‘I was wondering about that,’ said Bret.
‘There’s no need to be sarcastic.’
‘Forgive me. I didn’t intend to be.’
‘Could you switch off some of these lights? The glare is giving me a headache.’
‘You said it! I hate fluorescent lighting but this place is used as an office. They are all on the same switch.’
‘I want nothing for what I’ve told you. Nothing at all.’
‘But?’
‘But if you want me to go back there, it’s only fair that I get something in return.’
‘What do you have in mind?’
‘A passport for my five-year-old son.’
‘Ahhh!’ said Bret in what was unmistakably a groan of agony as he envisaged the arguments that he would have to endure to get a passport for someone not entitled to one. Those professional obstructionists he dealt with in Whitehall would work overtime producing excuses to say no to that one.
‘It will cost you nothing,’ said Miranda.
‘I know,’ said Bret in a soft warm voice. ‘It’s a modest enough request, Mrs Keller. I’ll probably be able to do it.’
‘If I don’t go to Rome tomorrow, or next day at the latest, I’ll have a lot of explaining to do.’
‘You’re British. I would have thought that your son could claim British nationality.’
‘I was born in Austria. My father was on a five-year contract there. My son was born in Berlin: I can’t pass my citizenship on to him.’
‘That’s a lousy break,’ said Bret. ‘I’ll do what I can.’ He brightened as a sudden solution came to mind. Maybe a counterfeit passport would do: he wouldn’t say it was counterfeit of course. ‘I suppose any Western passport would serve to get him out of there: Irish Republic, Brazil, Guatemala, Belize or Paraguay.’
The woman looked at him suspiciously. ‘Providing I got a certificated right to reside in Great Britain, but I don’t want some Mickey Mouse passport that I have to renew every two or three years and bribe some embassy official every time I do it.’
Bret nodded assent. ‘Do you have suitable photos of your son?’
‘Yes.’ From her handbag she took three passport pictures and passed them to him together with a piece of paper upon which she had written the other necessary description.
‘So you had this planned before you left Berlin?’
‘These Russian pigs are intolerable,’ said Miranda. ‘I always carry passport pictures.’
How enterprising, thought Bret. ‘That’s about all we can do right now,’ he said. ‘Leave it all with me. How can I contact you in East Berlin?’
‘I’ll need the passport,’ said Miranda. ‘Until I have the passport in my hand I’ll do nothing for you.’
Bret looked at her. She was an intelligent woman. She must have realized that if she went back to the East she was delivering herself into his hands. But she gave no sign of that: she was one of those people who expected everyone to act fairly. It was good to know that such people still existed: Bret would not disabuse her at this stage. ‘Would you accept a small payment?’
‘I just want the passport for my son.’
‘Okay, Mrs Keller. I’ll do everything I can to get it for you.’
‘I’m sure you will,’ she said.
‘One last, and vitally important thing, Mrs Keller. The woman you met in Berlin, Mrs Fiona Samson, is a KGB officer. She is a very smart woman. Don’t underestimate her.’
‘Are you saying she works for Russian intelligence?’
‘Very much so. Mean, I should have said: a mean and dangerous woman. Under no circumstances should you confide anything to her.’
‘No, I won’t.’
‘So it wasn’t a complete waste of time, Bret?’ The D-G was making one of his rare visits to Bret Rensselaer’s magnificent monochrome office. He sat on the black leather chesterfield picking at the buttons and determined not to smoke.
There were times when the D-G’s distant joviality reminded Bret of Sassoon’s World War One general: ‘“He’s a cheery old card,” grunted Harry to Jack…But he did for them both with his plan of attack.’
‘No, sir. Very instructive,’ said Bret, who was sitting behind his glass-topped desk wearing a white shirt and spotted bow tie.
‘It was a plan to kill Bernard Samson?’
‘That is her story.’
‘And this other young man was killed instead?’
‘Yes, but she doesn’t know that. And of course I didn’t tell her.’
‘Did Samson report being approached by this black girl?’
‘No, sir, he did not.’ Bret tidied the papers on his desk, although they didn’t need tidying.
‘And what else did the house in Bosham reveal? Have your chaps reported back to you?’
‘I have done nothing about the house in Bosham, and I intend to do nothing.’
After a deliberately audible intake of breath, the Director-General stared at him, thought about it, and finally said, ‘Very prudent, Bret.’
‘I’m glad you approve, Sir Henry.’
‘Where is Samson?’
‘Samson is alive and well.’
‘You didn’t warn him?’
‘No, sir. I sent him away on a job.’
‘Yes, that was wise.’ He sniffed. ‘So they acted on Mrs Samson’s information about the Bosham safe house. They were quick off the mark on that one. Ummm.’
‘We come out of it very well, sir.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t keep saying that, Bret. We’re not out of it yet. I don’t like the fact that Samson didn’t report back that approach. Do you think he believed it was his wife in the back of that car?’
‘Yes, probably. But Samson thinks before he acts. All these ex-field people become ultra-cautious: that’s why we have to retire them.’
‘You’d better make sure Mrs Samson knows about this impersonation.’ He sniffed. ‘So Bernard Samson didn’t report any of it. I don’t like that, Bret.’
‘No, sir, but there is no reason to think that Samson is in any way disloyal. Or contemplating disloyalty.’
‘This Mrs Keller, is she a potential agent for us?’
‘No, sir. Out of the question.’
‘But we can use her?’
‘I don’t see how. Not at present anyway.’
‘Did you get photos of her?’
‘Yes, the Kensington office is good from that point of view. Lots of good clear pictures.’
The D-G tapped his fingers on the leather arm of the chesterfield. ‘On the matter of safe houses, Bret. When we agreed that Mrs Samson should reveal the existence of the Bosham safe house, I understood that it was to be kept under surveillance.’
Bret pursed his lips, feeling that he was being admonished for something outside his frame of reference. He said, ‘At present my hands are tied…but when it becomes safe to do so, disciplinary action will be taken.’
‘I do hope so, Bret. But the scheme is to just wait until the housekeeping people go into the Bosham safe house on a routine check-up and find the body?’
‘That’s right, sir.’
‘Good.’ He produced an encouraging smile, albeit humourless. ‘And now this KGB fellow Stinnes. Silas is pestering me about him. He says we mustn’t let his approach grow cold.’
‘I thought that might be what you wanted to talk about, sir,’ said Bret, diving down into a document case. From it he brought a red cardboard file which he opened to display a concertina of that grey angular computer printout that the D-G found difficult to read. And then he found four 10 × 8 inch shiny photos of Stinnes. Reaching across he placed them on the glass-topped desk where the D-G could see them, but the D-G didn’t crane his neck to look closely.
The photos were arranged side by side with finicky care. It was so typical of Bret Rensselaer, with his boundless faith in charts, graphs, graphics and projections, that he should bring photos of this damned Russian out at this meeting as if that would help them towards a sound decision
. ‘Has he provided any evidence of good faith?’ asked the D-G.
‘He told Samson that Moscow have broken the new diplomatic code. That’s why we did everything “by hand of messenger”.’
The D-G extended a finger and touched one of the photos as though it might have been impregnated with some contagious disease. ‘You believe him?’
‘You probably spoke with Silas Gaunt,’ said Bret, who wanted to know the lie of the land before committing himself to an opinion.
‘Silas has got a bee in his bonnet about this one. I was looking for a more sober assessment.’
Bret did not want to say something that would afterwards be quoted against him. Slowly he said, ‘If Stinnes and his offer to defect is a Moscow stunt…’
The D-G finished the sentence for him. ‘The way we have reacted will make those chaps in Moscow feel very good, eh Bret?’
‘I try to disregard any personal feelings of triumph or disaster when making decisions of that sort, Sir Henry.’
‘And quite right too.’
‘If Stinnes is doing this on Moscow’s orders, he’d be more likely to bring us some secret document that we’d be tempted to transmit verbatim, or at least in sequence.’
‘So that they could compare it and break our code? Yes, I suppose so. So you think he’s genuine?’
‘Silas thinks it doesn’t matter; Silas thinks we should work on him, and send him back believing what we want them to believe over there.’ Bret waited for the reaction and was still ready to jump either way. But he could tell that the D-G was attracted by this idea.
After a moment’s pause for thought, the D-G said, ‘I don’t want you to discuss this with Silas for the time being.’
‘Very well, Sir Henry.’
‘And in course of time, separate Stinnes from Cruyer and Samson and everyone else. This is for you to do alone, Bret. One to one, you and Stinnes. We have to have one person who understands the whole game and all its minutiae and ramifications. One person is enough, and that person must be you.’
Bret put the photos and the printout back into his case. The D-G made agitated movements that indicated he was about to terminate the meeting. ‘Before I go, Bret, one aspect of this…’
‘Yes?’
‘Would you say that Bernard Samson has ever killed a man?’
Bret was surprised, and for a moment he allowed it to show. ‘I imagine he has, sir. In fact…well, I know…Yes, many times.’
‘Exactly, Bret. And now we are subjecting him to a considerable burden of anxiety, aren’t we?’
Bret nodded.
‘A man like Samson might not have the resilience that you would be able to show in such circumstances. He might take things into his own hands.’
‘I suppose he might.’ Bret was doubtful.
‘I saw Samson the other day. He’s taking it badly.’
‘Do you want me to give him sick leave, or a vacation?’
‘Certainly not: that would be the worst thing you could do for the poor fellow. It would give him time to sit and think. I don’t want him to sit and think, Bret.’
‘Would you give me some idea of what…?’
‘Suppose he came to the conclusion that his wife had betrayed him, and betrayed his country. That she’d abandoned his children and made a fool of him? Might he not then decide to do to her what he’s done to so many others?’
‘Kill her? But wait a minute, Sir Henry. In fact she hasn’t done that, has she?’
‘And that leads us on to another aspect of the horrible position that Samson now finds himself in.’ The D-G heaved himself up out of the low seat. Bret got to his feet and watched but decided against offering him assistance. The D-G said, ‘Samson is asking a lot of questions. Suppose he discovers the truth? Might it not seem to him that we have played a cruel prank on him? And done it with callous indifference? He discovers that we have not confided in him: he feels rejected and humiliated. He is a man trained to respond violently to his opponents. Might he not decide to wreak vengeance upon us?’
‘I don’t think so, Sir Henry. Samson is a civilized man.’ Bret went across the office and held the door open for him.
‘Is he?’ said the D-G in that cheery way he could summon so readily. ‘Then he hasn’t been properly trained.’
17
East Berlin. November 1983.
To the façade of the building in Karl Liebknecht Strasse a dozen workmen were affixing a huge red banner, ‘Long Live Our Socialist Fatherland’. The previous one that had promised both prosperity and peace was faded to light pink by the sun.
From the window of Fiona Samson’s office there were only the tassels to be glimpsed, but part of the framework for the new banner cut across the window and reduced the daylight. ‘I’ve always wanted to go to America,’ admitted Hubert Renn as he picked up the papers from her desk.
‘Have you, Herr Renn? Why?’ She drank her tea. She must not leave it for it was real Indian tea, not the tasteless USSR stuff from the Georgian crop. She wondered where Renn had found it but she didn’t ask.
‘Curiosity, Frau Direktor. It is a land of contradictions.’
‘It is a repressive society,’ said Fiona, dutiful to the line she always took. ‘A land where workers are enslaved.’
‘But they are such an enigmatic people,’ said Renn. He replaced the cap on his fountain-pen and put it in his pocket. ‘Do you know, Frau Direktor, when, during the war against Hitler, the Americans began to drop secret agents into Germany, the very first of those parachutists were members of the ISK?’
‘Der Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund?’ She had never heard of that organization until Renn had mentioned that his mother had been a member, and then she’d looked it up in the reference library.
‘Yes, ISK, the most radical of all the parties. Why would the Americans select such people? It was as if our friends in Moscow had sent to us, as Stalin’s emissaries, White Russian nobility.’
She laughed. Renn gave a skimpy selfconscious grin. There had been a time when such remarks by Renn would have suggested to her that he might be sympathetic to the USA, but now she knew better. If there was anything of his attitude to be deduced from his remarks it was a criticism of Russia rather than praise for the US. Renn was a dedicated disciple of Marx and his theories. As Renn saw it, Karl Marx the incomparable prophet and source of all true enlightenment was a German sage. Any small inconsistencies and imperfections that might be encountered in the practice of socialism – and Renn had never admitted to there being any – were due to the essentially Russian failures of Lenin and Stalin.
But Fiona had learned to live with Hubert Renn’s blind devotion to Marxist socialism, and there was no doubt that daily contact with him had opened up to her a world that she had never truly perceived.
There were for instance the regular letters that arrived from Renn’s twenty-two-year-old daughter Lisa, her father’s great pride. Lisa had taken the learning of the Russian language in her stride and gone on to postgraduate work in marine biology – one of the postgraduate courses the regime permitted to female students – in the University at Irkutsk, near Lake Baikal. The deepest lake in the world, it contains more fresh water than all the North American lakes put together. This region supported flora and fauna not found anywhere else. And yet until Renn had showed her the letter from his daughter she’d not even known where Lake Baikal was! How much more was there to know?
‘I will confide a secret,’ Renn announced when she gave him back the chatty letter he’d just received from his daughter.
‘What is it, Herr Renn?’
‘You are to get an award, Frau Direktor.’
‘An award? I’ve heard nothing of it.’
‘The nature of the award has still to be decided but your heroic years in England working for the revolution will be marked by an award. Moscow has said yes and now there might also be a medal from the DDR too.’
‘I am overwhelmed, Herr Renn.’
‘It is overdue, Frau
Direktor Samson.’
Renn had been surprised at the way in which Fiona had settled in to her Berlin job. He didn’t realize to what extent Fiona’s English background had prepared her for the communist regime. Her boarding school had very quickly taught her to hide every human feeling: triumph, disappointment, glee, love or shame. Her authoritarian father had demonstrated the art of temporizing and the value of the soft reply. Her English middle-class background – with its cruel double-meanings, oblique questions and humiliating indifference – had provided the final graduation that amply fitted her for East Berlin’s dangers. And of course Renn had no inkling of Fiona’s bouts of depression, her ache for her children and the hours of suicidal despair and loneliness.
Hair drawn back in a style that was severe and yet not unbecoming, her face scrubbed and with very little makeup, Fiona, with the slight Berlin accent that she now applied to her everyday speech, had become accepted as a regular member of the KGB/Stasi team. Her office was not in the main building in Normannenstrasse, Berlin-Lichtenberg. As Renn had pointed out, to be one of the horde coming out of that big Stasi building at the end of the day’s work, to fight your way down into the Magdalenenstrasse U-Bahn and wait for a train, was not something to yearn for.
There were many advantages to being in Karl Liebknecht Strasse. It was in the Mitte, only a stone’s throw from the shops, bars and theatres, and Unter den Linden ran right into it. What the cunning old Hubert Renn really meant of course was that it was near the other government offices to which he had to go on foot, and convenient to the Alexanderplatz S-Bahn which took him home.
‘I ordered a car for fourteen-thirty,’ said Renn. He stopped to admire the fur-lined coat that Fiona had just bought. Not wanting to attract too much speculation about her finances, Fiona had debated about what sort of winter coat she should wear. Hubert Renn had solved the problem by getting permission for her to buy, with DDR currency, one of the fancy coats normally only on sale to foreign visitors. ‘You have a meeting at the clinic for nervous diseases at fifteen hundred,’ said Renn. ‘I’ll make sure the driver knows where to go. Pankow: near where the Autobahn ends. It’s a maze of little streets: easy to get lost.’