Skydancer (18 page)

‘Oh yes. I've heard about it, I'm afraid. The Prime Minister is horrified at what's been going on, and is after your blood. The only thing that's likely to save you from his wrath is his need to sweep the whole thing under the carpet in case it damages his tenuous hold on the reins of government. The press haven't yet heard about Mary Maclean's death, but the PM's planning to feed them something this afternoon. He may make a statement to the House of Commons.'

‘Good God!' Peter was aghast. ‘This is crazy. Don't you see, blaming the whole thing on a woman's revenge is too tidy – too convenient an end to the business.'

He pushed away his half-finished plate, and swallowed a mouthful of the white Burgundy Buxton had chosen.

‘Look, if you were in charge of the new anti-missile system protecting Moscow, and you learned by whatever sources that Britain had developed a new warhead enabling its nuclear bombs to penetrate those defences,
wouldn't you do everything you could to acquire the details of those new weapons?'

‘Probably,' Buxton replied briefly.

‘Now, if you were the head of the KGB department responsible for getting hold of those plans, and your agent in the field made a colossal bungle of the operation, what would
you
do about it? You'd try desperately to cover your tracks. And if you were a KGB chief, wouldn't you be ruthless enough to commit murder if it would succeed in throwing the poor old British off the scent?'

Buxton studied his glass of wine thoughtfully.

‘It's not inconceivable,' he conceded.

‘So, to go rushing in and blame the whole thing on an emotional woman has to be shortsighted, don't you think? At least get the PM to wait a few days before saying anything to the House.'

‘Not sure I can do that,' Buxton mused. ‘He thinks he's obliged to tell them something. But I might be able to persuade him to keep the details to a minimum. And anyway, come to think of it, if there is substance to your theory, it wouldn't do any harm for Ivan to think we'd fallen for his little trick. Might make him careless, don't you think?'

The waiter was hovering again.

‘More to eat, or just coffee?' Buxton enquired.

‘Coffee, thanks.'

‘What about John Black?' Peter continued as the waiter moved away. ‘He seems to be closing the investigation. He maintains there's no evidence that it was anything but suicide.'

‘Hmmm.' Buxton dropped a spoonful of sugar crystals into his coffee.

‘I suppose . . .' Peter persisted. ‘I suppose they
are
clean now? MI5, I mean. The Soviet infiltration seemed
pretty extensive. There was something odd in what John Black said to me.'

‘That business with the photograph, you mean?'

‘Yes. He insisted that picture wasn't in the flat when he interviewed her – yet there was something odd about the way he said it. I'm sure he was lying.'

‘Why should he bother to lie about a thing like that?'

‘I don't know,' Peter frowned. ‘But let's be fanciful for a moment. Let's pretend that Black is a Soviet agent, and that he murdered Mary and fixed it to look like suicide. Supposing there was some sort of struggle, and the photograph was smashed. He'd have got rid of it, wouldn't he? And of course he'd deny it had ever been there.'

‘Well, yes, but that's an awful lot of supposing,' Buxton answered doubtfully. ‘The curious thing is there is still no word from any of our agents suggesting the KGB are doing anything at all. Our men are pretty well placed, you know. They would almost certainly have heard some whisper of an operation if one was underway.' The Chief of the Defence Staff paused, frowning.

‘And yet that in itself is damned odd, isn't it?' he then continued. ‘If I was Ivan, I'd be bloody
sure
to be hatching some plot to learn the secrets of Skydancer.'

‘That's exactly my point,' Peter interrupted in relief. ‘So perhaps the Soviets are deliberately by-passing all their usual intelligence people. Perhaps there's some special team involved, and the reason we've heard nothing about it is that this team includes undiscovered Soviet moles inside our own security services!'

‘Clearly we mustn't draw any conclusions too soon,' Buxton determined. ‘We'll have to keep an open mind on the matter for the time being. And that leaves a big question-mark hanging over the test launch of Skydancer. You've just set up a complex deception plan
to counter a Soviet espionage operation which may or may not exist. If there's no plot, you could put the original programmes back in the missiles and do a proper test. But we don't know that for sure, so for the time being we'd better just do nothing. I'll send the boat back out into the Atlantic just to confuse the Russians, then we'll just sit tight and see what pops its head up out of the trench. Agreed?'

A waiter approached table. ‘Excuse me, sir, your secretary is on the phone,' he told Peter.

Peter made his apologies and followed the waiter out of the room.

The message was a summons to the Defence Secretary's office.

In Moscow snow was swirling in great determined gusts round the city squares and along the broad boulevards. It was still early for such intense snowfall Oleg Kvitzinsky reckoned, as he eased his Mercedes saloon into the parking area behind his apartment block. The tyres crunched tracks in the virgin whiteness as he drew to a halt.

He had just returned from the headquarters of the GRU, and could feel a deep depression settling over him. General Novikov had been abrupt and dismissive at his doubts about the intelligence organisation's competence. Novikov was an old-style soldier, a Party hard-liner who would never willingly accept criticism. The general considered Oleg a mere scientist, not qualified to comment on his methods.

At the lift entrance he gave his customary smile to the old woman who pressed the buttons. Like all those who acted out this menial role in Moscow, she was a KGB freelance who earned money by reporting the comings
and goings of citizens, and taking particular note of any visiting foreigners. Oleg found it painful that the organisations which were essential to providing information for his own work should also find it necessary to spy on
him
.

As he opened the door to his apartment he saw Katrina waiting for him. She was standing in their living-room, framed by the light of the picture window, staring out at the view of Moscow – its stylish pre-revolutionary architecture contrasting strongly with modern concrete slabs and factory chimneys. She turned to face her husband, and folded her arms. She had a round face and thick black hair expensively set in a bouffant style that was chic for Moscow but which would look cheap and clumsy in the West. The intensity of her dark eyes was further defined by thick mascara. As Oleg crossed the room, he saw her heavily lipsticked mouth was clamped firmly shut in an expression of brooding unhappiness.

‘Hello, my little dove,' he began sarcastically, knowing he was in for a further round of niggling criticism.

‘The Ivanovs are going to Geneva again tomorrow!' she burst out, unable to contain any longer the source of her unhappiness.

‘Are you surprised?' he countered, struggling to remove his heavy overcoat. ‘Igor is an adviser on our mission to the United Nations.'

‘Well, why can't
you
get a job like that?' she called after him as he returned to the hall to hang up his coat.

‘Katrina, don't ask questions to which you already know the answers!' he called back with forced patience.

Until two years ago, Oleg had nothing to do with military affairs, specialising instead in the extension of the use of computers and industrial robots in the Soviet
Union's heavy engineering plants. Such a senior civilian post had given him the right to foreign travel and, much to Katrina's satisfaction, he had taken full advantage of it. Switzerland, West Germany, Japan and the USA had all been frequent destinations on their overseas itineraries.

But all that had ended when he was summoned by the Academy of Military Sciences to take control of the Ballistic Missile Defence modernisation programme, which had found itself in deep trouble because of lack of coordination between the missile makers and the electronics and radar industries. Working for the military had its attractions – funds were almost unlimited, for example – but its great disadvantage was the refusal of the authorities to allow military scientists to travel to the West for fear they could be compromised, kidnapped or seduced away with the secrets they held inside their heads.

His salary had increased dramatically with this military job, and they now had the use of one of the finest apartments in Moscow – but Katrina was increasingly miserable. She had moulded her lifestyle round the acquisition of Western possessions for the home. She had once cultivated friends who had similar tastes and ambitions, but now she felt increasingly like a leper, rejected socially because her access to these foreign pleasures had been cut off.

Having removed his snow-scuffed boots, Oleg slipped his feet into a pair of sheepskin moccasins bought in Canada, and headed for the heavy oak sideboard where the drinks were kept. He pulled out a bottle of Scotch whisky and poured a two fingers' measure into a cut-crystal tumbler. Without turning round, he swallowed it in one gulp. As the spirit burned his throat, he shook his head like a dog that has just
emerged from a swim in the river, and refilled his glass.

‘Aah!' he sighed. The alcohol was already beginning to numb his nerves, and he turned to face his wife with a tolerant smile on his lips.

Kvitzinsky was forty-six, and had a pleasant face with a long, thin nose and those arched brows and childlike Russian eyes that always looked poised halfway between laughter and tears. His bald scalp was covered by long strands of straight hair combed up from the side and carefully held in position by a light coating of hair-oil.

‘Irina showed me a photograph of the dress she's going to buy in Geneva,' Katrina persisted. ‘It was in
Vogue
magazine. She's started dieting again to fit into it.'

‘Well, at least that's something you won't have to worry about,' Oleg laughed. Katrina had been fighting a losing battle against fat in recent years.

‘I could lose weight if I had a good reason to,' she retorted sourly.

‘Then do it for
me,
' Oleg whispered half-audibly into his glass.

‘I heard that! Even if I looked like a Hollywood film-star it wouldn't make any difference to your capabilities!' she snapped back. Seizing a glossy magazine from the glass-topped coffee table, she dropped angrily into an armchair with her back to him. ‘And don't get drunk tonight. We're going to the dacha tomorrow, remember?'

He had forgotten that, but was not going to admit it. The way things were going, he would not be able to leave Moscow that weekend, but he decided to keep that news to himself for the time being.

Peter Joyce. Peter Joyce. He muttered the name of the British scientist over and over again in his head. What had Joyce been doing on board that British
submarine the previous day? General Novikov had received a report from Florida that the scientist was seen making last-minute alterations to the test missile. But had he been altering the warheads so that the forthcoming test would be deliberately misleading, or simply making the final adjustments that any complex weapon system demanded? Oleg desperately needed to know.

Kvitzinsky clearly remembered meeting this Peter Joyce three years earlier, at an international scientific symposium in Geneva, on one of his last visits to the West before taking up the military post. The British scientist had impressed him greatly, with his strong determined face and secretive eyes. It would not be easy to get the better of Peter Joyce, he had concluded. The GRU's incompetence at the start of their operation was certain to have put Joyce on his guard. Getting hold of the Skydancer plans would not be simple now.

Kvitzinsky had been bitingly critical of the GRU at the start of his meeting with the general, angrily accusing his agents of incompetence. The intelligence chief had rounded on him harshly for so readily believing what he heard on the BBC. The plan was proceeding steadily, he insisted. What had happened was only a small hitch which had required minor changes to the schedule. Those adjustments had now been carried out, and the complete plans for Skydancer should be in Moscow within a few days, he had assured him.

‘I shall believe that when I see it,' Oleg now muttered to himself pessimistically, savouring the whisky growing warm in his grasp.

Through the forgiving haze of the spirit he looked across the room to where Katrina sat, still pointedly ignoring him. Her freshly coiffured hair and cream dress, patterned with large peach-coloured roses, made her look like a woman dressed for a party but with no
party to go to. She was a picture of discontent.

It was not just the prohibition on travel to the West which had created her unhappiness, as Oleg knew only too well. The cause was far more basic than that. Katrina was unsatisfied in the most fundamental way a woman can be.

They had been married now for over ten years, but were childless. Their marriage was barren, and in the Soviet Union, where children symbolise the future and the justification for all the struggles and hardships of the present, being childless was not a happy state.

Oleg insisted to his friends that the fault lay with Katrina. In truth, medical examinations had revealed nothing wrong with Katrina at all. She blamed Oleg for their failure to conceive, but he had refused to undergo medical tests himself.

Her nagging suspicions had seriously undermined his libido, and now that age and excess had taken their toll of her once shapely figure, he found it increasingly difficult to produce a useable erection. When he was totally sober the task had become almost impossible. After an invigorating intake of alcohol, he could usually succeed, yet with one glass too many he would slip back into impotence.