Berlin Game

16

People made jokes about 'the yellow submarine', but Fiona seemed to like going down to the Data Centre, three levels below Whitehall. So did I sometimes, for a brief spell. Down there, where the air was warmed, dehydrated, filtered and purified, and the sky was always light blue, you had the feeling that life had temporarily halted to give you a chance to catch your breath and think your own unhurried thoughts. That's why the staff down there are so bloody slow. And why, if I wanted anything urgently, I went down and got it myself.

The Data Centre can only be entered through the Foreign Office. Since this entrance was used by so many others, it was difficult for enemy agents to identify and target our computer staff. The Centre occupied three underground levels: one for the big computers, one for the software and its servicing staff, and the lowest and most secret level for data.

I went through the security room on the ground floor. I spent the usual three minutes while the uniformed guard got my picture, and a physical description, on his identity-check video screen. He knew me of course, the old man on the desk, but we went through the procedures just the same. The higher your rank, the longer it took to satisfy the security check, the men on the desk were more anxious to impress the senior staff. I'd noticed the way some of the junior employees seemed to get past with no more than a nod or a wink.

He punched a code to tell the computer I was entering the Centre, and smiled. 'Here we are, sir.' He said it as if he'd been more impatient than I had. 'Going to see your wife, sir?'

'It's our anniversary tonight,' I told him.

'Then it'll be champagne and roses, I suppose.'

'Two lagers and an Indian take-away,' I said.

He laughed. He preferred to believe I wore these old suits because I was a spy.

Fiona was on level 3 in Secret Data. It was a very big open room like a well-lit car park. Along one wall, the senior staff had been allotted spaces marked out by means of a tiny rug, a waist-high bookcase and a visitor's chair for visitors who never came. There was endless metal shelving for spools and, facing that, some disk-drive units. Underfoot was the special anti-static carpet, its silver-grey colour reflecting the relentless glare of the fluorescent lighting.

She didn't see me as I came along the glass-sided corridor that ran the length of the Centre. I pushed through the transparent door. I looked around: there was no one in sight except my wife. There was a hum of electricity and the constantly whirring disk drives. Then came the sudden whine of a machine going into high speed before modulating into a steady pattern of uneven heartbeats.

Fiona was standing at one of the machines, waiting for it to whine down to a complete standstill. Then she pressed the button, and a drawer purred open. She dropped a cover over the disk and snapped the catches before closing the machine again. It was Fiona's boast that she could stand in for any one of the Data Centre staff. 'That way they can't tell you it's a long job, or any of the other fairy stories they invent to get home early.'

I went to the nearby terminal, a typewriter keyboard with a swivel display screen and printer. There was a roller-foot typist's chair pulled close to it, and a plastic bin spilling over with the wide, pale green paper of the terminal's printer.

'You remembered,' said Fiona. Her face lit up as she saw me. 'You remembered. That's wonderful.'

'Happy anniversary, darling,' I said.

'You know we're going to the school to watch our son win his race?'

'Even that I remembered.' It was a convention of our marriage that I was the one who was overworked and forgetful, but Fiona gave more hours to her work than I ever did. She was always making mysterious journeys and having long late meetings with people she did not identify. At one time I'd simply felt proud of having a wife senior enough to be needed so much. Now I was no longer sure of her. I wondered who she was with and what she did on those nights when I was alone in my cold bed.

She kissed me. I held her tight and told her how much I loved her, and how I missed her when we were apart. A girl wheeling a trolley loaded with brown boxes of new magnetic tapes saw us, and thought she'd discovered some illicit romance. I winked at her and she smiled nervously.

Fiona began tidying the papers spread across her metal desk; behind her, shelves of files, books and operator manuals were packed to capacity. She had to move a pile of papers before she could sit down. She began to speak, but changed her mind and waited as a nearby tape suddenly went into high speed and then ran down to silence. 'Did you phone Nanny and tell her to give the children early dinner?'

'She was doing something in the garden. I told Billy to tell her.'

'You know how Billy gets everything mixed up. I wish she would stay with the children. I don't want her doing something in the garden.'

'She was probably doing something about the children's clothes.'

'We have a perfectly good tumble dryer,' said Fiona.

Nanny preferred to hang the clothes to dry in the garden, but I decided not to mention this. The dryer was an endless source of disagreement between the two women. 'Phone her again if you like,' I said.

'Are you going to be long?'

'No. Just one personnel printout,' I said.

'If you're going to be here for half an hour or more, there's work I could do.'

'Ten minutes,' I said. I sat down at the terminal and entered open. The machine purred and the screen lit up with 'Please type your name, grade and department.' I typed that and the screen went blank while the computer checked my entry against the personnel file. Then 'Please ensure that no other person can see the screen or the console. Now type your secret access number.' I complied with that request and the screen said 'Please type the date and time.' I did it. The machine requested 'Today's code number, please.' I entered it.

'What time does this sports show begin?' Fiona called across to me. She was hunched over her desk giving all her attention to the task of painting her nails Passion Red.

The screen said 'Program?'; I responded with kagob to enter the KGB section. 'Seven-thirty, but I thought we'd have a quick drink in that pub opposite.'

The same girl who'd seen us kissing came past carrying a huge bundle of computer output clutched to her bosom. There were plenty of other boxes for secret waste, but she obviously wanted to have a closer look at the lovers.

I typed in the other codes, 'Redland Overseas' and the name of 'Chlestakov', and the screen asked 'Screen only?' It was a 'default query', which meant the material was typed on the printer unless the operator specified otherwise. I pressed start.

The terminal made a loud buzzing noise. It was running background, which meant it was rejecting millions of words that were not about Chlestakov. Then suddenly the printer cleared its throat, hiccupped twice, and rattled off four lines of text before the machine settled into background again. 'And don't tug at the printout,' Fiona called to me. 'The new lot of continuous tracking paper has got something wrong with the sprocket holes. We've had three printouts jam this afternoon.'

'I never tug at the printout.'

'If it doesn't feed, dial 03 on the internal for the duty engineer.'

'And say goodbye to being anywhere before midnight.'

'Don't tug at it and it won't jam,' she said. She still hadn't raised her eyes from peering closely at her nails.

The printer suddenly came to life and produced a long section of data on Chlestakov, the daisy wheel whizzing backwards and forwards. It always amazed me the way it printed every second line backwards. It was a little like Leonardo da Vinci mirror writing. No doubt its designers wanted to make human operators feel inferior. The run ended with a little tattoo of end codes to show that all the relevant data had been searched, and the printer was silent. The red light on the console came on to systems busy, which is computer language for doing nothing.

Fiona walked from her desk waving her extended fingers at me in a manner I would have regarded as threatening had I not seen her drying her nails before. 'You had nice weather for your jaunt to Berwick House. You should have taken the Porsche.'

'Everybody expects such big tips when they see a car like that.'

'How was poor Giles?'

'Feeling sorry for himself.'

'Did he take a lethal dose or was it a cry for help?'

'A cry for help? You've been mixing with sociologists again.'

'But was it?'

'Who can tell? The bottle of tablets was empty, but it might have only had a couple of tablets in it. Thanks to his sister's quick action, he vomited before the tablets all dissolved.'

'And the doctor didn't say?'

'He was only a kid, and Dicky had obviously filled his head with dark hints about the secret service. I don't think he knew what he was doing. It was Trent 's sister who did the medical treatment. She only called in the doctor because nurses – even ex-nurses – are brainwashed to believe that they must have a doctor to nod at them while they make the decisions and do all the work.'

'Do you think he'll try again?' said Fiona. She blew on her nails.

'Not if he knows what's good for his sister. I told him I'd make sure she stood trial if he did a bolt in any direction.'

'You hate him, don't you? It's a long time since I saw you like this. I'll bet you scared the daylights out of poor Giles.'

'I doubt that very much.'

'You don't know how frightening you can be. You make all those bad jokes of yours and your face is like a block of stone. That's what made me fall for you, I suppose. You were so damned brutal.'

'Me?'

'Don't keep saying "Me?" darling. You know what a tough bastard you can be.'

'I hate the Giles Trents of this world. And if that's what you call being tough, I wish like hell there were more tough people like me. I hate the Communists and the stupid sods in this country who play their game and think they are just being "caring, sharing, wonderful people". I've seen them at close quarters. Never mind the smooth-talking little swines that come over here to visit the TUC or give talks on international friendship. I've seen them back where they come from, back where they don't have to wear the plastic smiles or hide the brass knuckles.'

'You can't run the Soviet Union as though it were the Chelsea Flower Show, darling.'

I grunted. It was her usual reply to my tirades about the KGB. Fiona, for all her talk of social justice and theories about alleviating Third World poverty, was happy to let the end justify the means when it suited her arguments. In that I could recognize the teachings of her father.

'But Trent 's not really KGB material, is he?' she said.

'They told Trent that they'd only need him for three years.'

'I suppose that was just to make it easier for him.'

' Trent believed it.'

She laughed. 'I can't imagine that Trent 's saying he believed it cut much ice with you.'

'He's not a complete idiot. I think they meant it.'

'Why? How would that make sense?'

'And his KGB contact told him to put that radio under the floorboards. That slipped out when we were talking – I'm sure that was true.'

'So what?'

'Floorboards? I'd only tell one of my agents that if I was hoping he'd get caught. You might as well take a full page in the local paper as hide a clandestine radio under the floor.'

'I'm still not following you.'

'They didn't give Trent any goodbye codes,' I said.

'What are they?'

'Numbers he can phone if he's being followed, or his home has been burgled, or he finds a security man going through his desk one morning when he arrives a bit early. They didn't even promise to get him away if anything went wrong.'

'Can you see Giles Trent living in Moscow? Really, darling!'

'KGB procedures are laid down in Moscow. They don't let any local man decide what he thinks will suit the personality of the agent he runs. You don't understand the bloody Russians. All KGB agents have goodbye codes.'

'Perhaps they have decided to change things.'

'They never change anything.'

She touched a painted nail very carefully to be sure it was dry. 'I'm ready when you are.'

'Okay.' I got to my feet and read the Chlestakov data again.

'Don't be tempted to take that computer printout from the building,' she warned. 'Security will go mad.'

'On our wedding anniversary? I wouldn't dare.' I fed the computer printout into a shredder and watched the paper worms tumble into the clear plastic bag.

'I'll buy it,' said Fiona. 'Why no goodbye codes or whatever they are?'

'I think Trent has been prepared as a scapegoat. I think they wanted us to catch him. I think they know everything we're saying to him.'

'Why?'

'The lack of any preparations for escape, the mention of three years, and then having him hide the radio – a radio he didn't need and was never trained to operate – under the floor. I think he was set up.'

'What for?'

'The only reason I can think of is to hide the fact that they have someone amongst us already.'

I was expecting her to laugh, but she didn't; she frowned. 'You're serious, aren't you?'

'Someone at the top.'

'Have you told Bret this theory?'

'Dicky thinks we should keep it to ourselves.'

'So Dicky's in on it.'

'Whatever's wrong with Dicky, no one could believe he might be a double agent. The Russians would never employ a twit like him. So I've agreed to keep everything on Trent confidential.'

'Everything?'

'Everything relevant.'

She moved her head as if trying to see me in a new light. 'You're hiding material from Bret? Why, that means you're hiding it, in effect, from the D-G and the committee.'

'In effect, yes.'

'You've gone crazy, darling. They have a name for what you're doing. They call it treason.'

'It's Dicky's idea.'

'Oh, that's different,' she said with heavy irony. 'If it's Dicky's idea, that's all you need say.'

'You think it's that crazy?'

She shook her head as if lost for words. 'I can't believe all this is happening. I can't believe I'm standing here and listening to you spout this absolute and ridiculous nonsense.'

'Let's go and see our son win the Olympics,' I said. She said, 'Poor little Billy, he's convinced he's going to win.'

'But you're not,' I said.

'He's a sweet child,' said Fiona, 'but I'm sure he'll finish last.'

'You don't have a drinks cabinet on this level, do you?'

'No alcohol in the yellow submarine, by order of the D-G,' said Fiona.

'For my next birthday,' I said, 'a hip flask.'

Fiona pretended she hadn't heard.