‘Treason is heavy stuff,’ said the Director, somewhat sententiously. ‘And treason is our business. So I guess it is fair to say we always have something heavy on our minds.’
‘Yes,’ said Rufus. ‘But this is different. Every detail. Every last detail. The penetration by Soviet forces of Operation Tirana is almost unique.’ (Rufus was too cautious to say about anything that it was ‘unique’; if questioned on the matter, he’d have commented that only God could know whether anything was ‘unique.’) ‘We mount the most important countersalient since the beginning of the cold war. A bid actually to split off—to liberate, to use your brother’s wonderful, if hubristic, word—an appendage of the Soviet Empire. We are not only frustrated in bringing off the operation, we are checkmated at every technical level. We plan five entirely separate drops. And it appears there were five ambushes there waiting for them. They knew the coordinates of the five different drops. Only one Westerner—as a matter of fact, it was I who selected those five drops from the twenty-five locations nominated as possible candidates for the operation—knew the drops’ locations. One man on our side knew all these details. And KBG-Albania knew all those details. A comprehensive job of treason. It isn’t a case of one man overhearing one critical conversation, because there never was one critical conversation. What we are facing is a man—a thing—that has got hold of the entire mechanics of our enterprise.’
The Director puffed on his pipe and stirred his coffee. ‘I think you are probably right. So where do we go from here?’
‘To the Soviet Embassy, I would say.’
And so Rufus disclosed what had been brewing in his mind since it became clear to him—well before the Albanian transmission; before The Album’s arrival in London—that Operation Tirana had been a total disaster. Otherwise, one of the forty-one special and specially trained agents would have got through. When none did, Rufus sensed that none ever would.
Rufus now argued that a special team physically enter the Soviet Embassy.
‘You do mean the Soviet Embassy in London?’
‘I do mean the Soviet Embassy in London. London is where the coordination on Tirana was done. The information we need is in the Soviet Embassy in London.’
‘Which is protected by British law.’
‘Which is protected by British law.’
‘Which law we do not have the authority to alter.’
‘Which law we do not have the authority to alter.’
The Director rose. ‘You are tired, Rufus.’
‘Forty-one men have been executed, thirty-two of them Americans. A plan to bring about the liberation of Albania and perhaps the beginning of the dismemberment of the Soviet Empire has collapsed. Collapsed miserably. Ignominiously. It was the most important joint U.S.-British enterprise, combining the resources of our respective intelligence forces, since we worked together almost as a single unit during the war. The only dividend of it all is that we have in effect been tipped off that there is nothing—literally nothing—the Soviet Union doesn’t know about our clandestine operations. That tells us one thing: that there is an organised administrative intelligence around somewhere conversant with our most carefully guarded secrets. We need to know who he is, and we need to know what are the techniques he is using. I don’t think it likely we can happen on this knowledge without a look at the inside of that building.’
‘Assuming you were right—I mean, about the need to look inside the building: why on earth not make it a joint operation with the Brits?’
‘Because I don’t know how we would do that without alerting the … target.’
‘You’re not telling me you suspect Sir Eugene Attwood?’
‘No, Allen. I’m not telling you that I suspect him, nor do I in fact suspect him. But who else—how many others?—would Attwood bring into the picture, assuming he were disposed to join in the enterprise in the first place? And it’s in the nature of things more … difficult if a branch of the British Government gets involved in the violation of British law.’
Dulles turned toward the door. ‘Let’s go home.’
‘Trust is waiting for instructions.’
‘Will you take care of that?’
Rufus nodded.
They didn’t exchange even routine goodbyes. The Director and his principal spymaster were not, really, friends. Rufus was not, really, a friend of anyone, and the Director was by nature reserved. When there were amenities exchanged they tended to be formalistic. Even these seemed somehow out of place on the day they learned about The Album.
4
The Prime Minister dined alone.
Oh my God, what a pleasure it is to dine alone every now and again. He sipped his port. So good. When at the dinner a year ago he had complimented the Duke of Alba on the fine quality of the port, the Duke had said he would see to it that the Prime Minister received some. The Prime Minister had raised his hand in protest, but such signals were international. Like the hand wave of royalty. Anthony Brogan reflected on the internationally practiced, slightly open-fingered, fingers-loosely-bent, counterclockwise-slow-motion royal wave practiced by all royalty—they can do it for hours. Queen Caroline in Australia last year was on a three-hour motorcade: too damned long, but I’d like to see the Prime Minister last for very long who tells Queen Caroline how long is too long for a motorcade. He had tried it! ‘Prime Minister, if you are suggesting that we exchange duties, I am quite prepared for that. You can come to my office at Buckingham Palace at ten tomorrow morning, and I shall go to Number 10 Downing Street. If you like, we can reverse our roles the same evening at seven. I like to play with my children at seven. When you re-enter Number 10, I believe you will find Great Britain surrounded by a more tranquil world. As a matter of fact, I dare to suggest that riding from the Palace to Number Ten you will also happen on a cleaner city with better-behaved inhabitants, though I am by no means certain that you would remark the difference.’
He laughed out loud. And all that he had said, in going over the plans for Australia, was, ‘Doesn’t that make for a rather long afternoon, ma’am?’ Never again. But then I have said never again twenty times in the four years.
It had been four years since he paid his first call on Queen Caroline, accepting her summons, after the general election, to act as Prime Minister. There was something about him that was abidingly protective toward her, perhaps some acute desire not merely to please, but to make more pleasing her role, her life. And then perhaps—Anthony Brogan sighed as he sipped again at his port—there was a little innocent masochism there. The Queen took delight in her rebukes, but almost always, after they were administered, her overriding benevolence drew the sting. Almost always. When Queen Caroline was truly exercised, there was missing from her reproaches any sign of a mere gymnastic exercise: she sounded then more like King Henry sending to the Tower a gay blade caught cuckolding His Royal Majesty.
Yes, a jolly good port. When he was advised that the Duke of Alba had sent an entire barrel of it, Anthony Brogan affected to be surprised and dismayed. But after his aide-de-camp left the room, he rang the steward and told him to decant the port into bottles and to send half the supply to Chequers and to place both lots in his entirely private closets. Nothing more stupid than giving fine wine to people who do not appreciate it … I suppose I could have asked Attwood and the American to stay over—it was nearly seven o’clock when the meeting ended. But then, blast it, there are advantages to being Prime Minister and why not take advantage of them? One is that there is no presumption whatever that the person with whom you are meeting, no matter how high his station, may simply ‘stay over’ for dinner. People who leave the presence of the chief of government, or the head of state, are simply meant to dematerialise, what?
And what was to be done about the so-called intelligence crisis? The fellow Rufus. I didn’t need to be privately instructed by Attwood about the reverence in which Rufus is held. They say Ike would side with Rufus against the chief of every NATO power plus the—(hurrah! final plans f
or it should be consummated early in the autumn)—heads of the Pacific powers. I already knew about the legend—Attwood has got rather into the habit of telling me things I already know, including his personal supervision of the deceptive stratagems that persuaded Hitler to deploy his main army one hundred and fifty miles from where our troops landed. Anthony Brogan had been in that room ten years earlier when Churchill recounted the events of that morning. ‘What does Rufus say? Find out,’ General Eisenhower had ordered directly. His aide returned within moments. ‘Rufus says, sir, that the Germans are not expecting you tomorrow in Normandy.’ In that case, the weatherman having been checked out, General Eisenhower had said (Churchill’s rendition of this was wonderfully dramatic): ‘Let’s go.’
But Churchill had a way, in private company, of undermining any appearance of unalloyed admiration for anyone, let alone an American. He had added, ‘The general’s calm was impressive, and we were all grateful that he did not say, “Let’s go, folks.”’
But he must give his attention to what Rufus had said. Rufus would not have communicated any message from Washington without the full backing of the President, and Rufus’s message had been that the government of the United States could no longer combine intelligence missions with the government of Great Britain.
Rufus had said—Brogan reached for the glass of port and then slowly put it down, accepting, instead, another cup of coffee from the butler—that the conclusion reached by the leadership of the CIA, concurred in by the National Security Council and personally affirmed by the President, was that until the British had ‘got the matter in hand,’ there would be a suspension of all sensitive communications—including any technical assistance in the development of the British nuclear weapons system.
Sir Eugene Attwood had suggested to Rufus that perhaps the problem of McCarthyism, raging in America, had affected the judgement of the American Government. Rufus’s reply was rather devastating. ‘Senator McCarthy was not even aware that Operation Tirana was being undertaken. Senator McCarthy has a slovenly mind. But even Senator McCarthy does not in fact have any idea how profound the problem of loyalty, indeed treason, is.’
A formidable point that. There were Burgess and Maclean—I wonder, why are so many poofs traitors? Though (The P.M. every now and then reminded himself that as the responsible leader of a great empire he should not indulge in silly correlations) there wasn’t anything of that in Allan Nunn May, or Klaus Fuchs, or the Gouzenko gang, or the Rosenbergs. That headline in the Daily Mail last June was memorable: ‘U.S. Court says No: Rosenbergs Will Fry Tomorrow.’ Very un-English, ‘fry.’
The P.M. rose from the table and headed toward the study where the brandy was, and the highly acclaimed biography of his grandfather, which he looked forward to luxuriating in tonight, and tomorrow—tomorrow morning, I suppose. I shall have to have Attwood come back here tomorrow afternoon and discuss the implications of the American position, and what can be done about it.
Anthony Brogan groaned at the thought of reporting it all to the Queen at their weekly meeting on Tuesday.
5
Blackford was back in London, after a three-week vacation following his departure from Camp Cromwell, three weeks in Switzerland with Marta, his ski-mate. He went to the safe house on James Street, where his old friend and schoolmate—his senior at Greyburn, at Yale, and in the Agency—Anthony Trust waited for him with news and a copy of The Album. Blackford stared at its pages and left the room, saying he would be back in a few hours. He spent these pacing the park, in fact, his heart pounding with rage and frustration. He reappeared at James Street early in the afternoon, and said to Trust that he would like to consult with an Agency cryptographer.
‘What you got, Black?’
Blackford explained about the night he saw the light in the radio shed, and his subsequent search of the premises.
‘Doesn’t sound all that suspicious to me.’
‘Doesn’t sound all that suspicious to me either. Are you therefore telling me our cryptographer is too busy to talk to me?’
Anthony laughed, maybe a little nervously, given his old friend’s gravity. He picked up the telephone.
When they got back from lunch, Adam Waterman was there. He was young, no older than Blackford. He wore heavy glasses and a tweed coat too large for his slight frame. His hair was long and disorderly, though not self-consciously so. He asked permission to smoke, sat down, and said, ‘What can I do for you?’
‘A couple of questions,’ Blackford began. He fished the notepaper out of his briefcase and showed it to Adam. Blackford said he thought he had once read that a primitive cryptographic code was governed by a simple inversion in a series of numbers. For instance, 12345, if 1 were the governing number, would inform the other party in the know that the correct number was 3452, a single change in the sequence being indicated. Accordingly, 22345 would indicate that the correct number was 4523, etc. Had Adam ever heard of such a convention?
‘When I was about six years old.’
‘Okay, so I didn’t dream it up, good. Next question: Could this five-digit number, after you worked out all the hypothetical sequences based on the governing number, be checked with the Brits? To see where the phone numbers are located?’
‘We got friends at the Post Office. Sure.’
‘Out of curiosity, how long would it take to make that check?’
‘Day. Maybe two. Let me look at it … Hmmm. KEN 21881. The governing number, as you put it, can be placed first, or it could be placed second, third, fourth, or fifth. We would be dealing with the number 2 or the number 1 or 8. We’d have to play with corresponding variables with the letters. They may or may not exist. We’d have to try all the possible combinations.’ Adam pulled out a pencil, leaned over to the pile of magazines on the coffee table, flicked open the pages of Queen magazine until he came to an advertisement for a Rover car that gave up a generous display of white space. In a minute he added up the results of his equations. ‘There would be, depending on whether the letters were transposable, twenty-seven or one hundred and five possibilities.’
‘I believe you.’ Blackford grinned. ‘Full speed ahead.’
Adam rose, lit another cigarette, and extended his hand to Trust and then to Blackford.
The following morning he called Trust and said he was ready with a report. They arranged to meet at eleven.
‘Turns out only forty-seven possibilities. Two of the letters were transposable, the third wasn’t. Here is a list of the thirty-nine phones with client numbers corresponding to the variables.
One of the thirty-nine telephones on the sheet Adam handed over stood out. It was given as: ‘UNLISTED. Private number, Soviet Embassy.’
‘I asked my contact how many private numbers the Soviet Embassy has, and he looked it up: twenty-four. I found out it isn’t possible to know in which office of the embassy a given phone is, because the Russians insist on all phones having jacks, so they can move a phone wherever they want whenever they want, just a matter of switching jacks.’
Impulsively Blackford reached for the telephone on the coffee table.
‘Black!’ Anthony Trust rose from his chair. ‘You’re not going to—’
Blackford dialed KEN 8118.
A woman’s voice picked up.
Blackford affected a German accent. ‘May I spikk wit Colonel Bolgin?’
‘Who,’ the voice replied, ‘shall I say is calling?’
Blackford replied, ‘An erld friend. I will call later,’ and put down the receiver.
The three men, all of them standing, did not smile.
‘Those poor bastards,’ Anthony Trust said.
6
It did not surprise Boris Andreyvich Bolgin that ‘having nearly broken my neck to get here,’ as the British would put it, he was kept waiting—he looked down at his watch and calculated: kept waiting three hours and twenty-five minutes.
It was now nearly one in the morning. He had been offered tea at ten, and at midnight, cheese and white
bread. What Boris Bolgin wanted, what he dearly needed at this hour of the night, was some vodka. Quite a lot of vodka. He was proud that no one knew that this had been so with him since shortly after he got out of the camp, just before the war. Having been in intelligence work ever since then, and in charge of his stations for over ten years, he was almost always able to manage to be alone at night, and it was this, really, that made life possible for him, with his impossible job, with these impossible people. He knew it would be the end if ever it were learned about him that that was what he did every night on reaching home: that and his novels, the great Russian nineteenth-century novels that kept his other self, so to speak, pickled; another existence.
But he had certainly made up for his little delinquency, made up for it in terms of service to the Soviet state. And after all, here he was, after midnight, in one of the ante-chambers of the director of the KGB, on the eighth floor of the renowned Lubyanka Prison at 2 Dzerzhinsky Square, nodding his head, up and down, up and down as he contemplated how much he had accomplished for Stalin during the hours he was not drinking, and how much, now—especially now!—he was accomplishing for Georgi Maximilianovich Malenkov, apparently to be the successor to Stalin.
Though, come to think of it, he was not a bit sure how long that would last. As chief of KGB-Britain he got to hear rumours about the ongoing contentions, about the great struggles within the Kremlin. It was a hard role for him, that of KGB chief in Great Britain. On the one hand he was expected to know everything going on in the West. On the other hand he was expected to know nothing of what was going on in his own country. True, it was easier to find out what was going on in London and Washington and Paris than in his Moscow. But he could hardly help hearing—experiencing—vibrations of a mounting division. There was factionalism, spying on one another, the sense that no leader without the strength of Stalin was truly a leader. What was wanted, what was needed, was someone of Stalin’s strength without Stalin’s eccentric vicious-ness. Yes, Bolgin mused … but what was wanted was probably unachievable. He recalled that during the thirties it was said of the French that they desired an army smaller than Great Britain’s but bigger than Germany’s.
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