A Legacy of Spies

by John le Carré

  Berlin Station (de Jong) had advised us that on entering Czech territory Leamas would signal safe arrival by means of a no-name call to Embassy Visa Section enquiring whether UK visas were valid in Northern Ireland. Prague Station would respond by activating a recorded announcement advising him to call again in office hours. This would be an acknowledgement of message received.

  Leamas and Tulip would then proceed by whatever means possible to a point on the road between Prague city and Prague airport, and park in a siding, map reference supplied.

  Under the plan put forward by this Station and approved by H/Covert, the couple would abandon the car and a symbolized driver from Prague’s GODIVA network would commandeer the Embassy shuttle (CD plates and blackened side windows) which regularly ferries Embassy personnel to and from Prague airport. He would then collect Leamas and Tulip from the agreed rv. The rear of the van would contain formal Western clothing, supplied by this Station. Leamas and Tulip would dress themselves as official dinner guests of HM Ambassador, and on that pretext bluff their way into the Embassy, which is under the permanent watch of Czech security.

  At 1040 hours an emergency conference was held in the Embassy safe room, at which Her Excellency the Ambassador [HE] graciously consented to this plan. However, by 1600 hours UK time, having further consulted the Foreign Office, she revised her decision without apology on the grounds that, since the fugitive woman had been in the meantime widely featured on GDR media as a State criminal, the potential for diplomatic repercussions outweighed earlier considerations.

  In light of HE’s stated position, no Embassy vehicle and no Embassy staff could be deployed in the escape plan. I therefore disconnected Visa Section’s automatic reply system in the hope that this would indicate to Leamas that no support was available.

  I’ve replaced my earphones. I’m back with Alec, not in the imperial comfort of our British Embassy in Prague, but stuck at the freezing roadside with Tulip, and no support, no pick-up car and, as Alec would say, no fuck-all. I’m remembering what he’s preached ever since I’ve known him: when you’re planning an op, think of every way the Service can fuck you up, then wait for the one way you never thought of, but they have. And I reckon that’s exactly what he’s thinking now.

  AL [verbatim resumed]: When no shuttle showed up, and no joy out of Visa Section, I just thought fuck it, that’s London for you, so the only thing is, make it up as you go along. We’re a distressed East German couple at the roadside, my wife’s sick as a dog, so help us, somebody. I tell Doris to sit on the pavement and look pathetic which suits her just fine, and in due course a lorry full of bricks pulls up and the driver leans out. By the luck of the gods he’s a German from Leipzig and he wants to know whether I’m pimping the pretty lady sitting on the pavement. So I say no, sorry mate, she’s my wife, and she’s ill, and he says okay, get in, and he drives us as far as the hospital in the city centre. I’ve got a rainy-day UK passport stitched into the lining of my shoulder bag, name of Miller. I unpick it and bung it in my pocket. Then I say to her: you’re really seriously ill, Doris. You’re pregnant and you’re getting more ill by the minute. So do me a favour, bag out your tummy and look as fucking awful as you feel. So they open the doors and in we come. Sorry about that.

  JO: Not quite the whole story though, is it? [Liquid pouring.]

  AL: Jesus. All right then. We come up your cobble lane out there. We approach your noble gates with Her Majesty’s royal crest on them in tasteful gold paint. There’s three Czech goons in grey suits hanging around outside, doing nothing very deliberately. Maybe you haven’t noticed them. Doris is putting on an act Sarah Bernhardt would have given her eyes for. I wave my UK passport at them: let us in quick. The buggers want to see her passport too. Listen, I tell them in my best English. Just press that fucking button you’ve got on the wall there, and tell them inside that my wife’s having a miscarriage, so get a fucking doctor round. And if she has it here in the street it’ll be on your fucking heads. And haven’t you got mothers of your own, probably you haven’t – or words to that effect, okay? And abracadabra the gates have parted. And we’re standing in the Embassy courtyard. And Tulip is clutching her gut and thanking her patron saint for delivering us from evil. And you and your dear lady wife are apologizing profusely for yet another king-sized Head Office fuck-up. So thank you both for the gracious apology, accepted. And if you don’t mind, I’ll go and get some fucking sleep.

  Sally Ormond takes back the story.

  Extract from Sally Ormond, DH/Station Prague, personal informal handwritten DO letter to H/Covert [Smiley] by Circus bag. Priority: CRASH.

  Well, of course, once we’d got poor Tulip and Alec inside the Embassy compound, that’s when the real fun started. I honestly think Ambass and the FO would have been far happier if she had simply been handed back to the GDR authorities and no more said. For starters, Ambass wouldn’t have Tulip inside ‘her house’ at all, even if legally it didn’t make a jot of difference. She actually insisted that two janitors be moved into the main building, just so that poor Tulip could be shoved in the servants’ area, which from a strict security point of view works rather better than the main house. But that wasn’t at all her reason, as she made totally clear the moment we were all four of us squashed into the Embassy safe room: Her Excellency, attended by Arthur Lansdowne, her very private secretary, plus my dear husband and self. And Alec absolutely not bien vu by HE, of which more later, and anyway mopping Tulip’s brow in the servants’ area.

  And P.S. George: a word in your ear if we may.

  The Embassy safe room is extremely stuffy and a potential health risk at all times, as repeatedly reported in vain by self to HO Admin. The Mickey Mouse air-con system is totally kaput. It breathes in when it should breathe out, but according to Barker (Admin’s pest-in-chief), no spare parts have been available for the last two years. And since nobody in the FO has seen fit to send us a new system, anyone using the place just stews and suffocates. Last week poor Jerry nearly did suffocate, but of course he’s too noble to say. I’ve suggested about a million times that the safe room be made a Circus responsibility, but that apparently would be an infringement of FO territorial rights!!

  If you can possibly agitate with Admin unattributably (NOT Barker, I suggest!), hugely grateful. Jerry joins me in sending much love and huge fealty as ever, specially to Ann.

  S

  Text of Immediate Top Secret Telegram from British Ambassador, Prague, personal to Sir Alwyn Withers, H/East European Department, The Foreign Office, copy to Circus (Joint Steering). Minutes of crisis meeting in Embassy safe room, held at 2100 hours. Present: HE Ambassador (Margaret Renford), Arthur Lansdowne, Private Secretary to HE, Jerry Ormond (H/Stn), Sally Ormond (DH/Stn).

  Purpose of meeting: Management and disposal of temporary Embassy resident. Priority: CRASH.

  Dear Alwyn,

  After our secure telephone call of this morning, the following procedure has been agreed between the two of us regarding the onward journey of our uninvited guest (OUG):

  OUG will travel to her next destination on what our Friends assure us will be a valid non-British passport. This will forestall later accusations by Czech authorities that this Embassy is dishing out UK passports to any Tom, Dick and Harry of whatever nationality attempting to evade GDR/Czech justice.

  OUG will not be assisted, accompanied or transported in any manner by diplomatic or non-diplomatic members of Embassy staff in the course of her departure. No vehicle with British diplomatic number plates will be used for her exfiltration. No false British papers will be issued to her.

  If OUG at any point claims she has the protection of the British Embassy, it is understood that this will be immediately and robustly denied, locally and in London.

  OUG’s departure from Embassy compound will occur within three working days, or other steps for her removal will be considered, including surrender of OUG to Czech authorities.<
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  My telephone is buzzing and the red light is winking. It’s Toby bloody Esterhase, gofer to Percy Alleline and Bill Haydon, yelling at me in his thick Hungarian accent to get my candy arse over to Head Office double-quick. Advising him to watch his language, I jump on my motorbike, which is being held ready for me outside the front door.

  Minutes of emergency conference held in Joint Steering’s safe room at Cambridge Circus. Presiding: Bill Haydon (H/JS). Present: Colonel Etienne Jabroche (Military Attaché, French Embassy, London, Chief of French Intelligence Liaison), Jules Purdy (JS French desk), Jim Prideaux (JS Balkans desk), George Smiley (H/Covert), Peter Guillam (JACQUES).

  Note-taker assigned to meeting: T. Esterhase. Recorded, part transcribed verbatim. Flash copy to H/Stn Prague.

  It’s five in the morning. The summons has come. I have arrived from Marylebone by motorbike. George has come straight from Treasury. He is unshaven and looks more than usually worried.

  ‘You’re entirely free to say no at any point, Peter,’ he has twice assured me. He has already described the operation as ‘needlessly elaborate’ but his greater concern, try as he might to conceal it, is that the operational plan is the collective achievement of Joint Steering. We are six at the long plywood table in the Circus safe room.

  Jabroche: Bill. My dear friend. My masters in Paris need to be assured that your Monsieur Jacques can hold his own on matters of small farming in France.

  Haydon: Tell him, Jacques.

  Guillam: I’m not worried about that, Colonel.

  Jabroche: Not even in the company of experts?

  Guillam: I grew up on a French smallholding in Brittany.

  Haydon: Is Brittany French? You amaze me, Jacques.

  [Laughter.]

  Jabroche: Bill. With your permission.

  Switching to French, Colonel Jabroche engages Guillam in an animated discussion on the French farming industry, with particular reference to north-west France.

  Jabroche: I am satisfied, Bill. He passes. He even speaks like a Breton, poor man.

  [More laughter.]

  Haydon: But will it play, Etienne? Can you really get him in?

  Jabroche: In, yes. Out, will be up to Monsieur Jacques and his good lady. You are in the nick of time. The list of French delegates closes imminently. We are already holding it open. I suggest we keep the presence of Monsieur Jacques at the conference as brief as possible. We enrol him, he goes on the collective visa, he is delayed by illness, but he is determined to make the closing session. As one of three hundred international delegates, he will not be unduly conspicuous. Do you speak Finnish, Monsieur Jacques?

  Guillam: Not a lot, Colonel.

  Jabroche: I thought all Bretons did. [Laughter.] And the lady in the case speaks no French?

  Guillam: To our knowledge, German and school Russian, but no French.

  Jabroche: But she has panache, you say? She is personable. She has élan. She can dress.

  Smiley: Jacques, you’ve seen her.

  I had seen her dressed and I had seen her undressed. I select the first:

  Guillam: We’ve only brush-passed. But she’s impressive. Good tradecraft, quick thinking. Creative. Spirited.

  Haydon: Jesus. Creativity. Who the hell needs creativity? Woman needs to do what she’s bloody told and shut up, doesn’t she? Is it a goer or not? Jacques?

  Guillam: I’m up for it if George is.

  Haydon: Is he?

  Smiley: Given that Joint and the Colonel are providing the necessary field support, we at Covert are prepared to accept the risk.

  Haydon: Well, that sounds a bit bloody mealy-mouthed, I must say. It’s a goer then. Etienne, I’m assuming you’ll supply Monsieur Jacques with his French passport and travel papers. Or do you want us to do that?

  Jabroche: Ours are better. [Laughter.] Kindly also remember, Bill, that if things come unstuck, my government will be very shocked to discover that your perfidious English secret service is encouraging its agents to masquerade as French citizens.

  Haydon: And we shall deny the accusation vigorously and apologize. [To Prideaux] Jim-boy. A comment? You’ve been mysteriously silent. Czecho’s your patch. Are you happy with us trampling all over it?

  Prideaux: Not objecting, if that’s what you mean.

  Haydon: Anything you want to add or subtract?

  Prideaux: Not off-hand.

  Haydon: Okay, gents. Thanks all. It’s a goer, so let’s get down to it. Jacques, our thoughts go with you. Etienne, maybe a private word.

  But George doesn’t give up his misgivings easily, witness the next serial. The clock is ticking; I am to leave for Prague in six hours.

  PG to H/Covert.

  George,

  We spoke. You asked me to put down my experience of the Field Dispatch Office at Heathrow, Terminal 3, presently under Joint Steering’s command. In appearance the FDO is just another seedy airport office at the end of an unswept corridor. A glazed door is marked ‘Freight Interlink’, access is by entryphone. Once inside, the atmosphere is depressing: a couple of weary couriers playing cards, a woman barking Spanish into a telephone, one dresser only working a double shift because her colleague is off sick, cigarette smoke, full ashtrays and only one cubicle because they’re waiting for new curtains for the other one.

  The big surprise was the reception party that awaited my appearance: Alleline, Bland, Esterhase. If Bill H had been there, I’d have had a full hand. Ostensibly they’d come to see me off and wish me well. Alleline to the fore as ever, produced my French passport and conference ID, courtesy of Jabroche, with great flourish. Esterhase did the same with my travelling case and props: clothing bought in Rennes, agricultural handbooks and a history of how France built the Suez Canal for light reading, etc. Roy Bland played big brother and slyly asked me if there was anyone I’d like informed if I was away a few years longer than expected.

  But the real purpose of their attentions could not have been clearer. They wanted to know more about Tulip: where she was coming from, how long she had been working for us, who had the handling of her? And then the strangest moment when, having fended off their questions, I was standing in the cubicle being dressed and Toby E shoved his head round the curtain saying he had the following personal message for me from Bill: ‘Any time you get tired of your Uncle George, think Head of Station Paris.’ My reply was non-committal.

  Peter

  Now meet George in his role as the ultimate operational pedant, bent on closing every loophole in Joint Steering’s notoriously slipshod planning:

  Signal from H/Covert [Smiley] to H/Station Prague [Ormond] TOP SECRET MAYFLOWER. Priority: CRASH.

  A. Finnish passport for sub-source Tulip will arrive tomorrow by bag in name of Venia Lessif, born Helsinki, nutrition expert, married name of spouse: Adrien Lessif. Passport will contain stamped Czech entry visa, date of entry to coincide with Communist French-sponsored conference for Fields of Peace.

  B. Peter Guillam will arrive Prague airport on Air France flight 412 tomorrow morning at 1040 hours local time, travelling on French national’s passport in name of Adrien Lessif, visiting lecturer in Agrarian Economics at Rennes University. Czech entry visa also valid to coincide with conference. Lessif’s appearance at conference notionally delayed by illness. Both Lessifs currently appear on Conference List of Participants, one participant (delayed), one spouse.

  C. Also by tomorrow’s bag, two Air France tickets Prague–Paris Le Bourget, for Adrien and Venia Lessif, departing 0600 hours 28 January. Air France records will confirm that the couple flew to Prague on separate dates (see entry stamps) but will be returning to Paris with fellow academics in the group.

  D. Accommodation for Professor and Mme Lessif has been booked at the Hotel Balkan where the French delegation will be housed overnight prior to early morning departure for Paris Le Bourget.

  And Sally Orm
ond in reply, missing no opportunity to sing her own praises:

  Extract from second personal letter Sally Ormond to George Smiley, marked Strictly Personal & Private to you, not for the record.

  On receipt of your very lucid signal, herewith gratefully acknowledged, Jerry and I decided that I should go and prepare Tulip for her departure from the Embassy and her coming ordeal. I duly crossed the courtyard to the annexe suite where we had housed Tulip: double curtains on street side, camp bed for self in passage outside bedroom door, extra chancery guard posted in downstairs hall in case of unwelcome visitors.

  I found her sitting on the bed, and Alec with his arm round her shoulder, but she seemed not to know he was there, just every now and then sobbing in semi-silent hiccups.

  Be that as it may, I took firm charge of the situation and, as planned, sent Alec off for fresh air and a boys’ walk beside the river with Jerry. My German language being pretty much stuck at Level 2, I couldn’t get a lot out of her at first, though I doubt it would have made much difference because she was hardly talking, let alone listening. She whispered ‘Gustav’ at me several times and I gathered, after a bit of sign language, that Gustav was not her Mann but her Sohn.

  But I did manage to get through to her that she would be leaving the Embassy tomorrow, flying to England but not directly, and that she would be attached to a mixed French tour group of academics and agriculturalists. Her first reaction, very naturally, was how could she possibly if she didn’t speak a word of French? And when I said that wasn’t going to matter, because she would be Finnish – and nobody speaks Finnish, do they? – her next reaction was: in these clothes? – which was my cue to unpack all the brilliant goodies Paris Station had got together for us at no notice at all: gorgeous barley-coloured twinset from Printemps, lovely shoes just her size, dishy nightdress and underclothes, make-up literally to die for – Paris Station must have spent a fortune – just everything she must have been dreaming of for the last twenty years, even if she didn’t know it, and nice labels from Tours to complete the illusion. And a very pretty engagement ring I wouldn’t have minded myself, and a decent gold wedding ring rather than the ersatz bit of tin she was wearing – all to be returned on landing, of course, but I didn’t think that needed saying quite yet!