‘You!’ demanded Charlie suddenly, gesturing to the man at the rear in the overchecked suit. ‘What’s the point I’m making?’
The man twitched, unhappy at the sudden, unwelcome attention. Blushing at his inability – like Popov had blushed before him – the man said ‘I’m not sure,’ and stopped, miserably.
‘Good!’ praised Charlie, aware of the other man’s look of surprise. ‘You didn’t mean it but that was exactly the lesson. Never make the mistake of trying to respond either fully or at once to any question. Always remember you’re confused, that you don’t understand. Always misunderstand and gain time from it.’
‘You!’ said Charlie, finger-pointing again and continuing the demands, this time to Natalia. ‘What’s been peculiar about everything I’ve said, so far today?’
The relief from everyone else in the room at having avoided such a question was palpable. Natalia showed no discomfort. Nor hurry, either. She actually looked down at her desk, considering the answers and then she came back to him and said, ‘Defeat. Everything you’ve said has been directed towards our detection; the need for us satisfactorily to withstand investigation.’
Charlie’s reactions were mixed. The first was a satisfaction of his own, that she’d got the answer right. Then there were others. Us, she’d said: the need for us satisfactorily to withstand investigation. Was Natalia really someone under consideration for overseas posting: someone who, when she was posted, he was going to betray? Just once, thought Charlie, he’d like there to be more answers than there were questions in a single day. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Exactly right.’
Natalia flushed, pleased, and Charlie was pleased, too.
‘You!’ he said, schoolmasterly again, to the man in grey whom he’d so far spared. ‘What are you called?’
The man frowned and said, ‘I’m sorry. I do not understand.’
‘Good,’ smiled Charlie. ‘Very good. What is your name?’
‘Valeri Pavlovich Vlasov,’ said the man, grateful his test had come last, so that he’d had time to learn.
‘So tell me, Valeri Pavlovich Vlasov. Why do you think I’ve been concentrating upon how to resist interrogation?’
The man’s relief seeped away, like air from a balloon. ‘Because it is important,’ he blurted desperately.
‘Why is it important?’ pressed Charlie.
Recalling the earlier instructions, Vlasov said, ‘To survive.’
‘Should it have got this far?’ said Charlie.
‘I don’t understand,’ said the man, trying to flee up the already signposted escape route.
Charlie didn’t allow him the escape, but he spread the question to involve everyone in the room. ‘Why?’ he said, again. ‘Why do you imagine that I consider resistance so important, at our very first meeting? You!’ He pointed to Natalia. ‘Tell me what you think.’
There wasn’t the hesitation this time. ‘I don’t think you’ve any confidence in our being able to escape detection,’ she said simply. ‘I think you imagine that we’d be swept up, almost as soon as we arrived.’
‘You would,’ said Charlie. ‘I don’t think any of you would stand a chance. You’ve been taught like animals, to perform tricks. Seals can balance balls on their noses and dogs can balance on their hind legs providing the trick is always demanded in the same way, through the same formula. You’ve been taught in a formularised way and the easiest way to be detected is to behave to a formula. Agents behave to a formula; not ordinary people. Ordinary people – the sort of people that you’re expected to be – make mistakes and get drunk and forget to pay the rent…’ Charlie raised his hand, seeing the look upon the faces of both Belik and Popov. ‘Which is not a contradiction of what I said about being unobtrusive. It’s in support of it. Ordinary, unsuspicious wallpaper-on-the-wall people do those things. No one hasn’t ever forgotten to pay a bill or parked wrongly on a line or taken too much at a party. Who are the good guys, at a party? The drunks or the sober ones, who get remembered afterwards?’
‘So what are you saying?’ asked Natalia, who appeared to be emerging as the spokesman for the group.
‘That’s better,’ praised Charlie, almost over-effusively. ‘Turn as many questions back as you can. What I’m saying is that I think you’ve all got to relearn – every one of you. I don’t mean go back to the basic classes and undergo every course again. I mean that having assimilated the courses, you’ve got to adapt what you’ve learned into what it’s supposed to make you, a Westerner. And stop being Russians who’ve been taught to balance balls on their noses, when the trick is demanded of them.’
Charlie’s ability to describe how every one of them was dressed from their initial entry into the room wasn’t a trick; not any longer, anyway. It had been, years ago, when the need was first explained to him, a conscious effort at memory but now it was instinctive. The conscious effort he was making was about their faces, faces he was later going to have to recall, to photofit artists so that complete reconstructions could be made and circulated throughout the security services, for them to be detected. He was fairly confident that he could do it already, from this first meeting. Every succeeding day was going to be an advantage. He said, ‘I’m going to make you Westerners: instinctive, automatic, easily assimilated Westerners. There are going to be times when you think I am wasting your time…’ He glanced at Popov, who looked discomfited again. ‘I won’t be wasting your time. I’ll be teaching you apparently stupid, inconsequential things and it’s what appears stupid and inconsequential that will keep you safe from detection.’ Charlie smiled around the room, the first time he had appeared to relax. Before they had time to get that impression, he said, ‘All right. With one exception – because it wasn’t demanded – you’ve all made a mistake. What was it?’
Yet again there were uncertain movements throughout the group, Natalia less than the others.
‘You told me your names,’ said Charlie. ‘Because I’m standing here, at the head of the class, you assumed I had authority – the right to know – and when I asked you responded to that authority. Weren’t you all provided with pseudonyms, when you came here?’
It was a question for later, when he returned to England. While he was at Balashikha he would learn all he could about the training and the instruction. To know precisely how the Russians taught their agents would be invaluable.
From the people in front of him there were nods of agreement.
‘Then they were provided for a reason,’ said Charlie. ‘For protection, even here. It’s the same lesson as before; don’t feel the need to respond. Until it becomes an automatic response, consciously look behind every question – every instruction – for a second or third or fourth reason for that question or instructions…’ Charlie hesitated, remembering the lessons he had learned at the knee of Sir Archibald Willoughby, the Director under whom he had worked for so long. Recalling one verbatim, Charlie said, ‘There is never a straight line, in espionage. Always too many, conflicting lines.’
Charlie generalised for a further hour and it was a more subdued group that prepared to leave than the one that had entered. As they gathered their things, Charlie said to Natalia, ‘Can I speak to you?’