by John Lawton
Prague did not look like London. It did not look demolished—it had been pecked at by modern warfare … a shop front caved in here, a flattened tram there—what could flatten a tram? It was almost inconceivable, but that’s what tanks did, and the tanks were everywhere. Some of the buildings reminded him of the Brandenburg Gate, pitted with bullet holes like a bad case of architectural acne.
Dubček had asked the people not to resist, and the Czech army had stayed on it bases with not a shot fired. But resistance was not the same as protest. And he’d issued no injunction against that. An obvious protest was slogans, most as simple as “Go back to Russia”—as though every kid in Prague owned a can of spray paint. The most obvious was people. Troy felt Miss Bell was right, the heat must have gone out of it after a week, and certainly the retaliation was low—he didn’t hear a single shot fired, and Russian troops looked to him worn down by insult and piss-taking—but there still seemed to be ten people in the streets for every tank.
A beer hall disgorged half a dozen men in their forties. Emboldened by booze, they turned their backs on a tank, dropped their pants and wiggled their arses. The Russians on the tank looked away, more bored than offended.
There were thousands of flowers in the street. Every bunch marking a death. And every so often he’d see a teenager silently holding a flag, a calm memorial to yet another victim.
He drifted west in the direction of the river—along Vinohradská, where the Prague radio station had been the centre of last week’s most violent conflict. Twenty-two dead. Prague had defended itself—on either side of the street the Czechs had dug trenches, but trenches do not stop tanks.
He found himself in the Old Town Square, which was home to the most famous structure in the country. His father had visited Prague around 1908, and years later the old man had described to him the wonder that was the Old Town Astronomical Clock.
Four mechanical figures emerged when the clock chimed the hour. Troy looked at his watch. By chance he’d timed it right—three minutes to the hour.
The mechanism jerked into life. One figure was Death. He’d no idea what the other three represented, but few people had ever seen them as they were this August day. Some brave soul had shinned up the outside of the Town Hall. One figure wore a blindfold, the second had gaffer tape over its ears and the last over its mouth. See no … hear no … speak no …
If only all governments could be toppled by satire. In England it took a sex scandal to bring down a government.
§160
He reached the other side of the river, just north of Kampa Park, pretty certain he was heading in the right direction for the embassy.
There was hardly an inch of wall without a slogan.
He was reading one that was fresh, dripping with wet paint—it sounded vaguely familiar.
THE LIFE YOU WANT TO GRASP MIGHT BE THE YOU THAT WANTS TO GRASP IT
He was sure he’d read that somewhere. He just couldn’t remember where.
Between him and the slogan was a short, dark woman in a beautiful summer dress of swirling reds and greens. She was muttering to herself in German, swearing softly. Then she turned, realised she was not alone, apologised and walked on.
Troy and Nell never having met, neither recognised the other.
§161
Palác Thun
He found the embassy, hiding in a cul-de-sac in the shadow of the presidential castle, looking deceptively small, and deceptively more like a prison than a palace. It dawned on him as he walked along Thunovská that when he’d got out of the car Janis Bell still had his newly minted diplomatic passport—so new the ink was scarcely dry. He did not relish the idea of explaining this to a Russian.
But when he turned the corner, there was no battalion of Soviet troops, just two Prague coppers, whiling the day away in conversation with Miss Bell. Her Czech seemed to him surprisingly rapid and free from hesitation—not that he understood a word of it.
“Oh, you found us. Good. You went off without your—”
“I know. Are these chaps here to arrest me?”
“No. They’re not actually unfriendly. Just coppers doing what they’re told.”
“Ah. I wasn’t that kind of copper.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“All the same, we’d better get inside. The head of chancery, that is, Mr. Crawford, is a bit miffed that I was the reception … it should have been him … protocol and all that.”
“He hasn’t got the entire staff lined up waiting, has he?”
“No—but if I’d given him notice he would have. Please follow me and watch where you put your feet.”
Janis Bell’s last sentence baffled Troy but its meaning became clear soon enough. The route to the ambassador’s office was like a building site. Rooms that been elegant enough to justify the word Palác were being divided up and buried in plasterboard by a small army of workmen—cables and drills and hammers strewn across the floor. In one corner of what had once been the main dining room three men were demolishing a spiral staircase so beautiful Troy wished he could buy the bits and have it reassembled in Mimram.
“I know what you’re thinking, desecration, but believe me it’s necessary. We’re trying to get as many of our people as possible into offices with no exterior walls. Since the Russians arrived we’ve had people drilling through the outer wall. We think they were trying to plant microphones or some such. Didn’t work. And I haven’t registered a complaint. They’re hardly likely to listen after all. But—we rearrange.”
Troy’s office was two floors up, at garden level, partly shaded by a gnarled old chestnut tree. He liked it at once. Until all this was over, it might well be a good substitute for his study at Mimram.
Janis Bell said, “Of course, Mr. Crawford is chafing at the bit. It would be as well to get him up here now.”
Troy waved this away with his hand.
“I’m sure he has a point, and I’m sure we bruised his pride, but the protocols aren’t what they were. No doubt he has a small army of civil servants in chancery—”
“Actually it’s not much more than a dozen. Mr. Crawford has four assistants, second and third secretaries. I don’t count. Needless to say. And of course we employ a fair number Czechs, who are not technically civil servants.”
“Miss Bell, I’m not a civil service appointment. I couldn’t give a toss about garden parties and receptions, first nights at the National Ballet, his pecking order or his protocol. I’m here for one reason and one reason only. To deal with the Russians. That’s why Wilson and my brother appointed me. Wilson doesn’t much trust MI6—he sees conspiracies everywhere; after all, George Brown wants his job, Five and Six want to topple the government … he probably pokes under the bed every night with a broom handle—so he sent me, a retired copper. And I have been known to stand up to our Secret Services … when needs be.”
“I’ll get me coat.”
Troy laughed out loud. Janis Bell just grinned.
“I’m sure we can work together, Miss Bell.”
“I’m sure we can, Ambassador.”
“Troy. Behind these doors, I’m just Troy.”
“So long as Mr. Crawford never hears me call you that.”
“Tell me a little about yourself. As MI6’s woman on the spot.”
“Well … I’m twenty-eight. I joined the Service while I was at Cambridge. I got the tap on the shoulder. Must admit I was quite surprised. I wasn’t known for my conservative ideas. But, no, Britain was changing. And a new Britain needed people like me. Apparently.”
“Female?”
“And working class, and a northerner, with a first in modern languages, not classics. Someone who’d actually read a book written since Cicero put down his pen. It was MI6’s early venture into kitchen sink drama. I fitted a scenario for them, as if I’d stepped straight out of a Shelagh Delaney play or a Stan Barstow novel. I was the ‘right image’ for the ‘New Britain’—a phrase that makes me want to spit. I was three years in London. In ’65 I w
as posted to the Helsinki embassy as an assistant to Jenny Burton, the Head of Station—which meant I typed her soddin’ letters. In ’66 I thought I’d ruined my career, but it turned out it was Mrs. Burton who’d ruined hers. She got posted to Pitcairn Island or somewhere not much bigger. I was sent to Bonn with the cover of Second Secretary—quite a promotion in terms of embassy status, but I was a small cog in a very large machine—and then here last summer. I’m Head of Station, my cover is First Secretary—in both cases prefaced by the word ‘acting,’ which, believe me, is reflected in my salary. There hasn’t been a permanent Head of Station since that summer when Ben Crosland was suddenly recalled. They’ve had more than a year to confirm my appointment … haven’t done it.”
“Do I have that authority?”
“Nope. As you said not five minutes ago, you’re neither a civil servant nor a spook. Only Six can make me permanent head, only the Civil Service can confirm me in the pretence of First Secretary.”
“Give me some time. I am an expert at blackmailing the Home Secretary. I’ve had fifty years of practice. Why was Crosland recalled?”
“You mean they didn’t tell you. Good bloody grief.”
“Assume they told me next to nothing.”
“Well … Crosland was acting as a decoy, by which I mean he was ostensibly running a contact personally … his wife made the dead drops. After a few weeks the Russians worked out that she was the real agent, not her husband—they made their move and she knocked a KGB bloke out cold in the Kampa Park.”
Troy pondered this.
“It’ll pay you to keep an eye on my wife too. She’s quite capable of that. Tell me, are you running the contact now?”
“Yes, that’s my job. But we have better systems in place now. Next to nothing, you say? So you’ve no idea of operations?”
Troy shook his head.
“OK. I’ve two men in deep cover dealing with Czech contacts. In Brno there’s ‘Zoltan’—but he’s gone quiet since the invasion, and I rather think we’ll have to pull him out, and there’s ‘Diesel’ in Mělník. He has his head down, but he’s active. I know from London that he still makes regular reports. Never met ‘Zoltan,’ and while I avoid direct contact with ‘Diesel’—at his insistence, I might add—I have worked with him before. By the bye, we never refer to them, even in the most confidential corners, by anything other than their codenames. I’ve just realised I said ‘we’—there is no ‘we.’ Mr. Crawford doesn’t actually know Zoltan and Diesel are here.”
“It’s that secret?”
“Open this and you’ll be the only other person in this building who knows Diesel’s real name.”
She pushed a thin red folder across the desk. Red—meaning “Top Secret Never To Be Removed From Office.”
There was only one page to the dossier, and the name of the agent—an uneven line in smudgy type:
Joe Holderness.
Janis Bell read Troy’s expression.
“You know him?”
“Oh yes.”
“I suppose you think he’s trouble.”
“Of course, but no more than I am myself.”
“Contact has been minimal. He’s chosen to go it alone. I’ll admit that annoyed the hell out of me when we first got here, but he was right. The StB constantly monitor …”
“StB?”
“My God, you really did get the short briefing. StB: Státní bezpečnost. The secret police. Plain clothes, a kind of poor man’s Gestapo … they harass our Czech staff and most of our UK nationals. Drivers, cleaners, doormen … we have a remarkable turnover of local staff as they resign or just vanish rather than be blackmailed.
“They watch us from a sort of hole in the wall right opposite the front door of the embassy. It can’t be much bigger than a broom cupboard, but some poor bugger in the StB sits in there all day and photographs everyone who comes and goes. I wave to him now and again. No idea if he waves back. And, almost needless to say, since the invasion there’ve been uniformed Czech coppers right outside. For our own protection, as it were. I suppose we should be grateful they’re not Russians.
“I’m privileged, as was Ben Crosland. I get the personal attention of the Russians. They trail me everywhere. After all, it was a KGB man Ben’s wife thumped, not an StB agent. It’s almost as though the Russians didn’t trust the StB. But that was a year ago … the ‘almost’ is wholly redundant. They really don’t trust the StB now. Hence the KGB follow me around Prague, like a dog at a fair, as my Mum would say. But I think ‘Diesel’ was counting on that. They’ve never dared stop me after the Sarah Crosland incident. I’d like to think they think I’m better at it … that I make contacts and dead drops that they miss. Truth is, I do bugger all but lead them on a bit of a dance. But while they think I’m picking up information they’re less inclined to look for anyone else. And they get lazy. Some days they’ll all but follow me into the ladies’ loo … other days I won’t see hide nor hair of ’em.”
“Should I expect to be followed?”
“Probably not. As ambassador you’ll be too prominent to be doing anything suspect, and your public appearances will be known to them in advance … so …”
Janis Bell shrugged off the end of her sentence.
“The locals. Do you know of any they’ve turned?”
“We’ve sacked half a dozen in the time I’ve been here, two in the last month, but no one is attracting my suspicion at the moment.”
“And bugs?”
“Oh … forgive what I said at the airport. It was a poor joke on my part. No, we sweep for electronic devices every day. There’s nothing at the moment. On the other hand, if you visit any of their buildings assume every word you say is being recorded. And as it’s summer, assume anything you say in the garden can be picked up by a directional microphone from the palace gardens just up the hill. They overlook every inch of the embassy garden. And, please … don’t go on walkabout alone. Make today’s your last.”
“Of course,” Troy lied. “Now, is it time I met Mr. Crawford and smoothed down his feathers?”
§162
That night Aleksandr Dubček broadcast to the nation. Troy turned on the large, prewar radio in his office—in the age of the transistor, the British Embassy still ran on valves—and Janis Bell translated as Dubček improvised. Even to Troy’s uncomprehending ears Dubček sounded as though he was ad-libbing and exhausted:
We beg you, dear fellow citizens, to help us prevent any provocations by some elements who are interested in worsening the situation.
To ignore the real situation could only lead in some places to adventures and anarchy.
“I’m not sure about ‘adventures’ … can’t think of a better word, but he might not mean that. Oh, hang on … he’s having a go at the new radio stations … ‘spreading mistrust and doubt.’ ”
When Dubček had finished, Janis turned off the radio and said, “Basically he’s saying what he’s said all along—do nothing. It’s significant how many times he used the words ‘extraordinary’ and ‘normal.’ I tried to count and got a bit lost.”
Troy said, “Some elements?”
“That would cover just about everyone in Czechoslovakia.”
“Tell me. Have you ever seen the Charlie Chaplin film Modern Times?”
“Yes, it was on at FilmSoc when I was a student. Don’t remember much about it.”
“There’s a scene in which Chaplin is crossing the road. A lorry stacked with timber passes by and its red warning flag falls off. Chaplin picks it up just as a workers’ demonstration comes around the corner and he unwittingly finds himself carrying the Socialist flag at the head of a hundred marchers. Isn’t that Dubček?”
“Isn’t that a very harsh reading of the situation?
§163
Somewhere in the České Středohoří: September
When Wilderness arrived at the stone circle on the hilltop, Tibor was sitting on a rock the height of a footstool that he’d rolled in from somewhere. He’d rolled in tw
o, and between the two were a sandwich tin and two bottles of Budvar.
“A picnic?” Wilderness asked.
Tibor shrugged.
“It was your idea. When there’s nothing to give, nothing to report, you said I should bring beer, sandwiches and a good book.”
Wilderness sat opposite him. Accepted the gift of a sandwich. Peeled back the top slice. Sausage. Again.
“Nothing?” he said. “After all that’s happened in the last two weeks?”
“It may well be because of what’s happened that there’s nothing. The Russians have wrapped us in their iron fist. I don’t have the access this week that I had last week. May not last, of course. Meanwhile all I have is gossip, and you can get that in any bar in Prague.”
“I haven’t been to Prague in weeks. And the only gossip in Mělník concerns pigs, turnips and the baker’s flighty wife.”
“Oh well … in that case I may have a salacious snippet for you. Čierna nad Tisou. You know to what I refer?”
Of course he did. At the end of July, Brezhnev had met the Czechoslovak leaders at a railway junction on the Ukraine border—Čierna nad Tisou. It might well go down in history—the third most famous railway station in the world, after Crewe and Astapovo. The Russians rolled across the border in fifteen green sleeping cars and each evening they rolled back into a siding on the Soviet side, while Dubček remained on the Slovak side. As if to demonstrate that ne’er the twain shall meet, even the track gauges were different. In the day they met for discussion in a railwayman’s club. It had yielded platitudes. Dubček had returned saying nothing of meaning and playing his cards closer to his chest than ever.
Tibor flipped the caps on the beer and offered one to Wilderness.
“They tried to … shall I say … persuade Dubček.”
“Of course.”
