Target, page 20
“Let’s hope it ail comes out right,” said Jones briskly. He always appeared uncomfortable at any display of gratitude, thought Peterson.
Once again the appointments secretary was standing alongside his desk, as if impatient for Peterson’s arrival. The ambivalence about which Jones had warned was obvious the moment Peterson entered the Oval Office. There was a wariness about Fowler, as if the man had cause to be suspicious of them. Peterson had always taken the Texan’s exuberance to be phony, calculated to create the impression of a permanently genial temperament. There was certainly no cordiality tonight: instead the greeting was one of reserved formality. Peterson wondered if Fowler would regret the decision to have Walter Jones in on the conference.
“Mr. Director,” greeted Fowler.
“Mr. President,” responded Peterson.
“A thoroughly successful trip?”
“I think so, sir,” said Peterson. He looked towards the French windows, leading out onto the Rose Garden. Was Fowler going to let this meeting be recorded, for any subsequent inquiry?
Fowler was aware of the look. “It’s a cold night,” he said.
“Not too cold,” encouraged Peterson.
The President rose almost abruptly, thrusting his way through the doors ahead of the two CIA men. Peterson’s impression was that Fowler was irritated at the subterfuge. He followed the man into the garden, waiting until Jones had caught up before giving a complete account of what had occurred in Austria, stressing the supremacy he had managed to attain.
“Sure we’re not being set up by the Soviets?” asked Fowler, as soon as the Director had finished talking. There had not been a meeting between them when the President had not expressed this fear.
“Not at this stage, anyway. And we’ve covered ourselves.”
“Sometimes,” said Fowler, “I think with my gut. And I’m beginning to get a gut reaction that we’re over-committed on this.”
Peterson felt a suddent burst of anger at the man’s changed attitude, at the playacting of security and the personal commitment he was being called upon to make, with so little open support.
“Shall I abort it then?” he demanded, in open challenge. He wondered if Fowler would appreciate the danger he had created by including Jones in the briefing; it meant there was going to be a witness to a presidential decision. And covert actions had to be presidential decisions.
“I didn’t say that,” insisted Fowler.
“It would still be possible,” said Peterson, unwilling to allow the other man to evade the responsibility.
“You sure it can succeed?”
“That would be an impossible assurance to give,” said Peterson, not taking care to hide his irritation. “We’ve tried to anticipate every obstacle. And largely as the result of Soviet assistance, we’re confident of infiltrating two people into the installation; we’re in a lot better shape now than we were a week ago.
“We’re breaking the law, you know,” said Fowler, suddenly.
“It would be difficult to work within it, in these circumstances,” said Peterson quickly. He wondered if Fowler realized his mistake: he had admitted complicity before a third person. He looked at Jones, unsure of his awareness. The deputy gazed back at him, his expression without comment.
“If we withdrew, would the Russians go on without us?” demanded the President.
“Unquestionably,” said Peterson, prompt again.
“Could they screw us on our involvement so far?”
“Probably,” said Peterson. “If we feared that strongly enough, we’d have to foul their efforts so that it was probably a Soviet incursion.”
“And if we did that, the installation would survive and the Libyan rocket would be launched?”
“Yes.”
“We don’t have a choice,” said Fowler.
“So you don’t want me to abort?” demanded Peterson, insistently.
“No,” said Fowler.
If Jones remained loyal, he had some sort of defense, decided Peterson. He hesitated at the thought about his deputy: there had never been a vestige of suspicion through which he could doubt the man. He smiled at Jones, who moved his mouth slightly in response. One of my closest friends, thought Peterson: perhaps the closest.
“They go into the complex tomorrow,” said Peterson. “I’ll be the communications link, from the destroyer.”
“The Soviets didn’t argue.”
“There’ll be constant liaison beween us.”
“I’m surprised.”
Peterson realized that he would have been too, had he not spent the previous three days with Petrov. It had been very easy to work with the man.
“What about your wife?” demanded the President, suddenly. “Won’t you want to spend some time with her?”
“She’s getting the best care possible,” said Peterson. “There’s not a lot I can do, at this stage. By the time she’s due for discharge, I shall be back here.”
Fowler nodded. “Sorry to hear of her problem,” he said.
“Thank you.”
Fowler looked beyond the Director to the deputy. “Appreciated the briefings of Mr. Jones, while you were away,” he said.
“Thank you,” said Peterson again. The praise was as much for the Agency as for the man, he decided. And was therefore a congratulation for him, as well.
“Still got my full support,” said Fowler.
“I’m grateful for the assurance,” said Peterson, sincerely.
“Don’t let me down.”
“I don’t intend to,” promised Peterson.
“Just wish I could get rid of this gut feeling,” said Fowler.
The Director of the clinic was named Richard Harrap. Surprisingly, although Peterson realized there was no logical reason for the surprise, he appeared hardly older than Paul. He was a heavy, athletic-looking man, with sports pennants and group football photographs around his office supporting the impression. They talked initially in the man’s office and then in an antechamber to the common room where there was a one-way mirror through which it was possible to watch the patients without their being aware of the attention. Peterson felt discomforted by it, as if he were a Peeping Tom. There were about twenty people in the room, more than half of them grouped in an annex in front of a television set. Lucille sat apart from them, reading a magazine. Occasionally she glanced up, apparently distracted by some response from the viewing group. She appeared relaxed and looked very well — not at all what Peterson had expected.
“We’ve conducted a medical examination, of course,” said Harrap. “There’s some liver enlargement.”
“What does that mean?” asked Peterson, with abrupt concern.
“If she doesn’t drink again, nothing very much,” said the doctor. “Fatty tissue is the most obvious sign of cirrhosis.”
“How long would you have her stay here?”
“The full treatment takes three months,” said Harrap. “She’s got to be brought around to the mental attitude of not wanting to drink.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Just be here,” said the doctor. “The worst part of the recovery is the awareness of how badly they’ve let themselves go. They’ve got to be constantly convinced that they still have the love of people who matter to them.”
“It might be difficult, in the next week or two,” said Peterson.
He was conscious of Harrap’s attention. “Couldn’t you rearrange your schedule a little?”
“No,” said Peterson. “It’s impossible.”
“I see,” said the doctor, stressing the disappointment in his voice.
“Just a couple of weeks,” repeated Peterson, awkwardly.
“Your son’s been very good,” said Harrap. “He hasn’t missed a visit.”
“Can I see her now?”
“Of course. Do you want to go in there or have her taken back to her own room?”
Peterson’s face flickered with distaste at the dispassionate way the doctor was referring to Lucille. “Is one better than the other?”
“Psychologically, the communal room is better. It shows you’re not ashamed of her in front of people whom she’s now having to regard as friends.”
“Is that what she thinks? That I was somehow ashamed of her?”
Harrap smiled at the naïvety of the question. “It’s never as easy as that to discover a reason, Mr. Peterson. Alcoholism is a psychological disease, latent in many people, like a tubercular bacillus.”
“I’ll see her in the communal room,” he decided.
“It’ll be best if a nurse warns her first.”
“I’ll wait in the corridor,” said Peterson. He wanted to accord her some privacy, to prepare herself.
It was fifteen minutes before a nurse came to fetch him. Everyone in the room turned as he entered; there only seemed to be one other visitor — a woman visiting a man. They sat close together near a window, their knees touching.
Lucille was in the same chair that he had seen her occupy from the viewing-room. Her hair seemed freshly combed and as he approached she pulled at her skirt, trying to straighten some imaginary crease. He stopped some way short of where she was, not knowing what to do.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello.” Why did there seem to be embarrassment between them? He was reminded of the dinner she had prepared, just before he had gone away. That hadn’t worked, either.
“It’s nice to see you.”
“I’ve been away.”
“Paul told me.”
Peterson remembered Harrap’s warning that she would be afraid he was ashamed of her. He should show some affection, he thought. He went forward again, bending as he reached the chair, and kissed her on the cheek. She smelt very clean and fresh, with only a trace of perfume.
“How are you?”
“I feel fine.”
“Good.”
“You look tired,” she said.
He felt it, Peterson realized. He should have attempted some rest on the plane. “I’ve been busy,” he said, immediately regretting the words.
She smiled, but it wasn’t a sarcastic expression. “Always so very busy,” she remembered.
“The doctors seem very nice.” Would Harrap still be watching them, through the one-way glass, wondered Peterson somewhat uncomfortably.
“They say it’s an illness.”
“Yes.”
“And that I’ll always have it. That I’ll have to learn never to drink again.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think that will be difficult. Not sitting here, thinking about it, I mean. I don’t know what it’ll be like outside.”
“I’ll be there to help,” he said, immediately.
“Will you, Jamie?” Again there was no sarcasm.
“Yes,” he said and meant it. It was his fault she was here, just as Beth was his fault. He wouldn’t fail her again. Or his daughter, if he could locate her.
As if aware of his thoughts, she said: “Since I’ve been in here … able to understand things better … Paul has told me all about Beth.”
“She’s gone from Arizona,” said Peterson.
“She’d be back here with us in Washington if you’d been able to go.” Just as there had been no sarcasm, there was no recrimination.
“Yes,” he said.
“Or if I’d been able to go.”
He frowned up at her. “It’s not for you to reproach yourself,” he said urgently. “Nothing was your fault.”
“I wasn’t a lot of help though, was I?”
He extended his hand towards her and she snatched at it, as if she had been waiting for the gesture. “Lucille,” he said. “Beth didn’t leave because of you or become involved with the people she has because of you. If anyone is responsible, then I am.”
“Will you be able to find her again?”
“Of course,” lied Peterson, remembering Harrap’s warning about encouragement and confidence.
“Will you go to get her this time?”
“Yes. This time I’ll go immediately to get her back,” he said. What would happen if it occurred when he was on a destroyer somewhere off the coast of some Godforsaken African country?
“Promise me, Jamie.”
“I promise.” Just as he had done before, on more occasions than he cared to remember.
“I can do it, you know,” she said suddenly, and for a moment he was confused, unsure of what she was talking about. “Not drink,” she said, seeing his difficulty. “I really don’t want to. And that’s after only two weeks.”
“Of course you can do it,” he said.
“If you help me,” she said.
“I’ve said I will.”
“Do you mean it?” she said., “Do you really mean it?” Her grip against his hand was so tight it hurt.
“I really meant it,” he said.
20
Dimitri Petrov’s decision to seek a meeting with the full Politburo cabinet had been consciously thought out. The importance of what he was attempting provided cause enough, but that was not the predominant reason for the request. The KGB chief was determined to bypass Sergei Litvinov. Petrov was convinced that through the liaison official, the account would have been presented as grounds for the purge for which his critics had waited so long.
And Litvinov had guessed at the maneuver, Petrov decided. For almost an hour, he had sat to the left of the three men, attempting to listen expressionlessly as Petrov patiently recounted everything that had happened since they had become aware of the Chad installation from satellite surveillance. Litvinov had been unable to control the tic beneath his left eye. From previous encounters, Petrov knew it to be a nervous response to being beaten; it pleased him to have upset the man.
The silence stretched on for a long time after Petrov had finished talking.
“I find it very worrying,” said the chairman, Boris Dorensky, at last. Dorensky was an overweight, bespectacled man who had wieled power within the Soviet Union since Kruschchev’s regime. He suffered from angina and his ill heath was the subject of frequent speculation in the Western press, to whom his importance within the Politburo had only just become obvious.
Litvinov moved hurriedly to take up Dorensky’s lead. “I have already reported on several earlier occasions on the outline of this problem,” he said. “During those reports, I made no secret of my concern at what I considered to be the unsatisfactory way the problem was being handled.”
“There has been proper reason for occasional contact with the U.S. in the past,” said Dorensky, “but this is active cooperation.”
“There should have been consultation before a decision of this magnitude was taken,” said the third member of the cabinet. Ivan Borrosuba was a thin, aesthetic man whom Petrov considered the most cultured of the group; he knew that Borrosuba saw himself as the natural successor to the leadership of the KGB.
“There was a need for speed,” said Petrov. “‘Every indication from the satellite photographs is that a launch is near.”
Dorensky gestured towards Litvinov. “An official was appointed to liaise over the matter,” he said. “What delay would have been caused by informing him fully of what you intended?”
Again Litvinov intruded. “Isn’t the truth of the matter that you feared immediate rejection and sought to work without the knowledge of people to whom you had a duty to report?”
“No,” said Petrov. “That isn’t the truth of the matter at all.” He felt very relaxed. Litvinov’s determination to oppose him was making it much easier than he had anticipated. The Cabinet sat looking at him expectantly: they were all hostile, Petrov decided.
“Without American liaison,” said Petrov, “we would not have got the confirmation that the purchaser was Libya and that it was the Middle East where the danger existed.
“And America would not have been able to infiltrate the complex,” argued Litvinov. “Why couldn’t we have kept that to ourselves?”
“Because it would not have been safe,” said Petrov. He stopped, determined to expose Litvinov as far as possible.
“Safe?” queried the man.
“Does the Soviet Union want another conflict in the Middle East?” said Petrov.
“Of course not,” said Dorensky.
“But can we risk any relationship we have with the Middle East nations by being seen to interfere openly with the affairs of an Arab country, even one regarded with the suspicion that Libya is?”
“No,” said Dorensky. He was speaking guardedly now, curious at the points that Petrov was establishing.
“Any more, surely, than we can appear to be attempting to influence affairs in Africa, particularly with the penetration that the People’s Republic of China is achieving?”
“Is there any point in this elementary display of political awareness?” demanded Litvinov, attempting sarcasm.
“Every point. Comrade Litvinov,” said Petrov, patronizing now. “Every point in the world.”
Again he waited, forcing the question from his opponent.
“What?” said Litvinov. At last he was beginning to appear uncomfortable.
“Gerda Lintz is entering Africa under West German documentation,” said Petrov, speaking carefully so that nothing would be missed by the Cabinet. “All trace of her ever having been transferred from Leipzig to Moscow University is being erased. Not that there is any way of the West discovering it anyway, but her name has been removed from any accord at Baikonur, as well. Vladimir Makovsky is going to Chad under the auspices of a Roman Catholic order financed by the Central Intelligence Agency. There is no trace of his name ever having been on any records held by the KGB or of his residency in Moscow or Leningrad. Similarly, there are no longer any records in existence of the jungle training school near Odessa run by Oleg Sharakov or of the ten-man unit he is taking into Africa …”
Dorensky was smiling now, sitting back expansively in his chair.
“The communications for the attempted sabotage are being conducted from an American guided-missile destroyer on station in the Gulf of Guinea,” continued the KGB head. “On board will be the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.…”
“You’ve been very clever, Comrade General,” praised the chairman.
“If all or any part of our attempted incursion goes publicly wrong, then there is nothing at all establishing Soviet involvement that we cannot satisfactorily explain,” said Petrov, determined to finish. “For every accusation made against us, we could leak through the Western media outlets we control enough convincing proof that people being identified as Russians were in fact Americans introduced to embarrass us.”
Once again the appointments secretary was standing alongside his desk, as if impatient for Peterson’s arrival. The ambivalence about which Jones had warned was obvious the moment Peterson entered the Oval Office. There was a wariness about Fowler, as if the man had cause to be suspicious of them. Peterson had always taken the Texan’s exuberance to be phony, calculated to create the impression of a permanently genial temperament. There was certainly no cordiality tonight: instead the greeting was one of reserved formality. Peterson wondered if Fowler would regret the decision to have Walter Jones in on the conference.
“Mr. Director,” greeted Fowler.
“Mr. President,” responded Peterson.
“A thoroughly successful trip?”
“I think so, sir,” said Peterson. He looked towards the French windows, leading out onto the Rose Garden. Was Fowler going to let this meeting be recorded, for any subsequent inquiry?
Fowler was aware of the look. “It’s a cold night,” he said.
“Not too cold,” encouraged Peterson.
The President rose almost abruptly, thrusting his way through the doors ahead of the two CIA men. Peterson’s impression was that Fowler was irritated at the subterfuge. He followed the man into the garden, waiting until Jones had caught up before giving a complete account of what had occurred in Austria, stressing the supremacy he had managed to attain.
“Sure we’re not being set up by the Soviets?” asked Fowler, as soon as the Director had finished talking. There had not been a meeting between them when the President had not expressed this fear.
“Not at this stage, anyway. And we’ve covered ourselves.”
“Sometimes,” said Fowler, “I think with my gut. And I’m beginning to get a gut reaction that we’re over-committed on this.”
Peterson felt a suddent burst of anger at the man’s changed attitude, at the playacting of security and the personal commitment he was being called upon to make, with so little open support.
“Shall I abort it then?” he demanded, in open challenge. He wondered if Fowler would appreciate the danger he had created by including Jones in the briefing; it meant there was going to be a witness to a presidential decision. And covert actions had to be presidential decisions.
“I didn’t say that,” insisted Fowler.
“It would still be possible,” said Peterson, unwilling to allow the other man to evade the responsibility.
“You sure it can succeed?”
“That would be an impossible assurance to give,” said Peterson, not taking care to hide his irritation. “We’ve tried to anticipate every obstacle. And largely as the result of Soviet assistance, we’re confident of infiltrating two people into the installation; we’re in a lot better shape now than we were a week ago.
“We’re breaking the law, you know,” said Fowler, suddenly.
“It would be difficult to work within it, in these circumstances,” said Peterson quickly. He wondered if Fowler realized his mistake: he had admitted complicity before a third person. He looked at Jones, unsure of his awareness. The deputy gazed back at him, his expression without comment.
“If we withdrew, would the Russians go on without us?” demanded the President.
“Unquestionably,” said Peterson, prompt again.
“Could they screw us on our involvement so far?”
“Probably,” said Peterson. “If we feared that strongly enough, we’d have to foul their efforts so that it was probably a Soviet incursion.”
“And if we did that, the installation would survive and the Libyan rocket would be launched?”
“Yes.”
“We don’t have a choice,” said Fowler.
“So you don’t want me to abort?” demanded Peterson, insistently.
“No,” said Fowler.
If Jones remained loyal, he had some sort of defense, decided Peterson. He hesitated at the thought about his deputy: there had never been a vestige of suspicion through which he could doubt the man. He smiled at Jones, who moved his mouth slightly in response. One of my closest friends, thought Peterson: perhaps the closest.
“They go into the complex tomorrow,” said Peterson. “I’ll be the communications link, from the destroyer.”
“The Soviets didn’t argue.”
“There’ll be constant liaison beween us.”
“I’m surprised.”
Peterson realized that he would have been too, had he not spent the previous three days with Petrov. It had been very easy to work with the man.
“What about your wife?” demanded the President, suddenly. “Won’t you want to spend some time with her?”
“She’s getting the best care possible,” said Peterson. “There’s not a lot I can do, at this stage. By the time she’s due for discharge, I shall be back here.”
Fowler nodded. “Sorry to hear of her problem,” he said.
“Thank you.”
Fowler looked beyond the Director to the deputy. “Appreciated the briefings of Mr. Jones, while you were away,” he said.
“Thank you,” said Peterson again. The praise was as much for the Agency as for the man, he decided. And was therefore a congratulation for him, as well.
“Still got my full support,” said Fowler.
“I’m grateful for the assurance,” said Peterson, sincerely.
“Don’t let me down.”
“I don’t intend to,” promised Peterson.
“Just wish I could get rid of this gut feeling,” said Fowler.
The Director of the clinic was named Richard Harrap. Surprisingly, although Peterson realized there was no logical reason for the surprise, he appeared hardly older than Paul. He was a heavy, athletic-looking man, with sports pennants and group football photographs around his office supporting the impression. They talked initially in the man’s office and then in an antechamber to the common room where there was a one-way mirror through which it was possible to watch the patients without their being aware of the attention. Peterson felt discomforted by it, as if he were a Peeping Tom. There were about twenty people in the room, more than half of them grouped in an annex in front of a television set. Lucille sat apart from them, reading a magazine. Occasionally she glanced up, apparently distracted by some response from the viewing group. She appeared relaxed and looked very well — not at all what Peterson had expected.
“We’ve conducted a medical examination, of course,” said Harrap. “There’s some liver enlargement.”
“What does that mean?” asked Peterson, with abrupt concern.
“If she doesn’t drink again, nothing very much,” said the doctor. “Fatty tissue is the most obvious sign of cirrhosis.”
“How long would you have her stay here?”
“The full treatment takes three months,” said Harrap. “She’s got to be brought around to the mental attitude of not wanting to drink.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Just be here,” said the doctor. “The worst part of the recovery is the awareness of how badly they’ve let themselves go. They’ve got to be constantly convinced that they still have the love of people who matter to them.”
“It might be difficult, in the next week or two,” said Peterson.
He was conscious of Harrap’s attention. “Couldn’t you rearrange your schedule a little?”
“No,” said Peterson. “It’s impossible.”
“I see,” said the doctor, stressing the disappointment in his voice.
“Just a couple of weeks,” repeated Peterson, awkwardly.
“Your son’s been very good,” said Harrap. “He hasn’t missed a visit.”
“Can I see her now?”
“Of course. Do you want to go in there or have her taken back to her own room?”
Peterson’s face flickered with distaste at the dispassionate way the doctor was referring to Lucille. “Is one better than the other?”
“Psychologically, the communal room is better. It shows you’re not ashamed of her in front of people whom she’s now having to regard as friends.”
“Is that what she thinks? That I was somehow ashamed of her?”
Harrap smiled at the naïvety of the question. “It’s never as easy as that to discover a reason, Mr. Peterson. Alcoholism is a psychological disease, latent in many people, like a tubercular bacillus.”
“I’ll see her in the communal room,” he decided.
“It’ll be best if a nurse warns her first.”
“I’ll wait in the corridor,” said Peterson. He wanted to accord her some privacy, to prepare herself.
It was fifteen minutes before a nurse came to fetch him. Everyone in the room turned as he entered; there only seemed to be one other visitor — a woman visiting a man. They sat close together near a window, their knees touching.
Lucille was in the same chair that he had seen her occupy from the viewing-room. Her hair seemed freshly combed and as he approached she pulled at her skirt, trying to straighten some imaginary crease. He stopped some way short of where she was, not knowing what to do.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello.” Why did there seem to be embarrassment between them? He was reminded of the dinner she had prepared, just before he had gone away. That hadn’t worked, either.
“It’s nice to see you.”
“I’ve been away.”
“Paul told me.”
Peterson remembered Harrap’s warning that she would be afraid he was ashamed of her. He should show some affection, he thought. He went forward again, bending as he reached the chair, and kissed her on the cheek. She smelt very clean and fresh, with only a trace of perfume.
“How are you?”
“I feel fine.”
“Good.”
“You look tired,” she said.
He felt it, Peterson realized. He should have attempted some rest on the plane. “I’ve been busy,” he said, immediately regretting the words.
She smiled, but it wasn’t a sarcastic expression. “Always so very busy,” she remembered.
“The doctors seem very nice.” Would Harrap still be watching them, through the one-way glass, wondered Peterson somewhat uncomfortably.
“They say it’s an illness.”
“Yes.”
“And that I’ll always have it. That I’ll have to learn never to drink again.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think that will be difficult. Not sitting here, thinking about it, I mean. I don’t know what it’ll be like outside.”
“I’ll be there to help,” he said, immediately.
“Will you, Jamie?” Again there was no sarcasm.
“Yes,” he said and meant it. It was his fault she was here, just as Beth was his fault. He wouldn’t fail her again. Or his daughter, if he could locate her.
As if aware of his thoughts, she said: “Since I’ve been in here … able to understand things better … Paul has told me all about Beth.”
“She’s gone from Arizona,” said Peterson.
“She’d be back here with us in Washington if you’d been able to go.” Just as there had been no sarcasm, there was no recrimination.
“Yes,” he said.
“Or if I’d been able to go.”
He frowned up at her. “It’s not for you to reproach yourself,” he said urgently. “Nothing was your fault.”
“I wasn’t a lot of help though, was I?”
He extended his hand towards her and she snatched at it, as if she had been waiting for the gesture. “Lucille,” he said. “Beth didn’t leave because of you or become involved with the people she has because of you. If anyone is responsible, then I am.”
“Will you be able to find her again?”
“Of course,” lied Peterson, remembering Harrap’s warning about encouragement and confidence.
“Will you go to get her this time?”
“Yes. This time I’ll go immediately to get her back,” he said. What would happen if it occurred when he was on a destroyer somewhere off the coast of some Godforsaken African country?
“Promise me, Jamie.”
“I promise.” Just as he had done before, on more occasions than he cared to remember.
“I can do it, you know,” she said suddenly, and for a moment he was confused, unsure of what she was talking about. “Not drink,” she said, seeing his difficulty. “I really don’t want to. And that’s after only two weeks.”
“Of course you can do it,” he said.
“If you help me,” she said.
“I’ve said I will.”
“Do you mean it?” she said., “Do you really mean it?” Her grip against his hand was so tight it hurt.
“I really meant it,” he said.
20
Dimitri Petrov’s decision to seek a meeting with the full Politburo cabinet had been consciously thought out. The importance of what he was attempting provided cause enough, but that was not the predominant reason for the request. The KGB chief was determined to bypass Sergei Litvinov. Petrov was convinced that through the liaison official, the account would have been presented as grounds for the purge for which his critics had waited so long.
And Litvinov had guessed at the maneuver, Petrov decided. For almost an hour, he had sat to the left of the three men, attempting to listen expressionlessly as Petrov patiently recounted everything that had happened since they had become aware of the Chad installation from satellite surveillance. Litvinov had been unable to control the tic beneath his left eye. From previous encounters, Petrov knew it to be a nervous response to being beaten; it pleased him to have upset the man.
The silence stretched on for a long time after Petrov had finished talking.
“I find it very worrying,” said the chairman, Boris Dorensky, at last. Dorensky was an overweight, bespectacled man who had wieled power within the Soviet Union since Kruschchev’s regime. He suffered from angina and his ill heath was the subject of frequent speculation in the Western press, to whom his importance within the Politburo had only just become obvious.
Litvinov moved hurriedly to take up Dorensky’s lead. “I have already reported on several earlier occasions on the outline of this problem,” he said. “During those reports, I made no secret of my concern at what I considered to be the unsatisfactory way the problem was being handled.”
“There has been proper reason for occasional contact with the U.S. in the past,” said Dorensky, “but this is active cooperation.”
“There should have been consultation before a decision of this magnitude was taken,” said the third member of the cabinet. Ivan Borrosuba was a thin, aesthetic man whom Petrov considered the most cultured of the group; he knew that Borrosuba saw himself as the natural successor to the leadership of the KGB.
“There was a need for speed,” said Petrov. “‘Every indication from the satellite photographs is that a launch is near.”
Dorensky gestured towards Litvinov. “An official was appointed to liaise over the matter,” he said. “What delay would have been caused by informing him fully of what you intended?”
Again Litvinov intruded. “Isn’t the truth of the matter that you feared immediate rejection and sought to work without the knowledge of people to whom you had a duty to report?”
“No,” said Petrov. “That isn’t the truth of the matter at all.” He felt very relaxed. Litvinov’s determination to oppose him was making it much easier than he had anticipated. The Cabinet sat looking at him expectantly: they were all hostile, Petrov decided.
“Without American liaison,” said Petrov, “we would not have got the confirmation that the purchaser was Libya and that it was the Middle East where the danger existed.
“And America would not have been able to infiltrate the complex,” argued Litvinov. “Why couldn’t we have kept that to ourselves?”
“Because it would not have been safe,” said Petrov. He stopped, determined to expose Litvinov as far as possible.
“Safe?” queried the man.
“Does the Soviet Union want another conflict in the Middle East?” said Petrov.
“Of course not,” said Dorensky.
“But can we risk any relationship we have with the Middle East nations by being seen to interfere openly with the affairs of an Arab country, even one regarded with the suspicion that Libya is?”
“No,” said Dorensky. He was speaking guardedly now, curious at the points that Petrov was establishing.
“Any more, surely, than we can appear to be attempting to influence affairs in Africa, particularly with the penetration that the People’s Republic of China is achieving?”
“Is there any point in this elementary display of political awareness?” demanded Litvinov, attempting sarcasm.
“Every point. Comrade Litvinov,” said Petrov, patronizing now. “Every point in the world.”
Again he waited, forcing the question from his opponent.
“What?” said Litvinov. At last he was beginning to appear uncomfortable.
“Gerda Lintz is entering Africa under West German documentation,” said Petrov, speaking carefully so that nothing would be missed by the Cabinet. “All trace of her ever having been transferred from Leipzig to Moscow University is being erased. Not that there is any way of the West discovering it anyway, but her name has been removed from any accord at Baikonur, as well. Vladimir Makovsky is going to Chad under the auspices of a Roman Catholic order financed by the Central Intelligence Agency. There is no trace of his name ever having been on any records held by the KGB or of his residency in Moscow or Leningrad. Similarly, there are no longer any records in existence of the jungle training school near Odessa run by Oleg Sharakov or of the ten-man unit he is taking into Africa …”
Dorensky was smiling now, sitting back expansively in his chair.
“The communications for the attempted sabotage are being conducted from an American guided-missile destroyer on station in the Gulf of Guinea,” continued the KGB head. “On board will be the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.…”
“You’ve been very clever, Comrade General,” praised the chairman.
“If all or any part of our attempted incursion goes publicly wrong, then there is nothing at all establishing Soviet involvement that we cannot satisfactorily explain,” said Petrov, determined to finish. “For every accusation made against us, we could leak through the Western media outlets we control enough convincing proof that people being identified as Russians were in fact Americans introduced to embarrass us.”
