Mexico Set

18

I'd known Frank Harrington for a lifetime; not his lifetime, of course, but mine. So when the car collected me from Lisl's the next morning I was not surprised that it took me to Frank Harrington's house rather than to the SIS offices at the Olympic Stadium. For when Frank said 'the office' he meant the stadium that Hitler had built for the 1936 Games. But 'my office' meant the room he used as a study in the large mansion out at Grunewald that was always at the disposal of the 'Berlin Resident' and that Frank had occupied for two long stints. It was a wonderful house which had been built for a relative of a banker named Bleichroder, who'd extended to Bismarck the necessary credit for waging the Franco-Prussian War. The garden was extensive, and there were enough trees to give the impression of being deep in the German countryside.

I was marched into the room by Frank's valet, Tarrant, a sturdy old man who'd been with Frank since the war. Frank was behind his desk, brandishing important-looking papers. He looked up at me under his eyebrows, as a commanding officer looks at a recruit who has misbehaved.

Frank was wearing a dark-grey three-piece suit, a starched white shirt and a tightly knotted Eton school tie. Frank's 'colonel of the regiment' act was not confined to his deportment. It was particularly evident in this study. There was rattan furniture and a buttoned leather bench that was so old and worn that the leather had gone almost white in places. There was a superb camphor-wood military chest, and on it an ancient typewriter that should have been in a museum. Behind him on the wall there was a large formal portrait of the Queen. It was all like a stage set for a play about the last days of the British Raj. This impression of being in an Indian army bungalow was heightened by the way in which a hundred shafts of daylight came into Frank's dark study. The louvred window shutters were closed as a precaution against sophisticated microphones that could pick up vibrations from window panes, but the slats of Berlin daylight that patterned the carpet might have come from some pitiless Punjab sun.

'Good God, Bernard,' said Frank. 'You do try my patience at times.'

'Do I, Frank? I don't mean to; I'm sorry.'

'What the hell were you doing at Lüneburg?'

'A meeting,' I said.

'An agent?'

'You know better than to ask me that, Frank,' I said.

'There's the very deuce of a fuss in London. One of your chaps was murdered.'

'Who was that?'

'MacKenzie. A probationer. He worked for you sometimes, I understand.'

'I know him,' I said.

'What do you know about his death?'

'What you've told me.'

'No more than that?'

'Is this a formal inquiry?'

'Of course not, Bernard. But it's not the right moment to conceal evidence either.'

'If it was the right moment, would you tell me so, Frank?'

'I'm trying to help, Bernard. When you go back to London you'll walk into more pointed questions than these.'

'For instance?'

'Don't you care about this poor boy?'

'I do care. I care very much. What would I have to do to convince you about that?' I said.

'You don't have to convince me about anything, Bernard. I've always stood behind you. Since your father died I've considered myself in loco parentis, and I've hoped that you would come to me if in trouble in the same way that you'd have gone to your father.'

Was this what Frank had been so keen to talk to me about. I couldn't decide. And now I turned the heat on to Frank. 'Is Henry Tiptree one of your people, Frank?' I kept my voice very casual.

'Tiptree? The chap staying at Frau Hennig's?' He touched his stubble moustache reflectively.

Frank was virtually the only person I knew who called Lisl 'Frau Hennig' and it took me a moment to respond to his question. 'Yes. That's the one,' I said.

I'd caught Frank on the hop. He reached into a drawer of his desk and found a packet of pipe tobacco. He took his time in tearing the wrapper open and sniffing at the contents to see how fresh it had stayed in his drawer. 'What did Tiptree say he's doing?'

'He gave me a lot of hogwash. Bur I think he^rs from Internal Security.'

Frank became rather nervous. He stuffed tobacco into the bowl of his pipe carelessly enough to spill a lot on the otherwise very tidy desk-top. 'You're right, Bernard. I'm glad you tumbled to him. I wanted to tip you the wink but the signals from London were strictly for me only. The D-G told me not to tell anyone, but now that you've guessed I might as well admit it…'

'What's his game, Frank?'

'He's an ambitious young diplomat who wants to have some cloak-and-dagger experience.'

'In Internal Security?'

'Don't sound so incredulous. That's where they put such people. We don't want them at the sharp end, do we, Bernard?'

'And why did Internal Security send him here?'

'Internal Security never tell us lesser mortals what they are doing, or why they're doing it, Bernard. I'm sure he guesses that anything he tells me is liable to get back to you.'

'And why should that matter?'

'Let me rephrase that.' Frank forced a grin on to his reluctant face. 'I meant that anything he told me is liable to get back to any member of the Berlin staff.'

'Is that bastard investigating me?' I said.

'Now don't get excited, Bernard. No one knows what he's doing. Internal Security are a law unto themselves, you know that. But even if he is poking his nose into your affairs, you've no cause to be surprised. We all get investigated from time to time. And you have…'

'I have a wife who defected. Is that what you were going to say, Frank?'

'It's not what I was going to say but, now that you've brought it into the conversation, it is a factor that Internal Security is bound to find relevant.'

I didn't answer. At least I had Frank on the defensive. It was better than him giving me a hard time about MacKenzie. Now that his pipe was filled with tobacco I gave him enough time to light up. 'Yes, you're sure to have them breathing down your neck for a little while. But these things eventually blow over. The service is fair-minded, Bernard. You must admit that.' He sucked at his pipe in short rapid breaths that made the tobacco flare. 'Do you know of even one case of a departmental employee being victimized?'

'I don't know of one,' I said, 'for the very good reason that the lid is kept tightly clamped upon such things.'

'Couldn't have chaps writing letters to The Times about it, could we?' said Frank. He smiled but I looked at him blankly, and watched him as he held the matchbox over the bowl of his pipe to increase the draft. I never knew whether he was so very bad at getting his pipe lit, or whether he deliberately let it go out between puffs, to give him something to do while thinking up answers to awkward questions.

'I might not need back-up on the Stinnes business, Frank,' I said, choosing my words carefully. 'I might want to handle it well away from the city, maybe not in Germany anywhere.'

Frank recognized the remark for what it was; a departmental way of telling him to go to hell. Official notice that I was going to keep the Stinnes operation well away from him and all his doings. 'It's your show, lad,' said Frank. 'How is it going?'

'Did you know that London have offered Stinnes a cash payment?'

Only his eyes moved. He looked up from his pipe but held it to his mouth and continued to fuss with it. 'No. At least not officially.'

'But you did hear?'

'The D-G told me that there might be a payment made. The old man always tells me if such things happen here on my patch. Just by way of courtesy.'

'Is the D-G taking a personal interest?'

'He is indeed.' An artful little grin. 'That's why so many of our colleagues are giving it such close attention.'

'Including you?'

'I came into the service with Sir Henry Clevemore. We trained together – although he was rather older than me – and we've become close friends. But Sir Henry is the Director-General, and I'm just the poor old Berlin Resident. He doesn't forget that, Bernard, and I make sure that I never forget it either.' This was Frank's way of reminding me that I was too damned insubordinate. 'Yes. If Sir Henry is taking a close personal interest in any particular enterprise, I also take an interest in it. He's no fool.'

'The last time I saw him he was in bad shape.'

'Sick?' said Frank, as if hearing that suggestion for the first time.

'Not just sick, Frank. When I spoke to him he was rambling.'

'Are you suggesting that the old man's non compos mentis?'

'He's completely fruit-cake, Frank. You must know that if you've seen him lately.'

'Eccentric, yes,' said Frank cautiously.

'He's one of the most powerful men in Britain, Frank. Let's not quibble about terminology.'

'I wouldn't like to think you're encouraging anyone to think the D-G is in anything but vigorous mental and physical health,' said Frank. 'He's been under a heavy strain. When the time is ripe he'll go, of course. But we're all very keen that it should not look like a response to the government's request.'

'Are the government asking for his head?'

'There are people in the Cabinet who'd like someone else sitting in the D-G's chair,' said Frank.

'You mean some particular someone else?'

'They'll put a politician in there if they get a chance,' said Frank. 'Virtually every government since the war has cherished the idea of having a "reliable" man running us. Not just the socialists; the Tories also have their nominees. For all I know, the Liberals and Social Democrats have ideas about it too.'

'Is it a job you'd like?'

'Me?'

'Don't say you've never thought about it.'

'Berlin Resident to D-G would be a giant step for man.'

'We all know that you came back here to straighten out a mess. Had you stayed in London you could have been the old man's deputy by now.'

'Perhaps,' said Frank.

'Has the idea been mentioned?' I persisted.

'With varying degress of seriousness,' admitted Frank. 'But I've set my mind on retirement, Bernard. I don't think I could take on the job of running the whole department at my age. I've said that if the old man got really sick I'd go in and hold the fort until someone permanent was appointed. It would be simply a way of keeping a political nominee out. But I couldn't do the reorganization job that is really required.'

'That is desperately overdue,' I said.

'That some think is desperately overdue,' agreed Frank. 'But the general consensus is that, if the worst came to the worst, the department can manage better with an empty D-G's office than with no Berlin Resident.'

'The D-G's office is already empty a lot of the time,' I said. 'And the Deputy D-G has an ailing wife and a thriving law business. It's a time-consuming combination. Not much sign of him on the top floor nowadays.'

'And what does the gossip say will happen?' said Frank.

'Now that Bret Rensselaer has lost his empire he's become one of the hopefuls.'

Frank took the pipe from his mouth and grimaced. 'Bret will never become D-G. Bret is American. It would be unacceptable to the government, to the department, and to the public at large if it ever got out.'

'Bret is a British subject now. He has been for some years. At least that's what I've heard.'

'Bret can arrange what paperwork he likes. But the people who make the decisions regard Bret as an American, and so he's American. And he'll always remain American.'

'You'd better not tell Bret.'

'Oh, I don't mean he won't get his knighthood. Actors, comics and footballers get them nowadays, so why not Bret? And that's what he really wants. He wants to go back to his little New England town and be Sir Bret Rensselaer. But he wouldn't be allowed to go back and tell them that he's just become Director-General of MI6, would he? So what's the point?'

'You're a bit hard on Bret,' I said. 'He's not simply in it for a K.' I wondered whether Frank's sudden dislike of Bret had something to do with his becoming a contender for the D-G's job. I didn't believe Frank's modest disclaimers. Given a chance, Frank would fight tooth and nail for the D-G's chair.

Frank sighed. 'A man has no friends in this job, Bernard. The Berlin Field Unit is the place where London sends the people it wants to get rid of. This is the Siberia of the service. They send you over here to handle an impossible job, with inadequate staff and insufficient funding. And, all the time you're trying to hold things together, London throws shit at you. There is one thing upon which London Central Policy Committee and Controller Europe always agree. And that is that every damn cock-up in London is because of a mistake made here in the Berlin Field Unit. Bret only put me here to get me out of the way when it looked as if I might be getting the Economics Desk which he later parlayed into an empire.'

'All gone now, Frank,' I said. 'You had the last laugh on that one. Bret lost everything when they brought Brahms Four out and closed him down. These days Bret is fighting for a piece of Dicky's desk.'

'Don't write Bret off. He won't become D-G, but he's smooth, very bright and well provided with influential supporters.' Frank got up from behind his desk and went over to switch on the lamp that was balanced over his ancient typewriter. The lampshade was green glass and the light coming through it made Frank's pinched face look sepulchral. 'And if you enrol Stinnes there will be a mighty reassessment of everyone's performance over the last decade.' Frank's voice was more serious now, and I had the feeling that he might at last tell me what had prompted this urgent meeting.

'Will there?' I said.

'You can't have overlooked that, Bernard. His interrogation will go on for ever. They'll drag out every damned case file that Stinnes ever heard of. They'll read every report that any of us ever submitted.'

'Looking for another mole?'

That might well be the excuse they offer. But there is no mole. They will use Stinnes to find out how well we've all done our jobs over the past decade or so. They'll be able to see how well we guessed what was going on over the other side of the hill. They'll read our reports and predictions with all the advantage of hindsight. And eventually they will give us our end-of-term school reports.'

'Is that what the D-G plans to do with Stinnes?' I said.

'The D-G is not quite the crackpot you like to think he is, Bernard. Personally I'm too near to retirement for it to affect me very much. But the Stinnes debriefing will leave a lot of people with egg on their faces. It will take time, of course. The interrogators will have to check and double-check and then submit their reports. But eventually the exam results will arrive. And some of them might be asked to see the headmaster and discreetly told to find another school.'

'But everyone at London Central seems to want Stinnes enrolled.'

'Because they are all convinced that Stinnes will show how clever they are. You have to be an egomaniac to survive in the London office. You know that.'

'Is that why I've survived there?' I asked.

'Yes.' Frank was still standing behind me. He hadn't moved after switching on the lamp. On the wall there was a photograph – a signed portrait of Duke Ellington. It was the only picture in the room apart from the portrait of the Queen. Frank had one of the world's largest collections of Ellington recordings, and listening to them was the only leisure activity he permitted himself, apart from his sporadic love affairs with unsuitable young women. 'How it will affect you I don't know,' said Frank. He touched my shoulder in a gesture of paternal reassurance.

'Nothing will come to light that might affect my chances of becoming D-G,' I said.

'You're still angry about Dicky Cruyer getting the German Desk, aren't you?'

'I thought it would go to someone who really knew the job. I should have known that only Oxbridge men would be short-listed.'

'The department has always been like that. Historically it was sound. Graduates from good universities were unlikely to be regicides, agrarian reformers or Luddites. One day it will all change, but change comes slowly in England.'

'It was my fault,' I said. 'I knew the way it worked but I told myself that this time it would be different. There was no reason for thinking it would.'

'But you never thought of leaving the service?' said Frank.

'For a week I thought of nothing else except leaving. Twice I wrote out my resignation. I even talked to a man I used to know about a job in California.'

'And what made you decide to stay?'

'I never did decide to stay. But I always seemed to be in the middle of something that had to be finished before I could leave. Then when that was done I'd already be involved with a new operation.'

'You talked to Fiona about all this?'

'She never took it seriously. She said I'd never leave the department. She said that I'd been threatening to leave since the first time she found out what I did for a living.'

'You've always been like a son to me, Bernard. You know that. I daresay you're fed up with hearing me tell you. I promised your Dad I would look after you, but I would have looked after you anyway. Your Dad knew that, and I hope you know it too.' Frank was still behind me. I didn't twist round; I stared at Duke Ellington dressed in white tails some time back in the thirties. 'So don't be angry at what I'm going to say,' said Frank. 'It's not easy for me.' The photo was of a very young Duke but it had been signed for Frank during Ellington's West Berlin visit in 1969. So long ago. Frank said, 'If you have any doubts about what the Stinnes debriefing will turn up… better perhaps to get out now, Bernard.'

It took me a long time to understand what he was trying to tell me. 'You don't mean defect, Frank?'

'Letting Stinnes slip through our hands will be no solution,' said Frank. He gave no sign of having heard my question. 'Because after Stinnes there will come another and after that another. Not perhaps as important as Stinnes but contributing enough for Coordination to put the pieces together.' His voice was soft and conciliatory as if he'd rehearsed his piece many times.

I swung round to see him. I was all ready to blow my top but Frank looked drained. It had cost him a lot to say what he'd said and so despite my anger I spoke softly. 'You think I'm a Soviet agent? You think that Stinnes will blow my cover, and so I'm deliberately obstructing his enrolment? And now you're advising me to run? Is that it, Frank?'

Frank looked at me. 'I don't know, Bernard. I really don't know.' He sounded exhausted.

'No need to explain to me, Frank,' I said. 'I lived with Fiona all those years without knowing my own wife was a Soviet agent. Even at the end I had trouble believing it. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I think it's all a nightmare, and I'm relieved it's all over. Then as I become fully awake I realize that it's not over. The nightmare is still going on.'

'You must get Stinnes. And get him soon,' said Frank. 'It's the only way that you'll prove to London that you're in the clear.'

'He'll freeze if he's hurried,' I said. 'We've got to let him talk himself into coming. There was an old man who used to live up in Reinickendorf. He was a swimmer who'd been a competitor in the 1936 Olympics but he'd lost a foot to frostbite in the war. He taught a lot of the kids to swim. One year I took my son Billy to him and he had him swimming in no time at all. I asked him how he did it, because Billy had always been frightened of the water. The old man said he never told the kids to go into the water. He let them come along and watch the others. Sometimes it took ages before a child would summon up the courage to get into the pool but he always let them make their own decision about it.'

'And that's what you're doing with Stinnes?' Frank came back to his desk and sat down.

'He'll have to break a KGB network to prove his bona fides, Frank. You know that, I know it, and he knows it too. Stop and think what it means. He'll be turning his own people over to us. Once a network breaks, there's no telling how it will go. Scribbled notes, a mislaid address book or some silly reply to an interrogator and another network goes too. We both know the way it really happens, no matter what the instruction books ordain. These are his people, Frank, men and women he works with, people he knows, perhaps. He's got to come to terms with all that.'

'Don't take too long, Bernard.'

'If London hadn't meddled by making the big cash offer we might have him by now. The cash will make him feel like a Judas. Mentioning the cash too early is the most stupid thing we could do with a man like Stinnes.'

'London Central are trying to help you,' said Frank. 'And that's the worst thing that can happen to any man.'

'It's taking a longer time than usual because we went to him; he didn't come to us. Those idiots in London are trying to compare Stinnes to the sort of defector who comes into West Berlin, picks up a phone and says, let's go. For them you just send a military-police van and start on the paperwork. Stinnes hasn't been nursing this idea for years and waiting for a chance to jump. He's got to be tempted; he's got to be seduced. He's got to get accustomed to it.'

'Surely to God he knows what he wants by now,' said Frank.

'Even after he's decided, he'll want to put his hands on a few documents and so on. It's a big step, Frank. He has a wife and a grown-up son. He'll never see them again.'

'I hope you don't adopt this maudlin tone with him.'

'We'll get him, Frank. Don't worry. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?'

Frank stared at me before saying, 'No, I just thought it appropriate to tell you personally about the death of your man MacKenzie. The department are keeping it all very low-key.'

'I appreciate it, Frank,' I said. The true reason for the meeting – the suggestion that I might want to walk through Checkpoint Charlie and disappear for ever – was now a closed book, a taboo subject that would probably never be mentioned again.

The door opened as if by magic. I suppose Frank must have pressed some hidden signal to summon old Tarrant, his valet and general factotum. 'I appreciate it very much, Frank,' I said. He'd risked what was left of his career, and a magnificent pension, to fulfil the promise he'd made to my father. I wondered if I would have shown such charity and confidence to him had our positions been reversed.

'Tarrant, tell the driver that my guest is leaving. And have his coat ready, would you?' said Frank.

'Yes, sir,' said Tarrant in loud sergeant-major style. After Tarrant had gone marching off along the hall, Frank said, 'Do you ever get lonely, Bernard?'

'Sometimes,' I said.

'It's a miserable affliction. My wife hates Berlin. She hardly ever comes over here nowadays,' said Frank. 'Sometimes I think I hate it too. It's such a dirty place. It's all those bloody coal-fired stoves in the East. There's soot in the air you breathe; I can taste it on bad days. I can't wait to get back to England. I get so damned bored.'

'No outside interests, Frank?'

His eyes narrowed. I always overstepped the mark with Frank but he always responded. Sometimes I suspected that I was the only person in the world who talked to him on an equal footing. 'Women, you mean?' There was no smile; it was not something we joked about.

'That sort of thing,' I said.

'Not for ages. I'm too old for philandering.'

'I find that hard to believe, Frank,' I said.

Suddenly the phone rang. Frank picked it up. 'Hello?' He didn't have to say who he was; this phone was connected only to his private secretary here in the house. He listened for a time and said, 'Just telex the usual acknowledgement and say we're sending someone, and, if London want to know what we're doing, tell them that we are handling it until they give instructions otherwise. Phone me if anything develops. I'll be here.'

He put the phone down and looked at me. 'What is it?' I asked.

'You'd better close the door for a moment, while we sort this out,' said Frank. 'Paul Biedermann has been arrested by a security officer.'

'What for?'

'We're not exactly sure yet. He's in Paris, Charles de Gaulle airport. We've just had it on the printer. The signal said "Mikado" and that's a NATO code word for any sort of secret documents.'

'What's it got to do with us?' I said.

Frank gave a grim smile. 'Nothing, except that some bloody idiot in London has given Biedermann a "sacred" tag. At present no one in London is admitting to it, but eventually they'll find out who authorized it. You can't put a tag on anyone without signing the sheet.'

'That's right,' I said. I suddenly went very cold. I was the idiot in question.

Frank sniffed. 'And if Biedermann is carrying stolen secret papers while getting protection from someone in London there will be a hell of a row.' He looked at me and waited for my response.

'It doesn't sound as if he got much protection. You said he was arrested.'

'A spot check. No tag could save him from a spot check. But people with 'sacred' tags are supposed to be under some sort of surveillance, no matter how perfunctory.' He smiled again at the thought of someone in London getting into hot water. 'If he's got NATO secrets, they'll go mad. Do you know Paul Biedermann?'

'Of course I do. We were both on that cricket team you tried to get going for the German kids.'

'Cricket team. Ah, that's going back a long time.'

'And I met his sister Poppy here in this house not so long ago. The last time you had me over for dinner.'

'Poppy's a darling. But Paul is a shifty bastard. Didn't you sell him that Ferrari of yours?'

'Shifty? And is that an opinion you've reached since the phone rang?' I asked. 'Yes, I sold him my car. I often wish I'd kept it. He's been through half a dozen since that one, and even with my car allowance I can't even afford a new Volvo.'

'I've always wondered if young Biedermann was in the spy game. He's perfectly placed; all that travelling. And he's egoistical enough to want to do it. But it sounds as if the other side got in first.'

'He's a creep,' I said.

'Yes, I know you hate him. I remember your lecturing me about the way he sold his father's transport yard. How would you like to go to Paris and sort this one out? It will just be a matter of a preliminary talk with the people who are holding him. By that time London will have got hold of whoever signed the "sacred" tag. Whoever signed the tag will have to go to Paris, that's the drill, isn't it?'

'Yes, it is,' I said. I had a cold feeling of foreboding. Whoever had signed the 'sacred' tag would have to go to wherever Biedermann was being held. There was no way out of that; it was mandatory. Anyone who knew I'd signed that 'sacred' tag could make me go anywhere they wanted me to go; all they had to do was to have Biedermann arrested, and put the NATO signal on the line. I hadn't thought of that when making Biedermann 'sacred', and now it was too late to change anything.

'Are you all right, Bernard? You've gone a nasty shade of green.'

'It was the breakfast I had at Lisl's,' I said hastily. 'I can't digest German breakfasts any more.'

Frank nodded. Too much of an explanation. That was the trouble when dealing with Frank and Werner; they knew me too well. That was the trouble when dealing with Fiona too. 'Just hold the fort in Paris until London sends whoever signed that tag. I'm very short of people this week, and since you're on your way back to London anyway… You don't mind, do you?'

'Of course not,' I said. I wondered whether the person who had masterminded this one had known I'd be with Frank today, or whether that was just a lucky coincidence for them. Either way the result was the same. Sooner or later I would have to go to Paris. I was the mouse in the maze; start running, mouse. 'Can you let me have a hand-gun, Frank?'

'Now? Right away? You do come up with some posers, Bernard. The army look after our hardware nowadays, and it takes a day or two to get the paperwork through channels and make an appointment with the duty armoury officer. I could have it by the end of the week. What exactly do you want? I'd better write it down so that I don't get it wrong.'

'No, don't bother,' I said. 'I just wanted to know what the score was, in case I was here and needed a gun some time.'

Frank smiled. 'I thought for one moment you were thinking of taking a gun to Paris. That would mean one of those non-ferrous jobs – airport guns they call them nowadays – and I'm not sure we have any available.' He was relieved, and now he placed a hand on the phone as he waited for it to ring again. 'My secretary will be phoning back with all the details, and then the car can get you to the airport in time for the next plane.' He consulted his gold wrist-watch. 'Yes, it will all fit together nicely. What a good thing you were here when it happened.'

'Yes,' I said. 'What a good thing I was here when it happened.'

Frank must have heard the bitterness in my voice, for he looked up to see my face. I smiled.