Northlight

I had begun listening because the work of a shadow executive is normally close-focus. Some of the missions they give us in London carry international background but we don't have to think about it; sometimes we don't even know about it. For our own sakes we're told only as much as we need to get through the mission and secure the objective and bring it home, whatever it is, a man or a document or an article like the one I'd taken from Brekhov. But there were things I didn't like about Northlight. Ferris had refused to local-control me; Fane was shut in and uncommunicative, and I didn't think he'd be able to give me the kind of support I'd need if I had to go to ground in a safehouse or start a fast run for the frontier; someone had searched my room and it could be the man sitting at the end of the bar watching me in the mirror; and above all, the sleeper hadn't made contact as he should have done.

It wasn't that these things made it difficult for me; it was that they didn't make an articulate pattern. The mission was out of focus and I couldn't see where I was going. I didn't trust Fane and I didn't trust Croder and I needed more information and I knew they wouldn't give it to me if I asked them, and there was no one else — unless this American journalist knew more about the background than I'd learned in No. 10 Downing Street or Eaton Place and could put it into focus for me.

'He's cut off my expenses, of course.'

She was moving her empty glass round and round, and I signalled to the barman.

'Have you got enough to keep going on?'

'If I sleep in the goddamned snow.'

She looked close to tears of anger.

'You think you're sitting on an exclusive,' I said.

'I think I'm sitting on a goddamned powder keg.'

When the man came I asked for the same again.

'The Monitor isn't mean,' I told her.

'What?' She'd been thinking of something else. Her green eyes watched me steadily.

'I'll pick up the tab for you here, if it'll help you get your story.'

'Look, I'm not bumming, Clive. I'll get by. I just mentioned it, you know?' She looked down again. 'The thing is, there's another parallel with this submarine story. Right?'

'Korean Airlines Flight 007.'

She swung her head up. 'Right. I believe some trigger-happy jerk in the Russian navy just went and let go with his torpedoes at the submarine before he asked anyone's okay.'

'It's one of the theories.'

'I believe it's the right one, Clive. And I'm not just guessing.' She looked at the other people at the bar again before she went on, lowering her voice. 'There's someone I know, in Moscow. An American. He-' she stopped and looked at me. 'Look, this is my story, okay?'

'Don't tell me anything you don't want me to send in.'

She thought about that, watching me steadily. 'I don't think you're like that.'

'You might be wrong.'

'No. I don't think I'm wrong. Let's put it this way. If I can get anything big, it goes in to my paper first. Then yours. Okay?'

'I thought you said you were fired.'

'Honey chil', when I send them this one they're going to put me back on the payroll so fast it'll look like sleight of hand. Where did this come from?' She looked down at her drink.

'The man brought it.'

'I didn't even notice. Okay, Clive, it's going to hit my page first, before yours. Is it a deal?'

'All right.'

'Okay. Like I said, there's someone I know, in Moscow. I can't tell you who he is because he'd scalp me. But he's got a theory too, and if he's right it puts him way ahead of the game. He thinks some guy in that naval base duped a tape of the action when that sub got sunk, and now he's holed up somewhere in this city with half the KGB hunting for him. Now if we could talk to him… that would be quite a story, wouldn't you say?'

11 CYANIDE

Where are you speaking from?'

'The post office.'

'Which one?'

'In Obolenskij prospekt.'

I counted the seconds of silence. Four.

'What do you need?'

'There's something wrong.'

'In what way?'

I listened carefully to his voice.

If it had been Ferris local-controlling me it would have been easier. I didn't know Fane well enough to know what the sound of his voice was like in the field. He didn't sound tense, but that might not mean anything: he could have reserves of nerve fibre that I didn't know about.

The thing was, I'd done some work on the room-search thing and the only reason for the KGB to do that was because Fane had been blown, and had talked, and if that had happened he could be speaking to me now with a gun at his head.

'Are you clear,' I asked him, 'at your end?'

Three seconds. I tried to remember the conversation we'd had on the bridge in Moscow, and whether he'd always paused like this.

'In what way?'

'Bugs.'

'Perfectly clear. I told you this number was all right.'

'I know.'

'What's happened?'

I'd decreased the risk as far as I could. This was a post office but it wasn't in Obolenskij prospekt: it was in Bockova ulica, and if anyone else were on the line and sent out a van they'd draw blank at the other place.

'My room was searched.'

A long pause but I'd expected that.

'Tell me about it.'

I just said I'd complained and the KGB had denied everything.

'How did they treat you?'

'They were civil.'

'I mean did they… ask any awkward questions?'

'No.'

The silence drew out, but I wasn't worried now. I'd been listening hard enough to have picked anything up, anything wrong. He was thinking, that was all.

'Your set-up is absolutely all right.'

He meant my cover.

'If you say so.'

'There is just no way they could have got anywhere near you. I know this.'

'So what's your answer?'

'You've been protected,' he said, ignoring my question, 'all die way from London through Moscow and into your hotel here. I've been in constant signals, and Croder is handling you with die most extreme care. You're absolutely sure, of course?'

'That my room was searched?'

'Yes.'

'Oh, come on, Fane.'

'Just making sure. It's so extraordinary. Have you any ideas?'

'I thought they might have got onto me and decided for some reason to give me rope.'

'I would have known.'

'How?'

'This is the most sensitive assignment I've ever been given, and Croder himself is running it. If anything had started to go wrong — in terms of Galina — we would have known at once.'

Galina Borisovna was spook terminology for the KGB.

'All right,' I said.

'What about you? Have you got any ideas?'

'Only one. There's a journalist at the hotel, a French-Swiss by his accent. He's been taking an interest in me.'

Another pause. 'What sort?'

'He's watching me now.' | The strange, saffron light of dusk was seeping through the grimy windows. It was three o'clock: the nights were long here.

'Is he in the post office?'

'No. He stopped short when I came in. He'll be outside waiting for me.'

'Does he know you've seen him?'

'No.'

I was facing the main doors and already knew the answer to what Fane would ask me next.

'Can you go out the back way?'

'No.' It would mean going past the counter and through the sorting room.

'You say he's a journalist. You mean that's his cover?'

'Yes.'

'How do you know that?'

'I know a spook when I see one.' He'd only made one mistake on the way here through the streets from the hoteclass="underline" he'd hurried a little when I'd walked round a corner and slowed, looking back. It hadn't been easy for him, over the snow. Figures stood out.