Dr Berlin (18 page)

‘Where men are concerned. Annabel never gets details wrong.’

The photograph, he is sure, has been taken in one of the secure clinics outside Moscow. Berlin must have been visiting Radin. Pountney is impressed. Hart’s sources are much better than he imagined. Perhaps the rumours of incompetence in Merton House were merely a smokescreen to fool the Russians. Or was that what they wanted him to believe?

‘Radin looks in bad shape,’ Pountney says.

‘Our understanding is that he died a few days after this photograph was taken.’

‘When was that?’

‘About three weeks ago.’

‘Are you sure?’ Pountney asks.

‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ Hart sounds less certain than he wants to be.

‘There’s been nothing on the wire service about Radin dying.’ No photographs either, no adulatory articles in the Soviet press, no ceremony in Moscow, no procession of Politburo members following the garlanded photograph of the dead man into the cemetery.

‘There’s been no official announcement, I agree. But we’ve had a report from a usually reliable source that Radin is dead. If it’s true, it could be of considerable importance.’

‘Why does knowing whether Radin is alive or dead matter so much?’

‘There’s a lot at stake right now, Gerry. In the arms race, in space, wherever we turn, the Soviets are leading us by the nose. They got a man into orbit before we did, they’ve got an armoury of missiles many times larger than anything we have, and huge numbers of men under arms. Now they’re threatening us with a satellite that will be able to aim nuclear bombs at any city in the West. Last of all and far from least, they want us out of West Berlin. A wrong political move now – particularly one based on false assumptions about the Soviets’ military capability – could put us on a collision course that within hours could lead to war.’

‘What’s Radin got to do with all this?’

‘If he’s dead, then it’s more probable that the First Secretary’s threats about a new armoury of space weapons are bluff, which means time is on our side and we can play a longer game. We’re pretty sure the Soviets have got no successors of Radin’s calibre. Without him the space programme is likely to be less adventurous and slower to move off the drawing board, which gives us time to catch up with them. In that case it’s a reasonable bet that this crisis over West Berlin won’t end in a giant nuclear explosion.’

‘And if Radin’s still alive?’

‘It’s very worrying. The chances are that the Soviets may
well miscalculate over West Berlin and push too hard. If they do that, then there’s a huge risk we might all go up in smoke.’ Hart paused for a moment and fiddled with his napkin. ‘If we’re to make the right decisions and have a hope of coming out of this one alive, we need to know what the Soviets are up to. Their threat with Radin is very much greater than their threat without him. That’s why we have to know if he’s alive or dead.’

The letter explained what was expected of him. He was to give three lectures over a period of eight days, each of an hour in length, on a theme of his choice, before an audience of members of the university, both academics and students. Could he let them know the titles of his lectures, so that suitable announcements could be made in advance of his arrival? The Blake-Thomas tradition, the letter continued, was that each lecture was presented at a different location, beginning at the University Church – Great St Mary’s, he knew that without having to look it up. This was a secular occasion. There would be no religious ceremony. How thoughtful of Dr Blackwell, secretary of the Blake-Thomas committee, to reassure him. The second would be at the lecture theatre in the Engineering Faculty. He racked his brain – where Fen Causeway joined Trumpington Street, opposite the Leys School, was that correct? – and the third in Mill Lane. That was easy, it was near the Anchor Inn, where Tolley’s beer was served.

And Dr Blackwell? Who was she? A historian like himself, that much he knew. The rest was speculation. She would be a spinster in her sixties, probably, with glasses, hair on her chin and a shapeless dress concealing an equally shapeless body. Why did beauty and brains so seldom go together? Was that why he haunted the student canteens, patrolled the corridors
of the lecture theatres, even forced himself to turn up at student parties? Was he searching for a beauty he would never find? Whatever Dr Blackwell was like – and he was sure his image was correct – he was deeply grateful to her. He would thank her properly when they met, and try to ignore the whiskers on her chin.

The invitation included a short historical biography of Norman Blake-Thomas and the endowment he had given the university so many years before. His expenses, he read, would be fully covered by the Trust. A list of previous speakers, in whose company Berlin was happy to be numbered, was also enclosed, and a message relayed from his publishers saying that they would be delighted to look after him while he was in London. A copy of the letter had been forwarded to the Home Office in London as a preliminary to obtaining his visa.

Dr Blackwell ended by saying how eagerly she and other members of the committee looked forward to welcoming him to Cambridge in a few weeks’ time.

He had never been to Cambridge, yet it was present in his mind as if he had lived there all his life, a mysterious and ancient city that drew him to its heart. Since his first trip outside the Soviet Union more than ten years before, he had bought books on Cambridge and read them avidly, absorbing their details into his memory. He had only to take one down from his shelves and his dreams would be fired at once. He would travel in his imagination (by bicycle, of course) along the Backs, down Silver Street, then left along King’s Parade, turning right in front of the Trinity Street exit towards Market Square, with Bowes & Bowes on his left, the English editions of his books displayed in the window, and beyond W. H. Smith, the market to his right and the famous David’s bookstall where on Saturday you bought second-hand copies, Marshall’s, Eaden Lilley, Joshua Taylor, and opposite, Heffer’s the stationers. He had reached a point where he was sure he knew the topography almost as well as someone who lived there but an air of unreality clung to his images. In his mind,
he had created a mystic city where some part of his destiny waited to claim him. Until that moment, his life would be unfulfilled and incomplete.

Now it was here, in his hand: the invitation to visit the city of his mind, to walk in its narrow streets, to be surrounded by its ancient buildings, to meet the destiny that awaited him. To his surprise, he felt little excitement. It was inevitable that he should be invited, inevitable too that he should go. A missing piece of the puzzle of his life was about to be fitted into place. A mysterious force was drawing him there and he could do nothing to resist it.

Cambridge
. City of dreams set deep in the fenland of East Anglia. At last it had claimed him, as he had always known it would.

Words are not necessary. The images on the television screen tell the story with convincing eloquence. East German workmen under armed guard lay the foundations of a massive barricade whose purpose is to isolate their people from the rest of the world. Protesting crowds in the streets of West Berlin angrily condemn the enforced separation from their families caught on the wrong side of a wall that, overnight and without warning, has sprung up between them. Elderly East Germans stare despairingly at ground that yesterday they could walk across but which today has become a dangerous no man’s land, the pain in their faces a potent statement of their misery. Young American soldiers, machine-guns at the ready, look nervously across the artificial divide at young men like themselves, only yards from where they stand, equally armed, equally nervous.

These pictures flicker across the television and newsreel screens of the world as men and machines erect a wall of concrete and steel which is topped by barbed wire, flanked by minefields, illuminated by searchlights and guarded by soldiers with orders to shoot to kill. Overnight, East Berlin has become a prison.

‘What we are looking at,’ Pountney says to the camera, ‘are the unmistakable images of confrontation. The Soviet Union is deliberately testing the collective nerve of the Western Allies as Berlin becomes once more the focal point of international tension. Suddenly the Cold War is in serious danger of overheating. It is frightening to think,’ he adds, ‘that when we went to bed last night we had no idea that a few hours later we would wake to a crisis that could lead the world to the brink of war.’

A studio panel has been assembled to discuss the implications of this dangerous development. Pountney turns first to Simon Watson-Jones, the Minister of Defence. What, he asks, does the Government make of these events?

‘Building a wall to imprison your own people is an act of desperation from a discredited regime which has proved itself bankrupt of ideas.’ Watson-Jones is contemptuously dismissive. The communists are no longer trying to conceal the failure of their social and economic policies, he says. The East German government and its Soviet masters are openly trapping their people behind a wall because they have no other way of stopping the migration to the West which threatens the economic existence of the East German state. He warns the communists that they should tread carefully. The world will hold them responsible for ‘whatever happens in the future’.

‘Crispin Thursley, do you agree that the building of this wall is the desperate act of a bankrupt regime?’

The Liberal spokesman on foreign affairs is a former geography lecturer at Liverpool University, a thin, pale man whose rimless glasses glint in the studio lights. He blinks repeatedly as he speaks.

‘This is a public admission of defeat before the court of world opinion,’ he says. ‘The East German regime must be condemned by the international community for ignoring the
fundamental right of the individual to free movement. Building a wall to keep families apart is a barbaric idea dragged up from the moral pit of the dark ages to which the Soviet Union clearly wishes to return.’

‘It’s damned dangerous,’ Ken Oates, a Labour MP, comments angrily. His face is flushed and a lock of white hair has fallen across his forehead. ‘The Government is going to have to move fast if it is to prevent this situation from running out of control.’

‘What can the Allies do?’ Pountney asks. ‘How can we stop this wall rising any higher? That’s the question in the public’s mind.’

The Government is firm in its condemnation of this Soviet-inspired action against the citizens of both East and West Berlin, the Minister says. ‘Make no mistake, this wall has Moscow written all over it.’ He makes assertive noises about NATO’s commitment to maintain the status quo in Berlin, but he refuses to yield to any direct questions from Pountney about the use of force.

‘It’s quite inappropriate to talk at this stage about military action,’ Watson-Jones declares. ‘Indeed, your opening comment that the world is sliding towards war is irresponsible scaremongering. We are facing a crisis that we must resolve. Our clear duty now is to sit round a table with the Soviets until we find a peaceful solution.’

‘Words have never made the Soviets change their minds in the past, so why should dialogue be successful now?’ The disdain in Oates’s voice is evident. ‘Talking to the deaf is a waste of time. Every hour spent round a table gives them another hour to build their wall. We’ve got to stop them now – before this monstrous monument is an inch higher.’

‘How can we do that except by military intervention?’ Pountney addresses his question to Thursley.

‘Military action is unthinkable,’ he replies. ‘This crisis calls for cool heads. Ken Oates has got it wrong. The Allies must sit
round a table with the Soviets, and the sooner the better. We have no alternative.’

‘I’m glad that on an issue of such importance Crispin Thursley and I see eye to eye,’ Watson-Jones says soothingly. ‘Ken Oates, of course, is peddling his traditional response to any crisis: shoot first, ask questions later.’ He pauses for a moment, closing his eyes in apparent concentration, resting his chin on the points of his arched fingers in a public gesture of contemplation. ‘Force must be seen as a last resort,’ he declares solemnly, ‘only to be used when we have exhausted every other possible course of action. We are a very long way indeed from such a position.’

‘The truth is, this crisis has taken the Government by surprise,’ Oates says. ‘Neither the Minister nor the Government has the first idea what to do. The Soviet leader is a bully. By not standing up to his threats, the Government is giving him licence to go on bullying.’

Watson-Jones denies vehemently that he is acceding to Soviet pressure. He is doing what he has to do, examining all options before recommending a course of action to the Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues.

‘By the time the Government has made up its mind,’ Oates says scornfully, ‘the wall will be built and the Soviets will have proved once again that we’re all bark and no bite.’ He leans aggressively towards the Minister. ‘The wall dividing Berlin will be a daily reminder to future generations of our failure to stand up to the Soviets. It’s not Moscow’s name you’ll find written all over it, but the name of this Tory Government.’

‘I am confident,’ Watson-Jones says, ‘that before long this wall will be reduced to nothing more than a brief memory, whether by diplomacy or other means.’

‘What other means, Minister? Are you contemplating a military response if the East Germans don’t agree to pull the wall down?’

Pountney’s intervention catches Watson-Jones by surprise. For a moment he looks hopelessly lost, as if he cannot
remember what he has said. Oates laughs openly at his embarrassment. Thursley blinks frantically. The colour on the Minister’s cheeks deepens with anger as he tries to remedy his gaffe.

‘The Government is considering all options, as it must. But I can say right now that military action will get no support. We will do what every responsible government does in times of international tension. We will consult with our friends and allies and act in the best interests of this country and the Western Alliance.’

‘In other words,’ Oates replies, knowing that the programme is about to end, and that he must have the last word, ‘you’re going to let the Soviets get away with it again just as they have done in the past. Shameful. Quite shameful.’

Moscow disappeared under a layer of cloud and Koliakov was not sorry to see it go. In the last few days he had spent too many hours in stuffy rooms listening to men for whom he had little respect deny facts they knew to be true. Once propaganda had been a legitimate instrument of the Revolution. Now lies were proclaimed as truth, and no one believed in anything any more. The distance between the governors and the governed had never been so great. Koliakov shuddered. How he hated Moscow.

Then there was Medvedev. In some unspoken way he knew that the battle between them had been joined again. His behaviour was strange, even for a man of his self-importance, on occasions verging on the imperious, as if he had been given some secret command. ‘No,’ Koliakov corrected himself, ‘I’m allowing my dislike of him to colour my judgement.’

They had met as young recruits at KGB Training School 101. Even then, Koliakov had been aware of Medvedev’s ambition, and of the lengths he would go to to promote his
own cause. On graduation they had gone their separate ways, Koliakov first to the embassy in Warsaw and then Helsinki. Medvedev had disappeared into some internal security department.

Years later, in 1947, Koliakov had returned unexpectedly to Moscow for his father’s funeral. The old man, he was told, had been killed in a fire that had consumed his block of flats following an explosion in a nearby laboratory. After the funeral, he had visited the apartment block, a scarred, shattered relic of a building, with no roof, no windows and no doors. A few days before his return to Helsinki, Koliakov had bumped into Medvedev on a staircase in the KGB building. Medvedev had insisted that they have dinner together. Perplexed at this unexpected show of friendship, and assuming he wanted an audience to marvel at his exploits since leaving Training School, Koliakov had agreed. Medvedev had told him an extraordinary story and asked for his help.

He claimed he had discovered a traitor at the heart of the Kremlin who, under the code name of ‘Peter the Great’, was betraying Soviet secrets to British Intelligence. Recruited in the last months of the war by a member of the British Embassy – it was Bobby Martineau, whom Koliakov was to come across years later in Budapest – ‘Peter the Great’ was the creation of a group of members of the government and senior military who had become disillusioned by the lack of social and economic progress under Stalin. A secret Soviet source within Merton House, the centre of British Intelligence, had warned Moscow of the existence of ‘Peter the Great’. Tracking down the culprit had been difficult. A month after the war ended, a senior planner working closely with Marshal Zhukov had been arrested. He had confessed nothing before he died. Surprisingly, after his execution by firing squad, the flow of information to London and thence to Langley, Virginia, did not stop.

‘What we hadn’t realised,’ Medvedev said, ‘was that as one source was closed off, another stepped in to fill the gap.’
Consequently, more and more valuable information was passed to the West. For nearly two years British Intelligence was little more than a heartbeat away from the centre of power in Moscow. ‘They were listening in to all our decisions. For a time they knew everything about us.’

He had been appointed, Medvedev explained, to hunt down the traitors and close ‘Peter the Great’. None of those arrested so far had revealed any names before their execution. A number of arrests had led to suicide to avoid the perils of interrogation. But he had had a piece of luck and discovered that one of the links in the chain was none other than Koliakov’s former boss, Vladimir Serov. He now wanted Koliakov to support his evidence against Serov.

Koliakov was horrified. He had worked with Serov for three years, he replied. He was a good and loyal intelligence officer. Nothing in his behaviour suggested there was any truth in Medvedev’s story. It was impossible to imagine him as a traitor. He refused to betray a man he believed was innocent.

They had quarrelled violently, all the dislike that had built up in their training years finally coming out into the open. Koliakov had opposed Medvedev so vehemently because he saw his accusation against Serov as a crude device to allow the ambitious Medvedev to advance his career. That night he had tried to contact Serov to warn him but his telephone had been out of order. The following day, Koliakov learned later, Serov failed to appear at the office. By midday it was confirmed that he had been arrested at dawn that day. By the evening, he was dead, having confessed his role in ‘Peter the Great’ and betrayed others. More arrests, it was rumoured, would follow. ‘Peter the Great’ was now seen as an attempt at a
coup
d’état
which had finally been uncovered.

Koliakov knew he had made a dangerous enemy. He was sure that in some malign way Medvedev had used Koliakov’s refusal to cooperate to damage his career. His mistake, he recognised, had been not to realise that Medvedev had a long
memory for those who impeded his progress, and a patient character.

*

The plane had been three hours late leaving Moscow, and by the time he touched down in London, Koliakov was thoroughly tired and irritable. His diplomatic passport got him through immigration easily enough – though not without a harsh look from the officer at the kiosk – but he had to wait forty minutes for his luggage to appear. He cleared customs and looked for Smolensky. Officially, Smolensky was registered as an embassy driver; unofficially he was a fourth-floor man, a code specialist, while secretly he was a political commissar who watched for signs of deviation in the embassy staff. His meticulous devotion to the rule book of Marxist-Leninism provided him with a measure of correctness that even the Ambassador failed to meet. What he reported to his bosses in Moscow Koliakov didn’t dare imagine.

He was not at the meeting point. Koliakov waited for twenty minutes and then telephoned the embassy. No, he was told, Smolensky was not in his room. As far as they knew he was at the airport.

‘If he was, I wouldn’t be telephoning,’ Koliakov said sharply. It was pointless getting angry with the clerks. They’d only make trouble for him later, forgetting to give him his telephone messages, failing to deliver his mail, whispering lies about him to Smolensky.

He had two more coins. One more call, or should he wait? He looked round. As far as he could tell in the crowded hall, he was unobserved. He doubted the British would wire-tap a public telephone. He dialled another number.

‘Hello?’ A sleepy, smoky voice answered, and at once he felt his blood draining away and a giddiness overwhelming him. He was on the deck of a ship in a stormy sea. He held on to the side of the phone booth as the world moved around him, and looked down at his shoes.