Shaw said, “I don’t know if it was flattery, but he said, and I quote, that I had ‘a high reputation’—”
“Flattery without a doubt!”
Shaw grinned fleetingly. “Quite, sir. Anyway, he said I would understand, whereas certain of our ministers might be — er — hidebound. That’s indisputable, in the circumstances — they just wouldn’t believe it. I, Rudintsev said, could convince them. He added that his country had been impressed with the Redcap affair some while ago and—”
“All right, all right. Stop blowing your own trumpet, Shaw.” Latymer rasped a hand across his chin. The softly shaded lights in the study of his luxurious Eaton Square flat muted the extensive skin grafts on his face, the face that had been so badly burned that distant night when the bomb had gone off, the night when Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Charteris, K.C.B., D.S.O. and two bars, D.S.C., had officially ‘died’ — for it had been expedient to let the would-be killers think they had been successful — and later, with the help of plastic surgery and the Official Secrets Act, had metamorphosed into ‘Mr Latymer’ and got his old job back. Now, the Old Man — as he was usually known in the Outfit — sipped at a glass of rare old brandy and stared broodingly at Shaw across the rim. He went on, “I may as well tell you right off, I don’t like traitors. Never did, don’t trust ’em either. If their own countries can’t, why should I?”
Shaw shook his head. He said emphatically, “Rudintsev’s no traitor, sir.”
Latymer shifted irritably. “Tripe. A rose by any other name…”
“No, sir, it’s not that at all.”
“Very well,” Latymer said imperturbably. “I suppose you’d better tell me the whole thing and then I’ll be able to judge for myself, won’t I? Let’s have it, my boy.”
“Right, sir.” Shaw pulled at a cigarette and leaned towards Latymer, his eyes bright. “Rudintsev told me he was a Party Member and a convinced communist, also a patriot, but in spite of that he meant to put humanity first. He said humanity transcends frontiers and ideologies—”
“Cut it short, please.” Latymer looked pointedly at the clock. “Remember you’ve dragged me out of bed.”
“I’m sorry, sir. Well, here it is.” Shaw took a deep breath and ran his fingers through his crisp brown hair, which had grown a little grey at the sides in recent years. “The Russians — not the lawful Government, Rudintsev was insistent about that, but a bunch of extremists who intend to seize power in the Kremlin — they’re going to pull a Pearl Harbour on us. They’re going to take over the Moscow Government in secret and then strike some blow, unspecified, at Britain while the Foreign Ministers’ Conference is in session. And that’s it, sir, in a nutshell.”
Latymer only nodded, but his green-flecked eyes had gone suddenly steely. He said, “Go on. If that’s the nutshell, let’s have the tree.”
“Yes, sir.” Shaw dabbed at an ashtray. “Rudintsev said the Conference will go very well indeed and the East will appear to be making concessions — willing, gracious concessions — so that a summit conference can be arranged and every one will be happy. The newspapers, he said, will be optimistic and people everywhere will relax, feel the tension and the fear leaving them for the first time in twenty-five years and more. And when this feeling is at its height and all of us totally unsuspecting, not in the frame of mind for war at all, then they’ll strike, and strike hard. So hard that Britain will be left pretty well impotent, militarily.”
Latymer gave a harsh, grunting laugh, but his lips were pale now. “Cynical lot of bastards, aren’t they?”
“The extremists are, sir, I agree… not the Government. I repeat that because Rudintsev wanted me to make that crystal clear.” Shaw was looking into Latymer’s eyes, his shoulders hunched as he sat forward. “The Kremlin as such is not concerned with this and in fact as a body they know nothing about it — and won’t, of course, until it’s too late and the extremist boys have taken over and arrested them. Rudintsev insisted that the Russian Government as constituted doesn’t want war any more than we in the West do and that they genuinely have no hostile intentions whatever against us—”
“Ha!”
“ — though he also said that the Soviet has in fact got perfectly tenable excuses for her suspicions and fears of the West — that to some extent she’s been driven into a corner and made to snarl like a bear. His exact words, sir. He said Russia is surrounded by hostile forces. American missiles point towards her, ready to be fired at a moment’s notice. The Americans boast of this, and also of their spy flights over Soviet territory. He said they’re indecently open about them, and the Soviet is forced to go further than perhaps normally they would go, to let the West know that they don’t just sit tamely by. He said we can criticize them for that, but wouldn’t we do the same in their shoes? We in Britain aren’t free from blame either, according to Rudintsev. Polaris submarines are ready in the Holy Loch, our troops are in West Germany and we’ve armed the Federal Republic against the Soviet—”
Latymer broke in irritably. “Is there much more of this homespun philosopher’s speechifying, Shaw?”
“No, sir, that’s about the lot—”
“Good. Have you actually joined the Communist Party yet, Shaw?”
Shaw grinned tautly. “I’m sorry, sir. I was merely quoting Rudintsev. The reason I gave you all that was because I wanted you to see what makes Rudintsev tick, and why I believe him, why I don’t think he’s a traitor. He sounded absolutely genuine and sincere — and I do believe him.”
“Hm.” Latymer lit a cigarette from a slim gold case. “Now tell me this: why doesn’t Rudintsev go to his own Government with his yarns about a coup?”
“I went into that, sir, naturally. He can’t do that, because he doesn’t know for sure whom he can trust. The only man he can really be sure of is his own Minister, and it was he who got Rudintsev to talk to me.” He added, “I rather gather the Minister wants to go on living, and since the thing’s timed for when he’s over here, the present outlook is cloudy.”
“How did he get to hear of all this in the first place?”
“Rudintsev’s in touch with certain elements, sir, men with liberal views. Some information leaked through to him from these people, but he admits he doesn’t know the whole story by any means. I asked him how any coup could succeed in a country like Russia, and he just said it had been done before and it was dead easy when you had the MVD behind you.”
Latymer looked up sharply. “These hoodlums’ve got the secret police in their pockets, have they?”
“Apparently so.”
“Then that’ll make it bloody nearly impossible to get any reliable information. Now — what’s this blow, as you call it, to be?”
Shaw shook his head. “Rudintsev didn’t know that, sir. All he could say was this: although it’s going to do a hell of a lot of damage to the British Isles, and to a lesser extent to the Continent as well, it won’t in fact have the appearance of an act of war.”
“Why not?”
“They’ve got to respect the neutrals and the uncommitteds. World reactions, Rudintsev said, are still important, even to the extreme militarists. Also they don’t want to bring the United States in if they can help it.”
“It’s to look like — what, then? An accident?”
“That’s what I gathered, sir.”
Latymer let out a long breath. He asked, “I suppose he offered no proof whatever of all this?”