The Crocus List

by Gavin Lyall

  "It's a pity the Prime Minister doesn't like you."

  "Yes, but it's the only positive thing about him. How's things at the Department of Waste and Warmongering?"

  Annette came back with a very large tumbler very full of whisky and water, and George pounced. "Have you eaten anything?"

  "I think I had something at Harry's parents' place. "

  "I'm sure you gotsomething, but was it something you chew as well as swallow?"

  "I'll have some biscuits and cheese later."

  Annette gave him a look and went out again.

  "Speaking of Harry," the DDCR said, "well, peopleare speaking of Harry. The East Sussex police, for one of many. The last phone call I got, they were practically suggesting I should have put a citizen's arrest on him. But I think I've got it retrospectively squared that he was authorised to carry a weapon: his CO was my G- 2 in Two Armoured… We are getting to the point, George, where we need a whole bloody unit devoted to finding out what Major Maxim is doing and then telling him to stop it. And they'd have to be better men than you and me."

  "If it hadn't been for him, the Crocus List would never have come to light. Where is he now?"

  "I don't know. He left a message for you." It was a sealed envelope. George opened it, read the note and passed it back impassively: I'll call you from Berlin. Harry.

  40

  Perhaps, like Merlin, Sprague lived backwards in time: born in the future and ageing with a perfect memory of what was about to happen together with a misty ambition for what lay ahead in the past. That would explain a lot, George reflected. Or perhaps-he re-reflected-one could explain Merlin's magical reputation in the corridors of Camelotby assuming he was the first true civil servant, gifted with an unromantic vision of what people were going to do (rather than what they should) and building his career on that. While poor King Arthur thought he was running the Round Table all by himself.

  So George shouldn't have been surprised to find Sprague had invited himself to the little group that met around a Cabinet Office table at dawn, still wearing their almost identical black overcoats because the heating had only just switched itself on.

  "I can't quite see," Sprague was saying, "why you sent Major Maxim to Berlin, George."

  "I neither sent him nor let him go. He just went."

  "Extraordinary how your Department works. I would have thought his name on any passenger list could alert the Other Side, which on the whole we don't-"

  "According to our man in Washington," Sir Nicholas said, "this Maxim used a false identity out in the Midwest. He may well have retained it." The Director-General of the Intelligence Service was a spectacled, near-bald man in his late fifties, with the bulk of a football player who has not quite replaced training with dieting.

  "Mostextraordinary," Sprague murmured. "I suppose it would be too much to ask what-if you know-he might be going todo there?"

  Georgeglowered. "I imagine that rather depends on what Sir Nicholas is offering to do there."

  Sir Nicholas raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. "I don't recall making any oners, George."

  "I assume you haveassets, as you call them, in East Germany, East Berlin. How fast can you communicate with them?"

  "Really, George."

  "Let me put it this way: can they get off their backsides fast enough to intercept this Volkswagen van full of Brits and a British missile before it gets nabbed by the VOPOs -and the Bravoes, they'll be there on the double-and those Brits confess to being your agents and whatever else is written out for them to confess to?"

  That brought a pause. Sir Anthony Sladen, nominally in charge as the Cabinet Office always was, looked nervously around for candidates. "Does the Security Service have any further information that might… I mean…?"

  The Deputy D-G moved his old hands slowly across his papers. "Aye… we have checked out the British telephone numbers Miss Algar sent us. One is Oxendown House itself- "

  "So Arnold Tatham _could_ have been there?" George snapped.

  "It would be a possibility. The other two numbers are a Church of England hospice in Suffolk and a small Arts"-dirty word, that-"dining club off Southampton Row. No, George, we have not kicked down the doors in either of these places. We shall inquire, with full authority, as to who might have been at this end of those calls at a more reasonable hour."

  "It would be a large assumption," Sir Nicholas said, "that Arnie Tatham was at all three places."

  "Did you know him?" George had noted that'Arnie'.

  "Ahhh… I'm not sure I'd sayknow him…"

  "Everybody seems to say that about him." George got up, pulled off his overcoat and tossed it into a chair. Sprague did the same thing, only more elegantly.

  "He was just… very good," Sir Nicholas went on thoughtfully. "A dedicated man. One of the few that didn't play the part, hewas the part. You know, I wonderif you're going to catch Arnieif he doesn't want to be caught. I wouldn't like the job myself."

  "Well, he's somewhere over here, running this Crocus List."

  "That is implied, but hardly proven, by Miss Algar's report. What she clearly proves is that List's activities have attracted the Bravoes in. Now ifthey can prove what's going on, it would make our government even more apologetic-and acquiescent-towards Moscow."

  "What I've been saying all along," George pointed out.

  "1 dare say. But my point is that it isn't like Arnieto let that happen. The opposite of what he'd recruited the List for."

  "Are you saying he may have died in Italy, after all?"

  "No-o… that was too elegant, a beautiful piece of deception."

  "From what one reads," Sladen said, "it does not seem to have deceived the intelligence services of the world, yet nothing has been done, until now, to find him."

  "How could one justify the funding?" Sir Nicholas smiled blandly; it was a good face for blandness. "With what object? To prosecute him for living under a false identity? I believe you have to prove a fraudulent intent for that… No, I think we've just been waiting to see if Arniesurfaced somewhere. Myself, I personally believe he'd somehow go back to the Church…"

  "That place in Suffolk?" George glared at the Deputy D-G of Security.

  "We'll try, George, we'll try." He turned his wrist slowly to see his watch. "We should be making touch there very soon…"

  "That apart, however," Sladen said, "there doesn't seem too much to go on. A Volkswagen camper van, but no number plate…"

  "That's the problem," Sir Nicholas said. "And even if we found it, what could myassets do? Talk these people into going home quietly? Push them into the Spree? Risk starting a brawl, even a gunfight, in East Germany? These assets are real people, George, flesh and blood, quite apart from their value to the Service. I want a clear directive if I am to move on this matter. "

  "The Prime Minister?"

  "Yes. If he will acknowledge the threat-"

  "That man wouldn't acknowledge a fart in his own bath."

  "If you say so…"

  Sergeant Gower collected Maxim at the Arrivals gate of Tegel-known locally as The Pentagon because the French chose to build the terminal in that rather unsuitable shape. Gower was part of the Intelligence Corps company in the Berlin brigade, and they had met on the Ashford course.

  "We got a flash to stop a dark green Volkswagen van at the checkpoint, if it tried to go out," Gower said, "but they didn't have a number. Just that it had a roof hatch and a stove pipe. And I've found which hotel Mr Ferrebee is in. The Archbishop's addressing the Senate this morning then lunching with the Mayor and flying out at 1530."

  "Thank you."

  "It's not much to go on," Gower said gloomily. "But we'll try." He was a shortish man in his mid-thirties who managed to seem older by his mournful outlook and shambling unmilitary gait. His worn sports jacket and the untidy length of his blonde hair weren't very military, either, but Int Corps didn't always try very hard at such things. Often the opposite.

  "A little bird told me that Mr Ferrebee got a te
legram through their office here," Gower added.

  "Good. Then he'll be in the picture. Can you give me a lift there?"

  "Happy to," Gower said sadly, dumping Maxim's bag in the back of an elderly Audi with civilian number plates. "Things have been very quiet since the Soviets put up their proposals. Behaving themselves. Maybe you can do something about that."

  The meeting knew Sladen had failed on his mission to Number 10 just from the look on his face as he lowered himself stiffly into his chair. He placed his hands carefully on the edge of the table and pushed fiercely for a moment, his knuckles turning white. Then he relaxed and said: "It was, I think, the Stegosaurus which had one brain in itshead and another in its arse, to control the tail. I've always liked the big saurians: they managed to rule the world for about 140 million years, which sets a bench-mark for any civil service. But I've sometimes wondered whether, when the front brain shut its eyes and ears, the arse brain wasn't reduced to swishing around in the dark.

  "The PM will sanction no action until he has had more time and fuller information-"

  "Morerime!"George exploded.

  Sladen held up a hand in so imperial a gesture that George stifled with surprise, because Sladen was stepping not so much out of character as into the one he might once have become. "Gentlemen, we of the arse brain cells are swishing in the dark."

  But, George thought sadly, he's got even that wrong, because when nobody leads, we retreat into our little cells and do nothing. Not even swish.

  41

  Three of them made Ferrebee's hotel room seem crowded. It was narrow, no more than twice the width of the single bed, with a window at the end giving an excellent view of a new office block just a hundred yards away across the car park. Ferrebee himself sat on the bed, littered with newspapers, Maxim at the dressing-table alongside, and Sergeant Gower at the small desk under the window. No matter how small, a Berlin hotel will always give you space to lay out your workpapers, just as it will always find an extra floor fora Konferenzraum. It is in business for business.

  "I'm very glad to see you again, Major," Ferrebee said, "although your presence seldom indicates good news. Perhaps you can expound on the extraordinary telegram I got through our office here, early this morning? Signed by George, the Deputy D-G of Security and some Assistant Commissioner from the Met. Assuming they weren't all bitten by the same mad dog, could you tell me what's behind it all?"

  "It's a rather complicated story," Maxim said, "but what matters is that we think the threat to the Archbishop is real. Have you altered his travel arrangements yet?"

  "No, not yet. I want to know where you think this threat will be."

  "When the plane overflies East Germany or East Berlin, depending on the take-off direction. It has to be close: a Blowpipe missile can't reach very high."

  Ferrebee stood up and stalked over Maxim's feet to the window, leaning past Gower to pull the net curtain aside. The sky was a cold windswept blue with puffy clouds trundling towards them over the office building. "It'seasterly at the moment, looks as if it should hold. Take-off east, then."

  "You could take him out by road, sir," Gower suggested mournfully. "Pick up a flight at Hannover."

  "As a last resort," Ferrebee said. "But I don't want to put His Grace to the business of being searched by the Volkspolizeiat two checkpoints. It's… humiliating, and after yesterday's sermon they aren't going to treat him kindly. I laid on this private flight so that he could get in and out in comfort. He's not a young man, nor a particularly fit one."

  Maxim nodded. "Then can you reposition the aircraft to Gatow? I'm sure the RAF would…"

  "The aircraft isn't here yet. We're supposed to be flying out at three thirty local time, and I don't suppose the aircraft'll be in more than three-quarters of an hour before that. A company may lend you their Jetstream," he explained, "but they take it back between flights. You have to work a company aircraft hard to justify it to the shareholders. All right, I might get it repositioned to Gatow, though that would mean a delay… Why don't we just go for a delay? It gets dark early these days: if we hung on until after dark, would your missile be able to hit us then?"

  "It'd be difficult-but why not simply wait until I give you the all clear that there's no more danger?"

  Ferrebee had been pacing the narrow space beside the bed, with Maxim keeping his feet well under his chair. Now he stopped abruptly. "How can you guarantee that, Major?"

  "I can't. But if you don't go until I give the okay…"

  "What are you going to bedoing. Major?"

  Maxim gazed back, then smiled to soften his look.

  Ferrebee said: "Do you know who these people are, then?"

  "We've got three names so far. One's dead; yesterday. The other two we haven't found yet-but there's more we don't know about. We do know what van they're probably using, and our people at Checkpoint Charlie have orders to stop it, but it's probably over there already. "

  "Then what are you going to do?"

  Maxim said nothing.

  "I do hope, Major, that you are acting under orders."

  In no town or city in the world has the British Army (or the American or French) more power than in Berlin. Theoretically, little has changed since 1945 when the city came under Allied military government, so that the Foreign Office can merely advise the General in command what to do next. But a Foreign Office official on leave, shepherding the Archbishop, is less than the mud on an Army boot. Until one gets back to London, of course.

  So Maxim just kept on smiling, and not quoting his non-existent orders.

  Ferrebee dumped himself back on the bed with a twang of springs. "Very well. I'll do as yousuggest. But: I don't want any hint of a change in the Archbishop's arrangements to get out. That could lead these… these madmen, to change their own plans. And what about when we get back to London? There has to be security there."

  "You'll be covered," Maxim assured him. "Security's finally got its boots on with this one. The whole thing should be wound up in a day or so."

  "That's something." Ferrebee brooded for a moment. "This is absolutely incredible, you know: assassinating the Archbishop of Canterbury. It hasn't happened in over eight hundred years, Thomasà Becket…"

  "Murder in the Cathedral," Gower said. "It's been well remembered. I dare say it stirred up a bit of fuss at the time, too."

  "It did, Sergeant, it did. Though that wasn't intended."

  Maxim stood up. "It's intended now."

  "What were you thinking of doing next, Major?" Gower asked as they walked back towards his car.

  "I thought I might cross over and look at some parked vehicles in"… he glanced at the travelling sky… "East Berlin, with this wind."

  Gower may have sucked in his breath sharply, but it was lost in the wind that indeed seemed to be holding steady from Siberia, hustling at their backs and flickering dead leaves past them. His voice and face certainly became more mournful. "If you get caught over there, Major-"

  "Ifthey get caught over there, too… We're in a bind."

  "You wouldn't want to go over in uniform. But I could do you an orange card…" In uniform (not that he had one with him) Maxim could go into East Berlin by simply flashing his ID, just as a Russian officer could cross to the West, although the Russian might have more explaining to do to his seniors if he ever went back. An 'orange card' would identify Maxim, under any name he chose, as a civilian British official. However, he didn't want to be anything official at all.

  "I think I might stroll across as just a tourist. I've got a Canadian passport that seems to work…"

  "Have you now?" Gower's professional interest lit up. "I wonder how you found that-it had better be good. Very popular passport, the Canadian one, these days. Marks you down as a big spender but not committed to an American viewpoint, if you follow me."

  "Real Canadians also travel."

  "I don't blame them," Gower relapsed into gloom. "But you could get searched. It wouldn't look so good if you had anythinguseful o
n you."

  They walked for a time in silence. Gower's training had made him leave his car, which was probably known as belonging to an Int Corps man, some distance from the hotel. The same instinct for invisibility made him stop at a street crossing and wait for the green light, although there was no risk in walking. Berlinersare disciplined pedestrians and were being rewarded by gangs of workmen stretching the already wide pavement to make strolling that much easier. Prosperity is the clang of a shovel, Maxim realised, and the shovels had started clanging almost as soon as the guns had stopped in 1945. Prosperity was now all about them: they moved in a canyon of concrete and plate glass that channelled herds of polished cars intent on being the first to catch a jaywalker. It might not be beauty, but it was solid worth.

  "I could probably find you something useful," Gower said at last. "And leave it over there for you."

  "I've got a little nine-mil something already, though it could use a few more rounds. Now, if I could find that on the other side…"

  *

  The meeting went on simply because nobody wanted to be the one to suggest it had ended already. The tabletop was littered with signals and coffee cups and the room quite warm, even fuggy, although nobody was smoking. We smell like old men, George concluded gloomily.

  "Could we not," the Deputy D-G from Security suggested diffidently, "appeal to Charlie's Indians, as we seem to call them now, for help? They have a more activist reputation and presumably more assets in East Germany than we can afford. It would not be the first time, after all… "

  Everybody drew back fractionally, as if he had loosed a cockroach in the middle of the table. Then all leant forward again, because they could take such things.

  Sir Nicholas pursed his lips. "If they weren't involved already, they'd be delighted to step in and show us how it should be done. But as theyare involved, they're trying to distance themselves as much as possible. They know whom our masters will blame if it becomes a debacle."

  "Not without justification," Norman Sprague said. "One cannot lose sight of the fact that this, ah, Crocus List was conceived and financed entirely by-"