‘You heard the tapes?’
Binns nodded.
‘And?’
Sir Jocelyn did not reply. ‘Others heard them, too,’ he said and Adrian detected a curtness in his voice. ‘Even the Prime Minister sat in.’
‘Well?’
‘They thought you handled the interview appallingly.’ He slowed, then added, quickly, embarrassed almost, ‘So did I.’
Adrian was shocked. He’d realized the way that the interview had gone and anticipated the criticism that his attitude would arouse among some people. But he never expected it to extend to the Permanent Secretary. Sir Jocelyn was his friend. Adrian felt let down.
‘You?’ he said, the surprise showing.
‘Yes,’ said Binns and because of the stress, the impediment began to clutter the conversation. The nerve jumped near his eye, the indicator of stress.
‘… antagonized the man … he’s hostile now … resentful … won’t help …’
‘But that’s not true.’ Halfway through the protest, Adrian’s voice cracked, so that it finished on a whining note.
‘Pavel is hostile,’ said Adrian, coughing. ‘For years he’s led a favoured life, treated with special respect. I had to handle him like that, don’t you see?’
‘No,’ said Sir Jocelyn stiffly. ‘No, I don’t. And neither do the others.’
‘Then they’re stupid,’ said Adrian, surprised at his own vehemence, aware he was including Binns in the condemnation.
‘I’ve got to antagonize him, humiliate him, to a degree. If he feels that he is controlling the interview, then it will be pointless and the debriefing will take months. If he’s allowed control, real control, not just that which I contrive to allow him, then all we’ll learn is what he wants us to know, not what we want to learn.’
‘The Prime Minister wants you taken off the debriefing,’ announced Binns, abruptly.
Adrian stared out of the window, following a flock of pigeons, aware that his eyes were misted and that he couldn’t see very well. He wondered if the bird with the broken beak were among them.
‘I said they want you taken off the Pavel debriefing.’
‘I heard,’ said Adrian, with difficulty. Then, his voice growing stronger, he said, ‘Are you going to suspend me?’
Binns hesitated. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘The recordings sounded bad, but considering the explanation you’ve given, there seems some sense in your attitude. Pavel was arrogant.’
‘So?’
‘The decision was left to me,’ said Binns. ‘I think you should continue.’
As Adrian slowly released his sigh, the other man added, ‘At least for one more meeting.’
‘One last chance?’ said Adrian, surprised at his own sarcasm.
Binns held out his hands, an expression of helplessness. ‘You can’t begin to appreciate the pressure of this thing,’ he said, apologetically. ‘We’ve got the whole Russian space programme for the next decade, here in our hands. We daren’t make the slightest mistake.’
‘If you replace me,’ said Adrian, desperately, ‘then you’ll be making just such a mistake. Handle Pavel gently, in the early stages, and you’ll get nothing, nothing that he doesn’t want you to get.’
Binns frowned. ‘You’re talking as if he’s not genuine … as if he’s not serious about defecting …’
‘Oh, he’s genuine,’ corrected Adrian, immediately. ‘I’ve no doubts at all that he is Viktor Pavel.’
‘Then what?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Adrian, knowing it sounded inadequate. ‘Something is not right.’
‘But what? There must be something.’
‘His attitude,’ said Adrian. ‘Didn’t it strike you as odd, the way he sounded on the recording?’
Binns smiled, apologetic again. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘a good deal more attention was devoted to your attitude.’
‘Then that was an error,’ said Adrian, primly. ‘Play it again.’
Binns pressed a button set into a console on his desk and the sounds of that morning’s interview echoed round the room. They both sat, unspeaking, for a long time and then Binns stopped the track.
‘Well?’ he asked.
‘He’s too confident,’ said Adrian. ‘Think of it. A top scientist, a man in an honoured position, able to make almost any demand and know it will be met, someone who knows that his defection will cause untold hardships to the wife he adores and the children he idolizes, suddenly decides to turn traitor and cross to the West …’
‘But he explained that,’ cut in Binns. ‘He’s a scientist, a man to whom research is all-important …’
‘He’s not,’ snapped Adrian, his turn to interrupt. ‘Pavel’s no white-haired eccentric with his head in the clouds. He’s a very clever, very dedicated man. He’s the sort of person who never makes a sudden, unconsidered move. And he’s not frightened.’
‘Frightened?’
‘Yes. Frightened,’ said Adrian. ‘What’s the feeling they all have when they come across, the very first thing that registers when you go in for the first time and speak to them? It’s nervousness. It’s the uncertainty of not knowing what’s going to happen to them, the doubt about whether we’ll accept them or whether we’ll torture them, like their propaganda says we do. If a car backfires they leap eight feet into the air, imagining it’s an assassin’s bullet. You can smell the fear on them, like sweat. Everyone has it, everyone I’ve ever debriefed.’
‘Except Pavel?’
‘Except Pavel,’ agreed Adrian. ‘Listen to that tape again. He’s measuring me, flippantly almost. That man was playing a mental game of chess, a game he was far too confident of winning.’
Binns toyed with a paperweight, arched forward in thought.
‘But what’s the point?’ he asked. ‘Just for the sake of argument, let’s accept these suspicions of yours. What on earth can it achieve?’
Adrian shook his head, aware of the flaw. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I just can’t think of an explanation. All I feel is the doubt.’
‘I’m not going to get very far with the Prime Minister tomorrow, trying to explain a vague feeling devoid of evidence.’
‘I know,’ accepted Adrian. ‘And I know it makes my attitude look stupid.’
‘The Minister will dismiss it as pique because someone got the better of you for the first time in a debriefing.’
‘Do you?’ jumped in Adrian, quickly, anxious for the answer.
‘No,’ said Binns, ‘no. I don’t. I accept completely your explanation for the way you conducted the meeting.’
‘But not my surmise?’
‘Give me some proof, anything, some lie the man tells. Then I’ll try and see it. At the moment, I think we’ve got a genuine defector who is perhaps covering the nervousness you regard as so important with a great show of confidence.’
He paused. Then, reminding Adrian of the psychology training, he asked, ‘Isn’t over-confidence one of the surest signs of an inferiority complex?’
Adrian nodded. ‘I accept there’s nothing you can relay to the P.M.’ he said.
The Permanent Secretary glanced at the clock and stood up and then, as Adrian had anticipated, said, ‘Why don’t we have a drink at my club, to cover the finer points?’
‘Do you mind if I don’t?’ said Adrian, immediately noticing the change in attitude of his chief, the withdrawal of a shy man who has been rejected.
‘No,’ said Binns, immediately, sitting down again awkwardly. ‘No, of course not.’
‘I’ve got to see someone …’ began Adrian, recognizing the emptiness of the statement. He blurted out, ‘Anita has asked me to see her.’