Even the steathest subject will eventually yield to persistence, and there is a sound psychological basis for this. The subject's psyche has already been disturbed by the approach of the potential interrogator, who is often in uniform and armed. It is necessary only to develop that initial disturbance in the subject's psyche to reach a point where he will begin to doubt his chances of surviving the interrogative process without giving something away. This further alarms him on a multi-conscious level, and he may begin to exhibit subtle speech defects: hesitation, slight stuttering, the inadvertent elision of speech components and so on.
'If you find work in Kandalaksha, can you be sure your wife will be as successful?'
'She's a nurse.'
Nurses were in demand everywhere: the pay was insulting.
'What about your two children?' He was looking the whole time at my papers now, and this was also in the Norfolk manual.
To gaze steadily at the subject will intimidate him if he has anything to conceal, but this can be taken to a new phase where one can remove that gaze and study the subject's passport or visa or appropriate document without allowing the eyes to move from left to right as if reading. This gives the clear impression that one has discovered something suspicious during the interrogation and that one is therefore concealing this fact by the removal of the direct gaze and adopting an attitude of exceptionally careful listening.
'The kids will have to go to a new school,' I said. 'We can't let them dictate where we live, can we?'
He went on gazing at my papers. 'When did you move to apartment 68 in the East Park Building?'
'Apartment 58. Last July. Did they put down the wrong apartment number?'
He didn't answer specifically, but held the papers obliquely to the light, and I began feeling less worried. He'd thrown in a routine trap and I'd avoided it and left him with the impression that I didn't recognize it as a trap at all. The apartment number on the papers was in fact 58 and if I hadn't pointed out his mistake it would have meant I hadn't even read them. He'd got out of it by tilting them to the light to suggest he'd misread the number.
A trap like that can send you all the way to the Gulag if you don't recognize it.
'When did you board this train?'
'As soon as it stopped.'
'Did you see anyone else getting on?'
'I didn't notice anyone particularly. All I wanted was to get in here before my balls froze off.'
He gave the papers back to me with that typical gesture they all use to show who's in charge, half dropping them and making you catch them. It's rather endearing: there's comfort in the familiar. But the sweat was still gathering on me as I folded the papers and put them away.
'Did you notice anyone hurrying to board the train?'
'Not particularly.'
'Anyone who seemed unusual?'
I gave the impression of considering the question.
'I can't say that.' I wondered if he were actually going to describe Karasov. They must be getting desperate by now: it was four days since he'd gone to ground.
'If you notice anything unusual on the train, I want you to report it at once. Anyone who looks anxious, who looks as if he's trying to hide something. You understand?'
'Of course. Where shall I find you?'
'We shan't leave this carriage. Or you can tell the attendant.'
Karasov was a Latvian, with a facial resemblance to a northern European or an American. That was why the KGB man had taken so much interest in me.
'I'll keep my eyes open,' I said.
He nodded and went back into the corridor.
It was another half an hour before I knew they'd got me. Not the KGB. The Rinker cell. They were here and they were on to me and there was nothing I could do to reach the objective or keep Northlight running or save myself. Nothing.
14 GUN
Gromyko warns: we are reaching the point of no RETURN. Picture of Gromyko, one finger held up, face blank as usual.
It was the only story on the front page of Pravda and the headline was twice as big as usual.
Let it be stated once again. The obstinacy on the part of the Western Powers to admit to the fact that the United States of America committed what was tantamount to an act of war, in sending an armed nuclear submarine into Soviet waters, is now offering a threat to world peace of a magnitude that has never before faced mankind.
In times of normal diplomatic relations the affair of the US Cetacea would have brought the two great powers to a situation of precipitate crisis. When it is considered that the Vienna meeting was agreed upon in order to alleviate a- crisis in diplomatic relations that already existed before this irresponsible and dangerous act was undertaken, it will be seen even by the least intelligent of America's allies that only a miracle can now save the Vienna summit meeting, and the world from final and irrevocable disaster.
One of them was the man with the shapeless leather bag.
Until this is clearly understood by the intransigent West, the world must remain poised on the edge of an abyss in whose depths lies the grave of civilization as we know it today.
The other was the man with the briefcase, but he wasn't watching me now. I was holding the newspaper to cover the whole of my face except when I turned the pages. Then I checked his image.
It had taken me half an hour to realize what was happening because they were working in shifts, one at a time, and using the interior window glass of the compartments and the windows across the corridor to give them a double mirror effect.
Only a miracle can now save the Vienna summit meeting, so forth. Dear Comrade Gromyko, have a little patience, for Christ's sake. Miracles take a little longer, you know that.
But I wasn't, in fact, feeling terribly confident now of pulling one off. What we must never allow to happen had happened, on pressure from Control. Although I could understand the cause of that pressure — the front page of Pravda had spelt it out clearly enough — the fact remained that the executive in the field had been forced to move into a red sector without being sure he was clean in terms of surveillance and was on his way to a critical rendezvous and taking with him two components of a formidable opposition cell.
There was also a third man.
I didn't have time to worry about the third man because the other two had me in a surveillance pincer movement, but one thing about him was interesting. He wasn't working with the other two. He wasn't with the Rinker cell at all.
I knew this because I'd become aware of him earlier, soon after the train had started off, and I'd mapped his rather elaborate movement patterns: when I'd gone along to the restaurant car for the paper he'd sought immediate cover and didn't show up again until I was back in my compartment, when he'd used another passenger as a shield as he'd come past to check on me. It wasn't that he was inefficient: it was all he could do in this kind of closed environment with only a narrow corridor as the terrain. He was under an added strain, and I'd noted this soon after he'd surfaced.
He not only knew I was under surveillance by the Rinker people. He had to keep it from them, as well as from me, that I was his target too.
In the normal way I would have been extremely interested in the fact that a second opposition network had sent an agent into the field but he was already out of the running because the Rinker cell was on to me and they wouldn't let me go and if I tried to lead them anywhere except directly to Karasov they'd close in and trap me and put me under a light and work on me until I betrayed my objective and blew the mission to bits.