Goodbye to an Old Friend

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 mentally 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 inferiority 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.

‘Let’s face it, Dodds,’ he began, his voice placatory now. ‘People don’t run on train lines, starting out from one spot in their character and then continuing in a straight, predictable line. That’s what human nature is, people behaving in an unexpected way. You’re surprised that Pavel has come across and can’t accept it. I’m surprised he’s come across and I can accept it. And the facts as we know them at the moment indicate that my assessment is right, don’t they?’

Adrian refused to give up without a struggle. ‘On the facts as we know them at the moment,’ he said.

Ebbetts frowned, angrily. He had been walking up and down the small office, an unsettling trick he had perfected, so that people had to move their heads back and forth, like a Wimbledon tennis audience. He stopped, leaning across the table towards Adrian, the determination to crush obvious.

‘All right,’ he said, his voice over-controlled. ‘Let’s argue your objections to their ultimate, illogical conclusion. If you’re convinced that Pavel is here for some underlying reason, then you must have decided what that reason is. Are you suggesting that Pavel is here in the role of an assassin, to liquidate a former partner?’

‘No, I …’

‘What then?’

Ebbetts was being quite merciless, enjoying it even. Adrian wondered how much training it needed to develop the hardness, the disregard of everything except the need to win every discussion and point, no matter how trivial.

‘What then?’ echoed Sir William and Adrian looked at him in surprise. He’d almost forgotten his presence.

Adrian shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

Ebbetts used that sigh again, the sneer more eloquent than any words.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Now we’ve dispensed with any doubt about Pavel, let’s start thinking objectively.’

He had resumed his pacing back and forth, but now he stopped, sitting down immediately opposite the debriefing team.

‘I know all about your usual procedures for debriefing, but this is an unusual case, a very unusual case, so we’re going to have to depart from routine.’

‘… depart from routine,’ came from the Premier’s right.

‘We’re under pressure, intense pressure,’ continued Ebbetts. ‘To hear the Russians talk, you’d think they’re going back to Berlin and the Cold War. I thought the Lyalin case was bad enough, but it was child’s play compared to this. Trouble is, the Americans seem to be backing the Soviets. Washington is very attracted by the Baikonur bait. If we don’t move quickly, there’ll be a major shift in friendships and we don’t want that.’

‘What do you want?’ asked Binns. Adrian realized how quiet the Permanent Secretary had been throughout the meeting. By his refusal to help, Sir Jocelyn was obviously expressing his agreement with the Prime Minister over the Pavel assessment.

‘I want Pavel debriefed quickly, more quickly than you’ve ever processed anyone before. I want the two men, Pavel and Bennovitch, thrown together. They’re friends. It’ll be a great psychological move, make them feel more relaxed, more ready to help …’

He looked directly at Adrian.

‘I am not taking you off this debriefing,’ he said. ‘Normally, I would. I repeat the point I made earlier. I think you’ve conducted it extremely badly. But speed is the key factor here and I don’t want to waste time on introducing another interrogator. That would lose two, maybe three days. But listen to what I say — I don’t want to waste time. You’re to eradicate completely from your mind and your attitudes and your questions any hint of doubt about Pavel or his intentions in defecting. Is that clear?’

‘Yes,’ replied Adrian, meekly.

‘I want to be able to promise Washington that their men can get to both Pavel and Bennovitch within a fortnight. The Americans want to go to Baikonur, but they want Pavel and Bennovitch even more. If I can give them a definite date, then we’ll keep the Americans on our side.’

He smiled, a conjuror about to produce his best trick.

‘And if Pavel and Bennovitch go to America, then the bad feeling goes with them. So we’ll have all the space knowledge that the two men possess, America will be indebted to us for years and Russia will switch its anger and resume normal relations with us in about six months.’

Despite his antipathy for Ebbetts, Adrian had to admire the reasoning. He sat, envying the man and his force-fulness. Anita would have admired it too. If he’d had the character of Ebbetts, then Anita would still be with him now, admiring him even, content to be dominated.

Adrian jumped, realizing Ebbetts was addressing him. ‘I said, any questions?’ repeated the Prime Minister, irritably.

‘No,’ said Adrian. ‘No questions.’

He paused, and it was obvious that he intended continuing, so they remained looking at him. ‘But I’d like to make a point, just one. I accept, from this afternoon’s meeting, how the stupidity of my doubts has been shown up …’

The Prime Minister smiled and made a deprecating gesture with his hands as if, unthinkably, even he had made mistakes on rare occasions.

‘… I accept completely the instructions I have been given. Pavel and Bennovitch will be thrown together, the debriefing will be speeded up and I shall do everything within my power to ensure we extract the maximum information before they are offered the opportunity of going to America, with the attraction of a space programme to work upon …’

‘I admire your attitude,’ said Ebbetts, smiling.

‘But let me say this,’ went on Adrian, his voice rising above the monotone in which he had been speaking. ‘I still believe I am right. Although it will not be evident from my subsequent examination of either man, my suspicion remains. I believe that something will happen, something which none of us can guess at this moment. I believe what I have been told to do is wrong. I should be allowed more time.’

He stopped, his stomach bubbling. For the first time in his life, Adrian Dodds had taken a position opposing that of the majority. He had expressed an opinion which isolated him from everyone, and put him in the spotlight. He had considered the outburst, at first dismissing the idea as ludicrous, but then he had realized that although he was being kept on the debriefing, for the sake of expediency, Sir Jocelyn would be told within hours to seek and train a new assistant.

Adrian had accepted his dismissal from the department even before he received it, and he realized that there was nothing he could lose by honesty. He had therefore decided, for the first time in his life, to express himself instead of stifling what he was really thinking, even if it clashed with the view of everyone else.

He had expected to feel euphoria, the self-satisfaction of knowing he was right against all opposition. Instead he felt sick and he wanted to use a toilet. He sat there with the three men staring at him as if he had mouthed an obscenity in a monastery, and wished more fervently than he ever had wanted anything before that he had kept his mouth shut.

‘I think,’ said Ebbetts, stiffly, ‘that this meeting is over.’

Pompously, he walked from the room, trailed by the Foreign Secretary.

As they walked back to their office, Adrian said, ‘I’m sorry. I know I’ve let you down. And the department too.’

Binns did not reply. His face twitched.

‘This will be my last debriefing, won’t it?’

‘I expect so,’ said Binns, controlling the stutter with difficulty. He isn’t at ease with me any more, thought Adrian. I’ve lost his friendship.

‘I really am sorry,’ he repeated.

‘It can’t be helped. It’s done now.’

‘I regret letting you down, personally.’

Binns shrugged. ‘What will you do?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Adrian. ‘There’s nothing else I can do.’

They entered the maze behind the Foreign Office, leaving the sunbathers in St James’s Park still unworried.

‘I believe I am right,’ said Adrian.

‘Obviously,’ said Binns. ‘But was one opinion worth destroying a career?’

‘No,’ agreed Adrian, back into character again. ‘No, it wasn’t.’

Yes, he thought, yes it was. The sickness had disappeared, but he still wanted a lavatory. Badly.