Bearpit (38 page)

On his graph he created a box, in which to list the references he considered important but which he could not understand. What did the passage in Levin's earliest letter mean, referring to trees that appeared from the air to be defoliated, like the Americans defoliated Vietnam? Or the phrase about apparent vantage points to the sea where there was no sea? Or even more intriguing, the paragraph that read of spies in statues and spies in history.

Still too many questions against too few answers. When was it going to change, the other way? Another question, Yuri recognized.

31

John Willick felt like he had that special day, when he'd been a kid of fourteen. His father, who had been first mate on an oil tanker and away from home for months at a time, had returned from sea and taken him to the amusement park at Coney Island and told him he could go on as many rides as he liked; do what he liked. Willick didn't think he'd missed one, not a single one. And he'd eaten ice cream as well and candied apples and cotton candy and then he'd been sick, violently, the man standing behind him and holding him around the waist, to stop him falling over. It had been wonderful.

Willick was sure he was not going to be sick this time, although the chance seemed there from the moment he seated himself in the first-class section of the Air France 747, immediately to be handed champagne and then foie gras and after that a white wine and a red wine he'd never heard of, to go with the seafood and the beef prepared in a way he'd never heard of, either. Wonderful, like that day at Coney Island. Only better. He was grown up now.

He celebrated during the flight but was careful not to get drunk, aware despite his euphoria that he'd escaped disaster (would he really have been so sexually abused, in prison?) by inches or by minutes and not wanting to endanger that escape by a mistake until he was completely safe, in Moscow. He still had a slight headache when the plane landed at Paris, at breakfast time because of the time change, and felt gritty-eyed and stubble-chinned. From Charles de Gaulle airport he took a taxi into the centre of Paris, chose a café at random actually on the Champs Elysées that he'd seen in all the movies and on television and sat over coffee that was too bitter, watching the city wake up around him. Free! he thought: I'm free. Free of Eleanor and free of horses that don't win and stocks that don't rise and free of pay-or-else letters and most important of all free of fear. He knew – was absolutely certain – that Moscow was going to be terrific. A new start, with the slate wiped clean and his being treated properly, like he should be treated, with respect. No one had ever treated him properly, with respect. Not Eleanor or those bastards in the CIA. Never. Served them right, all of them. Bastards. Bitches and bastards. Good, to be free.

Willick felt a twitch of apprehension when he came to pay but the waiter, who spoke English, accepted the American money and thanked him politely for a three-dollar tip, which was twice what it should have been, and Willick set off for the Soviet embassy buoyed by the gratitude. Being treated properly, he thought; with respect.

He had to ask twice for directions to the street address Oleg had given him in the Washington bar (could it really have only been last night, less than twenty-four hours?) and when he located it at last Willick's uncertainty worsened at the sight of the uniformed gendarmes on duty around the embassy, with a police truck that looked like a shed on wheels obviously drawn up in a side street.

The American loitered on the far side of the avenue, watching the arrivals and departures, realizing with relief that there was no entry challenge from the French policemen. Stomach in turmoil, wishing now he had not eaten the seafood and the beef in that rich sauce on the aircraft, Willick forced himself to cross the road and walk as confidently as he could past the guards and into the compound, ears ringing for the demand to stop, which never came. Wet-palmed, he handed the letter that Oleg had given him to the unsmiling clerk at the vestibule desk, praying there was a lavatory nearby that he could use. Damn the seafood; shellfish had never agreed with him.

The letter was dispatched with a guard, the response was instantaneous, and Willick's nervousness ebbed away just as quickly. Being treated properly, just like he knew he'd be. Respectfully.

Sergei Kapalet, who never identified himself, strode arm outstretched from somewhere at the rear of the building, retaining Willick's hand to guide him back beyond the entrance. Willick expected an office but instead was led into a kind of apartment, with couches and easy chairs and even fresh flowers in a vase. There was not just a lavatory for Willick's immediate need but a shower and a complete toilet kit, for him to shave, and a robe he was able to wear while his suit was pressed and his shirt laundered. In his excellent English Kapalet maintained a constant and relaxing stream of small talk, inquiring about the flight and wondering about the delay in Willick's expected arrival at the embassy (there is nothing like the first
petit déjeuner
on the Champs Elysées, he agreed) and promising the American he'd chosen an excellent restaurant for lunch.

The idea of leaving the security of the embassy surprised Willick. Kapalet laughed at the doubt and said: ‘Why not?' and Willick smiled back and agreed: ‘Why not?' He was free, after all. Still difficult to adjust.

They ate at the Taillevent, on the Rue Lamenais, Willick deferring completely to the Russian's obvious familiarity and expertise around a French menu and wine list. Willick could not remember ever having eaten or drunk anything that came remotely close to what Kapalet ordered. Just twenty-four hours earlier, for that nerve-jangled lunch in the CIA cafeteria, there'd been meat loaf and coffee, he remembered, disgusted. Not something to remember; something to forget. Like so much else. America – his life there – was over, Willick recognized. It was his future that was important now, the thing to think about: his wonderful, free, rewarding future.

His mind on that, Willick said: ‘When am I to go to Moscow?'

‘There is an Aeroflot flight tonight. Seven o'clock,' said Kapalet.

‘Yes,' accepted Willick. It was a ridiculous reaction – he was tired, he told himself – but there was the vaguest feeling of regret. It would have been nice to have stayed in Paris for a day or two. Not that he had any doubt about Moscow: of course he hadn't. Just liked to have seen a bit more of Paris – eaten in a few more restaurants like this – that's all.

‘Moscow are anxious for you to get there,' said Kapalet.

‘I am regarded as important, then?' said Willick, wanting to hear the words actually spoken.

‘Very important,' assured the Russian.

After lunch, because Willick requested it, Kapalet took him on a motor-car tour of the Paris sights, to the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower, and to get to Notre Dame they drove the complete length of the Champs Elysées and around the Tuileries Gardens, and once again Willick started to think how good it would be to stay a few days longer, but refused to finish the reflection. This wasn't a vacation, for Christ's sake!

Kapalet concluded the sightseeing early, refusing to risk any rush-hour traffic delay, and led him directly to what looked like a closed Aeroflot counter. At once a plainclothes official appeared.

‘He will escort you through immigration: see that everything is as it should be on the plane,' promised Kapalet.

‘Thank you, for what you've done,' said the American.

‘Thank you, for what you are going to do,' replied Kapalet.

The Aeroflot man stayed to one side and slightly apart while Willick went through French immigration but once that was achieved – without difficulty – the man closely escorted him directly through the embarkation lounge and on to the aircraft, ahead of anyone else. Willick was seated in the front, in a curtained-off section separating him from the other passengers. At once a stewardess offered him champagne, which Willick, feeling he was getting accustomed to the life, accepted.

The meal was not as good as it had been the previous evening but his treatment was. The greeting stewardess appeared to be exclusively assigned to him and halfway through the journey the pilot came back to invite him on to the flight deck. Willick went, although he was not particularly interested, unable to see anything in the darkness except for an occasional straggle of lights. But the view – or lack of it – was not what mattered. What mattered was the indication of his importance: Willick liked that, very much indeed.

And it continued, when the plane landed. Willick was led off once more ahead of anyone else to a waiting limousine drawn up close to the aircraft, without any hindering formalities. The driver opened the door for him and Willick began to enter but then stopped abruptly, momentarily startled by the figure of Vladislav Andreevich Belov already waiting in the rear seat.

‘It's good to see you in Moscow,' greeted the director of the American division of the First Chief Directorate.

Willick got in beside the man and said: ‘I'm glad to be here.'

The vehicle moved off immediately, around an airport perimeter road to pick up a multi-laned highway along which it began to move at a speed which surprised Willick, accustomed to the rigidly enforced limits of the United States. Sixty, maybe seventy miles an hour, he guessed; the first obvious difference, between his old and new life. Good, like everything else was good.

‘You'll be tired?' anticipated Belov.

‘I am,' agreed Willick. He'd dozed on the Air France flight and again on this final leg but it had to be almost forty-eight hours since he'd slept in a proper bed.

‘Accommodation is already prepared for you,' promised Belov. ‘We won't talk about anything tonight.'

‘Has there been any announcement from Washington?'

‘No,' said Belov.

Willick felt oddly disappointed. ‘I thought there would have been, by now.'

‘It's still only early afternoon, in Washington,' reminded the Russian. ‘You'll only have been absent from your desk for a few hours.' The disclosure the Soviets intended was calculated to catch the main NBC, ABC and CBS TV broadcasts. There were still precisely three hours to go and Belov was anxious against the Americans revealing it first: a confirmation was going to have far less public impact than Moscow being first with the news.

‘Everything seems to have happened so fast,' said Willick. ‘It's still difficult to think in terms of hours, which is all it's been. Impossible, in fact.'

‘It will seem real, soon enough.'

Willick was conscious of moving through streets which vaguely reminded him of Washington, expansive although matchingly low-rise buildings positioned either side of even more expansive but similarly matching highways. The only difference seemed to be in their lack of bustle and the corresponding absence of noise. Willick wondered what he was listening for and then realized it was a fire or police siren. Another immediate difference, between old and new: neither a cultural shock, so far. The street in which they stopped was deserted and Willick's comparison now was not with Washington but with Paris because the entrance to the building was through huge, pavement-abutting gates into an inner courtyard off which led the main entry door. Although he was not sure, it seemed to be an apartment complex. The ground-floor area was unidentified and, obediently following Belov, Willick ascended to an upper level and went through a secondary entry door into a suite that literally made him gasp. His immediate impression, coming through the courtyard, was that it was a prerevolutionary building and everything about the apartment confirmed it. The furniture was gilded and tapesty-upholstered, the walls were covered in flocked wallpaper, there were reflecting chandeliers – two in the main room and others in the two bedrooms – and the floor-to-ceiling windows were draped in heavy, tasselled silk curtains. The flowers were not in vases but bulge-bellied bowls and on a circular, claw-footed table in the main room there was a frosted ice bucket containing yet more champagne and alongside it a silver bowl, iced again, of beluga caviar and a side dish of black and white bread.

Belov continued the conducted tour, into the chandeliered master bedroom where the curtaining design carried on with the bed canopied in matching material and off which led a marbled bathroom that Willick guessed to be roughly the size of the main living room of his never-returned-to Rosslyn apartment. The shower stall was separate from the bath and there was a bidet as well as a toilet, in an enclosed stall. White towels fountained from differently sized wall holders and everywhere there was the smell of some flower-like fragrance.

The dining area was as lavishly furnished but a comparatively small alcove, compared to the remainder of the apartment and into Willick's mind came the question as Belov answered it.

‘There is no kitchen on this level,' said the Russian. ‘On the ground level are the people who will look after you. The kitchens are there. Whatever you want, they can provide. Just lift the telephone and ask. Whatever.'

‘I understand,' said Willick, overwhelmed.

‘You will be comfortable here?'

‘Oh yes,' assured Willick hurriedly. ‘Very comfortable indeed.' He'd hoped to be feted but never like this. If this weren't the former home of a Grand Duke it was something pretty close. What was close to a Grand Duke? Maybe just an ordinary Duke. He wished there had been identifiable ancestral portraits on the walls from which he could have tried to work out whose home it had once been.

‘Get some rest,' urged Belov. There's a great deal to be done in a very short time.'

‘What?' asked the American at once.

‘Tomorrow,' said Belov. ‘Everything can wait until tomorrow, when you're rested.'

Willick walked with the Russian to the exit and turned immediately inside it as the man left, staring into the apartment with his back pressed against the door, trying to recapture the emotion of his earlier entry, a junkie trying to repeat the high of his first fix. Not precisely the same, but close. Incredible. Not good enough: not expressive enough. Spectacularly incredible: that didn't sound right, either, grammatically or in any other way. Why try to find words for it? He guessed his value was being assessed for the years he had spent upon the CIA's Soviet analysis desk, years from which he was aware of the divide – the Grand Canyon or Mississippi Delta? – between the haves and the have-nots of the Soviet Union. Never, in his most speculative assessment, had he considered anything like this. This was … His mind blocked, unable to cope. Wonderful was the word which danced in his head, like a child's toy on the end of an elastic string. Inadequate, like every other superlative, but it would have to do. Absolutely wonderful.