The Secret Servant hm-1

by Gavin Lyall

  The Secret Servant

  ( Harry Maxim - 1 )

  Gavin Lyall

  Gavin Lyall

  The Secret Servant

  1

  To Harry Maxim it seemed as if his wife died twice. He was watching the boxy little Skyvan climbing slowly away up the white-hot desert sky when it suddenly shuddered. A puff of smoke flicked out behind and immediately dissolved. Then one wing twisted gently off and fluttered away and the aeroplane was just a thing tumbling down towards the plain.

  And all the time he could hear the distant whine of the Skyvan when it was still flying smoothly and Jennifer was still living. It was seconds later that he heard the thud of the explosion and the scream of an engine which had shed its propeller. He afterwards wished he hadn't listened to that.

  Beside him, Sergeant Caswell muttered: "Oh Christ. Oh Christ. No. No."

  The Skyvan hit the ground and exploded into a cloud of flame-filled black smoke and dust. Oddly, that seemed to make almost no sound at all. Maxim turned away, back towards the Land-Rover. Some part of his mind was carefully sorting and filing his impressions for the court of enquiry, or whatever they might call it. Another part wanted to get out and drive and shoot – particularly shoot.

  Caswell hurried after him. "Harry, Harry. Major!" At four o'clock it was already dusk in the tangled garden beyond the french windows. Gerald Jackaman was a neat man and he'd wanted to get the garden straightened out, but he had absolutely no touch as a gardener, and together with the pressure of work, the time he'd had to spend in Brussels… It was a pity, all the same.

  He collected the cleanly typed pages – he was a good typist and not ashamed of it – and skimmed quickly through them. He had written in French, because he was writing to his wife, but also because it made the pages less likely to be read out in court. His French was very good, good enough for him to know it wasn't perfect. He'd like to have worked on that, too. The trouble with dying was that you had to leave so many things unfinished. It was untidy.

  He clipped the pages together with the letter and laid them on top of the typewriter, then took down a decanter of port from the cupboard below the guns. How often, he wondered, have I had a drink – alone – at four in the afternoon? Well, it won't become a habit. He drank a glass quite quickly and considered a second.

  I don't need it, he thought, but I can have it if I want it. I'm a free agent. I can even tear up those pages and start again in the morning as if they'd never been written. I am free.

  But he knew he wasn't free. He was a civil servant and, in the end, a servant is not free. His freedom was his choice to become a servant. Young people coming into the service didn't understand that nowadays. Never complain, never explain.

  Am I being too complicated? he thought. Dressing for dinner in the jungle and over-dressing? The weak joke cheered him a little.

  He lifted down one of the Purdey 12-bores that were a little short in the stock for him because they'd been built for his father. He could never have afforded them for himself; a single gun would mop up most of a year's salary. Purdey must be building just for Arabs and property speculators now.

  Automatically he put in two cartridges, then economically took one out again.

  Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. The long-unspoken words seeped back into his loneliness. Peccavino, that should be peccabo, I shall sin. Or better still, peccavero, I shall have sinned. That puts it precisely. At least I got that right.

  Quietly, so as not to alert his wife, he opened the french windows and stepped out into the November sunset. "In the early 1960s," said Professor John White Tyler, "American policy became one of Assured Destruction, or Mutual Assured Destruction. M-A-D. "Nobody laughed. "The American assumption was that they could, in any foreseeable circumstances, knock out twenty to twenty-five per cent of the Russian population, and from fifty to seventy-five per cent of its industry." Tyler had a deep slow voice which became extra deep when he was lecturing, perhaps to give extra authority to his words. Eight undergraduates huddled on stiff folding chairs and watched him unemotionally. They all still wore their outdoor clothes, and the fact that they were there at all was a tribute to Tyler, since the room was heated only by a paraffin stove that did little but smell like a wet dog. Everyone on the college council agreed that something had to be done about That Room, but nobody could agree on what. So it stayed a part of the attic above the Victorian Library, draughty and uncleaned, floorboards grey and gritty, the only furniture the folding chairs, a broken ping-pong table, and a blackboard. Chalked on it was EUROPE AND NUCLEAR STRATEGY.

  "Of course we don't know," Tyler continued, "just what estimates the Russians were making of what damage they could inflict on the US. But let's take the twenty per cent figure on casualties."

  He put on a pair of heavy-rimmed glasses and stared at a piece of paper whose figures he knew by heart. Some figures deserved a little showmanship.

  "Now… a twenty per cent immediate casualty figure in the Soviet Union would be about fifty-two million. In the US it would be around forty-four million. That doesn't count long-term deaths from radiation-linked diseases, of course."

  He stood up, stretching carefully because the damp cold made his back feel brittle. He was past sixty now, with a small pot belly growing on what was a tall and commanding figure. His hair was neat and full and still almost black except over the ears; he had a long face and nose, rather big teeth, and a small gallic moustache. He wore a dark, rumpled tweed suit, as he did on almost every occasion. Nobody minded, because they knew he was Professor John White Tyler.

  "But do fifty-two million casualties really matter?" He took the glasses off and pushed them into his breast pocket. "They sound a lot, but if we stick to percentage terms, the London plague in 1665 killed nearly that many, and the Malta one in 1675 probably killed more,"

  One of the civilian undergraduates said: "Nobody chose to have the plague, though. I mean, they couldn't do anything but try and survive."

  Tyler nodded gravely. "I agree. But the people to die in a nuclear war won't be the ones who decide to have it, either. Once any disaster has happened, the choices are simply to fold up or try and survive – and on that I think you could say the human race hasn't done too badly, so far."

  "How would anybody know they'd taken fifty-two million casualties, sir?" That was one of the Army students. Usually they kept stolidly quiet in Tyler's seminars, knowing that nuclear warfare was really nothing to do with the military.

  "A good point. If twenty per cent of your population has become casualties, it could be in one day, even in a couple of hours, then your communications are bound to be so disrupted that nobody can tell what the situation is for a long, long time. But what we're really talking about is the threat to create those casualties, the deterrent factor, the damage the Soviet Union believes the West can inflict and which it would find insupportable."

  They stared back at him, the civilians indistinguishable from the service students even by hair length. Almost all wore the same rally jackets over open-necked shirt, jersey and blue jeans. Who washes those shirts? Tyler wondered.

  "Come on, gentlemen," he cajoled them. "We've already bid twenty per cent. Do I hear any advance on fifty-two million deaths? Will someone take us to sixty – that's a nice round figure. In 1968 Robert Mc Namara was bidding thirty per cent, over seventy-five million casualties. Can anyone do better than that!" They chuckled nervously but said nothing. He let them think about it, making a show of easing his stiff back and walking over to peer out of the window. For once, 'peer' was the right word: the window, a Victorian imitation of a leaded Tudor oriel, was covered with a sticky brown film from years of tobacco smoke. The grass in the court below glittered in the lamplight, alread
y covered with a fine dusting of frost.

  In the far cloister a dark bulky figure moved. Just restlessly. There was no sense of menace, but Tyler would have liked the movement to have a purpose. Suddenly uneasy, he turned back to the room.

  "So… so, have we come to any conclusions?" Martin, a military historian, gave him his cue. "But British and French nuclear forces couldn't create anything like those levels of damage, could they?"

  "It seems very unlikely. Mc Namara was talking about using up to 3, 400 nuclear warheads, 170, 000 kilotons total yield. I don't think we can forsee a scenario that gives Europe any such force. And. if we assume a counter-city targetting policy, and assume further that we could knock out the sixteen biggest Russian cities west of the Volga, then…" he took out the useless paper again; "… then the maximum immediate casualties we could inflict are in the region of twenty-six million. After that, the law of diminishing returns sets in because we'd be targetting on smaller and smaller towns, so a few more warheads don't help much."

  "Are you including Leningrad and Moscow?" Martin asked.

  "Yes. And ignoring Moscow's anti-ballistic missile defences for the moment, too. But in the Great Patriotic War-" they chuckled at the phrase but he had them with him; "-the Russians suffered, well, the figures aren't certain, but they usually claim up to twenty million. By contrast, Britain lost under half a million dead and the United States less than 300, 000 – almost none of those civilians, of course. That may throw a new light on deterrence. Perhaps Europe can threaten the Soviet Union with really no more casualties than they know they can absorb fairly comfortably. After all, they did win that war.

  "So where does that leave us, gentlemen?"

  They became very quiet and thoughtful. It was important that one of them suggested the answer, so he waited. He wanted to see if the dark figure was still in the cloister, but was afraid it still would be. There had been others loitering recently, he believed.

  Surprisingly, it was another of the service undergraduates who spoke up. "Then we either leave nuclear affairs to the Americans, don't we, sir? – which is just about what we're doing at the moment anyway, I think – or we try to find some unacceptable damage we can inflict on Russia that isn't just measured in terms of casualties."

  It was the right answer, but he waited a little longer. Another Army student gave a murmur of agreement, out of trade union solidarity. -Tyler said: "If we can't afford to cause damage in quantity, then we should try to cause damage of quality."

  "That's what I meant, sir."

  "It seems like a good idea."

  Carefully briefed, the porter turned them out at twenty to eight. Tyler could have held the seminar in his rooms – his set was quite big enough – but then the keenest undergraduates stayed on to argue and he had either to throw them out rudely or be late into hall. This way, he had time for a leisurely drink first. A whisky mac, he thought, on an evening like this; he was getting old for the Cambridge winters. There was nothing romantic and Dickensian about winter here, just a cancerous dampness rising from the old stonework and a wind that swept in unhindered by any hill more than a thousand feet high from well beyond Moscow itself. The traditional invasion route of Northern Europe had been plotted by the east wind long before the first Mongol horde.

  He took a detour to pass through the cloister opposite the Library, but it was empty. His first thought as he reached his rooms was that he shouldn't have left so many lights on, then he saw the black figure in front of the gas fire. For a moment he just stared.

  "Cher Maоtre, "George Harbinger said, holding out his hand; "You do keep such a bloody cold university here. But stay, is that a bottle of spirituous liquor I see in the corner, its cap towards your hand?"

  The darkness was a thick expensive overcoat, now unbuttoned and its effect rather spoiled by a soft hat that should have fishing flies in it. Tyler went quickly to the corner and poured two whiskies, skipping the plan of a whisky mac.

  "Will you come into hall?" he asked.

  "No thank you, no insult intended, but I think we'd do best not to advertise your connection with the seat of the almighty." George was one of the Prime Minister's private secretaries, particularly concerned with defence and security. He was in his early forties, but his Hanoverian figure and thinning fair hair made him look older.

  He took a big gulp of his drink. "Sorry to intrude like this, but had you heard about Jerry Jackaman?"

  Tyler felt a sudden lurch in his bowels. "No, I don't think so…"

  "Well, he went and shot himself this afternoon." George sounded more irritated than anything. "I don't know why, except that Box 500 seems to have been investigating him about something, and now the Headmaster's climbing the walls at Number 10… and I'm here."

  "So you are," Tyler said, very calmly. "Is there any particular reason?"

  George sighed. "You did know he was very much against your appointment?"

  "I had that impression."

  "Was there any special reason for it, do you know?"

  "I rather assumed that he didn't go along with my theories." In conversation, Tyler often ended a remark with a little chuckle, almost a grunt, as if to soften the seriousness of his deep voice.

  "You don't think there was anything personal in it?"

  "I never made a pass at his wife, anyway. No, I can't think of anything."

  "You're quite sure?" George made his third and last try. "This is absolutely vital, I'm sure you appreciate. We really must know if there are any landmines we might step on."

  "I really can't think of any. But did he leave a suicide note?"

  "Why does everybody call it a suicide note! Why not a letter or even an essay? No, nothing that's been found yet. I talked to the Kent police super myself, on the phone… Oh well." George finished the rest of his drink. "We're planning to announce your appointment some time after the end of term, if that's all right with you. Then you can be out of touch if you don't want the media chasing you."

  "That's very kind of you, George, but I don't really mind."

  "Good. We'd rather not give an impression of secrecy. May I use your phone? – I'd like to reassure Number 10."

  "Of course. Help yourself."

  George dialled the familiar number and got an immediate answer. "It's gorgeous George here, me darling, can you find me the Headmaster? And see if the office wants me for anything. I'll be on the road for the next two hours… I'll hold." He turned back to Tyler. "When did you first meet Jackaman?"

  "I can't remember… soon after he went over to Defence, and that would be a dozen years ago, wouldn't it? He was just one of those people who kept cropping up around the circuit, at defence seminars and Brussels and so on."

  George grunted. "The moment we make the announcement – and it could leak before – you'll probably get the cads and rotters from Greyfriars prowling around. If you notice anything, let me know, will you?"

  "Of course."

  George suddenly lifted the hand-piece to his mouth. "Yes, it's me. I'm in Cambridge and I'm assured there's absolutely no connection at this end…"

  Putting on his gown for hall, Tyler wondered why George, with his impeccable background of a landed family in the west country, Marlborough and Christ Church, always talked of the Soviet Bloc secret service in the language of the old lower middle-class schoolboy comics. Perhaps the answer was in the question: to George, the KGB, GRU, the Czech STB and all the others were lower middle-class cads and rotters.

  But that didn't explain why schoolboys had ever wanted to read comics about schools. This time, he locked the door as he went out.

  2

  Maxim came to Number 10 in the second week of January.

  The Prime Minister had five private secretaries, but only two were in the house that Monday morning and only one of them had a hangover. It had to be George Harbinger. He was sitting at his desk and trying to remember what he had said to – or about – his brother-in-law that had caused Annette to drive him back to London in total silen
ce for the whole hour and a half.

  He had no intention of regretting whatever he had said. He just wished he could remember it.

  In the corner, the duty clerk shuffled the morning post as quietly as he could and answered the telephone quickly, in a hoarse whisper. With luck, it should be an easy day. Everybody knew the PM was in Scotland, getting photographed with some aspect of North Sea oil, so the flow of calls and callers should be reasonably light. There was just the paperwork. The paperwork always ye have with you. George took a sip of coffee, which had got cool and very nasty.

  Now that's odd, he thought. You can drink hot coffee and cold coffee but never cool coffee. Yet you can drink hot tea and cool tea but never cold tea – except for tea without milk, which is a whole new ball game, as our Big Brothers would say. A fairly philosophical thought for the way I feel now, he decided, and began to feel better. Then Sir Anthony Sladen came in.

  "George," he said, with exaggerated politeness, "you are looking particularly terrible this morning." He went over and laid the key to the Cabinet Office door on the duty clerk's desk, as security demanded. It was a pompous affair and Sir Anthony deliberately made it more so.

  "Do you think," he asked the clerk, "that you could rustle me up a cup of the same? Our girls seem to have hit on a cheap offer of charred sawdust. What time's the PM due back?"

  "About six," George said.

  "I must say – " Sladen sat down: "that Aberdeen is becoming the political spa of our time. Our masters go there to take the oil as they might once have gone to Baden-Baden to take the waters."

  George forced a smile. The jokes had a well-polished sound, particularly in Sladen's high Church of England voice. Perhaps ten years older than George, he was a tall thin man with a tall thin face and slightly curly dark hair going grey in just the right places. He was one of two deputy secretaries to the Secretary of the Cabinet and very nearly a very powerful man. From here, his career could go on up to the topmost bananas, or just out along the branch to drift off with the dead leaves, though in neither case would he die poor.