The Factory (7 page)

‘Seven. Maybe eight,' said Tanya, doubtful still.

‘Enough,' said Whitehead. ‘Only they'll know what's really happening. And we'll swap constantly, once we're at sea, from boat to boat so that we're never long enough on one vessel to incriminate anyone. If there is any Soviet naval interception it won't be of
every
fishing boat, will it?'

‘You're asking a lot of them.'

‘You're owed a lot, like Vadim was. Make an approach, to those you can trust. For tonight.'

‘Tonight!'

‘There's nothing to stay for except arrest and imprisonment and losing Natasha.'

Only six agreed to help. It was late afternoon before Tanya came back from the port, dragging her feet with weariness and disappointment. She said: ‘The two fishermen I told you about? They
have
been arrested. Everyone's frightened.'

‘Any doubts now about getting away?'

‘Just frightened, like the rest,' said Tanya.

Natasha was clearly frightened too, although they did not tell her everything and certainly not that she was leaving her home for ever. Luggage was impossible, of course. Tanya squeezed into a handbag a photograph of Vadim and another of him with herself and Natasha. With childlike intuition Natasha asked if she could take something and chose a toy bear that Vadim had bought her, the year of his arrest. At the moment of leaving, Tanya gazed longingly around the tiny house and Natasha said: ‘I don't want to go!'

‘I don't want to either,' said Tanya. ‘We must.'

As always they used the alleys to approach the port and they were practically at the entry gate before they came upon the arc-lighted roadblock, soldiers, plainclothes KGB men and vehicles sealing everything off.

Tanya turned, horrified, towards Whitehead and said: ‘Someone talked: someone who refused to help today.'

‘It's got to be this way,' insisted Whitehead when he finished telling her what he was going to do.

‘You can't!'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘Do exactly as I say. When you get ashore at Gotland go to the British consul. Show him the British passport and tell him to contact London. Its number will be recognized. Someone will come to get you.'

‘Please don't!'

‘Remember,' insisted Whitehead. ‘Don't stand and watch. As soon as everything starts, get through that gate.'

‘I don't …' started Tanya but Whitehead was already moving, briefly retreating up the alley to emerge from another exit further along the main port road, striding obviously towards the dock gate. About twenty yards from the roadblock but in full view of it he suddenly stopped, appearing uncertain. Then he turned, hesitated again, and began to run.

‘There!' came a shout from someone at the barrier. ‘He's running, there!'

There was a moment of inactivity. Then the chase began, soldiers and plain-clothes men on foot, the roadblocking vehicles reversing and accelerating away, sirens blaring.

‘Come on,' said Tanya to her daughter.

‘How's Natasha?' asked the Director General politely. He'd had tea served and took some himself, although he wanted something stronger.

‘Bewildered,' said Tanya. She felt uncomfortable in such an impressive office. She thought the building ugly, though, like a factory.

‘We're glad you made the crossing safely.'

‘We were lucky. It was a calm night and we never saw a naval patrol,' said Tanya. She added: ‘Is there any news?'

Bell shook his head. ‘There'll have to be, soon. We can't inquire, of course. That would confirm he was on an official mission.'

‘I pray he won't be hurt: physically hurt, I mean.'

‘So do I,' said Bell.

‘It's all very plausible and I agree all your papers are in order,' said the KGB interrogator. ‘But I don't believe a word you've told me. I want to know the truth. I want to know what you were doing at Liepaja and why you staged that stupid running away trick.'

Whitehead, who was sagged with fatigue because they hadn't let him sleep since his seizure, tried to straighten in his hard chair. ‘Truth,' he said with difficulty. ‘I've told the truth.'

‘No you haven't,' said the interrogator. ‘But I'll find out the truth. I always do. You won't be able to resist, not in the end.'

Whitehead strained up to focus fully on the man. Which of them would win, he wondered.

4

The Assassin

One of the many unique institutions of London is its gentlemen's clubs. They are invariably wood-panelled, leather-chaired places in fine, historic mansions from which, until a recent Act of Parliament ruling that the sexes are equal, women were prohibited. To become a member takes years and the highest recommendation; to be refused or expelled is to be disgraced. They are roughly divided among the professions. There is a club for travellers and a club for lawyers. The club for artists and writers and actors is the Garrick, in London's Covent Garden.

An adequate professional description for officials of the country's intelligence service is difficult – they certainly wouldn't accept spy – and there are hardly enough to support the expense of a club of their own. Over the years, for reasons no one can any longer remember, they have gravitated towards the Garrick. It was here that Samuel Bell chose to lunch with Sir William Hoare, who also had a profession difficult to describe. He was attached to the Foreign Office, which controls overseas intelligence, so nominally he was a diplomat. His true function was liaison between all espionage agencies.

‘You talked of a problem?' queried Bell at once. They were in the jostled bar, with pre-lunch whiskies.

‘I hope I'm being overcautious,' said Hoare. He was a stooped but immaculate man, white-haired and dark-suited, with a soft, almost apologetic voice. ‘Does the name Valentin Shidak mean anything to you?'

For a few seconds it didn't and then Bell remembered. He said: ‘Russian dissident. Allowed to leave the Soviet Union about five years ago. Since which time he's lectured and broadcast on the evils of Moscow.' Bell was glad of the recollection: recently, especially after a little too much to drink, he'd found his memory wasn't so good.

Hoare nodded. ‘We've used him, too. Two branches of our intelligence, at least.'

‘I didn't,' insisted Bell. He had an inherent distrust of defectors and dissidents.

‘I know,' said Hoare. ‘I still felt you should be warned. He's disappeared.'

‘Why the concern?'

‘The other intelligence people stopped using him about a year ago because he had become a fanatic. Very unreliable. Began talking about killing people: making examples.'

‘That makes me very glad I didn't use him,' said Bell sincerely.

‘In two weeks' time there's an official Soviet visit to London, headed by Alexei Palov. He's an old-timer, been around long before Gorbachev came to power. Palov was high up in the Interior Ministry when Shidak was jailed. He's always blamed Palov, personally.'

‘What connection can there be between Shidak's disappearance and Palov coming here?'

‘Shidak lived in this country with an English girl, Alice Irving. It was she who reported him missing. She says he'd become very agitated recently, when he learned of Palov's visit …' Hoare paused. Then he said: ‘It's not just Shidak who's missing. We didn't know it but he collected guns. Two, an American M-16 rifle and a Colt automatic, aren't in the collection any more.'

The Director General pushed his drink aside, for once not wanting it. ‘You think Shidak is planning an assassination!'

‘I'd like not to,' said Hoare. ‘Can you imagine the repercussions if he did? Especially if it were discovered that he has had some connection with our intelligence services. We want him found and locked up, throughout the time the Russians are here.'

‘Not my department,' Bell tried to avoid. ‘We're involved overseas.'

‘I can't risk a link with people he's already been associated with, can I?' argued Hoare. ‘It's got to be an agency that's been completely uninvolved until now. Which means you.'

George Fowler was a plump, rosy-cheeked, usually smiling man who looked the sort of person who entertained with conjuring tricks at children's parties, which he sometimes did: he had four grandchildren and ran a scout troop near his home in Richmond. He was one of Bell's longest serving and most trusted operatives.

Fowler wasn't smiling today. He listened grave-faced as the Director General recounted his lunchtime meeting with the Foreign Office diplomat and at the end said: ‘And all I've got is two weeks!'

‘I know it isn't going to be easy. I wish it were.'

‘Are we going to warn the Russians?'

‘Only if we have to. Britain is still officially responsible for Soviet security while they're in the country, whether we tell them or not.'

‘Any leads at all?'

The Director General shook his head. ‘I can't think of any, apart from the girl.'

‘Shidak's armed?' queried Fowler.

Bell anticipated the reason for the question. ‘You should be, too,' he agreed.

‘What if it comes to a confrontation?'

‘Kill him before he kills you,' ordered Bell at once.

The girl who opened the door to him reminded Fowler of his own daughter, just after she had left university and embraced causes like nuclear disarmament and environmental protection. Alice Irving wore a long skirt and an enveloping sweater. Her hair was a tangle of ringlets, which was a carefully contrived style, not neglect, and there was no make-up. She regarded him hostilely, an automatic reaction to authority.

‘I've told the police everything I know,' she said. She remained at the door of the flat in London's Wandsworth, not inviting him in.

Fowler gave her one of his best smiles and said: ‘I really want to find him. I'd appreciate your going through it again, although I know it's a bore.'

‘Maybe he just got fed up with me,' said Alice, depressed.

‘I don't think that's likely, do you?' flattered Fowler.

The girl smiled, despite herself. ‘I suppose you'd better come in.'

The interior of the apartment was like his daughter's had been, too. There was just one main room, a coverlet thrown over the bed to provide a daytime couch and posters of pop stars and better-known political prisoners like Nelson Mandela on the walls. Off the main room was an open door to a kitchen and a closed one which he presumed led to the bathroom. He accepted the offered coffee, sat in the one easy chair and said: ‘According to one report I've had Shidak collected guns?'

Jane nodded. ‘Yes.'

Fowler looked around the room. ‘Where? There's not a lot of space.'

The girl reached beneath the bed and hauled out a large suitcase. ‘Here.'

‘People who collect things usually like them to be displayed,' said Fowler.

‘He didn't seem to want to do that,' she said. ‘He didn't actually call it his collection. He said it was for protection: because of who and what he'd been in Russia, before he came here.'

Fowler nodded towards the case. ‘Is it empty now?'

In answer Alice opened the case. It contained a twelve-bore shotgun and a target pistol. There were also boxes of ammunition.

‘And he took the M-16 and a Colt automatic? With ammunition?'

‘I suppose so,' said the girl. ‘He always had bullets for them and I can't find them now.'

‘It's against the law in England to have guns like that,' reminded Fowler. ‘They can't be bought in shops. Where did Shidak get them, as well as ammunition?'

Alice shrugged. ‘I never knew. He had them before we started living together.'

‘Is this your flat? Or his?'

‘Mine. Before he moved in here he used to live in a room in Fulham.'

‘By himself?'

‘I think so. I never asked questions about his life before we were together, apart from what he chose to tell me about Russia. He never asked about mine.'

‘Did he belong to a gun club: a place where he could practise firing guns?'

The girl nodded again. ‘Two. One in Harrow, another in Hampstead.' She got up and rummaged through a drawer, finally straightening holding two membership cards. ‘Here are the addresses,' she said.

‘Those his things?' questioned Fowler, indicating the drawer.

‘Some of them.'

‘What about his clothes?'

Alice pointed to a closet against the far wall. ‘All there.'

‘So he's hardly walked out and left you, has he? He would have taken his clothes, surely?'

‘That's what I keep telling myself. I suppose you want to look through the drawer?'

‘If you don't mind.'

‘There's nothing there. I've looked.'

While Alice was making fresh coffee Fowler examined the drawer. It held a Russian passport, some assorted bills all of which appeared to have been paid, a theatre programme, a membership card of an organization calling itself the Free Russia Society and a bank book showing a surprisingly large credit balance. Fowler was closing the drawer when he saw a cardboard pack of matches and on impulse opened it. Before Alice returned from the kitchen he slipped it into his pocket.

‘Nothing, was there?' she said when she came into the room.

‘No,' agreed Fowler. ‘What about the Russian passport? Did he have a British one?'

‘No,' said the girl at once. ‘He is still legally Russian, with residency permission here. He applied for British citizenship about three months ago but these things take time.' She hesitated. ‘He will come back, won't he? He hasn't left for ever.'

‘No,' said Fowler thoughtfully. ‘I don't think he's left for ever.'

‘I heard you come to bed last night,' said Pamela Bell at breakfast. ‘I wouldn't be surprised if the entire neighbourhood heard you, as well.'