by Len Deighton
‘If you were him you’d be frantic too,’ I said. ‘Secondary-school graduates who fail to get a place in a university are sent to do manual or clerical work in any farm or factory where workers are needed. Furthermore he’d become liable for military service; but university students are exempted.’
‘The mother has contacts in Moscow. She’ll get her son a place.’
‘Is Stinnes attached to the boy?’ I said. I was amazed at how much she’d been able to wheedle out of the taciturn Erich Stinnes. ‘They quarrel a lot,’ said Zena. ‘He is at the age when sons quarrel with their fathers. It is nature’s way of making the fledglings fly from the nest.’
‘So you think Stinnes will come?’ said Werner. His attitude to the Stinnes enrolment was still ambivalent.
‘I don’t know,’ said Zena. I could see she resented the way in which Werner had pressed her to reveal these things about Stinnes. She felt perhaps that it was all information that London Central should pay for. ‘He’s still thinking about it. But if he doesn’t come it won’t be because of his wife or his son.’
‘What will be the deciding factor, then?’ I said. I picked up the coffee-pot. ‘Anyone else for more coffee?’
Werner shook his head. Zena pushed her cup towards me but my casual attitude didn’t make her any happier about providing me with free information. ‘He’s forty years old,’ said Zena. ‘Isn’t that the age when men are supposed to suffer some mid-term life crisis?’
‘Is it?’ I said.
‘Isn’t it the age at which men ask themselves what they have achieved, and wonder if they chose the right job?’ said Zena.
‘And the right wife? And the right son?’ I said.
Zena gave a sour smile of assent.
‘And don’t women have the same sort of mid-term life crisis?’ asked Werner.
‘They have it at twenty-nine,’ said Zena and smiled.
‘I think he’ll do it,’ said Werner. ‘I’ve been telling Bernie that. I’ve changed my mind about him. I think he’ll come over to us.’ Werner still didn’t sound too happy at the prospect.
‘You should offer him a proper job,’ said Zena. ‘For a man like Stinnes a quarter-million-dollar retirement plan is not much better than offering him a burial plot. You should make him feel he’s coming over to do something important. You must make him feel needed.’
‘Yes,’ I said. Such psychology had obviously worked well for her with Werner. And I remembered the way in which my wife had been enrolled with the promise of colonel’s rank and a real job behind a desk with people like Stinnes to do her bidding. ‘But what could we offer him? He’s not spent the last ten years as a capitalist mole. If he comes to the West it will be because he is apolitical. He likes being a policeman.’
‘Policeman?’ said Zena with a hoot of derision. ‘Is that what you all call yourselves? You think you’re just a lot of fat old cops helping old ladies across the road and telling the tourists how to get back to the bus station.’
‘That will do,’ said Werner in one of his rare admonitions.
‘You’re all the same,’ said Zena. ‘You, Bernie, Stinnes, Frank Harrington, Dicky Cruyer…all the ones I’ve ever met. All little boys playing cowboys.’
‘I said cut it out,’ said Werner. I suspected he was angry more because I was present to witness her outburst than because she hadn’t said it all before many times.
‘Bang, bang,’ said Zena, playing cowboys.
‘A quarter of a million dollars,’ said Werner. ‘London must want him awfully badly.’
‘I found something in Stinnes’s car,’ said Zena.
‘What did you find?’ said Werner.
‘I’ll show you,’ said Zena. She went across to the glass-fronted cabinet in which Werner used to keep his scale model of the Dornier Do X flying boat. Now, like all his aircraft models, it was relegated to the storeroom in the basement, and Zena had a display of china animals there. From behind them she got a large brown envelope. ‘Take a look at that,’ she said, pulling some typed sheets from the envelope and sliding them across the table. I took one and passed another to Werner, who was sitting on the sofa.
There were five sheets of grey pulp paper. Both sides were covered with single-spaced typing. The copies were produced on a stencil duplicator of a type seldom seen nowadays in Western countries but still commonly used in the East. I studied the sheets under the light, for some of the lettering was broken and on the grey paper I found it difficult to read, but such Russian security documents were predictable enough for me to guess at the parts I could not read or couldn’t understand.
‘What is it about?’ said Zena. ‘I can’t read Russian. Does that mean secret?’
‘Where exactly did you get this?’ I asked her.
‘From Stinnes’s car. I was sitting in the back and so I felt inside all those pockets those old-fashioned cars have. I found old pencils and some hairpins and these papers.’
‘And you took it?’
Werner looked up expectantly.
‘I put it in my handbag. No one saw me, if that’s what’s worrying you. Does that mean secret?’ she asked again. She pointed to a large, red-inked, rubber-stamp mark that had been applied to the copies.
‘Yes, secret,’ I said. ‘But there is nothing here that makes it worth phoning the White House and getting the President out of bed.’
‘What is it?’
‘The top heading says “Group of Soviet Forces in Germany”, which is the official name for all the Russian army units there, and the reference number. The second line is the title of the document: “Supplementary Instructions Concerning Counter-Intelligence Duties of State Security Organs”. Then there comes this long preamble which is standard for this sort of document. It says, “The Communist Party of the Soviet Union traces the Soviet people’s way in the struggle for the victory of communism. The Party guides and directs the forces of the nation and the organs of state security.”’
‘What’s it about?’ said Zena impatiently.
‘It’s half-way down the page before it gets down to business. These numbered paragraphs are headed “Instructions for KGB unit commanders in their relationship with commanders of army units to which they are attached”. It says be firm and polite and cooperate…the sort of crap that all the government clerks everywhere churn out by the ream. Then the next lot of paragraphs is headed “Duties of Special Departments” and it instructs KGB officers about likely means that imperialist intelligence forces are currently using to obtain Russian secrets.’
‘What sort of methods?’ said Zena.
‘Two of the paragraphs give details of people discovered spying. One was in a factory and the other near a missile site. Neither example is what would normally be called espionage. One is a man who seems to have run into a forbidden zone after his dog, and the other case is a man taking photos without a permit.’
‘You’re trying to say that this paper I’ve brought you is just rubbish. I don’t believe you.’
‘Then ask Werner. Your husband knows more Russian than I do.’
‘Bernie has translated it perfectly,’ said Werner.
‘So you think it’s rubbish too,’ said Zena. Her disappointment had made her angry.
Werner looked at me, wondering how much he was permitted to say. Knowing that he’d tell her anyway, I said, ‘This is a regular publication; it is published every month. Copies go to the commanders of certain KGB units throughout the German Democratic Republic. You see that number at the top; this is number fifteen of what is probably a total of not more than one hundred. It’s secret. London like to have copies of them if they can get them. I doubt if we’ve got a complete collection of them on our files, although perhaps the CIA have. The Americans like to have everything complete – the complete works of Shakespeare, a complete dinner service of Meissen, a complete set of lenses for the Olympus camera, and garages crammed with copies of the National Geographic going back for twenty-five years.’
‘And?’ said
Zena.
I shrugged. ‘It’s secret, but it’s not interesting.’
‘To you. It’s not interesting to you, that’s what you mean.’
‘It’s not interesting to anyone except archive librarians.’
I watched Werner getting out of the sofa. It was a very low sofa and getting out of it was no easy thing to do. I noticed that Zena never sat in it; she kneeled on it so that she could swing her legs down to the floor and get to her feet with comparative ease.
‘I found it in the car,’ said Zena. ‘I guessed the stamp meant secret.’
‘You should have left it where it was,’ said Werner. ‘Think what might have happened if they’d searched the car as you went through the crossing point.’
‘Nothing would have happened,’ said Zena. ‘It wasn’t my car. It was an official car, wasn’t it?’
‘They’re not interested in such subtle distinctions over there,’ said Werner. ‘If the border guards had found that document in the car they would have arrested you and the driver.’
‘You worry too much,’ said Zena.
Werner tossed the document pages on to the table. ‘It was a mad thing to do, Zena. Leave that sort of risk to the people who get paid for it.’
‘People like you and Bernie, you mean?’
‘Bernie would never carry a paper like that through a checkpoint,’ said Werner. ‘Neither would I. Neither would anyone who knew what the consequences might be.’
She had been expecting unstinting praise. Now, like a small child, she bit her red lips and sulked.
I said, ‘Even if the Vopos had done nothing to you, do you realize what would happen to Stinnes if they knew he’d been careless enough to leave papers in his car when it came into West Berlin? Even a KGB officer couldn’t talk his way out of that one.’
She looked at me evenly. There was no expression on her face, but I had the feeling that her reply was calculated. ‘I wouldn’t cry for him,’ she said.
Was this callous rejection of Stinnes just something she said to please Werner, I wondered. I watched Werner’s reaction. But he smiled sadly. ‘Do you want this stuff, Bernie?’ he asked, picking up the papers.
‘I don’t want it,’ I said. It was an understatement. I didn’t want to hear about Zena’s crazy capers. She didn’t understand what kind of dangers she was playing with, and she didn’t want to know.
It was only when Werner had gone into his study that Zena realized what he intended. But by that time we could hear the whine of the shredder as Werner destroyed the pages.
‘Why?’ said Zena angrily. ‘Those papers were valuable. They were mine.’
‘The papers weren’t yours,’ I said. ‘You stole them.’
Werner returned and said, ‘It’s better that they disappear. Whatever we did with them could lead to trouble for someone. If Stinnes suspects you’ve taken them he’ll think we put you up to it. It might be enough to make him back out of the deal.’
‘We could have sold them to London,’ said Zena.
‘London wouldn’t be keen to have papers that were so casually come by,’ I explained. ‘They’d wonder if they were genuine, or planted to fool them. Then they’d start asking questions about you and Stinnes and so on. We don’t want a lot of London desk men prying into what we’re doing. It’s difficult enough to do the job as it is.’
‘We could have sold them to Frank Harrington,’ said Zena. Her voice had lost some of its assertion now.
‘I’m trying to keep Frank Harrington at arm’s length,’ I said. ‘If Stinnes is serious we’ll do the enrolment from Mexico. If we do it from here, Frank will want to mastermind it.’
‘Frank’s too idle,’ said Zena.
‘Not for this one,’ I said. ‘I think Frank has already begun to see the extent of London’s interest. I think Frank will want to get into the act. This would be a feather in his cap – something good for him to retire on.’
‘And Mexico City is a long way from London,’ said Werner. ‘Less chance of having London Central breathing down your neck if you are in Mexico. I know how your mind works, Bernie.’
I smiled but said nothing. He was right, I wanted to keep London Central as far away as possible. I still felt like a mouse in a maze; every turn brought me to another blank wall. It was difficult enough to deal with the KGB but now I was fighting London Central too and Fiona was thrown into the puzzle to make things even more bewildering. And what was going to be waiting at the end of the maze – a nasty trap like the one that I’d sent MacKenzie to walk into?
‘I still say we should have sold the papers to Frank,’ said Zena.
Werner said, ‘It might have proved dangerous. And the truth is, Zena darling, that we can’t be absolutely sure that Stinnes didn’t leave it there for you to find. If it all turned out that way, I wouldn’t want you to be the person who took them to Frank.’
She smiled. She didn’t believe that Stinnes had left the papers in the car to trick her. Zena had difficulty in believing that any man could trick her. Perhaps her time with Werner had lulled her into a false sense of security.
18
I’d known Frank Harrington for a lifetime; not his lifetime, of course, but mine. So when the car collected me from Lisl’s the next morning I was not surprised that it took me to Frank Harrington’s house rather than to the SIS offices at the Olympic Stadium. For when Frank said ‘the office’ he meant the stadium that Hitler had built for the 1936 Games. But ‘my office’ meant the room he used as a study in the large mansion out at Grunewald that was always at the disposal of the ‘Berlin Resident’ and that Frank had occupied for two long stints. It was a wonderful house which had been built for a relative of a banker named Bleichroder, who’d extended to Bismarck the necessary credit for waging the Franco-Prussian War. The garden was extensive, and there were enough trees to give the impression of being deep in the German countryside.
I was marched into the room by Frank’s valet, Tarrant, a sturdy old man who’d been with Frank since the war. Frank was behind his desk, brandishing important-looking papers. He looked up at me from under his eyebrows, as a commanding officer looks at a recruit who has misbehaved.
Frank was wearing a dark-grey three-piece suit, a starched white shirt and a tightly knotted Eton school tie. Frank’s ‘colonel of the regiment’ act was not confined to his deportment. It was particularly evident in this study. There was rattan furniture and a buttoned leather bench that was so old and worn that the leather had gone almost white in places. There was a superb camphor-wood military chest, and on it an ancient typewriter that should have been in a museum. Behind him on the wall there was a large formal portrait of the Queen. It was all like a stage set for a play about the last days of the British Raj. This impression of being in an Indian army bungalow was heightened by the way in which a hundred shafts of daylight came into Frank’s dark study. The louvred window shutters were closed as a precaution against sophisticated microphones that could pick up vibrations from window panes, but the slats of Berlin daylight that patterned the carpet might have come from some pitiless Punjab sun.
‘Good God, Bernard,’ said Frank. ‘You do try my patience at times.’
‘Do I, Frank? I don’t mean to; I’m sorry.’
‘What the hell were you doing at Lüneburg?’
‘A meeting,’ I said.
‘An agent?’
‘You know better than to ask me that, Frank,’ I said.
‘There’s the very deuce of a fuss in London. One of your chaps was murdered.’
‘Who was that?’
‘MacKenzie. A probationer. He worked for you sometimes, I understand.’
‘I know him,’ I said.
‘What do you know about his death?’
‘What you’ve told me.’
‘No more than that?’
‘Is this a formal inquiry?’
‘Of course not, Bernard. But it’s not the right moment to conceal evidence either.’
‘If it was the right mome
nt, would you tell me so, Frank?’
‘I’m trying to help, Bernard. When you go back to London you’ll walk into more pointed questions than these.’
‘For instance?’
‘Don’t you care about this poor boy?’
‘I do care. I care very much. What would I have to do to convince you about that?’ I said.
‘You don’t have to convince me about anything, Bernard. I’ve always stood behind you. Since your father died I’ve considered myself in loco parentis, and I’ve hoped that you would come to me if in trouble in the same way that you’d have gone to your father.’
Was this what Frank had been so keen to talk to me about. I couldn’t decide. And now I turned the heat on to Frank. ‘Is Henry Tiptree one of your people, Frank?’ I kept my voice very casual.
‘Tiptree? The chap staying at Frau Hennig’s?’ He touched his stubble moustache reflectively.
Frank was virtually the only person I knew who called Lisl ‘Frau Hennig’ and it took me a moment to respond to his question. ‘Yes. That’s the one,’ I said.
I’d caught Frank on the hop. He reached into a drawer of his desk and found a packet of pipe tobacco. He took his time in tearing the wrapper open and sniffing at the contents to see how fresh it had stayed in his drawer. ‘What did Tiptree say he’s doing?’
‘He gave me a lot of hogwash. But I think he’s from Internal Security.’
Frank became rather nervous. He stuffed tobacco into the bowl of his pipe carelessly enough to spill a lot on the otherwise very tidy desk-top. ‘You’re right, Bernard. I’m glad you tumbled to him. I wanted to tip you the wink but the signals from London were strictly for me only. The D-G told me not to tell anyone, but now that you’ve guessed I might as well admit it…’
‘What’s his game, Frank?’
‘He’s an ambitious young diplomat who wants to have some cloak-and-dagger experience.’
‘In Internal Security?’