Legacy (27 page)

‘Actually, Penkovsky was hanged, quite slowly. It was filmed. Sometimes they show it to recruits in GRU, to remind them of consequences. But he was a big important spy. He did enormous
damage. I am not a spy. I have done no damage.’

‘If it suits them to believe you. There may be political reasons why it would suit them to have a big spy case, a show trial with confessions beaten out of you and your wife forced to give
evidence against you by threats against your daughter so that they can once again demonstrate the iniquity of western special services.’ He could see that his words were hitting home, and he
had a fleeting vision of Hookey in his position. Hookey would not pause, as he had, but would press on. ‘It’s not just a question of one sea or another, Viktor. There isn’t a
moral equivalence. Ours has no end of junk and rubbish and rottenness in it but the one you’re in is deliberately nasty, polluted and polluting. It spawns and swallows Ulriche and thousands
like her. One way or another, your own little girl is going to have to make the sort of choices you make, or that Ulriche made. She too is going to grow up in a system where a love affair can be
treason. They’re hard choices – and we have it easy, I know – but they are choices. You’re lucky you have them. Most of your compatriots don’t.’

‘Your father must have thought his love affair was treason.’

‘My father was wrong. It wasn’t. It was just against the rules. But what he did afterwards was wrong.’ Viktor’s pale features were taut. Charles felt that the case had
never been more in his control. It would have been a natural moment to ease off, to relax things and perhaps move on together in harmony; but if ever he was going to go for it, he should go now.
‘You may be in trouble, you may not, but every minute you’ve spent with me this evening makes it more likely that you will be. If there’s even half a chance that you are, you
should agree signalling arrangements so you can tell us whether you’re okay about going back, or whether you want to talk, or whether you’re being taken back and you want to jump ship.
If the latter, we’d have to intervene and grab you. It would be a major incident and we do it only if you and I agree a mechanism in advance. And there is a price. For this, on top of keeping
Chantal quiet, there has to be a price.’ He was not at all sure that, even with the price, the office would agree. Foreign Office clearance would have to be sought retrospectively, which was
always a problem. There would be fuss. Everything he said was unauthorised and he had no power of delivery. But if the price was high enough, and paid, there was a chance.

‘So, Charles, blackmail after all,’ said Viktor quietly.

‘No blackmail, Viktor. We will keep Chantal quiet anyway, whether you agree anything or whether you don’t. I can’t say you will never hear from us again but you will certainly
never hear in circumstances that could compromise you. If you come abroad again, we would probably try and talk to you, to see if you have changed your mind. But if you choose to make no
arrangement now, you can walk away tonight and go back to Moscow under no threat from us. If you want us to be prepared to help you, though, there is a price. That is not blackmail.’

Viktor sat back, his second brandy untouched. ‘What price?’

‘One question and one promise. You answer the question honestly and you keep the promise.’ Viktor said nothing. Charles gazed at the colourful, talkative, youthful crowd in the
café. The profile of one of the women was slightly familiar.

‘What is your question?’ Viktor asked quietly.

‘Look around you.’ Charles nodded at the other customers. ‘There are young people enjoying themselves like this in every city of the world, even in Moscow. And in several of
those cities, or near them, your people are planning to leave your
nasledstvo
, ultimately so that these people could be threatened with incineration or with having their water poisoned or
whatever. Operation Legacy is being prepared here, in London, now. You know the sort of tactics it’s there to support. You are part of it. I don’t want you to give me any details, any
identifications of your people or agents. I just want to know whether you have found and prepared your sites, your arms caches or whatever they are, or whether you are still looking. That’s
all.’

‘And the promise?’

‘That if you ever hear in future of any sites, prepared, planned or filled, you will let me know, no matter where in the world you are, for the rest of your life, even in your old age in
Moscow. And that we agree a system of covert communication here and now.’

‘I can agree these things but how will you know I am telling the truth?’

‘I shall have to trust you, as you have to trust me with Chantal.’

Viktor stared as if searching Charles’s features for his own decision. ‘I have a condition. That this agreement is between us personally. I am not your service’s agent. I am
not going to spy for them. But this thing – yes, this thing is important for you, so I will tell you.’ He sat forward with his elbows on the table. ‘It will not be easy for you
personally, Charles.’

‘Tell me.’

‘My role in Operation Legacy, as you call it, is quite recent really. I knew nothing of it when I came here. Then I was told that we had an important agent who was doing secret work for
another department –’

‘Directorate S – Illegals?’

Viktor nodded. ‘And this agent was run from the Centre, he had no contact with the embassy, his case officer used to travel to see him. He was recruited by the Second Chief Directorate
many years before but later he was given to Directorate S to run, and then us here in London in conjunction with them. The other officers here had no idea about him, only the Resident and me. He
was your father, of course. He had done many things for us for many years but now he was doing unusual work. He was trusted and he had certain skills. His new task was to find places where we could
bury radios, arms, explosives or documents so that Directorate S agents who had been trained in sabotage could use them at an appropriate time. There is at least one cache here already, an old one,
found by another agent and filled before your father. Only the Resident knows where. But the Centre needs more and your father agreed to find them as his last task before retirement. The last time
he travelled abroad he came secretly to Russia and a senior official presented him with the Order of Lenin. He was very pleased by that.’

Charles thought he was getting used to the idea of his father’s treachery, but he felt Viktor’s words in the pit of his stomach. He was relieved that he did not have to speak.

‘I never met him,’ Viktor continued. ‘Nobody from the Residency ever did. At first we didn’t know who he was, only his code-name – Builder. The Centre would tell us
what he had done, what stage had been reached, and what we had to do in support. My role at first was to only find dead letter boxes and pass the details to Moscow. They would be filled and emptied
for him by someone else, I don’t know who. Another agent, perhaps a visiting Illegal. Also, I was to check any site he found. He was ordered to find one close to the west of London. You have
strategic military headquarters in this area for your navy and air force, as well as communications centres and the government airfield at Northolt. Also there is Heathrow and Chequers, of course.
It is a sensitive area, but very accessible. In Russia you would not be allowed within five hundred miles of such places. You are too relaxed in England.’

Charles nodded, his eyes on his father’s cap, now on the seat beside Viktor.

‘And because this site is for very delicate equipment the Centre sent your father some special instruments to test for damp and vibration and things like that. He found the site in the
country close to London when he had some holiday – it was during Christmas – and could go walking and he put the instruments in immediately because it was not safe for him to keep them
at home. The Centre had his message to say he had done this and describing the area of the site and his next message was to give the exact coordinates and directions. But then he died. So we knew
only the area but not exactly where and what I have had to do is to try to find it.’

‘Hence Beaconsfield?’

Viktor nodded. ‘The Centre wants the instruments. We know the site is near the top of the hill, near where the footpath goes through the corner of the army camp, but I could not find it.
There is no disturbed earth or any sign. And we cannot risk me or anyone going there too often. That is why I must go for my runs, you see, so that organs of British security will think I am just
practising for the Olympic Games. And also the Centre must find someone to carry on the work of your father. They do not like it being done from the embassy because of your surveillance. Since
Lyalin defected, it is not so easy to operate in England. That is the truth, Charles, I know that.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘So, all this was happening when you met me in the park, as if by
chance. Of course I reported it to the Resident and he reported to the Centre and they surprised us by saying you had a file. Well, it was not your own actually, it was an annex to your
father’s, but you have your own now, I think. And then they made an even more surprising request that I must see you again, tell you about your father and try to recruit you. Perhaps they
wanted you to take his place in Legacy, as well as for other things, but until then we had no idea your father and the Legacy agent were the same person.’ He sat back and drank off his
brandy. ‘Now, Charles, I think I have more than answered your question. What I have told you is worth more than twenty-five years. It is’ – he drew his forefinger across his
throat – ‘so now you must do your work with Chantal. You will not hurt her very much? Even with what she has done I would not like that.’

‘We’ll pay her to go and keep quiet. Enough to make sure she stays quiet. She will not be hurt at all. We need to discuss signal arrangements, for the next week and after.’

‘And after for the rest of my life? You are serious?’

‘Completely. Not only for Legacy, which you might or might not continue to know about, but for you. In ten, twenty years’ time you might want to defect. We need a system that will
get your message to us regardless of where I am or where you are. But for the next week it has to be, “Help, come and get me,” or “I want to talk” or “I’m
okay.” We’ll have to be right up on you. We need to discuss this delegation you’ll be with. The Foreign Office must have their itinerary. Are they sticking to it? What about these
other two you mentioned?’

Hostile intelligence officers, Gerry had said, were among the hardest to recruit, but the easiest to run. The language of covert communication was international, like the drills and disciplines
common to armies. Viktor was an experienced and imaginative operator. ‘They trained you well,’ Charles said, when they finished, finding it tactful not to mention his own status.

‘How can you say so after Beaconsfield? You know, I am ashamed about that.’

They took a cab back, passing Claire’s flat on the way. They both glanced at her window. ‘I wish you more than luck,’ said Viktor. ‘This has to work.’

Charles stopped the cab before the street where their cars were parked. It was better that Viktor was not seen with anyone alongside his diplomatic registered car. They were together only
briefly on the pavement. ‘So I keep the cap,’ said Viktor.

‘Until.’

‘If.’

Charles went to shake hands but Viktor ignored his proffered hand and stepped forward, arms outspread. They parted with a Russian bear-hug, cheek to cheek, and without further words.

Charles detoured his car, giving Viktor time to get away. As he went to unlock it, the door of a nearby Volvo opened and a woman got out. ‘Message from Hookey,’ she said.
‘He’s got some more brandy in his office. He’d like you to join him there. We’ll take you, so you don’t have to worry about drink and drive.’

Charles stared. ‘Sue.’

The girl from SV smiled. ‘You know how to corpse your old friends, don’t you? Twice in that café you looked straight across at our table, right at us. I had to turn my back.
Jim thought you were trying to tell us you’d spotted us. You hadn’t, had you?’

‘Not a slither. Hopeless. I was too busy discussing tradecraft to practise it.’

‘Just be grateful we weren’t the Russians. There weren’t any, by the way. That’s why we were there, checking. Urgent request from your office. Better not keep the famous
Hookey waiting any longer. Not that he ever leaves his desk, from what I hear.’

A
t lunchtime the following day Charles sat alone in an Argentinian restaurant just off Covent Garden. This time he had a book, intending another
attempt on
Middle-march
. His eyes read the same paragraph over and again.

‘She must leave you feeling grateful, secretly delighted that she’s getting one over on us, determined never to see us or the Russians again and wetting herself with anxiety to get
away,’ Hookey had said during the early hours. ‘That’s why she must believe it’s a loan, not a gift, so that she’ll fear that if she gets in touch she’ll be
asked to repay. At the same time she must believe that you’re keen for her to get back in touch because you want her to do the same with Lover Boy’s successor, whose reputation for
sexual violence and high jinks has preceded him. And she must be convinced that there is no point in even thinking of contacting Lover Boy again, that he has disappeared into the gulag, unmentioned
and unmentionable.’

They had talked for two and a half hours amidst the brandy and tobacco fumes of Hookey’s office, alone in the building save for the comcen staff, the guards and the duty officer. Hookey
had made him go over every word of his encounter with Viktor, twice. He had criticised their signal arrangements, pondered how the thing should be presented to MI5, noted the two delegation members
Viktor had named, chuckled at Charles’s failure to spot the surveillance, congratulated Charles on the Legacy news, chuckled again because MI5 had crawled over the grounds of the army camp at
Beaconsfield with toothpicks and found nothing, speculated about the future and ruled that this was not yet a recruitment.