Then Bennovitch asked, suddenly, ‘How has the work gone?’
‘Well,’ said Pavel. ‘Most of it stopped immediately you left, of course. We began working on the calculations you’d made about flight adjustments after launch. Remember, we didn’t spend much time on them. But the unmanned Mars probe was sending back interesting data. Do you know it recorded solar wind speeds of 350 miles a second?’
‘That fast! But that will create just the adjustment difficulties I foresaw.’
‘I know. Do you realize how much more important that made your defection? Let me tell you what I considered.’
Pavel took paper from his pocket and began writing formulae and suddenly the age and indecision and self-pity lifted from him. A change came over Bennovitch, too. The nervousness ceased as he immersed himself in what Pavel was saying, occasionally querying a fact or a calculation. Adrian looked on fascinated as the two men worked, appreciating for the first time how necessary one was to the other. Apart, they were two brilliant scientists, their space knowledge and ideas far beyond those of any Western counterpart. Together they were spectacular, each grasping the idea of the other before the sentence was completely uttered, two men wholly in tune with each other. Like twins, thought Adrian, twins sharing between them an incomparable brain.
Suddenly he saw their incredible importance. And realized too, how far ahead Ebbetts was planning to use that importance. Adrian felt admiration for the Prime Minister and then immediately begrudged the feeling. Always right. The politicians were always right and by the time the memoirs were written, the excuses had been established.
The door opened at the far end of the long room and one of the security officers entered.
The two Russians stared at him and momentarily Pavel’s face clouded, as if he had forgotten where he was and was about to rebuke a worker for intruding into a laboratory where a vital conference was being held.
Then Adrian said, ‘Thank you,’ and they were both reminded of him and the mood was broken.
‘I’m being taken away?’
There was surprise in Pavel’s question.
‘For a while …’ began Adrian, but then Bennovitch cut in. ‘But this is ridiculous. Madness. Why should we be parted?’
‘Because we have decided it should be so,’ replied Adrian, abruptly. The authority had to be maintained.
‘Oh,’ said Bennovitch, punctured.
‘From one master to another,’ said Pavel and there was a hint of the mockery of their first meetings.
‘Come now, Viktor,’ replied Adrian, mocking too, ‘That’s not so and you know it.’
Pavel smiled and said, ‘Yes. Yes I know it,’ and the remark registered. It was the first time Pavel had conceded that what he had found might be better than what he had left behind. An improvement, judged Adrian. Very slight, but an improvement.
‘We’ve got to go to the other house,’ he said, an unnecessary explanation. ‘We will probably decide to put you together by the end of the week.’
Pavel and Bennovitch looked at each other and then back at Adrian, resigned.
‘We’ll meet tomorrow?’ Bennovitch asked Adrian. The Englishman nodded.
‘Good,’ said the tiny Russian.
The windows of the car in which they returned to Pulborough were completely blackened and then curtained. Pavel smiled at the protection.
‘You make me think I’m valuable.’
‘I don’t have to tell you that. You know your value,’ replied Adrian. He was happy that the Russian thought the protection was for his benefit.
‘How was it, meeting Alexandre again?’ asked Adrian.
The Russian thought about the question.
‘Good,’ he said, inadequately. ‘It was good to see him.’
‘The work won’t be interrupted,’ offered Adrian, hopefully, trying to reinforce the other man’s decision to defect. ‘In two months, maybe less, you could be in your own laboratory again, working at just the same degree of experimentation as you were before.’
Pavel ignored the encouragement. He closed his eyes against the pale interior light of the car and was silent for a long time.
Then he said, ‘Valentina, oh God, Valentina,’ and Adrian realized that the whole day had been wasted.
‘It took place,’ reported Kaganov.
‘What happened?’ Minevsky managed the question just ahead of Heirar.
‘Just what we expected,’ continued the chairman. ‘He could talk of nothing except his wife and family. London say he asked at least ten times.’
‘They didn’t answer, of course,’ anticipated Heirar, safely.
‘Of course not,’ agreed Kaganov.
‘What about the boy?’ asked Minevsky, suddenly reminded. ‘Are we still keeping him down on the border?’
‘No,’ dismissed Kaganov. ‘That brat is important. He’s being moved tomorrow. We’ve got to show we’re serious.’
‘ “Men of our word”, as the British might say,’ quoted Heirar, amused at his own joke.
‘Always that,’ laughed Kaganov. ‘Always men of our word.’
Chapter Ten
Adrian had been in the office for forty-five minutes before Miss Aimes arrived. Momentarily, she seemed startled to find him there, her hand darting up to her head, as if the coiffure might have slipped.
‘I didn’t think you were coming in today,’ she said and then stopped, aware she was revealing a weakness.
‘There were things to do,’ said Adrian. He stopped, uncertain. Then he added, ‘Things I haven’t been able to do because you weren’t here.’
They stared at each other in complete silence. It felt good, very good. Adrian sat at his desk, on his trouserprotecting pad with his pen-and-pencil tray like a demarcation line between them, warmed by the feeling. He should have done it ages ago, prevented her attitude getting as bad as it had, but now he’d stopped it. Now he was imposing his authority and he enjoyed the experience. Yes, it was very good.
‘I came back last night,’ he pressed on. ‘But the office was empty, thirty minutes before it should have been, otherwise I could have warned you I wanted to make a prompt start. I had …’
He stopped, enjoying his suddenly discovered hardness. Did Ebbetts feel like this that day in the small office off the Cabinet Room when he had imposed his will? Is this how powerful men felt, subjugating the weak?
‘I had,’ he picked up again, emphasizing the irony, ‘hoped we could have done everything in this first hour.’
He halted again, taken by a sudden thought. He’d ask her … no, not ask, he’d tell her she had to work late. He’d demand that she stay until he returned from the second day’s meeting between Pavel and Bennovitch and clear the backlog that had accumulated. There was a lot to be done, several days’ work in fact, but it didn’t matter. After all, he had nowhere to go, that evening or any other.
Today Jessica Emily Aimes, spinster, fifty-three, of Ash Drive, Bromley, Kent, was going to be put in her place. He’d crush her truculence and her bossy attitude and for his few remaining days in the department enjoy a proper relationship with the woman.
Christ, how she’d hate working late.
‘So …’ he began, enjoying the build-up, ‘I’d like you to …’
‘Your wife rang.’
She cut him off decisively, a person who had waited for her moment of interruption to achieve the maximum impact.
‘What?’
‘Your wife rang.’ She allowed a momentary pause, while her eyes swept the unpressed suit and grubby shoes. ‘I asked her how her mother was, you having told me how unwell the poor lady was and how your wife had to go to the country to care for her …’
Another pause, for a staged smile of uncertainty.
‘She didn’t seem to know what I was talking about,’ she completed.