High Jinx (23 page)

It hadn't required him to speculate about the location of the proposed rendezvous. Three years before, Boris Bolgin would meet his British informer, when there was traffic to be exchanged, at the fourth confessional stall back from the altar, on the left side of the church at Farm Street. Blackford Oakes had worked on the case, and in due course the clandestine arrangement became known to him.

The meeting place had the obvious advantages, the church being dimly lit; and at that hour priests were not hearing regular confessions, so that any odd-hour worshippers, remarking a priest enter the stall, would reason simply that special arrangements had been made for somebody sick or in imminent danger of going to hell or off the following day on a trip around the world single-handed on a sailboat—whatever.

A private meeting with Bolgin! His chief antagonist for three years now. Head of KGB-Britain. The very idea of such a meeting intrigued Blackford, who in the three years they had battled each other, so to speak in the dark, had come to know something of the background of Boris Andreyvich Bolgin. Several times Blackford had stared probingly at the single photograph the archives possessed of the man who posed as military attaché at the Soviet Embassy, who never attended any public function, and was never present at any of the very few social functions held at the embassy.

Rufus. He must consult with him, Blackford thought.

And thought again. He did not doubt that Rufus would authorise him to cooperate. But Rufus might stipulate certain precautions that Bolgin would interpret as a breach of trust … Blackford's esteem for Rufus was such that he asked himself, finally, whether Rufus, in Blackford's shoes, would report to Rufus: and decided, although with misgivings, that Rufus would
not
report to Rufus. And so Blackford would not.

He picked up the telephone to cancel his scheduled meeting with Minerva, who wept over the telephone until Blackford promised that he would telephone her if he found himself free later in the evening. ‘No matter how late?' she pleaded. ‘No matter how late,' Blackford promised.

It proved to be much later than he expected.

At exactly 9:04 Blackford got up from the pew where he had sat for ten minutes, and where he had most fervently prayed for guidance, prayed also that the Lord would intervene in the affairs of men sufficiently to rid the world of the curse around which he had built his professional career. He could discern the confessional, but was far enough away from it to avert any suspicion that he was engaged in trying to memorise the features of the stocky man wearing a cassock who, at three minutes after nine, walked through the entrance to the church directly to the confessional, opening the priest's door, entering it, and quietly closing it again.

Blackford rose, entered the penitent's booth, and drew shut the curtain. The priest opened the sliding partition. They could not, in the dark, see each other, but their heads were inches away. Boris spoke softly: ‘I shall speak to you in German. You are fluent in German and I am more comfortable in it than in English. And besides, it is not a bad idea to speak in a foreign tongue.'

‘What do you want, Bolgin?' Blackford replied.

‘I want to spend one hour with you, and I have a suggestion that I think you will find professionally acceptable. We will both leave the confessional together. We will walk out the rear door and across Mount Street to the Connaught Hotel. There we will ask the doorman to get us a taxi. Whichever taxi is at the head of the line is the taxi we will take. We will then ask the taxi driver to take us to his favourite pub. If it proves entirely unsuitable for our conversation I will give you a list of recommended pubs I have in my pocket, and you will select the pub we shall go to. Are these precautions satisfactory?'

Blackford thought. The suggested schedule was not the way to trap an American CIA agent. Moreover, it made no sense, having got this far, to be querulous.

‘That is satisfactory. Except omit the driver's pub. When we get into the cab, give me your list and I shall select one.'

‘Very well. You are ready?'

‘I am ready.'

They both got up and walked out. Bolgin led the way to the church door. Silently they walked over to the Connaught. Three cabs were in line, and as they approached the hotel entrance, the first one was summoned by the doorman for a middle-aged woman who was waiting. Boris Bolgin, carrying an umbrella which had suddenly materialised from inside his cassock and which he used now as a walking stick, hailed the doorman: A taxi, please?

The doorman pocketed the half-crown Bolgin tendered him and whistled for the next cab, which drove up the hotel's miniature half-moon drive. The doorman addressed Bolgin.

‘You are going … sir?'

‘Ah, yes,' Bolgin said in a guttural English. ‘I have it written down in my pocket. Mr. Chestnut, sir, can you read the address? I do not have on my glasses.'

Blackford used the light from the hotel's huge brass lamp and read a page cut out from the current issue of
What's On
magazine, giving the names of a dozen bar-restaurants. He was familiar with several of them. He selected the Queen's Arms, which was quiet; indeed, it had several private rooms. He gave the name and address to the doorman, who called it out to the driver.

In the cab Bolgin, while removing his cassock and tucking it into his large briefcase, spoke, as ever in German: spoke of the summer weather, of the indifferent quality of British food, of the fact that as a boy, his mother had made him use the confessional, but that it had become increasingly dangerous to do so, and how greatly relieved he was, on reaching fourteen, that his mother thought it in fact too dangerous and so ceased going to church. ‘The revolution's first flower in my young life,' Bolgin chuckled, ‘rescued me from compulsory church-going with my mother.'

They pulled up at the Queen's Arms, Bolgin took out a ten-shilling note, carefully counted out the tip, and they went in. Bolgin turned to Blackford and, still in German, said, ‘You make the arrangements.'

In a few minutes they were in a small private room. A table with two comfortable chairs, a couch at one end of the room, and as much or as little lamplight as they chose, done by rheostat. The waiter took their orders. Blackford asked for a pint of beer and some crisps. Somewhat to his surprise, Boris ordered a bottle of vodka; and then asked for cheese and sausage and hard rolls.

‘I have not eaten. You have eaten?'

‘Yes,' Blackford said. Bolgin continued with the badinage until the food and drink came.

Bolgin poured himself a half glass of vodka and placed a sausage into half a roll, squeezing it together. He took a deep draught of his drink and then bit a large hunk from his roll. It occurred to Blackford that he looked not unlike Khrushchev: small, sharp eyes; jowls, wattles, teeth separated, nose squat, though Bolgin had more hair, which he wore in a crew cut. His nose was dappled and slightly pink. Bolgin caught Blackford's eye: ‘Frostbite. Courtesy of Siberia. It is there, too, that I learned not to postpone eating. Bad habit,' he took another large swallow of vodka. He leaned back in his chair.

‘I don't often drink while doing business. In fact I never do. On the other hand, I don't often have a meal with a fascist imperialist.' He chortled. Blackford half smiled.

‘Let's get on with it, Bolgin.'

‘Yes. Yes.' He grew, suddenly, serious. He looked about him cautiously. The small upholstered room was secure. They could hear the hum of voices from the bar and dining room outside. Boris turned to Blackford. ‘You will perhaps understand my request if I tell you that my life depends on it?'

‘What is it, Bolgin?'

‘Would you not consent to call me Comrade Bolgin? Or perhaps Mr. Bolgin? You may of course call me just Boris, though perhaps you will find that too familiar.'

Blackford detected a creeping mellowness in voice and manner.

‘I shall call you anything you like,' he said.

‘In that case, call me Boris. If you think of it as too familiar, you can excuse it by appealing to the protocols of the world we operate in, where everyone has only a single name. A false name. My name actually is Boris, but you can use it as though it were a pseudonym. What shall I call you?'

‘Whatever you like.'

Bolgin chortled. ‘You heard me refer to you outside the hotel as Herr Chestnut? Oak? Chestnut? Birch? Maple?' He laughed, and drank again from his refilled glass. ‘The “Chestnut” came first to my mind, so I shall call you that: Mr. Chestnut.' He laughed again. ‘But I must get on with my request. I wish, please, to search you to make certain that you are not carrying one of those wire recorders.'

‘Of course.' Blackford stood up, raised his arms, while Bolgin quickly and expertly frisked him.

‘Thank you,' Bolgin sat down, and drank again. ‘Do you know the Russian authors, Mr. Chestnut?'

Blackford said that he had read much of Dostoevsky, and a little Chekhov and Tolstoy.

‘Ah!' Bolgin responded. ‘What treasures we have given to the world! I have read them all—Turgenev! My God, you did not mention Turgenev! Or Gogol! Or Pushkin! I have read them all—and when I finish, I begin again!' Blackford noticed the sudden change in his voice, which had become lyrical. ‘Ah, Mr. Chestnut, if only we lived in a world in which everyone spent time reading, instead of killing.'

‘That would put most of your friends out of work,' Blackford permitted himself.

Bolgin arrested his hand, which was halfway to his mouth. ‘You talk about killing, my dear Mr. Chestnut. You who invented the atomic bomb. You who plundered the Indians and the Mexicans. You whose folk heroes are Billy the Kid and Jesse James! You lecture
us
about killing!'

‘You certainly do not sound, Boris, like a graduate of the Gulag.'

‘Ah!' The tone now was conspiratorial. ‘I will confide to you that
I
did
not
admire Comrade Stalin. No, not at all. I worked for him, yes. There was no other way than to work for Comrade Stalin. But I think things will be different. But I have certain fears. These are what I am here to talk to you about. And please, let us not talk about the imperialists until we do our business, shall we, Mr. Chestnut?'

‘
Sie sind dran
—It's your call, Boris. So what did bring you out tonight? We have not spoken once in the three years—'

‘In the three years in which I have kept pace with your perfidious activities. No, we have not spoken, Mr. Chestnut. But'—he was serious again—‘I come to you with the gravest intelligence. Something even I am not supposed to know. Perhaps only four, five people know it.' Blackford waited.

In hushed tones Bolgin said: ‘When Comrade Malenkov comes to visit England, it is planned that a bomb will explode in his car. The English will be publicly blamed. And Beria will take over the government in Moscow.'

Blackford found himself breathing slowly. Bolgin drank again.

Blackford: ‘Why are you telling me?'

‘Because I do not want another Stalin,' Bolgin said simply, his eyes downcast.

‘What use did you expect me to make of this information?'

‘Have security forestall the accident. I would expect to be able, from my source, to supply you with more detailed information before the event. Quick preventive measures would frustrate Beria's entire plan. Perhaps weaken him decisively.'

‘When would you expect to have this more … detailed information?'

‘In time. There is no secret more carefully guarded, but I will have it. If I do not have it twenty-four hours before the visit is scheduled, then you must abort that visit, on whatever pretext. I know that that would be difficult. But the alternative would be disastrous—if Malenkov is killed by a bomb while visiting this country.'

‘You realise, of course, that this is information I shall need to report to my superiors. Your proposals are hardly of the order I have the personal resources to implement.'

‘I know that. I expect that you will share your information with your superior, Rufus. And if it becomes necessary, of course, the Prime Minister and the President will need to concert the postponement.
I
am safe so long as Beria does not discover my source. If he does, and it becomes plain that British Intelligence was on to the plan, I have the choice of committing suicide or of being shot. Beria would find me anywhere else.'

Blackford didn't know quite how to respond to what Bolgin had just now told him. ‘You would of course be given sanctuary.'

‘There is no sanctuary from Beria.'

Best not to pursue the question. Blackford asked, instead, how Bolgin proposed to communicate with him in the critical days ahead.

‘Give me a private telephone number. If I need to meet with you I will give “Mr. Chestnut” the exact time that “confessions will be heard.”' Blackford scratched out on a matchbox the number of the telephone on his desk at James Street. Bolgin drained his glass—the bottle of vodka was empty. Blackford made an effort to drink down his beer. Bolgin leaned back, flushed. His hand, lighting a cigarette, was not entirely steady.

‘The next few days, at most two weeks, will tell. If all goes well, we will be fighting each other again.' He beamed. ‘But I will then be something other than the agent of Beria.'

Blackford thought it best not to say what was on his mind, that Malenkov and Khrushchev and Bulganin had not got where they had got except by satisfying the same monster, Stalin. Better, he thought, to be passive. He called for the bill, and presently they walked out together. Bolgin did not extend his hand, satisfying himself merely with, ‘
Auf Wiedersehen.
' Bolgin hailed the first cab, Blackford the next.

He gave the address of Rufus. His heart pounded. From the corner of Rufus's block, in the pub, he called. Rufus answered his phone pursuant to the convention—two rings, hang up, ring back, answer on the fourth ring. Upstairs in the apartment, he listened exactly to the exactly recounted story. It was 5
A.M
. in Washington when, after bidding Blackford good night, Rufus telephoned to the Director on the special line.