No Time for Heroes

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

It took Cowley three hours to transmit a full account of the Moscow debacle, helped by Stephen Snow who ferried the cables up to the secure embassy rooftop communications shack. Afterwards he accepted Snow’s invitation in the other direction, to the basement social club.

He recollected it vividly from the last time, with Pauline and the then unsuspected Barry Andrews, present and past husband trying to appear civilised, each over-compensating, each ill at ease. Little had changed. The marines who formed the security detachment were still as anxious to get as close as possible to the secretaries and the female staff who remained aloof during working hours, and the music sounded the same, scratched and vintage sixties. Hamburgers and ribs on disposable grills were an innovation and the beer was being kept cool now in a small refrigerator and two plastic cold boxes, instead of floating in a garbage bin of melting ice. Cowley recognised several people from his previous visit, although he couldn’t get their names. The recall was better on their part, understandably: he was an oddity, someone briefly appearing from outside their insular environment, the Man from Mars.

A trestle table was bowed under the weight of gallon jugs of PX hard liquor, all of which Cowley refused. Instead he made a beer last while he renewed old acquaintances and made new ones, determinedly vague about the reason he was back there, talking generally about an enquiry connected with something that had happened back home. Without exception, everyone with whom he talked asked at some time how long he’d have to stay in Moscow.

Cowley excused himself early and got a cab within minutes by using the street-wise advice of his previous visit, flagging down passing vehicles with a packet of Marlboro cigarettes displayed in his cupped hand. The driver tried for ten dollars in American currency but accepted five without argument.

Having got there, Cowley wondered why he had been in such a hurry to get back to the hotel: at least at the embassy there had been other Americans to talk to, even if he had found them dull. There seemed nothing better to do than go to the bar.

He was on his fourth Chivas Regal when, for the first time, he properly noticed three or four professional girls dotted around the side tables. One smiled openly at him, but he did not respond. Once it would have been different, but he wasn’t bothered any more.

‘This is unexpected! Dangerous!’ Vladimir Kabalin was a tall, long-necked man upon whom shirt collars didn’t properly settle. The sleeves of his jacket were too short, increasing the giraffe-like awkwardness.

‘It’s a bonus!’ argued Metkin.

‘It will make the rest more difficult. We should demand a meeting.’

‘ Demand? ’ queried Metkin.

‘Ask,’ corrected Kabalin.

‘It’s only one man,’ said Metkin.

‘Two,’ insisted Kabalin. ‘And it’s the American who’s the problem.’

‘Soon there won’t be any problem at all,’ said Metkin. He considered Danilov had beaten him once. The man wouldn’t do it again.