“You will understand, Comrade General Secretary, that what we have sought is a means of swinging a portion of the British electorate of not less than ten percent across the nation to two cardinal viewpoints: one is a massive loss of their popular confidence in the existing Conservative government, the second a conviction that in the election of a Labour government lies their best chance for contentment and security.
“In order to simplify that search, we asked ourselves if there were not perhaps one single issue that could dominate, or be brought to dominate, the entire election. After profound consideration we have all come to the view that no economic aspect—not job losses, factory closures, increasing automation in industry, even public-service cuts—would constitute this single issue we have been seeking.
“We believe there is but one: the greatest and most emotional noneconomic political issue in Britain and all Western Europe at the present time. This is the question of nuclear disarmament. This has become huge in the West, involving millions of ordinary people. It is basically a matter of mass fear, and it is this which we feel should become the main thrust, the issue we should covertly exploit.”
“And your specific proposals?” asked the General Secretary silkily.
“You will know, Comrade General Secretary, of our efforts so far in this field. Not millions but billions of rubles have been spent encouraging the various antinuclear lobbies, in proposing to the West European people that unilateral nuclear disarmament really is synonymous with their best chance for peace. Our covert efforts and their results have been huge, but nothing compared to what we believe should now be sought and achieved.
“The British Labour Party is the only one of four contesting the next election that is committed to unilateral nuclear disarmament. Our view is that all the stops should now be pulled out, using funds, disinformation, propaganda, to persuade that minimum wavering ten percent of the British electorate to switch their vote, convinced at last that the Labour vote is the peace vote.”
The silence as they waited for the General Secretary’s reaction was almost tangible. He spoke at last. “Those efforts that we have made and of which you spoke—have they worked?”
Professor Krilov looked as if he had been hit by an air-to-air missile. Philby caught the Soviet leader’s mood and shook his head. The General Secretary noted the gesture and went on speaking.
“For eight years we have put a huge effort into destabilizing the confidence of the Western European electorates in their governments on this issue. Today, true, all the unilateralist movements are so left wing that by one means or another they have come under the control of our friends and work to our ends. The campaign has brought a rich harvest in agents of sympathy and influence. But—”
The General Secretary suddenly smacked both palms onto the arms of his wheelchair. The violent gesture in a man normally so ice-cold shook his four listeners badly.
“Nothing has changed,” shouted the General Secretary. His voice then resumed its even tenor. “Five years ago, and four years ago, all our experts on the Central Committee and in the universities and the KGB analytical study groups told us in the Politburo that the unilateralist movements were so powerful that they could stop the deployment of Cruise and Pershing missiles. We believed that. We were misled. At Geneva we dug in our toes, persuaded by our own propaganda that if we held on long enough the governments of Western Europe would give in to the huge peace demonstrations we were covertly supporting and refuse to deploy Pershing and Cruise. But they did deploy, and we had to walk out.”
Philby nodded, looking suitably modest. Back in 1983 he had stuck his neck out with a paper suggesting that the peacenik movement in the West, despite noisy popular demonstrations, would not swing any major election or change any government’s mind. He had been proved right. Things, he suspected, were moving his way.
“It rankles, Comrades, it still rankles,” said the General Secretary. “Now you are proposing more of the same. Comrade Colonel Philby, what are the results of the latest British public-opinion polls on this issue?”
“Not good, I’m afraid,” said Philby. “The last suggests that twenty percent of the British now support unilateral nuclear disarmament. But even that is confusing. Among the working class, Labour’s traditional voters, the figure is lower. It is a dismal fact, Comrade General Secretary, that the British working class is one of the most conservative groups in the world. Polls also show they are among the most patriotic, in a traditionalist way. During the Falklands affair, die-hard trade unionists threw the rule book away and worked around the clock to get the warships ready for sea. I’m afraid if one is going to face harsh reality, one must admit that the British workingman has steadily refused to see that his best interests lie with us, or at least in a weakening of Britain’s defenses. And there is no reason to think he will change his mind now.”
“Harsh reality—that is what I asked this committee to face,” said the General Secretary. He paused again for several more minutes. Then: “Go away, Comrades. Go back to your deliberations. And bring me a plan—an active measure—that will exploit as never before that mass fear of which you spoke; a plan that will persuade even levelheaded men and women to vote to get rid of nuclear weapons from their soil, and thus to vote Labour.”
When they had gone the old Russian rose and with the aid of a cane walked slowly to the window. He gazed out at the crackling birch forest beneath the snow. When he had swept to power with his predecessor still unburied, he had been personally committed to the achievement of five tasks in the time left to him. He wanted to be remembered as the man who had increased food production and its efficient distribution; who had doubled consumer goods in number and quality by a huge overhaul of a chronically inefficient industry; who had tightened Party discipline at all levels; who had extirpated the scourge of corruption that gnawed at the country’s vitals; and who had secured the final supremacy in men and arms over his country’s serried ranks of enemies. Now he knew he had failed in them all. He was an old man, and sick, and time was running out. He had always prided himself on being a pragmatic man, a realistic man, within the framework of strict Marxist orthodoxy. But even pragmatic men have their dreams, and old men have their vanities. His dream was simple: he wanted one gigantic triumph, one great monument that was his and his alone. Just how much he wanted it, that bitter winter night, he alone knew.
On Sunday, Preston took a stroll past the house in Clanricarde Gardens, a street running due north from the Bayswater Road. Burkinshaw had been right; it was one of those once-prosperous Victorian five-story houses that had gone badly to seed, the sort now let out in bedsitters. Its small front area was weed-infested; five steps ran up to a peeling front door above the street. From the front patch, a set of steps led down to a tiny basement area, with the top of a door just in view—the basement flat. Preston puzzled again as to why a senior civil servant and knight of the realm should wish to visit such a dingy place.
Somewhere in view, he knew, would be the watcher, probably in a parked vehicle with a long-lens camera at the ready. He made no attempt to spot the man, but knew he himself would have been seen. (On Monday he showed up in the log as “an undistinguished character who walked by at 11:21 and showed some interest in the house.” Thanks for nothing, Preston thought.)
On Monday morning he visited the local town hall and had a look at the list of householders for that street. The owner of the house in question was a Mr. Michael Z. Mifsud. Preston was grateful for the “Z”; there could not be many of that name around.) Called up on the radio, the watcher at Clanricarde Gardens slipped across the street and checked the bell-push buttons. M. Mifsud lived on the ground floor. Owner-occupier, thought Preston, letting out the rest of the house as furnished accommodation; tenants of unfurnished property would pay their own local assessments.
In the late morning he ran Michael Z. Mifsud through the immigration computer down at Croydon. He was from Malta and had been in the country thirty years. Nothing known, bu
t a question mark fifteen years back. Not followed up, and no explanation. Scotland Yard’s Criminal Records Office computer explained the question mark: the man had nearly been deported. Instead, he had served two years for living off immoral earnings.
After lunch Preston went to see Armstrong in Finance at Charles Street. “Can I be an Inland Revenue inspector tomorrow?” he asked.
Armstrong sighed. “I’ll try to fix it. Call back before closing time.”
Then Preston went along to Five’s legal adviser. “Would you ask Special Branch to fix me a search warrant for this address? Also I want a sergeant on call in case I want to make an arrest.” MI5 has no powers of arrest. Only a police officer can take a suspect into custody, save in emergencies, when a citizen’s arrest is possible. When MI5 wants to pick someone up, Special Branch usually obliges.
“You’re not going to do a break-in?” asked the lawyer suspiciously.
“Certainly not,” said Preston. “I want to wait until the tenant of this flat turns up, then move in and search. An arrest may be necessary, depending on what I find.”
“All right,” sighed the lawyer. “I’ll get on to our tame magistrate. You’ll have them both tomorrow morning.”
Just before five that afternoon, Preston picked up his Inland Revenue identification from Finance. Armstrong gave him another card, with a telephone number,
“If there’s a query, have the suspect phone that number. It’s the Inland Revenue in Willesden Green. Ask for Mr. Charnley. He’ll vouch for you. Your name is Brent, by the way.”
“So I see,” said Preston.
* * *
Mr. Michael Z. Mifsud, interviewed the next morning, was not a nice man. Unshaven, in an undershirt, surly, and uncooperative. But he let Preston into his grubby sitting room.
“What you tell me?” protested Mifsud. “What income? All I make, I declare.”
“Mr. Mifsud, I assure you it’s a routine spot check. Happens all the time. You declare all the rents, you’ve got nothing to hide.”
“I got nothing to hide. So you take it up with my accountants,” said Mifsud defiantly.
“I can if you wish,” said Preston. “But I assure you that if I do, your accountant’s fees will eventually come to an awful lot of money. Let me be frank: if the rent roll is in order, I just go away and do another spot check on someone else. But if, God forbid, any of these flats are let out for immoral purposes, that’s different. Me, I’m concerned with income taxes. But I’d be duty bound to pass my findings on to the police. You know what living off immoral earnings means?”
“What you mean?” protested Mifsud. “Is no immoral earnings here. Is all good tenants. They pay rents, I pay taxes. Everything.”
But he had gone a shade paler, and grudgingly produced the rent books. Preston pretended to be interested in them all. He noted that the basement was let to a Mr. Dickie at £140 per week. It took an hour to get all the details. Mifsud had never met the basement tenant. He paid by cash, regular as clockwork. But there was a typed letter that had originated the tenancy. It was signed by Mr. Dickie. Preston took the letter with him when he left, over Mifsud’s protests. By lunchtime he had handed it to Scotland Yard’s graphology people, along with copies of Sir Richard Peters’s handwriting and signature. By close of play the Yard had rung him back. Same handwriting but disguised.
So, thought Preston, Peters himself maintains his own pied-à-terre. For cozy meetings with his controller? Most probably. Preston gave his orders: if Peters started heading toward the flat again, he, Preston, was to be alerted at once, wherever he was. The watch on the basement flat was to be maintained in case anyone else showed up.
Wednesday dragged by, and Thursday. Then, as he left the ministry on Thursday evening, Sir Richard Peters hailed a cab again and directed it toward Bayswater. The watchers contacted Preston in the bar at Gordon Street, whence he called Scotland Yard and hauled the designated Special Branch sergeant out of the canteen. He gave the man on the telephone the address. “Meet me across the street, as fast as you can, but no noise,” he said.
They all congregated in the cold darkness of the pavement opposite the suspect house. Preston had dismissed his taxi two hundred yards up the street. The Special Branch man had come in an unmarked car, which, with its driver, was parked around a corner with no lights. Detective Sergeant Lander turned out to be young and a bit green; it was his first bust with the MI5 people and he seemed impressed. Harry Burkinshaw materialized out of the shadows.
“How long’s he been in there, Harry?”
“Fifty-five minutes,” said Burkinshaw.
“Any visitors?”
“Nope.”
Preston took out his search warrant and showed it to Lander. “Okay, let’s go in,” he said.
“Is he likely to be violent, sir?” asked Lander.
“Oh, I hope not,” said Preston. “He’s a middle-aged civil servant. He might get hurt.”
They crossed the street and quietly entered the front yard. A dim light was burning behind the curtains of the basement flat. They descended the steps in silence and Preston rang the bell. There was the clack of heels inside, and the door opened. Framed in the light was a woman.
When she saw the two men, the smile of welcome dropped from her heavily carmined lips. She tried to shut the door but Lander pushed it open, elbowed her aside, and ran past her.
She was no spring chicken, but she had done her best. Wavy dark hair falling to her shoulders framed her heavily made-up face. There had been extravagant use of mascara and shadow around the eyes, rouge on the cheeks, and a smear of bright lipstick across the mouth. Before she had time to close the front of her housecoat, Preston caught a glimpse of black stockings and garter belt, and a tight-waisted bodice picked out in red ribbon.
He guided her by the elbow down the hall to the sitting room and sat her down. She stared at the carpet. They sat in silence while Lander searched the flat. The sergeant knew that fugitives sometimes hid under beds and in closets and he did a good job. After ten minutes he emerged, slightly flushed, from the rear area.
“Not a sign of him, sir. He must have done a bunk through the back and over the garden fence to the next street.”
Just then there was a ring at the front door.
“Your people, sir?”
Preston shook his head. “Not with a single ring,” he replied.
Lander went to open the front door. Preston heard an oath and the sound of running footsteps. Later it transpired that a man had come to the door and, on seeing the detective opening it, had tried to flee. Burkinshaw’s people had closed in at the top of the steps and held the man until the pursuing Lander had got the cuffs on him. After that, the man went quietly and was led away to the police car.
Preston sat with the woman and listened to the tumult die away. “It’s not an arrest,” he said quietly, “but I think we should go to head office, don’t you?”
The woman nodded miserably. “Do you mind if I get changed first?”
“I think that would be a good idea, Sir Richard,” said Preston.
An hour later, a burly but very gay truck driver was released from Paddington Green police station, having been seriously advised on the unwisdom of answering blind-date advertisements in adult contact magazines.
John Preston escorted Sir Richard Peters to the country, stayed with him, listening to what he had to say, until midnight, drove back to London, and spent the rest of the night writing his report. This document was in front of each member of the Paragon Committee when they met at eleven in the morning of Friday, February 20. The expressions of bewilderment and distaste were general.
Good grief, thought Sir Martin Flannery, the Cabinet Secretary, to himself. First Hayman, then Trestrail, then Dunnett, and now this. Can’t these wretches ever keep their flies zipped?
The last man to finish the report looked up. “Quite appalling,” remarked Sir Hubert Villiers of the Home Office.
“Don’t think we’ll be wanting the cha
p back at the ministry,” said Sir Perry Jones of Defense.
“Where is he now?” asked Sir Anthony Plumb of MIS’s Director-General, who sat next to Brian Harcourt-Smith.
“In one of our houses in the country,” said Sir Bernard Hemmings. “He has already telephoned the ministry, purporting to phone from his cottage at Edenbridge, to say he slipped on a patch of ice yesterday evening and cracked a bone in his ankle. He said he’s in a cast and will be off for a fortnight. Doctor’s orders. That should hold things for a while.”
“Aren’t we overlooking one question?” murmured Sir Nigel Irvine of MI6. “Regardless of his unusual tastes, is he our man? Is he the source of the leak?”
Brian Harcourt-Smith cleared his throat. “Interrogation, gentlemen, is in its early stages,” he said, “but it does seem likely that he is. Certainly he would be a prime candidate for recruitment by blackmail.”
“Time is becoming of the very essence,” interposed Sir Patrick Strickland of the Foreign Office. “We still have the matter of damage assessment hanging over us, and at my end the question of when and what we tell our allies.”
“We could ... er ... intensify the interrogation,” suggested Harcourt-Smith. “I believe that way we would have our answer within twenty-four hours.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. The thought of one of their colleagues, whatever he had done, being worked over by the “hard” team was a disquieting one. Sir Martin Flannery felt his stomach turn. He had a deep personal aversion to violence. “Surely that is not necessary at this stage?” he asked.
Sir Nigel Irvine raised his head from the report. “Bernard, this man Preston, the investigating officer—he seems a pretty good man.”
“He is,” affirmed Sir Bernard Hemmings.
Fourth Protocol Page 11