The Crocus List

by Gavin Lyall

  Marriage misinterpreted his hesitation and said querulously: "Dot really didn't tell me a thing, nothing. I was just guessing. I don't want you to-"

  "Of course not," George soothed him. "I appreciate your concern." And that at least is true, he thought, because if I were a crippled old man living on an early pension filtered through the Secret Vote-and thus controllable-I wouldn't want any whisper of indiscretion getting back to the Service. And probably you're in hock to the Service's banking friends (the Service always had banking friends) for this boatyard, too. They'll never foreclose, because they want you to die in debt. Controllable.

  "Getting back to Winter Garden," George said confidently, no longer needing to invoke Miss Tuckey, "you might say it's up my street. What sort of training did they get?"

  "Radio, cyphers, handling explosives, the sort of thing we got at Wanborough in the old days."

  "Weapons?"

  "I doubt most of them would need it; everybody did national service in those days, some would have been in the war."

  "They didn't issue any weapons?"

  Marriage looked at him oddly, wilting George's confidence. "Our people made it pretty clear there were enough guns still floating loose from the war and getting into the wrong hands. We did make them promise No Guns."

  "D'you think they stuck to it?"

  "You know, I rather think they did. Probably not forthe right reasons. A Resistance group should use enemy weapons, or stuff that can take enemy ammo-and the Company just didn't have enough Russian gear then, in the early Fifties. Now they could do you a boatload right off the shelf, nothing down and nothing to pay if you shoot 'em in the right direction."

  "Would there have been any training indéstabilisation?"George had thought carefully about risking that word. But one thing he was sure he had learnt was that Marriage was no part of any conspiracy, had indeed no useful friends left. That was why he was reduced to talking to George Harbinger.

  "Déstabilisation? God, no. You can't destabilise an occupying army, you've got to blow the buggers up. All that came later, when the Company reached the big time. "

  "Sorry. And you think Winter Garden's all withered away now."

  "Just think about it. They wouldn't have been recruiting schoolboys: they'd want mature people, organisers, types with a sense of responsibility and a bit of gloom, kids and a mortgage. You need to be pretty gloomy to think of Resistance in peacetime, don't you? So they'd have been picking people in their thirties then, now they'd be in their sixties. Past it, except for running safe houses. Dead of heart attacks, crippled old men like me. It's long past, now.

  "As much as anything, it was the Company that changed," he mused into his cup, beginning to slobber the whisky now. "They got more confident-more money, too, of course. Not just giving radio sets to bank clerks, they were giving bank accounts to politicians. They didn't want to wait and react, they wanted the Other Side to react to them. That's when they began thedéstabilisationthing… but Winter Garden, no that's long past."

  22

  George could have cabled Maxim, but that would have meant a cypher clerk at each end reading the material, and a letter by diplomatic bag would have taken at least thirty-six hours. So he settled for a secure telephone call, indifferent to what that would do to Maxim's reputation among the Defence Staff at the embassy. Until then they had treated him with a mixture of sympathy as a man caught up, by line of duty, in a political imbroglio, and suspicion at what he might do to make things worse. A long secret call from a Ministry of Defence civilian locked the pendulum on the side of suspicion.

  Colonel Lomax contrived to bump into him as he left the booth. "Harry, I don't know what that was all about, and I'm not asking, but can I beg one thing of you? Unless you've got a clear order through the proper channels, please don'tdo anything over here. I don't think London realises just how touchy things were even before the shooting at the Abbey. With the Peace Crusade and the Berlin business, we've got so many fences to mend already that we just can't afford another broken strand. So be a good chap and just look at the sights, do a little shopping, try to get to a football game…"

  "And of course, I do feel bad about it," Maxim confessed to Agnes a few minutes later. "They must have a rough time of it at the moment…"

  "Let 'em sweat a bit; Washington's a key career posting for most of them, it can't all be cherry blossom and cocktails. So what did George have to say?"

  Maxim told her. She ended up shaking her head in slow disbelief. "It's too facile an explanation: blame everything on the CIA. And it still isn't their scale of operation; they'd do it big or not at all."

  "All right, but… these people have got connections with somebody. The training-"

  "Out of books."

  "Not a Russian rifle, grenade and typewriter, not out of books. It's just the sort of kit Charlie would have been supplying. Who else could do it?"

  Agnes stood up slowly, stretched her back, lit a cigarette and sat down again, frowning thoughtfully. "Winter Garden was before my time, but I did hear about it in my training. And there was a move to set it up again in the late Sixties, but that got sat on. Do you know about the UKUSA agreement? That was when they first created Central Intelligence over here. It's all classified, but what it amounts to is that we won't play the Great Game over here and they won't play it in the UK. So we invoked that agreement, and Charlie said Winter Garden had set a precedent and we said No it hadn't, it had just been a Cold War expedient and those days were over. My own mob was right at the front of the fuss: we didn't want any more secret organisations on our patch."

  "Could they have gone ahead and set it up anyway?"

  "No. They could never have done anything wide-scale without us knowing-and a Resistance movement has to be wide-scale to be any use. You must have learnt something about this in recent months?" She said it with a sly smile; he hadn't mentioned any of his own stay-behind training.

  "Would you remember who was involved from Charlie at the time?"

  "Why?"

  "George read me over a list of CIA personnel who were in London in the late Sixties-"

  "A list? He's barmy. It must be like a telephone book: their London station's the biggest they've got, there would have been hundreds coming through…"

  Maxim silently handed over his notes.

  Agnes read them through, then said more calmly: "Well, he does seem to have got the top people… I met most of these… Bodey, but he's dead, now; Kilmartin was strictly an analyst, wouldn't have been involved… Ithink Foulqueresigned way back… Magill, yes, old Mighty Mo, I rememberhim. But he retired, too; they're just about all gone, the old team.

  "Mo would know something about it," Agnes went on thoughtfully. "He was OSS, then in London at the time of Winter Garden, then he came back in the mid-Sixties. A real player, that man; could charm the pants right off a girl."

  "Did he?" Maxim asked innocently.

  "No… but it might be worth talking over old times with him. He's got a law office in New York; a lot of the old team were lawyers. He must be sixty-something now… yes, I think I'll give him a call. D'you feel like a shopping trip to New York? Everybody ought to get a bite of the Big Apple."

  In a way, it was a waste of the cover story Maxim had been kiting for his trip to St Louis, but if it was a step forward…

  October is the cocktail month in Washington; the British embassy can be throwing three parties a week, and with the Liaison Office's yen to keep Maxim busy, he inevitably found himself sipping deep-frozen Scotch with a wing-commander from the Office.

  "How on earth," he wondered aloud, "does anybody stay sober in this city?"

  "Iron willpower and a stainless-steel liver." The RAF man peered into his empty glass, trying to decide which to rely on. "And the last man on his feet gets the extra hundred mil in foreign aid. No"-he nodded at the babbling drawing-room behind them-"this is just froth. The real business gets done at working lunches and small dinner parties. When they start feeding you, you'll know
you're somebody. Ah, I spy a presidential aide: that makes the evening A Success." A small crowd had knotted at the door where the Ambassador was greeting guests. "Clay Culliman, you've heard of him?"

  "I met him," Maxim said, stupidly slipping in a bit of inter-service one-upmanship.

  "Didyou, now?-Where?"

  "The President's visit to London."

  "Of course. Yes, you were the chap at the Abbey." His round pink face beamed. "That's something to tell my wife. We couldn't get a babysitter, so I was expecting a cold TV dinner thrown at my head when I rolled back. Now I can say I've been mixing with both the noble and the notorious. You won't mind being that, for the sake of a fellow warrior in the cold drinks war? I think I can risk one more, in that case. Nothing for you?" He ambled off towards the nearest tray.

  Disgusted by his own conceit, Maxim drifted out to the steps down to the lawn-the night was still warm enough for the big windows to be open-flanked by two huge, discreetly floodlit magnolia trees. A few couples and small groups were there already, muttering and sipping in the half-shadows, but Maxim stayed clear, drowning his sorrow in darkness.

  I wish I could bedoing something, moving, he thought, with an infantryman's loathing of being pinned down in a known position.

  Beyond the silhouette of the trees, flat black against the glow of Georgetown, lay Dumbarton Oaks, site of the 1944 conference that had shaped the United Nations. Or maybe those treeswere Dumbarton Oaks, and he had a momentary vision of the free world's foreign ministers sitting like Robin Hood's gang around a flickering camp-fire, greasy lumps of venison in their fingers, arguing about who should be permanent members of the Security Council.

  But no, Dumbarton Oaks must also be a mansion or conference centre, and the vision faded, leaving an ember of a smile as he turned to find another drink.

  His way was blocked by the Ambassador and Culliman, talking politely about gardens as they came through the french windows. Culliman glanced at Maxim, did a double-take, and stretched out his hand. "It's Major… ah…"

  "Maxim," before the Ambassador had to admit he couldn't remember, either.

  "Sure, we met… yeh, just before things got exciting. Good to see you. You'll be over for the After Action Study. Kind of you to come."

  "No trouble."

  "George keeping fit?" Culliman chuckled at the idea; the Ambassador murmured something and backed into the room. "I guess you'll be getting back for the Soviet visit, now."

  "The which?"

  "You haven't caught up with tonight's news? Yeh, I know how it is when you're travelling. It'll be all in the Post tomorrow. Your government's invited a Soviet delegation to talk about Berlin next week. All the details, place of meeting, flight times, everything."

  "Did we announce allí/iaí?"

  "Doesn't make your job any easier, huh? No, it wasn't announced: it leaked. It's good to know ours isn't the only State Department with too many back doors." There was a hard edge on Culliman's tone.

  "I doubt I'd be involved," Maxim said slowly, thinking fast. "The President's unit was a one-off thing…"

  "Well, I guess once we hear it officially, I'll be drafting a note saying we don't think it's a frightfully spiffing idea." He grinned and shook Maxim's hand again. "Hope to be seeing you, Major."

  Maxim trailed into the room behind him, vaguely looking for a fresh drink and finding Agnes instead, who had been more than vaguely looking for him. "Mixing in White House circles, are we, Harry? What changes in American policy can we hope for as a result of your high-level talks?"

  "He was telling me about the Russian visit."

  "Oh yes." Agnes's face became grim. "I just got that myself. Good old Britain: not only doing the wrong thing but unable to keep it secret. Great start to a party." Looking around, Maxim saw the Ambassador already making defensive gestures to a couple of guests. He also caught a number of covert glances at himself: was that what a few moment's conversation with a presidential aide did for you in this town?

  "Let's get out of here," he said irritably.

  "An old line, but welcome nonetheless. No, Jerry, you can't have him-" to Colonel Lomax, who was waiting to pounce. "Harry's carrying my books home from schooltoday. And he's taking me shopping in New York tomorrow. Christmas is coming and he thinks I ought to know about some little joints called Tiffany's and Bloomingdale's. Is that all right with your Office? He can't pawn his ticket home if he's flying Riff-RAF airlines…

  "He had the look of somebody about to invite you home to cold chicken and salad with a mug of real warm English beer," she continued as they walked the long black-and-white-tiled corridor. "Don't bump into those pillars, they're fakes, they don't really support anything except an illusion of Empire… Yes, I spoke to Mo Magill, he'll see us tomorrow morning, we'll fly up on the shuttle, I don't know what we'll get, but… and I've got a line into St Louis: there's a thing called the Western Manuscripts collection at UMSL-ghastly word, but they use it themselves, it means University of Missouri-St Louis-that latches on to the papers of operations like CCOAC, and they've got them. Can you imitate an academic?-like not washing or changing your shirt for the next few days…?"

  Her car was utterly undistinguished, a distinction that would not please its makers, but suited Agnes's instinct to choose the average and inconspicuous. Maxim had noticed how she had adopted certain American phrases and mannerisms as well, not because she was trying to pass as an American, but just to blend into the background. That was something an infantryman could understand.

  "The Russian visit," he said. "What do you make of this leak?"

  "Have you thought how many departments would know anyway? Number 10, the FO, my mob, Defence probably, and the Met. It doesn't have to be your Abbey activists."

  "Somebody might have let slip something, they wouldn't have let loose every detail."

  "True… Were you thinking that broadcasting it was another piece of the pattern?"

  "Could be. And it does show these people are well connected. Security for the Russians had better be good."

  "D'you think it'll be you again?"

  "I don't think I'm our favourite guard detail commander, right now."

  "But you'd do it."

  "I'd do what I was told."

  "And maybe a little bit more… I wonder if those idiots realise just how much they frighten you and me… people who support a system because, in the end, the answers have to come through the system. Throw out the rule of law and you throw out the string that'll lead you back out of the maze. Live or dead, the Minotaur's won. D'you know what I'm talking about?"

  "Greek legend, among other things."

  "And all on two glasses of Diplomatic white wine. You must have an intoxicating presence, Harry. And while we're on the subject of law and order, were you planning to go West under your own name?"

  "I was going to ask: if I make a return trip in one day, no hotel, I could buy an airline ticket for cash and give any name I like-couldn't I?"

  "They might ask for some identification: in this country, the man who carries cash is guilty until proven innocent. However, I can do you one unused Canadian passport and a Saskatchewan driving licence, not even one previous little-old-lady owner. Canadians don't need a US visa."

  "I see," Maxim said thoughtfully. "And how does that fit into the UKUSA agreement?"

  "Imperfectly. But very occasionally we used to get somebody who wanted to talk to us and had good reason not to talk to the Feds or Charlie, and the simplest thing was to slip him into Canada and cite the Old-Commonwealth-Pals Act. However, our current D-G's stopped all that, so you might as well use it before the date-stamp runs out."

  23

  The bar/restaurant near Union Station was dolled up to look like an English pub and doing it better than most London pubs did, to Maxim's traditionalist eye. In his view, London pubs were trying to be either video game arcades or sets for Oscar Wilde plays.

  "They sometimes have jazz here in the evenings," Agnes chattered, "although I don't know if
it's up to your standards. Oscar Peterson was in town the other week, I read-you like him, don't you? Pity you weren't here, I could have rustled up a ticket or two and you could have explained the finer nuances. Does jazz have finer nuances?"

  Maxim thought briefly about a pun on Ray Nance, then just smiled into his beer: in a pub he felt duty bound to drink beer, although it certainly wasn't English ("With all those lovely vitamins floating around in it, damn it, you cansee them," as a fellow officer newly back from the USA had put it).

  "So you met our dear D-G at the Steering Committee," she went on. "Isn't he loveable? Just what. we've always wanted, an academic international lawyer running Security. Can't think why we've stuck so long with people who knew something about the job."

  She stabbed out her cigarette and lit another. She had plunked her pack with the lighter on top of the bar, as if she were planning to smoke the lot before she moved on. It was another American gesture, though far fewer Americans do it in these cancer-conscious days.

  "There is a 1952 directive that's never been superseded," she said deliberately. "The Service should, and I quote: 'be kept absolutely free from any political bias or influence', unquote. A pretty thought, and what it really means is Try, brothers, Try. You can't draw a hard line between international and national politics, not these days. Political influence is what the Other Side wants, as much as anything, and you've got to meet it in that arena. But we did try, damn it. We knew what lay down any other road: a political scandal that made it worthwhile for Parliament to get involved in Security. That's what happened with Charlie's Indians. They'll never get away from Capitol Hill now, and they'll have to keep playing politics just to protect themselves.

  "So we tried-and we got a political appointment anyway. Now we're part of government policy, which happens to be hear no evil, see no evil… one bloody monkey's enough if he's in the top job." She snapped her cigarette in her fingers and burnt her knuckle. "I'm getting all bitter and twisted: you'd better feed me. I just don't have many people I can say these things to."