Archangel

Chapter 18

Security's surveillance operation had been in place a full week before word of it seeped across central London to the desk belonging to Alan Millet in the East European section at Century.

A chauffeur of the Soviet Trade Delegation, working out of their Highgate office, was the target of attention. •

Late on a Monday afternoon, the memorandum requesting basic help reached Alan Millet.

A guarded little memorandum, giving little, telling less.

It was by chance that the contact had been made with the chauffeur. Routine. A leading aircraftman from the Royal Air Force base on the island of Anglesey had actually been idiot enough to write a letter to the Trade Delegation offering information for cash. And what sort of information could an L A C offer from miserable old Anglesey? An RAF station for the Hawk trainer, where once in a blue moon a squadron of Phantoms called in for low-level flying over the Irish Sea. Who would want information about such a stereotyped aircraft? There could hardly be anything in the Hawk's makeup that the Soviets didn't already know. And a fool of an L A C had dipped his nib and written off. The Soviets had sent one of the Delegation chauffeurs on a cheap day excursion from Euston to Holyhead. That was three days after the LAC's letter had been steamed open in the basement room of the Post Office sorting building at Mount Pleasant. Special Branch had been asked to pull a man off the ferry watch to Ireland to provide the muscle up at the far end of the line. An SB sergeant had phoned in his report while the chauffeur was slogging back to London via Chester, Crew, Stafford and Rugby. The LAC and the chauffeur had met for half an hour and no papers had been exchanged.

The LAC's bank manager yielded up reluctantly the details of an overdraft of?672.89, an RAF Special Investigation Branch officer reported that the L A C had recently been on an insubordination charge, and that his wife was pregnant yet again. A boring little creep… and SB would probably have been left to handle it in their own sweet way if the LAC hadn't gone sick two days later and made a trip to London and been identified by the watchers at Euston, picked up by the Soviets, taken to lunch in a Wimpy bar and gone for a walk in Regent's Park with the friendly chauffeur. The L A C travelled home to his red bank balance and his bulging wife and his engine maintenance. The chauffeur returned to work and the residential compound in north London. SB in Wales could look after the LAC, Security struggled with their manpower problems to maintain a 24-hour surveillance on the chauffeur. Nine men working three eight-hour shifts. Gave the buggers something to do, Millet thought, and about all they were fit for.

They might have elaborated on the memorandum, they might have flashed more images onto the single page of typescript than had been intended by its authors.

Security wanted to know if the chauffeur figured on Century's computer. Was the rank of chauffeur a cover? No Major of KGB covert intelligence seemed to give a shit what his title was abroad.

Millet had taken the lift down to the Library. A bit archaic, calling it the Library. Precious few books there. The central floor area was set with Visual Display Units. He had typed out the chauffeur's name, but got back damn all in return. Nothing on the chauffeur in Century's machines.

There was a silly small smile on Millet's face when he went back to the lift late that Monday afternoon. The button he pressed took the lift past the floor where East European was housed, to the office of the Deputy Under Secretary.

He stood in front of Maude Frobisher's desk, a suspicious and unhappy owl behind her hornrims.

'I have to see him, Miss Frobisher.'

'He's clearing his desk because he has an early engagement this evening.'

'I have to see him.' if you listened to me, Mr Millet, I said he was clearing his desk.'

'I'll go in.'

Millet strode past her desk, was confronted by the closed door, hesitated, then knocked. A respectful little tap. Miss Frobisher's displeasure pierced his back. He heard the muffled call. He couldn't help himself, he fingered his tie straight. But it was a bloody good idea.

Nothing wrong with this idea at all.

'I'm at an FCO dinner tonight. Our Lord and Master will be there. I could raise the matter quietly, Millet.' it's because we've nothing in the bank to pay for Holly at the moment, sir, but we could have. We could get this wretched little driver. Nine times out of ten their operatives have diplomatic immunity, and all we can do is shove them back onto the Aeroflot. But the chauffeur doesn't have diplomatic immunity. We can hold him, we can charge and imprison him. Then we'll have currency to pay for Holly.' it's not the most imaginative of concepts, going back twice to pee against the same tree trunk. Shouldn't we learn a new trick?'

'I couldn't think of another trick, sir.' Millet gazed unhappily across the Deputy Under Secretary's desk. 'I just thought that this way offered us the chance of a positive reaction to Michael Holly's situation.'

'Another swap… ' The Deputy Under Secretary tapped his pen cap on the desk top. it's a plausible programme.'

'You told me I should not forget him.' indeed, I told you that. In fact, I said more than that. I said I'd break your neck if you ever forgot him.' •

'We're not forgetting him, if we pull the chauffeur in.'

'I'm at the FCO tonight for dinner with the Secretary of State, then I'm away for a fortnight. I've an hour and a half before I leave here, so come and see me before I go.

Meanwhile, talk to Security. I have to know their attitude before I'll take it any further.' is that quite necessary?'

'I've said what I'll do, and I've said what I want from you.

I'll be waiting to hear from you, Mr Millet.'

'Does it have your support, sir?'

'You're wasting the limited time that is available to you, Mr Millet.'

They shook hands. It was nearly dark and the paths in St James's gleamed from the yellow sodium lights and the slow drizzle of rain. Security had requested that Millet should meet the man in the park.

'Doubtfire's the name.'

'I'm Millet. We've met somewhere.'

'I'm stuck in a bloody office all day; that's why I suggested we meet here. Nothing spooky, just that I get bugger all opportunity of fresh air. I hope you don't mind… I gave you a lift back from Hammersmith a few weeks ago, after the Soviet snuffed.'

'I remember.'

'I bought a couple of buns on the way over, for the ducks.

They don't get much to eat in this weather. If you don't mind, we'll walk beside the lake.'

'I don't mind where we walk.'

At the lakeside among the ducks Doubtfire tore chunks from the buns, kneaded them into crumbs and flung these into the air above the rampage of birds.

They started to walk, and Doubtfire crumpled his bag into a ball and dropped it carefully into a wire rubbish bin.

'What can I do for you, Mr Millet?'

'You sent in today a request for a search on a Highgate chauffeur. We're quite interested. What I mean is that we're quite interested in any Soviet who's misbehaving at the moment and who is not covered by immunity.'

'Why?'

'We think we could benefit from the situation.'

'And what the hell does that mean?'

'That if a Soviet without diplomatic immunity were to receive an Official Secrets Act conviction we would benefit from it.'

'And you're asking me… '

'To pick him up, bring him in.' it was a request for information, Mr Millet, not a bloody invitation for your lot to horn in.'

'There's no need to be offensive, Mr Doubtfire.' it's interference.' it's a request for a spy to be charged and convicted on the evidence you already hold.' i'll give you some facts, Mr Millet, some facts of life.

There's no way this man will be picked up at the present time. From what we've seen of him he's a runaround, he's a nothing, too bloody small. We'll recommend no arrests until our Anglesey boy is a great deal higher up the ladder than a chauffeur contact. If we can nail someone at the top of the pecking order, then there'll be arrests

…'

'But anyone high will have immunity. That's the way they work.'

'I'll give you another fact, Mr Millet. Our concern is to prevent Soviet intelligence-gathering in the United Kingdom, simple enough brief. We don't give a hoot whether their operatives are in gaol here, or bound for home on an Aeroflot. Why do you want a man in gaol?'

'We'd like to be in the barter game.' Misery in Millet's admission.

'Who's so precious?'

'One of ours.'

'So we blow what might be interesting, what might be trivial, to bail you lot out?'

'That's the request, that you give us a body.' is your man important?'

'We want him home. He shouldn't be there.'

'Then he shouldn't have been sent.'

'That's history. And you playing a pompous shit doesn't rewrite it.'

Millet caught at Doubtfire's arm. The path around them was empty. The traffic murmured down the Mall behind the sentry line of trees.

'And he's your field man, Mr Millet?'

'Christ, and you're fast at seeing the light… I'm sorry.

He's my field man, and he shouldn't be there, and we want him home, and I have to report to the Deputy Under Secretary in twenty-five minutes, and my field man has in front of him fourteen years of Strict Regime in a Correctional Labour Colony. That's why I want a chauffeur without immunity charged and convicted.'

Doubtfire watched the water rippling around two fighting drakes. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and slowly, loudly, blew his nose, then folded it again and returned it to his trousers. The rainwater ran down his nose.

'Very eloquent, Mr Millet… I'll give you some more of the facts of life. Such a thing would be above Deputy Under Secretary and Director General level. That's a ministerial matter. If you want to involve the clowns, that's your affair.

Foreign Secretary will have to talk to Home Secretary.

That's how it will have to be.'

'We're supposed to be on the same side and fighting the same enemy, Mr Doubtfire.'

'An interesting concept – we'll just have to see if Home Office and Foreign Office agree.'

'Thanks for bugger all.'

'Not fair, Mr Millet. For someone who's cocked something rotten, I think we're being rather kind to you. I hope we can reach an agreement through the clowns. I'd hate to think of a man stuck in those camps for fourteen years with nothing to think about but the incompetence of the chappie who sent him.'

'You're a right bugger.'

'And that's better than being a failure, Mr Millet.'

They parted on the lakeside path, Millet striding fast back towards Century, Doubtfire ambling slowly in the direction of Charing Cross underground station.

Rocking with the motion of a puppet manipulated by uneven lengths of twine, the senior official of the Procurator General trailed his damaged foot along the corridor towards his superior's office. The Procurator General always worked late into the evening, and his senior official stayed close to the seat of power until the departure of the black limousine from the Ministry's courtyard. The senior official fed from the Procurator General's table, and he was not one to leave before every useful crumb had been gobbled.

He was only just in time.

'Yes?'

'I thought you would like to know, Comrade Procurator, that the men who escaped last night from ZhKh 385/3/1 have been recaptured… '

'That couldn't wait till the morning?' it was right that you should know the details at the earliest possible moment, since the escape involves State Security.'

'How is State Security involved in that crap pile?'

'One of the prisoners to break out was an Englishman, but of Soviet parentage, and serving fourteen years for espionage.'

'A fucking spy was allowed to break out?'

'You will remember I have drawn attention to Major Vasily Kypov's command twice in the past few weeks.

Events in that camp have shown a disturbing laxity. I have to report a certain criticism from State Security that a prisoner of such sensitivity should have been able to cut his way out of the camp.'

The Procurator General's gaze sharpened, in the face of this criticism, what is the wish of the State Security in relation to the spy?'

'He will be moved.'

'Soon?'

'Within a few days, when arrangements have been made.'

'And the criticism…?' it was sharp.'

'The prisoner will be in the punishment cells until he is moved?'

'Of course.'

'Thank you.'

'Good night, Comrade Procurator, I wish you a safe journey home.'

'I'm bored to tears with Intelligence. Do you understand me?'

The Foreign Secretary poked a bony index finger into the shirt front of the Deputy Under Secretary. They stood beside a curtained window away from the table where a dozen guests sat amongst brandy glasses and cigar smoke.

'Nevertheless I wanted to bring the matter to your attention before my departure for Washington.'

'You've let yourself down, man, you know that. Something pressing, you said, and I've a damned table full of people to look after. You reckon this is pressing? Eh? You're obsessed with Intelligence. You forget other people are not.'

The Foreign Secretary looked with longing over the shoulder of the Deputy Under Secretary towards his guests, the decanter, their conversation.

'So what do you want from me?'

'Only some sort of commitment.'

'Commitment to what?'

'To argue our corner with Security.'

'And supposing what you call "our corner" diverges from policy, the policy of Her Majesty's Government.'

'I don't understand you, sir.'

'Straightforward, I would have thought… Intelligence is covert warfare. I am responsible for gathering Intelligence, I am also responsible for diplomacy. Diplomacy is not a battleground, it is an exercise in building bridges of trust.'

'I don't understand you, sir.'

'Policy accepted by Cabinet is currently directed towards a renewal of detente between our side and the Soviets, in words of one syllable. If I support the dredging into custody of a nondescript Trade Delegation chauffeur and his subse-quent conviction in a blare of publicity, then I can hardly be accused of pursuing a policy of detente with enthusiasm.

Charge this driver and I'll lose the Parliamentary delegation to Moscow next week. Stands to reason that they have to retaliate… What's the name of this fellow you want back?

Remind me.'

'Michael Holly. He's there because of our mistake, Foreign Secretary.'

'Because of your department's mistake, I should ride across H M G policy?'

'We would greatly appreciate it if you would argue our corner with Security.'

'You're not prepared to forget about this young man, this Michael Holly?'

'I said to the desk officer who despatched him that if he ever forgot about Michael Holly I'd break his neck.'

With an involuntary and sharp little movement, the Foreign Secretary stepped back as if suddenly intimidated.

He gazed into the face of the Deputy Under Secretary but met only the clear hazel eyes, unblinking and without emotion. A slow smile spread across the Foreign Secretary's mouth.

'I believe you're bullying me, Deputy Under Secretary.'

'Sir?'

'I'll argue your corner.'

'Thank you, sir.' if you hadn't used that one word, I would never have agreed. Whenever the time comes I would like to meet this Holly who so stirred the conscience of the Service.' if you're sure you wouldn't be bored, sir.'

They laughed together, in quiet conspiracy. And the pointed fingers of the Foreign Secretary tapped on the Deputy Under Secretary's shoulder in happy rhythm at the secrecy of their joke.

Millet was a lonely passenger off the last train.

It was more than an hour since the Deputy Under Secretary had telephoned through to the East European desk where Millet had waited throughout the evening in the company of the night staff. Alan Millet was to prepare a paper that would go to Foreign and Commonwealth. And the conclusion was better than DUS had thought possible.

Not all victory, of course; a bit of give and take. Security would be offered complete freedom to decide when any pick-up might be effected.

And, of course, they might not bite. Taking everything for granted, Millet reckoned. There was nothing to say the Soviets wanted a creepy chauffeur back so badly that they would be prepared to wipe out Alan Millet's failure. But it was a beginning, it was a journey started.

Late at night, past midnight, and Alan Millet was heading for the one person that he must tell of his efforts for Michael Holly's release.

He paused in front of the door. What the hell was he doing there? Smearing his failure around the south-west London suburbs. Out of his mind he must have been, to believe that he could spread that failure and then drape over it a boast of his success. Loud, lively music cascaded over him, dancing music. Perhaps his nerve would not hold against the barrage of noise – shouting, singing, movement and happiness. Perhaps he would walk away, find a telephone box and ring for a mini-cab home. The door mocked him. He was cold, he was wet, he was part of a faraway camp. That camp had no place in the life blood of a party.

The door shut out the camp. His fingers found the bell button and pressed.

A young man opened the door, glass in hand. A young man who was a little drunk and trying to relate to an intruder in a wet raincoat standing in the doorway.

'Yes?'

'I've come to see Angela.'

His eyebrows flickered upwards, surprised. He giggled.

'She's a bit busy… '

Millet pushed his way past the young man. He stepped over the legs of a couple twined on the floor in the corridor.

He came to the entrance of the living room, stared into the hushed light, winced at the noise, searched for the face of the woman he must speak with.

'Did you bring a bottle, squire…?' The young man shouted behind him.

He might have been black, he might have had the plague.

The dancers watched him, the couples on the floor watched him, those on the sofa watched him. The music boomed at his ears. He felt the dampness in his shoes, he felt the wetness of his trouser legs. The heat and the smoke were suffocating.

He couldn't see her. Amongst all the faces grinning at him as if he was a zoo freak, he could not find her.

He turned back to the young man who had opened the door to him. 'I have to speak to Angela.'

Again the giggle. 'I said she was busy.'

'Get her,' Alan Millet said. He'd pissed about long enough with these idiots.

'Who the bloody hell do you think you are, bloody secret police. ..?'

'Get her.'

Millet's voice slashed the shriek of the young man's laughter.

'Please yourself, squire.'

The young man went to the bedroom door, closed. He knocked lightly and when it opened an inch he whispered into the crack. Millet couldn't hear what he said against the force of the record player. The dancers now swirled around him, ignoring him. He was isolated from these people, cocooned from them, kept apart by the wire of a camp across a continent, like a membrane. What did these shits know of a man in a strict regime Correctional Labour Colony.

What did any man know? What did Alan Millet know?

The door opened. She came out, her face expectant and puzzled and her fingers fiddling with the blouse buttons.

Millet was sweating in the damp closeness of his raincoat.

He thought he might be sick. An unstubbed cigarette burned smoke into his nose. She hadn't tucked her blouse into her jeans. She was barefoot. Her hair fell half across her face.

She saw Millet. She blinked at him, confused.

'What are you doing here?'

'I had to see you.'

'What about?'

The dancers veered between them. A man with a loose beard stood behind her in the doorway, trying to play protector, his hand resting confidently on her shoulder. He looked annoyed.

'About Michael Holly.'

'You bloody promised… you promised you'd never come again… it's my birthday, you know t h a t… you're barging in on my birthday… '

'I have to talk to you about Holly.'

The young man behind Millet said, 'You're out of turn, squire.'

No dancing now. The living room and the corridor to the bedroom door were a cockpit. Conflict, anger, rising across the space between Millet and Angela.

'Quit while you're in one piece,' the man behind her said.

She brushed away the hand on her shoulder, shrugged helplessly and pushed back her hair. She came to Millet and took his hand and led him through an aisle of hostility into the kitchen. She jerked with her thumb towards the door for those in there to leave. She kicked the door shut behind the last of them.

'You'd better take your coat off. Will you drink something?'

'I won't, thank you.'

She pulled out a kitchen chair, slid it towards Millet, and perched herself on a stool.

'What must you talk to me about?'

Better if he had never come. Better if he had turned away at the door. Better if he had not seen the small reddened swell at her neck.

'I came to talk about Holly.'

'I'm not involved with Michael Holly.'

'I came to tell you what was happening about Holly, what we hope will happen.' it's not my business what happens to Michael Holly.'

'I came to say that we hope we can free him, not immediately, not tomorrow… but we hope it will be soon.'

'You haven't been listening, Mr Millet. We were divorced. Our lives have separated.'

The tiredness billowed through Millet. He started to unbutton his raincoat.

'I just thought you'd want to know.'

'You came here just to tell me that?'

'For Christ's sake…' Millet's hand hit the table. The food bowls jarred, a glass wobbled above a narrow stem. 'I thought it might mean something. I thought… I'm sorry.'

He stood up and started for the door.

She waved him back to the fchair. The tears were bright on her cheeks.

'You couldn't understand, Mr Millet.'

'I thought you'd want to know.'

'I shall never see Holly again. I didn't want that. Holly said it. Holly said I would never see him again. Listen to me, Mr Millet. Don't interrupt…'

Her head was in her hands and she spoke through the fingers that spread across her face.

'I won't interrupt.' i went to the divorce hearing. 1 don't know why I went. I suppose a woman has a tidy mind and wants to see something through, see it settled and final. I was to have gone with a friend, but she cried off in the morning, rang me just before I was due to leave the flat. I went on my own. I'd never thought he'd be there, and if I'd considered for a moment that he would be there, then I'd never have gone myself. If you didn't realize, Mr Millet, it's a pretty stark occasion. The court was just about empty, and there were only the two of us in the public bit. Two of us, and we sat at opposite ends of a great long bench, and there was a mile of cold polished wood between us. It doesn't last long, it's an express job – that way it's cheap – and we never looked at each other all the time that the bloody lawyers droned away.

I didn't take in a word that was said. It was so stupid; I was at my own divorce hearing and all I wanted to do was to run the length of that bench and hold onto him, hold him and say that it was ridiculous, that it wasn't happening to us, and that we should go home. We never looked at each other, not once. I didn't look at him, I just loved him. I loved him, Mr Millet, loved him with a mile of polished bloody wood between us. At the end, he stood up and I stood up, and he went out fast and I went slowly. I walked out of the Court, and I was a free woman and I was blubbering like a baby. I don't know why, I don't usually do it, I went across the Strand and into the first pub I saw, and I went up to the bar and ordered a double something, and I found a seat and sat down. I sat down next to Holly. Shit… can you see that, Mr Millet? I sat down next to him. He was crying. I suppose that's why there was a seat beside him in the pub, I mean, nobody wants to sit next to a grown man who is crying. And we couldn't help each other. We just sat there, and sipped our drinks, and bloody cried. And it was too l a t e… too late for both of us. He went and bought me a pork pie, a horrible thing, all fatty, and he said that he had never cried in his life before, at least not since he was a small child. He held my hand and he told me that nobody would ever see him cry again. He said that if he ever saw me again, I would make him cry. All the time that he spoke he held my hand, he squeezed it so that it hurt first and then was white and numbed. Something in him died that day, Mr Millet. It wasn't all my fault, you know. He killed it himself, but something died. Perhaps it was the will to love that died.

Perhaps it was the dependence on another living and breathing soul that died. If he comes home or if he stays in the place where he is now, still that death will be final. I could never meet him again, I could never bear to see him cry again. It's taken me three years to try to lose the memory of Holly weeping. I'll never lose it, Mr Millet. Holly will never cry again, he'll never love again… Suddenly he stood up, and his beer wasn't finished and his pie wasn't eaten and he wiped his sleeve across his face as if nobody was looking and half the pub was, and he waved to me as if we'd only known each other for half an hour and he walked out through the door. So you see, Mr Millet, Holly is none of my business.

The man that I knew is dead, dead in his tears.'

Millet stood up. i hope I haven't spoiled your party.'