by John Gardner
Now, 29,000 feet above Europe, Herbie Kruger still pondered over the incident. If the mortuary sergeant was telling the truth Colonel-General Jacob Vascovsky had committed suicide. Some breach—punishable by a silent, private death—would have been dealt with in Moscow itself. You cannot make a man fill his mouth with water, then hold him down and push a pistol between his lips.
He could be wrong, of course; but it had all the marks of a hush-up job; and the Colonel-General was a professional. Herbie had taken the trouble to keep an eye on his file. Nothing showed. Then he recalled something else. About six months before, he had been asked his opinion about an attempted recruitment of someone around that rank bracket. The request came to him via the Director, who had been asked by the Americans. Were there any pressure points? Not one, Herbie replied, making it clear that this man was unapproachable. He recalled using the jargon—Vascovsky’s sterile.
Suicide seemed strange. The circumstances even more strange. Without being in any way morbid, Herbie Kruger wished he had been given the chance to see the body. He then signalled to the stewardess for another couple of vodkas. He wanted to drink to the memory of Jacob Vascovsky.
At Heathrow young Worboys was waiting with a car. He looked serious, but said nothing until they were inside the airport tunnel. There was a soundproof panel between them and the driver.
“There’s a flap,” he began. “They’ve had a walk-in at the Consulate General’s office in West Berlin.”
“Who?” Herbie turned his head towards Worboys.
“He asked for you.” The younger man sounded nervous. “They’re all doing handstands.”
“So? They always do handstands. Who is it?”
“Name of Mistochenkov. Captain in the KGB. Says to tell you: ‘Piotr’.”
Herbie’s face only changed a fraction. Calmly he told Worboys to get the driver to stop at the Post House Hotel. Then Worboys was to use a public telephone. “Take care—use an open-line bit of double-talk. Get Tubby Fincher. I must see the Director as soon as we get to Whitehall. We’ll need the Minister as well. There has to be a decision to bring the walk-in back here fast. You’d better stand by to fly out.”
Worboys looked as though he had been hit with a rotten fish.
“To Berlin?”
“Of course to Berlin.”
In his head Kruger was weighing facts. Piotr had been his own network’s cryptonym for Mistochenkov. When he first knew him—though they had never met—the Russian had been a sergeant. Like Colonel-General Vascovsky, Mistochenkov had risen in rank, though his duties had not changed over the years.
Captain Mistochenkov had been the Colonel-General’s ADC.
3
OUTWARDLY, BIG HERBIE’S TWO passions, apart from his work, were drinking and the music of Gustav Mahler. Those who knew him slightly better were often surprised at his other abiding interest—English history.
Possibly a psychiatrist would explain this by pointing out that, as Britain was Kruger’s adopted country, the man’s subconscious drew him naturally towards a study of his surrogate land’s development. Whatever the reason, Herbie read English history with the dedication of a student committed to obtaining an outstanding honours degree.
It was understandable, then, that every time Herbie faced the Director of his Service he thought of the Historia Anglorum’s description of King Henry I. William of Malmesbury, that vital monastic historian, wrote of Henry: a man of middle stature; his hair was black, but scanty near the forehead; his eyes mildly bright; his chest brawny; his body fleshy; he was facetious in proper season, nor did multiplicity of business cause him to be less pleasant when he mixed in society.
To Herbie, it was a living picture of the Director, whom he now faced over the desk, high in the main building which housed their particular corner of the secret world.
Occupying a third chair was Tubby Fincher—so known because of his almost skeletal stature. He looked glum. The Director, whose experience in secret affairs went back to the middle of World War Two, seemed subdued. It was not the proper season for facetiousness.
They had trekked back to the building after a visit to the Minister, from which Herbie had been barred: he sat alone in an anteroom, tapping his large feet and riddling with his hands; his whole bulk exuding frustration.
The Minister had been edgy, the Director told him. He was worried in case of political repercussions—diplomatic incidents. “He’s also concerned about the cost.”
“And I’m concerned about the cost to my people,” Herbie replied. “Not to mention the benefits to this country.” Ministers, in Herbie’s experience, were all too ready to sacrifice important operatives because of funding. He asked how matters finally stood, stressing the point that young Worboys was at that moment waiting at Heathrow for instructions.
“I carry the can.” For a second the Director’s eyes became more than mildly bright.
“Then you can authorise?” Herbie responded.
The Director nodded, then sighed, giving Tubby Fincher a sideways glance; which meant he was asking for help. It was apparent to Herbie that they really wanted the KGB captain returned to the East. He was an embarrassment. Notes would be passed between ambassadors and consuls; words would be exchanged between foreign ministers; there would be political unpleasantness.
Tubby shifted in his chair. “What’s he offering? Nothing. There’s nothing concrete.”
Herbie fought to remain calm, asking what the hell Tubby thought the captain from East Berlin was offering. “He asked for me, using the crypto we designated to him years ago—when he was only a sergeant; when I was in the field. He knew that, or remembered it; which means he has something to say about my people out there. The new people, and the Telegraph Boys.” He went on to point out, for the third or fourth time, that he had already established something fishy concerning Vascovsky’s death. The smell, he told them, had become more putrid since Captain Mistochenkov walked into the Berlin Consulate General’s office.
“More to the point,” said the Director, looking Herbie in the eyes, “what is he asking?”
“Asylum.” The first syllable came out as ‘Ess …’
“And you?” There was a note of caution in the Director’s tone. The KGB man had used an old cryptonym—culled from Lord knew where—designed to bring Herbie running. “A message to you, saying that he’s Piotr? Could be a lure.”
Herbie shrugged, as if the Director was stating the obvious. He then said it was because of this very possibility that he was sending Worboys.
“He wants you. He might not come back with Worboys.”
“Then we shall know. I am much more concerned with the possibility of the man having something for us. Something concerning Source Six: the Quartet and the Telegraph Boys. Something vital.”
“Such as?” Tubby Fincher looked at the carpet, as though he already knew Herbie’s answer, and wished to avoid seeing the big German’s face as he put it into words.
“Such as a potential blow-out.”
The Director picked up a metal letter opener, holding it like a dagger. “Your argument, Herbie, is that Source Six could be in jeopardy—whichever way it goes.” Clearly, and with few words, he spread out the logic of the situation.
The aide to the deceased Colonel-General had come over, walked-in, and passed a message which Herbie would recognise; using a cryptonym he could only know through contact with one of Kruger’s old associates. This was either a means to lure Herbie to Berlin, where they could perform a knockdown-drag-out op, taking Kruger into the East; or to pass on information indicating that the Soviets knew more than was good for any of them.
Herbie agreed. The man was there. Time was being wasted. “You know what walk-ins are like? You have to treat them as temporary mental patients.”
“Quite.” The Director gave him a prim look.
Subtlety stirred in the large German’s mind. The walk-in had not, as yet, put any strings on his presumed defection.
“Which means we c
an toss him back.” Tubby Fincher had a cold streak which Herbie often found exploitable.
“Exactly.” Herbie gave one of his daft smiles, which did not fool either of the other two men. “Let me have him. Just for a while, eh?”
The Director coughed, a rumbling triple note, like a Morse Code S. “Berlin is worried,” he began; but Herbie cut him short. Of course Berlin was worried. Hadn’t he just been talking about the odd psychological state of walk-ins? Nobody was happy with a walk-in defector: particularly people in an embassy or consulate.
“All the more reason to get him back fast.” Herbie’s hands made what was meant to be an innocent, trusting gesture. The movement came out as one of extreme belligerence.
The silence became almost tangible. Then the Director nodded. “Can young Worboys manage it alone?”
“I’ll tear his neck off if he doesn’t.” Herbie grinned again. “Yes, it’ll be the first big chance to prove himself since you foisted him on to me. ‘Foisted’ is the right word, yes? A good word?”
Tubby Fincher gave a small nod, and Herbie addressed himself to the Director’s right-hand man. “You get some back-up for him, Tubby? Berlin station people? Vehicles? Army? Air Force? Helicopter out of West Berlin; then a fast ride home in an RAF jet? Okay?”
Fincher caught the Director’s reluctant inclination of the head, got to his feet, said okay, he would see to it, and made for the door.
Before he had reached it, Herbie Kruger turned to him again, speaking with a soft clarity that underlined his sense of urgency. “Call Worboys first, at Heathrow, Tubby, eh? Have him paged. He’s Mr. Robinson, meeting a Mr. Armstrong off an Amsterdam flight.”
Tubby said he would be back to report as soon as Worboys was confirmed away, and the Consulate had been flashed. It was better, now, for Herbie to spend a short time alone with the Director.
The Director did not like any of it—torn between his knowledge and the subtle pressures of the Whitehall Mafia: particularly the Minister. Yet he appeared almost relieved that the decision had been taken. He said something about not bothering to speak with the Minister until they had their man neatly tucked up at the Warminster house. “I presume you want him at Warminster?”
Herbie said he felt Warminster was too obvious. “We’re on sensitive ground. Somewhere less obtrusive would be better. Say that nice little house near Oxford.”
The Director sighed. “The place at Charlton?”
Herbie smiled. “Charlton, yes; like the footballer. Nice. I could take him for walks on the Downs, if the weather’s fine.”
“Money.” The Director looked up at the ceiling. “It all costs money, Herbie. Warminster has an allocation. Whenever I open up one of the other places it shows on the internal budget.”
Herbie raised his eyebrows. “What are secret funds for?”
“They seem to be for the Treasury hounds to scrutinise and query, Herbie. When I tell them five thousand has been spent on opening up one of the houses for a special interrogation they will want to know what the profit came out at. If I give you the Charlton house, this joker had better be worth it.”
“In gold to the value of his weight.” Herbie did not smile this time. There was an odd glint in the usually vacant eyes. The Director looked away, then suggested that he should get Habland, of Personnel, to arrange for a pair of lion-tamers—in the constantly changing service jargon ‘lion-tamers’ was the current argot for minders, bodyguards, watchers and general thugs. “And the odd confessor, of course,” he concluded.
“I’ll do it myself,” Herbie countered with a curt snap.
“All of it?”
“Unless you give me a specific order.”
The Director said he insisted on the lion tamers, but would leave the question of confessors to Herbie.
“Confessors,” Herbie gave another of his shrugs, the yoke-like shoulders moving in a manner which suggested a great deal of strength under the jacket of his cheap suit. “I’m an old Cold Warrior, Chief. I’ve had my troops stranded in the battlefield, on and off, for twenty years. They’re stranded no longer. I don’t want to see them cut off again.
“Your black boxes and electronics, or the American intelligence satellites, can’t do it all. Twice in the past two months my Telegraph Boys have come in with Soviet movements, days, weeks, before the satellites. Now there’s a man sitting, jittery in the Berlin Consulate, who knows names. I need him; to be certain my people are safe; and stay safe.”
He leaned forward. “Does our precious Minister realise the complete operational value of Source Six?”
“He knows what he needs to know.”
“That we have happy clients?”
“Yes.”
“Then he should be told—maybe by the happy clients—that there will be weeping and wailing if Source Six is dried.”
“He knows, Herbie.”
“It should be kept that way.”
The Director hesitated for a second before saying that one of the first rules of successful intelligence was to remain emotionally uninvolved with one’s field staff. As he said it, he realised the error.
Herbie rose, lifting a clenched fist, bringing it softly down on the Director’s desk. “Emotionally uninvolved? With respect, Chief, you weren’t there. I don’t want to know who else does or does not run Telegraph Boys in the Soviet Bloc. I simply know that I set up the very first six. Personally, while the Berlin crisis was boiling, and all Europe stood and watched them build that bloody Wall. I was going over every day: briefing, settling six people, six valued friends, into places where they could detect troop and missile moves long before bugs and satellites.
“Those people out there are my responsibility, and have been since 1961. I’ve watched them being neglected; trying to pass stuff over; having their letterboxes filched, their controls withdrawn, their lines of communication cut away, because the Treasury did not want them maintained. They’re still there. All six. Still at their posts; still working. I’ve opened them up to full operational strength again. The Army, Navy and Air Force are more than delighted at what they’re giving us—not to mention the political advisers, and the Americans. In spite of their eyes in the sky, they’ve been buying, haven’t they?”
The Director acknowledged that the Americans had been purchasing information on troop and missile dispersal, even though their electronic surveillance provided them with proof—much later.
Herbie hardly paused in his monologue; saying that while all those with access to Source Six thought in terms of cryptonyms chosen at random from mythology—Gemini, Hecuba, Horus, Nestor, Priam, Electra—he knew them as people. He did not say that he had once loved Electra.
As he spoke, the faces and voices of these six people passed before his eyes. Then the faces of Walter Girren, Christoph Schnabeln, Anton Mohr and Anna Blatte overlapped those of the Telegraph Boys: the old, faithful watchers, running in a mental montage with their new handlers. For all he or the Director knew, all these people were now at risk …
It was at this point that Tubby Fincher reappeared, to say that Worboys was on his way, and Berlin was relieved. “Our friend’s a handful, apparently.”
“They’re always a handful,” muttered the Director.
“If he’ll come out with Worboys, Comrade Mistochenkov’ll be delivered tomorrow afternoon.”
Herbie nodded. “Then they’d better bring him straight down to Charlton. You open it up for me first thing tomorrow, Chief?”
The Director made a motion of assent.
“Then I’ll leave the lion-tamers and nuts and bolts to Tubby. I go pack. You have someone to keep house down there?”
Again the Director said yes, there would be someone.
“Good. You give our friend a crypto, Tubby?”
“We thought it better to jettison ‘Piotr’.” Fincher’s emaciated hand made a twirling gesture. “He’s now known as ‘Tapeworm’.”
Herbie grunted, his mind already leaping ahead to his needs for what might be a lengthy stay
in Oxfordshire. “You got full sound in the Charlton house?”
They said yes.
“And a stereo? I can’t live without music.”
The two men smiled. Tubby Fincher said, “He shall have Mahler wherever he goes.”
“You are right,” smiled Herbie. “Mensch, how you are right.” With that he went out, his bellowing laugh echoing down the corridor.
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