Bearpit (24 page)

He was lucky to halt a cab almost in procession to theirs, stumbling his uncertainty about a destination by saying he was unsure of the address he wanted, gesturing the man in pursuit of the vehicle one hundred yards ahead and saved any positive difficulty by their stopping at a bar just two streets and three blocks away. There was another bar, practically opposite, and he got a window bench and sat with a club soda growing warm between his hands as Caroline and the man encountered a group that seemed to expect them and with whom they drank, for another hour. Yuri stayed with the one club soda. It was more difficult to follow them the second time, because it was later into the evening and the taxis were not so frequent but again they only went three blocks and on the same avenue this time, so it was a straight-line journey and he never lost sight of them. He thought of following them into the restaurant, confident he could conceal himself in the bar, and then decided it was a pointless pursuit and so he abandoned it, but not at once, lingering for almost an hour for no reason, knowing he was behaving foolishly. Maybe he'd already behaved foolishly, he thought, as he finally hailed yet another cab: maybe he should have taken some precaution against AIDS. It was followed quickly by another thought. How was it that his father couldn't hate, at being cuckolded as he had been?

19

Panchenko had hinted the emergency was greater than before – and definitely sounded more alarmed – which made avoiding the First Chief Directorate building even more essential than after that other panicked call. Kazin decided against using the car again, instead designating the gazebo overlooking the metro station from Izmaylovo Park. Kazin still travelled there in his official vehicle. It had been years since he'd deigned to use any sort of public transport: ten at least, maybe fifteen. He could still remember the stink of too many bodies crowded together.

Panchenko was already waiting, once more ill at ease in civilian clothes, the same dark topcoat over the same dark suit. Away from the warmth of the car, Kazin shivered in his own overcoat, thinking the vehicle might have been more comfortable after all. He pulled into the rotund garden house, glad of the partial protection from the worst of the evening chill.

‘So what's the problem?' Kazin demanded at once.

‘Malik's still investigating,' announced Panchenko.

The familiar chill Kazin experienced now had nothing to do with the evening's cold. He said: ‘How do you know?'

‘He withdrew Chernov from Kiev. I've just had two hours of the man telling me all about this afternoon's interview with the bastard,' said Panchenko.

‘How the hell
could
Chernov have been withdrawn without your knowing?' demanded Kazin.

‘Malik withheld notification of authority until Chernov was back. Had him taken directly to Dzerzhinsky Square from the airport.'

‘It is a problem,' conceded Kazin. ‘A serious problem.'

Panchenko snorted an empty laugh, openly careless of Kazin's superiority. ‘Serious! You're damned right it's serious! It could be disastrous …' The pause was achingly posed. ‘… Disastrous for both of us …'

Still not the time for correction, thought Kazin; but then it had not been on the previous occasion, either. As insistent now as he had been then, Kazin said: ‘Tell me everything, from the very beginning: nothing left out.'

Panchenko did, from the discovery of the recall notice and the coincidence of Chernov's almost immediate approach, and throughout Kazin listened head slightly bowed but surprisingly – illogically – all the time conscious of the flow of people in the street outside, funnelling white-breathed towards the underground station. Small people with small fears, he thought, almost enviously.

‘How could Chernov have told a story so different from yours?' Kazin said when the security chief finished.

‘How could he do otherwise?' came back Panchenko, as irritated by that remark as he had been by the earlier reflection. ‘It was to avoid any contradiction that we had him posted to Kiev!'

‘I never imagined Malik would be this determined,' said Kazin, reflective again. But why not? Hadn't the misshapen pig been this determined when he'd returned from Stalingrad, the whey-faced, bemedalled war hero, to discover his wife didn't love him any more?

I love you.

Leave him then.

I can't, not like he is now.

You must.

I can't!

Momentarily Kazin closed his eyes, shutting out the memories. Urgently he said: ‘So what was Chernov's impression? Why did he think he was being questioned at all?'

Panchenko replied carefully. He said: ‘Chernov talked of a lot of files and documentation on the desk. And said Malik kept making notes. Chernov felt it was an official inquiry: Malik is reassigning him to Moscow to be available for more questioning.'

‘And Malik knows the rest of the squad were drafted away from Moscow?' demanded Kazin, wanting absolute clarification.

As he spoke, Kazin shifted, needing movement against the cold, and Panchenko followed him, so that they resumed in the same position as that in which they had earlier been talking. Panchenko said: ‘Chernov was quite explicit about it. Said Malik asked him if he knew of the transfers, which he didn't of course. And then queried if Chernov had requested his move.'

‘Any indication of the others being recalled?'

‘No,' said Panchenko at once. Just as quickly, he said: ‘But then we didn't know about Chernov until it had happened, did we?'

‘You could specifically inquire,' suggested Kazin.

And have my name upon an incriminating document, thought Panchenko. He said: ‘What legitimate reason would I have for doing so?'

Kazin again avoided a direct reply. Instead he said: ‘So Malik has brought back to Moscow a man who's given an account different from yours. And might possibly interrogate the others. But so what? Every recollection
has
to vary.'

‘Can you take the risk of his probing until he finds the evidence you know is there to be found?' asked Panchenko.

So much about this encounter appeared a repetition of the first, thought Kazin, recognizing the qualification. Responding to it and wanting to correct the imbalance in their positions, he said: ‘No, I don't suppose I can take that risk. I don't think that either of us can take that risk …' Now he staged the artificial pause. ‘But my understanding was that the evidence, such as it is, incriminates you?'

‘I was following your orders, not Malik's, in doing what I did that night at Gogolevskiy Boulevard,' insisted Panchenko.

‘I don't remember anything being written down: any provable documentation,' said Kazin with ominous mildness.

For a long time Panchenko stared unspeaking across the narrow space separating them. ‘I see,' he said.

‘No,' said Kazin, with forced patience. ‘I don't think you do see. Perhaps I was wrong, a few moments ago, in trying to minimize the dangers. Something has to be done, to protect us both. Permanently to protect us both. But before we consider that, let's consider something else that would be wrong. It would be a very stupid mistake for us to fall out: to start making threats against each other. I think you are dependent upon me and I am dependent upon you. Have I made myself clear?'

‘I think so,' said Panchenko. In the half light the man's expression seemed something like a smile. ‘What can be done to protect us both? And permanently?'

Once more Kazin wished there had been an opportunity, an hour at least, for more consideration. He said: ‘Something
very
permanent.'

There was no expression resembling a smile upon Panchenko's face now. His voice cracking with the strain, the man said: ‘You can't seriously mean that!'

‘What's the alternative?'

‘I don't know,' said Panchenko. The words still groaned from him.

‘We can't go on, always threatened like this,' urged Kazin.

‘How!'

‘An accident.'

‘No!'

‘You did it before.'

‘Which is why I don't think I can do it again.'

‘Disastrous,' said Kazin.

‘What?'

‘Your word,' reminded Kazin. ‘You said the continuing investigation could be disastrous. And it will be.'

Panchenko shuddered. Weakly he said: ‘I really don't think I can. Not again! There must be some other way.'

‘There isn't,' insisted Kazin.

‘Mine is always the risk, never yours,' protested Panchenko.

‘You're trained, I'm not.'

‘It can't be another shooting.'

‘I said an accident.'

‘When?'

‘Soon. It has to be soon. Before he has time to dig any deeper.'

‘The last time,' said Panchenko, an insistence of his own.

‘There won't again be the need,' assured Kazin. And if there were Panchenko would have to obey whatever order he was given because he was not in a position to do anything else. Despite which, once Malik was out of the way, Kazin determined to disassociate himself from Panchenko. Not discard him, of course: appear to remain his advocate, in fact. But to limit their contact and association. Panchenko had been useful this time and doubtless would be again but it would be wrong for the man to imagine any permanent situation. Kazin had not enjoyed having so openly to concede the dependence.

‘You know you're telling me to kill a First Chief Deputy of the KGB, don't you?' said Panchenko.

Kazin shook his head across the tiny pavilion at the security chief, inwardly contemptuous of the man's almost catatonic demeanour. Most definitely limited contact in future, he thought. He said: ‘I'm telling you how to save yourself from destruction. How to save us both.'

Panchenko, who had feared the other man might become suspicious at the almost awkward repositioning when he'd shifted in the cold, decided he had been wise to equip himself with the sound equipment and the directional body microphone to record everything that had been said between himself and Kazin. He tried to think if there were anything he had failed to manipulate on to the tape and decided there wasn't. He said, finally for the benefit of the recording: ‘I obey your orders, Comrade First Chief Deputy.'

Natalia's maternal grandmother lived on the outskirts of Mytishchi, in a forever stretching development of identical high-rise after identical high-rise. It was a neglected estate. The elevators were invariably broken and the smell along the therefore necessary stairways, cavernous by design and dark from the further neglect of unreplaced bulbs, was of sour damp and even sourer cooking. But it was an unshared apartment and therefore luxurious by Soviet standards and so from the moment of Levin's defection the old woman and the girl had lived in daily apprehension of eviction. So when the official envelope was delivered both were initially too terrified to open it, staring fearfully at it on the table between them, as if in some way it were contaminated. It was Natalia who moved at last, the bravery of youth coming slightly ahead of the resignation of age, and when she read its contents the girl's bewilderment deepened.

‘I can write,' she announced simply. ‘The Foreign Ministry are permitting us to exchange letters.'

‘Nothing about having to get out?' demanded the old woman, unimpressed and still suspicious.

‘Nothing.'

‘It doesn't make sense,' she insisted. ‘Retribution is always exacted against the families of traitors.'

Natalia winced at the word but didn't challenge it. She said: ‘Being able to write is practically a favour.'

‘It
is
a favour,' insisted the old woman. ‘That's what doesn't make sense.'

Natalia sat for a long time, paper and pen untouched before her, trying to envision an ordinary sort of letter and then decided that nothing she wrote could be ordinary and that it was ludicrous trying to formulate any normal sort of correspondence. At last, almost impulsively, she snatched up the pen, scribbling hurriedly.

‘My Darling Mamma and Papa and Petr,' she wrote, lower lip trapped between her teeth, ‘I love you so much and thought you loved me and so I cannot understand why you have abandoned me …'

Inya suggested the United Nations Plaza, because it was the hotel closest to the UN building from which it got its name and because, she said, it epitomized the glamour and glitter of New York. Yuri agreed, really uncaring at the choice. When they settled in the cocktail bar, he decided it was well chosen anyway.

‘Well?' she said.

‘Very glitzy,' said Yuri. It was a new word he was trying out.

‘Very much New York?'

‘Very much New York,' he agreed. She really did have a spectacular body. So why wasn't he more interested than he was?

‘I have a question,' she said.

‘What?'

‘You are Russian?'

‘You know I am.'

The woman giggled and said archly: ‘No, it's ridiculous.'

Yuri thought it was, too, but was curious at his irritation. This was seduction coquettishness, the familiar pre-mating ritual, and before he'd always accepted its necessity without impatience. So what was different this time? Forcing himself into the expected response he said: ‘Go on: what is it?'

Inya sniggered again. ‘You know what they say about Russians, at the United Nations?'

‘What?' he asked expectantly.

‘That you're all spies!'

She put her hand to her mouth, as if shocked by her own outrageousness, and Yuri hoped it was all worthwhile when they finally got to bed. It was, he reflected, still a useful test of sorts: not so many weeks – even days – ago a challenge like this would have tightened him like a spring. Tonight he just smiled back at the woman, quite unworried. He said: ‘Do they?'

‘So
are
you?'

Was there an aphrodisiac for her in the knowledge? Yuri said: ‘Of course I am. Everyone knows that!'