Moscow: 16 January 1963
Catesby was very nervous. He had never had to play Moscow Rules before because he had never been to Moscow. And he knew that he was going to be all alone because no one from the British Embassy would go anywhere near him. Catesby was alone when his Aeroflot flight from Heathrow arrived at Vnukovo Airport. He was alone when he passed through customs in the freezing terminal, alone when a frowning customs official confiscated his copy of the Manchester Guardian – you weren’t allowed to bring books or Western media into the USSR. (Of course, Catesby knew that, but carried the newspaper to suggest he wasn’t a professional.) Catesby felt alone – and frightened too – when he boarded the bus that stank of diesel fumes for the seventeen-mile trip into Moscow. Catesby was alone because all British Embassy staff, especially SIS spies operating under diplomatic cover, were under constant KGB surveillance. If anyone from the embassy had met him, the KGB surveillance teams would have clicked into action and put a tail on Catesby too. Several tails. Manpower was no problem in Moscow.
Moscow was bleak. Almost, thought Catesby, as bleak as Lowestoft – which was nearer to Russia than any place in the UK. It was a connection that made Catesby smile. An even bleaker Lowestoft connection was the Dogger Bank incident in 1904. The Russian Imperial Fleet, en route to the Russo-Japanese war, had opened fire on Hull and Lowestoft trawlers. The Russians thought the fishing vessels were Japanese gunboats lying in ambush in the fog – even though Japan was still another 13,000 nautical miles away. One of Catesby’s uncles skippered a trawler that was caught in the line of fire – ‘I thought it was a firework display until them shells started landing’ – but escaped unharmed. Catesby thought about telling the story to a Soviet soldier to practise his Russian. The airport was full of armed soldiers – and three of them even came on the bus. The paranoia that caused them to open fire on the trawlers was still there – and why shouldn’t it be? The memory of losing nine million soldiers and seventeen million civilians in the last war was still raw in the Russian mind.
Catesby wanted to get the job over with as quickly as possible. He didn’t want to hang around in Moscow. He was travelling undercover as an electrical engineer from Birmingham. In a way, the meeting with HERO need not have been clandestine. HERO’s day job, as an official in the State Scientific and Technical Commission, meant that he could openly meet engineers and scientists from the West. In the end, however, it was decided that the rendezvous should be secret. The details had been arranged by Giles in Moscow. Catesby trusted Giles completely and admired his professionalism as an SIS head of station, but following someone else’s script in a strange and dangerous city is a nervous business. In any case, Catesby had learned his lines and stage directions to perfection.
Catesby asked the bus driver to drop him off at the Yugo-Zapadnaya station of the Moscow Metro. The request aroused the curiosity of one of the soldiers who asked to see Catesby’s papers and hotel reservation. The soldier seemed disappointed to find that everything was in order. He handed back the papers and reminded Catesby – with a lot of finger wagging – that it was a serious offence to carry out illegal currency transactions. Officially, the rouble traded at one to one with the pound. On the black market, you could get 25 roubles to the pound.
The hotel room was spartan, but clean and warm. The windows were triple-glazed. There was a radio with a polished wood veneer that was bolted to a shelf. Catesby saw that you couldn’t unplug the radio, because the wire disappeared straight into the wall, and you couldn’t turn it off either. But you could turn down the volume so the sound reduced to a barely audible hiss. He was certain that the radio contained a listening device. Catesby was tempted to sing to the radio the Lowestoft sea shanties he had learned from his uncle the trawler skipper, but decided it was best not to attract attention – no matter how innocent.
Catesby washed and brushed up for the meeting – and trimmed the moustache he had grown as a feeble disguise. He thought that the black moustache and back-combed Brylcreemed hair made him look more like a spiv than an engineer. On the other hand, his electrical engineer persona was a businessman on the make. Perhaps, thought Catesby, he should have done some illegal rouble transactions to make his ‘legend’, his cover story, seem more genuine.
Once again, Catesby used the Moscow Metro in preference to a taxi with a driver who would have to report his foreign fares to the KGB. Catesby could easily read Cyrillic so there were no navigation problems. He had to get off at a station called Akademicheskaya. It was, as the name suggested, near the University of Moscow.
When Catesby disembarked and emerged on to the street, he was, for the first time since arriving in Moscow, utterly impressed. He had known beforehand that the main university building was going to be massive, but not as massive and glittering as it appeared in the freezing night air. It was the tallest building in Europe – 790 feet and thirty-six storeys – and broad and muscular too. Catesby found himself gawping like a tourist and wishing that he had a camera – even though carrying a camera always meant trouble. But he didn’t have time to hang around, so he got moving.
The rendezvous was on the eighth floor of a Stalinist-era block of flats to the southwest of the university. It was a brisk five-minute walk from the Metro. Catesby decided not to take the sort of counter-surveillance methods that he would have used elsewhere. That would have been a big mistake; it would only make you appear suspicious. In any case, one of the Moscow Rules was that if they were following you, there would be so many of them that you could do nothing about it.
The entrance to the block of flats had a heavy iron door. It looked like the entrance to a tomb and, when it clanged shut behind him, Catesby felt as though he was trapped in a tomb. There was no porter’s lodge and no lift. The foyer was almost completely dark; the only feeble rays of light came from a bare low-wattage bulb in the staircase. Catesby mounted the stairs and counted the floors. He stopped when he got to the seventh for he heard low husky breathing from the floor above and smelled cigarette smoke. His first instinct was to retrace his steps and flee. He wanted to run straight to the extra-territorial safety of the British Embassy – but knew that he would never get there. He continued to mount the stairs to the landing of the rendezvous flat.
There were two of them. They were hatted and coated, but not against a cold Moscow winter. They had come by car. Their eyes glowed reptilian from the shadows of their trilbies. Catesby played it straight and naive, as if he really were an electrical engineer from Birmingham – and spoke in the stumbling Russian of someone far less fluent than himself. He recited his cover story to the less Neanderthal of the goons, the one whose knuckles didn’t quite reach the floor, and gave HERO’s actual name and position within the Scientific and Technical Commission. Catesby wasn’t sure how much the goons knew and what their role was in regards to HERO. Perhaps one was a driver and the other was a bodyguard or gofer. After a long pause, the goon opened the door and said, ‘Go in. He’s waiting for you.’
But when Catesby entered, the room was empty. There was nothing except for a table and two chairs underneath a bare lightbulb. The door shut behind him. Catesby sat in one of the chairs and stared into space. There was the sound of a toilet flushing, but it seemed to come from the floor above. And then he heard an angry voice shouting: ‘Why are you here? Get out.’ And the sound of feet pounding down the stairs. Catesby suddenly realised the entire building had been cleared for his visit. That wasn’t good.
Catesby strained to hear other sounds and stared at the door opposite. He wondered what was behind it. A kitchen? A bedroom? A sheer drop into nothingness? Finally, he did hear something. It was the sound of water running followed by a man coughing – as if he had just taken a pill. Catesby waited and stared. The door opened.
It wasn’t HERO, but Catesby had long since given up any hope of seeing their double agent. But the man was someone he did recognise, even if he hadn’t seen him in real life. The man’s suit, by Soviet standards, was of excellent cut. He
was good-looking and about Catesby’s age. The age similarity reminded Catesby that the man had been a helluva lot more successful in the profession than he had. Unlike Catesby, this man wasn’t an expendable field operative who got sent on missions abroad under dodgy cover. No, this man was Vladimir Yefimovich Semichastny, the Head of the KGB.
‘Welcome to Moscow, Mr Catesby. Excuse me for a second.’ Semichastny brushed past and opened the door on to the landing.
Catesby turned away but continued to listen as Semichastny told the two goons to wait for him in the car. He didn’t want any eavesdroppers. There was the sound of heavy footsteps pounding down the stairs. As the iron door clanged shut, Catesby felt the barrel of a gun push into the hollow where the top of the spine enters the back of the head.
‘Please, Mr Catesby, do not try anything funny or heroic. It would be pointless. In any case, I only want to have a little talk.’ Semichastny slipped the Makarov 9mm back into his shoulder holster and sat in the chair opposite.
‘I don’t suppose Oleg is going to join us?’
‘No, Oleg is not going to join us. We find it ironic that you called him HERO.’
‘It’s a matter of perspective. Is he dead?’
‘No, of course not. We are not Stalinists who carry out brutal and secret executions. He will be tried in public in the spring – everything open and legal. But he is guilty and has confessed.’
‘He was a very reckless spy.’
‘And it was very reckless for your superiors to have sent you here. We were expecting you.’
Catesby smiled wanly. Semichastny, ever the professional, wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to stir up suspicions about his SIS colleagues in London. Catesby was now certain that HERO’s desperate letter had been written under duress.
‘We easily found the Minox camera and the code pads you had given Oleg when we searched his flat. When we arrested him, he went limp like a wet rag. He couldn’t even stand up and walk without help. A most pathetic man – and you call him HERO.’
‘To be fair, Vladimir Yefimovich, we British also have a sense of irony.’
‘It is something, as well as a love of literature, that our two peoples share. It is, perhaps, ironic that we are enemies.’
‘Maybe one day we will share a glass of vodka or Highland whisky.’
‘I hope so, but not this evening.’ Semichastny gave Catesby an odd look. ‘Aren’t you afraid of what is going to happen to you?’
‘Why? My being afraid won’t change anything.’
‘That is true. But we are not going to arrest you – even though I was put under a lot of pressure to do so. Many of my colleagues regard you as a valuable bargaining chip for a spy swap.’
‘Tell them I am flattered.’
‘We are not going to arrest you because you are more valuable as a messenger than a prisoner.’
Catesby stared back at Semichastny. The pieces of the puzzle were clunking into place.
‘Oleg’s last messages to you revealed that our spy networks in England were producing very little intelligence. At first, we thought this was because of Molody’s arrest. Konon, by the way, will never talk. Eventually, we reactivated some of the spies that Molody had been running. We assigned them new agent handlers. For a while there was a flow of intelligence from these sources, but then none at all. Later, we realised that agents who had been very productive in the past – and who were totally separate from Molody’s networks – had also ceased all communication. In short, almost our entire intelligence operation in the United Kingdom had ceased to function.’
Catesby knew that it was his turn to give the expected response. ‘Excuse me, Vladimir Yefimovich, but my superiors might well think that your remarks are part of a disinformation ploy to induce UK counterintelligence to lower its guard.’
‘They may think that, but I can provide you with proof to the contrary.’ Semichastny looked very tired and concerned. ‘Something awful has happened – something that has put my country in grave danger. And it is also a matter of grave concern to the United Kingdom.’ The Russian gave a weary smile. ‘As with irony, this is something that should bring our countries together – and that we should be working together to stop.’
Catesby waited. He could sense that Semichastny was sincere and choosing his words carefully.
‘Our spy networks in Britain have been taken over by the People’s Republic of China. Britain’s most important nuclear and strategic secrets are now going to Peking.’
Catesby wasn’t surprised. He had known for some time that what Semichastny was saying was true – but he also knew how difficult it would have been to convince his colleagues in SIS and the wider Whitehall establishment. Catesby had kept his mouth shut because he had no evidence. He looked at Semichastny: ‘You said you had proof.’
The Russian reached into his coat pocket. What he drew out wasn’t a document or a microfilm, but the torn corner of a photograph. He passed it across the table. Catesby immediately knew that the torn edges would fit perfectly into the rest of the photo. At last, the tableau photograph of Poussin’s The Triumph of Pan would again be complete.
‘She is,’ said Semichastny, ‘a very beautiful woman.’
Catesby looked at Lady Somers in Grecian dress and was inclined to agree. He picked up the torn photo and was about to put it in his pocket when Semichastny reached over and took it back.
‘I thought…’ said Catesby.
‘Then you thought wrong. That photo was for you to see, not to keep.’ The Head of the KGB smiled sagely and put the evidence back in his pocket.
Brighton: 17 January 1963
She was completely naked and sprinting towards the sea. Some of the witnesses said she had a knife in her hand with blood on it. It was a freezing January midnight in Brighton – long after the parties had stopped. The second to last person to see her alive was a tramp in Regency Square. He said she wasn’t a woman, but a banshee with long hair on fire streaming behind her. The tramp said she was carrying a sword – with blood on it. He saw her race past the war memorial, across King’s Road and then into the darkness of shingle beach and sea. The tramp said he heard a hiss when the cold sea extinguished her hair. The cops said he wasn’t a reliable witness. The cops weren’t allowed to say more. They were told to shut up and get off the case.
In retrospect, Esteban wasn’t surprised that it ended that way. Fiona had been going off the rails ever since Christmas. The Christmas holidays were a bad time for her. It reminded her of everything she didn’t have, had never had – and never would have. And she certainly wouldn’t have it now. The ambulance crew were unable to revive her after the lifeboat crew found her bobbing around near the end of the pier; she was too far gone.
Miranda felt it was her fault and doubled her heroin use to cope with the guilt. It was just before Christmas that she had passed on to Fiona the scientist with adult baby syndrome. Miranda loathed him and found dealing with his needs repulsive. Esteban had agreed to the change because he could see that things weren’t going well between her and the scientist. On the other hand, he knew that the scientist was his most valuable agent. He tried to explain it to Miranda, but her eyes just glazed over in a dilated drug haze. He tried to explain it to Fiona, but she just swayed back and forth wearing an LSD hallucinogenic grin.
‘What he’s giving us,’ he said, ‘is the most important thing. It’s the key to the Freedom Bomb – the shield that will protect the People’s Republic of China from a racist nuclear attack. Look what the Americans did at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It wouldn’t have happened if Japan had had the bomb too.’
But, at least at first, changing girls had been a good idea. Fiona regarded the scientist as ridiculous rather than repulsive. When he was a naughty boy, she would give him a good slap – and Fiona delivered a very hard slap. But when he was a good boy, Fiona did the things he wanted. So, normally, the scientist tried to be good. There was one thing, however, Fiona hated and that was changing him when he had messed himself.
He shouldn’t have done it that night. For that particular night, Fiona had dropped two acid tabs too many. In any case, she did her motherly duty and tidied him up. On the way back to the bedroom with a fresh diaper, she helped herself to a big glass of vodka and dropped another tab. She was out of it. When Fiona got back to the bedroom, the scientist was cooing and gurgling and lying on his back with his hairy legs waving in the air.
‘Oh, little diddums,’ she said, ‘I know how to make you cleaner and tidier. It happens to a lot of little boys – and not just Jews and Muslims. You need to be circumcised.’
The knife flashed. But it wasn’t a circumcision. Fiona held up the amputated penis for a second and looked at it and laughed hysterically. She then threw it in the screaming scientist’s face and started running. She was naked and proud. She had won. She wanted everyone to see her triumph as she ran naked and blond through the streets of Brighton with her sacrificial knife held high.
»»»»
Esteban was the first to discover the body. Fiona and the scientist had been alone in the hotel and there was no one to hear the scientist’s final agonised shriek. Esteban stared for several seconds at the pale body on the bloodstained sheet. It was curled into the foetal position with the scientist’s hands clasped over his wound. Esteban could see what had happened and swore at himself for leaving Fiona unsupervised. He had known she was a ticking time bomb.
Esteban had to act quickly. The first thing he did was telephone Miranda. He knew she was at her mother’s house in Chelsea – and hoped Lady Somers wouldn’t answer the phone.
‘Chelsea 3765.’ It was Miranda’s voice.
‘Something awful has happened. Don’t come back to the hotel – ever again.’
‘What happened?’
‘Don’t ask questions – and don’t try to contact me or Fiona or anyone else. Just lie low until you hear from me again.’
‘Is that all?’
‘You and your mother are heroes. I love both of you.’ Esteban hung up the phone.
The Whitehall Mandarin Page 21
