The Dark Chronicles (79 page)

He’d come and, it seemed, he’d come alone. It was possible he had people stationed outside, but nobody else had entered the place after him and I didn’t think anyone who had come in earlier was a likely candidate. So I should have been pleased. But Smale presented greater problems than I’d anticipated, and it wasn’t just his damn-fool getup. He’d always disliked me, even when I’d been the Service’s boy wonder. Now he would hate me, and with good
reason. It wasn’t just that I was a traitor to my country: it was personal.

They had sent him out here under diplomatic cover even though I was in Moscow and knew he was with the Service. It wasn’t overly dangerous, as the Russians were perfectly capable of working out for themselves who the spooks were in the embassies, just as the Service knew who the Soviets had under diplomatic cover in London. But, if asked, I would nevertheless have been able to run my finger down the list of embassy staff and pick him out as a Service officer. That was why London had sent Fletcher-Peck out earlier: he’d not been around in Blake or Philby’s time. He had also been bloody useless, which was perhaps why they had decided not to use that tactic again. This time Smale had drawn the short straw, and if I knew Smale that was going to rankle, because quite apart from the unpleasant sensation of knowing his cover could be blown at any moment by a double agent, it meant he was never going to be Chief: he had already been marked down as disposable, and therefore a second-tier officer at best.

In short, he was probably one of the last people in the world who would be prepared to give me a fair hearing. But I
had
to get him to listen to me, and act on what I had to say, and I had to do it very fast.

‘Thank you for coming,’ I said. ‘I know it can’t have been an easy—’

‘Was he worth it, then?’ he broke in. He was talking to Sarah. ‘Quite a price to pay for a quick roll in the hay, isn’t it? Or were you betraying us earlier, as well?’

Christ
. It was worse than I’d feared. He clearly had no idea what had happened.

‘I’ve never betrayed anyone,’ Sarah said quietly, but Smale wasn’t listening, having turned back to me.

‘And it’s a bit early for vodka, isn’t it?’ He waved at the glass on the table and wrinkled his nose. ‘You all seem to drink yourselves to death. Pity you can’t take the honourable way out and just use a gun.’

‘That’s not my—’ I stopped myself. There was no time to get into arguments. I had to placate him. His opening comments indicated a level of contempt that I recognized as not just personal but institutional. It looked like the initial shock had worn off and I had become a totemic name in the Service, along with Philby and the rest.

‘Did you come alone?’ I asked him, and he looked at me as though I had accused him of stealing the bishop’s silverware.

‘Of course. That was your stipulation.’ He wanted to nail down that he was the honourable professional and I the dirty Commie traitor. If it made him feel better, fine. Anything was fine, as long as I could get him to listen.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I appreciate it. I would like your help, Hugh. I really need you to get a message to London.’

Smale leaned forward, his lips parting to show a row of yellowing fangs.

‘So you’re the new hotline,’ he hissed, ‘is that it?’ He sat back again, pinching his nose. ‘I must say, it’s very poor form bandying emergency phrases around – even for you. Did you really expect us to take that at face value? In case you’ve forgotten, you no longer work for us – in fact, never did. And now we’ll have to alter all our security procedures. Perhaps that was the idea. Very tedious. We’ve only just changed all the dead drops as a result of your coming over. The boys weren’t too pleased with me for ordering it, as it wasn’t so long ago they had to do the same on account of Blake.’

He was talking at rather than to me. His eyes were locked in a supercilious gaze, and I suddenly realized what was happening. He thought this was a showdown. I’d seen something similar in the aftermath of Philby’s defection in ’63: almost everyone in the Service who had crossed paths with him had developed the notion that they had played a crucial role in the saga. Sometimes this took the form that they had ‘just known something wasn’t right about him all along’; but a few had been deluded enough to think that they’d presented some sort of threat to Philby.

Smale had either forgotten or was ignorant of the fact that I had simply asked to meet the Head of Station here, and that until he’d walked through the door I hadn’t known that was him. He had persuaded himself I’d asked him here because of our scant history together in the same office. And so he was listening to me with one ear, trying to figure out what angle I was playing, while in his mind’s eye he was already drafting the chapter of his memoirs in which he related the curious incident in which he met the notorious double agent Paul Dark and his accomplice Sarah Severn in a seedy Moscow café.

I had to try another tack quickly. I had to find a way to make him see he wasn’t going to live to write
My Life in Shadows: Three Decades as an Arse-Licking Creep in British Intelligence
if he didn’t respond to what I was telling him.

‘Please listen,’ I said, as quietly and gently as I could – manners maketh man. ‘This is a genuine emergency, and it’s not about me. Yes, I made the dreadful mistake of working for the Soviets, and I wish I could turn back time and put it right. But, unfortunately, I can’t. I’m very sorry for it, but I know that no apology or confession I make can change anything. Some mistakes can’t be undone. But Sarah has never worked for the Russians, and I no longer am – in fact, they’re chasing both our hides right now.’ I saw the open disbelief on his face, and pressed on. ‘But none of that matters. I’m talking about the possibility of very imminent nuclear war, so please can you try to set aside your understandable animosity towards me for a couple of minutes and hear me out?’

His face was very still apart from his eyes, which flickered all over me. Contemplating, weighing. The hubbub around us seemed to be in another room as I focused on him, and he on me. Finally, he cocked his head a little to one side.

‘It’s unfortunate for rather a lot of people that you can’t turn back the clock,’ he said, and gave his tea a ceremonial stir. ‘Because quite a few of them are dead. But I’m listening.’

I leaned down and picked up the attaché case. ‘The documents
in here will provide all the evidence you need,’ I said. I briefly explained about the mustard gas in the U-boat, the ‘attacks’ on the bases, the B-52 flights, the Soviets’ interpretation of these events and Brezhnev’s order to prime the missiles. Then I took out Yuri’s threat assessment and placed it on the table.

He read it in silence, then pushed it back towards me and took another sip of tea.

‘Very interesting,’ he said grandly. ‘Thank you for showing it to me. But you must understand, old chap, that I can’t simply take all of this on trust. This document could be forged. We will have to analyse it, verify it against other sources and so on.’

‘There’s no time for any of that,’ I said. ‘And there’s no earthly reason for me to be forging Soviet military documents. You need to get a message to London now so we can stop this going any further. Is Osborne still in charge?’

He didn’t answer.

‘Whoever is Chief needs to get the PM to call Brezhnev and tell him there’s been a serious misunderstanding and there’s no attack being planned. And the PM also needs to get hold of Nixon, sharpish, and get those B-52s back on the ground.’

He pinched at the knee of one of his trouser legs, realigning the crease so it was perfectly vertical, then looked up, his face expressionless. ‘But you do see that I can’t just take your word for all this, even if you have brought along a briefcase filled with official-looking documents. I couldn’t take anyone’s word for it, but especially not yours. You must see that?’

‘This is no time for—’

‘Paul.’

‘What?’

Sarah nodded towards the window. A car had pulled up outside the café: a yellow Volga with a blue stripe along the side and a siren on its roof.
Militsiya
. A man in a blue coat and a peaked cap was at the wheel, and another was in the passenger seat.

Had someone in the café reported our presence? The waitress?
The old man by the door? They couldn’t have
followed
either of us here – too much time had elapsed since Detsky Mir and my phone call if that had been the case. But had enough time elapsed for Yuri to have issued an alert to all available patrols with Sarah’s and my descriptions? Despite its name the
militsiya
were simply the civilian police, subordinate to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Could the wheels of Soviet bureaucracy be so well oiled that the GRU had reached every patrol car in the city since I’d killed Vladimir?

There was no way of knowing. I glanced at Smale.

‘Did you keep radio silence about this meeting?’

‘Of course,’ he said sniffily. ‘What do you take me for?’

It was my turn not to answer.

The car had parked, and the man on the passenger side had got out and begun walking towards the door of the café. Were they after us, or simply stopping for a bite to eat on their patrol?

I made a decision. I replaced Yuri’s document in the case and closed it, then picked a fork off the table and held it stiff behind my back.

I handed the case to Sarah. ‘Take this and follow me,’ I said. I pushed my chair back, then lowered my head and walked smartly towards the counter, because that was the opposite of what he would expect and then I could get a blow in, surprise him, and double-back. The man pushed his way through the doors and strode confidently in to the café. As he approached the counter, our eyes met for a moment. My fingers tightened around the shaft of the fork as I prepared for the flicker of interest that would mean I would strike, but he ignored me and strode past, his eyes on the menu pinned up on a board behind the counter.

He wasn’t here for us. I looked back at Smale, who was leaning forward but hadn’t moved from the table. He didn’t believe me about the threat, that much was clear, and I didn’t know what it would take to budge him, if anything. It might take hours, but another
militsiya
man could walk in here in five minutes, and the next one might be looking for us, or be armed with our descriptions.
And even if Smale did listen, there was no way to be certain he would get the message to the Americans fast enough to avert disaster.

The moments were slipping away. I had no idea how others might act, or how quickly. But the only other option was to try to get to Åland, to try to get back to the U-boat and prove that the leak originated from the canisters in it. That would mean finding a way past the roadblocks, and all the men hunting us… but it also meant we would have less interference. The only interference we would face would be from those trying to kill us.

Sarah was looking at me, waiting to see what I was up to. All my instincts were telling me we would be wasting time staying here trying to convince Smale any further. Sometimes all we have is our instincts. I motioned to Sarah and pushed open the door, stepping into the street and walking briskly, not looking back. The rain was coming down hard, and I stepped around a puddle in front of the Volga.

‘What are we doing?’ said Sarah from just behind me.

‘Plan B,’ I said. ‘Get in the back of the car and be prepared.’

The man behind the wheel looked up in surprise as we reached him. As Sarah opened the rear door, I opened the one on the passenger side, leapt into the seat and placed the fork to his groin.

‘Drive,’ I said.

He was youngish, perhaps in his early thirties, with dark hair, blue eyes and a strong jawline: a model
militsiya
man. And so he hesitated. Perhaps he thought I was bluffing. I pressed the prongs of the fork into the cloth of his trousers and leaned in to his ear.

‘If you haven’t started this car by the time I’ve counted to three,’ I whispered, ‘I’ll slice your balls off and drive myself. One…’

His jaw was clenched in fury, but he switched on the ignition and depressed the clutch. The starter coughed for a moment, then sputtered out. Christ. Looking around the car, I saw it wasn’t in good shape: there was no mat beneath my feet, just the bare steel floor. I glanced back at the café and saw his colleague turn and spot us, alerted by the noise. He began running towards the entrance, his arms waving, shouting at us.

‘Wave to him,’ I hissed. ‘And make it convincing.’

He glanced at me, then reluctantly lifted a hand from the wheel and half-saluted his colleague, who peered at us, not understanding. I smiled at him and gestured with my hand to indicate that we were just taking a quick spin around the block. He would figure out what we were doing pretty soon, but it might just slow him down for a minute or two – and that minute might make all the difference.

Something moved in the rear-view mirror, and I saw another man already running across the street, his hands stuffed in his pockets. He had fair hair and a moustache, and I realized with a
shock that it was Dawes – so much for Smale’s gentlemanly regard for my stipulations.

I leaned into the fork again, and sweat broke out on the driver’s face. But that wasn’t helping him focus, so I relented a little. He tried the ignition again and this time the starter caught and we were off. The car jumped and tilted as we caught a wheel on a pothole, before righting as we came into the lane, directly behind a taxi.

‘Put your foot down!’ I shouted at him. I was looking at Dawes in the rear-view mirror: he’d reached the other side of the road and jumped into a light grey Pobeda containing one of his colleagues, and they were now only twenty yards or so behind, with just four cars between us. We had to lose them, because I didn’t have time to be taken to the embassy and convince everyone I was telling the truth.

The driver accelerated, squinting through the windscreen. One of the wipers was broken, so it wasn’t much use against the rain; it just kept getting stuck and drawing back early like a bird with an injured wing. Apart from the taxi there were no cars in front of us and I thought he was dramatizing to give his colleague a chance to catch up. I could also see that despite the fact I was holding something very sharp to his crotch, he was itching to make a move on me: perhaps because of the holster at his hip, which contained a Makarov; perhaps because I was having to keep the prongs a little at bay in case I skewered him by mistake. So I leaned across him very fast and snatched the gun with my other hand, then rammed it against his temple, removing the fork from his groin at the same time. Something about the sensation of cold steel pressed into his skull got through, and his squint disappeared.