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The young lady—Professor Gubichev always referred to Jane Grayshott in this way—had fixed him up as comfortably as she could for his sojourn in the boot of her diplomatic car, with a Dunlopillo mattress and cushions, but it was difficult to change his position and he was afraid of getting cramp.

He heard the Embassy garage door being rolled up and felt the car begin to move, crunching over the short drive and out through the guarded gates. The professor groaned slightly when the first twinge of cramp took him as the car passed through the outskirts of Belgrade, and hastily rolled over, determined to keep his mind occupied with the events of the past ten days. And earlier, for his escape had been some time in the planning.

It was he who had made the first approach—a very tentative one—when he had found himself for a few minutes alone with the scientific counsellor at the British Embassy in Moscow, a man named Lancing, who had received the low-voiced suggestion without any change of expression and had gone on to make arrangements for another meeting while apparently chatting about personalities present at the reception. It was later decided that Gubichev would make available to Lancing copies of some drawings of planned Russian anti-missile missiles with which Gubichev, as a high-ranking scientific officer in the Soviet Ministry of Science and Technology, was closely concerned. He had no difficulty in obtaining copies of the drawings, and had added a long note in Russian on the difficulties likely to be encountered at the development stage as

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well as the hoped-for capability of the weapon system. Getting the papers out of the ministry was also fairly easy, because of his security grade, and the next time he went to the British Embassy, on the occasion of the visit of a prominent British scientist, he left them, by arrangement, in the pocket of a light raincoat in the cloakroom. The response from London was clear and enthusiastic: Gubichev would be welcome in the United Kingdom for permanent residence as a political refugee, and he would be adequately protected. The problem now was how and when to defect.

Gubichev was one of the leading defence scientists in the Soviet Union, and the Russians would never agree to allow him a safe conduct if he simply took refuge in the British Embassy and declared he was seeking political asylum. At the same time, they had not the slightest reason to suspect him of any such plan, since he lived very well in the feather-bedded ambience of Soviet top technologists, and was married, with two daughters, to whom he was devoted. What the KGB probably did not know—because both parties had every reason to keep it a secret—was that his wife, much younger than the professor, was having an affair with an army colonel, and planning to divorce her husband and keep the girls with her. But the professor knew, and now he was resigned to parting with his family.

His motive for defection had taken many years to gain decisive weight in his mind: he was genuinely afraid that if the new Soviet defensive measures were fully and successfully developed, the Council of Ministers might at some time blunder into a nuclear adventure, and he had no doubt that this would mean the end—no matter what happened elsewhere—of the motherland he loved. He worked closely with the service ministers and could see them gaining influence over the aging Politburo all the time. He knew how little they were aware of the growing strength of feelings of independence throughout the vast, disunited Soviet Union and among the satellite countries. They did not seem to realise that any

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nuclear war—even one they could win—would be uncontrollable. It would not bring all the separate republics together for a national cause, as had happened in 1941, but would allow them to burst apart in a frenzied search for survival, and lay them open to invasion by China and what was left of the nations of Europe and North America. Muscovite ‘democratic centralism’ would be battered to pieces. He had to redress the nuclear imbalance now, before it was too late.

The car had left Belgrade by the motorway and was following the Sava valley towards Sabac when the cramp caught him again, agonisingly. Hastily, he swallowed the quinine pills the Embassy doctor had given him, but his mouth was dry. With his clenched fist he beat against the back of the rear seats, and almost immediately heard the car engine slow down as the small Volvo swung off the road and stopped. Jane did not risk raising the tailgate but opened the nearside rear door and pushed flat the seats so that she could see the professor groaning and sweating in the boot. She bit her lip. Cars were passing, not many, for there is never much private traffic on the inland roads in Jugoslavia, but there was a danger that a police patrol might stop—from the best motives, perhaps—and be more than a little interested to see that the boot carried a passenger.

She reached in and pulled the professor’s shoulders on to the area formed by the flattened seats. ‘Try to straighten your leg,’ she said quickly in Russian. ‘Brace it against the back of the car. I’ll stop when I can find a bit of cover and get you out.’ She threw a car rug over him and re-started the car.

The very fact of having been able to move more freely brought some relief, and he pushed his foot hard against the rear wall of the boot, wincing at the pain. But that seemed to help. He waited while Jane turned off the road, bumped up an uneven lane, and stopped. A moment later the tailgate was opened and she was hauling him unceremoniously out of the car and into the cover of

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some trees, where she helped him to walk up and down until the pain disappeared entirely.

He stammered. ‘The quinine pills. I’ve swallowed them but I can’t get them down.’

She laughed affectionately, opened a large picnic basket which lay on the front passenger seat and mixed him a plastic beaker of whisky and water. He gulped it down gratefully.

‘Thanks,’ he said. The air was cold and stimulating, and Gubichev breathed it in happily. ‘You’re very good to me,’ he said.

She did not say, ‘It’s my job,’ which would have been true, but ‘You’re our guest’, which made him smile. They had treated him as such during those days hidden in the top floor of the Embassy. He had had a sort of flat, formerly occupied by the butler, with its own separate bathroom. Next door was the windowless and armour-plated cipher-room, especially protected against electronic eavesdropping, and both were part of the maximum security system, visited only by UK-based staff. Here he had had long talks with the young lady and a man who came out from London to supervise his escape. This was Peter Craig, with whom he had had the debriefing sessions, and to whom he had explained his motives. Craig had also, of course, encouraged him to talk as much as possible about his work, and the Ambassador and Lady Clandon had paid him a social call with caviar, smoked salmon and iced vodka, and talked about everything except the one thing that was on everybody’s mind—the dangers involved in trying to smuggle him out of the country. Sir Robert said he had told the Jugoslav Foreign Ministry that Gubichev had been granted temporary asylum, and had asked for safe passage to allow him to be flown to Heathrow. The British were fully aware that the request would not be allowed, but he could thus gain time for Craig to complete his plans for the escape.

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Before they again took the road Jane gave him sandwiches and more whisky with water, reassured him and made him as comfortable as possible. Then she patted his arm, blew him a kiss and closed the tailgate. She reminded him of his elder daughter Natasha, whose loss was a pain he would have to suffer indefinitely. Indeed, the young lady had been almost like a daughter to him during the past week, talking to him in her fluent, Oxbridge Russian, (so like the elegant language his own mother, born in St Petersburg, had spoken), playing him cassettes of classical music, working over chess problems with him, persuading him to part with his heavy moustache, getting the Embassy doctor to prescribe pills for sleeping, high blood pressure and this horrible cramp, and making a special excursion to buy him Russian cigarettes and halva, the sticky sweet for which he had a mild addiction.

It was she, too, who had introduced Craig, when he arrived from England. It was a little confusing. The young lady, Jane Grayshott, was an SIS officer, that much was clear. She had been briefed, after Gubichev’s meetings with Lancing in Moscow, to contact him during the international scientific congress in Belgrade and make sure that he was still determined to defect; and when he had given her that assurance she had operated a clever little plan to get him into her car after the reception without the KGB security guards, who had been attached to him ‘for his personal safety’, being able to intervene or even follow her as she drove off. The plan had worked as smoothly as silk, and within a quarter of an hour he had been surreptitiously smuggled into the Embassy and was safe—for the time being.

And Craig? He was an oddly impressive man, a little frightening at first, with his broken nose and scarred cheek, but friendly and sympathetic. He apparently was not an intelligence officer at all, but a sort of policeman attached to the Foreign Office. He appeared to be obeyed without question and highly regarded by everybody

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in the Embassy, from His Excellency downwards; it was apparently Craig who had planned the escape route on which the professor was now embarked, and who had staged a diversion to make the whole thing possible.

The cramp came back, but the quinine was at last having an effect, and the warmth of the whisky helped to keep the pangs under control. Again, he sought to keep his mind off his discomforts. What had the young lady said when he asked what the next step would be?

She had smiled. ‘I can’t tell you very much, for security reasons. I’m sure you’ll understand that. But the next step is a rendezvous in about half an hour—and I’ll have to hurry, now that we’ve had this break. I’ll stop on the road just before we enter a small market town on the main road from Belgrade to Sarajevo. A man will be waiting for us, dressed like a tourist, with a rucksack and camera and so forth. You will call him Joe, and he’ll take you to the main bus station outside the town, where you’ll both board a coach which takes you right down to the coast road and then follows it northwards, towards Split. He’ll tell you then what has to be done, to get you to a safe place.’

‘Safe?’ he had asked nervously. How could anywhere in this country be safe?

She had laughed again suddenly, and looked very young and pretty. ‘You couldn’t be safer,’ she assured him, and patted his shoulder. ‘Now we must go. Unless you need to relieve yourself, in which case use those bushes.’

When the car stopped at last at a kilometre stone she opened the tailgate, helped him out and again made him walk up and down while she talked to a young man, tanned and with long hair and a straggly beard, who had appeared from the depths of a storm ditch.

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‘This is Joe Walker,’ she explained. ‘Notionally, he’s your son, and so you are Dr Francis Walker, a history don. Joe’ll look after you. Don’t worry about the motor-coach. There are far too many of them on the Jugoslav roads at this time of year, and far too many kinds of police, as you go from one republic into another, for anyone to be able to organize an efficient country-wide search. Besides, you speak English, and you look quite different without your lovely moustache, so no one would recognize you anyway. We must say good-bye. You’ll see Peter Craig in London.’

‘It won’t be the same,’ he said earnestly, holding her slim hands in his. ‘You have been a good friend, a dear, good friend. Whatever happens to me, I shall never forget you.’

She gave him a little hug and kissed his cheek. ‘I’ll come back to England for some leave soon, so you’ll see me then.’’Go with God,’ she added, this time in Russian. Then she got quickly into her car, reversed so that she could make a three-point turn, and with a wave of her hand was off up the mountain road with gravel spurting from under the wheels. The young man watched her departure with respect in his hard blue eyes. ‘She’s great, isn’t she?’ He spoke in English.

‘You are an intelligence officer, too?’

Joe nodded, as he led the professor back into the cover of the trees. ‘I’m a probationer. Only joined two years ago. Now listen, sir.’ (Everybody seemed to treat him with such respect; it was rather odd, but comforting.) ‘From now on, until we reach the next stage, you’re my father. My operational name is Joseph Walker, you’re Francis, same name, 56 years old, born in Cambridge, England, and a lecturer in social history at Cambridge University. O.K? Here are your passport, diary and wallet, with some Jugoslav money in it and several credit cards. If for any reason we should get separated—which God forbid—find your way down to the coast, use your

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money and credit cards to get a hotel room, and wire your bank—its name is on the bank card—for enough money to pay for a ticket home. There’ll be no questions. In your wallet there’s a notional letter from your loving son Joe—that’s me, remember—which gives your home address in Cambridge. Contact that address for any help you need on arrival, although you’ll have been picked up at Gatwick in all probability.’ He looked at the older man anxiously. ‘Is all this clear, sir?’

‘Yes, thank you. It has all been admirably worked out.’

‘Good. Next thing.’ Joe was unpacking his bulging rucksack as he spoke. ‘Please take off your jacket and trousers and put these on. Oh, and the shirt. And there are some shoes somewhere.’ So that was why the young lady had taken his measurements. The clothes were old, worn tweeds, with a woollen check shirt, which felt pleasingly warm as he pulled it on, and the shoes walking brogues which fitted him remarkably well. Finally, the hat. It was a Tyrolese felt with a chamois brush in the band. He protested, smiling, but put it on.

Joe stood back and looked him over. ‘You look the adventurous, absent-minded don to perfection. But your face is too pale. I’ve got some oil here. Rub some of that in, particularly where they shaved your moustache off. And don’t forget your hands.’

When the transformation was complete Joe packed the discarded clothes into the top of his rucksack and they began to walk down the road, looking for somewhere to dump them. They came to a deep culvert which in winter carried snow water under the road, and with the help of a torn-off branch pushed the professor’s clothes several feet into the tunnel. Then they walked on, through pine woods, with autumn crocuses glinting among the dark trees.

‘How did you come out here, Mr Walker?’ asked Gubichev.

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‘It’s Joe, remember? And I’ll be calling you Dad from now on, when anyone could be listening. O.K., then. I was doing a hiking tour down the coast, from Zadar to Dubrovnik, and had just signalled my arrival there (which is routine procedure), when I got a message whistling back telling me to stay where I was and wait for orders. They’d thought of me because I speak Serbo-Croat, you see, and because I was out here already. The following day a friend of mine flew in with the clothes and the documents—they hadn’t facilities in the Belgrade Embassy for kitting you out properly. And he briefed me. They’re giving me an extra week’s leave after I deliver you safely to the next chap along the line,’ he added, with satisfaction.

The professor smiled. ‘And you can’t tell me about the next stage yet?’

‘No, sir. Need-to-know rule. But we’ll have nearly four hours in the coach before that happens, so I’ll fill you in on anything you want to know, like news of your notional family—my brothers and sisters, and so on. Or you can sleep. I’ve got a pill for you.’

The next stage was extraordinarily easy. They waited outside the little town at the pullman station until the coach arrived. To Gubichev’s surprise it was quite unlike the rather run-down buses he had seen in the suburbs of Belgrade, being impressively new-looking and having comfortable, reclinable seats. Joe paid the conductor for the tickets and put the professor beside him in the window seat. He stretched out luxuriously. The driver sounded the horn in a long blast and they swung out of the square and found the highway to Sarajevo.

‘I know little about this country,’ said the professor. ‘It’s a union of republics, isn’t it? Like the Soviet Union? In Belgrade we were in Serbia, I think.’

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‘Yes. There are six republics, five nationalities, four religions and three languages. Easy to remember: six, five, four, three. Oh, and two alphabets, Latin and Cyrillic. All the individual republics are fiercely independent—as far as Belgrade will let them be.’ Like Russia, thought the professor, but quite, quite different.

‘So they have their own governments, police forces, taxes, border controls and so on. Which,’ added Joe in a lower voice, ‘makes some things much easier than they might otherwise be, eh, Dad?’

‘And Sarajevo is the capital of Bosnia?’

‘Actually, it’s the capital of the Herzegovina part, and it’s an interesting town, full of mosques and a souk; some people wear Turkish dress, as they have for four hundred years. It’s in a sort of bowl, with high mountains all round it; very good skiing, I gather. What a pity we shan’t have more time to look around, but our coach only waits for a few minutes to let people go to the loo, and then goes to Mostar, which is spectacular. That’s on the Neretva river, and we follow its gorge down to the coast road.’

* * *Gubichev only awoke when the coach was vociferously announcing its arrival in Sarajevo and later, on the trip down the long curving valley to Mostar, where they saw a couple of eagles cruising along the steep escarpments which flanked the road, he went to sleep again. There was another wait at the coach station, and Joe bought beer and sandwiches for the next part of the journey, fifty kilometres down the Neretva valley to the modern town of Kardeljevo, where they joined the coast road.

It was just before the town that Gubichev began to feel the beginning of panic. So far, all had gone well, but there could only be

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one reason for bringing him this long distance from Belgrade: they were going to embark him on a boat, and surely every craft leaving the coastal waters to cross to Italy would be stopped and searched. The coastline itself, as he had seen on the map, was far too long and indented, and no doubt too infested with coastal and leisure traffic, for any concerted attempt to stop clandestine embarcation, but further out, beyond the islands, the patrols would be able to exert a real control. He felt suddenly as if he were on the bank of a dark, cold river, which he had to swim across through a current that might easily sweep him away. He thought with fleeting nostalgia of his comfortable flat in Moscow, his dacha in the forest and the well-planned laboratories. If he were caught he knew he would never see them again, and would never know freedom either. He shivered.

Joe Walker noticed his mood, and worried. The old man had got to keep his nerve for the last act. He began to talk to him cheerfully, pointing out a castle on a high pinnacle above the river and asking Gubichev about hunting in Russia. It was not an inspired or even a subtle tactic, but the professor appreciated the effort and forced his mind away from the immediate future.

They were on the coast road, high above the sea, and passing a turning that led down into the small town of Podgora, when Walker pointed with a smile at a large bus which was discharging a party of Royal Navy officers and senior ratings. The bus waited while they formed up, behind a commander in full dress uniform, and began to march down towards the town, carrying among them, in the hands of two chief petty officers, a large model boat. The bus driver spoke on the address system and the passengers cheered as he continued on his way. Gubichev asked what was happening.

‘The driver explained,’ said Walker. ‘There’s a British frigate in Split harbour, on a goodwill mission, and the captain thought it would be a nice gesture to make a presentation to the new naval museum in Podgora. It’s a model of one of the craft used by the

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Special Boat Sections for running spies and saboteurs into Jugoslavia during the war. We collaborated with Tito’s partisans quite a lot, as you know.’

‘Did the driver explain all that?’ asked Gubichev, puzzled.

Joe was brought up short for a moment. He had let his tongue run away with him. ‘It was in the press,’ he said vaguely. As he well knew, the friendly gesture had been offered by the Navy three weeks earlier, as soon as it had been decided that the professor’s escape would coincide with the scientific conference in Belgrade. The naval visit to Split had been only one of several schemes put forward by the specialist planners at SIS headquarters in London, but when the Jugoslavs welcomed the idea the other plans were dropped.

‘So near,’ muttered Gubichev, ‘but so far. If I could take the place of one of those officers!’

‘Never mind, Dad,’ said Walker, and lowered his voice. ‘We’ve got something just as good lined up for you. I’d love to tell you all about it, but I mustn’t, not yet.’

‘Of course I understand, Joe; I’ll just have to be patient.’

They came to the first stop in Split, right down on the harbour, and when they got out of the bus to stretch their legs they found themselves facing the magnificent spectacle of Diocletian’s palace, which forms the old town, with its walls extending down to the water. Then they continued around the bay to the island town of Trogir, passing HMS Shropshire at her mooring.

They left the bus at the pullman station, just short of the bridge which leads across a canal to the island on which the town is situated. The professor was very stiff when they stepped down from the bus, and not sorry to see the end of his reclining seat, in spite of its well-padded upholstery, but he began to feel easier as they walked over

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the bridge to the old town. They passed the market, with craftware displayed for the tourists, and entered old Trogir through a gateway in the ancient wall. It was a delightful Venetian town in miniature, with renaissance houses, tall spires and an arcaded square. On the other side of the town, beyond the further sea-gate, was a broad promenade, lined with palm trees, running along the waterfront opposite the island of Ciovo. A number of short jetties, projecting from the promenade, provided a tiny marina for visiting yachts. Joe walked slowly along the promenade to an open-air café facing the marina, where he ordered coffee. Few of the tables were occupied, and there was little activity among the boats, but he explained that most of the sailing craft returned at sunset and then the street became more lively.

The professor was very happy with the scene as he found it. It was pleasant to sit quietly in the evening light, watching the seagulls and the movements of sails on the water as the first yachts came in.

A fair-haired girl, English-looking, came to sit at a table near them, and the professor could almost feel Joe tensing as he glanced sideways at her. She sat for a moment watching the marina, then gave them a casual glance, took off the bright red straw hat she was wearing and shook her hair free. It was a charming gesture, and for Joe it was a welcome message.

‘We’re in the clear,’ he muttered, and called for the bill. They walked briskly across the promenade to the water, where they could see a small motor-cruiser, flying a British yacht club burgee, tied up at one of the jetties. A man was standing in the cockpit and looked up when they approached. ‘Hullo, Joe,’ he said (although they had never met). ‘Nice to see you. This is your father, I suppose. Glad to meet you, sir.’

‘Hi, Colin. Yes, this is Dad. Dad, this is Colin Stannard.’

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‘Hullo. Come aboard.’ As he helped the professor to step over the counter, Stannard took a quick look around. The girl was walking away towards the sea-gate, swinging her hat.

Stannard led the way, without giving the professor a chance to look at the neat wheel-house, with its gleaming controls, and went into the saloon, which also served as sleeping quarters. ‘Professor, I want you to go through that little door into the forepeak. You’ll find a light switch on your left, and a mattress and pillows. Just settle down there for the time being, O.K.?’

He closed the door behind him and went back to the cockpit to look around once more. Joe was there, smiling broadly. ‘Not a soul seems to be interested in us. I’d better go, Colin. Say goodbye to the old boy. I’ve become quite fond of him. He’s got a lot of bottle. Tell him that, will you? From me.’

Stannard watched him go, scanned the surroundings again and went forward to give the professor Joe’s message. Gubichev was lying on the mattress under the weak light of the lamp. ‘You’re pretty tired,’ said Stannard. ‘I’ll get you some slivovic. It’s all I’ve got at the moment, but you’ll soon have all the gin and whisky you can drink.’ He laughed at Gubichev’s puzzled expression. ‘You can come out when we clear the harbour. We probably shan’t even be stopped. There are too many boats around. Just stay here until I call you.’

Stannard brought him a glass of the plum brandy and some biscuits, which he consumed gratefully and lay down.

Later, when Stannard opened the hatch it was quite dark except for the lights in the saloon, but as Gubichev went out into the cockpit to breathe some fresh air, he saw the glimmer of the red and green riding lights on the mast above and beyond, bright stars in a velvet dark sky. The cruiser was swishing through the water at a decorous pace. Astern, Gubichev could see in the distance lights on the islands of Ciovo and Solta. There seemed to be no other vessel

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in sight. Stannard was above him in the wheel-house, and Gubichev could hear the tapping of a Morse key, which went on for some time. Then silence, except for the faint sounds of the answering message.

Stannard came down the steps into the cockpit.

‘Everything’s going well,’ he said. ‘We stay on this course for the next half hour. I’ll put the kettle on.’

He made cocoa and they drank it together, warming their hands on the hot mugs.

‘Where are you taking me?’ asked Gubichev.

Stannard laughed. ‘That’s my big surprise’, he said. ‘You’ll be all right now.’

When the half hour was up he took a flare from a locker in the saloon and fired it upwards. The star broke out far above them and fell in a shower of red lights. After a minute he fired a second flare, and stared astern into the night. ‘There she is,’ he cried, delighted.

Gubichev could see nothing, but within minutes he could hear the faint thrumming of engines and at last saw a tall shape blotting out the stars. A brilliant light came on for a few seconds, searching for and finding them, then went dark again.

A voice called out of the night, ‘Straight ahead as you lie at ten knots. Acknowledge.’

Stannard picked up a loud-hailer, switched it on and called back, ‘My course is straight ahead at ten repeat ten knots. Over.’

The masts and towers of a warship were making up on them fast. They could now see lights and hear the engine calls from the bridge as the ship slowed and crept up alongside. Rope ends were dropped, and Stannard made them fast to the motor-cruiser’s deck

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cleats. Two men came swarming down, followed by a bosun’s chair, into which they strapped the professor. He had no time to thank Stannard before he was lifted from the deck and swung high into the air. The two sailors were hauled up on their ropes at the same time, and as he looked down Gubichev saw the little boat turn away and accelerate, quickly becoming lost in the darkness.

He was lowered on to the deck and greeted by a man with three gold rings on his sleeve. ‘Welcome, Doctor Walker. I am the Captain. Follow me, please.’

He led the way down. There were few men around, and those who were seemed to be there to make him comfortable in his tiny cabin, bring him food and drink, show him his bathroom and tell him how to call for assistance if he needed any. But he did not. He had seen the hat band of one of the sailors. HMS Shropshire. As the young lady had said, he could scarcely be safer now.

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2

The decision to assassinate Peter Craig and Jane Grayshott was taken at the highest level, in a room on the fourth floor of the new annexe to the KGB headquarters in Moscow.

It was a gloomy room, even with the desk lamps lit, and with the light from the falling snow reflected through the tall windows, which looked down on Dzerdsinsky Square. The Collegium, the highest authority in the Russian secret service, was gathered around three sides of a table, and across its broad, shining surface, cluttered with papers, was the man under examination, who sat in a solitary, straight-backed chair and stared back at his inquisitors with pale, expressionless eyes.

At one time it was routine practice for the KGB, through its notorious ‘wet affairs’ Department V, to assassinate foreigners who were getting in the way of its clandestine operations: Ado Birk, Hans Wissengir, Jean Cremet, Henri Moulin, Rudolf Klement—the list is endless. But the defection to the West of first one and then a second of this very secret department’s operatives, Nikolai Khokhlov and Oleg Lyalin, had resulted in far too much becoming known of Department V’s work and its officers trained in assassination and sabotage. It had therefore been decided that liquidations should be limited in number and ordered only with Central Committee approval. In Russia, you cannot go higher than that.

But when the Collegium met on this occasion its members were not expecting any such radical decision to be forthcoming. They were concerned with an investigation into the conduct of Colonel

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(KGB) Aleksandr Rostov, head of the KGB residency in Belgrade, the man who now sat in the straight-backed chair with the eyes of twelve of his most senior colleagues on his grey, lined face. It was the face of a hard, ruthless man, a man of considerable character, and one who had well earned in war and peace those three rows of ribbons on his jacket.

Rostov’s departmental chief in Moscow, in charge of 8th Area Department, was Colonel Vitali Moronov, who had been co-opted to sit on the board and was anxious to keep his profile as low as possible. He had been a close friend of Rostov’s, and during Rostov’s official visits to Moscow, in the past, had spent many a heavy-drinking night with him, but that was all forgotten now; his concern was to make sure that nothing the man might be alleged to have done could reflect on any other member of 8th Department.

The other co-opted member of the board was a man of about sixty, dressed—unlike the others, who were in uniform—in a dark grey suit with a pale blue tie. This was General Nikolai Golosov, a member of the all-powerful Politburo and head of the clumsily named Organisations Administration Section of the Central Committee. The Communist Party operates its control of the KGB through this section, and Golosov’s presence on the board was taken to mean that whatever Rostov could be accused of having done, it was the Party’s wish that his conduct should be fully investigated.

The Politburo is vindictive towards failure, and no one was more aware of this than Colonel Moronov, who sweated visibly as he gave a description of the background to the case. He had prepared his statement carefully, and had just begun read it out.

‘Professor Alexei Gubichev was of course our leading expert on the development of anti-missile missiles. His work for the Union earned him membership of the Order of Lenin, First Class, and other distinguished awards. There was never the slightest reason to suspect that he was planning defection. Nevertheless, when he was

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allowed to attend the Fifth International Spaceflight Congress, held in Belgrade in September last year, special measures were taken to protect him from unnecessarily close contacts with representatives of the imperialist powers. These measures were left to the discretion of Colonel Rostov, the subject of this investigation, who had at his disposal not only members of his own large staff at the Belgrade residency but certain officers in the Jugoslav State Security Service, who had been specially detached for the purpose.

‘The Congress lasted four days. On the last night, when the defection took place, Professor Gubichev was one of a large number of Congress members invited to a valedictory reception at the Jugoslav Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Among those present were representatives of the diplomatic missions, including, from the British Embassy, the Ambassador himself, his wife and his scientific attaché, a young woman named Jane Alicia Grayshott, with rank as first secretary. Contact between Gubichev and Grayshott must have taken place earlier, because they were not seen to meet at any time during the reception. However, while Colonel Rostov, who as counsellor of our Embassy was also invited, was being held in conversation by the British Ambassador, first Gubichev and then Grayshott left the gathering.

‘The Jugoslav security officer who was unobtrusively attending the professor on that occasion hurried down to the entrance porch, where he saw Grayshott and Gubichev waiting for their cars. Grayshott had given her keys to one of the Ministry attendants, who arrived with her car while the professor was still waiting for his. By this time they were chatting together, apparently in a purely social and casual way.’

‘In what language?’ broke in the man in the dark grey suit.

‘In fluent Russian, Comrade General,’ said Moronov unhappily, ‘which the Jugoslav security guard could not understand. May I go on, Comrade Chairman?’

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The Politburo man grunted, but the Chairman, General Kitaev, said, ‘Go ahead, please.’

‘As she was getting into her car, as if on the spur of the moment, Grayshott asked the professor if she could give him a lift to his hotel. He quickly got into the car and she drove off before the Jugoslav guard could think of any excuse for stopping her. He himself had no conveyance available to him and it was about a minute before the professor’s car was driven up. It was discovered afterwards that Grayshott had arrived at the Ministry car park early and secured a place near the exit, enabling the attendant to extricate her car very quickly. When the other car arrived the guard told the chauffeur to follow the British Embassy vehicle, but it had already disappeared in the throng of cars leaving the reception.’ Moronov looked up. ‘Is this account clear, Comrade Chairman?’

‘Lamentably clear,’ commented the Politburo man. The Chairman nodded. ‘Proceed,’ he said.

‘The professor did not arrive at his hotel, either then or later. When Grayshott was asked by the Jugoslav police what had happened to him, she said he had expressed a desire to stretch his legs, and had left the car not far from his hotel. She stuck to this story even when, later, at the urgent request of the Soviet Ambassador she was interrogated in her Embassy by members of his staff. She appeared entirely at her ease and could not be shaken at any point in her story even when, a week afterwards, the British Ambassador informed the Jugoslav Ministry officially that the professor had asked for political asylum and was residing in the Embassy. Questioned, the Ambassador said that Gubichev had presented himself at the Embassy on foot.

‘But this, as I said, was later. Colonel Rostov’s first reaction was to accept Grayshott’s statement, because if Gubichev had been accepted by the British as a political refugee it would have been quite normal for the Ambassador to have informed the Jugoslavs at

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once, adding that he was asking the Foreign Office for instructions. The reason for the Ambassador’s delay in doing so, as was realised later, was to confuse the trail and gain time for the plans of escape. Colonel Rostov therefore spent much effort in having all parts of the city searched and the road, rail and air exit routes closely controlled. However, great pressure was being exerted on me in Moscow by the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Science and Technology, and I decided to ask for a special investigator who would make enquiries on the spot. I was allotted—’ his eyes flickered towards the grim face of the man in the dark grey suit—‘Major Yuri Vladimirovich Tokaev, a brilliant young officer in Department V. He was—’

The Chairman stopped him. ‘You must explain to the board why the special skills of a Department V officer were required.’

‘Yes, Comrade Chairman. The value of Professor Gubichev to our defence and technological ministries was very great, but it was nothing compared with the damage that could be caused—which I fear will be caused—to our defence capabilities by this man’s potential revelations to Western intelligence services. It was obvious, therefore, that if the worst happened, rather than let Gubichev leave Jugoslavia, he should be liquidated.’

The Chairman nodded. ‘Continue.’

‘Major Tokaev, on his arrival in Belgrade, made a rapid assessment of the situation, enlisting the help of the Jugoslav service, who proved quite willing, on this occasion, to collaborate with our operatives. It was quickly established that no unidentified person had left the British Embassy or had crossed the land, sea and air frontiers through the official controls. Major Tokaev decided that the professor was being secretly held in the Embassy while plans were made for his escape. This assessment was confirmed a few days later by the Ambassador’s statement, which I mentioned earlier. It was noted that of the four British scientists who had attended the Congress only three had left the day after its conclusion, while

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one had remained at his hotel. This man, Dr Albert Morris, a very distinguished space technologist, was, as Major Tokaev did not fail to observe, roughly the same height and general appearance as the vanished professor, and it was suspected that a substitution was being planned. It was two days after the professor’s disappearance that a Foreign Office official named Peter Craig arrived at the Embassy, a fact which lent support to the theory of a plan to effect the escape by trickery.’

‘Why?’ asked General Golosov. ‘Who is Craig?’

‘He is not an SIS officer, but the senior police adviser in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and has been frequently used as a trouble-shooter to solve problems involving personnel in foreign posts. He has acted most detrimentally to our interests on two occasions, in Lisbon and Rome in the early seventies, when he succeeded in identifying and neutralising two valuable agents. Major Tokaev concluded that Craig had been sent out to superintend the clandestine escape of Professor Gubichev.’

‘Why did not the British simply depend on getting international support for a safe conduct? We would have resisted it very strongly, of course, but they could not be sure that we should not have had to accept.’

‘We think, Comrade General, that it was because the professor was so important to us that even if he were given a safe conduct by the Jugoslavs the British feared that it might be impossible to save him from liquidation by Department V—and rightly so. There would have been ample opportunities at the airport or on the aircraft itself.’

‘That makes sense. Go on.’

This was the part that Colonel Moronov found so very difficult, with the hard blue eyes of General Golosov on him. He began to hurry the reading of his brief.

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‘A week following Craig’s arrival the Embassy told the Ministry that Dr Morris, the remaining British scientist, would be leaving for England, and asked for his exit visa. This was granted. The following day Morris packed his bags and was taken by an official Congress car to the Embassy, allegedly to say goodbye to the Ambassador, with whom he had been dining the previous night. He wore an overcoat, although the weather was quite warm, dark glasses and a turned-down trilby hat. This garb convinced Major Tokaev, who was watching, that he had been right in his conjecture about a substitution.’

The Chairman made a sound between a laugh and a cough. He avoided looking at the Politburo man.

‘Shortly afterwards,’ continued Moronov rapidly, ‘Craig, and a man wearing the clothes I have described, with dark spectacles, came down the steps and entered the official car, which drove away towards the airport. It was closely followed by Major Tokaev in a Soviet Embassy car, accompanied by one of Colonel Rostov’s assistants, Captain (KGB) Boldin, who knew both the professor and Dr Morris by sight. Behind this car was one supplied by the Jugoslav state security service, with two officers who had been specially briefed by Major Tokaev.’

The Chairman asked, ‘What was the Major’s plan, at this stage?’

‘He had in his pocket copies of the fingerprints of Professor Gubichev and a recent photograph, certified by our Ministry of Defence. He intended to have the passenger in the Congress car arrested by his Jugoslav colleagues at the airport and fingerprinted. A comparison of the prints with those the Major was carrying, coupled with the certified photograph of the professor and Boldin’s testimony, would provide ample proof for the Jugoslavs that impersonation had taken place. The arrest was duly carried out, with Craig making a formal protest.’ Moronov hesitated.

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‘Get on with it, man,’ said the Chairman impatiently.

‘There had been no impersonation, Comrade Chairman. The man was without any doubt Dr Albert Morris.’

The Chairman kept a straight face. There was a mutter of shocked comment from his board. He said, ‘And the purpose of this hoax?’

‘To enable Grayshott, as soon as Major Tokaev and his assistants, both Russian and Jugoslav, were out of the way, to smuggle Gubichev out of the Embassy. This is what we conclude must have happened. Her car had been in the Embassy garage for service, and when she drove it out into the courtyard, where the normal security guards could see it, she appeared to have no passenger, but there was a picnic basket beside her and some rugs in the rear of the car. We assume Gubichev was in the boot. He was not seen again until he appeared publicly at a press conference in London several weeks later.’

There was another mutter of angry comment, which the Chairman quelled. He asked, ‘Have you any ideas about how he could have left the country?’

‘No, Comrade Chairman. Grayshott was back at the Embassy two hours later, and told the security guards she had had a pleasant picnic lunch in the mountains. It was confirmed by one of the gendarmerie units that her car had been seen on the way back from a mountainous region to the south of the capital. Police radio cars on the main trunk roads reported nothing. It is known that Grayshott had been exploring the surroundings of Belgrade for two or three weeks past, always allegedly for the purpose of sketching bird life.’

General Golosov snorted. ‘Then what did she do with him?’

‘It is over five hundred kilometres from Belgrade to the sea, and much further to the Austrian border. The closer frontiers of

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Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary would obviously not have been suitable. She must therefore have transferred Gubichev to another car, probably a local one, which would not attract attention, and we assume that the professor was taken over the Austrian border by one of the regular smuggling gangs. But we don’t know. There was even a suggestion that one of the helicopters from the British frigate Shropshire, which was in port at Split at the time, might have made a trip inland, keeping below radar level. There is no evidence whatever as to the method of escape. Grayshott is still at her post in the British Embassy in Belgrade. Craig is in London.’

The Chairman asked, quite politely, ‘Have you any comments to make, Colonel Rostov?’

‘No, Comrade General. Major Tokaev was tricked, very cleverly, as part of a carefully laid plot.’

Golosov broke in. ‘You mean you were tricked.’

Rostov shrugged his shoulders. ‘Major Tokaev came from Moscow with authority to take complete charge of the plans to capture or liquidate Gubichev. I gave what support he needed. I submit that I cannot be blamed either for the failure of his plan—or for his subsequent death.’

Golosov was almost beside himself with anger. ‘Nevertheless, you took it upon yourself—you had the temerity, to summon him before you and reprimand him. We have evidence that you told him he had acted like a gullible probationer.’

‘Comrade General, it was true. He made the classic mistake of underestimating his enemy. Whatever Craig was doing with the supposed Professor Gubichev, Major Tokaev should not have allowed Grayshott out of his sight. It was obviously she who had originated the project to seduce Gubichev, and she should have been watched quite as closely as Craig.’

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‘You are condemning yourself, Comrade Colonel,’ said General Golosov angrily. ‘You were in charge of the residency and therefore of all the Service’s operations in Jugoslavia. Major Tokaev was authorised to take charge of the operation, but if you saw him omitting such an important factor you should have acted independently. Did you attempt to control Grayshott’s movements?’

‘I did not. Major Tokaev was in charge. I was not, at the time, wholly party to his plans.’

The Chairman, with a deprecatory glance at the enraged Golosov, sought to bring calm to the proceedings. ‘Did it occur to you, Comrade Colonel, that Craig’s departure for the airport might have been a diversionary tactic?’

For the first time the strong face of Colonel Rostov seemed a little uncertain. ‘It crossed my mind, Comrade General. But Major Tokaev, when I asked him earlier that morning for his report on the situation, told me without explanation that he had covered all the possibilities.’

‘That is not what Captain Boldin stated in his deposition,’ replied the Chairman, looking down at a paper on the table in front of him. He did not face Rostov as he went on, ‘He states that when he and Major Tokaev saw Craig and his passenger leaving the embassy, the major called you on his personal radio and informed you what was happening. He also asked you,’ continued the Chairman, his eyes still on the deposition, ‘to make sure that Grayshott did not leave the Embassy without being closely trailed.’

Rostov started violently, and burst out, ‘But that is a lie! It is completely false. I cannot believe Boldin gave that information. Tokaev did not call me at all. You know me, Moronov. I don’t lie to my colleagues.’

There was total silence. Then General Golosov spoke. Looking round at the members of the board he said coldly, ‘Whom shall

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we believe, Comrades, an officer on Colonel Rostov’s staff, recently promoted to major for his good qualities, or Rostov himself, who has every reason to find an excuse for his reckless and incompetent administration. I was closely acquainted with Major Yuri Tokaev, my own sister’s son, and have no doubt that he always went about his duties in a responsible and prudent way. It is unthinkable to me that he should have omitted to make provision for a hoax of the kind we have had described. If Colonel Rostov had acted intelligently, my nephew would be alive now. Let us finish with this tribunal, Comrade Chairman. You have a typed confession. Let him sign it.’

The Chairman said stiffly, ‘We must not be too precipitous, Nikolai Stepanovich. I have here Rostov’s record. It is outstanding. He has hitherto shown a marked sense of responsibility, as well as an almost excessive demand for perfection on the part of his subordinates.’

Golosov smiled in a very unpleasant way. ‘Then obviously, my dear colleague, his recent actions are out of character. Would you not say so?’

The Chairman fell into the trap. ‘It seems so. He may have been overworking, or—’

‘Or he may have gone slightly off his head—become something of a schizophrenic?’ suggested Golosov silkily. ‘We must see. If some psychiatric treatment would not be helpful. In the Serbsky Institute, of course.’

Again, there was silence. Everyone knew what enforced treatment in the Serbsky Institute meant—the deliberately painful injections, the use of physical restraints and the horrific effects of mind-bending drugs. It was where dissident scientists were sent as a punishment, and where the sadistic Colonel-Doctor Lunts had made his famous assertion: ‘If I say this ashtray is a schizophrenic, that’s what it is.’

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The only person in the room who seemed to relax was Colonel Rostov. He stood up, stretched himself and brought out an old style fountain-pen. ‘Where is this confession?’ he asked cheerfully. He saw now the dice loaded against him. Where he had hoped for support from his own KGB colleagues, none was to be forthcoming. He had been framed. There was no limit to what Golosov and his stooges would do to make a scapegoat of him. There was no hope at all.

Moronov brought him the typed statement. ‘Thanks. I shall be interested to see what lies you’ve thought up for me. You must have nearly twisted poor Boldin’s balls off before you got him to sign that deposition.’ He glanced down at the paper, then tore it thoughtfully in small pieces.

‘Let’s have the truth for a change.’ He was unscrewing the pen, as if absent-mindedly, as he turned to the scowling general in the grey suit. ‘Your nephew, Comrade, was a clever young man, too clever by half, typical of the New Class, as they call themselves, and the whole pack of generals’ sons who’ve never recruited or run an agent in the field. He wanted to show he could teach me my business, and he failed. When he found the English had made a fool of him—I’ll grant him this much—he took it very hard. He was stunned. When I dressed him down—and I did so because they’d made a monkey out of me as well, and I was furious—he took it without a word, and went off and got drunk in the Embassy mess. Understandable. But then he insisted in trying to drive his car to a brothel, and hit a tree. He couldn’t even hold his liquor.’

Rostov had the end of the pen unscrewed, and something fell into his hand. The Chairman ripped out an order, but the tablet was already in Rostov’s mouth. ‘We can’t use these playboys in the field, Comrade Chairman. Remember that.’ He stared half-smiling at the members of the Collegium, who sat like men of stone. Then he crunched the lethal tablet between his teeth, gave a hoarse gasp

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and fell like an axed tree. His feet rapped sharply for a moment on the parquet floor, and then were still.

The Chairman was on his feet, looking across the polished table at the body on the ground and the security guard, who was feeling inside Rostov’s tunic, beneath the three rows of ribbons, for any trace of a heartbeat. ‘Is he dead?’

The guard nodded, and the Chairman turned to General Golosov, his face set in a bitter smile. ‘That seems to solve the problem, Comrade General. Are you satisfied?’

Golosov was pale with shock, but he shook his head. ‘No.’ he said, ‘I am not satisfied. Please reconvene this meeting for half-past three this afternoon.’

* * *When they met again Golosov, who now sat in the Chairman’s place, addressed the Collegium. ‘I have consulted with the Secretary General of the Party,’ he began impressively, ‘and he approves what I have in mind. Let us examine what happened in Belgrade and find who was responsible for what is—let me make this clear once and for all—a humiliating defeat for your Service and a shattering blow to our defence capabilities. Apart from the British Ambassador, who may well have acted in a highly discreditable way, and the scientist Morris, who also played a part in the deception, we know of only two persons who are directly responsible for the escape of Professor Gubichev. They are Craig and Grayshott.’ He paused for a moment to sip from a glass of water, and allow his words to sink in.

‘As we heard this morning,’ he continued, ‘Craig has interfered with our operations before. This time he has gone too far. As for the woman Grayshott, who does not appear to have been an officer of SIS for long and has no black marks against her in our records, she

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showed great effrontery and was clearly a prime mover in effecting the escape.’ His eyes moved coldly around the group, who offered no comment. ‘The Secretary General agrees that an example shall be made of these two persons. Craig and Grayshott are to be liquidated in such a way that every officer in SIS, if not the general public, will know we are responsible and be wary, in future, of obstructing our operations.’

The Chairman was on his feet. ‘Comrade General,’ he said sternly, ‘this would mean breaking our rule. We do not liquidate foreign intelligence officers unless it becomes absolutely essential for operational reasons.’

General Golosov smiled. ‘And why was that rule made, may I ask?’

‘But surely it is obvious. So as to avoid the danger of reciprocation. We cannot have our own officers, on whom so much training time and special education has been expended, eliminated as soon as they are identified.’

‘That is, as you say, traditional KGB lore,’ said General Golosov with a smile, ‘and it is nonsense. How many field officers has SIS in service?’

The Chairman looked at the head of the First Chief Directorate, who said, ‘We don’t know, precisely. Perhaps as many as five hundred.’

‘And how many do we have?’

There was a pause. Then the answer came, low voiced: ‘Ninety-five thousand.’

‘Exactly. We could afford to liquidate every single SIS field officer, and suffer reciprocal losses, without depleting our field strength by more than half of one per cent.’

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There was a murmur of horrified protest. Golosov raised his hand. ‘That is not what I am proposing, gentlemen. I ask for the liquidation of two only, as a warning to their colleagues. And the Secretary General, I remind you, supports me. Therefore, let us have no further discussion.’

The Chairman made a last appeal. ‘I see the force of your argument, Comrade General,’ he began persuasively, ‘but may I suggest the method Department V used for punishing the traitor Khokhlov, after his defection. It was administered during a convention at Frankfurt in 1957, without the slightest danger to our operative, and caused atrocious suffering to the victim over a period of many months, although expert diagnosis and treatment were available. Craig and Grayshott would be a horrifying and lasting warning to all their colleagues.’

‘I remember the case, said Golosov. ‘It was irradiated thallium, I think, introduced in a drink, and causing decay in bones, blood and living tissue. But Khokhlov recovered. He is alive today. No, that is not what I feel is needed. Nothing is as salutary a warning as death.’ He looked at the Chairman challengingly. ‘So, Comrade Chairman, we expect to hear in the near future that Craig and Grayshott are dead.’

The Chairman was silent for a moment, then he said slowly, ‘Very well, Comrade General, but I ask for your instructions in writing.’

Golosov did not hide his dislike of the condition, but composed his face and said, ‘Agreed.’

‘The woman, too, is for liquidation, so we shall have to brief Colonel Rostov’s successor in Belgrade.’

Golosov smiled. ‘No, that will not be necessary. There we have a stroke of luck. After my nephew’s death I had the names of

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Craig and Grayshott added to the report list, and according to the computer printout an hour ago, Craig and Grayshott are together. By liquidating them both simultaneously we give point to the warning: These two set themselves up against the KGB, and they died. That will be the message.’

‘Together? But surely she is in Belgrade and he in London?’

‘Not today. They are in Venice, for a fortnight’s holiday, which started three days ago. It seems they are lovers. It was a lucky break. You have ten days, and that must be sufficient.’

The Chairman looked up, startled. ‘Ten days?’

Golosov gave a bark of laughter. ‘If you can find nothing more sophisticated, drown them.’ There was complete silence as he left the room.

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