Lie down with lions - Ken Follett [13]
Surely they could not have found out about Jane.
His asking her to go to Afghanistan with him was no business of theirs. There were sure to be others in the Party anyway, perhaps a nurse to help Jean-Pierre at his destination, perhaps other doctors headed for various parts of the country: why shouldn’t Jane be among them? She was not a nurse, but she could take a crash course, and her great advantage was that she could speak some Farsi, the Persian language, a form of which was spoken in the area where Jean-Pierre was going.
He hoped she would go with him out of idealism and a sense of adventure. He hoped she would forget about Ellis while she was there, and would fall in love with the nearest European, who would of course be Jean-Pierre.
He had also hoped the Party would never know that he had encouraged her to go for his own reasons. There was no need for them to know, no way they would find out, normally—or so he had thought. Perhaps he had been wrong. Perhaps they were angry.
This is foolish, he told himself. I’ve done nothing wrong, really; and even if I had there would be no punishment. This is the real KGB, not the mythical institution that strikes fear into the hearts of subscribers to the Reader’s Digest.
Raoul parked the car. They had stopped outside an expensive apartment building in the rue de l’Université. It was the place where Jean-Pierre had met Leblond the last time. They left the car and went inside. The lobby was gloomy. They climbed the curving staircase to the first floor and rang a bell. How much my life has changed, thought Jean-Pierre, since the last time I waited at this door!
Monsieur Leblond opened it. He was a short, slight, balding man with spectacles, and in his charcoal gray suit and silver tie he looked like a butler. He led them to the room at the back of the building where Jean-Pierre had been interviewed. The tall windows and the elaborate moldings indicated that it had once been an elegant drawing room, but now it had a nylon carpet, a cheap office desk and some molded-plastic chairs, orange in color.
“Wait here for a moment,” said Leblond. His voice was quiet, clipped and as dry as dust. A slight accent suggested that his real name was not Leblond. He went out through a different door.
Jean-Pierre sat on one of the plastic chairs. Raoul remained standing. In this room, thought Jean-Pierre, that dry voice said to me You have been a quietly loyal member of the Party since childhood. Your character and your family background suggest that you would serve the Party well in a covert role.
I hope I haven’t ruined everything because of Jane, he thought.
Leblond came back in with another man. The two of them stood in the doorway, and Leblond pointed at Jean-Pierre. The second man looked hard at Jean-Pierre, as if committing his face to memory. Jean-Pierre returned his gaze. The man was very big, with broad shoulders like those of a football player. His hair was long at the sides but thinning on top, and he had a droopy mustache. He wore a green corduroy jacket with a rip in the sleeve. After a few seconds he nodded and went out.
Leblond closed the door behind him and sat at the desk. “There has been a disaster,” he said.
It’s not about Jane, thought Jean-Pierre. Thank God.
Leblond said: “There is a CIA agent among your circle of friends.”
“My God!” said Jean-Pierre.
“That is not the disaster,” Leblond said irritably. “It is hardly surprising that there should be an American spy among your friends. No doubt there are Israeli and South African and French spies, too. What would these people have to do if they did not infiltrate groups of young political activists? And we also have one, of course.”
“Who?”
“You.”
“Oh!” Jean-Pierre was taken aback: he had not thought of himself as a spy, exactly. But what else did it mean to serve the Party in a covert role? “Who is the CIA agent?” he asked, intensely curious.
“Someone called Ellis Thaler.”
Jean-Pierre was so shocked that he stood up. “Ellis?