Stanov stood in his favoured position by the tall windows, looking out over the square. From the other side of the room Colonel Yevchenko watched him curiously. For once the chief was unsure. Yevchenko could tell from the way he twisted his steel-rimmed spectacles this way and that, unconscious of what he was doing.
The office was hermetically sealed against the outside world. Somewhere in the same building men monitored transmissions, typed reports, kept the machinery grinding away. They might have been on another planet. In the office of the Chairman of the KGB no word had been spoken for twenty minutes.
‘Where is he? Where is he?’
Yevchenko kept silence. Stanov had asked the same question with a variety of emphases many times that day. Kyril had been kidnapped by SIS in Athens and given them the slip, so much was certain. Stanov’s contacts in the KYP, the Greek Intelligence Service, could help no further. After that the veil came down until Bucharensky showed up in Belgium.
‘If he ever got out of Brussels, where the hell did he go?’
Stanov continued to stare out into the darkness while Yevchenko pulled a heavy, cork-covered flask from his inside pocket and poured two generous tots of vodka. The heating was turned low in the evenings now; one of many spending-cuts ordered by the Politburo. He tossed down his drink and poured another.
‘Vodka.’
Stanov turned away from the window and absentmindedly collected his drink. After a moment’s indecision he wandered across to The Chair and sat down so that he could face Yevchenko over the desk.
‘It’s going wrong, Nikolai,’ he said abruptly. ‘None of our people put a foot wrong over Athens. The Eighth Department’s completely in the clear. I was watching every move they made. It’s the same with Brussels. The Fifth Department’s clean, too. The traitor has to be elsewhere.’
Yevchenko shrugged. He had had enough of this. He wanted to go home.
‘One thing is sure, old man. There is nothing you… any of us… can do.’
Stanov nodded glumly. ‘I agree. But things are very tight now. Today…’
He compressed his lips and for a while said no more. Yevchenko knew that the Politburo had met that morning. For Stanov life was becoming progressively more tense.
‘They took some convincing over Sociable Plover. At first they flatly refused to believe it ever existed, but I had to tell them it did, of course. Then they wouldn’t accept that Bucharensky hadn’t got it with him – or at the very least, a copy. I had to show them the original – I ask you, Nikolai, a blue file leaving this office! – and explain about the paper, how it shows up if it’s so much as touched by human skin, but even then they weren’t really convinced. Kazin said…’
Stanov tailed off, got a grip on himself again.
‘…That man is a trial to me, Nikolai.’
Yevchenko grunted but said nothing. Stanov mused, his sunken eyes glittering dully in the poor light. Since the day of his stroke the illness was fast increasing its hold on him.
Privately Yevchenko doubted whether he would ever see July 1st, and for the hundredth time reminded himself that if he did not make plans soon it would be too late.
‘Suppose, Nikolai… Stanov’s voice rose barely above a whisper. Yevchenko had to strain to hear the words that followed. ‘Suppose we find this… this one we are looking for.’ He looked up slowly. ‘What should we do with him?’
‘Kill him. Torture him until we’re sure he’s told us all he knows, then…’
Yevchenko drew his finger across his throat. Stanov nodded slowly, like a man who wants to convince himself.
‘Perhaps. But suppose we could persuade him to work for us again, just for a little while, eh, Nikolai? Perhaps he has a wife, a child?’
‘Turn him, you mean. A dangerous game, that.’
‘Dangerous… But deadly, if properly used. Does it not appeal to you, the thought that we might be able to undo some of what this traitor has done? Think of the store of trust he has built up over the years.’
But Yevchenko was still doubtful. He signified as much by raising from his seat and saying, ‘Time to go. Tomorrow I’ll tell you what I think. Now, we go home.’
Stanov placed his hands on the desk-top and used them to lever himself painfully upright.
‘Sometimes Nikolai, I even wonder if you weren’t right about Bucharensky. If I’d told him a little more of the truth…’
Yevchenko shrugged with obvious annoyance.
‘It seemed so pointless, that’s all. I thought you were being devious for the sake of it. We both know that Loshkevoi isn’t the answer. The traitor won’t have revealed himself to a slug like that. If Kyril ever does manage to interrogate him, he’ll be wasting his time.’
‘But I had to give him a goal, Nikolai. Something for Bucharensky to work towards, take his mind off the knowledge that he was really only a moving target, put up for the sole purpose of drawing fire. Surely you can see that? And you’re wrong about Loshkevoi. Have you seen his latest report?’
Stanov began to rummage about on his desk. Suddenly his hand fell on what he was looking for and he held it up to the light, eyes squinting.
‘It’s crap. Loshkevoi’s gone adrift. Why, he was drunk when he wrote this, he had to be. He knows something. I feel it in my bones. He may not know it all, but something…’
‘You could be right.’
Yevchenko hated dithering. He wanted to go home to his warm appartment and have dinner, preceded by a drink, several drinks. His flask was empty.
‘What’s happening in A2?’
Yevchenko ground his teeth.
‘Every one of our executioners was still accounted for as of five o’clock this evening. Nothing suspicious. If “Lisa” means to send somebody after Bucharensky…’
‘If!’
To Yevchenko’s horror Stanov sat down again.
‘Put yourself in Lisa’s position. What facts does he know?’
Yevchenko said nothing.
‘First. Because of the diary it is possible that Kyril knows, or may know, his true indentity. Second. He knows that I have issued a personal order; return Kyril to me alive. Third. He knows that down in the cellars here they can be very persuasive. If Kyril is caught the traitor must reckon that he will talk. So, Nikolai… knowing all these facts, what would you do, eh?’
‘Then why hasn’t he done it already?’
Stanov lowered his eyes.
‘I don’t know,’ he said after a pause. ‘Perhaps because he’s clever. Perhaps… because like us he doesn’t yet know where Kyril is going to end up.’
He rose, and Yevchenko helped him on with his overcoat, now several sizes too large for him. As the Colonel stepped aside for his chief to pass through the double-doors he heard the old man mutter:
‘But where is he? Where?’