I said, ‘Yes. We couldn’t find the fellow’s shoes though.’
‘What do you want his shoes for?’
‘I’m getting everything else about him — why not his shoes? Somebody who knew him — first thing they’ll notice: I’ve got the wrong feet on. It’s a point.’
‘You’re beginning to enjoy it all, are you, Marlow?’
‘I know. You’d like to put the smile the other side of my face.’
McCoy left shortly after. ‘I’ll give you his shoes,’ he muttered. I think he felt he was slipping.
‘How do you feel about the man?’ Croxley said when we had got into the dining-room. The light was still bright and slanting with long shadows outside. We’d had an extra hour of daylight all winter, on European time, and now it was really beginning to tell. I wished I’d been able to make better use of it.
‘He seems to have been a likeable fellow.’
I was fed up with McCoy and Harper, but Croxley seemed to have wider sympathies.
‘Yes. Yes, he was. All this’ — he looked round the line of boards — ‘can’t give more than a trace of him. But we like it — thinking of people as bits of paper. Photographs.’
‘It’s the curse of the age.’ And Croxley sighed too for bureaucracy.
‘All you need from these are the factual details, or as much as you can absorb. In case there are queries. But the real business, you’ll have to create that yourself.’
‘Queries?’
‘Yes. I imagine McCoy only touched on it. The “stayer”. The man who contacts you. He may have some way of making sure of your identity.’
‘He may have seen “me” before. Awkward.’
‘No. Not on the job you’re doing. Won’t know you from Adam. That’s absolutely the point. He’ll just give you the names Moscow wants a check on — potential “unreliables”. And we know from Graham that most of these KGB people, not necessarily all Soviet nationals, are currently placed in the UN, either in the Secretariat or in one of the delegations in New York. That’s why Graham was aimed for the job. The stayer will probably be in the UN too. So he’ll have time to check up on you before he makes an approach.’
Croxley sat at one end of the table thumbing through some notes.
‘These transcripts aren’t of much use. What checks this contact may make I can’t say. Graham didn’t know, wouldn’t know. So it could go wrong from the first; he may never make a contact. On the other hand, in the nature of your KGB job, the stayer should know nothing about you or your past. Graham was let lie fallow for years precisely in order to avoid the chances of any substitution, so they won’t suspect that, nor will the stayer. He’ll just have been told your name and number in the UN. You see, Graham had no identity among his own, so you too should be safe enough.’
‘Who does Graham report to — and how?’
‘Only to the few very senior KGB men who were involved with his recruitment and training.’ Croxley paused, as though sorry for some deserving party who had been left out in the reading of a will.
‘And you have their names?’
‘Yes. We have his name.’
‘I suppose that’s how Graham lost his shoes?’
Croxley looked at me for a moment, sadly. Then he suddenly found his place again.
‘A senior KGB officer stationed in Beirut who recruited Graham in 1952 is the crucial figure; he runs Graham, though Graham said he hadn’t seen him for more than ten years. A man named Alexei Flitlianov. He has some mild cover job with the Soviet Foreign Ministry in Moscow. Allows him to travel about. In fact he heads the KGB’s Second Directorate, their internal security division — as well as a satellite security bureau — which Graham was working for — quite outside the main organisation, reporting only to Flitlianov. This fellow comes to America from time to time. He’d be coming to hear from you, probably a couple of months after you get there. Graham didn’t know exactly when. Let’s hope we can get the word to you when he does. In fact though, with any luck, you should be out of it all by then. And we should have the name we want.’
‘Not names?’
‘Well, yes, the names he gives you. But the stayer — that’s the man we really want. That man will have more names in him than any Resident. He’ll have been passing names for years, dealing out the execution cards, never playing the game himself. And that’s what makes it practically impossible ever to get such a man. He’s never involved in any action. He’s just a walking list of KGB operatives.’
‘But he’s never going to give me his name. I won’t even see him. I’ll just get a message. Over the phone.’
‘Maybe. And in that case we’ll just have to settle for putting the squeeze on the people he gives you. On the other hand, I have a feeling you will meet him. He’ll certainly come face to face with you, without your knowing it. Besides, where can he phone you? Only at your UN office, since he won’t know your home number. Those are practically open lines for the KGB — and for the CIA. He’s not going to risk it.’
‘Just give me an outside number to contact him, then. A call box between certain times.’
‘And risk being picked up at that number, between those certain times? No, I think you’ll see him. I don’t think he’s going to risk phoning you — or writing anything down on paper. But if he does, well, we’ll just settle for the names.’
‘You call these KGB men they want checks on “potential unreliables” — when we get their names, are they going to be all that use to anybody? Surely we want the names of the reliable men?’
‘Just the opposite. You think it out. The KGB is doing half our work for us — pinpointing their weak links, the people in their networks open to pressure. Now your contact with us, when you get any names, is through Guy Jackson, one of our men, already in the UN Secretariat. He works in the Secretary General’s political department, African Section. And you should be able to meet him quite openly — informally since you’re both on the British quota to the UN — and professionally, since your Reports work can easily be made to coincide with his interests at certain points. He’s been briefed on all this. You’ll have no trouble there. And he’s your link in New York if anything else untoward happens.
‘Now, let’s go through the details of your UN posting. I have all Graham’s papers here on that — seems like a good job, lot of money, tax-free, and a lot of allowances. Even without a family.’
‘I hope I won’t have time to enjoy it. And — the family won’t need it.’
A little nervousness moved over Croxley’s face.
‘Yes. I remember. Your wife. You were with Skardon four years ago, weren’t you? Got you twenty-eight years. I thought it might have been a frame-up, that. I think he did too. But the Crown insisted. Rotten business.’
‘My department insisted.’
‘Comes to the same thing.’
‘Yes. I don’t suppose the Queen was consulted.’
Croxley opened a folder and drew out a large printed sheet headed: U.N. Secretariat: Salary, Grade and Allowances.
‘And I don’t suppose this will sweeten things that much either.’
‘Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.’
‘They’d have left you in Durham, wouldn’t they?’
‘Yes.’
Croxley looked sad again. He had a facility that way. But it was a true gift. The light was dying now outside, even with the extra hour, and I felt sleepy again. The room was hot, I’d eaten nothing, and the whole long day had done nothing but repeat the promise of summer, full of the free, fine weather I’d thought never to know again. I felt all Graham’s appetites now, and more.