“But what? Look, Joe, he’s pulling apart years of patient KGB work in Central and South America. Our friends down there are closing down network after network. It’s okay. I know you’re tired. Just keep at it.”
He went on to tell Roth of the hint the DCI had given him about the forthcoming vacancy as Deputy Director Operations. He was not usually a confiding man, but he saw no reason not to give his subordinate the same kind of boost the DCI had given him.
“If it goes through, Joe, there’ll be a second vacancy, head of Special Projects. My recommendation will count for a lot. It’ll be for you, Joe. I wanted you to know that.”
Roth was grateful but not ecstatic. He seemed more than tired. There was something else on his mind.
“Is he causing problems?” asked Bailey. “Has he got everything he wants? Does he need female company? Do you? It’s isolated down here. It’s been a month. These things can be arranged.”
He knew Roth was divorced and single. The Agency has a legendary divorce rate. As they say at Langley, it comes with the territory.
“No, I’ve offered him that. He just shook his head. We work out together. It helps. Run through the woods until we can hardly stand. I’ve never been in such good shape. He’s older, but he’s fitter. That’s one of the things that worries me, Calvin. He’s got no flaws, no weaknesses. If he got drunk, screwed around, got maudlin for thinking about his homeland, lost his temper—”
“You’ve tried to provoke him?” asked Bailey. Provoking a defector into a rage, an outburst of pent-up emotions, can sometimes work as a release, a therapy. According to the in-house psychiatrists, anyway.
“Yes. I’ve taunted him with being a rat, a turncoat. Nothing. He just ran me into the ground and laughed at me. Then he got on with what he calls “the job.” Blowing away KGB assets worldwide. He’s a total pro.”
“That’s why he’s the best we’ve ever had, Joe. Don’t knock it. Be grateful.”
“Calvin, that’s not the main reason he bugs me. As a guy, I like him. I even respect him. I never thought I would respect a defector. But there’s something else. He’s holding something back.”
Calvin Bailey went very quiet and very still. “The polygraph tests don’t say so.”
“No, they don’t. That’s why I can’t be sure I’m right. I just feel it. There’s something he’s not saying.”
Bailey leaned across and stared hard into Roth’s face. An awful lot hung on the question he was about to ask.
“Joe, could there be any chance, in your considered view, that despite all the tests, he might still be a phony, a KGB plant?”
Roth sighed. What had been troubling him had finally come out.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I don’t know. For me, there’s a ten-percent area of doubt. A gut feeling that he’s holding something back. And I can’t work out, if I’m right, why.”
“Then find out, Joe. Find out,” said Calvin Bailey. He did not need to point out that if there was anything phony about Colonel Pyotr Orlov, two careers in the CIA were likely to go straight into the trash can. He rose.
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“Personally I think it’s nonsense, Joe. But do what you have to do.”
Roth found Orlov in his living room, lying on a settee, listening to his favorite music. Despite the fact that he was virtually a prisoner, the Ranch was equipped like a well-appointed country club. Apart from his daily runs in the forest, always flanked by four of the young athletes from Quantico, he had access to the gymnasium, the sauna and pool, an excellent chef, and a well-stocked bar that he used sparingly.
Soon after arriving, he had admitted to a taste for the ballad singers of the sixties and early seventies. Now, whenever he visited the Russian, Roth was accustomed to hearing Simon and Garfunkel, the Seekers, or the slow honeyed tones of Elvis Presley coming from the tape deck.
That evening when he walked in, the clear childlike voice of Mary Hopkin was filling the room. It was her one famous song. Orlov jackknifed himself off the settee with a grin of pleasure. He gestured at the tape deck.
“You like it? Listen.”
Roth listened. “ ‘Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end. ...’ ”
“Yeah, it’s nice,” said Roth, who preferred traditional and mainstream jazz.
“You know what it is?”
“That British girl, isn’t it?” said Roth.
“No, no—not the singer, the tune. You think it is British tune, yes? From the Beatles, perhaps.”
“Guess so,” said Roth, now also smiling.