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‘You’re not being followed,’ assured the Russian. He took the top off his beer, making a loud sucking sound. ‘ We followed you.’

‘They’re on to me,’ insisted Willick impatiently. ‘They’re checking transfers, around the June date.’

Oleg drank further, nodding in calm agreement as he replaced the handled mug. ‘I think you’re probably right.’

‘I don’t know what to do,’ protested the American. ‘You said you were my friend. Wouldn’t abandon me.’

‘And we won’t,’ said Oleg.

‘So what can I do?’ moaned Willick.

‘Cross, whenever you want.’

‘Cross?’ The American looked blankly at the hunched roly-poly figure beside him, genuinely confused.

‘To the Soviet Union,’ expanded Oleg.

Willick continued to look blankly at the other man. Never, once, had the idea of defecting – of leaving America – occurred to him. He’d made the approach to the Russians because he was desperate for money. But naively he’d only ever regarded it as a temporary expediency, something he would be able to abandon once he straightened himself out. Jagged-voiced, unable to stop the giggle, he said: ‘Defect! To Moscow!’

‘Have you thought about what would happen when they arrest you?’ demanded the Russian. ‘You’re a traitor, John. The worse kind of traitor. There won’t be any rules, any kindness. They’ll stretch you anyway they feel like – lie detector, chemicals, whatever – and when they’ve got all they want they’ll put you up before a court and you’ll get life. Can you imagine that, John? Life inside some penitentiary. Fresh meat, to be passed around and raped. Or maybe you’d get lucky: find someone with power inside who’d want to keep you for himself. Still have to sleep with him of course. Be his wife. Better than being gang-banged, though. Less chance of catching a disease: lot of disease in American jails, so I believe. AIDS.’

‘Stop it!’ pleaded Willick. ‘Please stop it!’

‘You like another drink?’

‘Yes.’

‘Large?’

‘Yes.’

As the fresh glasses were put before them the Russian said: ‘Not much of a choice really, is it?’

‘What would I have to do in Moscow?’

‘I don’t know,’ replied Oleg honestly. ‘I was simply told that we would accept you, if you asked.’

‘When?’

‘How much time do you think you’ve got?’ asked Oleg.

‘I don’t know,’ said Willick despairingly.

‘Tomorrow might be too late,’ said the Russian. ‘What’s to stop you coming now?’

Nothing! thought Willick, in mounting excitement. All he had here were debts and hassle and an ex-wife in two weeks’ time due alimony that he didn’t have. It would be wonderful to turn his back on it all! Actually dump on Eleanor. He said: ‘How would I do it?’

‘You’ve got a passport?’

‘Yes.’

‘There’s a plane leaving here at eleven tonight, for Paris. Just go to our embassy there and you will be told the rest.’

‘You planned this?’ demanded Willick.

‘I told you before that we were your friends,’ reminded Oleg. ‘When I got your call I found out how it could be done. You’ve got a lot of time.’

‘I don’t have money for a ticket,’ remembered Willick.

Oleg passed a sealed envelope across the intervening chair, his hand concealed beneath the bar top. ‘Enough for first class.’

‘I could do it,’ said Willick, like a child trying to encourage its own endeavours.

‘Of course you could do it,’ supported Oleg.

‘I would go to jail, wouldn’t I?’

‘For life,’ said the Russian positively.

Willick shuddered and said: ‘I’ll never be able to repay you.’

‘I’m sure you will,’ said the man.

On the credit side Yuri decided there were advantages to being assigned special duties by the head of the First Chief Directorate. Unquestioningly Granov granted him monitoring authority to the UN-channelled correspondences, but more importantly the rezident did not object to Yuri living more at the 53rd Street apartment than at Riverdale. It meant Yuri was able to spend as much time as he wanted with Caroline, which he did rarely thinking of the breach of regulations or of any inherent dangers. He was guilty of so many breaches of regulations and faced so much inherent danger that the nights they were together seemed by comparison oases of normality and safety.

In no way, however, did he neglect the search for Yevgennie Levin because he realized that an obvious attack if he failed could be the accusation under some disciplinary code of professional incompetence in carrying out an order.

He grew convinced that the letters were the key. He assembled the family’s to Natalia and hers to them separately by date but connected them through a central graph upon which he listed what he regarded as potential clues to Levin’s whereabouts.

The punctuality of their replies confirmed what he regarded as the most positive indicator that Levin was on the east coast of America and not too far from New York. Because he controlled the letter flow, he was able to time precisely the handover of Natalia’s first letter after his return from Moscow, at three o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon. The intercepted response – from Galina – was not only dated the same day but timed, at eight o’clock the same evening. There had to be subtracted, of course, some unknown time against the delivery not being initiated immediately and for the period it would have taken for the mother to have read it, even guessing that she would have done so at once. And for the possibility that it had gone from New York by air and not by road, which he doubted but for which he had to make allowances because in a letter from Levin there was reference to a helicopter journey and of having flown directly over Washington landmarks like the Capitol building and the Washington obelisk and Lincoln Memorial. On his chart, Yuri wrote ‘Five hours’ but was prepared to adjust either higher or lower. In the same letter Natalia had obediently followed his instruction to complain about the coldness of Moscow and from Petr it prompted the sort of reply for which Yuri had hoped.

‘It is cold here, too,’ the boy wrote. ‘We are told there are a lot of ski lodges and that the snow will be here in a week or two, a month at the outside.’

From the date on the letter Yuri wrote ‘November, first or last week?’ recognizing it as an indicator hopefully as positive as the timing of the replies. It definitely ruled out at least twelve of the southern or mid-west states, where snow never fell. And also the mountain or western states where it did, because on such high ground the snow was permanent and not dependent upon the seasons. And to none of them, even by aeroplane, could a letter have been delivered from New York and prompted a reply in such a short time. There was winter skiing in the Catskill Mountains, Yuri knew. Throughout New England, too. Still a vast area: too vast.

At the first reading Yuri underlined Levin’s listing of the Washington landmarks, seeking a significance but not immediately finding it. Caught suddenly by an idea, Yuri posed as the journalist he was supposed to be and telephoned the Federal Aviation Authority in Washington using his legend name of William Bell and the title of his Amsterdam cover publication to be told that no civil or commercial winged aircraft would be permitted low-level overflight of the sort he described. It would, however, be possible by helicopter, the spokesman helpfully added. Before ringing off Yuri established the average cruise speed of small, passenger-carrying helicopters and by computing speed against time came up again with a travelling period of around five hours, four at the minimum. Levin had not only described Washington from the air. He’d written of flying over New York. Which indicated an approach from the north. Marking the American capital as the extreme of one sweep of the compass Yuri halved his equation and completed the circle with Washington as that one outside marker. It created a radius that stopped just short of Boston but reached out to include huge tracts of Virginia, West Virginia, practically all of Pennsylvannia, and further daunting areas in Connecticut, New York State and Massachusetts. Too much, he thought. Too much while he possessed too little to enable him to narrow the boundaries.