The Waiting Time by Gerald Seymour Page A

Briton watered from the foul-smelling cigarettes around them. His diplomatic accreditation was for a second secretary (consular).
    ‘Use the soft tissue, imported, or the local ass scratcher — need a man with a sharp clear mind for the big decisions.’ The American, on the list submitted to the foreign ministry, was a cultural attaché.
    From where they stood, with soft drinks, they could see the line of guests filtering into the salon, past the handshakes of the ambassador and the deputy chief of mission. The minister, whose chest flashed ribbons, was in conversation with the deputy chief. The ambassador welcomed the short stocky Russian with the colonel’s insignia on his shoulders and the chest free of decoration colours. A heavy-built woman stepped forward hesitantly to meet the ambassador.
    ‘And brought his lovely wife with him.’
    ‘Our Irma — not what you’d call an ocean racer.’
    ‘More of a bulk carrier, Brad.’
    ‘Heh, look at that, David. Enjoy that.’
    The minister had moved on to the centre of the salon, couldn’t have seen where he was headed. The Colonel had left his wife and was powering to him. The minister had blundered, stormy night and no navigation, into what Brad called the ‘recons’. They’d had eight different names in seven years, so Brad always won a laugh out of David with his name for the reconstructed KGB people. Eyes sparking, a stand-off, mutual hostility — military facing up to the ‘recons’. The Colonel had seen the opportunity of confrontation and come fast to his man.
    ‘You think they might actually fight, bare fist?’
    ‘I’m out of Montana, they used to have a betting game there. Put colours, for identification, on the back of a couple of rats which hadn’t been fed in several days, drop the rats in a sack and knot the top, tight. Bet on the winner.’
    ‘The loser’s dead?’
    ‘One rat lives. Where’d you put your money?’
    Without finesse, Rykov had taken the arm of his minister and propelled him round like it was a parade-ground.
    ‘My paint’s going on Rykov’s back.’
    ‘Be a hard fight in the sack, he has to be clever and lucky. You rate him lucky enough — clever enough?’
    ‘I’m told he is. He wears a good face, a strong face.’
    ‘But you can’t see into the face. The way of this damn place, you never see behind the face of the man who matters...’
    In the crowded room, the Briton and the American had eyes only for Colonel Pyotr Rykov. For the last four months, each, in his own way, through his own unshared channels, had sought to explain the man, unmask the character and analyse the influence. Both had failed. They were two veterans, middle-aged, heavy with experience; both had exploited the resources available to them to satisfy the hunger at Langley and Vauxhall Bridge Cross for hard information on the mind of Colonel Pyotr Rykov; both acknowledged that failure.
    ‘This guy the Germans are hawking...’
    Droll. ‘Don’t, Brad, intrude on private grief.’
    Chuckling. ‘Heh, is it right that a feisty little cat scratched his face? That’s pretty un-British manners.’
    ‘When’s he going across to your lot?’
    ‘A couple of weeks. The guest list’s the best and the brightest. They’re screaming for a profile on Rykov. He has undivided attention.’
    They watched the Colonel. He was always a pace behind his minister, and they saw his lips move as if murmuring guidance. He was there for thirty-five minutes, the barest decency, before he was gone, slipping away with his minister and his wife, back into the frozen darkness of Moscow’s night.

Chapter Four
    It had been a late rail connection to the last ferry boat of the evening.
    A squall had whipped off the harbour waters. The wind, even behind the high sea walls of packed rocks, had the strength to shake the pleasure boats, the tugs and the few fishing boats on their moorings, and to roll the ferry before the hawser ropes had been cast off.
    Under scudding cloud, it