The Widow's Son

by Daniel Kemp

  Honesty in the world where Razin, Harwood, Mayler, Fraser Ughert and I live does not prevail in great quantity. More often than not frankness depended on whose bed one got out of that morning. Nobody opened their hearts to integrity or honesty, neither did many give a truthful answer to a straightforward question. To hear truth being declared twice as an answer to one question could only mean two lies were exposed. My time here had run out. I had more important things to do than bandy words with an unconcerned mandarin.

  “Who is to be chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee now Fraser's stood down, Geoffrey?” He almost exploded as he stood to deliver another admonishment.

  “You know damn well there's nobody been appointed to that position. If there was he would not tell you either. Catlin is not your concern anymore, Patrick, and I'm ordering you to stay out of the case. If not, you could well lose your Joseph role and find yourself out of a job looking for a Christmas manger to hang your hat in. Have you got that?”

  I had a fair reason to pick a fight with Geoffrey and I would have landed at least one blow, but that was all I had at the moment; one suspicious minor detail nagging away at me. Maybe there were no more uncertainties to uncover in which case I would have looked extremely silly mentioning what I had, or perhaps there were, and I would have shown my hand too soon. By reacting to Harwood's provocation I would have allowed the impression of defying convention to remain a characteristic permanently implanted into my file. Whereas Henry Mayler's file had no mention of any impropriety within our industry. Instead his service record was decorated with acts of tact and decorum, on a few occasions just one level short of heroism, but Bernard Higgins, God rest his soul, might have testified differently had he not so cruelly died.

  Henry was good, but being good at one's trade does not quantify one as being dependable as Bernard may also have testified. Mayler was the epitome of the average Russian's opinion of Armenians; clever, but subversive. He visited his clever and rebellious nature every available time he was able, finding it in any decent bottle of whisky and then, having found it, he would make love to Bernard before messaging his contact in Springfield, Missouri, and telling him of the next target for unconventional terror attacks. Bernard Higgins knew nothing of that contact. Henry, on the other hand, had everyone jumping through hoops or dying at his bequest; as at Tel Shnan, on the outskirts of Homs, in Syria one Tuesday night in September 2002.

  * * *

  The drab thin window coverings were ineffectual against the garish light from the crescent moon but caused no distress to the sleeping Kurds; however, every lock on every door proved inept for its purpose to the people who wanted those doors flung open. The two adults inside the dwelling, a man and a woman, the two children, a boy and a girl, were murdered without a sound, along with thirty-nine other pairings, most not as silent, in the township of Tel Shnan, but the explosions set off by those who committed the atrocities were heard all the way to the United Nations building in New York. Unfortunately, there was no international outcry as it had become a routine occurrence for the government in Damascus to deal with, and no matter how incompetent and corrupt they were the UN had no power to dissolve them. The powerful 'They' of the ruling Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, led by Bashar al-Assad, blamed and pointed the accusing finger at the Turkish mafia who had, so the rest of the world were told, connections to several Kurds living in the township who had in the past helped the mafia to ship drugs to Europe.

  'This is no more than a revenge attack like so many others. My security officers tell me that the Turkish Mafia mean to control the whole distribution and cease sharing arrangements with the Kurds.' So said the Syrian foreign minister to the members of the UN council who bothered to attend and listen. The already beleaguered Kurdish population did not believe a word coming from the government. They simply carried on waiting for the day they could exact revenge.

  Chapter Ten: Wednesday With Fraser

  “Henry Mayler had a Russian handler from the day he was born, laddie. Lieutenant General Fyodor Nazarov Razin is on our side. He's a double, Patrick. His real name is Alexander Sergalovich Kruglov, son of Colonel General Sergei Kruglov, whom I've mentioned as instrumental in the Maylers' escape. Now you and I are the only two living souls within any intelligence service who know that.”

  “Wow, Fraser, that's the scoop of the century, but you must have given both Razin and Henry a long lead. Was nothing compromised?”

  “No, nothing until Henry blows a gasket about being shot at outside the market in Al Hasaketh. As I previously told you, he was followed there. All we could get from Hadad, his driver, was that he phoned a number he had previously used and told whoever it was at the other end where Henry wanted to go. He was paid in American dollars left in a dead-letter box, but the dollars are not the only interrelationship he had with our friends in America. Hadad's told his interrogators that his call was answered by a man with a strong southern American drawl. He said he knows the different dialects used in the States because he watches a lot of American films and television programmes. Not much to go on is it, but one never knows.

  “Let me give you some background information on Lieutenant General Fyodor Nazarov Razin. Years ago I was heading up a 'burn operation' aimed a Czech who worked at the Czechoslovakian Republic Embassy which backed on to the Russian Consulate at Notting Hill Gate. Small world, eh, Patrick? She had been comprised when trying to offload some delicate information from an asset of ours she'd intercepted onto a Frenchman who was also working for us in a sordid Bayswater hotel room, thinking he would reward her with a wedding ring and a ticket to Paris. She was in an elevated position in the Czech radio room and I had her marked as a long-term prospect. However, that wasn't to be. She and our Frenchman were routinely photographed in the hotel room, catalogued and registered, but no approach was made to the woman that night. We can't be certain what spooked her but something did.

  “Her body was discovered in the early hours of the following morning in a car which had crashed into a tree in Holland Park Avenue, a mile or so from Notting Hill Gate. There was a man in the car with her. He was, according to Fyodor Nazarov Razin who at that time was an attaché at the Russian Ministry for Trade, her Russian Control and the other man she had shared her information with. Fyodor stopped a crash signal being sent to Moscow Centre that would have signified a top-level breach to Soviet Security. That breach originated from our man on permanent watch over the Barents Sea, backyard of the mighty Russian Northern Fleet, who the Russians were completely unaware of. The information he passed concerned a spy trawler—an AGI in NATO parlance, meaning Auxiliary General Intelligence. They were thought to be crammed with submarine interception and detection equipment. They were a ubiquitous presence during the Cold War, shadowing NATO exercises or loitering off naval bases. This one was special. Polish-flagged, she was pulling a device long coveted by the British and Americans, a two-mile string of hydrophones known as a towed-array sonar. It was the latest thing in Soviet submarine-detection technology.

  “Because of Razin's intervention the operation mounted to capture this device was successfully completed by HMS Conqueror, the submarine that had sunk the Argentine Cruiser Belgrano in the Falklands War. Her bow was fitted with electronically controlled pincers that cut through the three-inch-thick steel cable connecting the towed sonar to the trawler. The name of this audacious exercise in piracy was Operation Barmaid. Fyodor killed the girl and her handler in the car. Quoted diplomatic privilege to remove the bodies and the car before the Met Police could investigate, then cleaned away any connection to himself.”

  His eyebrows rose as his face beamed a smile as wide as the bow of a submarine and his laugh resonated around the room.

  “Not much in the way of conscience, has our Razin. It was he who extended my education on the Mayler family with all its nuances. You see, Razin is not only a Mason but a Rosicrucian to boot. He knows the importance Henry Mayler's birth represents to the fraternity.”

  A pipe was filled
and lit in a way of celebrating a significant moment, one where intelligence had been shared between equals with no chance of subversion. This time I smiled back at him. I never told him of my suspicions. I never thought it necessary to display my foolishness so easily. As I poured two more glasses of Scotch he picked up the story.

  “One night I was walking towards Baker Street to get a cab when I was stopped by a man who came out of a doorway of a bank on the corner. It was Fyodor. He hasn't changed, he was brusque with words that far back. He's mellowed a little but still goes straight to the point.

  'I know who you are and I think I know what you want. If I'm wrong then at some time in the near future I will be right.'

  “From that opening he quoted the right words to me and off we went for a drink in pub nearby. That's when I learned of Bernard and why I recruited him. Before you ask about where Razin's interests lay in all of this I'll tell you; he looks to himself first no matter who that affects. Four months after Bernard and Henry had fallen in love, a Russian by the name of Oleg Dievsky was caught at the Leipzig–Altenburg Airport taking pictures inside a restricted hangar of a top secret Russian fighter jet. He was one of ours. Within five days of his imprisonment, Razin had used data Henry had supplied Bernard on an American airbase in Northamptonshire where he been invited to take post-Cold War photographs. The photographs were low grade, but he used them to organise Dievsky's escape through Finland and back to the UK. Why would he do that? He did it because Dievsky knew some of Razin's set-up in Germany and Poland. He arranged it because it suited him. Ever since those days I managed to keep Razin's involvement removed from what was shown at ministerial level. His name was never known to heads of security departments until last week when he played his hand to meet with you. The collaboration I've told you of must be kept open, Patrick, no matter where it leads. He's played his hand and must bear the consequences. But nobody needs to know of his previous collaboration.”

  “I'm still struggling to understand what happened in Al Hasaketh. If Razin wanted to save Henry then why does he mean to harm him now? He had him to himself on the drive to Aleppo. Why not kill him then? Why did Razin run the risk of exposing himself to the outside world when he must have suspected that you would have reached out to Henry?”

  “I think there were several reasons. The main one was that he had been found out. Henry was followed to that meeting by those who shot at them both. Hadad, the driver, had sold Henry out to them. We can't be one hundred percent sure, but it's our belief it was a renegade unit inside the CIA who Razin and Henry killed.” Fraser wasn't ready to stop there until I forced him.

  “By 'we' can I assume that's you and Razin, Fraser, and is there anyone at Joint Intelligence Committee level who agrees?”

  “That's why I stood down, Patrick. I believe the pot is reaching boiling point in Iraq and the surrounding area. I need to focus solely on Mayler and that Gladio B file held in Armenia. We will find out where Iran, Iraq, and Syria come into White House planning inside that file.”

  “What about this significance of the number three Razin and you have spoken of? What's that all about?”

  “It's a very significant number, Patrick. To start with The Holy Trinity is one: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Another would be the three degrees in the basic lodge of Freemasonry and just to finish on a third: there were three original masons working on Solomon's Temple. There are many more examples but the numbers 7, 9, 11, 13, 33, 39 are also important, none more so than the number 13. When the Seal Of America was designed the country consisted of 13 colonies. If you have a chance take a look at that Seal front and back, add up what's on the symbols, like the 13 olive leaves on the branch with the 13 berries. How about the Great Seal of the United States, where a bald eagle is holding 13 olive branches in one talon and 13 arrows in the other, and there are 13 levels of stones from bottom to top in the pyramid. There has never been a President of modern day America who has not been On The Square or The Widow's Son, but being a Freemason is not spoken about openly, nor admitted to.

  “The codes are hidden, Patrick, but not from the initiated. The greatest power of all is created by the symbols if the uninitiated never discover that the symbol exists. When Razin said these words to Henry on their first meeting—We speak unto you by parables, but would willingly bring you to the right, simple, easy, and ingenuous exposition, understanding, declaration, and knowledge of all secrets, he was quoting from the Rosicrucian exposition and confirming to Henry that he also was a Rosicrucian. I bet Mayler never told you of his response, Patrick, because he never told me. His reply to Razin was—

  I do declare that the golden age of Zep Tipi will return. The waters of the abyss will recede. The primordial darkness will be banished, and the 33rd degree of the human vessel will emerge into the light.

  “That response was believed to have died in 1403 when the Rosicrucian were said to have disappeared. In the Masonic order the 33rd degree Masons are the receivers. Henry's Zep Tepi could be looked upon as the age of receiving incarnate demons which the Egyptian mysterious religion represented. It is an ancient, violent and immoral world which Razin and I believe Henry is seeking to re-establish. In Chapter 13 of the book of Revelations of the Bible are these words—one who understands can calculate the number of the beast, for it is a number that stands for a person. His number is six hundred and sixty-six.

  “I have seen a mathematical equation that converts the date at the base of the pyramid on the Seal of America, of 1776 into that number by dividing the nine Roman numerals—MDCCLXXVI into three equal groups. Don't ask me how it was done but believe me, when it was explained I did understand.” This was getting way beyond my comprehension. I interrupted him.

  “Don't you think you're making symbolic letters fit a number that you want them to fit in order to invent a conspiracy? You'll be telling me next that Martians invented Scotch when they landed in Scotland.” My discourteous remark had no effect on any bushy eyebrow.

  “As I said—the codes are hidden in Masonic symbols and if they are only known to the few, then the esoteric nature of the concealment has functioned successfully.”

  “So are you saying that America represents the devil?”

  “I'm saying that there could be a few acolytes of the Rosicrucian fraternity in America that possibly do, Patrick, yes! Allow me to try and explain. The political power in America is split into different orders representing differing beliefs of what is right and wrong. Freemasonry is much the same. For example all Masons believe in a Supreme Being no matter what religious faith is held. But there are several other beliefs in Freemasonry. Apply that to America and everyone there, either in government or in a government service, believes in democracy and freedom from tyranny, only as I've indicated, there may be a section broken away from direct government who see the achievement of that aim differently.”

  “So in what order of Freemasonry are you and Razin, Fraser? I was going to say in what order of masonry are you, but that sounds as though you're part of a building. I stopped myself otherwise we both might be laughing.”

  “But we are part of a building, Patrick. As Freemasons we are part of King Solomon's Temple, but to answer your question directly, Fyodor Nazarov Razin and I are part of the order of Knights Templar and although our order has connections to the Crusades we are foremost a fraternal order of Freemasons who believe not only in a Supreme Being but also profess in our belief in Christianity. Only Christians can belong to The Knights Templar. One of the obligations of entrants to our order is to declare to protect and defend the Christian faith. The Knights of The Red Cross, the Rosicrucians, were once included in the system alongside Knights Templar, The Knights of Malta and The Knights of St Paul but they could not agree to certain rites, sometimes called degrees of Freemasonry, so they went their own way but not into oblivion as was believed.

  “It is the opinion of this intelligence service, and our counterparts across the Atlantic, that there is a group of people who in various ways directly
control events in this world to their own advantage. Those people have been until now impossible to penetrate to either confirm or deny this possibility. They are known as the Twenty Club. Recently we have gained some useful information on the circumference of a smaller, more select inner circle, but more of that later. It would appear that the club's aim is to create a single world-state over which their interests would preside. This is not new. In 1878, the former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli said;

  'Governments do not govern but merely control the machinery of government, being themselves controlled by a hidden hand.'

  In the early 1900s, Theodore Roosevelt also spoke on the matter. He said;

  'Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of today. This invisible government has to be destroyed.'

  “I believe an imperceptible empire has been set up above and beyond all forms of democracy.”

  “Why twenty, Fraser? Razin told me he believed there were only eight people behind it all, not twenty. Has he got his numbers mixed up?”

  “The Russian agrees there is an invisible regime. However, he wants to circumvent the body of administration and go straight at its head. The club of eight he spoke of are not simply concealed, they are shrouded in a dissimulated series of separate codes. There is at least one Russian in that inner circle that Razin says he knows nothing of. The others in my circle of twenty are protected by statutes and laws, regulations and charters and the ability of modern technology to mask identities. If it were possible to penetrate that outer circle the probability is that no one would name the central eight because of fear of reprisals. We have to find them ourselves then deal with any problem they represent.”