by Alan Judd
Throughout it all, one part of his mind followed the itinerary of the Soviet delegation to the International Maritime Organisation, which Viktor was accompanying. There was surveillance on Viktor day and night whether he was on the streets or off them, in meetings, at home in bed, eating or interpreting. Every step he took outside Soviet premises was observed, every opportunity he had to signal distress closely monitored. The system he and Charles had devised was a traditional one involving chalk marks or stickers that closely resembled, Viktor had confided, the emergency contact procedure agreed with Charles’s father.
‘It has the virtues of simplicity and flexibility,’ Hookey had conceded, ‘but lacks plausibility for Lover Boy’s precise circumstances this week. Where does he get his bit of chalk without anyone knowing and why does he carry it around in his pocket? Easy enough for an agent in your father’s position but less so for a KGB officer operating from within a watchful residency. However, if he suggested it, he must think he can get away with it.’
Viktor sent no signal indicating greater danger. The signal to him that the ploy with Claire had worked – a sticker in one of the glass panes of the telephone box nearest the main entrance to the embassy in Kensington Palace Gardens, easily visible from car or on foot – was made, and remained in place all week. There was nothing more for Charles to do but that did not prevent Hugo summoning him to review progress, as he put it. There were various contingencies involving fake car accidents, police roadside checks, prearranged slip-away points and, if things became desperate, bomb warnings, all designed to enable Viktor to escape anyone to whom he wasn’t actually handcuffed. His wife, Tanya, was the main complication; he had no way of knowing in advance whether she would want to defect with him. He suspected not, because of their daughter, but didn’t dare discuss it with her. The signals had to indicate that she was joining him, if she chose, but she would have only minutes to make up her mind and take in the instructions.
‘I know it’s all set up but I think it’s worthwhile checking every nut and bolt of the arrangements daily in case we see scope for modification or find we haven’t screwed everything down,’ Hugo said more than once, pleased with his metaphor. ‘I’m talking to MI5 all the time and of course it’s their resources that are being stretched over this. They’ve had to reduce coverage of some high priority targets to maintain this round-the-clock business that you and Lover Boy cooked up between you. Of course, he’s used to KGB SV resources, which are massive, whereas you’re just inexperienced. I’ve explained that to MI5. Not surprisingly, they were pretty unhappy about your contacts with Mata Hari, given their firm request that we steer clear of her until they establish the truth of this ministerial business of hers. Very unhappy, actually. But I took Hookey’s line that you were out of control, having resigned. They weren’t very happy about that either, to be honest. Blackens your name, rather. What’s more, it makes my life difficult, not knowing how to categorise you so far as expenses and the money you drew to pay Mata Hari are concerned. If you’re still in the service it’s one set of forms, if you’re not it’s one of several others depending on how we describe you. If we call you an agent I’ll have to open an agent file for you. If we call you a registered contact it’s something else again. Bloody nuisance. Anna sends love, by the way, and wants to know if you’ve found a job yet.’
‘There hasn’t been much time.’
‘Better get on with it. Are you growing a beard?’
‘No, I just haven’t shaved.’ Charles was wearing jeans and no tie. He sensed, and enjoyed, Hugo’s disapproval. Hookey, when they met briefly, ignored it, and was brisk and business-like.
‘An MI5 search team is going out to Beaconsfield this afternoon,’ he said. ‘I’ve told them to take you. Maureen’s arranged for them to pick you up at your flat. She’ll tell you what time.’
They picked him up in a Cortina estate; two men, Mick and Jeff, both short and wearing jackets and ties. Mick was from London, Jeff from Leeds. They were pleased.
‘Haven’t had a decent rummage for ages,’ said Jeff. ‘Been all breaking and entry stuff recently.’
‘Last week’s go at this place weren’t a proper search,’ said Mick. ‘They told us the wrong bloody area, sent us poking about the officers’ mess and all that. You reckon it’s out on the perimeter?’
‘I’ll show you.’
At the main gates in Old Beaconsfield they were waved through by a bored sentry on production of a single black and white MOD pass. ‘Gets you in anywhere, this bit of plastic,’ said Mick. ‘Funny thing is, it don’t mean nothing, really. Ordinary MOD passes are different, they just dish these out to us, but they look better than the real ones. Work with the police as well. Get out of gaol free cards, we call them.’
They drove past the modern officers’ mess, past the instruction wing where forces, Foreign Office and office students came to learn Russian, then on to the former POW compound itself, used now for drill and stores. ‘Straight on,’ said Charles.
‘Right across the sports fields?’
‘Well, round the edges.’
A gaggle of young soldiers in red vests and baggy blue shorts ran reluctantly around the fields. It was a cold, still day and their exhalations hung in the air. Nets and corner flags were up on the football pitches. Someone shouted at the soldiers, who just perceptibly speeded up. There was always shouting in the army, Charles remembered. You got used to shouting and being shouted at. In modern civilian life, though, a shout was a shock. The camp recalled memories of his week or two there: the comfort compared with life in the battalion, the not too taxing course, the comically querulous commandant, tea with Janet in the town, the inebriated cavalry officer who had fired both barrels of his twelve bore into the newly decorated bar wall, either side of a shaken infantry volunteer. The commandant, sounding like a startled chicken, had fined him heavily.
The Cortina wallowed around the fields towards the wooded corner and the high wall of the pistol range, where they stopped. From the covered rear they unloaded spades, prods, probes, a metal detector and other acoustic devices. The two searchers put on blue overalls and Wellingtons. ‘You’ll get soaked in that long grass,’ Jeff told Charles.
Charles was soon wet up to his knees. They began in the wood, away from the area of grass that Viktor said he had searched already for signs of disturbance. Mick used the probe and Jeff the metal detector. The yield was two bits of old wire, a rusty fork, a small heap of 9mm bullet cases and a piece of metal that might have been from an old ammunition box.
Charles wandered off and leant against the shot-marked wall of the pistol range. He tried to imagine his father with his walking stick and small spade, the latter probably hidden beneath his duffel-coat, tramping about during the Christmas holiday shortly before he died. He would have sought somewhere easily concealed but easily found, not overlooked but not too far from the road, somewhere that a walker or jogger might reasonably visit, but which was generally unvisited. The exact site would have to be briefly and accurately describable in secret writing or in short-wave burst transmission. Ground disturbance would have to be minimal, and easily hidden. He tried to think of his father only as the practical man, the professional surveyor who might have stood where he did, looking about.
As soon as it struck him, it was obvious. He went over to Mick and Jeff and pointed at the butts. ‘Try there, in the sand.’
The sandbank into which the bullets were fired was piled against the wall to a height of nine or ten feet, extending about twice that outwards at the base. The cardboard targets he remembered so well – scowling, slightly Asiatic, helmeted heads and shoulders, clutching weapons – would be on poles stuck into the ground at about five feet. Most of the bullets would go into the sandbank at about that height, some into the wall above, some into the sandy ground below.
Jeff was sceptical. ‘In there, with bullets smashing into it?’
‘Down here, at the base,’ said Charles. ‘It’s still sand, look, always churned up
by soldiers’ boots when they’re setting the targets but no one shoots that low. Try it.’
‘Still be full of lead.’ The metal detector made a continuous noise. ‘Told you, full of lead. Spent rounds.’
‘Try the probe.’
After only three or four goes they struck something hollow-sounding, not deep. Mick dug carefully and exposed the lid of a wooden box about one and a half feet square. He stood back. ‘Better call the technical team out to open it.’
‘Why?’
‘Booby traps. Sort of thing they do with caches.’
Charles hesitated. They knew nothing of his father and had simply been briefed to search for a Russian cache. ‘It won’t be. This was just a trial run.’
‘They wouldn’t do you the favour of telling you that, would they, the Russians?’ said Mick. ‘You couldn’t know unless they told you and if they did you couldn’t know you could trust them. We ought to get the technical team. We always do on jobs like this.’
The top of the box, thinly covered by sand and soil, seemed to grow more sinister under their gaze. The glumness of their expressions was comically emphasised by their overalls and boots.
‘You stand behind the butts,’ said Charles. ‘I’ll open it.’ They did not move. ‘You’re quite right to be cautious. Normally I’d agree. But I’ve seen the operational plan. I know this one’s harmless. You stand behind the wall while I open it.’
‘You sure?’
‘Absolutely. But I’d feel happier if you were out of the way. It’s standard ATO procedure.’ He had seen little of bomb disposal in Northern Ireland but enough to give him confidence to make his point. ‘Only one man exposed at a time.’
The reference to standard procedure reassured them. ‘You’ll call out when you’ve done it?’
‘I’ll describe what I’m doing throughout.’
Once they were behind the butts he knelt by the box. Until then it had not occurred to him that it might not be what he was seeking. It could be anything, buried years ago, in the Second World War even; it could be booby trapped. But the wood, when he dusted it off with his fingers, looked like newish softwood. His father had always had a few pallets stacked at the end of his shed, rescued from skips. He used the wood for odd repairs or for fire-lighting. Charles eased his fingers down the sides of the box. ‘Lifting lid now,’ he called.
It came up easily, sand spilling into the box. Inside was a smaller cardboard box, filled with what looked like salt or sugar. There was also an instrument with a dial and some wires. He called for them to join him.
They came out from behind the wall, extravagant now in their enthusiasm. ‘We’ll take the contents back to the technical lab,’ said Mick. ‘Got some foam in the car to wrap them in. Then Jeff’ll dig the box out.’
Charles thought. ‘I think it would be better to leave it for the time being, just as it is. Might be more useful here than in the lab.’ They looked at him as if he had suggested leaving buried treasure. ‘Might be better to watch and see what they do about it.’
‘What, concealed cameras, you mean?’
He hadn’t thought of that, but nodded.
They took measurements and photographs, replaced the lid and covered it. It was easily hidden in the churned-up sand.
‘KGB knew what they was about when they chose that place,’ said Jeff.
It was well after six when they returned to London but Hookey, as usual, was in his office. When Charles finished describing what had happened Hookey sat in silence, hands in pockets, chair swivelled so that he could watch the trains. ‘So your idea in leaving it untouched and intact is that we can then tell Viktor where it is so that he can go and find it, thus gaining kudos with his own people and being himself all the more grateful to us? Fine. And if we have no more contact with him before he goes and if he anyway hasn’t got time to trot off and find it, we’ve lost nothing because the chances of their finding it in the meantime, particularly given their lack of success so far, are remote? Also fine. And it’s for me to square it with MI5, presumably. Tell them we’ve left it unguarded, unmonitored, unexamined for anyone to stumble across if they’re lucky enough. You hadn’t thought of that, eh?’
‘Not really, no.’
‘Not at all, you mean. But also fine. I’ll do that.’ He faced Charles. ‘What you don’t know are the results of further tracing on this delegation Lover Boy is bear-leading, particularly on the two he named. Alexei Krychkov and Sergei Rhykov both have security traces as long as the Limpopo. Didn’t come up when MI5 first traced them in their own records, then with us and GCHQ, because the given names on the visa applications were slightly different. Had they been recognised, they wouldn’t have got visas. As it was, the deception came to light only after their visas had been granted. They could still have been stopped then but the Foreign Office was reluctant because we’ve just won the most almighty argument with the Russians over their trying to reject one of our delegations to Moscow. To have done the same thing ourselves would have invited retaliation. Further tracing, prompted by your information, has confirmed it all in spades. They’re both KGB, Krychkov Line K, the security narks. Not so sure about Rhykov. But they’re here, so that’s that.’
‘Checking up on Lover Boy?’
‘At least that. Probably also to ensure he gets on the plane at the end of the week, as he suspects. On past traces, Rhykov may also have another role, something more operational. But it’s not clear. Thing is, whether Lover Boy realises that this means he might face some nasty questions when he gets home. The fact that he hasn’t signalled means that either he doesn’t realise – which is unlikely – or that he does but thinks he can handle it, which is very likely mistaken. Question is, do we initiate contact in order to tell him?’ He stared at Charles with theatrically raised eyebrows. ‘If we do, it could put him under yet greater risk. If we don’t, it could be the long goodbye.’
‘Surely we do. We take the risk. We put it to him. We give him the chance to defect, again.’ For some days he had secretly hoped that this was what Viktor would do. It would bring the case to a conclusion, with all the appearance of dramatic success, and he would feel he had atoned somewhat for his father.
Hookey waved his hand dismissively. ‘I’ll think about it. Meanwhile, I’ve got to talk to Hugo about something else. You can bring him up to date on the security narks, leaving out your Legacy business, of course. See me tomorrow.’
Hugo, waiting in the outer office, was disagreeably surprised. ‘I thought Hookey was in an important meeting. Anything I should know?’
‘Just that –’
‘Wait here and brief me when I come out.’ He turned with a flash of jacket lining and closed the door.
Maureen made a face. ‘So reassuring to know that intelligence branch officers are selected for their people-handling skills. Cup of tea? You could be in for a long wait. Even his nibs finds it difficult to keep meetings with Hugo short.’
Charles sat at the far side of the room with his tea and a month-old copy of the Economist, its lengthy circulation list still uncompleted. He looked at Maureen as she typed, making two carbon copies of each page. Hookey was rumoured to be a man of affairs. He was variously reported as being on his third marriage, having married his former secretary, and to be still on his first but conducting an affair with Maureen. Charles would not have credited either when he had first met Hookey but now, without a word about women or affairs ever having passed Hookey’s lips, he would have believed either. Or neither: it was hard to imagine Hookey having a personal life. The Green Book, the diplomatic list on Maureen’s desk, would give the official story, but he did not want to look up Hookey in front of Maureen. The door opened and Hugo appeared, clutching his minute-board and still in full flow.
‘So I info A20 and C/AF on the QT that if the potential OCP keeper is N/T in FX and FT we can recruit her before AV-ing provided we i/d her cohabitant fnu snu and don’t go ahead with the proposed ACA/BCA role in Matrix. Should it be TS or S?’
&nbs
p; ‘It should be a.s.a.p.,’ came Hookey’s voice, drily. ‘Doesn’t matter a monkey’s how you classify it so long as you don’t broadcast it half way round the world as you’ve just done.’
Hugo closed the door with compressed lips, avoiding Maureen’s smile. ‘Come on,’ he said to Charles.
They waited in silence for the lift. Hugo, frowning and with his lips still compressed, tugged at his shirt cuffs and tweaked his trouser crease. ‘Hookey says you’ve something to tell me,’ he said eventually. The lift arrived while Charles was explaining. Hugo held up his hand to silence him. In the lift was a young man with fair hair nearly to his shoulders and wide flared trousers. They stood in silence until he got out. ‘Can’t stand flares and hair,’ said Hugo, when the doors had closed.
‘Flares?’ Charles was still wrestling with fnu snu, whom he now remembered as a ubiquitous figure in espionage: first name unknown, second name unknown. ‘I’ve never got round to them. By the time I catch up with a fashion it’s moved on.’
‘Quite right. Now. Continue.’ They were standing before the closed door of Hugo’s office by the time Charles finished. ‘I see,’ said Hugo. ‘Can’t help noting that I’m always the last to hear of these things. Was there anything else?’
‘No.’
‘Nothing at all?’
‘No.’
‘I’m sure there’s something being kept back from me in all this. Don’t trust Hookey an inch.’ His hands moved from pocket to pocket. ‘Sovbloc mafia carries all this need-to-know business a bit far sometimes.’ He stepped along to his secretary’s office, where there was a brief altercation, then came back and stood by Charles. ‘Very odd.’