Goodbye to an Old Friend (16 page)

He paused, breathless. He was destroying a career and enjoying every moment of it.

‘You said a few moments ago that we had missed the opportunity of a decade in losing Pavel. I'll extend that. We've lost the opportunity of a lifetime. I saw him work, albeit briefly, with Bennovitch and it was staggering. Their worth to the West would have been incalculable. But I completely refuse to accept any responsibility or blame for losing that opportunity. You ordered the debriefing to be speeded up and you stipulated the manner in which it would be done. I merely followed those instructions – under protest.'

When the meeting had begun Ebbetts had been pale, white-faced almost, and completely under control. Now he was flushed with anger and Adrian noticed that his earlobes were bright red, as if he were wearing earrings. He was suddenly seized with the desire to laugh and immediately recognized the tip of hysteria. Consciously he controlled it. Don't let me break down now, he thought, there'll never be another moment like this and I don't want it dismissed as the outburst that precluded a nervous breakdown.

Another thought came, completely sobering him. If he collapsed, then Ebbetts would have a reason for destroying the record of the meeting.

‘Have you forgotten who I am?' began Ebbetts, pompously.

‘No, sir, I have not. Neither have I lost sight of the fact that I have been impertinent and also disrespectful to your office. For that, I apologize.'

‘But not to me?'

Adrian hesitated. The opportunity was there and if he took it, he could retreat. For what? I've finished running, he decided. He stayed silent.

‘I see,' said Ebbetts, stiffly. The colour was leaving his face now. He spread his hands, another practised move, and said, ‘All right. Then let's examine the facts.'

Suddenly Adrian felt scared. He was more intelligent than Ebbetts, he was sure of that. But he did not think he was cleverer. Neither did he think he could match him in debate, certainly not a debate that would centre around a weakness in his argument, the ulterior reason for which Pavel had defected. In a point by point examination of the facts, Ebbetts would win.

‘I will concede,' started the Prime Minister, ‘that your hunch about his deciding to go back to his own country has proved correct. The point I have been making and which I feel is brought out in these transcripts'– he patted the papers in front of him – ‘is that because of your lamentable handling of the man, the idea of returning was allowed to build up in his mind. Look at the first interview. Your confirming his fears about his family, rather than trying to subdue them …'

Adrian sighed. ‘How many more times do we have to go over this? There was a point in doing that, a point which I think is also shown in the transcript. I have already said Pavel was an intelligent man. The only way to conduct a debriefing of a man of that intellect is to gain his respect and the only way to do that is to be honest with him. He
knew
what would happen to his family if he stayed here. His questions to me were little more than rhetorical. For me to have dismissed them as unfounded would have destroyed any hope of establishing a relationship.'

Ebbetts nodded. ‘But that's no explanation for your arrogance,' he said, definitely. ‘You set out, consciously, to dismiss Pavel's importance in his own eyes, importance you now admit is unrivalled in the West …'

‘But I didn't,' protested Adrian, exasperated, ‘I've explained that, too. I had to dominate the examination. If I'd let Pavel lead, it could have taken months to reach the limited points we got to in less than a week. He was so over-confident …'

‘Over-confident!' sneered Ebbetts. ‘Crying at your second meeting … refusing to go out for exercise until it was dark. Is that your idea of over-confidence?'

Suddenly Adrian laughed. It was an odd, disjointed sound that jarred in the quietness of the room.

Ebbetts stared at him, the beginning of a smile on his face, imagining the hysteria that had frightened Adrian earlier.

‘Dodds?' he said, doubtfully, ‘are you all right?'

The question was perfectly pitched, showing just the right degree of solicitude.

Adrian laughed again, the sound controlled now, shaking his head.

‘Oh my God,' he said. ‘How brilliant. How incredibly, utterly brilliant.'

The three men looked blankly at him. Even the secretary, sitting at the end of the table, had stopped writing and was staring.

‘I know it,' he said, softly. ‘The reason. I know the reason. It was obvious all along, and we missed it.'

He straightened, looking straight at the Premier.

‘We've just witnessed the most incredible attempt ever made by the Soviet Union to liquidate a defector,' he announced.

Ebbetts was serious now, head cocked, alert.

‘What the hell are you talking about?'

‘How could the Russians get to Bennovitch?' asked Adrian. ‘How could they possibly get to the man, discover what he'd told us and liquidate him? There was no way, no way at all. Except by offering a bigger bait and we took it, like amateurs, like stumbling, idiotic amateurs. For the past week all we've thought about was Pavel and Pavel never intended to stay here. They
knew
we'd put them together …'

He paused, allowing himself the sarcasm. ‘Perhaps not as quickly as we did, but they knew we would link them. And we sat and let them talk and I thought they were working out some new problem that had arisen and all Pavel was doing was determining to what degree we'd progressed with Bennovitch's debriefing …'

He thought back to Pavel's remark in the car taking them to London for the meeting with the embassy official, the clue that had been given him and which he'd ignored – ‘they just glitter there, the winning posts for a race of giants.'

‘You pinpointed it,' he said to Ebbetts. ‘You said it and even now you don't realize it. The stars. It's the stars.'

The room was completely silent. Everyone sat motionless.

‘Pavel didn't go out only at night because he was scared. He went out at night because only then was there any point in his doing so.'

Ebbetts shook his head.

‘You're not making sense …'

‘Stars,' shouted Adrian. ‘That's what he wanted to see, stars. What was Pavel before he entered space science? What did he read at university? It was all there for us to see, in his history, but we missed it. He studied navigation, with the emphasis on stellar navigation. Pavel knew just where he was in England within minutes of walking out into the garden at Pulborough on the first night, just by looking upwards. And he knows where Bennovitch is being held, by the same method. It was dark when we left Petworth after the meeting and we paused by the car and I thought he was just getting a breath of air. But he wasn't. He was checking the star reference again. Put against the timed distance it took to drive back from one house to the other, which he simply had to time by checking his wrist watch and the aerial description of the house which he got from the helicopter, which they'll compare with satellite shots of southern England, the Russians will by now know exactly where Bennovitch is being held. He's got the aerial picture and the triangular fix, London, Pulborough and Petworth.'

He stopped, unable to understand why the others in the room were not as excited as he was.

‘That was Pavel's reason for defecting … the job he was sent here to do. He was marking Bennovitch out as a target.'

Ebbetts cupped his hands across his stomach, complacently.

‘I've never heard anything so ridiculous in my life,' he said.

‘… ridiculous …' agreed Fornham.

‘I'm right,' insisted Adrian.

Ebbetts shrugged. ‘Whether you are or not doesn't matter a damn,' he said. ‘I'm well aware how low you regard our intelligence here, Dodds, but we're not all fools. It occurred to me, even before your far-fetched theories, that there was a security risk involving Bennovitch. I wanted to salvage something out of the mess, so I gave instructions that he was to be moved, this afternoon.'

‘No,' shouted Adrian, half rising from his seat. ‘For God's sake, don't move him. That's just what they'd expect … what they'd want even. Inside the house he's safe. They can't get to him there because he's too well guarded. But outside he becomes just the target they want.'

Ebbetts waved his hand impatiently, like someone flicking away an irritating insect.

‘This meeting is over, Dodds. There's nothing to be gained by continuing the discussion and I would strongly recommend your seeing a doctor …'

He stopped, disturbed by the door opening behind the note-taker. Adrian recognized the Prime Minister's principal private secretary.

The man walked up to the Premier, bent and whispered to him for several moments. Halfway through Ebbetts turned, staring at Adrian. The colour flooded back into his face and the earrings returned.

The P.P.S. stood back but didn't leave the room. At the bottom of the table, the other secretary shuffled the pages of his notebook and the rustling sound seemed loud in the room.

Ebbetts coughed, looking down at the table, as if preparing himself. Then he said, ‘Alexandre Bennovitch was being moved at about five o'clock this afternoon. We were taking him into Kent. The car in which he was travelling and the back-up vehicle were ambushed within two hundred yards of leaving the Petworth mansion. By the time the lead car stopped and the security men got back, the gunmen had gone …'

He hesitated, as if details were important. ‘They used Uzzi machine-guns. We've had a ballistics report. I suppose they thought Israeli weapons would create some sort of international problem and Kaleshnikovs would be too obvious.'

There was another pause. Then he said, speaking directly to Adrian, ‘Bennovitch is dead. So are the guards in the two cars.'

Adrian felt no surprise. It was just the expected confirmation. Poor Alexandre, he thought, poor little fat, mentally disturbed Alexandre. So everybody had lost. He and Ebbetts and Bennovitch and Pavel. And Britain and Russia and America. Everyone a loser.

He touched his pocket, feeling the letter which Pavel had asked him to deliver. He died without knowing the man he regarded as a father was sorry, thought Adrian. He wondered if there had been a moment, just before death, when Bennovitch had realized what had happened.

Ebbetts stood up, suddenly, and walked from the room, leaving the Foreign Secretary sitting there.

‘Good Lord,' said the aristocrat.

Bad show, thought Adrian. At this moment, he's thinking, what a bad show.

‘Bad show,' confirmed Sir William Fornham, initiating the first sentence Adrian could recall.

Chapter Thirteen

They had almost completed the journey back from Downing Street before Binns spoke.

‘Well,' he said. ‘You were right.'

Adrian didn't respond.

‘How does it feel?'

Adrian considered the question. ‘There isn't a feeling,' he said. Then he conceded, ‘I suppose it vindicates the department.'

‘Yes,' agreed Binns, as if it had occurred to him for the first time. ‘I suppose it does.'

‘I don't imagine it'll change anything as far as I'm concerned,' said Adrian.

They showed their security passes at the door and moved into the lift.

‘I don't know,' said Binns. ‘He hates being wrong, publicly wrong, and he's certainly shown to be that. But it could rebound in your favour. He can hardly dismiss someone who was so accurate, can he?'

Adrian shrugged, not bothering to reply.

‘Doesn't it matter any more?' asked Binns.

‘I don't know,' replied Adrian, ‘I really don't know.'

They got out of the lift and began walking down the echoing corridor.

‘I suppose we can completely stop any publicity about the assassination?' said Adrian.

Binns nodded. ‘Quite easily. I checked before we left Downing Street. Apparently the cars had hardly left the house and our own people were the first on the scene. We'll handle the whole thing.'

‘I'm surprised they were able to get away quite so easily.'

‘It was very professional,' admitted Binns, ‘but very simple. They knew all they had to do was regain the main road. We're hardly going to have a running gun-battle on the A3 with a car bearing C.D. plates, are we?'

They got to the door of Binns's office and stopped.

‘Tomorrow,' said Binns. ‘Come and see me tomorrow and we'll sort it out.'

He hesitated. Then he added, ‘That's if you want to.'

Adrian smiled. ‘I'll tell you tomorrow,' he said. ‘At the moment, I'm not sure.'

‘And Adrian.'

‘What?'

‘Well done. And I'm sorry for my doubt.'

Adrian nodded and walked on down the corridor to his own office. He's stopped stuttering again, Adrian thought. I've recovered a friend.

Miss Aimes was burrowing into the drawers of her desk when he entered and Adrian paused just inside the door, surprised at her activity.

‘Oh,' she said, ‘you're back.'

As always, there was a mixture of surprise and disappointment in the greeting. Adrian stared hopefully. Bending might have displaced the wig. She patted it, needlessly. As always, it was corrugated in perfect order and he sighed, resigned to never knowing.

‘The meeting finished early,' he explained. Why was it she always prompted explanations?

‘Guess what has happened?' demanded the woman.

‘I'm sorry?'

‘You'll never guess what's happened. He's come back.'

‘Who has?'

‘The pigeon. The pigeon with the broken beak. It was on the window-sill this morning when I came in.'

Adrian turned to the window. The bird stiff-legged its way up and down on jealous patrol, chest puffed with pride of ownership. Its injury gave it a lopsided grin and Adrian grinned back at it.