying it?” asked Mishkin.

“Wrapped around with sheepskin coats,” said Drake, “and stuffed in a kit bag about three feet long.”

“Let’s get out of here,” said Lazareff. “Someone is coming.”

When Drake returned to the
Sanadria
, the customs men had changed shifts and he was frisked. He was clean. The next morning he asked Captain Thanos for an extra spell ashore on the grounds that he wanted to spend the maximum time with his fiancée. Thanos excused him from deck duties and let him go. There was a nasty moment in the customs shed when Drake was asked to turn out his pockets. Placing his kit bag on the ground, he obeyed and revealed a wad of four ten- dollar bills. The customs man, who seemed to be in a bad mood, wagged an admonishing finger at Drake and confiscated the dollars. He ignored the kit bag. Sheepskin coats, it seemed, were respectable contraband; dollars were not.

The alley was empty, save for Mishkin and Lazareff walking down from one end and Drake walking up from the other. Mishkin gazed beyond Drake to the seaward end of the alley; when they were abreast he said, “Go,” and Drake hefted the kit bag onto the shoulder of Lazareff. “Good luck,” he said as he walked on, “see you in Israel.”

Sir Nigel Irvine retained membership in three clubs in the west of London, but selected Brooks’s for his dinner with Barry Ferndale and Adam Munro. By custom the serious business of the evening was left until they had quit the dining room and retired to the subscription room, where the coffee, port, and cigars were served.

Sir Nigel had asked the chief steward, called the dispense waiter, to reserve his favorite corner, near the windows looking down into St. James’s Street, and four deep leather club chairs were waiting for them when they arrived. Munro selected brandy and water; Ferndale and Sir Nigel took a decanter of the club’s vintage port and had it set on the table between them. Silence reigned while the cigars were lit, the coffee sipped. From the walls the Dilettantes, the eighteenth-century group of men-about-town, gazed down at them.

“Now, my dear Adam, what seems to be the problem?” asked Sir Nigel at last. Munro glanced to a nearby table where two senior civil servants conversed. For keen ears, they were within eavesdropping distance. Sir Nigel noticed the look.

“Unless we shout,” he observed equably, “no one is going to hear us. Gentlemen do not listen to other gentlemen’s conversations.”

Munro thought this over. “We do,” he said simply.

“That’s different,” said Ferndale. “It’s our job.”

“All right,” said Munro. “I want to bring the Nightingale out.” Sir Nigel studied the tip of his cigar.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “Any particular reason?”

“Partly strain,” said Munro. “The original tape recording in July had to be stolen, and a blank substituted in its place. That could be discovered, and it’s preying on the Nightingale’s mind. Secondly, the chances of discovery. Every abstraction of Politburo minutes heightens this. We now know Maxim Rudin is fighting for his political life, and the succession when he goes. If the Nightingale gets careless, or is even unlucky, he could get caught.”

“Adam, that’s one of the risks of defecting,” said Ferndale. “It goes with the job. Penkovsky was caught.”

“That’s the point,” pursued Munro. “Penkovsky had provided just about all he could. The Cuban missile crisis was over. There was nothing the Russians could do to undo the damage that Penkovsky had done to them.”

“I would have thought that was a good reason for keeping the Nightingale in place,” observed Sir Nigel. “There is still an awful lot more he can do for us.”

“Or the reverse,” said Munro. “If the Nightingale comes out, the Kremlin can never know what has been passed. If he is caught, they’ll make him talk. What he can reveal now will be enough to bring Rudin down. This would seem to be the moment the West precisely would not wish Rudin to fall.”

“Indeed it is,” said Sir Nigel. “Your point is taken. It’s a question of a balance of chances. If we bring the Nightingale out, the KGB will check back for months. The missing tape will presumably be discovered, and the supposition will be that even more was passed over before he left. If he is caught, it’s even worse; a complete record of what he has passed over will be extracted from him. Rudin could well fall as a result. Even though Vishnayev would probably be disgraced also, the Castletown talks would abort. Thirdly, we keep the Nightingale in place until the Castletown talks are over and the arms-limitation agreement is signed. By then there will be nothing the war faction in the Politburo can do. It’s a teasing choice.”

“I’d like to bring him out,” said Munro. “Failing that, let him lie low, cease transmitting.” “I’d like him to go on,” said Ferndale, “at least until the end of Castletown.”

Sir Nigel reflected on the alternative arguments.

“I spent the afternoon with the Prime Minister,” he said at length. “The P.M. made a request, a very strong request, on behalf of herself and the President of the U.S.A. I cannot at this moment turn that request down unless it could be shown the Nightingale was on the very threshold of exposure. The Americans regard it as vital to their chances of securing an all-embracing treaty at Castletown that the Nightingale keep them abreast of the Soviet negotiating position. At least until the New Year.

“So I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Barry, prepare a plan to bring the Nightingale out. Something that can be activated at short notice. Adam, if the fuse begins to burn under the Nightingale’s tail, we’ll bring him out. Fast. But for the moment the Castletown talks and the frustration of the Vishnayev clique have to take first priority. Three or four more transmissions should see the Castletown talks in their final stages. The Soviets cannot delay some sort of a wheat agreement beyond February or March at the latest. After that, Adam, the Nightingale can come to the West, and I’m sure the Americans will show their gratitude in the habitual manner.”

The dinner in Maxim Rudin’s private suite in the Kremlin’s inner sanctum was far more private than that at Brooks’s in London. No confidence concerning the integrity of gentlemen where other gentlemen’s conversations are concerned has ever marred the acute caution of the men of the Kremlin. There was no one within earshot but the silent Misha when Rudin took his place in his favorite chair of the study and gestured Ivanenko and Petrov to other seats.