The Rocket Man (21 page)

‘Well, perhaps. In any event, you are to be careful, hm? We don't want anything getting back through her to her husband.'

‘No. Of course not.'

‘As to the next step, please be patient just for a few days.'

‘I'm not happy about this at all. I can't see any reason …'

‘But there may be reasons you are not aware of, which we are, Dmitry Nikolayevich.'

Dmitry stared gloomily out of the window. Then he said, half under his breath, ‘You can't actually stop me from talking to the DDG, or Kaisler either, for that matter.'

Vedyensky stubbed out his cigarette. ‘No. Of course not. But it would probably not be very good for your career.'

‘Perhaps this is more important to me than my “career.”'

‘It is because we consider it so important that we are asking you to be patient.'

‘I am not a patient man.'

‘No, Dmitry Nikolayevich, we know that is not one of your virtues. Indeed, you are not really a very virtuous man, are you? You would be surprised to know what we know about you.'

Dmitry put his tea-cup down suddenly onto the saucer with a loud clatter and got to his feet. ‘What is all this shit?' he demanded. ‘What more of this outdated rubbish have you got up your sleeve? Faked letters of denunciation? Compromising photographs?'

Vedyensky looked astonished. Dmitry tried to calm himself. ‘Porfiry Ivanovich, you cannot make these kind of threats to me anymore. You can't have me sent back home if I don't do as you ask. I do not have to co-operate with you in any way unless I wish it. You know perfectly well that you and your people are becoming a kind of dinosaur.'

Vedyensky now looked at Dmitry coldly. Dmitry felt his anger; it was equally returned. He nearly shook with rage, but he thought, I mustn't make an enemy of him, these types can still be dangerous. He said, ‘Excuse me, I have work to do.' Vedyensky rose and followed him, joining him again as he waited for the lift. Dmitry stared deliberately in the opposite direction.

‘I only mentioned this,' said Vedyensky quietly, ‘To try to make you realise the importance of doing things our way.'

‘I can't imagine what you are talking about.'

‘Oh, I think you can.'

‘Then tell me.' The lift had opened; there were three people in it. They stepped inside. Dmitry continued, his voice raised in anger, ‘Tell me in front of all these people. I am not ashamed of anything.' Nonetheless he felt his cheeks burn red, betraying him. Vedyensky flinched; the others looked away in embarrassment. When they got out Vedyensky suddenly said, ‘Come here with me.'

He led Dmitry into a room to the right of the bank of lifts; it was a room for quiet and meditation. In the centre stood a large stone sculpture, shaped like a ring doughnut. Vedyensky ran his hand thoughtfully along its edge.

‘Have you ever been in here before?'

Dmitry looked pointedly at a small notice on the wall requesting silence. ‘You are not supposed to talk in here.'

‘No, I know that. That is why I don't suppose anyone would have it bugged.'

Dmitry sat down abruptly on a raised platform at the end of the room and sank his face in his hands.

‘You should be more careful about your behaviour, Dmitry Nikolayevich. Things may be more open these days, but you still have to be aware of your position. People are beginning to say things about you.'

‘You don't have to threaten me,' he said. ‘It will have the opposite effect to what you intend. It's true that things are different now; I would have thought you would have changed your methods.'

‘I was threatening you with nothing; you have quite misunderstood me,' said Vedyensky; he seemed suddenly to have changed his whole approach. ‘You are very highly thought of here; you are a credit to our country, a fine example of what our educational system and scientific training can achieve. Everyone says you are outstanding.'

Dmitry waved his hand dismissively. ‘Please spare me all this. What have you brought me here to tell me?'

‘Let us set all this other business aside. The fact is, you need our help. As you know the electronic sweep of your apartment showed, as you suspected, that your phone was tapped, via a transmitter in the junction box in the street. We'll be watching now to see when someone comes to replace the batteries, and make sure nobody gets access again.'

‘Thanks.'

‘We don't know how they got in – but this isn't too difficult. There isn't anyone else who has a key to your apartment is there? Your girlfriend?'

‘No.'

‘We also checked your office. That is more difficult, with a PABX system, but your line was also tapped – quite a complex matter because they had to use a repeater to get the signal out of the International Centre. They used a device in the base of the instrument itself. This we have also left in place. Just assume that everything you say is being recorded, heh?'

Vedyensky paused for a moment, as if to let this sink in, then carried on. ‘Then the surveillance team… they are using three men, in eight-hour shifts. There are three cars, one ahead, one behind, one floating, he stays completely out of sight till he's needed when they want to change positions. That's all quite standard. They are using a private intelligence agency. If they were working for a secret service for a Western government, they'd be using more people; perhaps six men or more, they can afford it. They would probably be more discreet. But whoever that is would need a lot of money, because this kind of thing doesn't come cheap.'

‘Can't you find out who is doing this?'

‘Well, of course – and who is actually following you – but you see that won't get us very far, Dmitry Nikolayevich. These private intelligence agencies, they never know who their clients are. It's all done through dead-letter boxes, that kind of thing. We have to work that out in other ways. Now you had better let the whole thing drop. This is why I tell you not to talk to anyone. This journalist friend of yours, in particular. You see, they know you are linked to him. He's probably actually in the same situation as you.'

Dmitry was silent, thinking it all through.

‘Boris Alexeyevich Kulagin will accompany you to your apartment tonight. You don't know him, his cover is a translator at the UN. I think you'll find him easy enough to get on with. You should be able to sleep a little more easily. Please let me know if there are any more developments immediately, won't you?'

‘Of course.'

‘In the meantime, try to take things a little more calmly. If you don't mind my saying so, you look dreadful, Dmitry Nikolayevich. You don't want your colleagues thinking you're about to have a breakdown.'

Boris Alexeyevich Kulagin moved into Dmitry's apartment that night. He came with a small suitcase and moved into the spare room. He seemed to be a man of few interests; he spent most of his time in the living room watching television while Dmitry sought refuge in the bedroom. Katie rang on Sunday and asked if she could see him and he said he had a Russian friend staying and he would try to meet her next week.

The only place he had any sense of safety was in his office. On Monday he told Kulagin he would be working late. He sat in his office in the semi-darkness. When he worked late it was his habit to turn off the main lights and work by his desk-lamp; the fluorescent lighting always gave him a headache. It was nine o'clock. Suddenly he desperately wanted to see Katie; to hell with it all, he thought. He reached his hand out for the phone and then, slowly, reluctantly, let it fall again. He stood up and went to the window. The lights of Vienna shone in the darkness; the moon was almost full, lighting the underside of the clouds above it. Its light was so bright that it drowned out the stars.

He looked at his watch. Boris would be coming shortly; he couldn't stand it. He felt a desperate need to be alone; he couldn't face the thought of Boris Alexeyevich's heavy, silent presence in the flat, or the effort of trying to make conversation with him, nor the constant presence of his unseen watchers. On impulse he stood up, left the office and went down to his car. He drove in the wrong direction for his apartment and turned right across the bridge, taking the road heading north, from the roundabout where the signposts pointed to the destinations of Budapest and Prague. He drove faster and faster, aware all the time of the headlights behind him; that would be the car following him, a discreet distance back. At the turn-off to Klosterneuburg he did not indicate, but suddenly cut across the lanes and pulled onto the slip-road at the last minute; the car behind him went on past, but he knew they would radio to the one behind to take the turning. The road wound up the hillside; he slowed down now and drove more carefully.

He circled aimlessly around the village, finally parking the car in a small car-park. He got out and walked slowly to the nearest bar; he saw the white car pull up further down the street. Inside, he did not even bother to buy a drink, but walked through into the little yard at the back, in which barrels of beer and crates of empty bottles were stacked. He climbed up on some and levered himself over the wall, scuffing his shoes and scraping his fingers on the rough bricks. He dropped heavily down into the street and brushed down his coat. It was all ridiculous; he hated himself for letting it get to him, for ending up playing their own game. He thought again of Vedyensky's warning and thought, to hell with him; to hell with the whole bloody thing.

He walked quietly down the road, his hands in his pockets, slipping a little on the patches of ice and snow which still lay on the ground up there. As he walked, he was not sure if he imagined a dark figure appearing briefly at the top of the street.

He walked on down towards the high walls which surrounded the abbey church and the baroque monastic buildings; inside the gateway he paused, standing on the frosty grass. The wind stirred in his hair and chilled him; he turned his collar up and hunched his shoulders. Often the buildings were floodlit, but tonight all was in darkness; he could only just make out the shape of the magnificent crown on the roof, a reproduction of the crown of the Holy Roman Empire. He stood still in the gloom; it was very quiet. Then suddenly, quite distinctly, he heard one footstep crunch on the gravel of the path outside. just one footstep; and then silence.

Dmitry turned and ran across the grass to the shelter of the wall. He stood there with his back against the wall for some time; he heard no further sound, and he was shivering with cold and with a fear which suddenly engulfed him from head to foot. Oh God, he thought, why did I come here? If they wanted to kill me they couldn't find a better time or place.

After a while he turned and walked along the wall. He thought he remembered another entrance; he didn't want to go back the way he had come. He emerged through the other gate back into the street; there was still nobody around. He walked quickly back towards his car. He walked faster and faster; dark shadows hung in every doorway. His shoulders were tense, waiting for the shot he feared; every few strides he had to consciously force himself to relax them. He reached the car, pulled out his keys and fiddled with the lock; it wouldn't turn, his hand was shaking. The relief he felt on slamming the door behind him was so intense he felt like laughing out loud. He started the engine, reversed suddenly out of the car-park, and drove back down the hill to rejoin the motorway.

At his apartment Boris Alexeyevich was sitting on the sofa drinking beer and watching a dubbed American film. Dmitry did not even say hello; he switched off the set without asking, went to the record player, and put on a disc which was already on the deck; he turned the volume up high and waited for the music to begin. It was Bach's St John Passion; the first great chorus had a demonic quality that perfectly suited his mood. Then he went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. He stared at its contents blankly; he didn't know how he was going to eat anything.

Boris Alexeyevich came into the kitchen after him. He switched on the radio and whispered, ‘What happened to you? You're very late. You did not say you would be so late. I have reported you missing. Probably they are looking all over Vienna for you.'

Dmitry also whispered against the background noise. ‘Well you'd better go out to the phone and unreport me.'

Boris shrugged. ‘May I turn this down a little?'

‘If you must.'

Boris said in a more normal voice, ‘Where the hell did you go?'

‘I went for a walk in Klosterneuburg.'

‘On your own?'

‘Yes.' Dmitry sat down suddenly on the sofa. ‘I think I am going mad,' he said.

Boris Alexeyevich looked at him with something approaching concern. ‘You take things too seriously, you never relax,' he said. ‘You need to watch something like that American film. Or you need to go out, have a nice meal, find a woman…'

‘Yes,' said Dmitry, ‘Yes, I could do with a woman.'

‘Well, then,' said Boris Alexeyevich, looking a little less morose, ‘I can ring up a couple of friends of mine, secretaries at the Embassy, and they could come –'