The Envoy (36 page)

‘Have a look at this, Kit. These are the plans for our new
headquarters
in Langley.’ Allen Dulles had spread out architects’ drawings on the oak table in the Ambassador’s committee room. It was the same table, a priceless antique from Jefferson’s Monticello, that Allen and his brother Foster had sat around the last time they had briefed Kit. But this time Kit and Allen were alone. ‘Have you been to Langley?’

‘No, sir.’

‘It’s a beautiful sylvan place, low-wooded gently-rolling hills just south of the Potomac. Look at that.’ Dulles pointed to a place on the drawing where there was a broadleaf copse next to a
building
. ‘Clover is nagging the architects to keep as many trees as possible. It’s going to be a veritable Arcadia, a university campus for intelligence studies and espionage. You know, Kit, I hate the image of spycraft as something dirty and sordid. I don’t want my spies to be seedy perverts, I want them to be clean-limbed young men and women – looking forward with the open clear-eyed faces of freedom.’

Kit smiled wanly; he was lost for words. He was tempted to say something about nymphs and shepherds – or to suggest maypole dancing and campfire singing as training requisites. But he kept his mouth shut.

‘What do you think?’

‘It looks a lot nicer than E Street and should improve security too.’

‘And the idea of a university campus?’

‘Absolutely, sir, the intelligence trade is about acquiring
knowledge
– it’s a higher form of learning.’

‘Good, I’m glad you like it.’ Dulles rolled up the drawings, then tapped them with a forefinger. ‘If nothing else, Langley will be my legacy.’

There was a childlike innocence to Allen Dulles that made him difficult to dislike – but also made him dangerous. The world of espionage was just a ‘game’ to him. Allen knew, of course, that there was real blood and real suffering, but he never let himself get close enough to hear the screams and smell the bodily fluids. Kit felt sorry for Dulles, but he felt more sorry for the lives he ruined.

‘Now, Kit, tell us about the Brits and their hydrogen bomb.’

‘They haven’t got one.’

Dulles made a steeple of his fingers and looked closely over them at Kit, as if sighting a rifle. ‘There’s something I don’t
understand
, Kit.’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you think what it is?’

Kit had already calculated how much Dulles knew about his activities. He knew that if the Director had knowledge of his unauthorised and unreported meetings with Vasili, a confession wouldn’t make any difference. In that case, Kit would be arrested that very afternoon and repatriated on a military flight in
handcuffs
. ‘I think you can’t understand why I’ve wasted so much time barking up the wrong tree.’

‘Explicate.’

‘I requested highly top secret U2 photographs of the secret Soviet nuclear installation known as Arzamas-16.’

‘I know.’

‘The problem is that I fooled myself into believing there was a far-fetched conspiracy involving rogue elements of the KGB and the British security services.’

‘Which was?’

‘I blush with shame to admit it, but I came to the conclusion that a ring of corrupt KGB officers and Russian nuclear scientists had stolen a Soviet hydrogen bomb to sell to the British.’

‘What you’re telling me is very interesting, but you tell me your story first and then I might tell you mine.’

‘A number of loose threads and coincidences led me down this path. The first came from my cousin Jennifer who is married to the chief scientist at the Orford Ness Atomic Weapons Research Establishment.’

‘George Calvert’s daughter? You mentioned her when you were in Washington.’

‘That’s the one.’

‘A very beautiful young lady.’

‘She is stunning, but emotionally unstable. And because she’s family, sir, I don’t want any of this put in an official report.’

‘I can understand.’

‘I don’t think Jennie ever got over her brother, Peter, being killed in that Saigon mess – and then her mother is a hopeless alcoholic. Maybe she came to England to get away from it all. In any case, she recently lost a baby – and that makes things worse. But even before that, Jennie had been telling me that something awfully strange and mysterious was going on at Orford Ness. She seemed so intense that I began to believe her. Ergo, I ordered
aerial
reconnaissance photographs of the site.’

‘Yes, Kit, I have seen these photos and read the report. The analyst thinks the bunkers under construction are intended for containing a nuclear blast from within. So what? If the British are constructing a homemade H-bomb, they will still need
containment
bunkers.’

‘That’s true – I made a wrong assumption.’

‘On the contrary, Kit, you were right. You have to take into account the urgency and speed with which they were building these bunkers. Why did the Brits have their H-bomb containment bunkers completed years before they could build an H-bomb?’

‘I don’t know.’ Kit paused and pretended to think. ‘Maybe it’s a face-saving ruse. You’re right, sir. They’re years behind us and the Sovs.’

‘Take me a bit more, Kit, through this corrupt KGB conspiracy theory you now seem to have discarded.’

‘Three more threads. One, a conversation I had with a Russian cellist named Natalya Voronova whom I met at the Aldeburgh festival. She was trying to tell me that her husband, a nuclear physicist named Viktor Voronov, had defected to the Brits. But there’s no evidence to corroborate this. I suspect that Natalya is a KGB agent herself and that she was passing on misinformation to create distrust between us and the British.’

‘She is KGB, but that doesn’t mean the information is false. Natalya might genuinely have been warning us about what our closest ally is up to behind our back.’

‘In my view, unlikely. Second thread, a meeting I had with my contact, code-name Bacchus. You know who he is.’

Dulles nodded. ‘A key member of the Labour shadow cabinet – and a right-winger.’

‘That’s the one. In any case, Bacchus tried spinning me a yarn full of cryptic innuendo about the shipping company that has a former Secretary of Trade as one of its directors. According to Bacchus, the company imports timber to England from the Soviet Union. The purpose of the company isn’t so much profit, as the fostering of stronger Anglo-Soviet links. Bacchus tried to imply that the company was involved in some sort of conspiracy.’

‘Such as using one of their ships to transport a stolen Soviet H-bomb to England hidden under piles of timber.’

Kit struggled to keep his composure. ‘Frankly, sir, Bacchus is full of bullshit. There’s a hidden civil war within the Labour Party. The right wing of that party, such as Bacchus, takes every opportunity to smear the left of the party. We shouldn’t be naive about British game-playing. Bacchus was trying the same tactic as Voronova – misinformation. In any case, the implied smear is totally illogical. If the Labour left are controlled by the KGB, why on earth would they be conspiring with KGB traitors to nick an H-bomb?’

‘Or perhaps the Labour left are British patriots who want a British nuclear deterrent independent of American control?’

‘No, sir, the Labour left are nuclear disarmers – they don’t want any sort of A or H-bomb.’

‘And your third thread?’

‘The disappearance of our cultural attaché, Jeffers Cauldwell, and the murder of his lover – if it was murder. Cauldwell’s lover, Henry Knowles, was a rising member of the Labour Party – and, along with the former Secretary of Trade, a director of the timber import company. And, by the way, I bitterly regret my role in the attempted blackmail of the pair. In retrospect, I’m sure that the tragic outcome had nothing to do with politics or
conspiracy
.’

‘I wish I had known about that blackmail business before it all began. Birch was wrong to give you those orders. I’ve had words with him.’

Kit felt a cold trickle of sweat run down his back. He suddenly realised that Allen Dulles didn’t believe a single word he was saying – and, likewise, Kit realised that he was a trapped insect becoming more and more entwined in the Director’s web. But he had to keep denying the truth. If Cauldwell or the bomb
conspirators
found that he had blabbed to the Americans, there was no telling how they would react. Kit’s secret was intended for only one buyer and for only one price.

‘So Kit, in your judgement, you are certain that there is no H-bomb – Russian or British – on Orford Ness?’

‘None, sir, none at all.’

‘And the conspiracy?’

‘The only conspiracy is an attempt by the KGB to sow mistrust and friction between ourselves and our closest ally.’

‘Sometimes, Kit, I almost have the impression that you might be working for the British.’

‘To be honest, sir, MI6 would rather shoot me than recruit me.’

‘Maybe so. But I hope that you’re right about Britain not
having
an H-bomb, because if they did we would have to take some action – maybe even a covert raid to swipe it. You must never forget that the island of Britain is our unsinkable aircraft carrier – the cornerstone of US foreign and military policy. No British government should ever think that they can act independently of Washington – and that’s why this one is about to get its fingers burned over this Suez nonsense.’

‘By the way, I’ve got more information about Eden’s health and state of mind. Liddel-Hart got so exasperated with the Prime Minister, he put a wastepaper bin over his head.’

‘Sorry, Kit, I’ve still got some questions about you and the H-bomb business.’

‘Sure.’ Kit felt the sweat running down his back.

‘Birch tells me that you were absent from your office for three days at the end of July. What on earth were you doing?’

‘I was flat on my back in my apartment. It was my worst attack of recurrent malaria since coming back from Southeast Asia. And foolishly, I tried to treat it with large quantities of gin and tonic – used to work a treat in Saigon.’

‘I think we’re going to have to put you in for a medical, Kit. In fact, you’re not looking very well at the moment. And something else,’ Dulles reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out a press clipping. ‘That girl that runs the embassy press office is awfully damned efficient. She found this and passed it on to Birch who in turn gave it to me. Have a look.’

Kit took the clipping. It was from the
East Anglian Daily Press
:

Kit glanced at the article. The body had been found by a woman walking her dog. Kit wondered if it was the same woman who found Knowles. She must be getting fed up. He passed the clipping back. ‘It’s a strange piece of coast, sir, bodies are always getting washed up there.’

‘You know what I’m thinking, Kit?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘I think this body might belong to that frogman that you recruited for the
Ordzhonikidze
job in Portsmouth Harbour.’

‘Or it could be a villain from the East End. London gangsters often use the sea as a dustbin for rivals.’

‘In any case, we’ll never find out who he was. MI5 has slapped a news blackout on the story. Why would they do that? Surely, underworld criminals are not a national security matter.’

‘I don’t know why. The Brits are often very secretive for no apparent reason.’

‘Who knows?’ Dulles looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got to be off now. But I must say, Kit, you really must have a check-up, you’re not looking at all well.’

Kit shook hands with Dulles, then began to walk down the two flights of stairs to his office. Halfway down, he felt nauseous and had to cling to the banister. He breathed deeply and tried to
suppress
an urge to be sick. There was something that Dulles had said which came back to Kit like regurgitated vomit: ‘You tell me your story first and then I
might
tell you mine.’ Dulles hadn’t told
his
story – nor had he winked, not even once. Kit knew that he was no longer part of the inner circle. He had been discarded. He was a machine that could no longer be trusted.