Traitor's Gait

by Geoffrey Osborne

  Traitor’s Gait

  Geoffrey Osborne

  © Geoffrey Osborne, 1969

  Geoffrey Osborne has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1969 by Robert Hale Limited.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  For my daughter Amanda

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter One

  The bushy, white eyebrows climbed up the high, wrinkled brow, rising to match the inflection in the Director’s voice, before stopping to form twin question marks, punctuating his sentence.

  ‘Do you really think Jones is the right choice?’

  James Dingle, who had been staring, fascinated, at those eyebrows, shifted his gaze with an effort to look into the chief’s clear, penetrating eyes.

  ‘We’ve been a good team in the past,’ he said, surprised. ‘Why shouldn’t we work together on this job?’

  The Director’s eyebrows slid down to hide his eyes, blocking any attempt Dingle might make to read his thoughts. He was silent for a few moments before he said slowly:

  ‘I’ve been in this game a long time; a lot longer than you. I’ve seen agents crack under the strain. I know the signs.’

  It was Dingle’s turn to be silent, then he said, harshly:

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  The Director settled his massive frame more comfortably in his chair, rested his elbows on the desk and made a bridge with his hands.

  ‘It means I’m worried about Jones.’

  ‘You think he’s about to crack?’

  ‘All the signs are there.’

  ‘I don’t believe it. I’ve worked with him. He’s always first-class in a crisis. When the heat’s on he doesn’t seem to have a nerve in his body.’

  ‘Ah, yes. But what does it cost him? I’ll admit he’s a good agent; next to yourself he’s probably the best we’ve got. But he’s been working hard lately and … dammit, Dingle, you’ve seen for yourself how nervous he is whenever he’s briefed for a job.’

  ‘Yes, sir. But he’s always all right when the time comes. It’s just the thought of it I suppose.’

  ‘Hmm.’ The Director fiddled moodily with some files on his desk, then flicked a switch on the intercom. ‘Is that tea ready yet Miss Peach?’

  ‘I’m bringing it in now, sir.’

  The big man slid a large silver cigarette box across the desk.

  ‘Smoke?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Dingle took a cigarette, lit it with his own lighter and inhaled the smoke gratefully.

  ‘Jones only got back from Russia yesterday, you know,’ said the Director.

  ‘Leningrad?’

  ‘Yes. Had to get things running there again after the last affair. But it was pretty difficult for him. Now that he’s known to the KGB he has to be even more careful.’

  ‘I’m on their files, too.’

  ‘Yes, but the strain’s telling on Jones; he hasn’t had your experience. I think he’s due for a rest …’

  The two men stopped talking while Miss Peach came into the room, carrying a metal tray with two cups of tea and a plate of biscuits. She walked across to the desk; as she bent to set the tray down it tilted slightly, the cups skidded down to one end and collided, slopping the tea into the saucers.

  ‘Watch what you’re doing woman,’ growled the Director. ‘And mind those damn files!’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Miss Peach leaned over to put the cups and saucers in order.

  ‘Oh leave it; leave it. I’ll do it,’ her boss said testily.

  She straightened up, looked over the Director’s head at Dingle, and wrinkled her nose in a grimace of distaste. Dingle grinned and winked back at her, hastily erasing the smile from his face when the big man, who had been studying the messy tray, looked up sharply at him.

  ‘That will be all Miss Peach.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  She turned quickly and walked stiffly back to her own room, the back of her neck pink with anger, slamming the door behind her.

  There she goes, thought Dingle. The girl with a million secrets.

  Miss Peach was fat, normally jolly and, at sixty-four, well past retirement age. But the Director, who insisted that she was indispensable, had kept her on. She had been his secretary ever since he had formed SS(O)S — the Special Security (Operations) Section of MI5 — in 1948.

  The Director had been thirty-eight then, the youngest head of any Secret Service department. Lean, tough and ruggedly handsome, he had just completed two years’ dangerous work in Russia after a very bad war. Now the former hard muscle had turned to fat and he looked about two stones overweight. His enormous head was completely bald, the bulging forehead permanently creased in a worried frown, pulling those sprawling eyebrows down low to bury his alert, deep-set brown eyes.

  The big man was looking at the spilt tea with obvious displeasure. He picked up a cup, scraped its bottom irritatingly over the edge of the saucer and tipped the slops back into the cup.

  ‘Have some tea,’ he said.

  ‘No thank you, sir.’

  ‘Biscuits?’

  ‘No thank you.’

  ‘Suit yourself. Now then, where were we?’

  ‘You were saying, sir, that Jones is due for a rest.’

  ‘Ah yes.’

  ‘So couldn’t I do the job on my own?’

  ‘I thought we’d agreed that it was a two-man operation.’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘In any case, it needs a fluent Russian-speaker to prepare the ground. There’ll be a lot of digging around to do first. And your Russian isn’t that good is it?’

  ‘No, but if Jones can’t go, who else is there?’

  ‘There’s Greaves.’

  Dingle looked startled.

  ‘Greaves? His Russian is good, granted, but surely a job like this isn’t in his line.’

  ‘Or Jerrold?’

  ‘He’s a good man; but he doesn’t know his way around Moscow. He’s not known to our men there. It would take him a long time to make contact and find out all we want to know. I could be kept hanging around here for weeks.’

  The Director finished his tea, picked up the cup Dingle had declined and went through the noisy saucer-cleaning operation again. When he tipped the contents of the saucer into the cup, the film that had formed over the tea was broken up into a twirly pattern. He drank the turbid liquid quickly, pulling a face.

  ‘Cold. But she’d be upset if she thought you hadn’t drunk it,’ he said, nodding towards the door of Miss Peach’s room.

  Dingle grinned — and wondered why a man who could be so rude to his secretary should worry about her being upset because a cup of tea had not been touched.

  ‘You’d feel quite confident, then, working with Jones on this?’

  Dingle dragged his mind back to the business in hand.

  ‘Yes. I’ve told you; we’re a good team.’

  ‘Hmm. I suppose he could get it all set up for you in a week,’ the Director mused. ‘Then you could join him, do the job tog
ether and get out. The whole operation could be completed in under a fortnight.’

  He reached a decision. ‘All right. You can have Jones for this job; but after that he’ll have to be rested for a while. You’d better both come here at eleven o’clock in the morning to work out the details.’

  He pressed the switch on the intercom.

  ‘Yes sir?’

  ‘Get in touch with Mr Jones, Miss Peach. I want him here at eleven in the morning.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Miss Peach was making a note on her pad when Dingle walked into her room on his way out.

  ‘Coming out with me tonight Peachey?’

  ‘What do you think I am, a cradle snatcher?’

  ‘I don’t know about that; but I do know what you’re not.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You’re not a very good tea lady.’

  She threw her pen at him, laughing.

  ‘Get out!’

  Dingle ducked.

  ‘Okay, I can take a hint. I know when I’m not wanted.’

  She watched him go. Hard, lean and confident, his age could have been anything from thirty-eight to forty-live. Dark hair, flecked with grey, framed the regular features of a face that was neither handsome nor ugly. An ordinary face; an anonymous face. As he opened the door into the corridor she saw his right hand. The index finger and the one next to it were missing. He had lost them on a mission to the Far East.

  Miss Peach shook her head sadly as he closed the door behind him. She wondered what made these men want to risk their lives. She had seen others, just like Dingle; tough, athletic, gay and dangerous. The others joked with her too, just like Dingle, as they walked out through that door to do battle with the Other Side. Some of them never came back.

  Miss Peach sighed and picked up the telephone.

  Chapter Two

  The little girl sitting in the pedal-car was about three. She was red-faced, screaming and crying with rage. Her anger was directed at the five-year-old boy who had been pushing the car but was now walking away from her. He had had enough; she wanted more. The boy hesitated; the cries and screams rose to a crescendo. He shrugged, turned back and resumed pushing. The screams immediately turned into squeals of delight; the tears miraculously evaporated.

  The boy had learned his first lesson about women. A man just couldn’t win. If he wanted a quiet life, it was best to do what she wanted. Tired, resignedly, he pushed.

  Glyn Jones’s tired, lined face cracked into a smile; a face which had been aged by worry and pain. He was forty-three; but he looked ten years older.

  He strolled on through the park, limping — but only very slightly; he had learned to disguise his walk. No casual observer would have guessed that he had a false foot, the result of his first mission with Dingle.

  The smile still lingered on his lips as he watched the children playing on the swings, roundabout and slide. He liked watching kids; to him, they were the only sane beings in an insane world. They knew what life was about. It was given to them to be enjoyed.

  The little boy had stopped pushing the pedal-car now; instead he was pushing the girl on one of the swings.

  Was that what marriage was like, Jones wondered; doing everything you were told to do, just to keep the little woman happy? That was how he’d always imagined it; and he had never fancied it. Until now.

  The remains of his smile faded, to be replaced by an unhappy frown. He cursed silently to himself. He cursed because the idea of marriage was suddenly, startlingly, attractive to him; because he was in love.

  He walked on, miserably now, towards the duck pond in the centre of the park. Thoughts whirled in his mind. How could he ask anyone to marry him? He tried to picture it. ‘I’m off to work now, darling,’ he would say. ‘Don’t wait up for me if I’m late; I’ll probably be either in a Russian prison … or dead.’

  What was it Dingle had said once they had gone out together one night in search of female companionship? ‘People like us need women, Glyn bach. But we can only love ’em and leave ’em. There’s no room for marriage in this set-up.’

  Dingle had been right, of course; and Jones had been quite content to adopt his philosophy. Until now.

  The Welshman stared sourly at the ducks. The ducks stared back, equally sourly, before plunging their heads beneath the surface of the pond, waggling their bottoms rudely in the air.

  ‘You, too!’ muttered Jones as he turned away and headed for the side gate. It was ten o’clock; time to go if he was to keep his appointment with the Director.

  He walked slowly, wallowing in self-pity. He could see no solution to his problem. He had no right to ask Gillian to marry him. Gillian, the woman who, until five weeks ago, he had called Mrs Jackson. His landlady. But their relationship had changed drastically in the last five weeks.

  He could resign from the Department, of course. But would the Director let him go? And if he did, what sort of job could Jones hope to get? The Director would no doubt give him a good reference. ‘This man has given loyal service as a secret agent. He is an expert burglar, con-man and killer.’

  Jones smiled bitterly as he turned into the front garden of a small but neat semi-detached which backed on to Enfield’s town park.

  He didn’t go into the house. He went straight to the garage and reversed his car out. Gillian came to the front door as he reached the road. She shouted something, he could not hear what. But he didn’t stop. He waved, slammed the car into gear and drove off savagely towards the London road. Gillian stood and watched him go. She was fair-haired, thirty-six and a widow. Her husband had been drowned seven years ago in a boating accident. She was not beautiful; but she was attractive and, to Jones, very desirable.

  ‘But if she marries me she’ll probably be a widow again before the bloody honeymoon’s over,’ he told himself fiercely.

  There were no guarantees for safety in his job. Sooner or later the Russians would catch him. He was on the KGB files now. So how could he ensure that he would return home safely from every mission? Surely there was some precaution he could take?

  Near the traffic lights at Bush Hill Park, the Welshman decided on impulse to take the city route, and turned left towards Edmonton. Quickly, the bright airiness of Enfield was left behind. The grey, squalid drabness of London’s northern outskirts took over, the progressive dreariness of the scenery matching his mood as he drove on through Tottenham, Stamford Hill and Stoke Newington.

  He drove automatically, scarcely noticing the heavy traffic and the bustle on the pavements. His mind wrestled agonisingly with the problem that seemed to have no answer.

  *

  Dingle was already there when Jones arrived.

  ‘You’re late,’ the Director observed irritably.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir; couldn’t find a parking place.’

  ‘Well, sit down now that you are here.’

  The Welshman sat; he nodded briefly to Dingle, who smiled back.

  ‘When did you get back from Washington, Jim?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘Why is it you get all the good trips while I get the dodgy ones?’ Jones complained.

  ‘You can gossip later,’ the Director said, pressing the switch on the intercom. ‘Miss Peach! I don’t want any more calls put through here unless they’re top priority.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  The SS(O)S chief flipped the switch to ‘off’.

  ‘Smoke if you want to.’

  The two agents helped themselves to cigarettes from the box on his desk.

  ‘And now let’s get down to business.’ The big man looked at Jones. ‘Have you heard of FOBS, the Factional Orbital Bombardment System?’

  ‘You mean the space bomb?’

  ‘It has been called that, yes. It’s a Russian development of a system for dropping nuclear warheads from a low-orbit vehicle.’

  ‘Our friends in Washington call it “doing it the hard way”,’ put in D
ingle.

  ‘Nevertheless, there must be some advantages to the idea,’ the Director resumed. ‘Otherwise the Russians wouldn’t bother to develop it. What those advantages are we don’t know; but we do know where all the details of the space bomb, as you call it, are kept. One of our agents has just found out for us.

  ‘We want to see those details. And it will be your job, Glyn, to work out a way to get at them.’

  The colour drained from Jones’s face.

  ‘Where are they, sir?’

  ‘In a laboratory at the new space weapons research centre, just outside Moscow.’

  ‘With a KGB guard?’

  ‘Yes — reinforced by the GRU.’

  Jones’s pallor increased.

  ‘The military security people? What are they doing there?’

  ‘It is an Army project, you know.’

  ‘And when I’ve found a way to get in there?’

  ‘Get a message back to me quickly. Jim will fly out to you and you can explain it all to him.’

  Jones looked slightly happier.

  ‘So Jim will do the actual job?’

  ‘That’s right. But you’ll go in with him to help.’

  Jones looked unhappy again, and his belly began to rumble.

  ‘What’s our cover this time?’

  ‘Nothing elaborate. You will be going in as ordinary tourists. Your flights and hotels are already booked through Intourist. False names and passports of course. You will also be supplied with GRU passes and with KGB papers authorising you to enter the research station. They’re signed by Semyon Tsvigun, first deputy chairman of the KGB — and I think even he would accept it as his own signature.’

  Dingle grinned. ‘Only the deputy chairman? Wouldn’t it look better if they were signed by the chairman?’

  The Director was not amused.

  ‘We haven’t been able to get a specimen of Yuri Andropov’s signature yet,’ he said abruptly.

  Dingle’s grin faded. He should have known better. The Director was not renowned for a sense of humour.

  ‘You say our flights are already booked,’ he said hastily. ‘What about mine? Suppose I’m due to fly out before we’ve heard from Glyn?’