The Envoy (13 page)

Kit could hear the young man getting annoyed. ‘Shit. Where the fuck is it?’ Finally, he saw the agent stand up and brush his hands and knees. Kit watched to see what the young man would do next. He put the torch in his pocket, said ‘fuck’ a few more times, then retraced his steps to the Bayswater Road. Where, thought Kit, were the rest of the surveillance team? Was he
acting
alone? Unbelievable, but it seemed to be the case. Now it was Kit’s turn to become a one-man surveillance tail.

It was easy. The young man was totally unaware that the tables were turned. The only thing that concerned him seemed to be the fact that he had fucked up his first important assignment. Kit saw his annoyance as he stopped to kick a dustbin when he emerged from the gardens. The agent than set off north-east towards Regent’s Park: walking eyes down, hands in pockets. He stopped at a phone box on Edgeware Road. Kit knew it was going to be a difficult conversation, having to explain to the senior duty officer that he had lost his trail. Kit watched him leaning against the steamy window glass. The call took about two minutes, the young man nodding his head as each point was confirmed. The young man then made another call. This, thought Kit, was the looking-for-sympathy-and-consolation call. Wife? Lover? Maybe his mother – he was so young.

The young man left the phone box and headed towards Marylebone. Kit liked the way Norman French lurked
mispronounced
in English place names. The Americans did it too – Detroit, Des Moines. All those old French priests and explorers lying unremarked beneath strange feet and unknown voices. Kit returned to the living when he saw the young man check his watch, then watched him disappear into an Underground station. There must, thought Kit, be one last train. It would, he knew, be difficult to continue trailing the young man without being
recognised
. The platform and train would nearly be deserted. The game was over – or was it?

Kit stayed out of sight on the street as the agent bought a ticket – then followed him into the station. He didn’t stop to buy a ticket; he wasn’t going to need one. The upper station hall was totally deserted, but the echo rumble of a train covered the sound of Kit’s footsteps as he ran towards his target. The young man was at the top of a steep escalator. The hard thump in the
middle
of his back must have caught him totally unawares. A reflex action made him try to grab the handrails, but the force between his shoulder blades was too powerful – it so winded him that he could not even cry out. Kit watched him tumble and somersault to the concrete floor below – once or twice reaching out, trying desperately to grab anything to break that awful fall.

Kit registered the body at the bottom of the escalator. It looked misshapen and broken. He thought he heard a moaning sound, but it might have just been hot air rising from the deep
tunnels
. He turned and left quickly – the shock of what he had done already making him shake and feel unsteady at the knees.

It was another late night and another half-bottle of brandy. Kit tried to justify what he had done. MI5, he reasoned, are a bunch of shits. It was their guys who had roughed up Stanley. They were the British equivalent of the FBI. As such, they were only allowed to operate within the United Kingdom itself. Their job was

counter-espionage. They ought to be following Russians around, not Americans. How long, thought Kit, had the man trailing him been in the security service? He certainly seemed awfully green. Kit remembered the odd thing again; the strange sound the young man was making just before he pushed him down the moving stairs. It was a convulsive, liquid sound that seemed to come from deep inside. Had he been ill? Suddenly, Kit realised what the strange sound had been, the young man had been
crying
. He had been trusted with an important mission and failed. Maybe there was an older brother who was a dead war hero – and the young man’s one dream had been to live up to that memory. Kit poured another brandy. When he was drunk he felt better about himself.

Kit corked the bottle and got into bed. It didn’t matter, he thought, MI5 were total shits. One of the first things that El Blanco did after being appointed was to establish F Branch. Their job was to infiltrate trade unions and political parties – they even spied on the Labour shadow cabinet. Kit knew this was true because he ran agents who did the same thing. One of F Branch’s big successes was burgling a senior member of the British Communist Party and photographing the names and personal details of all fifty-five thousand members. Now they just needed to press the button and round them up – then deep six them or despatch them to that inhabited anthrax island in the Hebrides.

Kit turned off the light and tried to go to sleep. It didn’t work. He felt like shit. He hated hurting people, but he kept doing it. He could see the glow of Pepita’s luminous Madonna. Sometimes, he hated being alone. He wanted to be cuddled like a child. He wanted Pepita. When Kit finally fell asleep his pillow was damp with tears.

The next day Kit’s secretary passed on a strange message. Someone had rung from a phone box claiming to be Kit’s ‘spiritual adviser’ and recommending they meet ‘at the customary place’ at ‘the
customary
time’. At half past three, Kit left the embassy and hailed a black taxi. He thought about telling the driver to take him straight to the rendezvous point, but then he remembered what had
happened
the previous evening. He was weary of counter-surveillance games and all the other puerile spy games. But he had to continue playing them because he was trapped in a deadly adult playground from which there was no escape. Kit told the taxi driver to take him to Harrods. The store with its many entrances and exits was one of the best places in London to shake off a tail. And then from Harrods, a quick hop on the Underground to South Kensington.

Brompton Oratory is a late-Victorian Italianate monstrosity where the rich Catholics of Kensington and Chelsea confess their sins: ‘Bless me, father, for I support Apartheid and care more about my cat than the children of the black workers in my South African gold mines.’ Except, thought Kit, that they probably don’t see that as a sin. Kit crossed himself with holy water and looked around for his ‘spiritual adviser’. He spotted Vasili as the Russian came out of a confessional. Vasili crossed himself and went to a side chapel in a deserted corner of the Oratory lit only by candles. Kit watched him genuflect before a seventeenth-century altar that the Victorian architect had looted from a church in Brescia, then go to a pew where he bowed his head and muttered his penance. Kit followed and knelt in the pew directly behind. He leaned
forward
and whispered, ‘What did you confess?’

‘I said that I was unfaithful to my wife.’

‘Are you?’

‘Oddly enough, no.’

‘In that case, you should have confessed telling lies. Your
absolution
is invalid.’

‘Shit, maybe I should go back and tell him.’

‘I shouldn’t bother. Just don’t,’ said Kit, ‘lie to me … more than you have to.’

The side chapel smelled of spilt candlewax and incense. For a second, Kit saw Pepita’s coffin in the country church near her
family’s
home. He remembered the rosary beads woven through her strong brown fingers; the lush fleshy tropical flowers heaped high. And hundreds of candles, each villager carrying one. Kit was ten years old when Pepita died of a burst pancreas. She was in great pain, but kept working thinking it was just a cramp that would go away. His mother found him another nanny a week later.

‘I went,’ said Vasili, ‘to see Monsieur Poêle, but he had nothing for me.’

‘I couldn’t leave anything – I was being followed.’

‘They shouldn’t do that – you’re supposed to be allies.’

Kit was desperate to tell something to Vasili, but the Oratory worried him. It was becoming notorious as a DLB – dead
letter
box – for the Soviet Embassy. Oddly, however, no one ever bugged it. None of the competing secret services involved wanted to frighten agents away from Brompton Oratory. There seemed an unspoken agreement to keep the venue clean – otherwise agents and handlers would have to disperse all over the metropolis and things would be more difficult for everyone. Spies, like everyone else, want an easy life at the office.

Vasili turned around and looked at Kit. ‘Who have you pissed off now?’

‘I think you know.’

‘I know,’ said Vasili, ‘that it is a very long list.’

He shifted to safer ground. ‘We’re worried about British policy.’

‘What’s new? We’re worried about American policy, French policy, Chinese policy. Is this all you want to talk about?’

‘No, but I might be giving you something later – and I want you to know why I’m passing it on.’

‘And what do you want in return?’

‘First of all, I want you to listen.’

‘So talk.’

‘My personal view – the one I feed to Washington – is that the British ruling class, especially the Prime Minister, suffers from a collective form of madness.’

‘We like Eden.’

‘I’m sure you do.’

‘What do you call this British madness?’

‘Schizophrenic delusions of post-imperial grandeur.’

‘I didn’t know that you were a qualified psychiater.’

‘Psychia
trist
, Vasili, you’re getting your languages confused.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Schizophrenia is the inability to differentiate between fantasy and reality. The scary thing about schizophrenics is that they never lie. They really believe what they say is true. The British still think they are a world power – and that’s why they keep doing stupid things, irrational things.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘You know, the military bases east of Suez, the oversized fleet, large troop deployment in the Middle East …’

‘And,’ Vasili leaned his face close to Kit’s and whispered hoarsely, ‘trying to develop their own hydrogen bomb.’

‘Yeah, that too.’ Kit fiddled with a hymn book: the H-bomb business was too sensitive to discuss with any Russian,
particularly
their KGB chief in London. The Rosenbergs went to the high voltage toaster for less. Kit answered in safer, more general terms. ‘British military expenditure is way out of proportion to their status as a power. They should spend the money making life
better
for the people of Britain. That, Vasili, is what socialism is all about. Not the sort of militaristic shit your country does.’

‘We need military might to defend our people against your aggression.’ Vasili paused and smiled. ‘And please don’t tell me what socialism is about – tell President Eisenhower. Let’s cut the bullshit. Tell me, Kit, what have you really got to say?’

‘We want to teach the British a lesson about their
post-imperial
delusions.’

‘You mean,’ said Vasili, ‘that you want to show them that they are no longer a world power – because all the strings are pulled from Washington.’

Kit shrugged. ‘That’s right – and let’s see what happens when Hungary or Poland get out of line.’

Vasili frowned. ‘So how do you intend to give this lesson?’

‘You know the
Ordzhonikidze
, the cruiser that’s bringing First Secretary Khrushchev to Portsmouth next month.’

‘What about her?’

‘We’d love to know all her secrets – particularly the ones she’s got hidden beneath her hull.’

‘If there was anything secret below the
Ordzhonikidze’s
waterline
, we would not risk bringing her into an English port, as well as mooring her in a Royal Navy dockyard.’

Kit smiled; he knew Vasili was lying. ‘Sure, maybe there are no secrets to find, but boys like playing games. Now, if the Brits had invited us to play with them, this conversation would not be
taking
place. But they’ve decided that it’s their ball and their soccer field and we’ve been PNG’d.’ The abbreviation was embassy slang for being made Persona Non Grata.

Vasili’s face remained a blank throughout. There was no hint of surprise or indignation, but when he finally spoke his tone seemed bored and weary. ‘Are you telling me,’ his voice fell to a faint whisper, ‘that the British are going to send a frogman to espionage the bottom of the
Ordzhonikidze
?’

Kit nodded and passed Vasili an envelope containing the details.

The Russian folded the envelope into his breast pocket. ‘You’ve just stabbed your closest ally in the back.’

‘No, our closest ally stabbed herself in the back.’

‘You are warning us,’ Vasili’s tone suddenly became animated, ‘of what would be a serious breach of diplomatic etiquette. I’m not sure I believe you – maybe you want to make trouble between us and the British. I know that Prime Minister Eden would never …’

‘The Prime Minister knows nothing about it. It’s an MI6
decision
, an entirely unauthorised op. Maybe they’re a bit out of control.’

Vasili folded his hands and closed his eyes as if recollecting something private. Finally he smiled and said, ‘Remember the story I told you about Boris?’

Kit nodded and said, ‘It might end like that one.’

‘No, it won’t: your societies are too soft. The British Boris will end up with a pension and a new set of golf clubs.’

Kit knew it was time to go. He shook the Russian’s hand, then got up to leave.

Vasili tapped the side of his coat where he had placed the
envelope
. ‘Remember, Kit, I owe you one.’

‘Thanks, I might need it one day.’

Vasili was alerted by something in the American’s voice. He lowered himself back into the pew. ‘What do you want Kit? Is it professional – or personal?’

‘I don’t know.’

Two days later, Kit found himself on his way to an appointment with Dick White, the Director of MI5. His summons to MI5 wasn’t totally unexpected. Kit, still convinced that he had been trailed by one of White’s ‘watchers’, had written a letter of official complaint to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He didn’t identify himself as the surveillance target – nor did he provide details of what had happened. The letter observed diplomatic conventions and was signed and sealed by the US Ambassador.

Kit was more than a little surprised at how quickly the letter had winged its way from the FO to MI5 – that meant there were undercurrents. The letter inviting him to meet the Director had been motorcycle-despatched by a Royal Signal Corps Corporal – one so smartly booted and uniformed that he made the US Marine guards look slovenly. The letter was brief and offered the Director’s ‘sincere apologies’. It also expressed a desire to discuss the ‘general issues involved with the aim of preventing such
incidents
from happening again’. In truth, Kit suspected it was a ruse by the British Security Service to get him on their own turf for a private grilling. They even sent a long sleek Humber Pullman to pick him up – for a lift to an address that didn’t exist.

The building, functional and bland, had neither nameplate nor street number. But Kit knew it was called Leconfield House and occupied a squat rectangle between Curzon Street and Clarges Street. He was met by a man wearing a tweed suit and highly
polished
brogues. He stared at Kit through a monocle and said that ‘K’ was a little delayed, but would see him as soon as possible. The man, who smelled of whisky, left Kit in an office piled high with newspapers and magazines. Kit noticed the communist
Daily Worker
piled side by side with the
Daily Telegraph
. There were also arts and literary journals – and student newspapers from a
variety
of universities. It was funny, Kit thought, we all get the same stuff and probably collate the same information for the same
reasons
. There must be dozens of obscure quarterlies that only
survive
because the security services need to take out subscriptions to spy on their contributors. There was a thin partition separating Kit from the next office, from where there was the sound of
snoring
– but it was, to be fair,
after
lunch.

A door opened. It was the Director, Dick White – El Blanco himself. The name was doubly apt for the Director had a great shock of fine white hair. He so looked the part of a senior civil service mandarin that Kit wondered if he had been appointed by a casting director. White shook hands and led Kit up a narrow staircase to his own office. Kit was surprised to find the Director’s office was more small and drab than his own. A single window that needed washing looked out over the chimney pots of Mayfair. The only decorations were an Ormolu clock on a mantlepiece and the Security Service’s coat of arms hanging above it. Kit had never seen the crest before – maybe it was a secret and you had to be invited to Leconfield House to have a peep. The coat of arms was a triangle and each corner of the triangle formed three
miniature
triangles. The top triangle boasted an all-seeing eye – like the pyramid on the back of a US one-dollar bill. The two base
triangles
enclosed M and 5 – M eye 5. The relationship of the
symbols
to another secret organisation was comically blatant.