by John Gardner
“Talented Jewish man, Lou. Glad we cleared all that up. Puck and I spent a lot of hours trying to make your age, and the dates work out.” Herbie swiveled in his chair to wink at Pucky. For the first time since he had returned to the room, she felt he was almost his old self and a pinpoint of hope returned to her.
“There’s one other point, Lou.”
“Okay.”
Herbie paused again. Count of ten—maybe fifteen. “No. No, let’s move on. Plenty of time to fill in that particular gap. Let’s move. What next, Lou?”
“Whatever you want to hear.”
“Not what I want to hear. What happened is what I need to hear. Your eyes were opened, but you went on, like before.”
Passau nodded. “Same routine. Next important thing brings us almost up to date. That bastard historian. Stretchfield.”
“Wrote Hitler’s Unknown Spies, yes. See, I even get the title right now.”
“A charlatan. Out for the quick buck.”
“He got you against the wall though, Lou. Said so yourself. He got the dirt on you. Gave you a whole chapter to yourself. Blew fuses.”
“I could’ve saved all the trouble it caused. He came to me—when? Last year? Beginning of last year. Called, very polite. Asked for a private appointment. Didn’t know what to expect. Certainly didn’t get what I expected.”
“A little blackmail?”
“That’s what the man is—a blackmailer. Now that all the spies are falling apart, I guess he’ll be well into the extortion business, because he knows where some bodies are buried. Comes in. Says he has something interesting to show me. Puts all his proof on the table. Copies of old files with my name all over them. Says he won’t publish if I’m cooperative.”
“And you said?”
“What you think I said? I’m an old man. What can they do to me, put me in jail for life plus ninety-nine years? Anyway, people did know about that piece of my unhappy past. Matthew and Gregory knew, and they were obviously well connected. They’d take care of me, so why worry? In the end, Stretchfield leaves the first draft chapter with me. Says I should read it and think about it.”
“And what did he want?”
“One million pictures of dead presidents. He calls. I tell him to fuck off. Anyway, I’ve got other worries.”
“You tell any of this to Matthew, or one of the others?”
He shook his head. “Why should I? They knew. Nothing was going to happen to me. Because they knew, I was fireproof.”
“You talk with your wife? With Angela?”
“Sure. Gave her a little history lesson. She understood. One in a million. Said she’d stand by me. So, as I say, I told Stretchfield to get lost.”
“Did the right thing, Lou. You want to jump forward? Tell me about spring of this year. The little visit to the East? Budapest, Berlin, Sofia, Prague and Warsaw? Want to tell me what that was about?”
“I went to give joy. Take music. Make people happy.”
“Of course you did. I know that, Lou. The FBI and the Agency knows that. So does the British SIS. We all know it. But the Brits—the folks I work for—are aware that you saw people while you were there.”
“Who’d I see, Herb?”
“Come on, Lou. Don’t be coy. You know exactly who you saw. Some of them are in pokey now. Arrested, or under house arrest. Others still missing. You saw all the old intelligence and security chiefs—Hungary, the former D.D.R., Bulgaria, Czecho, Poland. You saw all the hard-line old communist bastards who’d been put out of work by the reforms. You saw people longing to grasp at straws. Wanting to get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged—Elton John, yes? Out of Lennon and McCartney?”
“I wouldn’t know. Thought you didn’t like rock and roll, Herbie.”
“I have some secrets left, Maestro. So have you. Now you must give them up. You went to see these men, yesterday’s men. You take them a message? You take them a word of hope from the four just men? From Matthew, Gregory, Duncan and Vinnie, with the big hooter and rainbow ties?”
The nod was barely perceptible.
“What did you tell them, Lou? What was the word? Get this last one off your chest, then we take you somewhere really safe.”
Louis Passau talked for a long time. Herbie hardly interrupted him, only the occasional nudge or question to clarify a point.
Pucky realized that Kruger had not even hinted at Tel Aviv. She heard him speaking in the past, in what seemed months ago now, in the lovely house in Virginia. “… all good agents give up stuff a piece at a time, until it’s all out in the open,” he had said. “Yet they all do the same thing. Like criminals they keep one vital piece of information: hold it back; keep it for the insurance. When we get to it, I shall have to extract the last piece. Mark me well.”
Now she was marking him well.
When Passau finished, Big Herbie Kruger let out a long sigh, like a man who has been told good news, seen light at the end of a tunnel, or learned that he is suffering from indigestion, not cancer after all.
A couple of minutes later there was a tap on the door, and a voice called out. “Your people’re here, Mr. Kruger.”
Herbie lumbered towards the door. “Get one of them to identify himself.”
Then, Young Worboys, loud and clear, “Herb, we’ve got the transport. I’ve come with a team. Art wants your guts for garters, so I’ve kept him away.”
“Got a lot to tell you, Tony. Got things’ll make your hair curl.” For the first time in hours, Big Herbie started to laugh. He sounded much too cheerful.
(4)
THE PLACE EVERYONE in the British Intelligence Service speaks of as “Warminster” lies a little to the southeast of the old garrison town of that name, and ten miles or so from Stonehenge in Wiltshire.
It is a large, sprawling Georgian house, enclosed by thick hedges, stone walls and screens of trees, standing in more than a hundred acres of garden, meadow and woodland. Within its walls several generations of men and women have been trained to fight the secret wars—in particular, the now-dormant Cold War.
There are other buildings spread around what was once the parkland of some minor squire, including the fine underground, so-called, guest quarters. These are beautifully maintained and were built during the era of a high secret vote, when the Firm was rich and nothing was too good for the intelligence community. Countless defectors have felt the first flush of western democracy in the guest quarters, and many people have, as the jargon says, come in from the cold, to the warmth of those same little suites under the good Wiltshire earth.
From outside the house, the complex can only be identified by a large oblong mound of grass, on top of which stands a small building, housing the air-conditioning and heating plants. Access to it is via the cellars of the old main house: a wide and high tunnel leading into a kind of reception hall, from which flow several corridors. At first the guest quarters appear to have the ambiance of a private hospital. There are clean white walls and soft carpets, over which people move soundlessly. The decoration throughout is peaceful, designed to embrace its visitors in a loving warmth, and so put them at ease. The few paintings which adorn the walls are of calm and welcoming subjects: mainly watercolors—seascapes, quaint villages sitting on rocky headlands, landscapes of rolling downland, or plowed fields; views of childhood when there was more time to suck in and retain a picture of the beauties of rural England.
There are four luxury suites within the complex, each with bedrooms, sitting room and kitchen; well-furnished, with a kind of taste seldom associated with the secret world. Each of these suites contains television, VCR, radio and stereo systems. The TVs and radios are switchable, controlled by the guardians of this debriefing center, so that the occupants do not necessarily have direct access to current BBC or ITV channels. There are times when those who stay within the guest quarters are better off not knowing anything about events in the real world.
As a further security, all four suites can be blocked off from one another, so
that the temporary residents cannot fraternize, or even see one another. There are also three interrogation rooms: one hard, one soft and another for what the Russian Intelligence Service used to call “chemicals.” The hard room is bare, but for a table and two chairs, bolted firmly to the floor. The soft room has the same soothing paintings visible in the rest of the bunker; easy chairs, a large glass-topped table, and speakers through which music can be piped. The third room is sterile—white tiles, large overhead lights—an operating theater. People who have worked there say their first impression is that of an abortion clinic, which is not far from the mark.
The convoy arrived at dawn and as they walked, or were shepherded, into the main house, most of them unconsciously caught the smells of autumn—woodsmoke hanging in the air and the afterscent of summer clashing with a hint of the hard winter to come.
Two of the four guest quarters were already occupied. Erik the Red still flatly refused to be eased back into the world, not believing most of what he was told about the way the old Soviet Union was splitting and being dragged into a new, uncertain era.
Ursula Zunder also remained there, for her debriefing would take several more months. In spite of communism having been declared D.O.A., the men and women of the British SIS were inclined to continue their research into the past, for who knew what was really happening to that great behemoth, the KGB? It was still possible that, in spite of assurances, the once black heart of the evil empire had simply changed its name and not its old function. As Louis Passau would have said, “Who knew?”
The old man, now creased with fatigue, showed signs of anxiety when they arrived, insisting that Herbie stay with him, as he was led through the tunnel to his new home. Yet once there he asked for Pucky to come in and help him to bed, a chore she performed reluctantly, for she had suffered enough of the Maestro’s dexterous hands. When he had settled in, however, he seemed more quiescent: calm and less nervous about his future.
They brought in one of the service doctors who gave the old man a thorough going over, pronouncing him amazingly fit for his age, with a mental ability uneroded by the years. Herbie muttered something about being able to have told them that without recourse to doctors. In the end, the old man drifted off to sleep, his room monitored by a nurse—who was more than a nurse—sitting at a bank of television screens.
The guest quarters at Warminster, the old hands said, were the last state-of-the-secret-art buildings in the United Kingdom. Others would agree, for the true center of Warminster—the big old Georgian house—presented a different face: the smell of old schoolrooms, peeling paintwork, patches of rising damp, creaking floorboards, scuffed and utilitarian furniture. These were the outward and visible signs of decay reflecting the inward and spiritual decline of the espionage business.
By eight thirty, the protagonists were seated in the big, drafty old dining room where so many classes of trainees had breakfasted before them. They ate scrambled eggs, drank thick black coffee, chewed on toast and marmalade, the weariness taking its toll and giving most of them a sense of distance from reality akin to an out-of-body experience.
Young Worboys disappeared, only to return at nine o’clock to banish all but Herbie and Pucky, together with Gus Keene and his wife, Carole—the master inquisitors. The tapes were handed over to Carole, who bore them away, almost salivating, safe in the knowledge that two trained transcribers were already on their way from London.
At nine fifteen, Art Railton arrived, glaring at Herbie as he entered the room.
“You don’t know what damage you did,” he snapped at Kruger.
Herbie simply projected his daft smile and muttered, “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen.”
“Could’ve got us all killed, Herb. Bloody stupid. Why’d you do it?”
“Had a feeling. Intuition. Thought they were close.”
Art looked away, his anger subsiding, a telltale flush creeping up his cheeks. “How’d you do it, Herb?”
Kruger told him, in half a dozen precise sentences.
“What time did you get out?”
“Two thirty. Maybe five minutes either way. I did right, Art? Yes?”
Reluctantly Arthur Railton nodded, then gave his old friend a sheepish smile. “They got to the apartment at about four in the morning.”
Big Herbie gave one of his “I-told-you-so” sighs. “See, Art. If I’d talked about it, you’d have had a gunfight at the K.O. Corral …”
“Okay, Herb.”
“Sure. What happened?”
“We realized you’d gone. Around three thirty one of the boys went over because the listeners got anxious. When I was sure, we began to get ourselves together. Going to try and pick up your trail. Then they came. Two of them.”
“You identify them?”
“No. Not worth it. Not worth the hassle. They picked the locks, went in, and found the birds had flown.”
“You tape their conversation?”
“Only heard them moving about. They didn’t speak inside four walls. Knew what they were doing.”
Herbie gave a knowing nod. It was typical Russian trade-craft. They loathed to even whisper anything compromising within a safe house. He had been surprised that Ursula—Passau’s Therese—had been allowed to talk openly in the Lexington Avenue apartment, though even she did a routine with an electronic bug detector every time she went in.
“Then they left. Quickly and very quietly,” Art continued. “If you’d stayed, we might have nabbed them,” trying to talk himself into a grudge once more.
“Art, is better the way it happened.”
Young Worboys coughed, catching their attention, suggesting they should go into one of the more comfortable rooms. “The Chief’s out of the country,” he told them, kneading his hands together uncomfortably. “I spoke with him a little while ago. He can’t get back for a week—Brussels. Economic Community talks on intelligence requirements.”
They waited, looking at him, their eyes wary and mocking. “So, I’m in charge,” he said finally. “There’s a signal from him back at the Shop. I insisted he put it in writing. I am to use my discretion. Take the initiative.”
“He doesn’t want to know,” Art half whispered, and Gus Keene nodded. There would be a general election at some point in the next twelve months. The Labour Party, the now-watered-down Socialists, had made a vow to bring the SIS to heel should they be elected to government. British Intelligence would find itself muzzled, hemmed in by Whitehall watchdogs, its fangs drawn, and its cash flow reduced to a trickle. The Chief wanted nothing to come back to haunt him should that happen.
“Covering his arse,” Herbie said, getting up and stretching.
They all went into one of the smaller anterooms. There were old, fraying armchairs and a settee, a scratched table, circa 1949, covered with periodicals. Two framed posters hung on the wall, remnants of 1939-45. “Careless Talk Costs Lives”; “Be Like Dad! Keep Mum!”
They spread themselves out, Herbie taking over the old settee, stretching himself on it, draping his big legs over one end. From this relatively comfortable position he took charge. Nobody stopped him, neither Art Railton nor Young Worboys even attempting to regain control. Kruger, on that morning, demonstrated that he was the one person there who knew the score, had the experience, and was willing to take the ball and run, as their American relatives would have said.
He talked for an hour, giving them a brilliant précis of the life and times of Louis Passau. He left nothing out, and added little asides which constituted his reading of the situation. Occasionally Pucky or Art would throw out a fast one-liner, encouraging or bearing out Kruger’s final analysis.
When he came to an end, stopping short of the other facts he had learned in the faded splendor of the Buckingham Hotel, Gus Keene began to chuckle, while Worboys could not resist an almost conspiratorial smile. It was Worboys who first broke the silence.
“Serve them right,” he said with some vigor. “Serve them bloody right. They’ve spent years bein
g toffee-nosed with us; telling us that we could never share their entire product; that we were like a bloody Swiss cheese, riddled with holes. Now it turns out they’ve spent the past thirty years with their Soviet Office leaking all over the Kremlin’s carpets.”
“Marty always was a clever bugger,” from Art, leaning forward in his chair, reaching for the umpteenth cigarette. “They really showed incredible taste, choosing a man like Passau to be their messenger boy. Who was ever going to suspect a great musician like Passau?”
“They got some help.” Herbie turned, looked Art in the eye. “They had help when they came across his indiscretions during the war. The Nazi tie-in. When we take Louis back down that road, which is something that has to be done, I think we’ll find he gave the Germans very little. He does have a conscience, after all, though we’ll need to search for it. I don’t think he ever intended, or had the means, to sell out anything really juicy.”
“You truly think he was an innocent from the sixties onward?” Gus Keene fiddled with his pipe. “You think he believed what Marty, Alfoot, de Paul and Bains fed him?”
“For a long time, sure. Sure, I think he did.” Big Herbie frowned. When he frowned it was more like a scowl and the corners of his mouth seemed to be attached, by hidden wires, running to his forehead. “For a very long time—I guess until the early eighties—he imagined he was doing the United States a favor, helping to send disinformation into the Kremlin and acting as a channel for genuine intelligence coming all the way from Moscow. When he finally caught on, it was too late for him to back down. Louis also has a remarkable sense of survival. Luck and the devil play only a small part. He probably began by suspecting, then, later, knew with no doubt that he was being used. Is what he seems to be saying.”
At long last, Gus Keene lit his pipe, his head surrounded by a cloud of smoke so that when he spoke it was almost a disembodied voice. “Ursula maintains that she definitely wanted out by 1987 or eighty-eight.”
Kruger gave a grunt—irritated and heavy with disbelief. “Then why didn’t she come over? Little Ursula could have done a walk-in any time she wanted, yet she waits until now.”