Krysalis: Krysalis (15 page)

The funny thing, Albert thought morosely, is that Redman actually believes it. Not good.

“Fuck that. Albert, what are your people
doing
about her?” Hayes’ voice was barely controlled.

“We’re having the airports and so forth watched around the clock. All our embassies and consulates have been briefed to look out for her, particularly Paris.”

“She’s not in Paris. She
told
the world she was going to Paris, so Paris is where she’s
not.
Suppose she left England before Lescombe called you, had you thought of that?”

“Certainly. But because Mrs. Lescombe has a British passport, immigration won’t be holding any record of her departure.”

“Jee-zuss! What about foreign immigration services, have you alerted them?”

“If she went to Europe by train or boat, she probably wouldn’t even have to show her passport,” Albert replied. “That’s one of the things that makes me think she may not be as amateur as all that.”

“Well, at last someone’s talking sense.” The look
Hayes gave Albert contained a certain admiration. “She’s as professional as they come.”

Albert assumed a modest expression, although secretly he was pleased. “We shall, of course, be checking all airline passenger lists,” he said. “It’ll take a little time, but—”

“Time is exactly what we do not have,” Redman interjected. “Albert, there is a question I would like to ask and it bears on what Bill was saying about the foreign immigration people. Your people haven’t alerted any European intelligence service about this, have they?”

“Well, no. We wanted to ask you first, you see, Louis. Having regard to what’s in Krysalis …”

Redman blew out through rounded lips. It took him a long time to empty all the air from his lungs. “Great.”

“But I don’t know how much longer we can go on handling this alone. The question I’ve been asked to put is: Will you cooperate, Louis?”

“Strictly on our terms. You see, I endorse every word Bill said about Vancouver. If the Russians get their hands on Krysalis, there simply can’t be a summit. And then we’d have to explain to the world why we were the ones to back away from peace talks.”

Hayes opened his mouth. Before any words came out, however, the intercom squawked. Redman, glad of the interruption, reached out to press a button.

“Yes, Sam?”

“Six on line four.”

Redman retreated behind his oak desk and began to murmur into the telephone. Albert was vaguely aware of his switching over to the scrambler. He examined his fingernails, but they told him nothing he didn’t already know.

Hayes, predictably, wanted to eliminate Anna, but Redman, his boss, was playing cautious. So Albert needed to work on Redman, bring him around to his own point of view. But there was a problem: the CIA had a corps of marksmen at their disposal and some of them could shoot almost as straight as he could. Albert wanted CIA support, but only as long as it was
his
finger on the trigger.

At the moment, London had a tight grip on the reins and Hayes lacked both the authority and the excuse to order his own hit team onto a trusted ally’s turf, thank God, so Albert was still in with a chance. But first he had to convince his employers that Anna Lescombe needed blowing away, and the British traditionally fought shy of assassination.

Albert was going to have to change that. For the present, however, he could not for the life of him see how. And if he’d hoped to win support at this meeting, it was plain that he was in for a disappointment.

Redman had started to take notes. His expression became increasingly agitated. When his eyes met Albert’s he shook his head disbelievingly. “Get me a copy,” he said at last. “Would you do that, Jeremy?”

He allowed the receiver to drop back onto its rest from a considerable height, and slowly sat back, folding his hands behind his neck.

“Jeremy Shorrocks has received a fax.” He laughed. “Ain’t that nice?”

“You going to tell us about it?” Hayes inquired.

“Addressed to MI6 Liaison via the generic blue line. Sent from Athens.”

“Yeah?”

“Some crackpot is asking one million sterling for the return of Krysalis and Mrs. Lescombe. Any attempt to
trace the seller will result in the ending of negotiations as well as the permanent disappearance of the document. And of Anna, too, by the sound of it.” He consulted the notes that he had been taking throughout the call. “Deadline for close of negotiations, Saturday noon.”

There was a long silence. Albert stared out the window. The weather in London was overcast and cold. A trip to Greece, Athens … that could be fun.

“How the hell did whoever sent it know the Liaison number?” Hayes asked.

Albert started to speak, then thought better of it. “Do you intend to negotiate with whoever sent that?” he said at last.

“No,” said Hayes.

Albert sought and found reluctant confirmation in Redman’s eyes. He felt a
frisson
of pleasure; was that the first sign of a conversion?

“And Mrs. Lescombe sent it,” Hayes went on. “She’s got Krysalis and it’s up for sale. We’re not buying. With Vancouver seven weeks off, plenty of others may. How soon before we get a photocopy of that fax?”

“Jeremy’s having it biked around.”

“Great. Albert, when you see Jeremy, maybe you’d like to suggest he get himself a new fax number?”

Albert’s smile was grim.

Hayes took his leave. His departure provoked a deep silence while the other two exchanged those ironic, meaningful glances that said, “How tiresome our teenage children are getting, but what can you do …?”

“What can we do?” Redman said to the room at large.

“You know damn well,” Albert replied.

CHAPTER
11

Early on Monday the duty officer gave Barzel a room under the eaves of the German Democratic Republic’s embassy in London’s Belgrave Square, and left him alone with a phone. He sat at the table, enfolding the instrument with his arms, waiting for it to ring.

He’d been there for the best part of a day now. At odd intervals, nothing capable of giving rise to a pattern, he would dial Kleist’s house in Hampstead. Sometimes the housekeeper answered and sometimes it was the receptionist. Never Kleist himself. Mr. Kleist, they told him, more than once, is not available.

Barzel could not begin to guess what had gone wrong. He was terrified.

Colonel Huper said little when Barzel finally summoned up enough courage to make his report. His main concern was to establish the extent of the threat to established lines of communication, agents in place, dead-letter boxes—the trivia of espionage, as far as Barzel was concerned. Huper had been remarkably uncommunicative
about the immediate future, Barzel’s in particular.

Sometimes Barzel would walk up and down the attic room, smoking, or chewing his fingernails. For the most part he simply sat, staring at the phone cradled between his forearms, waiting for it to ring. He did not know why. No one was likely to call him. Guardian angels were in short supply.

Kleist had vanished, taking Anna with him; that much seemed clear. Heavy MI5 activity at the Islington house showed up routinely on HVA’s daily stat sheet, and was capable of only one explanation.

Who possessed the Krysalis file?

What had happened in those lost hours after Kleist made contact with Anna? Could he have managed to program her to open the safe? Barzel had only a halfhearted belief in hypnosis. He wished he’d taken the trouble to study the subject before approaching Kleist. And of course, he’d been mad to reactivate Kleist in the first place.

What had gone wrong? Where were they?

Had Kleist fallen in love with Anna again? Yes. Barzel cursed himself over and over again for failing to see the signs, now so obvious in retrospect.
You fool …

Who had the file?

How much longer would Huper give him?

Questions. Countless, unanswered questions …

When his electronic pager sounded at lunchtime on Tuesday, Barzel stared at it uncomprehendingly. He was short of sleep, he was hungry, it took him several seconds to retrieve reality. Agent contact. Number …?

He held up the pager to highlight the caller’s number. That was … who was it?

Margaret.

Barzel leapt for the door.

The Soviet KGB had managed to install two moles in the CIA’s London headquarters flanking Grosvenor Square. Barzel long ago made friends with the best of them: a middle-aged woman code-named Margaret. She worked in Bill Hayes’ outer office.

Twenty minutes later, Barzel, following a long-established routine, steamed into Hatchard’s bookstore on Piccadilly. He loped down the stairs to the basement, where they sold paperbacks. This area was crowded with browsers taking their midday office breaks. Barzel’s eyes flickered here and there. Within seconds he’d placed a familiar woman wearing a blue coat, deep in some book taken from the philosophy section.

Barzel had to force himself to ignore his surroundings. He loved this shop. Many an hour had he spent here, gazing with awe upon the ranged volumes, each of which could be purchased for the price marked on the back cover. There were no hidden costs, no extras, the knock on the door in the middle of the night, interrogation, jail here played no part in the simple transaction known as buying a book. Today he had to forget all that. Today was business of a grosser kind, although perhaps it could save his life.

He bided his time, approaching Margaret in stages: a pause by the table to turn over two or three of the latest novels, glance over the shoulder, not being followed, nothing suspicious, move on …

At last he was standing beside her, somehow managing to control his breathing. She did not appear to notice him. She replaced the book she had been studying and moved toward the cash desk.

Barzel looked to left and right. All his instincts were
at peace. No one was following him. He took down the book he’d last seen in Margaret’s hands and opened it at page two hundred. The single sheet of flimsy paper was all he needed to see. Moments later he had bought the book and was making his way along the pavement to St. James’ Church.

He sat in a pew right at the back and opened the book again. The sheet of paper he’d noted in Hatchard’s was typewritten. He unfolded it and began to read.

Barzel sucked in a deep breath. Some weeks ago he had routinely “tagged” Krysalis, telling all his contacts to look out for the name; now he blessed his foresight. He read on, eager for the text of the fax itself.

There followed an address, presumably that of the fax agency. Barzel saw that Margaret had added a handwritten postscript:

“You’re forgiven,” Barzel muttered. A passing priest glanced at him with a mixture of curiosity and approval.

Barzel sat in silence for a moment longer, mastering his elation. He needed to make one phone call, to HVA’s station chief in Athens. Then … he glanced at his watch and remembered: Olympic Airways had an office in Piccadilly.

A ticket to Athens, that was the first thing. He could make his call from the car, on the way to Heathrow.

Barzel’s headlong rush for the exit was not a seemly way to leave a church.

CHAPTER
12