by John Gardner
“Very soon. I’ll call you from London, tonight. Don’t be afraid. Please.”
All the way back up to London, Herbie worried about Martha Adler. Never had he seen her like this. Always he thought of her as one who could exist alone in the Sahara, if necessary: the Sahara; or the cold wastes of Siberia. She had changed, and he had seen people like this before. At that point they usually went private, because it meant the nerve had gone. Or they had been turned, and could not live with the turning.
11
TUBBY FISCHER STILL VIEWED Herbie with guarded hostility. The Director General, seated behind his desk, signalled fatigue in the dark pockets under his eyes. Big Herbie sensed an atmosphere of uncertain concern in the pleasant office, with its buttoned leather chairs and paintings of military victory from other times.
“I’m sorry, Herbie. Gather you were preparing for a quiet weekend with Miss Adler.” The Director moved his chair forward, settling himself more comfortably. It crossed Herbie’s mind that as Martha Adler’s pretty little mock-Georgian bungalow was probably wired for sound there would be some titters among the younger members of the Watch Committee as they listened to the tapes.
“You’d better sit down, Herbie.” Tubby’s voice was flat; but a step in the right direction. At least he looked Kruger in the eyes; and called him by his Christian name. “This may take some time.”
Herbie sat, and the DG passed a typewritten flimsy across the desk. At the top was a cipher number; time received at GCHQ, Cheltenham; followed by the words For Director General SIS. Or G Staff Eyes Only.
The transcribed message read:
POSSIBLE NIECE AND NEPHEW WILL GET FULL CHECK TREATMENT SOONEST/ADVISE YOU COVER ME/MOST URGENT/STENTOR
“It came by a route he hasn’t used for over a year.” The DG gave the impression of speaking to himself: as though summarising events in his own mind; for his own benefit. “We have a courier, who occasionally works in the newspaper kiosk at the Moskva Hotel. It’s a hit and miss business, with a telephone ring code. If he gets the call, the courier has to try and alter his shift, to suit Stentor’s requirements. There’s a fall-back system, but that’s not easy for someone in Stentor’s situation. To get something to our postman, Stentor has to have some excuse to visit the Moskva. This time it’s worked; though it was probably delivered early this morning. A late arrival for us. The problem is his reference to the nephew.”
Herbie asked if the niece was the contact in Leningrad, and was surprised when Tubby answered, his manner slightly more friendly and less formal. Perhaps Tubby was getting the message. “Yes, she’s Leningrad. Successive DG’s have had problems with Stentor’s communications. Until he reached his present, exalted, appointment it wasn’t too bad. Now there are constant difficulties. A man with his responsibilities, in the Russian Service, is given adequate guard practically around the clock. Even his apartment block has watchers. The ‘niece’ was found for him some five years ago.
The Director took up the brief. Herbie, he knew, was conversant with most methods of communication; and the way they worked the couriers, within the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union. “There are a handful—and only a handful—of trustworthy nationals for message-carrying. We needed one with cover, just in case Stentor ever came under suspicion—as has now happened—and there had to be verification.
“Ambrose Hill provided us with a ‘mystery’, who didn’t know what it was all about: an academic; a historian, with special interest in the period just before the Revolution.”
They had sent the mystery in, with all co-operation from the Soviet authorities. He was given access to the pre-revolutionary archives. It was virtually impossible to be completely accurate and establish certain, and lasting, family connections—because so many people went missing during the cataclysmic events of the abortive 1905 uprising; the great October Revolution and the Civil War.
Against all the odds, the mystery professor discovered that Prince Georgi Nikanorovich Anashkov had employed a Head Butler—a major-domo—by the name of Gregory Orlov. Most of the Orlov family was on record as having gone missing, during the riots and lootings early in 1917; but there were some details of surviving kinship. Stentor, it was found, had a brother and sister—the brother a year younger; the sister also his junior. Further, the brother, Mikhail, was last recorded as living in Leningrad. It was established that he had married, and there was a daughter. As for the sister, she disappeared completely.
“We already had a good postman in Leningrad.” The Director smiled. “Married with two children: husband’s name Ivan Morozov. We set her up as a Stentor contact, and got a professional in, so that the local records showed her maiden name as Orlov. Then by a series of false passes, brought the two together—letters, and then telephone calls: the letters from Stentor, after he was seen to spend much time examining public records. He had found a niece; difficult in the circumstances, for he continued to live under the assumed name, taken when he was moved from Moscow as a child.”
Herbie quickly interrupted, asking how their ‘expert’ had tampered with local records.
“That one was lucky, and simple. The only paperwork we needed to worry about was the marriage certificate. The clerk at the Morozovs’ local House of Marriages was old, infirm, and just about ready for retirement. We got the Morozovs to apply for a new apartment. For that they needed all the documents, including the certificate of marriage. Our girl went to collect and saw the old clerk alone. She threw a scene. Said the maiden name was wrong; that there’d been an error. The clerk didn’t want trouble; didn’t want to blot his copybook just before retirement; didn’t want to get his pension docked. Made out new certificates with the Orlov name inserted. Even destroyed the original and had it re-run.”
Big Herbie did his nodding Buddha impression. “So, Stentor has a niece. Okay, what’s that got to do with the price of eggs?”
“For some time now we’ve been considering preparations for lifting Stentor, mainly because of his age. This is where we’re slightly off course. Stentor has an assumed kinship with a nephew. ‘Nephew’, in fact, has always been our crypto for his personal Messiah—the man who’ll be sent to get him out. Michael Gold is to be that nephew: a great-nephew, in fact. The genealogy would put him as Stentor’s sister’s grandson. Knowing Stentor, he will direct Vascovsky towards the niece. That should be safe. He knows his nephew has a government job and travels a lot. The problem is one of time. First, to get more information to Stentor concerning the nephew. Second, to get the nephew to him very quickly. How quickly can it be done, Herbie? I mean we need him there last week.”
Big Herbie sat, unmoving: still, as an animal is still when waiting to pounce on prey. When he spoke, it was with slow deliberation. “I wish to get this straight. You are telling me that if Vascovsky begins to question about kinsmen, Stentor will talk of a niece and nephew?”
The Director inclined his head in an affirmative.
“The niece he can produce.”
Again an affirmative.
“He knows who the nephew should be—the relationship, I mean. A great-nephew?”
“Yes.”
“But he has no proof? Nothing else?”
Tubby Fincher replied, “That’s what the DG’s just told you, Herbie. We’ve been working on a plan to get him out, using a cover nephew...”
Herbie raised his voice, “And the plan’s gone wrong, yes? Events have overtaken you. With this”—he raised the copy of Stentor’s message—“with this, you’ve been blown to pieces. They’re catching up on him, before you’ve even reached the first planning stage of an operation to get him out.”
“I’m afraid that’s about the strength of it, Herbie. Well, I mean there is an operational plan; but no trained nephew. Only Michael Gold.”
Even the Director General jumped, as Big Herbie’s fist came smashing down on to his desk, and the voice barked out. “So you fit me up. Something goes very wrong, and Herbie is in charge, yes? And you give Herbie a baby, an infant with r
omantic ideas to work with—Michael bloody Gold; babe in arms not know his ass from a hole in the ground. You give me a peashooter to destroy a tank.”
“No. We’re putting you completely in the picture, Herbie. Giving you a crisis report.”
“You’ve screwed it.” Herbie looked at each of them in turn, the bitterness etched minutely on his pudding face. “You’ve argued, no doubt. You’ve had little lunches, and tête-à-têtes, trying to fix on who’s to be the nephew; what cover you’re giving him? All the nuts, bolts and nails. But you’ve—what’s the word you use?—waffled? Yes. You’ve waffled on, and not come to any decision; not started any training. Until now. Until Stentor is suddenly caught with his ass bare. The nephew needs a minimum of six months’ detailed training. A year would have been better—a year, with information being fed to Stentor as you went along. Now the poor bugger’s right in it. Read the message.” Herbie flourished the paper under the DG’s nose, “Read it—ADVISE YOU COVER ME/MOST URGENT. I should think so. Most urgent.”
“You landed him in the shit, Herbie.” Tubby Fincher, quiet and full of malice. “Hallet and Birdseed ...”
“I didn’t know you ... you rasher of wind. Nobody had the sense to brief me, when I got that information. No. All you need have said was, ‘Herbie, this Hallet, and this Birdseed. They come from the most sensitive source. You stay silent, yes?’ Instead it looks like chickenshit...”
“Feed,” the DG corrected. “Chickenfeed.”
“Feed? Shit? What’s the difference? Stentor’s life, yes? Or don’t you care that he’s already given all those years for the Service. Over fifty, living cover; worming his way in. God knows what good stuff he’s passed your way.” Herbie took a deep breath. “I tell you something. You ask how long for Michael Gold—the nephew—to be prepared? We want him now. All that rubbish. You either give me a full hand, or take me off this. Now. Am I still on?”
“You’re in sole charge, Herbie.” The Director docile.
“In writing,” Herbie snapped. “I want in writing, that I am in full charge; but, if anything goes wrong—if they get Stentor and, or, Gold—it is your responsibility. You spell it out. The planning, for lifting that old man, should have been further advanced. The fact you ordered me to use Gold. Not my choice. You do that?”
The Director General nodded, his face an open book on which you could almost read the word shame. There were no doubts between any of them. Herbie had control. If it went wrong, the resultant Enquiry would be told the facts: too little planning, and too late. It would be the end of the DG’s career; and almost certainly Tubby Fincher’s as well.
“Before I leave this office, then.” Herbie did not smile. “If Tubby could draft it, get it typed, and you sign it, sir. Copy for me; copy for Registry; and one for the Stentor File. Okay?”
The Director exchanged a few words with Fincher about the form of words.
“I need a car also. To Warminster. I also need young Worboys. You do that for me, Tubby?” He turned to the DG, “And you authorise Worboys? I need a moment alone with you in any case, sir.”
The Director nodded to Fincher. “Everything as he says.” Brisk; leaving no room for wasting time.
“I’m sorry, Herbie,” he said as the door closed. “Yes, I suppose we were treating you shabbily. I do have to say, however, that I was in no way trying to shift blame on to you, should there be errors—if you didn’t get Stentor out. There was no plot there—no night of the long knives.”
Herbie smiled, “I take no chances. Now, sir, another matter. I spent some of today with Martha Adler. Already you know. I have known her for many years. She is changed and it worries me.”
“She had a bad time after her arrest—and that was partly your responsibility, Herbie.”
“Yes. Yes, I know about that; and about the bad time. It’s more. It could be connected. After all, somebody’s popped a love letter from Vascovsky into the mail to me. Have you been seriously concerned?”
“Can you be specific?”
Big Herbie sighed. “Is her place wired?”
The Director frowned. “That’s classified, but I’ll tell you. The phone’s wired.”
“Anything interesting?”
“No. Why?”
“Because I really do know her. Something’s very wrong. Either her nerve has gone; or she’s been turned, and cannot live long with it. If it’s nerve, then she could still be turned—particularly if she’s close to me: and she wants to get very close.”
“I’ll put the musicians in. Thank you, Herbie.”
“I care, sir. I care that we get her off any hook she might already have swallowed. Just like I care about Stentor. He must be brought out; and a great deal will depend on how bright, and what sort of idiot we have in Michael Gold. There is also a question of your own decisions—arrangements yet to be revealed to me: Gold’s cover; how we get him in; how he can come out—if that’s necessary—and how he can bring the old man out with him.” Big Herbie was not, normally, a sarcastic man, but you could sense the acid as he added: “Providing your planning has got that far.”
“The paperwork only needs Michael Gold’s photograph. The arrangements are a matter of a couple of messages.” The Director looked wearily at his watch, leaned back and continued, “There is a mining engineer from Rostov—by coincidence only, within five years of Gold’s age...”
“You mean he’s five years older?”
“Older, yes. He’d only just come out of university when we chose him. Not married; but father and mother still live in Rostov. He’s under the impression—as a good member of the Party—that the Russian Service has asked him to undertake something different; something out of the ordinary. A sort of test. Name, Piotr Kashvar. Works mainly in the Central Ural chain, and has saved up some of his leave. Kashvar, on a word from us, will obtain the leave and travel permits. In his position that takes exactly two days. He thinks of it as a great game; something very secret, and to do with mining prospects. Job prospects. If his parents receive a cable from him, saying he has arrived in Moscow to see his uncle, that is the story they’ll tell—no matter who asks. It’s amazing what a loyal Communist, and his family, will do when they think we’re the KGB.
“Kashvar will fly to Moscow, on our word, and then go up to the Baltic. Stentor has his summer dacha there—on the Latvian coast. Our man Kashvar,” he allowed a tiny smile, “has a letter of permit, and the key to the dacha. He’s to stay there; as though on holiday. Whoever we send in, simply flies from Heathrow to Moscow, and stays in one of the tourist hotels. During the day—or one evening—he moves in on Stentor: a telephone call from one of the railway stations, anything like that. His secondary passport and papers will be under the name Piotr Kashvar. Once with the old man, he prepares him for the lift.”
“And if there’s a problem?”
“We send him a telegram. Needed at home urgently, love Amy—you know.”
“He comes back, and you sort it out.”
“That was the general idea. He could always fly out again in a few days, as long as nobody’s on to him.”
“And, if Stentor can be ready?”
“They go to the Baltic, and we lay on a cloak and dagger jaunt. Spirit them over the sea to Stockholm and away.”
“Leaving the mining engineer in charge of the dacha.”
“His instructions are to stay for two weeks. Then leave. If nothing happens, he will return, refreshed, to his labours in the Urals; and receive the grateful thanks of the Supreme Soviet. If Stentor is ready.”
“So, this Kashvar will be out of the way while his substitute operates. You have all this organised without Stentor’s approval?”
“He knows we have spare keys to the dacha.”
“But nothing else. Not even the name of his long lost nephew?”
The Director shook his head. “We wanted ...”
“You wanted to find the right man to play the mining engineer, Kashvar. Michael Gold probably knows as much about mining engineering in
the Soviet Union as I know about ... about ...” he stumbled, “about micro-surgery. Why, sir? Why did you arrange it this way? Surely, the first priority for something as important, and vital, as this, is the agent; the nephew. You need a man trained in all the black arts; someone who knows the Soviets; who knows Russia like his hand. You need a high-priest, not just a Russian-speaking acolyte. What’s the use?”
“I am aware,” the Director said smoothly. “I accept responsibility, Herbie. You’ve already said it all: we had lunches and meetings. We went to a great deal of trouble with method; getting at the man Kashvar—setting him up; conning him. It’s no excuse, but we’re all under pressure. The Stentor business lagged; and you’re right, Herbie, we should have had an old hand in training; standing by. Gold is a last chance. Risky. Yes. But we’re committed.”
Big Herbie sat there, biting his lower lip, hands crossed on his lap, out of long and disciplined habit (because, they said, it is the hands that give you away by sudden movement). “I do what I can with the Gold boy. It’ll really have to be a quick in-and-out. Anything goes wrong, I have to think of him, and not our precious jewel—Stentor. You understand?”
The Director General barely moved his head, but it was acknowledgment enough. Above him, Nelson’s Victory battled with the French fleet—sea, smoke, flame and sail: man grappling with man.
“One other thing.” Herbie rose, towering over the DG’s desk. “I know the strict rules; but if I’m to be with Gold—cramming him? Is that what you say? You cram people for examinations, yes? If I am to be mainly at Warminster with him, then you’ll have to put the Stentor File in a steel box, chained to a lion tamer’s wrist, and with one key in my pocket. To get Michael Gold ready, I have to know all there is to know about Stentor.”
“Done.” The Director spoke as though making a deal, just as Tubby Fincher returned with the typed documents, absolving Big Herbie from the sins of failure.
They all read the agreement, and the Director signed all copies. Ambrose Hill, waiting in the outer office, was summoned, and given instructions about keeping the documents safe—Herbie folded his own copy and placed it in his breast pocket. The Director then gave further orders about the Stentor File. It was to be brought up, in one of the fire-proof and thief-proof cases; then placed in Mr. Kruger’s keeping.