The Crocus List

40

Perhaps, like Merlin, Sprague lived backwards in time: born in the future and ageing with a perfect memory of what was about to happen together with a misty ambition for what lay ahead in the past. That would explain a lot, George reflected. Or perhaps-he re-reflected-one could explain Merlin's magical reputation in the corridors of Camelotby assuming he was the first true civil servant, gifted with an unromantic vision of what people were going to do (rather than what they should) and building his career on that. While poor King Arthur thought he was running the Round Table all by himself.

So George shouldn't have been surprised to find Sprague had invited himself to the little group that met around a Cabinet Office table at dawn, still wearing their almost identical black overcoats because the heating had only just switched itself on.

"I can't quite see," Sprague was saying, "why you sent Major Maxim to Berlin, George."

"I neither sent him nor let him go. He just went."

"Extraordinary how your Department works. I would have thought his name on any passenger list could alert the Other Side, which on the whole we don't-"

"According to our man in Washington," Sir Nicholas said, "this Maxim used a false identity out in the Midwest. He may well have retained it." The Director-General of the Intelligence Service was a spectacled, near-bald man in his late fifties, with the bulk of a football player who has not quite replaced training with dieting.

"Mostextraordinary," Sprague murmured. "I suppose it would be too much to ask what-if you know-he might be going todo there?"

Georgeglowered. "I imagine that rather depends on what Sir Nicholas is offering to do there."

Sir Nicholas raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. "I don't recall making any oners, George."

"I assume you haveassets, as you call them, in East Germany, East Berlin. How fast can you communicate with them?"

"Really, George."

"Let me put it this way: can they get off their backsides fast enough to intercept this Volkswagen van full of Brits and a British missile before it gets nabbed by the VOPOs -and the Bravoes, they'll be there on the double-and those Brits confess to being your agents and whatever else is written out for them to confess to?"

That brought a pause. Sir Anthony Sladen, nominally in charge as the Cabinet Office always was, looked nervously around for candidates. "Does the Security Service have any further information that might… I mean…?"

The Deputy D-G moved his old hands slowly across his papers. "Aye… we have checked out the British telephone numbers Miss Algar sent us. One is Oxendown House itself- "

"So Arnold Tatham _could_ have been there?" George snapped.

"It would be a possibility. The other two numbers are a Church of England hospice in Suffolk and a small Arts"-dirty word, that-"dining club off Southampton Row. No, George, we have not kicked down the doors in either of these places. We shall inquire, with full authority, as to who might have been at this end of those calls at a more reasonable hour."

"It would be a large assumption," Sir Nicholas said, "that Arnie Tatham was at all three places."

"Did you know him?" George had noted that'Arnie'.

"Ahhh… I'm not sure I'd sayknow him…"

"Everybody seems to say that about him." George got up, pulled off his overcoat and tossed it into a chair. Sprague did the same thing, only more elegantly.

"He was just… very good," Sir Nicholas went on thoughtfully. "A dedicated man. One of the few that didn't play the part, hewas the part. You know, I wonderif you're going to catch Arnieif he doesn't want to be caught. I wouldn't like the job myself."

"Well, he's somewhere over here, running this Crocus List."

"That is implied, but hardly proven, by Miss Algar's report. What she clearly proves is that List's activities have attracted the Bravoes in. Now ifthey can prove what's going on, it would make our government even more apologetic-and acquiescent-towards Moscow."

"What I've been saying all along," George pointed out.

"1 dare say. But my point is that it isn't like Arnieto let that happen. The opposite of what he'd recruited the List for."

"Are you saying he may have died in Italy, after all?"

"No-o… that was too elegant, a beautiful piece of deception."

"From what one reads," Sladen said, "it does not seem to have deceived the intelligence services of the world, yet nothing has been done, until now, to find him."

"How could one justify the funding?" Sir Nicholas smiled blandly; it was a good face for blandness. "With what object? To prosecute him for living under a false identity? I believe you have to prove a fraudulent intent for that… No, I think we've just been waiting to see if Arniesurfaced somewhere. Myself, I personally believe he'd somehow go back to the Church…"

"That place in Suffolk?" George glared at the Deputy D-G of Security.

"We'll try, George, we'll try." He turned his wrist slowly to see his watch. "We should be making touch there very soon…"

"That apart, however," Sladen said, "there doesn't seem too much to go on. A Volkswagen camper van, but no number plate…"

"That's the problem," Sir Nicholas said. "And even if we found it, what could myassets do? Talk these people into going home quietly? Push them into the Spree? Risk starting a brawl, even a gunfight, in East Germany? These assets are real people, George, flesh and blood, quite apart from their value to the Service. I want a clear directive if I am to move on this matter. "

"The Prime Minister?"

"Yes. If he will acknowledge the threat-"

"That man wouldn't acknowledge a fart in his own bath."

"If you say so…"

Sergeant Gower collected Maxim at the Arrivals gate of Tegel-known locally as The Pentagon because the French chose to build the terminal in that rather unsuitable shape. Gower was part of the Intelligence Corps company in the Berlin brigade, and they had met on the Ashford course.

"We got a flash to stop a dark green Volkswagen van at the checkpoint, if it tried to go out," Gower said, "but they didn't have a number. Just that it had a roof hatch and a stove pipe. And I've found which hotel Mr Ferrebee is in. The Archbishop's addressing the Senate this morning then lunching with the Mayor and flying out at 1530."

"Thank you."

"It's not much to go on," Gower said gloomily. "But we'll try." He was a shortish man in his mid-thirties who managed to seem older by his mournful outlook and shambling unmilitary gait. His worn sports jacket and the untidy length of his blonde hair weren't very military, either, but Int Corps didn't always try very hard at such things. Often the opposite.

"A little bird told me that Mr Ferrebee got a telegram through their office here," Gower added.

"Good. Then he'll be in the picture. Can you give me a lift there?"

"Happy to," Gower said sadly, dumping Maxim's bag in the back of an elderly Audi with civilian number plates. "Things have been very quiet since the Soviets put up their proposals. Behaving themselves. Maybe you can do something about that."

The meeting knew Sladen had failed on his mission to Number 10 just from the look on his face as he lowered himself stiffly into his chair. He placed his hands carefully on the edge of the table and pushed fiercely for a moment, his knuckles turning white. Then he relaxed and said: "It was, I think, the Stegosaurus which had one brain in itshead and another in its arse, to control the tail. I've always liked the big saurians: they managed to rule the world for about 140 million years, which sets a bench-mark for any civil service. But I've sometimes wondered whether, when the front brain shut its eyes and ears, the arse brain wasn't reduced to swishing around in the dark.

"The PM will sanction no action until he has had more time and fuller information-"

"Morerime!"George exploded.

Sladen held up a hand in so imperial a gesture that George stifled with surprise, because Sladen was stepping not so much out of character as into the one he might once have become. "Gentlemen, we of the arse brain cells are swishing in the dark."

But, George thought sadly, he's got even that wrong, because when nobody leads, we retreat into our little cells and do nothing. Not even swish.