“Jesus,” he breathed, “we can dictate our own terms.”
“Not quite,” corrected Lawrence. “We can require the maximum that the moderate faction inside the Politburo can get away with. Insist on more and we could be eating ashes.”
The visit of the British Prime Minister and her Foreign Secretary to Washington two days later was described in the press as being informal. Ostensibly, Britain’s first woman premier was to address a major meeting of the English-Speaking Union and take the opportunity of paying a courtesy call on the President of the United States.
But the crux of the latter came in the Oval Office, where President Bill Matthews, flanked by his national security adviser, Stanislaw Poklewski, and his Secretary of State, David Lawrence, gave the British visitors an exhaustive briefing on the hopeful start of the Castletown conference. The agenda, reported President Matthews, had been agreed to with unusual alacrity. At least three main areas for future discus
sion had been defined between the two teams, with a minimal presence of the usual Soviet objections to every dot and comma.
President Matthews expressed the hope that, after years of frustration, a comprehensive limitation of arms levels and troop deployments along the Iron Curtain from the Baltic to the Aegean could well emerge from Castletown.
The crunch came as the meeting between the two heads of government closed.
“We regard it as vital, ma’am, that the inside information of which we are in possession, and without which the conference could well fail, continue to reach us.”
“You mean the Nightingale,” said the British Premier crisply.
“Yes, ma’am, I do,” said Matthews. “We regard it as indispensable that the Nightingale continue to operate.”
“I understand your point, Mr. President,” she answered calmly. “But I believe that the hazard levels of that operation are very high. I do not dictate to Sir Nigel Irvine what he shall or shall not do in the running of his service. I have too much respect for his judgment for that. But I will do what I can.”
It was not until the traditional ceremony in front of the principal facade of the White House of seeing the British visitors into their limousines and smiling for the cameras was complete that Stanislaw Poklewski could give vent to his feelings.
“There’s no hazard to a Russian agent in the world that compares with the success or failure of the Castletown talks,” he said.
“I agree,” said Bill Matthews, “but I understand from Bob Benson the hazard lies in the exposure of the Nightingale at this point. If that happened, and he were caught, the Politburo would learn what had been passed over. If that happened, they would shut off at Castletown. So the Nightingale either has to be silenced or brought out, but neither until we have a treaty sewn up and signed. And that could be six months yet.”
That same evening, while the sun was still shining on Washington, it was setting over the port of Odessa as the Sanadria dropped anchor in the roads. When the clatter of the anchor cable had ceased, silence fell on the freighter, broken only by the low humming of the generators in the engine room and the hiss of escaping steam on deck. Andrew Drake leaned on the fo’c’sle rail, watching the lights of the port and city twinkle into life.
West of the ship, at the northern extremity of the port, lay the oil harbor and refinery, circled by chain-link fencing. To the south, the port was bounded by the protective arm of the great seaward mole. Ten miles beyond the mole the Dniester River flowed into the sea through the swampy marshes where, five months before, Miroslav Kaminsky had stolen his skiff and made a desperate bid for freedom. Now, thanks to him, Andrew Drake—Andriy Drach—had come home to the land of his ancestors. But this time he had come armed.
That evening, Captain Thanos was informed that he would be brought into port and moored alongside the following morning. Port health and customs officials visited the Sanadria, but they spent the hour on board closeted with Captain Thanos in his cabin, sampling his top-grade Scotch whisky, kept for the occasion. There was no search of the ship. Watching the launch leave the ship’s side, Drake wondered if Thanos had betrayed him. It would have been easy enough: Drake would be arrested ashore; Thanos would sail with his five thousand dollars.
It all depended, he thought, on whether Thanos had accepted his story of bringing money to his fiancée. If he had, there was no motive to betray him, for the offense was routine enough; his own sailors brought contraband goods into Odessa on every voyage, and dollar bills were only another form of contraband. And if the rifle and pistols had been discovered, the simple thing would have been to throw the lot into the sea and sling Drake off the ship, once back in Piraeus. Still, he could neither eat nor sleep that night.
Just after dawn, the pilot boarded. The Sanadria weighed anchor, took a tug in attendance, and moved slowly between the breakwaters and into her berth. Often, Drake had learned, there was a berthing delay in this, the most congested of the Soviet Union’s warm-water ports. They must want their Vac-U-Vators badly. He had no idea how badly. Once the shore cranes had started to unload the freighter, the watchkeepers among the crew were allowed to go ashore.
During the voyage Drake had become friendly with the Sanadria’s carpenter, a middle-aged Greek seaman who had visited Liverpool and was keen to practice his twenty words of English. He had repeated them continuously to his intense delight whenever he met Drake during the voyage, and each time Drake had nodded furious encouragement and approval. He had explained to Constantino in English and sign language that he had a girl friend in Odessa and was bringing her presents. Constantino approved. With a dozen others, they trooped down the gangway and headed for the dock gates. Drake was wearing one of his best suede sheepskin coats, although the day was reasonably warm. Constantino carried a duffel shoulder bag with a brace of bottles of export-proof Scotch whisky.
The whole port area of Odessa is cordoned off from the city and its citizens by a high chain fence, topped with barbed wire and arc lights. The main dock gates habitually stand open in the daytime, the entrance being blocked only by a balanced red-and-white striped pole. This marks the passageway for lorries, with a customs official and two armed militiamen attending it.
Astride the entrance gate is a long, narrow shed, with one door inside the port area and one on the outside. The party from the Sanadria entered the first door, with Constantino in charge. There stood a long counter, attended by one customs man, and a passport desk, attended by an immigration officer and a militiaman. All three looked scruffy and exceptionally bored. Constantine approached the customs man and dumped his shoulder bag on the counter. The official opened it and extracted a bottle of whisky. Constantine gestured that it was a present from one to the other. The customs man managed a friendly nod and placed the bottle beneath his table.
Constantine clasped a brawny arm around Drake and pointed to him.
“Droog,” he said, and beamed widely. The customs man nodded that he understood the newcomer was the Greek carpenter’s friend and should be recognized as such. Drake smiled broadly. He stood back, eyeing the customs man as an outfitter eyes a customer. Then he stepped forward, slipped off the sheepskin coat and held it out, indicating that he and the customs man were about the same size. The official did not bother to try it on; it was a fine coat, worth a month’s salary at least. He smiled his acknowledgment, placed the coat under the table, and waved the entire party through.
The immigration officer and militiaman showed no surprise. The second bottle of whisky was for the pair of them. The Sanadria crew members surrendered their seaman’s books, and in the case of Drake his passport to the immigration officer, and each received in return a shore pass from a leather satchel the officer wore over his shoulder. Within a few minutes the Sanadria party emerged into the sunshine beyond the shed.
Drake’s rendezvous was in a small café in the dockland area of old, cobbled streets, not far from the Pushkin Monument, where the ground rises from the docks to the main city. He found it after thirty minutes of wandering, having separated himself from his fellow seamen on the grounds that he wanted to date his mythical girl friend. Constantino did not object; he had to contact his underworld friends to set up the delivery of his sackful of denim jeans.
It was Lev Mishkin who came, just after noon. He was wary, cautious, and sat alone, making no sign of recognition. When he had finished his coffee, he rose and left the café. Drake followed him. Only when the pair had reached the wide, sea-front highway of Primorsky Boulevard did he allow Drake to catch up. They spoke as they walked.
Drake agreed that he would make his first run, with the handguns stuck in his waistband and the image intensifier in a duffel bag with two clinking bottles of whisky, that evening. There would be plenty of Western ships’ crews coming through for an evening in the dockland bars at the same time. He would be wearing another sheepskin coat to cover the handguns in his belt, and the chill of the evening air would justify his keeping the coat buttoned at the fro
nt Mishkin and his friend David Lazareff would meet Drake in the darkness by the Pushkin Monument and take over the hardware.
Just after eight that evening, Drake came through with his first consignment. Jovially, he saluted the customs man, who waved him on and called to his colleague at the passport desk. The immigration man handed out a shore pass in exchange for his passport, jerked his chin toward the open door to the city of Odessa, and Drake was through. He was almost at the foot of the Pushkin Monument, seeing the writer’s head raised against the stars above, when two figures joined him out of the darkness between the plane trees that crowd Odessa’s open spaces.