Colonel Panchenko read through the experts’ reports and then studied the photographs with a professional detachment, nodding admiringly in the solitude of his office at the well-assembled and obvious evidence of a crime. His initial feeling was to destroy everything, as he’d had removed by the garage off Begovaya any trace on the Lada’s nearside wing of the collision with the wall. And then he hesitated, because there was a difference. The car had been one of the dozens used for unsuspected KGB surveillance, with an untraceable civilian registration, MOS 56-37-42. The definite association with him came from the listing in the records of the Directorate motor pool. But there was nothing personally incriminating in what the militia had produced. No danger, therefore, in retaining it in the safe on the far side of the office to which only he had the combination: the safe which already contained the tapes of his car and gazebo conversations with Victor Kazin.
30
The Crisis Committee reacted to the persistent and impatient demands of the CIA director that speed of detection was the foremost consideration and tried to shortcut when they got the apparently vital leads from Paris. And disastrously delayed the identification of John Willick.
Their mistake – which they were intended by Moscow to make – was to try to combine the name supposedly remembered by Yevgennie Levin with the provable date and transfer intentionally disclosed by Sergei Kapalet.
Cots were moved into the debriefing building for Myers, Norris and Crookshank to work around the clock to scour the CIA records to find an internal relocation one month either side of 30 June of any Langley-based official or officer who had the remotest links with Ramon Hernandez in Nicaragua. The CIA station in neighbouring Honduras, through which Hernandez was run, was warned against the man and ordered to carry out an investigation into his loyalty. Additionally the station was instructed to relay back each and every name within the Agency of people through whom Hernandez operated – or thought he operated – in the hope one might be different from those listed on those same records as being members of the man’s headquarters control group.
There weren’t any. Neither was there the slightest evidence to doubt Hernandez’ commitment. And nor did the personnel records show up an internal transfer of anyone connected in the remotest way with the man’s activities or reports in Latin America. Refusing to be deflected, Myers extended the transfer period to two and then three months either side of the June date. Still there was no one who could be linked with the Nicaraguan.
‘It doesn’t make any fucking sense!’ erupted Myers.
‘It has to, somehow,’ said the more controlled Norris.
‘How!’
‘If I knew that, I would not be sitting here looking at a blank wall, would I?’
‘We’ve approached it the wrong way,’ realized Crookshank.
‘What wrong way?’ demanded Myers, whose decision it had been.
Instead of replying, Crookshank said: ‘What’s the most positive thing we have?’
Neither of the other two men replied at once. Then Norris said: ‘The date?’
‘The date,’ agreed Crookshank. ‘And the fact that there was a relocation.’ With a lawyer’s pedantry, he searched through his papers, then smiled up. ‘ “He said the move almost coincided with his transfer,” ‘ he quoted. ‘Drew’s verbatim record of Kapalet’s account. Two months and three months isn’t almost coinciding. We’ve confused ourselves, trying to involve Hernandez.’
‘What have we got, without him?’ demanded Myers, irked at the criticism.
‘What we’ve just agreed to be the most positive lead there is,’ lectured Crookshank. He went back to his papers again, coming up with a single sheet. ‘The first list,’ he said. ‘Of internal transfers one month either side of June thirtieth. Fifteen people: five seconded to overseas stations, six retired, four departmental moves.’
‘I think you’re right,’ agreed Myers reluctantly.
‘We could sweat them all on a polygraph in a week,’ accepted Norris.
‘But no advance warning,’ agreed Crookshank.
John Willick didn’t need it. He’d handled three of the Crisis Committee’s requests for names and biographical details of people affected by internal movements. And knew from casual gossip over coffee and two hurriedly sought-out cafeteria lunches on successive days with others in the personnel department that there had been at least five further inquiries, all for precisely the same sort of material. That by itself, after Oleg’s warning, would have been sufficient to alarm the American. But it was not by itself. The requests clearly specified movements either side of the date when the controller he knew only as Aleksandr had been moved from Washington. And came from an unspecified committee sufficiently important to qualify for a scarlet-classified, respond-this-day security designation. So it was not alarm Willick felt; it was terror.
He used the number he had been given by Shelenkov and had reconfirmed as an emergency contact by the man’s successor, careless of the panic he heard in his own voice when he demanded an immediate meeting, refusing in even more panic to wait until the following day for the opening of any of their customary public monuments or places and agreeing at once and without thought to a bar he didn’t know in Georgetown.
It was not where he expected it to be, on M Street, but against the river and directly beneath the skeleton of the overhead railway. Eager for omens of protection, Willick was relieved to get a seat at the bar directly abutting a corner, so that he could sit without the possibility of anyone approaching him unseen. How long would it be, before they did approach him? Try to rationalize, he told himself, striving for control. Try to assess. Couldn’t have isolated him yet: the request was general, for all the transfers. One of several then. But how many? Impossible to know, because he could not risk asking around any more than he already had. Eight, of which he knew. Probably more. Pointless attempting a possible figure. How were they being investigated? Alphabetically or…? Or how? Couldn’t think of another way. Had to be something like alphabetical, he supposed: they hadn’t got to him yet and from what he knew the first request had arrived three days before. Could have been earlier, of course. Thank God his name began with the initial letter that it did. When then? Tomorrow? The day after? No way of knowing. Jesus, where was Oleg? He gestured for a refill and when the barman came asked for a large one. Finished, he thought: he was finished. Christ, wouldn’t Eleanor laugh! Actually enjoy it. Keep cuttings of newspaper reports and go on all the breakfast TV shows. Bitch would probably write a book: My Unsuspecting Life with a Russian Spy. Make a fortune. Jesus, where was Oleg! He held the glass up, as a signal to the barman.
The Russian came bowed-headed into the bar and directly to the corner where Willick was sitting: the two adjoining bar stools were empty and Oleg sat on the furthest one, so there was a gap between them.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ demanded Willick.
Instead of replying Oleg ordered draught beer from the returning barman and waited until it was served and the man moved away before he spoke. He said: ‘You were extremely careless. Foolish.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘There is an inquiry going on at Langley?’
‘You know damned well there is.’
‘And you are suspect?’
‘All the transfers, around the time of Aleksandr’s recall, have been pulled from records.’
‘Yet you come directly here without checking in the most rudimentary way whether or not you are under surveillance and complain when I don’t immediately join you!’
Instinctively, feeling stupid halfway through the gesture, Willick jerked around towards the door and back again.