The Rocket Man (5 page)

She put the photograph back. He was standing right behind her; he was far too close. He had taken off his jacket and wore a thin white cotton shirt, and she had the sense that she could hear his heart beating beneath it, felt the warmth of his skin separated from her by this fragile layer. What was she doing here? She half turned, intending to step away from him, but the movement only brought her closer to him, touching him; he put his arms around her and began to kiss her hair, her neck, her ear, and then, as she turned her head up to him, her mouth.

She stepped back from him, leaning against the table. He was looking at her, and something in his gaze, in the whole expression of his face, moved her irresistibly. She had never felt such desire, it hit her like a pain deep inside her, and she found that she was trembling. She turned her back to him, and quick as a cat he put his arm round her waist, pulling her back with him onto the sofa. His hands found their way under her clothes, pulling them aside, touching the naked skin. She let him touch her, caress her, everywhere; before long, she encouraged him. He aroused her quickly; the soles of her feet burned, a flush spread over her and then she was crying out with pleasure.

Now he started to fumble with his own clothes. She was instantly frightened. She said, ‘If we're going to… shouldn't we use…'

He said, ‘I have one in the bedroom. Let's go into the bedroom.'

His bed was unmade; they fell upon it. The room had a large plate glass window, screened from the flats behind by a wall of conifers, through which the pale winter sunshine penetrated into the room, dappling the sheets with faintly moving shadows. She lay naked on her back while he stripped off his clothes, fumbled in the drawer by the bed, and then he turned to her. Although he was a big man he wasn't fat, but his skin was very pale, as if he had always been starved of sunlight. He leaned forward, touching her, she opened her legs, and he entered her easily, as if they had been doing this for years.

He stroked her firmly, gently, almost with reverence; he seemed far more interested in her pleasure than in his own. She closed her eyes, as she usually did, but he wouldn't let her; he said, ‘Look at me, I want you to look at me; tell me what you like; do you like it like this?' and she had to respond to him. She found she loved everything about him; his size, his smell, his touch, the way he was gentle but also so quick in his responses. He seemed not to tire of her and she, who had seldom come easily with Bob, lost count of the number of times she reached orgasm.

Finally, they lay still. She pulled the sheet over her and lay with her back to him, pressed against the warmth of his body, half dozing, exhausted. With one hand he gently stroked her hair.

They lay like this for some time. Then, abruptly, the phone rang. He picked it up and spoke a few words, in Russian, then hung up. He turned back to her but it had broken the spell. She asked, ‘What is the time? I must get back. Anna will be wondering where I am.'

He sat up, his arms resting on his knees. He said, ‘If you like you can have a shower.' She thought she had better. She had the instinct at once to conceal from Bob what she had done. She went into the tiny bathroom and showered hastily. She looked curiously at the clutter of shaving gear, a bottle of some Russian after-shave and some mysterious pills in a packet with Cyrillic script, and to her relief seeing nothing to suggest that there had been another woman there recently.

By the time she had dressed he had made some coffee and the mugs stood steaming on the table. He sat on the sofa in a shabby dressing gown and suddenly looked much older.

He pointed to the mug, said, ‘I did ask you in for a coffee.'

‘Thank you. I have to rush… Anna…'

‘It's OK.'

She didn't feel embarrassed in his presence, as she might have done, but she had no idea what she should say to him. He was silent as well, so she said nothing, not even asking whether she would see him again. She gulped down the coffee and went to the door. She shut it firmly behind her, ran down the dark staircase. In a few moments she was outside in the sunlight, walking up the hill, hurrying to collect Anna. Everything seemed normal in the street; a lady was walking her dog, the sun was still shining palely. It was half past two; she was not even much later than she had said she'd be, she would never have to make any kind of explanation. It was that simple. She had thought that she would never do this, what so many of her friends had done; there had been no agonizing, no soul searching, nothing. She had simply gone to see a man she hardly knew for coffee and emerged a little later an adulteress.

I
t was part of Nihal's routine when he was at home to meditate every evening; not that he was religious, but he found the mental discipline rewarding. He was just coming out of his meditation, sitting cross-legged on the floor, when the telephone rang. The answerphone was on, but he leaned over and picked up the receiver before it cut in.

‘Hello?'

‘It's Mitya Gavrilov. You remember, we met…'

‘Of course.'

‘I was wondering… I have something which might interest you. Actually, nothing to do with the IAEA, I was wondering if we could meet.'

Nihal was so surprised by this invitation that he took a while to answer. ‘I'll be up at the agency tomorrow…'

‘Yes. I'm afraid we've just had a circular round from the DG, reminding us that no-one is to speak to the press without getting clearance through the press officer. You're quite well known up there. I suggest we meet in town.'

Nihal suggested a bar near the Rathausplatz, not far from his flat. They arranged to meet that evening at nine.

Nihal hung up, went into the gloomy kitchen and lit a cigarette. He sat in the dark and stared out of the window.

Gavrilov frankly puzzled him. A few years ago it would have been inconceivable that someone in his position should be acting as he was. He had checked his background, and as a nuclear scientist he had worked in some of the Soviet Union's most secret research establishments. He'd been abroad for conferences, but that would have been always under the watchful eye of the KGB. Nihal knew the system; they had to sign before they went that they would co-operate with intelligence; they had to report every foreign contact. To speak to the foreign press at all would have been utterly forbidden.

Of course, in recent years that had been changing. Nihal remembered how, almost overnight, the Russians at the UN had suddenly begun wearing Western-made suits, mingling freely with people of other nationalities and openly criticising their own regime. The Russians were now employed at the UN on the same basis as everyone else; gone were the days when the slightest misdemeanour would have them on the next plane back to Moscow. They could live where they liked, make friends with whom they liked, could say, more or less, what they liked. On the other hand, here was a senior scientist who must possess a vast amount of secret knowledge. How free was he, really?

The bar was crowded. Nihal arrived first, ordered a beer, and sat in the corner, reading a paper. Gavrilov joined him shortly.

They sat opposite one another and both lit up. Nihal found that he was pleased to see him; perhaps they felt an affinity for one another, these two, because they were both on their own and neither of them quite belonged anywhere.

Gavrilov, unexpectedly, jumped straight in. ‘I think it might prove worthwhile for you to investigate the activities of a certain Wolfgang Richter. He's a German, aged late forties, early fifties. He's from Stuttgart. He has his own technical research company – I believe something to do with rockets.'

‘Rockets?'

‘Exactly.'

‘Any other clues?'

‘No, not really… some of his work will have been published. You could look in the
International Aerospace Abstracts
, that kind of thing.'

‘Okay.' Nihal stubbed out his cigarette. ‘That's it?'

‘That's it.'

They were both silent for a few moments. Nihal felt a sense of great disappointment; he'd been hoping for a lead about Brazil. He took the opportunity to get back to what was preoccupying him at the moment.

‘I saw you at the inquest into Hans Müller's death. Was everyone happy with the verdict?'

Gavrilov's face changed at once; he was suddenly much more cautious. ‘I think so.'

‘So no-one thinks there's more to it…?'

‘Well, you're not the only person this has occurred to. But we've had endless meetings, and there is no evidence.'

‘Look,' said Nihal, ‘It smells to me. What evidence are we talking about? I've been thinking about it. You have had all the statistics from the Brazilian nuclear authority, CNEN, isn't it? going right back to the inauguration of the Valadares centre. Presumably I can assume that all adds up.' Dmitry made a gesture which implied that he could indeed assume that. ‘But supposing the information was not correct – supposing they had under-declared it. The military could presumably give the wrong information to CNEN… you don't think the military could conceal anything from them?'

Gavrilov sighed. ‘Well it's possible, but I wouldn't have thought so. Not unless there were people at CNEN who agreed with it. For that kind of thing there would have to be bribery, corruption, the fixing of data on a grand scale, probably right up to the top. The new director at CNEN, Pereira da Silva, he's undoubtedly – how do you say? – on the side of the angels. He is a long-standing enemy of the military programme.'

‘But how near are they to getting the other centrifuge halls in operation? Did the inspectors get to see that?'

Gavrilov said, ‘They inspected everything that was declared to them.'

‘So the IAEA is just taking their word for it, that they only have the one cascade hall functioning.'

Gavrilov regarded Nihal seriously. ‘Nihal, we always just take their word for it. If a country says they have x number of reactors, x reprocessing facilities, x enrichment plants, then that is the number we go and inspect. Of course inspectors couldn't be allowed to look all over somewhere like Valadares. It is a military research establishment. They do research into nuclear submarines and nobody is going to be allowed to poke around wherever they like. Nor are they going to be allowed to go in and see where they are assembling their centrifuges. I know exactly what you are thinking. Of course I have thought it myself. So has everybody else. We are not blind to the possibilities. I have discussed all this with the DDG myself.'

Gavrilov lowered his voice and leant a little closer to Nihal across the table. ‘All right, supposing they were operating another cascade, one they did not allow any of us to see. Perhaps Hans Müller had his suspicions. Is this the kind of scenario you are suggesting? It is not very likely, it is extremely unlikely, but I suppose it is just about possible. Unless we had any evidence, what could we do about it? We could hardly go back to the Brazilians and say, on the basis of supposition, that they are not playing ball. There has been so much opposition to the idea of IAEA safeguards in Brazil that it would be disastrous politically. They might pull out of the whole thing.'

Nihal offered Gavrilov another cigarette and they both lit up. Nihal said, ‘So a suspicion isn't enough.'

‘No. You know how it is – the IAEA might, because a light bulb failed somewhere and the surveillance cameras did not record anything, be unable to establish absolutely that there has not been a diversion of nuclear material. But everything else is in order… How can one report a country to the UN Security Council for breach of its NPT obligations over a failed light bulb?'

‘I think they killed him.'

Lieselotte sat hunched up on the chair, her hands wrapped round her head. For a few days she had been calm, waiting for the verdict of the inquest, but now that this was over, it was all coming out: the grief, the fear and the anger.

‘Who?' Katie's German was fluent, and Lieselotte's English was hesitant, so they always spoke German together.