Document Z (22 page)

He lit a cigarette using the lighter from the burn tray. He read the letter again and then vomited. Matter hit the desk edge, went somewhat in his bin. The cigarette fell to the floor, still smoking. He sat doubled over for a time.

When they had been told to leave Sweden, Evdokia had cried. She'd loved Stockholm, had friends in the embassy. He had been more concerned about what might happen to them upon their return. Workers stationed in foreign places weren't ever quite trusted again. To his surprise, they were promoted. Better jobs and a better apartment. This time, who knew what might occur. It wasn't only the Beria accusation. He had a firming sense that Moscow Centre had been following him somehow, seeing for themselves what he was up to in Sydney; that they knew of the money-making practices that he engaged in. There were people who could organise his shadow. Kislitsyn, most obviously. Pakhomov as well. How sure could he be that Kislitsyn hadn't betrayed him? The man was on their side against the ambassador and Kovaliev—was this because he knew of some awful fate and had MVD orders to keep the quarry calm? How were he and the Centre communicating? A special channel somewhere? A direct line to Kislitsyn at home? The man was a bastard. You couldn't trust a soul.

He sank into his chair and wiped his mouth with a handkerchief.

His wife's voice sounded in the corridor. She was speaking to Prudnikov; in the next few seconds she'd be with him in this room. His eyes met with the MVD safe against the wall. It was locked, the key with Prudnikov, stuck in an envelope pressed closed with the MVD's wax seal. A much smaller strongbox sat on top of the safe, used to store odds and ends as well as the MVD's cash float. Two keys existed for this second box. One was carried in Evdokia's pocket, one was carried in his own.

An idea was slowly dawning. He looked at the filing drawer where they kept the blank destruction certificates. It was almost time to destroy 1952. This was a security practice for stations abroad: burn all traces of everything after the passing of one year. Moscow's orders, lists of agents, anything incriminating that had fallen into operational disuse. As MVD chief resident, the destruction of the documents was his job. Incinerate them in front of a witness, provide receipt of the act to Moscow in the form of a certificate of destruction.

He looked at the first safe and at the strongbox. Evdokia was just outside now and he tried to prepare himself for the transmission of the news.

Bialoguski had a small tin mug, army surplus from his time with the Auxiliary Medical Corps. Each day, shaving, he filled the mug with boiling water to clean the razor blade. Today, furious again with Security, he had to concentrate hard not to let the blade cut his skin. Michael Howley had just told him about Beckett. That the ophthalmologist was suddenly ASIO's man.

‘What do you mean, your man?'

The conversation had taken place in Howley's Austin by the rear fence of a fuel station.

‘We took your advice,' his controller had said. ‘Looked to recruit an eminent Australian. Beckett put the idea of defection to Petrov more or less directly. By the Soviet's response, Beckett doesn't think the chances are too bright.'

‘Beckett!'

‘That's right.'

‘Beckett's a fool.'

‘He's eminent. We think he's an obvious contact for Petrov to trust.'

‘When I said eminent, I meant public profile.'

‘We know what you meant.'

‘I should be consulted in these things. Better the connection comes through me than Beckett! What's Beckett?'

‘We thought it best.'

‘We-we-we.'

He did cut himself. A dash of blood appearing and the searing touch of cream. Of course, he knew why they'd gone with Beckett. He was one of them: a WASP. Unlike Russian-speaking Polish emigrants, who were on a basic level untrustable and more or less enigmatic when they did succeed, Security were able to picture in their numbskull minds Beck-ett's competencies and where his loyalties would lie.

Damn this country. Ten years he'd been here and he'd never asked for charity. He'd roomed at the YMCA, sold his shirts to pay the rent, slept in Hyde Park when the shirts ran out. He'd found himself session work playing music for the ABC; attempted to join the army, was rejected as a non-British subject, was accepted a year later once the war was looking bad. At Cowra, the boys called him Bill for Bialoguski and knew he was more than prepared to fight. The army saw his intelligence and got him sent to the 113th General Hospital, Concord West, where he mopped floors for a month before applying for medical training at the University of Sydney, which was the one thing Australia had given him for which he felt he owed something. In retrospect, those had been good days, living hand-to-mouth on his repatriation subsidy, studying nights in a small room, separate and locked away, working under an electric lamp, sleeping at dawn with an eye mask and rising for breakfast at 4 p.m.

‘Is Petrov as keen as you've attested?' Howley had asked.

‘He's right on the edge.'

‘I sat near him in the Buckingham's bar.'

‘And how did he look?'

‘Anxious.'

‘To use one of these phrases,' Bialoguski had said, ‘I think he is showing obvious signs of strain. I should lead him harder. Why don't we use against him some of the things we know?'

‘That's a political mistake.'

‘It doesn't have to be public. What's the use of your organisation if you can't do the secret things we don't need to see?'

‘You may have to let him go. Develop a distance. Let Petrov do this on his terms.'

‘First you don't know if he's keen; now you're talking about terms.'

‘Stay close but distant. Provide the room he needs.'

‘How long do we let it take?'

‘It's not up to us.'

‘The timing is a necessary concern.'

Howley had given him spare reels for the recorder. ‘There's a view amongst the heads that this should be your last operation. After this defection, the idea is that you and the organisation go in separate, friendly ways.'

‘The bonus you mentioned.'

‘That would be a facilitating step.'

‘I keep detailed diaries. I write everything down, and this will aid my recall. I'm going to be called upon to discuss this. I want to become an elemental part of this event. This is my ticket if we're going to end on happy terms.'

‘Let's concentrate on now.'

‘Why don't we start by keeping me informed.'

‘Where is he now?'

‘He arrived yesterday. He's in bed.'

‘Sleeping unaided?'

‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘People are questioning your methods. It's my job to relay the message that you're not to produce bodies by unethical means.'

‘Petrov is my patient. I'm his doctor, bound by an oath I take seriously.'

‘Take him to the farm again.'

‘Perhaps. It's rather up in the air now as to what is the best way to proceed.'

He dried the razor using paper towel. In the kitchen, Petrov was at the refrigerator, wearing pyjamas.

‘Vladimir,' Bialoguski said, ‘we should pay that deposit today. On the farm. On Dream Acres. What do you think?'

Petrov looked at him, holding a dish of butter. ‘That can wait,' he said.

‘They want a date, Max and Eleanor. We should be careful. We don't want them looking for another buyer.'

The Russian put the butter on the bench. ‘The third of April,' he said. ‘That would be the best day to effect the sale.'

Bialoguski opened the bread bin. He looked at the way Petrov's belly hung low, almost out of his clothes. ‘The third of April? That is a very specific date.'

‘I have been told my posting is to end,' the diplomat explained.

‘In April?'

‘That's right. Doosia and I are scheduled to return.'

‘Oh,' he said slowly. He suddenly wasn't sure what to add; went to say something but lost it on the tip of his tongue. Howley's fault. All these instructions were ruining his natural game. ‘Is this helping Evdokia with her opinions?' he eventually said.

‘You must come again and talk her into it,' Petrov pleaded. ‘It's no use coming from me.'

Bialoguski decided that he was tired of this. It was time to throw Security's caution to the wind, make a move and force something.

He stood by the front door with his jacket and satchel. ‘I have a patient now at the surgery, but I'm seeing Doctor Beckett at his home this afternoon. I think you should join us.'

‘Beckett?'

‘Yes. We meet every now and again. We're colleagues. Really, I insist. Actually, he might be someone who can help you. He has friends in important places. Important government people.'

He left Cliveden without waiting for Petrov's response and drove straight to Darling Point Road. Beckett's mansion was at the top end, a white structure with a hedge that was browning in places, an incredible spot to live really, the view towards Blackburn Cove and Double Bay. He caught the man in the front yard, just getting into his car.

‘Michael,' Beckett said, surprised.

‘Doctor.' Bialoguski extended a hand. ‘It's a beautiful morning, is it not?'

‘It is.'

‘I believe you've lately met a friend of mine. A Mr Howley.'

Beckett looked at him blankly. Surely, Security hadn't told Beckett about Petrov without filling in the nearby blanks?

‘Startling, isn't it?' said Bialoguski. ‘I suppose you thought I was a man of the rabid left?'

It was a relief to see Beckett eventually nod. The ophthalmologist took him indoors to a small library where medical texts and volumes of poetry adorned the shelves. They sat and Bialoguski gave a briefing on Petrov's state of mind: fearful, mutable, haphazard. He said he would bring Petrov here this afternoon. Beckett would openly suggest personal and finan-cial protection.

‘Here?' asked Beckett.

‘Yes. It is important for you to present yourself in a certain way. As a Russian, he responds to strength and boisterousness. Be a kindly man of broad tolerance. Talk to him of your friend in Security.'

‘Shouldn't I speak with Mr Howley about this?'

‘No. We can control this situation. Petrov and I are close friends, as you know.'

Beckett seemed uncertain.

‘It will be alright,' said Bialoguski. ‘Right now he is in a terrible spot. He has been recalled for April. He can't trust a soul at his embassy. I assure you, it is not a paranoid situation but very real. You and I will be the men of his salvation.'

‘Well.'

‘We won't use the word “defection”. We will tease him out with the idea of “asylum” instead.'

‘I'd prefer to speak with Mr Howley.'

‘There's no time. I'll bring Petrov this afternoon. What alcohol do you have in the house?'

‘Are you sure, Michael?'

Bialoguski stood. ‘This is agent work, Doctor. This is the fundamental difference between men such as Mr Howley and men like you and me. The spymasters and the spies. Our actions are the real world. Theirs are something else. Abstractions. Literatures. Our relations are lived while theirs are theoretical. Do you understand? You are new to this, but already I see great talent.'

Beckett said nothing.

Bialoguski went on: ‘When he arrives, greet him firmly. We will sit here in the library. I will make play of asking for your discretion. You are his doctor and we can explain the rules about that.'

‘I'll use the word “asylum”.'

‘That's right. That's exactly the idea.'

‘What else?'

‘What else? You're a gambler. Use the racetrack as a preliminary base. Chat about your winnings. Tell him you have wealthy and influential friends. Ask him what he might turn himself to, vocationally, should he stay. Use his own fantasies of freedom against him. Don't mention anything about his wife.'

16

S
ydney and its lunchtime crowd. He felt nervous amongst this blended array. He crossed from Macquarie Street into the Botanic Gardens. The grass was spongy underfoot. He wore his long coat and hat. He went and sat on a bench by Governor Phillip's statue, pigeons gathering at his feet, the sun high overhead. Thoughts of the car crash haunted him: metal lurching with that sudden, surprising momentum that comes of no control; pictures in his mind of the car's flip. Negative images, half-witnessed. He couldn't be sure if they were invented or real. He wanted them to be true. It upset him to think his near death could occur without conferring on him a memory or some form of life-altering insight, however small. Caving steel, breaking and rippling glass. There had to be something there to seize on and use.

He wasn't going to the gulag. He knew that much because he knew what happened in those prisons and it wasn't a fate he would stand. For two years when he first arrived in Moscow, he had helped manage the messages for the camps. Hundreds of installations across the Soviet Union, communicating in code, humming with corrective noise. They called it ‘the zone'; names such as Vorkuta and Norilsk, the people's collective dread. He sat listening to the voices: the camp administrators wanting more guards, more help, reporting their progress in economic terms—lengths of railway, tonnages of timber and rock; reporting the names and numbers of the dead, prisoners starved, shot, beaten by guards, prisoners stabbed, beaten by one another. It was Petrov's job to supervise twelve cypher clerks in the tiniest of rooms. They encrypted notifications about impending arrivals, timetables and schedules, changes to camp regulations. The worst traffic was the lists: manifests of names, numbers, birth dates, years served. Only the most common of names had a shorthand in the codebook. The rest, cyphered, had to be onerously enclosed in a spell/endspell. It wasn't their job, as clerks, to ask if securing the transmissions was really necessary. Personally, Petrov suspected it was simply a quiet statement, a nuance on top of the terror. One of the clerks was Byelov, a large Ukrainian who was sent away to replace an operator at one of the camps. He telegraphed his colleagues a note about the ferocity of the winter there:
Ground so frozen no one is buried. Stacked
instead like wood. Waiting for thaw to be given SPELL G-RA-
V-E-S ENDSPELL.