- Good morning, Comrade General.
- Good morning, Mily. Please sit down.
The general had quickly mastered his irritation and spoke amiably. It was a rule of his never to antagonize anybody, not even a worthless peasant like Mily who ought to be doling out bowls of soup at a labour camp.
The man perched himself awkwardly on a bad copy of a Venetian stool by the empty marble fireplace. - Only one thing to report, sir. There was a fire at sea about five o'clock this morning, I was informed by a man at the harbour. Two boats went out to investigate. They made a search of the area but the ship had sunk without trace. They picked up one survivor, rather badly burnt. There's a hospital of sorts in the town above the port and he was taken to it. He had some story about a fire in the engine-room.
- A sad story, Mily. But I don't see that it concerns us, do you? Some fool of a Greek throws a cigarette-end into a tin of petrol and blows his ship up. It would be surprising if something like that didn't happen every week in a country as backward as this. You really mustn't go about flapping your ears at every piece of local gossip. A good Leninist like you should be able to distinguish at once between the essential and the inessential.
Mily flushed and said humbly, - I'm sorry, Comrade General, I didn't think.
- It's of no consequence, my dear Mily. Anything else?
- Boris kept listening watch on the Athens frequency at the usual time, sir. No transmission.
- Very good. See what that is, will you?
There was movement on the terrace outside and an excited murmur. A man's voice shouted in Greek. Mily went to the door, opened it, letting a bar of intense sunlight and a surge of heat into the shadowed room, and went out of sight for a moment. When he reappeared he seemed agitated.
- A rowing-boat is approaching, sir. A girl and a boy of about sixteen. They're making for the anchorage.
This sort of situation had arisen a dozen times since Arenski's arrival on the islet - tourists coming to ask if and when the house would be available for rental, tradesmen from the island touting for custom - and had been easily dealt with, as he had known it would be, by one of the Greek members of the team following laid-down procedure. Normally the general would have allowed this procedure to run its course without rising from his chair, but this time he decided to oversee the matter in person. He got up, pulled his green-and-turquoise check shirt into position and sauntered outside.
The sun beat down at him and its reflection on the water was dazzling. He shaded his eyes. A hundred yards away a white-painted dinghy was being rowed straight towards him. The senior Greek employee, binoculars in hand, asked him for instructions, but Arenski went on studying for a moment the play of strong bare brown shoulders at the oars. Finally he said in English, regrettably the only language common to himself and the man at his side, 'Have you asked them what they want?'
'Oh yes, General. But they are not answering me.'
'Try them again. Ask them who they are, tell them that this is a private house and so on.'
The Greek did as he was told. This time there was a response, from the girl. It was gibberish to Arenski except for one name, a name he recognized and reacted sharply to.
'General, she is saying she is a friend of Comrade Gordienko and she is wishing to speak with the gentleman of the house, please.'
Arenski fingered his pendulous lower lip. What was happening was inexcusably irregular, but he recognized with some weariness that he could not afford to send this person away. And there was another consideration. He said with fair cheerfulness, 'Tell them we don't know any Mr Gordienko, but the girl and her... her escort are very welcome to come ashore for a chat.'
Two minutes later the general, hands on hips, was on the mole surveying the two arrivals. The girl, a Greek or Bulgar, was cheaply pretty, over-developed about the bust. The boy, he assured himself out of the corner of his eye, was satisfactory, muscular, and tanned. Arenski waited: always let the other speak first.
The girl faced him. 'Do you speak English?'
'Yes.'
'My name is Ariadne Alexandrou. I am an employee of Mr Gordienko in Athens. I have an urgent message for the man in charge here.'
'I'm the tenant of this house, if that's what you mean. But excuse me one moment.'
Leaving the pair in the sun, Arenski strode briskly on his short legs back into the room he had just left. He took out a spring-back file bound in the yellow of Personnel and containing photostats of identity documents and dossiers. Alexandrou. Here it was. The hair in the photograph was longer but the rest was the same. He shut the file and returned to the doorway.
'Come over here, will you? Both of you.' When they had reached him he went on pleasantly, 'Your credentials are in order, Miss Alexandrou. You may come inside.' Then, his little eyes running over the boy's body, he added, 'And please ask your young friend if he would care for a glass of something cold in the kitchen.'
The boy looked back at Arenski while the girl put the question. His look said, as plainly as any words, that he knew what was in the general's mind and found it total filth. With a word to the girl he turned his back and strolled away.
Arenski swallowed and drew himself up. By a tremendous effort he managed to smile at the girl, introduce himself, and say, 'Let's sit down in the cool, shall we?'
The contentment he had felt half an hour earlier had totally departed. All things considered, he was probably the least suitable man in the whole of Soviet Security to react appropriately to Ariadne's story. Nevertheless he heard her out to the end without once interrupting.
When she had finished he sat silent and motionless for a time in his revolving chair, hands behind head. Then he turned round to his desk and reopened the Personnel file. Finally he said, looking out of the window, 'You were recruited by the Chief Intelligence Directorate, the GRU.'
'That's correct.'
'Why was that? What's a girl of your sort doing as an agent of the Red Army? Surely it would have been more natural for you to come directly under the orders of the KGB.
'Maybe it would, sir. It was just that... well, the man who originally signed me up to work for Russia was the Number Two of the GRU in Athens.'
'Yes.' Arenski still stared out of the window. 'He was your lover, this man?'
'Please, General, is this important?'
'He was your lover, this man?' It might have been a tape-recording of the previous query.
'Yes. He was.'
'And it was he who... converted you, I think would be the right word here - converted you to Marxist Socialism?'
'Yes.'
'Have you done much counterespionage work?'
'Not a great deal. Chiefly on jobs that called for a girl like me.'
'A seductive temptress,' sneered Arenski. 'Really, some of us behave as if we're still in the pre-Revolutionary era. Now, your father' - he glanced at the file - 'your father is an official of Pallas Airlines. A comfortable bourgeois.'
When this drew no reply, the general swivelled his chair round again and studied her impersonally. Eventually he drew in his breath and said in what he meant to be a kindly tone, 'You know, Miss Alexandrou, you're not the sort of person one expects to find working for peace in a primitive country like this one. What can be your experience of the class struggle? Where are your roots in the workers' movement? You know what you are? You're a romantic. Drawn to Communism by sentimental pity for the oppressed and to Intelligence work by false notions of glamour. And this means- '