LITMIR.BIZ

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course I would,’ he said. ‘You’re the sexiest broad in town.’

      She accepted the mood. ‘From what I’ve seen in Moscow, mister, that ain’t saying much.’

      They drove through the phantom streets to the National Hotel on the corner of Gorky Street and he went up with her in the ornate, antique lift to her room. On the landing a suspicious woman in black sat at her desk and glowered at them. If he stayed in the room longer than five minutes she would be at the door. He was grateful for her presence.

      ‘Good night,’ he said outside the door.

      ‘Good night,’ she said. ‘Thanks for everything. Don’t say anything else. We’ve been through enough clichés tonight to last us both a lifetime.’

      ‘I was only going to say that if ever I was out of a job I’d come to your agency.’

      She said: ‘There’s only one Goddam job you’re fit for. And I’d supply the references.’ She shut the door.

      The woman at the desk looked at him speculatively wondering if he could have got up to anything in three minutes flat. These Americans.

      He felt sad for the woman he had just ushered into the loneliness of a hotel room. He walked down a flight of stairs and headed for the dollar bar.

      The bar with its gold-papered walls, cafeteria tables and awkward blonde barmaids with bouffant hair styles was occupied by a Swedish ice hockey team. They had lost a match that evening with the Russians and were taking their revenge on the bar.

      It was one of two bars in town which stayed open late at night for the purpose of relieving foreigners of as much hard currency as possible. The other was at the Metropole Hotel and visitors could never decide which of the two was the more depressing. They usually nominated the Metropole because at least the National had barmaids who flirted grotesquely as they served the wrong drinks and bar girls who put in an appearance on such noisy nights as this.

      Randall ordered a straight whisky and watched with resignation as the barmaid topped up his glass with Narzan. Why, he wondered as he had wondered many times before, did they always make such a Goddam mess of everything? They had sent the first man into space and they would land the first man on the moon but they couldn’t organise a booze-up at a brewery.

      At the bar sat the usual assortment of nationalities. Arabs and Africans on begging missions puzzled that they were not overwhelmed by the friendliness they had expected from a people who, at long range, seemed so intensely interested in their welfare; Western businessmen suffocated by Soviet bureaucracy by day and drowning themselves in whisky by night; some journalists chatting to a Liberal Member of Parliament from Britain who, although uninvited, had been waiting for a fortnight to see Kosygin; the duty KGB man drinking a beer and trying to listen to the few languages he could understand. Tonight, though, everyone listened to the Swedes because it was impossible not to listen to them.

      The Swedes were tall and much thinner than they seemed, padded and pugnacious, on the ice. They all spoke English without the letter J; as they downed vodka they became increasingly outspoken about the Russians’ hockey tactics.

      One of them approached the Liberal MP. ‘You Russian?’ he demanded.

      The sad, noble face looked dismayed. ‘Good Lord no,’ he said; and smiled at the journalists because he knew the incident would be reported in their gossip columns.

      ‘You German?’

      ‘I’m afraid not.’ He was hurt that his nationality was not immediately apparent in the cut of his decently shabby suit and his amused nonchalance. ‘I’m English.’

      ‘English?’ The Swede seemed surprised. ‘You don’t play ice hockey?’

      The MP seized his opportunity for some gentle humour. ‘Not ice hockey. But I used to play hockey in my younger days. It’s much the same, isn’t it, except that it’s not played on ice?’

      The Swede said: ‘You try to be funny?’ One of his front teeth was broken and one eye was closing from a recent blow.

      ‘Good Lord no. I just thought the rules were much the same.’ He removed the smile to indicate that he was not being funny. He was conscious that he was not impressing the journalists to whom he had been trying to explain Kosygin’s reluctance to see him.

      ‘Yust the same,’ said the Swede, ‘I think you are trying to take the piss.’ He tossed back a vodka. ‘You see? I speak very good English.’

      ‘Very good indeed. I wish I spoke Swedish as well.’

      ‘You speak Swedish?’

      ‘No, I wish I did.’

      ‘It is very good language. Not like Russian.’ He spat.

      The MP looked increasingly uneasy. He stretched and yawned. ‘Time I turned in chaps. I’ve got an early start in the morning.’

      ‘The Russians are pigs,’ said the Swede. ‘They play dirty.’ He pointed at his broken tooth. ‘See that? That’s how dirty they play.’

      ‘I’m told the Canadian professionals are the roughest players, the MP said.

      The Swede considered the point. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘they are rough. But, Yesus Christ, they are not dirty like these Russians.’

      The MP stood up and eyed the doorway. He was saved by a Russian tart, very drunk, who prodded the Swede in the chest and said: ‘You buy me whisky then we dance.’

      The Swede examined her. Ruined bouffant, blood-stained handkerchief wrapped round her hand, black dress tight round her big buttocks. He seemed to forget his hatred of the Russians. ‘First we dance,’ he said. ‘Then we drink whisky.’

      The MP strolled as nonchalantly as possible through arguing Swedes to the door.

      ‘A few paragraphs,’ said one of the journalists.

      ‘It’s all right for you,’ said another. ‘You get paid extra for stuff in the gossip column.’

      Randall felt the envelope in his pocket and wondered about its contents—and Washington’s choice of couriers. A long time ago, before the belated acceptance of ciphers, Washington had used couriers extensively; then, while still using the diplomatic pouch, the CIA had relied principally on codes. Now they seemed to be favouring couriers carrying coded messages. The courier was usually the American tourist whom the Soviets would be least likely to suspect. But all methods of secret communication tended to fall into a pattern which could be spotted if they were used too often. Anyway, Randall thought, this was the first time they had used a frustrated widow; he hoped they would persist with the system for a while.

      The Swedes were dancing energetically with the whores who had only recently returned to the bar. A few months previously there had been a purge. The Soviet Press had maligned the girls for indulging the tastes of decadent Westerners and one girl had been sent to a labour camp after a well-publicised trial.

      Randall had never been sure whether any of them were genuine whores. Perhaps some were; the others were used by the State to extract information and opinions from Westerners. If this were so the outrage of the Press had been spurious and the convicted girl was probably living in comparative luxury in a closed city as far away from Moscow as possible. But, whether they were employed or self-employed, the girls went about their trade in grotesquely amateurish style. However Randall knew from experience that most espionage was amateurish on the grand scale.

      At the bar and on the floor, half a dozen girls cuddled, squeezed, kissed and cajoled as if they had taken a correspondence course on their profession. They had also made the mistake of drinking as much as their quarry and they smelled of the sweat that was staining their dresses.

      A tourist from the same party as the widow said: ‘Do you fancy any of those broads, Mac?’

      ‘Not tonight,’ Randall said. ‘And what’s more I don’t fancy having my nose busted by a Swedish ice hockey player.’

      ‘If

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