Touch the Devil (18 page)

She had money left her by her father, a good apartment in St. John's Wood, and very little else. She was forty-two, still plain, her hair drawn back in a tight bun, and the tweed suits and sensible flat shoes she wore did little to enhance her appearance.

And then she had met Peter Yasnov. She'd had an invitation to a cultural evening at the Brazilian embassy, the sort of thing that came up occasionally. Usually, she didn't go to such affairs, but for some reason this time she had, and that's where she'd met Yasnov.

He'd been more than attentive--had stayed with her all evening--had not only taken her home, but had arranged to squire her to a concert at the Albert Hall the following week.

His slow insistent seduction had finally taken her to bed where she had discovered the delights of sex for the first time in her life. By the time she also discovered that he was a commercial attache at the Soviet embassy, she was hooked, she didn't care. Anything he wanted she gave him and that included any information of value that she came across in the office. Usually her access to the interesting stuff was limited, but this was really something special.

She wasn't supposed to see him for another four days, an eternity of waiting and he had always forbidden her ever to call at his flat. But for this. . . .

She had only taken two copies to make sure she got a good one. She slipped one into her dressing table drawer, put the other in her handbag, and went out.

Peter Yasnov had been commercial attache at the Soviet embassy in London for two years. A captain in the KGB, his previous posting had been at the Paris embassy where, under Nikolai Belov's tutelage, he had made remarkable progress. A handsome, dark-haired, and elegant young man, he was particularly attractive to women, a circumstance that had its uses and explained why hi
s m
asters had thought it worthwhile to indulge him in the smal
l t
ownhouse in Ebury Court, not far from the Palace of St. James.

He emerged from the shower, humming softly to himself, pulled on a robe and went into the living room to get a cigarette. He was standing at the window, looking down idly into the court, when Mary Baxter came around the corner, passed the two telephone repairmen with their green tent over the manhole in the pavement, and walked toward the house. Yasnov cursed softly and went downstairs.

The main function of the Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police based at Scotland Yard is to act as the executive arm of the security services. Surveillance forms a large part of Special Branch work, and the two detective sergeants posing as telephone workers in their tent in Ebury Court had been watching Peter Yasnov in one way or another for a month now.

Mary Baxter rang the bell and turned, looking back along the court while she waited, enabling the SB man with the camera to take several excellent photos.

"I haven't seen her before, have you?'

"Hardly his style, I would have thought," his colleague said. "She's no dollybird."

The door opened, and Yasnov appeared in his white bathrobe. Mary Baxter flung her arm around his neck and kissed him. The sergeant's camera clicked again.

"Now that is interesting," he said as she passed inside and the door closed. "He didn't look pleased at all. You'd better follow the lady, George, when she comes out. Find out who she is. There could be something in this one."

Yasnov was thoroughly angry, as he made clear. "I told you never to visit me here." He shook her by the shoulders. "Are you trying to ruin everything?"

"Please, Peter, I didn't mean any harm."

There were tears in her eyes, and he was filled with disgust, but he made a brave effort to conceal it and held her close to him for a moment.

"All right, I lost my temper, but you must understand my position."

"I know, Peter, I'm so sorry." She got her handbag open. "But I felt sure you'd be interested in this. I thought you might want to se
e i
t."

For the eyes of the Prime Minister only. The moment Yasnov saw that, his stomach tightened with excitement, and the paper trembled slightly in his hand as he took in the contents. He turned away from her and walked to the fireplace. The biggest touch he'd ever had by far. It was inconceivable that this block of wood in the tweed skirt had come up with such a thing.

She approached him hesitatingly. "Did I do right? Is it what you wanted?"

He turned with a dazzling smile and pulled her close. "For an exceptionally good girl, an exceptional kiss," and he crushed his mouth on hers.

She clung to him, trembling. "Oh, Peter, I'd do anything for you. Anything."

He cradled her head in his shoulder and checked his watch. Fifteen minutes was all it would take, and if it kept her happy--he put an arm around her. "Come upstairs, my darling," he whispered and led her out of the room.

Mary Baxter left half an hour later. She had never felt so alive. It was as if something that had been locked up inside her for years had been released. She felt so full of energy that she walked a considerable part of the way home before taking the subway, totally unaware of the man following her.

Yasnov left his house an hour later and walked a couple of street
s b
efore hailing a cab. He alighted in Kensington High Street an
d w
ent the rest of the way on foot to the Soviet embassy in Kensington Palace Gardens. Five minutes later, he was closeted with his immediate superior, Colonel Josef Golchek.

Golchek read the report through twice and nodded. "Very interesting," he said. He lit an American cigarette. "Of course, it isn't going to prevent the start of the Third World War or anything. Its real importance lies not in the substance of this report but in the implication that the woman Baxter can actually get her hands on a report intended for the eyes of the British prime minister only. The possibilities for the future would seem to me to be fantastic."

"And this report. What do I do with it?" Yasnov demanded.

"Send it to Nikolai Belov in Paris. Code Three, for his own eyes. He'll know how best to handle it."

"Very well." Yasnov moved to the door.

As he opened it, Golchek said, "One more thing, Peter." "What's that?"

"You'll have to continue to keep her happy."

"For that," Peter Yasnov said with feeling, "I should be made a Hero of the Soviet Union."

It was nine o'clock that night when Mary Baxter was led by a woman detective sergeant of Special Branch into Charles Ferguson's office. He nodded to the detective sergeant and she went out, closing the door.

"Sit down, Miss Baxter."

She did as she was told, suddenly tired. She was not afraid. The shock of her arrest had had a numbing effect so that she was not really capable of taking anything in. It had never occurred to her, not for one moment, that this kind of thing might happen.

"You know why you're here?" Ferguson said.

"I've no idea. If there has been some mistake in my work."

He pushed the surveillance photos across the desk. She looked at them blankly, then picked up the one that showed her kissing Yasnov in the doorway. "You've no right . . ." she began.

"We have every right," he said gently. "You work for the British
Security Service. All right, in a minor capacity perhaps, but that makes your association with a man like Yasnov very suspect.

"All right," she said, "so he's a commercial attache at the Soviet embassy."

"And also, Miss Baxter, a captain in the KGB."

She gazed at him incredulously. "I don't believe you."

"I have a photo of him here in uniform. Excellent likeness, don't you agree?"

There was a knock at the door and Harry Fox entered, face grave. He glanced at Mary Baxter, then put the second copy of the Brosnan report she had made on the desk in front of Ferguson.

"I found this, sir, in one of her dressing table drawers," he said grimly.

"Dear God Almighty." Ferguson got up, beckoned to Fox, and went out into the corridor. "Watch her," he said to the detective sergeant, and she went into the office and closed the door.

"Well, sir?" Harry Fox said. "What do we do?"

"What can we do, Harry, except hope and pray Devlin calls us again. This could give him real problems."

"What about the Baxter woman?"

"Let's see, shall we?"

They went back into the office, and the detective sergeant stepped out again. Mary Baxter sat holding the photo of Yasnov in uniform in her lap. She had stopped crying, there was something close to anger on her swollen face now, and Ferguson seized on that fact instantly.

"He certainly made a bloody fool out of you, didn't he?"

"He told me he loved me," she said bitterly. "All lies. Nothing bu
t l
ies." She tore the photo into several pieces. "I could kill him." "Much more sensible to pay him back in his own coin." Ferguson gave her a cigarette and a light.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"You could go to prison," he said. "For a long time. On the other hand, it does seem rather a pity when there's another way of handling this matter." He held up the copy of the report. "This
,
after all, is past history. Not much we can do about it now." "What exactly do you mean?"

"Simple enough. You continue to see Yasnov as if nothing had happened. Feed him the information I give you."

She shook her head, shocked. "I don't think I could do that."

"Why not?" Ferguson demanded. "He used you for his own purposes, didn't he? I should have thought it truly poetic justice for you to use him for yours."

She was like a different person now, her face hardening. "You know, I think l'd rather enjoy that, Brigadier." She stood up. "Do you think I could wash my face?"

"Certainly." Ferguson indicated the door. "Bathroom through there."

"My God," Fox said after she'd gone out.

"I know, Harry, I warned you just how dirty a business it was. You can tell that girl from Special Branch to clear off. We shan't be needing her."

In Paris, the coding machine chattered in the radio room of the intelligence section of the Soviet embassy. The woman operator watched the message appear line by line on the display screen. When it was finished she removed the tape which had recorded it and summoned the supervisor.

"A Code Three from London for Colonel Belov's eyes alone. It also includes as ancillary information three photos over the wire. Here are the serial numbers."

"He's in Berlin," the supervisor said. "Due back tomorrow afternoon or evening. Hold it till then. You can't do anything with it anyway. It requires his personal key to decode. I'll get those photos from the wire room. You can hold those too."

She walked away, and the operator placed the tape in her data drawer, locked it, and returned to work.

It was almost midnight and chilly on the balcony of Anne-Marie'
s h
otel room at St. Denis. She went inside and returned, putting o
n h
er sheepskin jacket. She sat down beside Devlin again.

"This time tomorrow night, it could all be over."

"True." Devlin's cigarette glowed in the dark.

"How will I find him, Liam?"

"Changed, girl, and considerably. Be prepared for some big differences."

"I don't mind that. An essential requirement for any human being is to grow or change or learn how to become reconciled to their limitations."

"Ah, you're talking about the rocky road to maturity," Devlin shook his head. "I mean something else. He's not the wild man who saved you in that swamp in Vietnam, and he isn't the brave soldier who stood at my side in Ulster in sixty-nine. To be honest with you, if he's learned anything at all it's that he's been used too much for other people's purposes. I don't think he believes in anything anymore."

"I can't accept that."

Devlin said, "Girl, dear, don't try to make him into some mythological hero. Whatever else he is, he is not that. I'm turning in now. The supply boat leaves at seven."

He swung a leg over the balcony rail and went into his room, leaving her there, staring out into the darkness.

Chapter
Ten.

When Lebel opened the door of the interview room and ushered Brosnan in, Devlin was standing by the window, peering out through the bars.

He turned, smiling. "Ah, there you are."

"Mr. Gorman." Brosnan shook hands and sat down, and Devlin took the chair opposite.

"If you need me, Monsieur, remember the bell." Lebel went out, locking the door.

They spoke in Irish. Devlin said, "Will he search you before taking you back to your cell?"

"Pierre?" Brosnan shook his head. "All for a quiet life, that one. What have you got for me?"

Devlin opened his briefcase. "Have a cigarette." He pushed a pack across and followed it with another. "One contains the homing device, the other a pocket flashlight. I wasn't sure if you could lay your hands on one. I was thinking of the sewers."

"We've got candles and matches."