Free Albatross by Evelyn Anthony

patient.’ The months had passed and he had forgotten that message, as he believed he was forgotten. Until Davina Graham came.
    The cigarette burned his fingers. He dropped it on the bed and cursed. The papers fell to the ground while he looked for it on the blanket, found it, stamped on it, sucking his sore finger like a child. He behaved childishly when he was ill, or when anything happened to thwart his few pleasures. Once, when a simple box he was making in the carpentry shop split, he found himself crying. That was what prison did to a man; he indulged in bouts of wild self-pity now and again. Kinder to shoot a poor bugger than lock him away for the rest of his life and pretend it was humane. Better to give it him in the back of the neck walking down the corridor, like they did in maligned old Soviet Russia, than keep him to eat himself alive with frustration and despair. Harrington picked up the papers, smoothed them; he’d trodden on the top one in his agitation. He made sure there was no spark in the bed; he’d become finicky and obsessive about tiny things. Satisfied, he lit another cigarette, positioning the ashtray by his side, and settled back to read and concentrate. For dear life. The old-fashioned phrase came to his mind, and he thought how apposite it was. Life, and any hope of enjoying it in freedom, depended on what he could get out of that report.
    Igor Borisov swivelled his chair round and faced the window. He had a majestic view of the Lenin Monument at the end of Karl Marx Prospekt; he found it an aid to concentration. Behind him, Natalia waited in silence. He had a broad back; she knew every muscle in it, and had left little stinging scratches either side of his spine. They had been lovers for just on a year. What had started as a sexual encounter had developed into a secret partnership. Natalia often looked at herself in the mirror and smiled at the face of the most powerful woman in Russia. There were women in public office in the Soviet Union; the Politburo was all male. But the mistress and confidante of the director of Russia’s mighty security forces was more influential than some of the members of the Politburo.
    Borisov commanded an internal army of a quarter of a million men. The soldiers of the KGB had the most modern weapons and sophisticated training, even at the expense of the regular armed forces. They were the instrument of the State and their function was to keep control of the Soviet people, and the Soviet generals. The powers her lover exercised outside Russia extended right across the world. Russian Intelligence abroad was no less his responsibility than a quiescent population at home. Next to Zerkhov, General Secretary of the Party and President of the USSR, Igor Borisov was the most powerful man in the country.
    She came up to him and slipped an arm round his shoulder. He placed his right hand over hers and stroked the back of her wrist with his thumb.
    â€˜What have you decided?’ Natalia asked him.
    â€˜I don’t want to decide, not yet,’ he said. ‘Albatross has served us well. Almost too well, because at last his existence is suspected.’
    â€˜And the man Harrington?’ There is no sound for H in Russian; Natalia pronounced it Garrington. Borisov turned back to his desk; she perched on the arm of his chair.
    â€˜He doesn’t know who Albatross is,’ Igor said. ‘His last three messages confirm that. He is making time for himself until he hears from us.’
    â€˜And this woman Graham is investigating,’ Natalia said quietly. ‘She’s clever, Igor. After Mexico, I think she is the biggest danger you have in the British sector. Tell me, have you thought of getting rid of her?’
    â€˜Once or twice,’ Borisov admitted. ‘She wasn’t intended to survive Mexico. I thought of sending someone in against her, then she retired and it seemed pointless. We kill one of theirs, they do the same to us.