There was no one else waiting at the canteen counter, but he felt reluctant to pay for two teas — the NKVD had called this meeting, and they could supply the bloody refreshments.
There had been several tables occupied when he arrived, but now there were only two. A couple of secretaries had their heads bent over a newspaper, and were giggling at something or other, their heads shaking like a pair of maracas. A few feet away from them, a remarkably smug-looking nanny was staring into space, idly rocking the pram parked beside her.
A flash of white hair caught Russell’s attention — Shchepkin was crossing Southampton Row. The Russian was lost from view for several moments, then reappeared inside the park. No one seemed to be following him, but for all Russell knew there were pairs of binoculars trained on them both. Either Nanny was the head of MI5, or she had him hidden in the pram.
Espionage could be dangerous, immoral, even romantic. But it was almost always faintly ridiculous.
Shchepkin smiled as he walked up, and shook Russell’s hand. After wiping the seat with his handkerchief, he sat down and viewed their surroundings.
Why are we meeting here?’ Russell wondered out loud. ‘A bit public, isn’t it? Now the people watching you will be checking up on me.’
Shchepkin smiled. ‘It’s almost as public as a football stadium,’ he observed.
‘Ah, that’s the point, is it?’
‘Of course. If the British tell the Americans about your meetings with us, it will increase your credibility as a double agent.’
Russell followed the thought for a few seconds, then let it go. There seemed all sorts of flaws in the reasoning, but then intelligence people used a different form of logic to ordinary human beings. If indeed logic came into it.
‘Comrade Nemedin is also a football fan,’ Shchepkin added, as if that explained the choice of Stamford Bridge as a meeting place. ‘And Dynamo are the team of the NKVD.’
‘And I expected he wanted to see me in the flesh,’ Russell realised. ‘See what he was getting for his blackmail.’
‘Yes, he did,’ Shchepkin agreed, ignoring the flash of bitterness. ‘Not that he learnt anything from the encounter. He doesn’t understand people like you — or like me, for that matter. People who were there at the beginning, people who knew what it was all for, before the things that mattered were locked away for safekeeping. The Nemedins of this world see themselves as guardians, but they have no real notion of what they’re guarding. They find it hard enough to trust each other, let alone people like us.’
‘Does it matter?’ Russell asked. ‘He’s got me where he wants me, hasn’t he?’
Shchepkin took another look around, as if to reassure himself that no one was within listening distance. ‘Yes, it matters. His lack of understanding makes it easier for us to manipulate him, but his lack of trust will make him extremely sensitive to the possibility of betrayal.’
‘Is that what we’re planning?’ Russell asked with a smile.
‘I hope so,’ Shchepkin said earnestly. ‘I’m right in assuming that you haven’t changed your mind, that you’ll go along with Nemedin’s plan?’
‘I don’t seem to have any choice.’
‘No,’ Shchepkin agreed, ‘not for the moment…’
An ailing bus thundered past them on the nearby road, drowning him out. The windows were still draped with anti-blast netting, Russell noticed.
‘But there’s no future in it,’ Shchepkin went on. ‘Double agents, well, they usually end up betraying themselves. Like jugglers — no matter how good they are, sooner or later their arms get tired.’
Russell gave him a wry smile. ‘You’re not feeling sorry for me, are you?’
‘No. Nor for myself, but we’re both in trouble, and we’re going to need each other’s help to have any chance of getting out of it.’
‘Why are you in so much trouble?’ Russell asked. ‘You never told me why you were arrested last year.’
‘That’s much too long a story. Let’s just say I ended up supporting the wrong people. But I was more careful than most of my friends were, and unlike most of them, I survived. Stalin and his Georgian cronies believe I still have some uses, or I wouldn’t be here, but like you I’m something of a diminishing asset. And like you, I need to get out before it’s too late.’
‘Why not take a boat train?’ Russell suggested flippantly. ‘There’s a whole wide world out there, and I find it hard to believe that a man with your experience couldn’t lose himself if he really tried.’
It was Shchepkin’s turn to smile. ‘I’m sure I could, but there are other people to consider. If I disappeared, my wife and daughter would pay the price. I need a way out which includes them.’
Russell gave the Russian a thoughtful look, and then suggested tea. He needed time to think, and a trip to the counter seemed the only way to get it. Through all the years they’d known each other, Shchepkin had never come close to admitting such disaffection with the regime he served. Why now? Was his recent imprisonment the reason, or was that exactly what Russell was supposed to think?
And did the man take sugar? He put several lumps in each saucer and carried them back to the table.
‘Have you finally lost your faith?’ he asked the Russian in a casual tone, as if they were discussing less weighty matters than the overriding purpose of Shchepkin’s adult existence.
‘You could say that,’ the Russian replied in like manner. ‘You may think that only a fool would have carried on believing in the Soviet Union as long as I did. I sometimes think so myself. But then many intelligent men still trust in far less believable gods.’ He gave Russell a quizzical look. ‘I see you need convincing. Well, let me you tell you when I saw the… I was going to say “light”, but darkness seems more appropriate. It was in October 1940…’
‘When your people handed the German comrades over to the Nazis…’
‘No, that was shameful, but it came a few months later. My moment of truth — believe it or not — came when the leadership decided to abolish scholarships. A less-than-world-shattering measure, you might think, one that killed nobody. But this measure made it impossible for the children of the poor — of the workers and the peasants — to get a higher education, and in doing so it turned the clock back all the way to Tsarism. Almost overnight, power and privilege were hereditary once more. Everyone knew that the sons and daughters of those now in power would automatically take the reins from their parents. We had become what we set out to overthrow.’
‘I didn’t even know such a measure had been passed,’ Russell admitted. He could understand the effect it would have had on someone like Shchepkin.
‘We are going to have to trust each other,’ Shchepkin told him.
‘Okay,’ Russell agreed, convinced at least of the need.
‘In the short run, we can help each other. As long as you’re useful to Nemedin, we’ll both be relatively safe, and I think we can make sure you will be. You must go to the Americans, as Nemedin told you to, but you must also tell them everything. Offer yourself to them as a double agent — I’m sure you can come up with personal motives, but they’ll probably take you whatever you say. They’re desperate for people who know Berlin and Berliners, and they won’t trust you with any important information, not at first. So what do they have to lose? And soon you’ll be able to win them over by getting them stuff they can’t get anywhere else.’
‘And where will I get that from?’ Russell asked. He was beginning to wonder whether all those months in the Lubyanka had weakened Shchepkin’s brain.
‘From me.’
‘You will betray your country?’ Russell half-asked, half-stated. He supposed it had been implicit in all that the Russian had said, but he still found it hard to believe.
‘It doesn’t feel like betrayal,’ Shchepkin told him. ‘When Vladimir Ilyich told us that the Revolution had no country, I believed him.’
‘Okay. So that’s how we survive in the short run. But I’m still the juggler with tiring arms, remember? How do we persuade Stalin to leave me alone, and let you and your family go?’