IV
Audley set his cup of vile coffee down on the plastic tabletop and glowered into it. Meetings with Jake Shapiro, with the exception of their standing Wednesday lunch, were always in places of Jake's choosing and always in uniformly horrible places.
And the vision of Faith Jones poking around the old house in his absence didn't appeal to him either, even though her behaviour as an unsolicited guest had been unexceptionable: she had neither messed up the bathroom nor talked at him during breakfast.
But there was no other course of action open to him. He had to meet Roskill this morning, and he had to keep the girl to hand now that he had decided to make use of her. It was no good consulting the resident Kremlinologists; he had recognised Tom Latimer's hand in the Panin file, and if Latimer was still undecided about the man then no one else would be of use. And that left only his own dummy4
sources.
The kitchen swing-doors banged at the back of the narrow coffee bar as Jake barged through them. He slapped the waiter on the back, whispered in his ear, lifted a cup of coffee out of his hands and swept on past him without stopping. He slid the cup along the tabletop and eased himself along the bench opposite Audley.
'David, my not-so-long-lost friend! It's good to see you again so soon–but not on a Saturday. I thought it was always the day when you stayed home and cut those rolling lawns of yours–and for me it is the Sabbath! So you have me worried on two counts!'
Jake's humour had been degenerating for nearly twenty years from its original abysmal Cambridge level, and Audley's only defence was to sink unwillingly to that level.
'I thought you'd like to know that there's a jobbing machine shop down in Gosport which makes spare parts for all those grounded Mirage IIICs of yours, Jake.'
Jake slapped his thigh in delight.
'Just what we've been looking for! Now we shall not have to buy them from the South Africans — the way they've been getting through their spares must be baffling the French. Or if not baffling them, amusing them. But seriously old friend, what is this business of Saturday working? It's not good, you know. And besides, I have a date with my El-Al stewardess this morning, so spit it out.'
Now for the moment of truth. If Jake had heard a whisper that he'd been shifted from the Middle East he wouldn't give much, even for old times' sake. Jake was an honest horse-trader, but only when the dummy4
trading prospects were reasonable.
'Nikolai Panin, Jake. What can you tell me about Nikolai Panin?'
The grin faded from Jake's face–too quickly for a genuine grin. He brushed his moustache thoughtfully.
'Panin's not a Middle Eastern man.'
'No, he isn't. I'm just doing a little job for a friend, and I need to catch up on him.'
Jake raised his eyebrows.
'Little job? Don't let them snow you, old friend. Panin's a hot number these days–are you in trouble?'
As ever, Jake was quick to sense changes in the wind. Much too quick.
'My only trouble is I'm too good by half. Don't worry about me.
Just tell me about Panin.'
Jake pursed his lips, and then nodded.
'You might be the right man for Panin at that! You're both secretive sods.'
'Both?'
The Israeli gave a short laugh. 'Don't tell me you don't know, David. If you asked me to I could pretty soon number off the Central Committee, left, right and centre. The ones that matter, anyway. But not Comrade Panin–nobody knows who pulls his strings. And if we did we'd know quite a lot more about some other people!'
He drank his coffee thirstily.
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'You know about Tashkent?' he continued. 'That's what really put him on the map in a big way. Up to that time he'd always been an internal man, as far as I know.'
'What does he really do?'
'What does he do? Bugger me, David, if I really knew exactly who does what in that goddamned Byzantine set-up do you think I'd be sweating out my time on this little island, trying to screw tanks out of you?'
'Is he KGB?'
'That's another million dollar question. If you ask me they're all KGB, right down to the children and the nursemaids. Particularly the nursemaids. But your Panin, I just don't know. He's a fixer, a smoother-out.'
'Tell me something he's fixed.'
'Well, since you ask me, I think he had a hand–or maybe I should say a foot — in kicking out Kruschev. But I couldn't prove it. Then again, he's always kept well in with the military. Very proud of his war record, too. He was a fighter, not a commissar. Joined up with the 62nd Army on the Volga, came through Stalingrad, slogged it all the way to Berlin. Came out as a staff major with the 8th Guards–one of Khalturin's little lambs. I wouldn't have liked to have been a German squaddie in a house they'd decided to take.'
'For a gullible lad sent straight from the kibbutz to buy our tanks, Jake, you're quite well posted on him.'
Shapiro grinned. 'I do my homework, unlike some who are more celebrated for it. Besides, I've met the famous Panin.'
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'You've met him? Where?'
'Embassy party at Delhi, just after Tashkent–I was doing a little research on whose tanks had lasted longer in the Rann of Kutch.
And there he was–and he talked to me in excellent English, too.'
'What was he like?'
'Like? He's got the face of a rather sad clown–nose broken in the war and set badly. Or maybe not set at all. But he knew me, because he immediately started to talk about the Masada dig, which I'd just visited. He was too bloody clued-up by half. And I didn't know him from Adam. So I went straight off and tried to find out about him, and came straight up against a brick wall, more or less.
'In fact I've been studying him off and on ever since–as I've no doubt lots of western layabouts have been. And with precious little success, because you've now got the sum total of my studies. In return for which I expect to get the sum total of yours in due course, my dear David.'
Nothing was more certain than that Jake would render a bill of some sort.
'And that really is the sum total?'
'I might be able to come up with a few more names. But it wouldn't signify, because he covers too much territory. That's the trouble —
you can't pin him down. In any case, David, you'd best tell me more exactly what it is you want.'
Basically the Israelis knew no more than the British: they both knew simply what was common knowledge. But Audley had dummy4
expected that. What they did have, however, was by far the best record of events in Berlin in 1945; it was a mere byproduct of their long hunt for the missing Nazi butchers, but it was rumoured to be astonishingly complete. That, though he didn't know it, was going to be Jake's special contribution.
'Well,' began Audley judiciously, 'there are several periods of Panin's career I'd like to fill in, but I think you'll only be able to help me with the early one, which is really the least important. I may not even need it, but if you could pass the word to one or two of your Berlin old-timers, they might know something.'
Jake's face hardened. Different nations had different raw places, tender spots, where no leeway was ever allowed. For the Indians and Pakistanis it was Kashmir. For Frenchmen it was 1940. For Jake, and for may other Israelis, it was still the missing Nazis of 1945. He should have remembered that.
'I give you my word, Jake, that as far as I know this has nothing to do with war criminals. Absolutely nothing. And you know how I feel about that.'
The Israeli relaxed. In as far as he trusted any Anglo-Saxon he trusted Audley. Which was not far, perhaps, but far enough.
He nodded. 'Okay, David. I'll drop a word to Joe Bamm–you can always get him at our Berlin place. He's forgotten more about the old days than most other people ever know. In return, if you turn up any little thing about one of them, don't you sit on it.'