Boyce said, “You appear to have made very serious allegations.”
“I am carrying out an assignment,” said Charlie. The bastards were going to make him stand, which was stupid. To their disadvantage, not his. It put him on the orchestra podium, baton ready.
“It was not part of your assignment to leave Moscow without authorization.”
Like a lot of small men, Boyce was a bully, Charlie guessed. He was also a lousy interrogator, if indeed that’s what the man saw his function to be. There was no hurry: let them set out their battle formations. “I was authorized ten days ago to come here from Moscow to carry out inquiries as part of that assignment. I considered my going back to Moscow for the Russian announcement merely an interruption of that original authorization. I had not finished the inquiries I came here to complete. Now I have.” Charlie hoped the director-general appreciated not having any responsibility off-loaded.
“That’s a fatuous explanation!” rejected the permanent secretary.
Blustering, deciding Charlie. He wondered how many times pompous men at this echelon were openly opposed. Not often, he wouldn’t have thought. “Then that must be your judgment. Mine is that by coming back today I have totally obeyed my director-general’s instructions to find out how-and why-a British lieutenant, with others, was murdered fifty-four years ago in a remote part of what was then the Soviet Union ….” He turned slightly, to look directly at Mason. “Wouldn’t you agree that to be a reasonable assessment, Sir Peter?”
It became so quiet, Charlie could hear the sound of the long-cased clock; even its tick was respectful. He thought the chill that permeated the room would be akin to that at the depth of winter in Yakutsk itself, when the climate was at its subzero worst. They really did have to be shit-scared to be staging this performance.
Boyce said, “I’d like your response to what I said about your making serious allegations against Sir Peter.”
Thin-ice time. Charlie said, “I put a number of points to Sir Peter as part of my investigation.”
“Points you claim to have communicated to others,” said Boyce, briefly looking directly at the director-general. “Yet Sir Rupert does not appear to be aware of them.”
The bloody fools were seeking damage limitation, Charlie accepted. “I was responding to a question from Sir Peter about a battle-dress button and a shell casing from a revolver,” said Charlie. “Both of which formed part of a very early report to London.”
“That is so,” cut in Sir Rupert Dean, from the side.
“From my battle dress and revolver!” interjected Mason.
Why, apart from overwhelming pomposity, was the man this confident? Looking around the room, Charlie estimated that the man, whom he knew from the Who’s Who entry to be close to eighty-five, had to be at least twenty years older than anyone else. “I’ll take that as the confirmation you didn’t provide earlier.”
“I meant that’s what you claimed them to be,” flustered the man.
One of the unidentified men leaned briefly to his companion, whispered, and then said more loudly, “This isn’t getting us very far, is it? Let’s discuss it more directly, shall we?”
“I think you should tell us everything you know,” ordered Boyce.
If he hadn’t been one hundred and one percent right about Sir Peter Mason, he wouldn’t be standing on increasingly painful feet in front of this Star Chamber, Charlie knew. So he could be far more accusative than he had been trying to trap the man into an admission earlier. How much further could he go? He could bring in the Hitler bunker staff, although cautiously. And the fact that Larisa Krotkov and Raisa Belous had switched from art conservators to Trophy Brigade looters to NKVD intelligence officers, using their art expertise as a cover for their association with Norrington and Timpson. And what about Mason, too? Charlie reminded himself. He still wasn’t sure how to bring that accusation in.
Charlie talked not to the assembled men but to the former permanent secretary, intentionally in the manner of a prosecutor, careless of the personal contempt being obvious. He embellished the scene he’d read about in the log of Novikov’s father, confident from the references to the mental collapse of both Mason and Harry Dunne that Mason wouldn’t clearly remember. Very quickly Charliebecame alert to Mason’s reaction. It wasn’t the bombastic refusal of earlier in the day, although his face grew red again and his body stiffened. Mason was hardly looking at him. Instead his eye-flickering concentration was upon everyone else in the room: men who, with the possible exception of James Boyce, were for the first time hearing a full and detailed account of the Yakutsk incident. With those aware-nesses came a further understanding. Mason, so sure and cocooned for so many years, felt himself humiliated, particularly by the contempt with which the accusations were being leveled. Briefly Charlie turned back into the room and caught expressions of disdain on the faces of two of the unidentified men. Boyce was gazing pointedly down at his desk. Standing as he was at that moment, Charlie missed the moment when Mason broke, brought back to the man by the near-shout. “It wasn’t like that at all!”
The bastard thought he could justify it, Charlie recognized, amazed. “Maybe you should tell it, instead of me?”
“I’m going to,” insisted the man, still looking beyond Charlie to the others in the room. “You’ve got to know the real truth, not this. Understand how it happened ….”
Behind him Charlie heard the stir move through the room but didn’t look back again, his total attention upon the man straightening, commandingly, before him. He couldn’t be wrong! Charlie told himself. It was impossible. Yet …?
“It was the political opportunity of the entire war … of the century,” began Mason, forcefully. “Something that couldn’t have been ignored. Hitler’s staff, the men and women who knew everything! Where all the documentation was, all that Hitler had done and said in the last months of the war. His actual will, which the Russians seized: still have. Gold, literally, for Dunne and myself. And the hiding places of the Nazi loot, for Norrington and Timpson ….”
Mason paused, swallowing. The color was lessening. The man would have made hundreds of presentations in this room but none so impassioned as this, Charlie was sure: not since, maybe, the first time he’d been called upon to explain.
“We knew it was genuine,” Mason picked up. “The Russians got to the bunker first: had all the staff names, which checked out against those we had. Tricked Norrington and Timpson, to begin with. Linked them up with the women when they went into the Russiansector to check out the Goering rumor, which wasn’t true, of course. Promised them everything that was stolen from Tsarskoe Selo: even the Amber Room. Then they talked about all the political material. I didn’t know then … didn’t know for a long time … that they’d identified Dunne and myself as political officers … commissars, they called us … I took the call from Norrington: Dunne spoke to Timpson. Special clearance, they said. No problem with documentation for Russia. Norrington was perfect: had both languages. According to the Russians, the bunker staff had agreed to cooperate-tell them where everything was from Tsarskoe Selo and make Hitler’s will available to us-in return for being transferred away from Yakutsk. But they wanted the guaranteed safety of British and American officers, to ensure they wouldn’t be cheated. All be over in two or three days, they said. There was certainly no problem for any of us to take off for two or three days. Made our own rules. Everyone did.”
Mason stopped again, as if to judge the reception. Charlie’s feet began to throb.
“There were a lot of Russians, but only Norrington could properly talk to them,” resumed the old man. “They were very friendly. A lot of drinking. Toasts to friendship. Lent us protective clothes for the flight and for when we got there. They said it was summer, but I’ve never known anywhere so cold ….”
He parted his cupped hands briefly to cover the ear that had been frostbitten, as if he could still feel pain. “Separated us, when we got there. Dunne and I were by ourselves: that’s the way it had
to be, they said. Politics for us, art for them. Hitler’s bunker staff were all assembled. Dollmann. Buhle. Staubwasswe. Stoelin. The Russians said Norrington and Timpson were elsewhere, with the rest. We talked through Russian interpreters. The Germans were willing to tell us all they could to get away from the place: that was the first we-anyone-knew that Hitler’s last will and testament had survived. The proper discussion was planned to begin the following day. Dunne and I slept in a barrack in the prison camp. When we asked about the others, we were told they were in another part, with the Hitler staff who knew all about the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg fur die Besetzten Gebiete …. There was a van waiting to take us to what they said would be a conference room. It had been dark when we arrived-it was dark practically all the time-but there wasenough light in the morning for us to see prisoners in another section. The interpreters said they’d committed very serious offenses, mostly war crimes. It was light enough, too, to realize that we were being taken out of the camp …. Then we heard some explosions and saw smoke up ahead ….”
Mason trailed off, bringing a handkerchief up to his mouth, head bowed. His voice was cracked when he started to speak again. “I’ll never forget that scene. Can’t. There was still a lot of smoke around the crater. Debris still falling. And Russians. I don’t know how many, but at first too many to see that Norrington and Timpson were shackled and kneeling by the hole, with the woman. Larisa wasn’t shackled, but she was crying. Everyone around them had guns and the men in the van pulled guns on us, too. They made us get out and I thought we were going to be shot, as well. Norrington was talking in Russian, loudly, arguing. Raisa was crying. Timpson didn’t see us until we got very close, because of his eyes, but when he did, he shouted out: said he didn’t know why, but they were going to be killed … told us to make them stop.”
Mason abruptly sobbed, then coughed, and Boyce said, “Peter, you don’t have to …” but the old man waved the deformed hand and said, “I do. I won’t be wrongly accused …!” He looked up, swallowing, for the first time looking steadily at Charlie. “They took my revolver, put one of theirs literally to my head, the barrel touching me. Made me stand directly behind Raisa and said I had to kill her. Put my gun back in my hand and told me to press the trigger. I refused. Told them to kill me. There was a terrible explosion and then another and I thought they had, but someone had shot Timpson. I saw him thrown forward into the crater, and there was another flash but no sound and I saw there were photographers on the other side of the hole, taking pictures. Larisa was on the ground, screaming. They told me again to kill Raisa, but I wouldn’t. Norrington was yelling in Russian. The next shot killed him, knocking him into the grave on top of Timpson. I think they were still shouting for me to fire, but I couldn’t hear properly because the shots had been very close. Someone grabbed me from behind-put their hand over mine and pressed the trigger, and Raisa’s head seemed to split in half and there were more photographs and then I was let go ….”
There was a further, gulping break. “I stood there, waiting to beshot, but nothing happened. There was a lot of confusion. Dunne just stood there; I don’t know if he’d been made to fire or not. Everyone was concentrating upon burying the bodies. I got back to the truck. I remember being sick. Then running. I just ran, anywhere. I don’t know where. It had got very dark again. And cold. Dear God, it was so very cold. I couldn’t find any road. Kept falling over, and in the end I couldn’t get up anymore, so I lay there, knowing I was going to die. I didn’t hear men, only dogs that were brought from the camp. That’s what I remember next, being in the camp. Being wrapped in blankets and looked at, by a doctor ….” The hand went up to his ear again. “Being operated upon. We were flown out that night, back to Berlin.”
The gaze, totally upon Charlie, was defiant. “They had the photographs of us by the graveside but not of Russians. They’d been painted out …. They planned to blackmail us, as killers of our fellow officers.”
“Enough!” stopped Boyce, at last. “There’ll be no more! Sir Peter is not on trial, has nothing whatsoever to answer for. All that’s necessary for each of you to know further is that Sir Peter has performed for this country-his country-one of the bravest and most successful services in its postwar history. At any time in history. For a full twenty years, until his retirement, Sir Peter-with Harry Dunne, who provided what appeared to be confirmation from the State Department in Washington-fed Moscow with whatever we wanted them to believe. While all the time they understood they were receiving information from a priceless source, for fifteen of those years from the permanent secretary to the Foreign Office himself! In effect, for twenty years, we and the Americans ran Russia’s foreign policy, as and how we wished. Not just in espionage terms but politically as well, we conducted the coup of this or any other century. Because the discovery of the bodies was made publicly known, an investigation had to be publicly staged. As of this moment it is officially closed, as I can tell you it has been by America ….”
He looked at Charlie. “Except for you. You learned far too much. I want your sources.”
“And I want a total and complete apology,” demanded Sir Peter Mason. He looked pointedly across the room to Sir Rupert Dean. “And other assurances to go with it.”
“One at a time,” said Charlie, to the director-general’s undisguised wince. “The source first. There is nothing that cannot be bought or bribed in Moscow, for the right price. Apart from what I deduced for myself, in Yakutsk and what little-far too little to matter-was shared by the FBI, everything came from Russian intelligence archives. Sir Peter was not named, but there were details of his frostbite injuries to his ears and hand, which I recognized when we met.”
“Did you understand from the archives you read that the Russians still believe everything they were told was genuine?” demanded the permanent secretary.
“Yes,” said Charlie.
“How much of it do the Americans know?”
“The cooperation wasn’t good. I’m not sure.”
“It doesn’t matter. Everything has concluded very satisfactorily,” declared Boyce.
“Except for an apology,” reminded Mason.
“There’s just one or two things that aren’t clear,” said Charlie, ignoring the demand. “There are photographs, of the bodies as they were found in the grave. Which show that Raisa Belous was shot first. Was at the very bottom, not the top. In fact, when the grave was first uncovered the local investigators only thought there were two bodies, not three. That confuse you like it confuses me, Sir Peter?”
“It happened as I’ve said it did,” insisted the man.
“Something else,” pressed Charlie. “You sure there wasn’t a third British officer at Yakutsk? As far as I can see there would have had to be, from what you’ve told us. According to you they immediately started filling in the grave after shooting Raisa. Who do you think told them where to find the duplicate tailor’s label in the trouser waistband that enabled me to trace Simon Norrington? And stripped the body to provide the identification in Berlin …?”
“You will stop this!” said Boyce.
“I’m confused about the start,” Charlie bulldozed on. “You-and Harry Dunne-reported what had happened to military intelligence the moment you got back to the western sector of Berlin in late May?”
“Of course!” said Mason, flushed again. “It was before I left Berlinthat the planning began to deceive the Russians, which we did for so long.”
Easily recalling the dates from his Who’s Who reading, Charlie said, “Planning that wasn’t put into operation until five-or was it ten? — years later, not until you became part of the Foreign Office secretariat?”
“I won’t be subjected to interrogation!” said Mason.
“And I’ve told you to stop!” shouted Boyce.
“This is important, now that we know everything has to remain the secret it’s always been,” ignored Charlie, again. “We know, because he’s just told us, that Sir Peter didn’t know Raisa Belous befo
re meeting her in May in the Russian-controlled eastern section of Berlin. But you’ve seen the Russian photographs released a couple of days ago, of some art objects that Raisa Belous saved from Catherine the Great’s palace. One of the prints was a Durer which is the next in sequence to the one I saw this morning-and on my first visit, although I didn’t connect it then-in Sir Peter’s house in East Dereham. And there’s a small pastoral scene-I think it’s a Watteau-just at the beginning of the hallway corridor which makes a pair with the one also in the photograph ….” Charlie felt the chill begin to settle in the room again. “And it might not be a good idea to offer for sale on the open market the small canvas of Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst hanging just inside your study door, Sir Peter. That was Catherine the Great’s maiden title before her marriage and is listed in the palace catalogue as one of the masterpieces still missing.”
“This meeting is ended,” announced Boyce.
Not until you supercilious bastards know just how firmly I’ve got you by the balls, Charlie decided. To Boyce he said, “I take it you’ll explain everything to Sir Matthew Norrington? I wouldn’t want to tell him anything he shouldn’t know.”
“You’ve gained us a lot of enemies, yourself more than anyone,” said Sir Rupert Dean.
Before Charlie could respond, Patrick Pacey said, “But guaranteed the continuance of the department, in my opinion.”
“Don’t you ever again as much as think of going AWOL as you did,” threatened the director-general. “I’ll accept no excuse, no apology.It wouldn’t be politically acceptable for me to fire you after today. If I could, I would. And still might find a reason for doing so. Don’t think of your survival as anything other than a temporary postponement.”
He never had, thought Charlie. They’d walked back from the Foreign Office and his feet were on fire. “I understand. At no time did I intend any disrespect to you personally. Or to the department.”
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