They were under a tree; Cutter reached out one hand at shoulder height, put his palm against the trunk and leaned against it. “Can that suffice for the amenities, Yaskov?”
“Certainly, if you like.”
Cutter’s face turned slightly, half of it going into shadow. “Well? You’re the one who asked for this meeting.”
“Yesterday morning he telephoned me in Berlin.”
“He was in Berlin?” Cutter straightened.
“No. It was a trunk call. I’m prepared to tell you where he called from, and where I think he may have gone from there.”
Ross was sensitive to the pound of his own pulse. He glanced at Ivanovitch but the little Russian was looking away as if bored.
“And in exchange?” Cutter asked.
Yaskov smiled very slowly in private amusement; it came to Ross that behind his lofty pretense of man-of-the-world professionalism Yaskov was taking pleasure in Cutter’s discomfiture. A far cry, this man, from the technocrats the KGB was known ordinarily to spawn.
“You know his haunts far better than I do,” Yaskov replied.
“That doesn’t mean anything. He’d avoid the old places.”
“If you knew him to be in a certain city, you’d be more likely to know where to look for him in that city, n’est-ce pas?”
“It’s possible,” Cutter conceded. “It might depend on the city.”
“I am suggesting we search together for him.”
“It’s an interesting thought.”
“Yes, isn’t it. A new high in detente.”
“I’d have to clear it with my superiors of course,”
“Naturally. So would I.”
“How’d you expect to handle it?”
“Joint teams, Mr. Cutter.”
“Like Vienna and Berlin in the old days.”
Yaskov nodded slightly. “It is important to us all that he be-discouraged from carrying on. I rather suspect it is a bit more important to your side than to mine, but let’s grant he’s capable of embarrassing all of us, even if the embarrassment is in varying degrees.”
Cutter said, “Before we go on with this I’d like to have Ivanovitch’s camera.”
Ivanovitch jerked as if stricken by an electrode; Ross stood up straight; Yaskov only shrugged and held out his hand, palm up, and a little camera came out of Ivanovitch’s pocket. Yaskov gave it to Cutter. Cutter opened it, removed the film and gave it back, and it disappeared back into Ivanovitch’s pocket.
“Thank you.”
“May we be assured Mr. Smith is not similarly equipped?”
Ross pulled his hands out of his pockets, empty. Cutter said, “We didn’t bring a camera. Or a microphone.”
“Then none of us is wired for sound,” Yaskov said.
Ross murmured, “Are we just going to take his word for that?”
“Why not?” Cutter said offhandedly; then he went back to Yaskov: “You weren’t in earshot when I introduced Smith to Ivanovitch.”
“It might have been Jones, mightn’t it.”
Both of them laughed a little and then Cutter said, “There’s a little problem about all this.”
“I wish you Americans didn’t always think of things in terms of problems and solutions.”
“I’d call this a problem, quite specifically. It’s got more than one solution. That’s where you and I have trouble. You want him alive-you want to milk him. We don’t particularly want that to happen.”
“As a matter of policy it is more important to my government that Kendig be neutralized than that he be brought home for questioning. I hope that clarifies my position?”
“You’d rather have half a loaf than none?”
“Precisely.”
“My, you folks are getting flexible this year.”
“I’m happy you appreciate that. Do we have a basis for cooperation, Mr. Cutter?”
“I’ll put it to my superiors.”
“And your own recommendation to them will be?”
“It will be negative.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I hope you are,” Cutter said.
Yaskov inspected a fingernail. “I do hope nothing’s happened to him.”
“Yes. You’d be embarrassed if some third-rate power reached him ahead of you.”
“So would you, Mr. Cutter.”
“I don’t think you need worry that anything’s happened to him. Things don’t happen to Miles Kendig. He happens to them.”
Yaskov nodded as if on consideration he agreed. Then he said, “I fear your superiors will honor your negative recommendation.”
“I imagine they will.”
Yaskov’s sigh was gentle. “A word in private, then.” He took Cutter away a little distance. Ross saw him lean forward, intending Cutter to listen to him, staring straight into Cutter’s face. The icy ruthlessness of the eyes unnerved Ross; it was a point-blank stare that destroyed the barriers of ordinary defense and pretense. Yaskov spoke, Cutter nodded; then Yaskov crooked his finger and Ivanovitch stirred. Yaskov bobbed his cane toward Ross and went away, Ivanovitch hurrying after.
Ross said, “What did he say?”
“Kendig called him from Stockholm. Yaskov believes he went on to Helsinki from there.”
“A lot of this is going by too fast for me,” Ross said as they turned off the Champs. “Why’d he give it to us for free?”
“Because it’s true he’d prefer half a loaf to none. He’d rather we nail Kendig than not see him nailed at all. He tried to bargain, we called his bluff and he had no choice but to give in to us for nothing.”
“You’ve got to be a Machiavelli in this business.”
“You’ll pick it up as you go along, Ross.”
“What was all that about Ivanovitch’s camera?”
“They haven’t got you taped. They don’t know who you are. I didn’t see any point making it easy for them-we might want to use you in the field after this. Ivanovitch didn’t matter, he’s on tape everywhere west of Warsaw-his name’s Kirovoi, he’s an errand boy. One look at him and you know what he is and what he does.”
“But you brought me along instead of somebody like him.”
“I wanted you to meet Yaskov,” Cutter said.
“I’m glad you did. It was an education.”
“There aren’t many left like him,” Cutter told him. They turned in at the door and The Lemon Taster gave them an acidulous glance. Cutter said to her, “I’ll want six field men upstairs at half-past six. The best you’ve got. Clear it through Follett. And book us eight seats on the first flight to Helsinki after nine tonight.”
“Yes sir. This came for you.”
It was a postcard from Stockholm. Cutter let Ross read it over his shoulder.
Having wonderful time. Wish you were here. M.K.
Cutter’s bark of laughter startled The Lemon Taster.
— 20 -
From a kiosk in Stockmann in Helsinki he made one call to London and then he rode a taxi to the airport and made it onto the British Airways Boeing with only a few minutes to spare. Snow-flakes drifted past in the night when they lifted off. He catnapped most of the way to Heathrow and walked through customs with only a routine glance at the Jules Parker passport. He rode the bus in from the airport to the terminal in Kensington and then did a little charade designed to disclose a tail, transferring from tube-train to red bus to taxi; he left the taxi in Regent Street and backtracked by bus into Kensington and walked down to the Kingston Close Hotel in its mewsish seclusion behind the boutique that used to be Derry amp; Toms.
He told the hall porter he was in London on business from Bradford in the north; he put on a broad Yorkshire accent and therefore wasn’t asked for a passport. He signed in as Reginald Davies and let a porter carry his bag up to the room.
The hotel was comfortable but neither grandiose nor luxurious; it attracted commercial travelers from New Zealand and Scotland, dowager aunts from South Africa. He’d met a contact here once but he’d never booked into the hotel; it wasn’t a place where they’d start looking for him.
He sent down for a pint of Dewar’s. Afterward he had to think a moment why he’d done that-it wasn’t his usual Scotch but it would not have been prudent to order Haig. Then he remembered who it was that drank Dewar’s.