Comrade Charlie

22

Today it would all be over. After today he could put it all behind him: try to forget about it. That it ever happened. Emil Krogh stopped the run of thought, physically shaking his head as he took the sliproad off the Bay Shore Freeway and started negotiating the narrow streets towards the final meeting with the Russian. Krogh knew he’d never be able to imagine it hadn’t happened. It would always be with him, somewhere in his mind. How people would have laughed at him, sneering, calling him things like a horny old goat if it had ever come out about the girls: getting dumped from the company and dumped by Peggy. Krogh shuddered at the horror of what might have been. He’d done the only sensible, possible thing. Thank God it was all over at last: the end of a bad dream. Now it was clearing up time, Krogh determined, positively. Barbara would be out of the apartment in a week or two, so he could sell that. Sell her car, too. Soon – next week maybe – he’d kiss off Cindy and dispose of everything in Los Angeles. Stop being a stupid son-of-a-bitch and settle down with Peggy. He’d come damned close to falling right off the edge of the cliff and it wasn’t going to happen again.

Krogh detected the green of McLaren Park ahead and started looking for a parking meter. He tried on Burrows, which would have put him close to the entrance he wanted, but there were no spaces so he had to make the turn on to Felton, where he was lucky. He hesitated, putting the money in, unsure how much time he needed. Not long, he decided: there was nothing he had to say to Petrin except goodbye and it would only take a second to do that and part with the last of the blueprints. Over, he thought again: finished. Krogh paid for half an hour and walked back towards the park, entering through the gate Petrin had designated and finding the bench where he had been told to sit. He did so, staring around, wondering who or where the watchers were who always ensured the meetings were safe. There were a lot of people about, strolling or walking dogs or jogging. There were a group of kids playing bad baseball on a makeshift diamond over to his right and Krogh thought he heard the crack of an iron against a golf ball but guessed he must have been mistaken because the municipal course was some way away, too far for the sound to have carried.

When Petrin approached it was from the direction of the course. Krogh saw the man early, walking without any apparent urgency or recognition, not even when he got quite close. When Petrin reached the bench he sat with his legs thrust out and head tilted slightly back, so that his face was to the sun.

‘This is the sort of day that makes you feel good to be alive, isn’t it?’ clichéd the Russian.

‘I guess so,’ said Krogh. It was a good day but Krogh knew the way he felt came more from this being the last meeting between them. He hadn’t warned the other man and was looking forward to making the announcement.

‘So how are things?’ said Petrin conversationally.

‘From today they’re going to be terrific,’ said Krogh.

Petrin straightened slightly, looking sideways at the American. ‘How’s that?’

Instead of replying Krogh took the package from inside his jacket and handed it along the bench. He said: ‘Here it is. The last one.’ There was a feeling of satisfaction, but not as much as he’d expected.

Petrin came fully upright now. ‘You mean I’ve got’ it all! There’s no more?’

‘Nothing,’ declared Krogh. ‘We’re through.’ He had a sudden urge to give Petrin some idea of how he felt towards him, like telling the man to kiss his ass or go fuck himself or something.

‘Ah!’ exclaimed Petrin, a strange sound of contentment. He pocketed the envelope and said: ‘I’ve been waiting for this moment.’

‘Not as much as I have,’ said Krogh. He wouldn’t foul-mouth the man. He just wanted to get away, end it. He actually started to move but Petrin reached out, putting a restraining hand on his arm.

‘Wait a moment, Emil,’ said the Russian. ‘There’s something we have to talk about.’

‘No there’s not,’ insisted Krogh. ‘I’ve told you. You’ve got it all.’

‘But that’s the problem, you see? We haven’t,’ smiled Petrin.

Krogh settled back on the bench, looking nervously at the other man. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Exactly what you told me, all those weeks back. That we don’t have it all, not without the British contribution.’

‘I can’t do anything about that: I gave you all that I had from Britain.’

‘We’ve been thinking about that,’ said Petrin easily. ‘And we decided there is something you can do. Quite a lot, in fact. We want you to go to England and get all the stuff we’re missing. You can do that for us, can’t you, Emil?’

Krogh stared along the park bench, his mouth hanging open, unable to form any coherent thought. When he spoke it was weakly, like a sick man still not recovered from his illness. ‘No!’ he said, a mixture of fear and incredulity in his voice. ‘No, I can’t do that! That’s stupid! Impossible.’

‘No it isn’t,’ soothed Petrin. ‘We’ve worked it all out: decided exactly how it will be done. You’re a trained draughtsman, so you can understand drawings. And you can reproduce them. You’re the chairman of the major manufacturing company here, in America. So you’ve every right to ask to see whatever is being done in England. And you’ve got the highest security clearance, so there can’t be any difficulty with access. It’s really childishly simple. Perfect.’

‘No,’ said Krogh, a man backing away. ‘Please, no.’

‘There’s no other way,’ insisted Petrin.

‘I won’t do it!’ said Krogh in a pitiful attempt at belated bravery. ‘I’ve finished! Done all I’m going to do! Finished!’

‘Let’s not get into a dispute,’ sighed Petrin.

‘Go to hell.’

‘You can’t refuse, Emil. You know that.’

‘I don’t care about all you’ve got on the girls,’ lied Krogh.

Petrin sighed again. ‘You know something, Emil? I really don’t want to go back to Russia: to leave California, where you get days like this, when you feel good to be alive.’

‘What the hell are you talking about now?’

‘Got something else to show you,’ said Petrin, taking a wad of photographs from an outer pocket of his jacket. ‘Good selection, don’t you think?’

Krogh stared down, shuffling with shaking hands through the photographs of himself and Petrin at their various hand-over meetings in and around San Francisco. At every location there was at least one shot of Krogh clearly passing across a package, just like he had that morning. ‘What’s this?’ he said, groping for understanding.

‘What do you think it is?’

‘I know what it is: what they show. What’s the point you’re trying to make?’

‘Not trying, Emil. Making,’ stressed Petrin. ‘You really see what they show? These are photographs of one of America’s leading defence contractors, a man who made the cover of Newsweek, passing to an identifiable KGB officer all the details of America’s intended Strategic Defence Initiative. You any idea how embarrassing it could be, if the authorities ever had access to these! They make whatever there was with Barbara and Cindy look like kid’s stuff. Think of it, Emil. Think of the arrest and the trial and being put into some jail for about a thousand years. And it would be about a thousand years, wouldn’t you say? Because if Washington knew the Soviet Union had the details then the Strategic Defence Initiative would be dead, wouldn’t it? They’d have to start all over again. And that just wouldn’t cost billions: that would cost tens of billions. I’d bet you that the President and the Administration would be so mad their eyes would pop. I know all about the judiciary being independent of the government but don’t you think a word would be dropped here and there to the judges, to make sure an example was made …’

‘Stop it!’ tried Krogh desperately.

‘Not just yet,’ refused Petrin. ‘I want you to think it through very fully. Can you conceive what it would be like, in a jail? All the violence? The homosexuality: male rapes, things like that? The filth and the stink? Everything sub-human.’

‘I said stop it!’

‘That’s what I mean about not wanting to go back to Russia,’ carried on Petrin, as if the other man hadn’t spoken. ‘If we can’t get what we want and decide to wreck the Star Wars programme a different way, letting Washington know what we’ve got and who we got it from, it means I’d have to be safely returned to Moscow ahead of the revelation, so I couldn’t be arrested…’ Artificially the Russian stretched his legs and put his face to the sun again. ‘You any idea what the Russian winters are like, Emil? It gets cold enough there to freeze the balls off a statue. Much nicer here.’

‘It won’t work!’

‘Yes it will.’

‘It’s the whole point of splitting the project up: a part of the security, to avoid anyone knowing the full picture!’

‘But not to keep it from you, because you’re special: you’re the man who negotiated everything with the Pentagon. Who’s every right to know all that’s going on.’

Krogh, a drowning man snatching for straws, imagined he saw a passing, drifting chance of survival. ‘It won’t be my fault if I make the approach and I’m refused.’ He wouldn’t even bother, he decided. He’d let some time pass and tell Petrin he’d been denied access.

‘It would be sad though, wouldn’t it?’ suggested Petrin mildly. ‘We wouldn’t have any choice then, would we? We’d have to disclose these photographs anyway to ensure Washington knew the programme was compromised and force them to rethink the whole thing. Billions, like I said: tens of billions.’

‘Oh Jesus!’ said Krogh despairingly.

‘So you will do it, won’t you Emil?’

‘I’ll try.’

‘No,’ lectured Petrin. ‘You won’t try: you’ll do it. You understand what I’m saying?’

‘Yes,’ said Krogh numbly.

‘I knew you would,’ said Petrin encouragingly. ‘You want to take those photographs as a reminder, like the stuff involving Barbara and Cindy?’

‘Get them away from me!’

‘I’ve never been to England, although I hear the weather won’t be like it is here.’

‘What?’

‘England,’ said Petrin. ‘I’ll be coming with you. Not on the same aircraft or anything like that, but I’ll be in England while you’re there, so you’ll have a friend all the time. We think it’s best to keep liaison with someone you know: you’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

‘You’re a shit!’ erupted Krogh. ‘A complete and utter shit.’

‘No I’m not,’ disputed Petrin unoffended. ‘I’m a Soviet intelligence officer successfully carrying out an important assignment.’

‘You know what I’d like to do to you!’

‘Forget it, Emil,’ cautioned Petrin, still unperturbed. ‘You’re too old and too slow. And what would it prove anyway? Stop trying to behave like someone in those old black and white movies they show on late-night television.’

‘Bastard!’

‘There’s something else I’ve got to tell you,’ said Petrin, proving the accusation. ‘You certainly can pick a piece of ass. That Barbara was the best fuck I’ve had for ages…much better than Cindy, I thought. Did I ever tell you that Cindy calls you her Daddy?’

When Krogh returned to his car there was a parking ticket fluttering from the windscreen wiper. It was white, like a flag of surrender.

There was the backlog of In-Tray traffic, as there always was after an absence from the office, and it built up for a further two days while Charlie did what he considered necessary after the Isle of Wight investigation. Which involved invoking special friendships. The man’s name was William French. He was an electronics expert in the department’s Technical Division and he owed Charlie for covering up a bungled radio interception during a Soviet Foreign Ministry visit to London a year before. The man complained it wasn’t going to be easy, and Charlie said nothing was. Then he said that because of the personal approach he assumed it was unofficial and Charlie agreed that it was, for the moment. French said he would do his best and Charlie said he was grateful. Only then, with meticulous care, did Charlie get around to composing the report to comply with Harkness’ regulations.

It was not until the third day of his return to the London office that Charlie began on the official publications, but because it was quite close to the top of the pile he found the reference to Natalia’s forthcoming visit to England within the first hour. It was in the English-language Morning Star, with a photograph of the entire Soviet delegation. Natalia was wearing a suit she’d worn in an earlier photograph of the Canadian trip, severe and businesslike, with her hair different from the earlier photographs, lighter against her head this time. Charlie thought she looked wonderful.

Charlie knew at once what he was going to do. He was going to be with Natalia again!