The Geneva Trap

Chapter 2

Russell White sat in the locker room with his head in his hands. Though he played tennis regularly twice a week, today for some reason he felt exhausted. His heart was racing and he was still breathing fast ten minutes after the game had finished. He must be putting on weight or perhaps it was just his age – forty-five next week. But that wasn’t old. The game on the indoor courts was always faster than on grass, but it would be weeks before the Geneva spring was far enough advanced for the outside courts to be used. He must cut down the alcohol and change his diet.

His tennis partner and colleague Terry Castle emerged, whistling, from the showers. ‘You OK, old chap?’ He nodded and Terry went on whistling as he put on his clothes – the informal uniform of soft wool jacket, open-necked shirt and slip-on shoes which the younger diplomats favoured.

‘If you’re sure, I’ll rush off. Got a meet in twenty minutes. See you back at the Station.’ He slung his bag over his shoulder and strode out.

White watched the younger man go, envying him his lean figure and jaunty attitude to life. He got up slowly, showered and dressed carefully. He himself still favoured the traditional Foreign Office style – a well-cut striped cotton shirt from Hilditch & Key in Jermyn Street, a blue worsted suit made by a tailor he’d been frequenting for years, and polished brogues.

He was standing in front of the mirror adjusting his Travellers Club tie when he saw the reflection of a man in tennis whites emerge silently from between the line of lockers behind him. Something about the man’s sudden appearance made his back crawl. He swung round to face the man, surprised he hadn’t realised there was anyone else in the room. The tall figure had prominent cheekbones and dark hair brushed back from a high forehead. He walked straight towards White, who drew back slightly against the mirror as he approached. The man just brushed by him before turning towards the door to the courts. As he passed he said in a low voice what sounded to White like, ‘I want to speak to Lees Carlisle.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ said White to the man’s receding back, wondering if he’d been mistaken for someone else.

The man turned, with his hand on the door, and said again, ‘I want to speak to Lees Carlisle. Only her. No one else.’ Then he left the locker room and the door swung shut behind him.

Russell White stood for a moment, fingering his tie and thinking hard. He could have sworn he’d never seen the man before. What did he want? And who on earth was Lees Carlisle, if that was what he’d said? A woman. He’d definitely said ‘her’. It seemed utterly bizarre.

Unless… it was an approach?

‘Of course it was an approach,’ said Terry Castle, when White told his story. Terry was junior to Russell White in the Service, but he was never slow to offer an opinion. ‘He’s trying to make contact.’

‘Funny way to make it, but you may be right.’ They were sitting in White’s office in the small suite of rooms in the British Mission in Geneva. Though relations between Foreign Office staff and MI6 officers in the Station were excellent, the Station’s first line of communication was to the green-and-white MI6 Headquarters building in Vauxhall Cross in London.

White thought himself lucky to have been left as Geneva’s Head of Station for five years. Though it wasn’t everyone’s ideal posting, he loved it. He loved the old town; he loved the easy access to the countryside and the mountains, where he rented a small chalet, ideal for skiing weekends or summer walking. And he enjoyed the diplomatic round and the ease with which you could pick up gossip or inside information, which could be turned into intelligence reports for home consumption. The Station was regarded as a success and he flattered himself that he contributed a good deal to its reputation. But this style of approach, if that’s what it was, was new to him.

‘Did you recognise the guy?’ asked Terry. ‘He must know who you are. He’s not going to make an approach to just any old Brit.’

‘No. I’m sure I’ve never seen him at the club before. Or anywhere else that I can remember. Pass me the Mug Book and I’ll see if he’s in it.’

Terry reached into the open safe in the corner of the room and plonked a large leather-covered album on White’s desk. Inside, each page held rows of photographs, with identifying captions typed on labels underneath. The people caught on camera, usually without their knowledge, were individuals either known to be or suspected of being intelligence officers. Unsurprisingly, given its importance as an international hub, there were a great many of these in Geneva.

Most nations were represented. Many of the recent photographs were of the Chinese, whose trade delegation had swollen disproportionately in recent years – a transparent cover for industrial espionage. But there were Middle Easterners, Russians, even other Europeans – the Station liked to know its friends as well as its competitors and targets. White leafed through page after page without pausing, then suddenly stopped.

‘Here we go. That’s him,’ he said, jabbing a finger at a black-and-white photograph. He was pointing to a small group of people, some sort of a delegation perhaps, one of the countless number that went in and out of the various international organisations which Geneva hosted, their buildings dotted around the lake. UNESCO, the WHO, the ITO, the UN itself – so much activity, thought White, with so little result.

‘Third chap from the left,’ he said as Terry Castle came round the desk to have a look.

Castle peered at the picture and the caption below it. ‘So, he’s a Russian. Looks it too.’

The man in the photograph was wearing a suit rather than tennis gear, but the receding hairline was in evidence, and the same high Slavic cheekbones. White read the caption aloud. ‘Alexander Sorsky. Second Secretary, Soviet Trade Delegation.’

‘I bet he is,’ said Castle sarcastically. ‘So what does he want to talk to us about? Talk about a blast from the past. It’s just like the old Cold War days, huh?’

White gave him a look. Terry Castle was less than ten years his junior, but he liked to pretend that Russell White was a dinosaur from the pre-Glasnost era. White said pointedly, ‘I wouldn’t know. The Cold War was before my time. Anyway, that identifies our mysterious stranger. I’d better get on to Vauxhall pronto.’

‘What about this person he said he wanted to talk to? Are you sure you got the name right? Lees something, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes. Lees Carlisle, it sounded like.’ White shook his head. ‘I’ve checked the Service Directory, but there’s nothing that looks at all like it. There’s Lees Armstrong in Bangkok, but he definitely said “her” and it certainly sounded like “Carlisle”. I don’t know who the hell he’s talking about.’