by Len Deighton
‘Wasn’t that a little premature, Bret?’
‘It will all depend upon her once she’s there. She must understand our strategy so well that she can improvise her responses.’
‘I suppose you’re right. I wish it was you explaining it all to the Cabinet Secretary next week. All your charts and mumbo-jumbo…You see Bret, if we don’t persuade him to go along with the fundamental idea…Do you have an operational name yet?’
‘I thought it was better not to ask the Department for an operational name.’
‘No, no, no, of course not. We’ll think of one. Something that suggests the weakening of the economy without prejudicing the security of our operation. Any ideas?’
‘I thought Operation Haemorrhage? Or Operation Bleeder?’
‘Blood; casualties. No. And bleeder is an English expletive. What else?’
‘Leaker?’
‘Vulgarism with connotations of urinating. But Sinker might do.’
‘Sinker then. Yes, of course, Sir Henry.’
‘Oh, my God, this fellow is useless. Left-handed and look at the way he’s holding the bat.’ He turned to Bret. ‘You understand what I mean about persuading him to the basic idea?’
Bret understood exactly. If the Cabinet Secretary didn’t go for the economic target then they’d start having second thoughts about using Bret. Mrs Samson would be provided with a different case officer.
The D-G said, ‘There still remains the problem of the Soviets engaging her for operational service over there. We can’t leave that to chance.’
‘Agent X has to be created from scratch,’ said Bret, having decided that naming Mrs Samson might be creating doubts in the D-G’s mind. ‘I must deliver to them an agent who is so knowledgeable and experienced in one specific field of activity that they will have to put her in the place we want.’
‘You’ve lost me now,’ said the D-G without taking his eyes from the cricket.
‘I shall spend this year studying the Russian links with the East German security police, particularly the KGB-Stasi operational command in Berlin. I’ll come to you with a complete picture of their strengths and weaknesses.’
‘Can you do that?’
‘I spent most of last week reading Operational Briefs. Give me a closer look at the command structure over there, and my analysts could build a detailed picture. It will take time but we’ll get what we need.’
‘Their security is good,’ said the D-G.
‘We will be trying to discover what they need…the things they don’t know. I have good people in my section. They are used to sifting through figures and building a picture of what is going on.’
‘For economics, yes. It’s possible to do that with statistics of banking, exports, imports and credit and so on because you’re dealing with hard facts. But this is far more complex.’
‘With respect, Sir Henry, I think you’re wrong,’ said Bret Rensselaer with a slight rasp to his voice that betrayed his tension.
The D-G forgot the cricket and looked at him. Bret’s eyes were wide, his smile fixed, and a wavy lock of his blond hair had fallen out of place. Until this very moment he hadn’t realized to what extent Bret Rensselaer had become consumed with his new task.
For the first time the D-G began to feel that this mad scheme might actually work. What a staggering coup it would be if Bret really did it: planting Mrs Samson into the East Berlin command structure where she could use their own secret records on protest groups, dissidents and other anti-communists to guide the Department as they planned the economic destruction of the communist regime. ‘Time will tell, Bret.’
‘Yes, indeed, sir.’
The D-G nodded to Bret. Was it the prospect of moving from a vitally important, but somewhat wearisome, world of committees into the more dashing excitement of operations that had so animated him? Or had the departure of his wife, now seemingly a permanent separation, provided him with more time? Or had the loss of his spouse to another man made it necessary for Bret to prove himself? Perhaps all of those. And yet the D-G had not allowed for Mrs Fiona Samson and the influence her participation had had upon Bret Rensselaer’s strength and determination.
‘Give me a free hand, sir.’
‘But ten years…’
‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have given a time frame.’ His sinuses hurt: he felt an overwhelming need to blow his nose again and did so.
The D-G watched him with interest. He didn’t know Bret had sinus problems. ‘Let’s see how it goes. What about finance?’ He turned back to the cricket. The left-handed batsman had hit a superb catch – up up up it went and curved down like a mortar bomb – but luckily for him there was no fielder able to reach it. One fellow ran in for it but was unable to judge where it would land. The ball hit the ground and there was a concerted groan.
‘I’ll need money and it must not be routed through Central Funding.’
‘There are many ways.’
‘I have a company.’
‘Do it any way you like, Bret. I know you won’t waste it. What are we talking about? Roughly?’
‘A million sterling in the first year. Double that in the second and all subsequent years, adjusted for inflation and the exchange rate. No vouchers, no receipts, no accounts.’
‘Very well. We’ll have to concoct a route for the money.’ The D-G shielded his eyes with a folded newspaper. The sun had come round to shine through the window. ‘Have I forgotten anything?’
‘No, sir.’
‘I’ll not keep you then. I’m sure you have things to do. Look at this: the captain has put another fast bowler on. And he’s rather good. What do you think, Bret?’
‘Very good indeed, sir. Very fast. A problem will arise when we send Mrs Samson to work in Berlin. Will they continue to use this Welsh socialist as the contact? If not we’ll have to be very careful setting up the new one. Berlin is quite different to London: everyone knows everyone.’
‘And everyone hates everyone,’ said the D-G. ‘You’d better have her float the possibility before them and see what reaction she gets.’
‘The Welshman is very supportive,’ said Bret. ‘He’s determined to believe that she’s the KGB superspy. She’s his protégée. She could make a terrible blunder and he’d still hold on to his trust in her. But when she goes to Berlin they’ll be more suspicious. You know how it is when someone’s treasure is scrutinized by a rival: the KGB will turn her over.’
The D-G frowned. ‘Is this some narrative form of second thinking?’ he said tartly.
‘No, sir. I am sure the Berlin tour is an essential part of the plan. I’m simply saying that she will be under a lot of stress.’
‘Out with it then.’ The D-G stood tall and bent his head to see Bret over his glasses.
‘We’re asking her to give up her husband and children. Her colleagues will despise her…’
‘When did she say all this to you?’
‘She hasn’t said it.’
‘She hasn’t expressed doubts at all?’
‘Not to me. She’s a patriot: she has a wonderful sense of purpose.’
The D-G sniffed. ‘We’ve seen patriots change their minds, haven’t we, Bret?’
‘She won’t,’ said Bret firmly and certainly.
‘Then what is it?’
‘The husband. He should be told. He will be able to give her the sort of help and encouragement she’ll need. She’d go East knowing that her husband will be keeping her family intact. It would be something for her to hang on to.’
‘Oh, don’t let’s go through that again, Bret.’ The D-G turned away.
‘You said I’d have a free hand.’
He swung round, and when he spoke there was a hard note in his voice. ‘I don’t remember saying any such thing, Bret. You asked for a free hand: almost everyone in the Department asks for a free hand at some time or another. It makes me wonder what they think I am paid to do. I will of course give you as much freedom as possible. I’ll guard you from the slings and arrows of
outrageous officialdom. I’ll give you non-voucher funds and I’ll listen to any crackpot idea you bring me. But a secret is a secret, Bret. The only chance she has of coming out of this in one piece is to have her husband overwhelmed and horrified when she goes over there. That will be the ace card that saves her. Never mind help and encouragement, I want Bernard Samson to become demented with rage.’ He used the newspaper to slam at the buzzing fly and after a couple of swipes the fly fell to the floor. ‘Demented with rage!’
‘Very well, sir. I’m sure you know best.’ Bret’s tone did nothing to make the D-G think he’d changed his opinion.
‘Yes, I do, Bret. I do know best.’ They both watched as the batsman swung and then seemed to leap backwards, blundering into the wicket so that the stumps were knocked asunder. A fast ball had hit him in the belly. He went down clutching his stomach and rolled about in agony. ‘Left-handed,’ pronounced the D-G without emotion. The other cricketers gathered around the fallen boy but no one did anything: they just looked down at him.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Bret. ‘Well, I’ll be off.’
‘She might waver, Bret. Agents do when the time gets close. If she does you’d better make sure she toes the line. There is too much at stake now for a last-minute change of cast.’
Bret stood there in case the D-G had more to say. But the D-G flicked his fingers to dismiss him.
Once outside Bret blew his nose again. Damn this grass: he’d keep away from cricket matches on freshly mowed grass in future. Well, the old man could still provide a surprise or two, thought Bret. What a tough old bastard he was. Bernard must not be told under any circumstances. So that was what ‘Only ignorance is invicible’ meant. By the time he got to his car Bret’s sinus problem was entirely gone. It was the stress that brought it on.
6
London. August 1978.
Fiona Samson, a thirty-one-year-old careerist, was a woman of many secrets and always had been. At first that had made her relish her demanding job in London Central – the most secret of all the government’s secret departments – but as her role as a double agent developed and became more complex she found there were times when it all became too much for her. It had always been said that double agents eventually lose their own sense of direction and fail to distinguish which side they really work for, but for Fiona it was different. Fiona could not envisage ever becoming a supporter of communist regimes: her patriotism was a deeply rooted aspect of her upper middle-class upbringing. Fiona’s torment came not from political doubts: she worried that she would not be able to cope with the overwhelming task that she’d been given. Bernard would have been perfect for such a double agent role; like most men he could compartmentalize his brain and keep his family concerns quite separate from his work. Fiona could not. She knew that her task would become so demanding that she would have to neglect her husband and children more and more and finally – with no possible warning – leave them to fend for themselves. She would be branded a traitor and they would be spattered with the dirt. The thought of that distressed her.
Had she been able to discuss it with Bernard it might have been different, but authority had decreed that her husband should not know the plan. In any case she was not good at talking with Bernard. No less spirited than her extrovert sister Tessa, Fiona’s fires were damped down and seldom showed a flicker. Sometimes, or even often, Fiona would have enjoyed being like Tessa. She would have got great and immediate relief and satisfaction from the sort of public performance – displays of anger or exhilarated madness – for which her sister was famous, but there was no choice for her.
Fiona was beautiful in a way that had sometimes separated her from other women. Fiona’s beauty was a cold perfect radiance of the sort that is to be seen in the unapproachable models posing with such assurance in glossy magazines. Her brain was cold and perfect too; her mind had been bent by pedantic university teachers to think in terms of male priorities and had sacrificed many of the unbridled joys of femininity in order to become a successful surrogate male. Fiona’s miseries, her tensions and her times of great happiness were shared only reluctantly – grudgingly sometimes – with those around her. Emotion of any sort was always to be hidden, her father had taught her that. Her father was an insensitive and opinionated man who had wanted sons, something he explained to his two children – both daughters – at every opportunity, and told them that boys didn’t cry.
Fiona’s marriage to Bernard Samson had changed her life forever. It was love at first sight. She’d never met anyone like Bernard before. A big bear-like man, Bernard was the most masculine person she’d ever met. At least he had the qualities that she thought of as being masculine. Bernard was practical. He could fix any sort of machine and deal with any sort of people. He was of course a male chauvinist: categorical and opinionated. He never thought of helping in the house and couldn’t even boil an egg successfully. On the other hand he was constantly cheerful, almost never moody and quite without malevolence. Inclined to be untidy he gave no thought to his clothes or his appearance, never put on airs or graces and while enjoying art and music he was in no way ‘intellectual’ or ‘artistic’ in the way that so many of her male acquaintances were determined to be.
Fiona’s husband was the only person she’d ever met who completely disregarded other people’s evaluation of him. Bernard was a devoted father, more devoted to the children than Fiona was if the truth was faced. And yet he was not the unmotivated drifter that her father had warned her about. Bernard was driven by some force or thought or belief in the way that great artists are said to be, and woe betide anyone who got in his way. Bernard was not an easy man to live with. He’d been brought up in post-war Berlin – his father a senior intelligence officer – in an atmosphere of violence and betrayal. He was by nature tough and undemonstrative. Bernard had killed men in the course of duty and done it without qualms. He was well adjusted and enjoyed a self-confidence that Fiona could only wonder at and envy.
The burden of their marriage came from the fact that Bernard was far too much like Fiona: neither of them found it easy to say the things that wives and husbands have to say to keep a marriage going. Even ‘I love you’ did not come easily from Bernard’s lips. Bernard really needed as a wife some noisy extrovert like Fiona’s sister Tessa. She might have found a way of getting him out of his shell. If only Bernard could be foolish and trivial now and again. If only he could express doubts or fears and come to her for comfort. Fiona didn’t need a strong silent man: she was strong and silent herself. It was difficult for a man like Bernard to be really sympathetic to a woman’s point of view and Bernard would never understand the way that women would cry for ‘nothing’.
Lately, there had been many occasions when the complex tangle of Fiona’s working life became too much for her. She was using tranquillizers and sleeping tablets with a regularity that she’d never needed before. Bernard had found her crying several times when he’d come into the house unexpectedly. She had told him she was under treatment from her gynaecologist; embarrassed dear old Bernard had not pursued it further.
When she found herself weighed down by her thoughts, and the worries would not go away, Fiona found an excuse to leave the office and walked to the Waterloo mainline railway station. She’d come to like it. Its size suggested permanence while its austere design and girder construction gave it anonymity: a vast waiting room made from a construction kit. Coming through the dirty glass of its roof the daylight was grey, dusty and mysterious. Today – despite the rain – she had benefited from the walk from the office. Now she sat on a bench near number one platform and quietly cried her heart out. No one seemed to notice these emotional outbursts, except once when a lady from the Salvation Army offered her a chance for prayer at an address in Lambeth. Sobbing was not so unusual on Waterloo Station. Separations were common here and nowadays it was a place where the homeless and hungry were apt to congregate. London Airport was probably just as good a place to go for the purpose of weeping, but that provided
too great a chance of seeing someone she knew. Or, more exactly, of someone she knew seeing her. And Waterloo Station was near the office, and there were tea and newspapers, taxicabs and metered parking available. So she went to number one platform and cried.
It was the prospect of leaving Bernard and the children, of course. They would end up hating her. Even if she did everything that was expected of her, and returned a heroine, they would hate her for leaving them. Her father would hate her too. And her sister Tessa. And what would happen to the children? She had asked Bret that, but he had dismissed her fears. The children would be cared for in the manner that her sacrifice and heroism deserved, he’d said in that theatrical style that Bret could get away with because he was so damn certain. But how sincere was he? That worried her sometimes. Sincere or not she couldn’t help thinking that her children would be forgotten once she was working in the East. Billy would survive boarding school – and perhaps even flourish there – but Sally would find such an environment unendurable. Fiona had resolved not to put her children through the sort of childhood that she had hated so much.
Bret told her that the only thing that frightened her more than the prospect of finding that her husband and children wouldn’t be able to manage without her, was the prospect of finding that they could. Bastard! But perhaps there was a glimmer of truth there. Perhaps that was the permanent crippling dilemma that motherhood brought.
She had never been a very good mother and that knowledge plagued her. She’d never wanted motherhood in the way that her sister Tessa so desperately did. Fiona had never liked babies: her friends’ babies had appalled her with their endless demands and the way that they completely upset the households. Babies cried very loudly; babies vomited very frequently and dirtied their nappies very stenchfully. Even when hugging her own babies she had always been uneasy in case her dress was soiled. The children’s nurse had seen that right from the start, and Fiona still remembered the accusing look in her eyes. That look said, I am their real mother: you are not fit to look after them.