Shaw agreed. “In which case, we’re worrying over nothing — except, of course, that he could scarcely be doing this job single-handed. I’d like to know when anything does come through,” he added. “And talking of that, how do you contact me in future?”
“Actually I won’t,” Jones told him. “Too risky! If you need to contact me, though, you can ring me at the Embassy, giving a fictitious name… let’s say, oh, Arkwright’ll do… that’s just in case they put a tap on, you know. Say you’ve got some query about import duties into UK for some stuff you’ve bought. I’ll give you a time as I did this evening, and at that time I’ll be shuffling past the corpses in the Lenin Mausoleum. But — and I know you’ve been told this — you contact me only in cases of genuine emergency.” He clapped Shaw on the shoulder and smiled. “Don’t worry, I’ll be working fast from now on. If you walk along the south side of Red Square in approximately ninety minutes from the time we part company I’m hoping you’ll bump into Miss MacKinlay. If you do you can take it she’s strictly on the level, because I’ll have checked fully with the US Embassy. She’ll pass you your orders. And bear in mind that I’m certainly not going to risk your life, old man. This is going to work out, have no fear of that!” He paused; his eyes, behind those big glasses, seemed to mock Shaw and there was a curious twist to his mouth suddenly. He went on, “Well — now let’s have friend Fawcett’s gun, if you don’t mind. Careful how you pass it over.”
Shaw handed over the Webley, and Jones pushed it into the waistband of his slacks, where the heavy folds of the sweater concealed it. Then, finishing the rest of the sandwiches, Jones got to his feet, waved negligently at Shaw, and strolled away down the path. Shaw watched the blue sweater fade into the gathering dark and then he too got up before someone locked the gates for the night. He was beginning to like this assignment less and less and he didn’t much care for the feeling that he was in the hands of P.P.L Jones. Master Jones, he fancied, for all his talk, wasn’t taking this thing half seriously enough; and at a rough guess, he had ten times Jones’s experience of undercover work in this field. Jones had said the element of risk was slight, and indeed it was — for Jones.
Fifteen
Eighty minutes later Shaw, weary of filling in the time, was walking slowly along the south side of Moscow’s Red Square, past St Basil’s Cathedral, built by Ivan the Terrible to commemorate the conquest of Kazan, past the onion-shaped dome of its tall central chapel. He walked under the walls of the Kremlin and the dominance of the 500-year-old Spasskaya Tower, the main portal of the ancient fortress. Here in Red Square Shaw was on ground that was steeped in Soviet history. Here had been fought, in 1917, the final battles of the Moscow proletariat for Soviet power; those who had lost their lives lay buried in a common grave at the foot of the Kremlin wall. Here was the great mausoleum of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, with it facing of black and gray labradorite and red granite from the Ukraine, and the granite pillars supporting a crowning slab of red Karelian porphyry. Shaw was looking as interested in his surroundings as any tourist from the West might reasonably be expected to look — but no more so. He rubbed shoulders with the occasional policeman, continuing to look unconcerned, and managing to conceal the fact that he was expecting at any moment to be asked for his papers. He felt that he must surely stand out a mile; that every uniformed man would be on the watch for him now. Jones was right after all; he couldn’t last long like this — at least, not once word came through to the Russian authorities that two of the coach passengers posted as missing had reached Moscow by car. And by this time Hartley Henderson would surely have made some mention of that long road journey.
Fifteen minutes later, Shaw was still walking and glancing up continually at the magnificent clock-face in the Spasskaya Tower, listening to the great 2-ton bell of Semyon Nozhzhukhin strike the hour — and becoming increasingly anxious now that the rendezvous time had elapsed and there was no sign of Virginia. It was dark now; Moscow seemed more menacing in the night. Shaw was not normally given to fancies about the places where his duty took him, but he had worked inside Russia before, and he had never known a moment’s real ease or peace from the time he had crossed the frontier until the Curtain was once again drawn behind him. And this time was no exception.
It was with enormous relief that, after he had again walked right round Red Square, he saw the girl coming along towards him from the direction of the Moskvoretsky Bridge.
“Did you talk to anyone from the British Embassy?” he asked. They were walking along 25th October Street, making back in the general direction of the Sokolniki Park. Virginia officially cleared now, was tired and worried.
She said, “Why, yes. Your contact. There’s a message.”
“Let’s have it.”
“Orders,” she said. “For you.”
“And they are?”
“Proceed as already suggested.”
“The MVD?”
She nodded, not speaking.
“And you too?” he asked.
“Me too, I guess.”
“Your Embassy’s in agreement?”
She said tiredly, “Steve, they just don’t have any option, neither have your people. Neither have we. Our passports were in that courier’s case… it’d be suicide to make out fresh ones now, more fakes.”
“Under new names, with nice fake entry stamps?”
“They wouldn’t wear it,” she told him flatly. “I did talk along those lines, but really I’m not so sure it’d work if they did agree. Anyway, the orders are clear enough. In your case,” she added, “they come from this man Worth-Butters, not Jones.”
“Do they indeed?” He studied her. “And in your case?”
“Worth-Butters’s opposite number in our Embassy.” She smiled, a brief and rather wan twist of her lips. “It’s no use, Steve. No one wants to know us… just the MVD, I guess! We’ve got to just do as we’re told, that’s all.” Shaw said savagely, “I’ve got half a mind to cut the MVD and lie up in Jones’s flat in Rogoskaya Street, only he’d probably have kittens in public at the mere idea!”
“You bet he would.” She added, “If it’s any comfort, let me repeat that I happen to think your Embassy’s dead right.”
He grinned tightly. “You do, do you! Well — if we’re going to turn ourselves in let’s get on with it. While we go along we’ll make quite certain our stories check. We’ve got to be word-perfect, Virginia.”
They were treated with courtesy, but they were grilled very thoroughly — and separately, in cell-like offices, with electric lamps directed full into their eyes. The man dealing with Shaw had introduced himself as Colonel Andreyev, and throughout the proceedings Andreyev remained almost invisible behind that terrible light, though Shaw could see the outline of a heavy, hulking man with a flattish, squashed-in face, and a curiously Mongoloid nose. A box of Turkish delight stood beside the lamp, and every now and again Andreyev’s hand reached out for a piece. Two granite-faced troopers of the MVD stood in rear of the hard chair on which Shaw sat. Andreyev’s voice was harsh but polite — even with undertones of friendliness, as he told Shaw that the British Embassy had already contacted him.
“What did they say?” Shaw asked, equally politely.
The Russian brushed the question aside. “You will forgive me. It is for you and you alone to tell your story and to satisfy me as to your bona fides. The same for the young American girl. You understand?”