Mexico Set

by Len Deighton

  ‘Don’t sound so incredulous. That’s where they put such people. We don’t want them at the sharp end, do we, Bernard?’

  ‘And why did Internal Security send him here?’

  ‘Internal Security never tell us lesser mortals what they are doing, or why they’re doing it, Bernard. I’m sure he guesses that anything he tells me is liable to get back to you.’

  ‘And why should that matter?’

  ‘Let me rephrase that.’ Frank forced a grin on to his reluctant face. ‘I meant that anything he told me is liable to get back to any member of the Berlin staff.’

  ‘Is that bastard investigating me?’ I said.

  ‘Now don’t get excited, Bernard. No one knows what he’s doing. Internal Security are a law unto themselves, you know that. But even if he is poking his nose into your affairs, you’ve no cause to be surprised. We all get investigated from time to time. And you have…’

  ‘I have a wife who defected. Is that what you were going to say, Frank?’

  ‘It’s not what I was going to say but, now that you’ve brought it into the conversation, it is a factor that Internal Security is bound to find relevant.’

  I didn’t answer. At least I had Frank on the defensive. It was better than him giving me a hard time about MacKenzie. Now that his pipe was filled with tobacco I gave him enough time to light up. ‘Yes, you’re sure to have them breathing down your neck for a little while,’ he said. ‘But these things eventually blow over. The service is fair-minded, Bernard. You must admit that.’ He sucked at his pipe in short rapid breaths that made the tobacco flare. ‘Do you know of even one case of a departmental employee being victimized?’

  ‘I don’t know of one,’ I said, ‘for the very good reason that the lid is kept tightly clamped upon such things.’

  ‘Couldn’t have chaps writing letters to The Times about it, could we?’ said Frank. He smiled but I looked at him blankly, and watched him as he held the matchbox over the bowl of his pipe to increase the draft. I never knew whether he was so very bad at getting his pipe lit, or whether he deliberately let it go out between puffs, to give him something to do while thinking up answers to awkward questions.

  ‘I might not need back-up on the Stinnes business, Frank,’ I said, choosing my words carefully. ‘I might want to handle it well away from the city, maybe not in Germany anywhere.’

  Frank recognized the remark for what it was; a departmental way of telling him to go to hell. Official notice that I was going to keep the Stinnes operation well away from him and all his doings. ‘It’s your show, lad,’ said Frank. ‘How is it going?’

  ‘Did you know that London have offered Stinnes a cash payment?’

  Only his eyes moved. He looked up from his pipe but held it to his mouth and continued to fuss with it. ‘No. At least not officially.’

  ‘But you did hear?’

  ‘The D-G told me that there might be a payment made. The old man always tells me if such things happen here on my patch. Just by way of courtesy.’

  ‘Is the D-G taking a personal interest?’

  ‘He is indeed.’ An artful little grin. ‘That’s why so many of our colleagues are giving it such close attention.’

  ‘Including you?’

  ‘I came into the service with Sir Henry Clevemore. We trained together – although he was rather older than me – and we’ve become close friends. But Sir Henry is the Director-General, and I’m just the poor old Berlin Resident. He doesn’t forget that, Bernard, and I make sure that I never forget it either.’ This was Frank’s way of reminding me that I was too damned insubordinate. ‘Yes. If Sir Henry is taking a close personal interest in any particular enterprise, I also take an interest in it. He’s no fool.’

  ‘The last time I saw him he was in bad shape.’

  ‘Sick?’ said Frank, as if hearing that suggestion for the first time.

  ‘Not just sick, Frank. When I spoke to him he was rambling.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that the old man’s non compos mentis?’

  ‘He’s completely fruit-cake, Frank. You must know that if you’ve seen him lately.’

  ‘Eccentric, yes,’ said Frank cautiously.

  ‘He’s one of the most powerful men in Britain, Frank. Let’s not quibble about terminology.’

  ‘I wouldn’t like to think you’re encouraging anyone to think the D-G is in anything but vigorous mental and physical health,’ said Frank. ‘He’s been under a heavy strain. When the time is ripe he’ll go, of course. But we’re all very keen that it should not look like a response to the government’s request.’

  ‘Are the government asking for his head?’

  ‘There are people in the Cabinet who’d like someone else sitting in the D-G’s chair,’ said Frank.

  ‘You mean some particular someone else?’

  ‘They’ll put a politician in there if they get a chance,’ said Frank. ‘Virtually every government since the war has cherished the idea of having a “reliable” man running us. Not just the socialists; the Tories also have their nominees. For all I know, the Liberals and Social Democrats have ideas about it too.’

  ‘Is it a job you’d like?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Don’t say you’ve never thought about it.’

  ‘Berlin Resident to D-G would be a giant step for man.’

  ‘We all know that you came back here to straighten out a mess. Had you stayed in London you could have been the old man’s deputy by now.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Frank.

  ‘Has the idea been mentioned?’ I persisted.

  ‘With varying degress of seriousness,’ admitted Frank. ‘But I’ve set my mind on retirement, Bernard. I don’t think I could take on the job of running the whole department at my age. I’ve said that if the old man got really sick I’d go in and hold the fort until someone permanent was appointed. It would be simply a way of keeping a political nominee out. But I couldn’t do the reorganization job that is really required.’

  ‘That is desperately overdue,’ I said.

  ‘That some think is desperately overdue,’ agreed Frank. ‘But the general consensus is that, if the worst came to the worst, the department can manage better with an empty D-G’s office than with no Berlin Resident.’

  ‘The D-G’s office is already empty a lot of the time,’ I said. ‘And the Deputy D-G has an ailing wife and a thriving law business. It’s a time-consuming combination. Not much sign of him on the top floor nowadays.’

  ‘And what does the gossip say will happen?’ said Frank.

  ‘Now that Bret Rensselaer has lost his empire he’s become one of the hopefuls.’

  Frank took the pipe from his mouth and grimaced. ‘Bret will never become D-G. Bret is American. It would be unacceptable to the government, to the department, and to the public at large if it ever got out.’

  ‘Bret is a British subject now. He has been for some years. At least that’s what I’ve heard.’

  ‘Bret can arrange what paperwork he likes. But the people who make the decisions regard Bret as an American, and so he’s American. And he’ll always remain American.’

  ‘You’d better not tell Bret.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mean he won’t get his knighthood. Actors, comics and footballers get them nowadays, so why not Bret? And that’s what he really wants. He wants to go back to his little New England town and be Sir Bret Rensselaer. But he wouldn’t be allowed to go back and tell them that he’s just become Director-General of MI6, would he? So what’s the point?’

  ‘You’re a bit hard on Bret,’ I said. ‘He’s not simply in it for a K.’ I wondered whether Frank’s sudden dislike of Bret had something to do with his becoming a contender for the D-G’s job. I didn’t believe Frank’s modest disclaimers. Given a chance, Frank would fight tooth and nail for the D-G’s chair.

  Frank sighed. ‘A man has no friends in this job, Bernard. The Berlin Field Unit is the place where London sends the people it wants to get rid of. This is the Siberia of the ser
vice. They send you over here to handle an impossible job, with inadequate staff and insufficient funding. And, all the time you’re trying to hold things together, London throws shit at you. There is one thing upon which London Central Policy Committee and Controller Europe always agree. And that is that every damn cock-up in London is because of a mistake made here in the Berlin Field Unit. Bret only put me here to get me out of the way when it looked as if I might be getting the Economics Desk which he later parlayed into an empire.’

  ‘All gone now, Frank,’ I said. ‘You had the last laugh on that one. Bret lost everything when they brought Brahms 4 out and closed him down. These days Bret is fighting for a piece of Dicky’s desk.’

  ‘Don’t write Bret off. He won’t become D-G, but he’s smooth, very bright and well provided with influential supporters.’ Frank got up from behind his desk and went over to switch on the lamp that was balanced over his ancient typewriter. The lampshade was green glass and the light coming through it made Frank’s pinched face look sepulchral. ‘And if you enrol Stinnes there will be a mighty reassessment of everyone’s performance over the last decade.’ Frank’s voice was more serious now, and I had the feeling that he might at last tell me what had prompted this urgent meeting.

  ‘Will there?’ I said.

  ‘You can’t have overlooked that, Bernard. His interrogation will go on for ever. They’ll drag out every damned case file that Stinnes ever heard of. They’ll read every report that any of us ever submitted.’

  ‘Looking for another mole?’

  ‘That might well be the excuse they offer. But there is no mole. They will use Stinnes to find out how well we’ve all done our jobs over the past decade or so. They’ll be able to see how well we guessed what was going on over the other side of the hill. They’ll read our reports and predictions with all the advantage of hindsight. And eventually they will give us our end-of-term school reports.’

  ‘Is that what the D-G plans to do with Stinnes?’ I said.

  ‘The D-G is not quite the crackpot you like to think he is, Bernard. Personally I’m too near to retirement for it to affect me very much. But the Stinnes debriefing will leave a lot of people with egg on their faces. It will take time, of course. The interrogators will have to check and double-check and then submit their reports. But eventually the exam results will arrive. And some of them might be asked to see the headmaster and discreetly told to find another school.’

  ‘But everyone at London Central seems to want Stinnes enrolled.’

  ‘Because they are all convinced that Stinnes will show how clever they are. You have to be an egomaniac to survive in the London office. You know that.’

  ‘Is that why I’ve survived there?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes.’ Frank was still standing behind me. He hadn’t moved after switching on the lamp. On the wall there was a photograph – a signed portrait of Duke Ellington. It was the only picture in the room apart from the portrait of the Queen. Frank had one of the world’s largest collections of Ellington recordings, and listening to them was the only leisure activity he permitted himself, apart from his sporadic love affairs with unsuitable young women. ‘How it will affect you I don’t know,’ said Frank. He touched my shoulder in a gesture of paternal reassurance.

  ‘Nothing will come to light that might affect my chances of becoming D-G,’ I said.

  ‘You’re still angry about Dicky Cruyer getting the German Desk, aren’t you?’

  ‘I thought it would go to someone who really knew the job. I should have known that only Oxbridge men would be short-listed.’

  ‘The department has always been like that. Historically it was sound. Graduates from good universities were unlikely to be regicides, agrarian reformers or Luddites. One day it will all change, but change comes slowly in England.’

  ‘It was my fault,’ I said. ‘I knew the way it worked but I told myself that this time it would be different. There was no reason for thinking it would.’

  ‘But you never thought of leaving the service?’ said Frank.

  ‘For a week I thought of nothing else except leaving. Twice I wrote out my resignation. I even talked to a man I used to know about a job in California.’

  ‘And what made you decide to stay?’

  ‘I never did decide to stay. But I always seemed to be in the middle of something that had to be finished before I could leave. Then when that was done I’d already be involved with a new operation.’

  ‘You talked to Fiona about all this?’

  ‘She never took it seriously. She said I’d never leave the department. She said that I’d been threatening to leave since the first time she found out what I did for a living.’

  ‘You’ve always been like a son to me, Bernard. You know that. I daresay you’re fed up with hearing me tell you. I promised your Dad I would look after you, but I would have looked after you anyway. Your Dad knew that, and I hope you know it too.’ Frank was still behind me. I didn’t twist round; I stared at Duke Ellington dressed in white tails some time back in the thirties. ‘So don’t be angry at what I’m going to say,’ said Frank. ‘It’s not easy for me.’ The photo was of a very young Duke but it had been signed for Frank during Ellington’s West Berlin visit in 1969. So long ago. Frank said, ‘If you have any doubts about what the Stinnes debriefing will turn up…better perhaps to get out now, Bernard.’

  It took me a long time to understand what he was trying to tell me. ‘You don’t mean defect, Frank?’

  ‘Letting Stinnes slip through our hands will be no solution,’ said Frank. He gave no sign of having heard my question. ‘Because after Stinnes there will come another and after that another. Not perhaps as important as Stinnes but contributing enough for Coordination to put the pieces together.’ His voice was soft and conciliatory as if he’d rehearsed his piece many times.

  I swung round to see him. I was all ready to blow my top but Frank looked drained. It had cost him a lot to say what he’d said and so despite my anger I spoke softly. ‘You think I’m a Soviet agent? You think that Stinnes will blow my cover, and so I’m deliberately obstructing his enrolment? And now you’re advising me to run? Is that it, Frank?’

  Frank looked at me. ‘I don’t know, Bernard. I really don’t know.’ He sounded exhausted.

  ‘No need to explain to me, Frank,’ I said. ‘I lived with Fiona all those years without knowing my own wife was a Soviet agent. Even at the end I had trouble believing it. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I think it’s all a nightmare, and I’m relieved it’s all over. Then as I become fully awake I realize that it’s not over. The nightmare is still going on.’

  ‘You must get Stinnes. And get him soon,’ said Frank. ‘It’s the only way that you’ll prove to London that you’re in the clear.’

  ‘He’ll freeze if he’s hurried,’ I said. ‘We’ve got to let him talk himself into coming. There was an old man who used to live up in Reinickendorf. He was a swimmer who’d been a competitor in the 1936 Olympics but he’d lost a foot to frostbite in the war. He taught a lot of the kids to swim. One year I took my son Billy to him and he had him swimming in no time at all. I asked him how he did it, because Billy had always been frightened of the water. The old man said he never told the kids to go into the water. He let them come along and watch the others. Sometimes it took ages before a child would summon up the courage to get into the pool but he always let them make their own decision about it.’

  ‘And that’s what you’re doing with Stinnes?’ Frank came back to his desk and sat down.

  ‘He’ll have to break a KGB network to prove his bona fides, Frank. You know that, I know it, and he knows it too. Stop and think what it means. He’ll be turning his own people over to us. Once a network breaks, there’s no telling how it will go. Scribbled notes, a mislaid address book or some silly reply to an interrogator and another network goes too. We both know the way it really happens, no matter what the instruction books ordain. These are his people, Frank, men and women he works with
, people he knows, perhaps. He’s got to come to terms with all that.’

  ‘Don’t take too long, Bernard.’

  ‘If London hadn’t meddled by making the big cash offer we might have him by now. The cash will make him feel like a Judas. Mentioning the cash too early is the most stupid thing we could do with a man like Stinnes.’

  ‘London Central are trying to help you,’ said Frank. ‘And that’s the worst thing that can happen to any man.’

  ‘It’s taking a longer time than usual because we went to him; he didn’t come to us. Those idiots in London are trying to compare Stinnes to the sort of defector who comes into West Berlin, picks up a phone and says, let’s go. For them you just send a military-police van and start on the paperwork. Stinnes hasn’t been nursing this idea for years and waiting for a chance to jump. He’s got to be tempted; he’s got to be seduced. He’s got to get accustomed to it.’

  ‘Surely to God he knows what he wants by now,’ said Frank.

  ‘Even after he’s decided, he’ll want to put his hands on a few documents and so on. It’s a big step, Frank. He has a wife and a grown-up son. He’ll never see them again.’

  ‘I hope you don’t adopt this maudlin tone with him.’

  ‘We’ll get him, Frank. Don’t worry. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?’

  Frank stared at me before saying, ‘No, I just thought it appropriate to tell you personally about the death of your man MacKenzie. The department are keeping it all very low-key.’

  ‘I appreciate it, Frank,’ I said. The true reason for the meeting – the suggestion that I might want to walk through Checkpoint Charlie and disappear for ever – was now a closed book, a taboo subject that would probably never be mentioned again.

  The door opened as if by magic. I suppose Frank must have pressed some hidden signal to summon old Tarrant, his valet and general factotum. ‘I appreciate it very much, Frank,’ I said. He’d risked what was left of his career, and a magnificent pension, to fulfil the promise he’d made to my father. I wondered if I would have shown such charity and confidence to him had our positions been reversed.