by Len Deighton
‘And where do they go from here?’
‘Somewhere close; East Germany, Sassnitz has submarine facilities. From there the train ferry could take her to Stockholm. Plane to Berlin.’
‘A long way round. Why not take a train from Sassnitz to Berlin?’
‘They are devious folk. They like to route their people via the West. It looks better that way,’ said Bret. ‘I’m going back to the car to phone. There was a car following them right from the time they left London.’
Bernstein pulled a face. His confidence in the British security and intelligence organizations, right down to their ability to follow a car, was very limited.
Bret Rensselaer walked back along the road and climbed the broken steps to where they’d left the car. It was out of sight behind the last remaining wall of the Sick Bay where, in 1945, Bret had been ignominiously deposited by his submarine captain after falling down a ladder during an Atlantic patrol.
Before getting into the car he took a look at the bay. The water was like black syrup and the horizon was getting brighter as the storm headed their way. He sighed, shut the door and phoned the other car. ‘Johnson?’
It answered immediately. ‘Johnson here.’
‘Boswell. Where the hell have you got to?’
‘A spot of trouble, Boswell. Our friends had a little collision with another car.’
‘Anyone hurt?’
‘No, but a lot of arguments about who was drunk. They’ve sent for the police.’
‘How far away are you?’
‘About an hour’s drive.’
‘Get them back on the road, Johnson. I don’t care how you do it. You’ve got a police officer with you?’
‘Yes, he’s here.’
‘Get him to sort it out. And do it quick.’
‘Will do, Boswell.’
‘And phone me when they are on their way. I’ll stay in the car.’
‘Will do.’
The phone gave the disengaged tone and Bret put it back in its slot. He looked up to find Bernstein standing by the car. ‘Get inside and warm up,’ said Bret. ‘Another hour. At least another hour.’
Bernstein got into the car and settled back. ‘Is it all okay? It’s beginning to rain.’
Bret said, ‘I figured I might sometimes be wiping the backsides of the Brits, but I didn’t figure I’d be doing it for the Russkies too.’
‘You’re really master-minding this one, Bret. I hope you know what you’re doing.’
‘If I do,’ said Bret, ‘I’m the only one who does.’ He started the engine and switched on the heater.
‘Who owns this spread nowadays?’ said Bernstein, looking down upon the abandoned brick buildings that had once been the administration block.
‘The British Admiralty hang on to it.’
‘Some chutzpah, those Russkies.’ He reached into his pocket.
‘It suits us,’ said Bret. ‘We know where to find them.’ He raised his hand in warning. ‘Don’t smoke please, Sylvy. It affects my sinuses.’
Bernstein sat fidgeting with his hands as he tried to decide whether it was better to smoke outside in the freezing cold or sit desperately deprived in the warm. Bret watched him clasping his hands together and after five minutes or more of stillness and silence said, ‘Are you all right?’
Bernstein said, ‘I was meditating.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s okay.’
Bret said, ‘Did you really get into Buddhism?’
‘Yeah. In Nam: Zen Buddhism. I was living with a beautiful Cambodian girl who taught me about meditation. I was really taken with it.’
‘You’re a Jew.’
‘The beliefs are not mutually exclusive,’ said Bernstein. ‘Meditation helped me when I was captured.’
‘Captured by the Viet Cong?’
‘Only for about twelve hours. They questioned me.’ He was silent for a moment, as if just saying it caused him pain. ‘It was dark when I came conscious again and I got loose and escaped, crawling away into the jungle.’
‘I didn’t know that, Sylvy.’
‘So who wants to know about Nam? The guys who fought there were shafted by everyone, from the White House down to the liberal newspapers; and that’s pretty damn low. That’s why I came and lived in Europe.’
‘Look at that lightning. It’s going to be rough out there. How would you like to be putting out to sea tonight?’
‘She was still seeing that guy Kennedy, right up to the end.’
Bret swung his head round with an abrupt movement that betrayed his surprise. ‘She swore it was all over.’
‘How many husbands send their wife a dozen dark red long-stem roses with a note inviting them to come to tea?’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Florists are a must.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Bret, for a spell, when times were tough, I took divorce jobs. I can probably get the bill for the roses if you want to see it.’
‘We’ll have to turn Kennedy over,’ said Bret.
‘We found nothing last time. We checked his medical qualification and his military service. The clinic where he works say he’s hard-working and reliable. Anyway it’s a bit late now, isn’t it?’ said Bernstein. ‘She’s on her way.’
Bret looked at him. He’d told him only as much as he had to be told, but Sylvy Bernstein had spent a lifetime in the intelligence world. He knew what was happening. ‘We still need to know,’ said Bret.
‘It was kind of fortuitous, the way Kennedy picked her up at Waterloo Station, wasn’t it?’ Bernstein rubbed his chin. He had a tough beard and he needed a shave. ‘Serendipitous is the word: I read it in a book.’
‘She’s a very attractive woman,’ said Bret, repeating what Bernstein had said many times, and dismissed the idea of it being an enticement.
‘And he’s a real smooth shrink. But is he the kind of guy who picks up ladies in railroad stations?’
Bret still couldn’t face it. ‘It was a special situation, Sylvy. Kennedy’s daughter ran away. You talked to the railway cop. You said…’
‘Okay, okay. It was really his cousin’s daughter and Kennedy is a Canadian. It won’t be easy to do a complete vetting job on him. And a guy who gives a false name to a cop is likely to have given a few false names to a lot of other people. But why should I talk myself out of an assignment? I need the money.’
‘We’d better turn him right over, Sylvy,’ said Bret, as if saying it for the first time. The preliminary check on Kennedy had turned up nothing incriminating but foreign nationals – especially those who moved around a lot – were sometimes difficult to investigate. Perhaps he should have been more thorough right from the start, but he’d been so shocked at the idea of Fiona being unfaithful to her husband that he’d not given proper consideration to a full investigation of the man. And yet what could be more obvious? If the KGB were going to use her in a top job it would be standard procedure to place someone close to her: very close to her. A lover! That was the way the minds of the KGB always worked. Bret said, ‘Do a complete vetting job: birth record, the Canadian police computer, Washington too. Check his medical school and military service. Have someone talk to his neighbours, colleagues, friends and family: the full procedure. Your way of doing things is faster than if I do it through official channels.’
‘What am I looking for?’
‘Jesus, Sylvy! Suppose this guy Kennedy turns out to be a KGB fink?’
‘Okay. I’ll work as fast as I can, Bret, but you can’t hurry these things without showing your hand, and I know you want the lid kept on it.’
‘A dozen red roses,’ said Bret. ‘Well, maybe we’ll find they were from her sister or her father.’
‘I think I’ll stretch my legs,’ said Bernstein. He felt as if he’d expire unless he smoked a cigarette.
12
London. May 1983.
Fiona’s defection – despite the way in which the Department made sure no word of it leaked to pr
ess or TV – caused a sensation amongst her immediate circle.
Of those working in the Department that day, Bret Rensselaer was the only person who knew the whole story of Fiona Samson’s going. Temporarily assigned to him as a secretary, there was a nineteen-year-old blonde ‘executive officer’ called Gloria Kent. Bret had contrived to have this strikingly attractive trainee working with him, and her presence helped to straighten an ego bent after his wife’s departure. Alone in Bret’s office, it was Gloria who was the first to hear that Bernard Samson had been arrested in East Berlin. She was appalled.
Gloria Kent had had a schoolgirl crush on Bernard Samson ever since she had first seen him in the office. Perhaps her feelings showed on her face when she brought the bad news to Bret Rensselaer, for after a muttered curse he told her, ‘Mr Samson will be all right.’
‘Who will tell his wife?’ said Gloria.
‘Sit down,’ said Bret. Gloria sat. Bret said, ‘According to our latest information Mrs Samson is also in East Germany.’
‘His car is on a meter and covered in parking tickets.’
Bret disregarded this complication. ‘I don’t want this to go all round the office, Miss Kent. I’m telling you because I will need you to work with me to allay fears and stop silly rumours.’ He looked at her: she nodded. ‘We will have to assume that Mrs Samson has defected, but I have no reason to believe that her husband was a party to her activities.’
‘What will happen to her children?’
Bret nodded. Miss Kent was quick: that was one of the problems on Bret’s mind. ‘There is a nanny with them. I have been trying to phone Mrs Samson’s sister, Tessa Kosinski – but there is no reply.’
‘Do you want me to go and knock on the door?’
‘No, we have people to do that kind of thing. Here’s the phone number. Keep trying it. And the office number for her husband is in my leather notebook under Kosinski International Holdings. See if he knows where his wife might be. Don’t tell him anything other than that both Samsons are delayed on duty overseas. I’m going to the Samsons’ house. Ring me there and tell me what’s happening. And tell the duty armourer I’m coming down to collect a gun.’
‘Yes, sir.’ She went back to the office and started phoning. The idea of Fiona Samson defecting to the communists was too overwhelming for her to properly consider the consequences. Everyone in the Department had watched the steady rise of Fiona Samson. She was a paragon, one of those amazingly lucky people who never put a foot wrong. It was impossible not to envy her: a beautiful woman from a rich family who had left her mark on Oxford. Cordon Bleu cook, charming hostess, with two children and a wonderfully unconventional husband whom Gloria secretly coveted.
‘Yes?’ came a slurred and sleepy voice. ‘Ahhhh. What’s the time? Who’s there?’
It was Tessa, who liked to sleep until eleven o’clock, awakened by the phone. Gloria told her that Mr and Mrs Samson had been unavoidably detained abroad. Would it be possible for Mrs Kosinski to go to the Samsons’ house and take charge of the children? She tried to sound very casual.
It took a few moments to allay Tessa’s fears that her sister had been hurt in an accident, but Gloria’s charm was well up to the situation and Tessa soon decided that the best way to find out more was to go to the Samson house and ask Bret Rensselaer.
In record time Tessa bathed, put on her make-up, found the Chanel beret with camellia that she always wore when her hair was a mess, and threw a plaid car coat round her shoulders. She looked into the study where her husband was studying share prices on his computer and told him what little she knew.
‘Both of them? What’s it all about?’ he said.
‘Neither of them said anything about going anywhere,’ said Tessa.
‘They don’t tell you everything.’ George had grown used to the secretiveness of his wife’s family.
‘I don’t like the sound of it,’ said Tessa. ‘I thought there was something odd going on when Fiona asked me to look after her fur coat.’
‘Is there anything for lunch?’ asked George.
‘There’s a home-made chicken stew in the freezer.’
‘Is that still all right? It’s dated 1981.’
‘I spent hours on that stew,’ said Tessa, aggrieved that such rare forays into domesticity were not appreciated.
By the time that Tessa arrived at the Samson house, two heavily built men who answered to Bret were rolling up the overalls they had worn to probe between the floorboards and investigate every inch of the dusty attic. Bret Rensselaer was standing before the fireplace wearing a black trenchcoat. He finished the coffee he was drinking.
He’d recently seen Tessa at Whitelands, and without preliminaries said, ‘Mrs Samson has taken a trip to the East.’ He put his cup on the mantelshelf. ‘For the time being the children need someone to reassure them…The nanny seems to be taking it very calmly but your presence could make all the difference.’ Bret had insisted that Fiona engage a reliable girl who could survive a proper security vetting. The present nanny was the daughter of a police inspector. Now and again Fiona had complained that she was not a very good nanny but now Bret’s caution was paying off.
‘Of course,’ said Tessa. ‘I’ll do anything I can.’
‘We’re very much in the dark at present,’ Bret told her, ‘but whatever the truth of it there will be no official comment. If you get any calls from the Press, or any other kind of oddball, say you are the housekeeper, take their number and call my office.’ He didn’t tell Tessa that every call to this phone was being monitored and two armed men were watching the house to make sure that Moscow didn’t try to kidnap the children.
One of the children – Billy – came from the kitchen where Nanny was frying eggs and sausages for lunch. ‘Hello, Auntie Tess. Mummy is on holiday.’
‘Yes, isn’t that fun?’ said Tessa, leaning down to kiss him. ‘We are going to have a wonderful time too.’
Billy stood there looking at Bret for a moment and then summoned up the courage to say, ‘Can I look at your gun?’
‘What’s that?’ said Bret, uncharacteristically flustered.
‘Nanny says you have a gun in your pocket. She says that’s why you won’t take your raincoat off.’
Bret wet his lips nervously, but long before he could think of any reply, seven-year-old Sally appeared and grabbed Billy by the arm. ‘Nanny says you are to come to the kitchen and have your lunch.’
‘Come along, children,’ said Tessa. ‘We’ll all have lunch together. Then I’ll take you somewhere lovely for tea.’ She smiled at Bret and Bret nodded his approval and appreciation.
‘I’ll slip away soon,’ said Bret. He’d heard somewhere that Tessa Kosinski had been using hard drugs, but she seemed very normal today, thank heavens.
In the dining room, Nanny was dishing up the food. She had set the big polished table for four, as if guessing that Tessa would eat with them.
After the two technicians had packed away their detection apparatus and left, Bret took a quick look round on his own account. Upstairs on Fiona’s side of the double bed a nightdress was folded neatly and placed on the pillow ready for her. On the bedside table he saw a book from the Department’s library. He picked it up and looked at it: a coloured postcard – advertising a ‘hair and beauty salon’ off Sloane Street – was being used as a bookmark. He stood there for a moment relishing the intimacy of being in her bedroom. From a security point of view there was nothing to worry him anywhere. The Samsons had worked for the Department a long time: they were careful people.
As he let himself out of the front door, Bret heard Billy insisting, ‘Well, I’ll bet he’s shot lots of people.’
Bernard Samson had been arrested in a Biergarten near Müggelheimer Damm. It was a forest that stretched down to the water of the Müggelsee. A thousand or so inebriated men celebrating Himmelfahrt – Ascension Day – had provided the congestion and confusion in which Bernard, and his closest friend Werner Wolkmann, had helped two elderly refugees
to escape westwards. It was not a simple act of philanthropy: one of the escapees was an agent of the Department.
Werner and the others had got away when Bernard created a diversion. It was a brave thing to do but Bernard had had ample time to regret his rash gesture. They had locked him in an office room on the top floor of the State Security Ministry’s huge office block on Frankfurter Allee.
This office was not like the cells in the basement – from which some prisoners never emerged – but its heavy door and barred window, plus the difficulty of moving from floor to floor in a building where every corridor was surveyed by both cameras and armed guards, was enough to hold anyone but a maniac.
Bernard had been interrogated by an amiable KGB officer named Erich Stinnes. He spoke the same sort of Berlin German that Bernard had grown up with, and in many things the two men saw eye to eye. ‘Who gets the promotions and the big wages – desk-bound Party bastards,’ said Stinnes bitterly. ‘How lucky you are not having the Party system working against you all the time.’
‘We have got it,’ said Bernard. ‘It’s called Eton and Oxbridge.’
‘What kind of workers’ state is that?’ said Stinnes.
‘Are you recording this conversation?’ asked Bernard.
‘So they can put me in prison with you? Do you think I’m crazy?’
It was the sort of soft treatment that was usually followed up by browbeating from a ferocious tough guy partner, but Stinnes was waiting for a ‘KGB Colonel from Moscow’, who turned out to be Fiona Samson from London.
By that time Bernard Samson had begun to suspect what was about to happen. Some of the clues that Bret Rensselaer had so artfully supplied to the other side had become evident to the ever more worried Bernard.
The desperate realization that his wife was a KGB Colonel was a betrayal of such magnitude that Bernard felt physically ill. But the effect upon him – and the agony of it – was not greater than many men have suffered when discovering that their wife has been unfaithful to them with another man. For each individual there is a threshold beyond which pain does not increase.