Berlin Game

15

Dicky had Trent taken out to Berwick House, an eighteenth-century manor named after a natural son of James II and the sister of the Duke of Marlborough. It had been taken over by the War Office in 1940 and, like so many other good things seized temporarily by the government, it was never returned to its former owners.

The seclusion could hardly have been bettered had the place been specially built for us. Seven acres of ground with an ancient fifteen-foot-high wall that was now so overgrown with weeds and ivy that it looked more like a place that had been abandoned than one that was secret.

On the croquet lawn the Army had erected black creosoted Nissen huts, which now provided a dormitory for the armed guards, and two prefabricated structures which were sometimes used for lectures when there was a conference or a special training course in the main building. But, despite these disfigurements, Berwick House retained much of its original elegance. The moat was the most picturesque feature of the estate and it still had its bullrushes, irises and lilies. There was no sign of the underwater devices that had been added. Even the little rustic teahouse and gate lodge had been convened to guard posts with enough care to preserve their former appearance. And the infrared beams and sonic warning shields that lined the perimeter were so well hidden in the undergrowth that even the technicians who checked them did not find them of easy access.

'You've got a nerve,' said Giles Trent. 'It's kidnapping, no matter what fancy explanations Dicky gives me.'

'Your taking an overdose of sleeping tablets upset him,' I said.

'You're a sardonic bastard,' said Trent. We were in his cramped second-floor room: cream-painted walls, metal frame bed, and a print of Admiral Nelson dying at Trafalgar.

'You think I should feel sorry for you,' I said. 'And I don't feel sorry for you. That's why we are at odds.'

'You never let up, do you?'

'I'm not an interrogator,' I said cheerfully. 'And, unlike you, I never have been. You know most of our interrogation staff, Giles. You trained some of them, according to what I saw on your file. Say who you'd like assigned to you and I'll do everything I can to arrange that you get him.'

'Give me a cigarette,' said Trent. We both knew that there was no question of Trent 's being permitted anywhere near one of the interrogators. Such a confrontation would start rumours everywhere, from Curzon Street to the Kremlin. I passed him a cigarette. 'Why can't I have a couple of packets?' said Trent, who was a heavy smoker.

'Berwick House regulations forbid smoking in the bedrooms, and the doctor said it's bad for you.'

'I don't know what you wanted to keep me alive for,' said Trent in an unconvincing outburst of melancholy. He was too tail for the skimpy cotton dressing gown provided by the housekeeper's department, and he kept tugging at its collar to cover the open front of his buttonless pyjama jacket. Perhaps he remembered the interrogation training report in which he'd recommended that detainees should be made to suffer 'a loss of both dignity and comfort' while being questioned.

I said, 'They're not keeping you fit and well for the Old Bailey, if that's what you mean.'

He lit his cigarette with the matches I gave him and then hunched himself in order to take that very deep first breath that the tobacco addict craves. Only when he'd blown smoke did he say, 'You think not?'

'And have you centre stage for a publicity circus? You know too much, Giles.'

'You flatter me. I know only tidbits. When was I a party to any important planning?' I heard in his voice a note of disappointed ambition. Had that played a part in his treachery, I wondered.

'It's tidbits the government really hate, Trent. It's tidbits that are wanted for the papers and the news magazines. That's why you can never get into the Old Bailey through the crowds of reporters. They know their readers don't want to read those long reports about the Soviet economy when they could find out how someone bugged the bedroom of the Hungarian military attachés favourite mistress.'

'If not the Old Bailey, then what -?'

'I keep telling you, Giles. Just keep your friend Chlestakov happy.' I sat down on his bed. I wanted to show Trent that I was settling in for a long talk, and I knew that rumpling up his bed would irritate him. Irritation could make a man captious and indiscreet; that too was something I'd read in Trent 's training report. I said, 'He had a sense of humour, your contact from the Embassy, calling himself Chlestakov. That was the name of the impostor in Gogol's The Government Inspector. He's the man who fills his pockets with bribes, seduces the prefect's daughter, lies, cheats and swindles all the corrupt officials of the town, and then gets away scot free as the curtain falls. He does get away scot free, doesn't he? Or does he get imprisoned at the end?'

'How should I know?'

'Gogol had a sense of humour,' I persisted.

'If not the Old Bailey, what?'

'Don't shout, Giles. Well, it's obvious, isn't it? Either they will feel you've cooperated and you'll be put out to grass, and finish your days with the senior citizens of some seaside resort on the south coast – or you refuse to cooperate, and you will end up in the ambulance with the flashing lights that doesn't get to the emergency ward in time.'

'Are you threatening me?'

'Well, I hope so,' I said. 'I'm trying like hell to get some sense into your brainless head.'

'Chlestakov, or whatever his real name is, suspects nothing. But if you keep me locked up in this place you'll certainly change that. Where are we, by the way? How long was I unconscious?'

'Don't keep asking the same thing, Giles. You know I can't answer. The immediate question is: when are you going to start telling us the truth?' There was no reaction from him except to examine his cigarette to see how many more puffs he had left. 'Let's go right back to that first interrogation. I was reading it this morning…' He looked up. 'Oh, yes. I keep at it, Giles. I'm afflicted with the work ethic of the lower class. In that first interrogation you said you regularly went to the opera with your sister and Chlestakov, to pass photocopied documents to him. I was interested to notice that you used the word "treff".' I paused deliberately, wanting to see if my mention of his sister and the visits to the opera had any effect upon him. Now I watched him carefully as I prattled on. 'It's a spy word, treff. I can't say I remember ever using it myself, but I've often heard it used in films on TV. It has those romantic overtones that spying has for some people. Treff! German for meet, but also for strike or hit. And it has those irresistible military connotations: "battle", "combat", or "action". It means "line of battle" too. Did you know that, Giles?'

His vigorous puffing had already burned the cigarette down and now he was nursing it, holding it to his lips and trying to make it last. 'I never thought about it.'

'That's probably why Chlestakov used it on you. It made you both feel more daring, more rakish, more like men who change history. I once asked one of the KGB people why they gave their agents all those gadgets of the sort they gave you. The camera that looks like a cigarette lighter, the radio transmitter disguised like a video recorder and the one-time pads and all that. Chlestakov never asked you to use any of that junk – the KGB almost never do. Why would they bother, when all they have to do in a free society is have one of their hoodlums take a cab across town and have a chat or spend a couple of minutes in a photocopy shop? And this KGB man told me that it gave their agents confidence. Is that what it did for you, Giles? Did it make you feel more sure of yourself to have all that paraphernalia? It was fatal, of course. When we found all that stuff under the floorboards, you were sunk. Silly place, under the floorboards. Floorboards and attics – always the first place the searchers look. Was that Chlestakov's suggestion?'

'As a matter of fact, it was,' said Trent. He got to his feet and, pulling the belt of his dressing gown tighter, went to the door. He opened it and looked along the corridor. When he came back again, he muttered something about wanting a cup of tea. He said he thought he'd heard the nurse coming, but I knew I had him worried.

'To get back to the point, Giles. You said that you got opera tickets for Chlestakov and your sister, so that the three of you would look' – I paused – 'less conspicuous. That was a funny thing to say, Giles. I was thinking about that last night when I couldn't get to sleep. Less conspicuous than what, I thought. Less conspicuous than two men? It didn't make sense to me. Why would you take your sister along to the opera when you wanted to keep your meetings with Chlestakov as secret as possible? So I got up and started reading your transcript again. I found your descriptions of those visits to the opera. You quote your sister as saying that 'Mr Chlestakov was a pleasant man, considering he was a Russian.' I suppose you said that to emphasize the fact that your sister had no particular liking for Russians.'

'That's right,' said Trent.

'Or even that she was prejudiced against Russians.'

'Yes.'

'Whatever your sister's feelings about Chlestakov and his comrades, it certainly seems from your transcript that she was aware of his name and his nationality. Am I right?'

'Yes.' Trent had stopped pacing now. He stood by the little electric fire built into the fireplace and rubbed his hands together nervously. 'She loved the opera. Having her with, us provided a reason for the meeting.'

'Your sister hasn't been entirely honest with you, Giles,' I said. 'Last night I invented a question that even the worst-informed opera buff in the world would have been able to answer. Your sister told me she didn't like opera. She said it vociferously. She said it as if she had some special reason for hating it.'

'I don't know what you're getting at.'

'Are you cold, Giles? You're shivering.'

'I'm all right.'

'We know the way it really happened, don't we, Giles? They got to you by means of your sister. Did Chlestakov, a nice gentleman of about the right age, go into that little wool shop your sister owns and ask help in choosing wool? For his mother? For his sister? For his daughter? Not for his wife – what had happened to her? Was he a widower? That's what they usually say. And then when the relationship had flowered – they're never in a hurry, the KGB, and I do admire that; we are always in a rush and the Americans even more so – eventually your sister suggests that you join their outings. And you say yes.'

'You make it sound so carefully planned.' He was angry, but his anger was not directed at me. It was not directed at anyone. It exploded with a plop, like a bullet thrown onto the fire.

'And you still want to believe it wasn't, eh? Well, I don't blame you. It must make a man angry to find he's performed his prescribed role in a play written in Moscow.'

'She nursed my father for ten years. She turned down good proposals of marriage. Was I supposed to crush her little chance of happiness?'

I shook my head in disbelief. 'Are you telling me that you thought it was all true? You thought Prince Charming had walked through the door of the wool shop, and your sister's foot just happened to fit the glass slipper? You thought it might be just a coincidence that he worked for the KGB and you worked for the Secret Intelligence Service?'

'He worked for the Soviet Trade Delegation,' growled Trent.

'Don't make jokes like that, Giles,' I said. 'You'll have me fall over laughing.'

'I wanted to believe it.'

'I know,' I said. 'Just like me and Santa Claus, but one day you have to ask yourself how he gets those bloody reindeer down the chimney.'

'What's the difference whether I went to the opera with them, or she came to the opera with us?'

'Now that's a question I can answer,' I said. 'The D-G wouldn't want to put you into the dock, for reasons we've already discussed. But there would be no such inhibitions about putting your sister there.'

'My sister?'

'With you as unnamed witness. You know how these things are done. You've read newspaper accounts of spy trials. In your circumstances, I'd have thought you'd read them with great care and attention.'

'She has nothing to do with this business.'

'You'd be silly to imagine that would be enough to keep her out of prison,' I said.

'You swine!'

'Think it over,' I said.

'I'll kill myself,' he said desperately. 'I'll make a good job of it next time.'

'And leave your sister to face the music alone? I don't think you will,' I said.

He looked so miserable that I gave him a couple of cigarettes and promised to have his clothes sent up to him. 'Have your regular medical check and take your tablets or whatever it is the nurse wants. Have lunch and then we'll have a stroll in the garden.'

'Garden? It's more like a jungle.'

'Be ready at two o'clock.'

'Be ready for what?'

'Be ready to come clean on your pal Chlestakov, and straighten out a few of the inconsistencies I've come across in your transcript.'

'What inconsistencies?'

'That would be telling, wouldn't it?'

There were gaps of blue sky, but the clouds were darkening to nimbostratus and there was rain in the air. Trent wore a short car jacket with a fur collar, which he turned up round his ears. On his head was a rather smart peaked cap that had come from an expensive hatter.

He seemed ill at ease in the country, and smoked another cigarette instead of breathing the fresh air. 'When will they let me out of here?' he asked. Having disposed of his cigarette, he picked up a twig, broke it into pieces and tossed them into the stagnant-looking moat.

'You go home tomorrow.'

'Is there someone who will cash a cheque for me?'

'See the cashier.' We walked alongside the moat until we came to a small wooden bridge and crossed it to where the shrubbery became neglected woodland. 'There was a postcard from Chlestakov,' I told him.

'At my home?'

'Where would you expect it to arrive?'

'He wants a meeting?'

'It says someone named Geof is having a fishing weekend. He caught four big fish of unspecified type and hopes to be back at work by two p.m. on the 16th of this month. I trust that means something to you.'

'It means nothing to you then?'

'It means only that the Moscow spy machine creaks along using the same antiquated ideas that have proved cumbersome for two decades or more.'

'It seems to work,' said Trent defiantly.

'When a huge police state devotes so much time, money and personnel to infiltrate the open society we have in the West, it gets results.'

'I don't like the Russians any more than you do,' said Trent. 'I was forced to work with them.'

'Because they threatened to report you to our security people. Yes, you told me all that.'

'You can sneer – you've no idea of what it's like.'

'But you knew how to handle it, didn't you? You did more and more spying. You grovelled before your pal Chlestakov and got him anything he wanted. For a man who doesn't like the Russians, you set an example of kindness and cooperation.'

'I knew that it wouldn't last for ever, that's why. I did many of the things they asked me but I took my time, and sometimes I said no. Sometimes I told Chlestakov that something wasn't possible. I played for time. I knew that eventually they would let me off the hook.'

'Why did you believe them? Why would any intelligence service let a well-placed agent off the hook?'

'Chlestakov guaranteed that, from the start.' Trent looked me in the eyes. 'And I believed him. It was just to be a temporary measure. He promised me that. I imposed other conditions too. He promised never to ask me about things that would endanger our own agents. He wanted general background information.'

'And a few little extra specifics,' I added.

'There were day-to-day things that Chlestakov needed for his official reports. He asked me about office routines and how the staff was rostered for duty. How old was Rensselaer, and did Cruyer own his house or have a mortgage? Many of his questions I couldn't answer, and some I didn't want to answer. But he told me that he had to have some such items that would impress Moscow.'

'He played on your sympathy, did he?' I asked sarcastically. 'If you didn't help poor old Chlestakov, he'd be moved to another assignment in some other town. And your sister wanted Chlestakov in London.'

'It may sound silly – '

'It sounds squalid,' I said. 'It sounds stupid and arrogant. Didn't you ever wonder if your treachery was worthwhile. Didn't you think your country was paying a high price for your sister's sex life?'

'Damn you.'

'Didn't you worry about being caught?'

'No.'

'Did Chlestakov not discuss with you the procedures he'd adopt if you came under suspicion? Didn't he tell you that he'd get you out of Britain if things went sour? Didn't he give you a number to phone if you had some security bloodhound asking you tricky questions?'

'I've told you all that before. We never talked about the possibility of my being caught.'

'And you've told me a pack of lies, Trent. Now I want some straight talking or you'll find yourself in another of our country houses, one where there won't be any walks in the garden or cigarettes with your lunch. Do I make myself clear?'

'You make yourself clear,' said Trent. My threats produced no real signs of fear in him – just suppressed anger. I could see a physical strength in him that matched his mental toughness. It was not the strength of the athlete but just the natural power of a man who'd grown up tall and strong. It was odd to think of Trent attempting suicide; still stranger to think of him failing to do it once his mind was made up, but I did not pursue the subject. We picked our way through the brambles and the bracken. There was the crack of twigs underfoot and the squelch of mud. Once a rabbit sprang out of the undergrowth and startled both of us.

It was Trent who spoke. 'I told them I could never go to Moscow. I'd sooner be in prison in England than go to Russia and die an exile. Chlestakov said that was all right. He said it would suit them. He said it was better that I'd told them that right from the start, because then he could make sure that I never got any information that could embarrass the KGB if said in court.'

'Embarrass the KGB! Is that the word he used? They put sane dissidents into lunatic asylums, consign thousands to their labour camps, they assassinate exiles and blackmail opponents. They must surely be the most ruthless, the most unscrupulous and the most powerful instrument of tyranny that the world has ever known. But dear old Chlestakov is frightened you might embarrass them.'

The past is past,' said Trent defensively. 'Tell me what you want of me now and I'll do it.'

'What does the postcard mean?'

'I'm to meet Chlestakov next Tuesday evening. I must phone Monday afternoon at three to be told the details.'

'I think it would be better if you cut through that one. Get hold of him and tell him it's an emergency. Tell him you were brought here and questioned after taking an overdose. Keep as near the true facts as you can.'

'Shall I say you questioned me?'

'Yes,' I said. 'Tell him you're frightened. Tell him the game's up. Tell him you're scared, really scared.'

Trent nodded.

'He'll ask you if anyone else has been questioned, and you'll say that everyone is being questioned. He'll ask you if we had any evidence, and you'll think about that and reluctantly admit that there was none.'

'None at all?'

'He'll tell you that it was the overdose that made us take you into custody, and you'll admit that that's probably true. I want it so that Chlestakov is reassuring you. So you keep whining. He'll ask you who is in charge of the investigation, and you'll give hum my name. He'll tell you that I'm not senior enough to make this a really important investigation. And he'll tell you that for something on the scale that you two are doing we'd bring investigators in from outside. Got all that?'

'You've made it quite clear.'

'And when the dust has settled on that exchange, you'll tell Chlestakov what a pity it is that you were silly enough to take that overdose, because you're now in a position to get something really big. Tell him you were going to write a report on the Berlin System – all the Berlin networks, every damn thing we are doing over there. That should make his mouth water.'

'I've never heard of the Berlin System.'

'He will have heard of it.'

'But now I won't be able to get it? Is that what I tell him?'

'Softly, softly. It will take time. You want to be quite sure you're no longer under any sort of suspicion. But this is really big stuff, tell him. This file contains all the facts and figures back for ten years and there will be all the CIA contacts and exchanges too.'

'And eventually you'll give me material to pass to him?' asked Trent. 'It's better if I know right at the start.'

'We won't let you down, Giles. We'll give you something that will make him happy and keep comrade Chlestakov where he can get his slippers warmed.'

'Keep my sister out of this.'

'Okay. I'll keep her out of it. But you'd better give me two hundred percent.'

'I will,' he said.

We came back through the shrubbery and onto the little humpbacked bridge. Trent stopped to light another cigarette, ducking into his coat collar to shelter the flame. I said, 'There's something I want to ask you. It's not important to the debriefing, I'm just curious.'

His head emerged in a cloud of blue smoke. He tossed the spent matchstick into the moat. Two ducks swam quickly towards it but, discovering it wasn't edible, moved away sedately. 'What then?' He was looking at the moat, with the dead leaves moving slowly on the current and the patches of weed swaying to the movement of the ducks.

'One night in September 1978 – '

'In 1978 I was in Berlin,' he said as if that would mean the end of the question.

'We all were,' I said. 'Fiona was there, Frank was there, I was there. Dicky was working in Frankfurt and he used to come to Berlin whenever he got the chance. Bret too. I want to ask you about a radio intercept that Signals got one night during the Baader-Meinhof panic. Remember?'

'The airliner hijack – I remember that clearly enough. Frank Harrington seemed to think it had all been done to discredit him.' Trent smiled. It was as near as he came to making a joke.

'There was a special inquiry about this Russian Army signal.'

Trent turned to look at me. 'Yes, I remember that. Frank let an American do the questioning. It was a fiasco.'

'A fiasco?'

Trent shrugged but said nothing.

'You went into the main building,' I said, 'and into Operations at the end of your duty shift. You saw the signal… maybe on Fiona's desk.'

'The night of the big panic? Who said I was in Operations?'

'Fiona. You went up to collect her and take her home.'

'Not that night, I didn't.'

'Are you sure? You're not telling me you weren't permitted in Operations?'

'Well, officially I wasn't, but anyone who wore a badge could get into the main building. I'm not denying I gate-crashed Operations regularly. But I didn't do it when I knew Frank was up there holding court and laying down the law. Hell, you know what Frank is like. I've seen him blast a senior man because he'd moved a fire extinguisher out of his office.'

'Frank's a bit obsessed about fire precautions,' I said. 'We all know that.'

'Well, he's obsessed about a few other things, including people from the annex going into Operations without an Ops pass. No, I didn't go up there that night. The word went round that Frank was throwing a fit because Bonn thought the mayor of Berlin was going to be kidnapped, and we all stayed well away from him.'

'It was just a signal intercept from Karlshorst…'

He nodded. 'News of which got back to Karlshorst within three days, and they changed codes and wavelengths. Yes, I know all about it. That American fellow… Joe something – "Just call me Joe," he kept saying – '

'Joe Brody.'

'Joe Brody. He explained the whole thing.'

'Let's make it off the record,' I said.

'Off the record, on the record – it makes no difference. I didn't go up there that night.'

'Fiona told me you did,'

'Then Fiona is not telling you the truth.'

'Why should she lie about it?' I said.

'That's something you'll have to ask Fiona.'

'Did you get the information by some other means? I'm determined to press this point, Giles. You may as well come clean.'

'Because your pal Werner Volkmann did it? And you'd like to clear him?'

'How did Werner get into Operations that night? He's never worked in Operations. He's always been a street man.'

'Werner Volkmann wasn't up there. He was Signals Security One. He brought it from Signals to Ciphers that night.'

'That's all? But Werner would have to be some wizard to decipher a message while he's travelling five blocks in the back of a car.'

Trent smoked reflectively. 'The theory was that Werner Volkmann was hanging around the cipher room that night. He could have seen the deciphered message. Anyway, he didn't have to decipher it in order to tell the Russians that their traffic was being intercepted. He only had to recognize the heading or the footing codes and the time and the Karlshorst Army transmitter identification. The Russians would know exactly what had been intercepted without Werner ever knowing what the message was.'

'Do you believe it was Werner?'

'Brody is a very careful investigator. He gave everyone a chance to speak their piece. Even Fiona was interrogated. She handled the message. I never saw the report, of course, but it concluded that Volkmann was the most likely person of those who could have done it.'

'I said, did you believe Volkmann did it.'

'No,' said Trent. 'Werner's too lazy to be a double agent – too lazy to be a single agent, from what I saw of him.'

'So who could have done it?'

'Frank hates Werner, you know. He'd been looking for a chance to get rid of him for ages.'

'But someone still has to have done it. Unless you think Frank leaked his own intercept just as a way of putting the blame on Werner.'

'It's possible.'

'You can't be serious.'

'Why not?'

I said, 'Because if Frank wants to get rid of Werner, he's only got to fire him. He doesn't have to go to all the trouble of leaking an intercept to the Russians.'

'It wasn't a vitally important piece of intelligence,' said Trent. 'We've seen more important things than that used as Spielzeug just to boost the reputation of a double agent.'

'If Frank wanted to fire him, he could have fired him,' I repeated.

'But what if Frank wanted him discredited?'

I stared at Trent and thought about it. 'I suppose you're right,' I said.

'Werner Volkmann spread stories about Frank.'

'Stories?'

'You've heard Werner when he's had a few beers. Werner is always able to see scandal where none exists. He had stories about Frank fiddling money from the non-accountable funds. And stories about Frank chasing the typists around the filing cabinets. I suppose Frank got fed up with it. You keep telling stories like that and finally people are going to start believing them. Right?'

'I suppose so,' I said.

'Someone leaked it,' said Trent. 'If it wasn't Volkmann or Frank, then Moscow had someone inside Operations that night. And it certainly wasn't me.'

'God knows,' I said, as if I'd lost interest in the mystery. But now I was sure that the Karlshorst intercept was vitally important, because it was the only real slip Moscow 's well-placed man had made.

'What do you think will happen?' said Trent. What was going to happen to him, he meant.

'You've had a long time in this business,' I reminded him. 'Longer than I have. You know how these things work. Do you know how many people just as guilty as you are have retired from the service with an unconditional pardon and a full pension?'

'How many?' said Trent. He knew I couldn't answer and that amused him.

'Plenty,' I said. 'People from Five, people from Six, a couple of Special Branch people, and those three from Cheltenham that you helped to interrogate last year.'

Trent said nothing. We watched four men as they came out of the house and went down the gravel path towards the gate lodge. One of them skipped half a pace in order to keep step with the others. They were security guards, of course. Only such men are that anxious to keep in step with their fellows. 'I hate prisons,' he said. He said it conversationally, as a man might remark upon his dislike of dinner parties or sailing.

'You've never been inside, have you?'

'No.'

'It's not like this, believe me. But let's hope it won't come to that – not for you, not for anyone.'

'That's called "leaving the door open",' said Trent. It was a subheading in his training report.

'Don't dismiss it on that account,' I said. But we both knew that Trent had written: 'Promise the interviewee anything. Promise him freedom. Promise him the moon. He'll be in no position to argue with you afterwards.'