Confident his impatience would be mistaken for enthusiasm, he asked to be allowed immediately to take up his official United Nations post. And when he was ushered into the public relations section by its deputy head, an Englishman called Smallbone whose name was a perfect description of the man’s stature, Yuri decided he was going to enjoy it as much as everything else. The personnel appeared equally divided between male and female and there wasn’t one woman to whom he would not have thrown back the bedclothes in invitation: a predictably blonde, clear-skinned Swedish girl whose name he caught as something like Inya had tits rivalling a Himalayan mountain range. The men appeared friendly yet curious, but Yuri did not over-interpret their attitude: he’d been warned by Granov during the carousel parade that all Russians were regarded with some curiosity within the UN.
His desk looked out over the East River with Queens on the other side – with some irony he was never to know it was three floors below but identical by desk position to that which Levin had occupied – but Yuri considered the more important view to be an uninterrupted line-of-sight vision of Inya, whom he knew to be aware of it. Kabul wasn’t a million miles away, he decided; it was light years distant.
Smallbone was solicitous and painstaking in his briefing, like Granov before him although for different reasons, dealing out folders and fact-files and look-up-in-a-moment loose-leaf binders with advice upon how they could be cross-referenced to provide every and any sort of information about the United Nations. Every and any sort of information except the most important, thought Yuri: its use by the Soviet Union and the KGB. At once he rejected the indulgent intrusion. This was his cover, the protection he had to wrap around himself, the way a black-market rich (and Gorbachov-resisting) Siberian kulak wrapped around himself the best fur coat against the cold of December. Yuri queried and questioned and qualified, surprising Smallbone by his intense determination.
‘You’re not expected to assimilate it all in a day!’ said the diminutive Englishman, solicitous still, trying for a joke.
‘ I expect to,’ said Yuri, not joking.
He couldn’t, of course. But he came close: very close indeed. In addition to the other material there were prepared speeches and presentations and within three days of his arrival Yuri believed he could have delivered any one of them and, with the benefit of the back-up data manuals, withstood anything but the most demanding of questions.
Which was not all he did to equip himself. He watched television voraciously, those absurdly frenetic quiz shows and Dynasty and Dallas and 20/20 and Sixty Minutes and Johnny Carson and Oprah Winfrey and Donahue. In the morning he watched Good Morning America and in the evening he dodged between NBC and CBS and ABC news bulletins – favouring Dan Rather of the three presenters – to educate and better prepare himself for an environment in which he had to merge as unnoticeably as snow melting into a jostled stream.
He swam in that jostled stream, too. Taking advantage of his unrestricted status, he moved about New York, alert for FBI surveillance which at that moment would not have mattered anyway, but seeking out situations where to lose it really would be important. And decided it would not be difficult with the opportunities that abounded. Grand Central and Penn railway terminals were beehives of places, swarmed with people and with so many entries and exits it would have needed an army of pursuers properly to follow. He imagined a catch-me-if-you-can game employing the commuter helicopter base near Waterside Plaza, from which he could zig-zag – sure of his passenger companions (and therefore able to evade them) – to Kennedy airport and from there to La Guardia airport and from there to Newark airport and then, if he were still doubtful, reversing the entire pattern, knowing as he studied the routes and schedules that it would be a game from which he would inevitably emerge the winner. Even those congealed north to south avenues and east to west streets were a bonus. Buses or taxis could be boarded and then abandoned in apparent impatience, trap-setting for any followers forced to feign the same impatience if they wanted to keep him in sight, unknowing they themselves were being fixed between the cross hairs of a mental sight, to be blown away figuratively if not literally.
And he went to the apartment.
For the first time reconnaissance became reality as he taxi-hopped to Penn Station, ignored the ticket counters immediately to return to ground level and dodge into Madison Square Gardens. He’d chosen rush hour, not just for street traffic but for theatregoers. Yuri merged with people wanting seats for that night’s performance and for the future, alert to any recognizable face around him and seeing none, easing himself from the queues and back out on to the street. He was lucky with a cab, screwing in his seat for any hurried pursuit or unmarked car pick-up, and didn’t isolate that, either. He staged what the training schools called ‘go to ground’ on 49th Street, midway between Third and Second avenues, intending to finish the journey on foot if he were clean. It was a local bar and he was glad because the reaction to his entry would be the same for any following stranger and be something he could discern. Yuri walked deep into the bar, wanting to keep the entrance fully in view. He ordered beer, a Miller’s Light, not because he wanted such a long drink but because it would give him an excuse to remain there for some time and to study anyone who followed. In fifteen minutes ten people came in and five went out: three entries got the stranger reaction and they were still there when Yuri left. He walked away, but not in the direction of the apartment to which he was heading, openly stopping at the junction with Third Avenue to look for any sudden emergence from the bar or abrupt start-up of a waiting, watching car. Neither happened. Yuri did not walk back the way he came but completed the block, hair-tingling tense for the footfall of pursuit now, finishing the square back on to Second Avenue and then hurrying uptown, to 53rd Street.
Yuri had expected a high-rise but it was not and at once he realized the reason. The five-storey converted brownstone had no foyer and therefore no monitoring, identifying security guard system. The front door led directly into what had been a spacious lobby in its grander days but was now a neglected and foot-marked area of metal mail boxes and discarded or uncollected newspapers, magazines and mail-order catalogues. There was, of course, no elevator and in the shadow of the circular stairwell there was a bicycle that had both front and back wheels removed and chained protectively to the frame, which Yuri thought hardly protective against theft but rather gift packaging to make it easier. There was a permanent, unshaded bulb lighting the entrance area and by it Yuri located the time switch, punching it to illuminate the stairway. He was tensed for sound, wanting to become more accustomed to the area and his surroundings before meeting any neighbours and being forced into small talk about being a staff writer for the Dutch magazine, utilizing company facilities while on assignment. There wasn’t any and he reached the fourth floor slightly breathless but free from encounter.