by Tony Cape
“Why not? You acknowledge that our work is necessary. I can quite appreciate your anger, but please say you’ll take a few days to think about it.”
“It’s not that. I don’t think I’ve got the stomach for it.”
“Detective Sergeant Smailes, you were exposed to more in one weekend than most officers experience in an entire career. Don’t you realize that? And you dealt with it quite brilliantly. Not to mention your uncanny understanding of what transpired here. I’ll be here until Wednesday afternoon. Will you call the Cambridge Arms and let me know your decision? I’ll also be available to discuss the position further, if you wish. Whatever your decision, I am immensely grateful for your contribution to this operation, for your courage and maturity. And as I said when you first came in, I too owe you a sincere apology. You are a credit to your country, Sergeant Smailes.” Standiforth rose and shook his hand, which Smailes grasped weakly, suddenly embarrassed.
“Okay,” he said meekly.
Smailes had risen to leave, but Dearnley stopped him. “You’re still welcome here, Derek, if you want to reconsider.” He looked at him searchingly, then added, “And Derek, there was no reception over that bloody remote.”
“I know it, George. Let me think about it.”
He tried to keep his face straight as he left the office, walked past Gloria and out to his car. But as he entered the parking garage he let out a whoop and punched the air. Of course, he knew they were buying him off. He also knew he had them, both of them. He could do anything he chose. New York!
He removed the ashtray from the dashboard and reached down across to the steering column and fished around for the alligator clip, which he released carefully with his thumb and forefinger. He retrieved the tiny transmitter slowly, tossed it in the air, caught it and put it in his pocket.
Epilogue
KIM PHILBY STEADIED HIMSELF against the corner of his desk and sat down heavily in the swivel chair. He was already well over his self-imposed allowance, but whisky was the only analgesic he trusted. He stared glassily at his rows of shelves, which comprised one of the largest private libraries in Moscow. Most of the books had been Guy’s thoughtful bequest; God knows where he had got them all. Good old Burgess, dreamer and degenerate, had had the stoutest heart of them all.
He swivelled to face his desk and felt a sudden wave of nausea. The report on the two deaths lay in front of him, stark in the finality of its implications. The sketchy information from Veleshin about the first death had been confirmed by the report in The Times, although the laconic news item was undoubtedly a smokescreen thrown by London Centre. The terminal condition was an unquestioned fiction, a script for the melodrama of the exit. The obituary had added nothing. The predictable salutes in The Times’ baleful understatement. Yet he had come so close.
Conrad’s cover had undoubtedly been blown, which the intelligence of the second death only confirmed. It shook his faith in his old friend’s infallibility. A graduate student and a provincial policeman, it seemed, had succeeded where a legion of professionals had been defied. It was cruelly ironic. The work, of course, was largely complete and the damage control would be nothing more than an exercise in rage and anguish. Would the Americans learn? For that matter, would the British Cabinet?
He wondered about the settlement of Conrad’s estate. He had once personally supervised considerable disbursements into a numbered account in Zurich. Wasn’t there a married son somewhere, in South America? He considered a recommendation for action, then smiled grimly at the futility of his authorship of any further initiatives.
That the report had arrived from Veleshin was an eloquent statement of the disposition of the case. Suslov the ideologue had died in January and in the power struggle that had ensued Andropov had prevailed. Now in May he was poised to vault over Chernenko into the second secretary’s office at the Central Committee. Physically, the distance between the Lubianka and Old Square was five hundred yards; politically and psychologically they were a continent apart. The chairman could shed the darkness of his KGB association and present himself as a party loyalist and statesman as Brezhnev’s health sank further. No doubt deals had been cut with the military leadership that would ensure the succession, and the extinction of Conrad’s intelligence would not weigh against the scale of his career achievement. The report from Veleshin was the chairman’s farewell, his reminder that since Painter’s mission had been his construction, the blame would rest with him. Reorganization would be deferred, it seemed, since Fedorchuk, the crusher of Ukrainian dissent, had been summoned to succeed Andropov, leaving Gryslov and all the others at First treading water. That Veleshin’s career would also be eclipsed was cold comfort, since when the succession finally came, there would be no acclaimed return from retirement, no historic appointment of the first non-Russian head of the First Chief Directorate. But he had come so close.
The Moscow spring had been cold and the radiator was pouring out its customary suffocating heat. He raised himself with difficulty to crack the casement further and caught the reflection of his face in the dark panes. As he stared at the pale features he found himself reviewing the emotions he felt at the news of the second death.
She had been young and untried, and perhaps he was guilty of nostalgia, the affliction of age, for a response with such obvious risks. But he had known risks in the field as a young man in Austria and Spain, and nothing, nothing had ever matched the exultant thrill of the experience. He had offered an opportunity, that was all which had failed. She would have died hereafter.
Remorse or grief? Contrition or pride? He eased himself slowly back into his chair and acknowledged that he was a stranger to all of these, except perhaps pride. He was after all the master spy of modern times, decorated and lauded, while Conrad had gone unsung to his grave, his secrets buried with him.
Above all, he felt a profound weariness. He was old now and tired, and knew he would not live to see the course of history fulfilled, a history that would vindicate him, that would vindicate them all.
He drained his whisky in a single gulp and reached again for the bottle.
Britain’s Prime Minister closed the report from Sir Keith Bowman and placed it carefully on her rosewood desk. Martin Gorham-Leach’s unfortunate death now made it unlikely that the Cambridge team could consolidate its discoveries before its work was overtaken by the Americans. It was a tremendous disappointment, having come so close, but hopefully British industry would still share some of the spoils. There were recommendations for further posthumous honors for Gorham-Leach, which she saw no reason to refuse. Men of such commitment were an example to all others in his profession who continued to emigrate abroad in such profusion.
She was less concerned about the loss of expected prestige. Since the unforeseen opportunity had arisen over the Falklands her popularity had soared. It seemed the Argentine generals were now getting cold feet and were ready to settle; at least, that was what her Defense Secretary in Washington had told her. She was not interested in a settlement. She would sink that battleship at the first opportunity. The British people wanted victory, and she would stop at nothing less. Then she would call an election, in which she would be unbeatable. She was already being called the most resolute national leader since Churchill. And, by golly, she’d show the world she was.
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All the characters and events portrayed in this work are fictitious.
THE CAMBRIDGE THEOREM
A Felony & Mayhem “Espionage” mystery
PUBLISHING HISTORY
First print edition (Doubleday): 1990
Felony & Mayhem print edition: 2005
Felony & Mayhem electronic edition: 2013
Copyright © 1989 by Tony Cape
E-book ISBN: 978-1-937384-82-1