Catesby could tell that the room was used for meetings and briefings. There were maps on one wall and the red flag with yellow star of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam stretched across another. High on the wall behind Lopez was a portrait of Ho Chi Minh. Catesby reckoned that Uncle Ho’s eyes were looking at him with more kindliness than anyone else in the room. Even though they were in an underground bunker, Catesby could hear the pounding of the monsoon rain echoing down the stairs and corridor. The thieu tuong, the general, finally broke the uneasy silence and said something to an officer seated in the back of the room. Catesby heard the officer get up and leave. There were footsteps on the stairs and then the flap of the tarpaulin that stopped the rain coming in and the light getting out. The only sound other than the rain was the steady hum of an electricity generator.
Lopez looked at Catesby with the cold expression of an Aztec priest about to raise the execution blade – an Aztec priest who had been to Harvard and the Sorbonne. ‘Basically,’ said Lopez in his bored, languid voice, ‘you are a lying piece of shit.’
Catesby folded his arms and shrugged. He looked up at Ho Chi Minh, trying to work out how he had been rumbled. It was most likely the French intelligence service. The SDECE wanted to ingratiate themselves with the Vietnamese side, who were most likely to win, and dropping Catesby in the shit was a good way to do it.
The tarpaulin flapped again and there were two sets of feet coming down the stairs. Catesby stared down at the table in front of him. He didn’t want to give the newcomer the satisfaction of seeing him turn around out of nervous curiosity and fear. Catesby was frightened, but he wasn’t going to show it. He only looked up when the new arrival spoke, recognising the voice only too well.
‘You’ve aged a lot, William. And dyeing your hair blond doesn’t hide the fact. It’s a pretty silly thing to do for a man your age. Your face is far too tired and gaunt for a man who claims to be thirty-nine – and the drink hasn’t helped your looks either. But I suppose dyeing your dark tresses was part of your feeble attempt to pass as a cool, hip war reporter ten years younger than yourself. Even the Vietnamese, who believed your lies, thought you were a ridiculous character.’
‘Six years younger,’ said Catesby with a defiant smile.
The PAVN general said something in Vietnamese. He appeared annoyed. The newcomer turned to the general and replied. His Vietnamese sounded halting; he obviously wasn’t as fluent as Lopez.
‘I’ve just told him, William, that you are definitely Catesby, the British spy.’ The newcomer smiled and took something out of his pocket. ‘Would you like me to take your picture?’ He was holding the fake Pen Double E camera that the CIA man had given to Catesby. The newcomer aimed at Catesby through the viewfinder. ‘Don’t worry, William, I’m not going to shoot you. While you were in Tchepone having dinner we went through your belongings. We wanted to find out what you were photographing. But when I opened up the camera to take out the film, I found these instead.’ He held up two bullets. ‘Who were they intended for?’
Catesby wished he had ditched the camera-pistol in a river or handed it over sooner. Why had he kept it? One idea had been to present it to a high-ranking PAVN intelligence officer as an example of CIA treachery and to prove his own bona fides. Another had been that it might have come in useful if he ever got in a jam. But ditching it would have been the sensible solution.
‘You still haven’t answered my question,’ said the newcomer.
Catesby slowly shook his head.
‘You’re making things difficult for yourself, William.’ The newcomer nodded towards the Vietnamese. ‘These guys will play a lot harder than you did with me during your pathetic interrogation at Lakenheath. How long ago was that? Twelve years? But I knew that you were bluffing. All that pistol waving didn’t scare me at all.’
Catesby smiled at Cauldwell. ‘You haven’t aged at all, Jeffers. And you look good in that Mao suit.’ Cauldwell was wearing a high-collared Chinese tunic. ‘But aren’t you giving away too much of your politics?’
Cauldwell smiled back, but it was a frigid smile that didn’t completely hide the worried frown.
»»»»
Catesby wasn’t alone in the cell. The other prisoner was an American pilot whose F-4 Phantom had been shot down. The American had broken his left arm ejecting from the stricken plane and was in pain. The Vietnamese had strapped the pilot’s arm to his body, but not given him any other treatment. Catesby couldn’t do much to help because his hands were chained, but the American was pleased to have someone to talk to. ‘Talking keeps my mind off the pain,’ he said.
‘What happened?’
‘We got hit by a SAM. I managed to eject, but Wayne didn’t – at least I didn’t see his chute.’
‘Who was Wayne?’
‘The Weapons Support Officer, the guy in the backseat. What part of Australia are you from?’
‘Sydney.’
The pilot didn’t recognise Catesby’s accent. He thought he was a captured Australian soldier.
The conversation was interrupted by someone shouting in Vietnamese through the overhead grid. Their cell was a hole in the ground with a locked iron grid that sealed off the entrance. The shouting Vietnamese shifted to limited English: ‘No talk, no talk.’
The pilot shouted back. ‘Fuck you, Ho Chi Minh.’
‘No talk, no talk.’
The grid was unlocked and moved aside. A ladder was stuck down the hole and a pair of hands reached for the American.
‘Maybe they’re moving you to a hospital?’ said Catesby.
‘Fat chance,’ said the pilot.
The Vietnamese kept shouting: ‘No talk, no talk…’
Catesby ignored the guard and said, ‘What’s your name?’
‘Norman Phillips.’
Catesby made a mental note of the name so he could pass it on to the Americans if he ever got out of the mess.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Ned Kelly.’
»»»»
Catesby was left alone that night with the monsoon rain pouring through the uncovered grate. He curled up wet and cold on the damp earth floor. The rain stopped just before dawn. After a freezing morning mist, which was even colder than the night rain, the sun came out – and the prison turned from damp hole to airless oven. There was no water to drink. Catesby lay still and licked his own salty sweat to keep his mouth moist. They came for him at noon. They dragged him out of the hole and bound his arms with rough twine that cut into his wrists and made them bleed. Then everything changed.
At first, Catesby thought he was being taken out to be shot. If he had been in their position, Catesby would have recommended execution as the easiest way to solve the problem. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam was not at war with Britain and, indeed, the Prime Minister Harold Wilson had stood up to enormous pressure from the White House to send even a token British military presence to Vietnam – ‘Come on, Harold, just one Black Watch piper would be fine.’ So on one hand, Catesby knew that the Vietnamese didn’t want to create a diplomatic incident by executing him. On the other hand, why was a British intelligence officer snooping around behind PAVN lines in a sensitive base area? The US and the UK were, of course, still close allies. Had London worked out some sort of deal to appease Washington by providing covert intelligence aid? Catesby knew these were questions his Vietnamese captors had no way of answering. The simplest and best solution was a bullet in the back of the head, then bury him in an unmarked grave and never admit that any of it had happened. And there was no way London would say a word. The SIS was hardly going to admit they had sent a spy to Vietnam. As Stalin used to say, ‘No man, no problem.’
Therefore, Catesby was more than a little surprised when they took him to a sanitation area where there were ditch latrines and washing facilities. One of the guards cut his bindings and pointed to the latrine. For a second, Catesby thought they were going to throw him in the shit and shoot him there. He then realised they were asking if he needed to
defecate and urinate.
When Catesby had finished his business, they bound him again but not as tightly. Next stop was a bamboo hut with a thatched roof. They took him inside to where a man of about his own age was seated at a wooden table drinking tea. The man, like the others, was wearing a green PAVN field uniform without badge of rank. Although clearly Vietnamese, he bore an uncanny resemblance to Jean-Paul Sartre. He said something to the guards in a soft voice and Catesby’s bindings were cut. He then addressed Catesby in perfect French, ‘You must be hungry and thirsty.’ Before Catesby could answer, the man said something in Vietnamese and one of the guards hurried away. The man smiled at Catesby. ‘Please sit down; we can talk and eat at the same time.’
As an intelligence professional, Catesby recognised the interrogation game that was being played. He also knew that it was a waste of time and pain not to go along with it because you only got beaten up until you finally decided to play the game – or they got fed up and shot you. The food arrived. It was noodle soup with pieces of pork and Catesby was ravenous.
They ate in silence for a few minutes before the Vietnamese asked, ‘Are you a Catholic?’
‘I was brought up as a Catholic, but I lost my faith as soon as I found my brain.’
‘Ah, there’s an answer to that. God is infinite, but your brain and its understanding are finite. You cannot understand God for the same reason that a water buffalo cannot understand Max Planck’s Second Law of Thermodynamics.’
‘Are you a Catholic – or a physicist?’
‘At the end of his life, Max Planck was both. He criticised atheists for the way they derided religious symbolism without understanding the complex anthropological origins of those symbols.’
If, thought Catesby, he ever ran a dating agency, he was going to link up this guy with the Australian woman at the Thuong Duc leper colony.
The man folded his hands, almost as if in prayer, and looked closely at Catesby. ‘I was trained as a priest, a Jesuit. But, even though I’ve parted from the Church, I am still a priest.’
‘Once a priest, always a priest.’
‘That is correct. And because I am a priest, I think this may be a good opportunity for you, Monsieur Catesby, to confess your sins.’
‘But, Father, as I explained earlier, I am no longer a practising Catholic.’
The priest smiled. ‘But you are still a practising spy – and that is what you need to confess.’
It was so smoothly done that Catesby almost wanted to stand up and applaud. He knew what was coming next.
On cue, the priest turned from being interrogator to being enforcer. He placed a canvas pouch on the table, took out three documents and handed them to Catesby. ‘You can,’ he said, ‘easily understand the ones in English and French. I assure you that the Vietnamese version is a true and accurate translation. If you like, I can provide a dictionary so that you can check.’
‘Thank you.’ Catesby quickly read the English version. It was a full confession of his ‘activities’ as a British intelligence agent acting in ‘full collaboration’ with the Americans in support of the US war effort. The confession would be a diplomatic bombshell that might even bring down the Wilson government.
‘I hope you realise that signing these documents is a mere formality. It is highly unlikely, almost unthinkable, that they would ever be made public. It is – how should I say – a mere gesture of good faith and friendship. At a later date, I suppose, you could even claim that your signature was forged – or extracted under duress.’
‘But what if they were ever made public?’
‘Which is as good as impossible – so you have no reason for not signing. And the sooner you sign, the sooner you will be free to go.’
Catesby laid the documents on the table. ‘How stupid do you think I am?’
The priest smiled. ‘Perhaps I was pushing the cork in a little too far.’
‘Or putting too many eggs in the pudding?’
‘Ah, your English equivalent is better.’
‘You are an intelligent man, Father.’
‘It’s best that you not call me that when the others can hear. Call me major, thieu ta, instead.’
Catesby was confused. He wasn’t sure whether the Vietnamese was sincere or taking the piss. In any case, it was a good interrogation technique for it kept the ‘subject’ off balance. Catesby decided to respond with sincerity – and truth. ‘It would not be in the interest of your government for me to sign these confessions. And if you give me a chance, I can explain why.’ Catesby lifted the documents. ‘And, speaking as an intelligence professional, it is rather premature to have me sign a fabricated confession before you’ve even interrogated me as to why I’m here.’
The priest arched his eyebrows and gave a Gallic shrug like a maître d’hôtel dealing with a complaint about the plumbing. ‘What you say has a certain logic.’
»»»»
For the next three days Catesby was kept under guard, but not in a cell. His room was part of a barracks complex and must have been used as the private quarters of a senior officer. Catesby hadn’t been asked again to sign the confession; in fact, no one spoke to him at all. The conditions weren’t bad, but Catesby found the silence eerie.
Early on the morning of the fourth day, Catesby was roughly shaken awake by a guard. He was allowed to toilet and wash under strict guard and given a change of clean clothes – white civilian shirt, black trousers, sandals. It was still a dark misty morning when he was taken to the briefing bunker where he had met Lopez and been unmasked as a spy. Catesby was shivering and wished they had given him a jacket.
There were eight people in the briefing room. All were dressed in PAVN uniforms, except for one man who was in a white civilian shirt. And once again, Catesby found that the warmest and most sympathetic eyes were those beaming down from Uncle Ho’s portrait. As usual, none of the PAVN wore rank insignia, but a wizened man who looked well into his fifties, maybe sixty, wore a red shoulder patch like a unit insignia. The gold lettering at the top spelled Quan doi Nhan dan Viet Nam, which Catesby had already sussed meant People’s Army of Vietnam because he saw it everywhere. He wasn’t sure about the words in bold at the bottom of the insignia, Bo Tong Tham Muu, but guessed they meant General Staff because this guy seemed awfully important and wanted others to know it.
The wizened man said something in Vietnamese to the man in the white shirt who then addressed Catesby in good English. ‘Who are you?’
Catesby began with his full name and date of birth. He explained that he spoke French because he had a Belgian mother. He described his poverty-stricken childhood on the backstreets of Lowestoft and how he escaped via grammar school and Cambridge University. Catesby told them about his time as an SOE officer with the maquis rouge. He was straining to establish his credentials as a comrade, but could tell it wasn’t what they wanted.
The wizened man finally interrupted his flow. The white shirt translated: ‘We’ll take down your biographical details later. But now tell us why British intelligence sent you to Vietnam as a spy.’
It was a difficult one for it meant walking a tightrope over a dangerous political crevasse. It was the same tightrope that Vietnam walked between Russia and China. It wasn’t a matter of telling the truth or lying; it was a matter of telling truths and lies in a way that the Vietnamese could accept. ‘For some time,’ Catesby said, ‘we have been aware that British military and intelligence secrets have been passed on to … foreign powers. In the early 50s it was obvious that the recipient of these secrets was the Soviet Union. Many of the spies involved either fled to Moscow or were arrested. We were aware, however, that spy rings were still operating in London – but not all of them were controlled by the Soviet Union.’
The wizened man tapped on the table and spoke. The translation came: ‘Are you saying that your intelligence service believes that Vietnam is spying on Britain?’
‘Absolutely not.’ Catesby smiled. ‘But if you are, your spies are doing an excellen
t job for there is not the slightest suspicion that Vietnam is involved in espionage in the UK. That is not why I’ve been sent here.’
There was an uneasy silence around the room. When the wizened man finally spoke again he stared hard. The translator took a while to render the words. ‘You are talking in riddles. You keep avoiding telling us why you are here.’
‘If it sounds like I’m talking in riddles it’s because I’m trying to solve a riddle. The disappearing British secrets were passed on via our Ministry of Defence. The head of that ministry is Lady Penelope Somers. She is the first woman ever to have held that job – and a lot of people in the MoD have old-fashioned ideas. They don’t think a woman should be in charge of defence.’ Catesby looked around at his exclusively male audience and wasn’t sure that the point had sunk in. ‘In any case, there are rumours, almost certainly false, that Lady Somers may have something to do with the leak of secrets. The only reason I am here is to interview Lady Somers’ daughter, Miranda, and, I hope, to clear her mother’s name.’
There was a stir of confusion around the table. Once again the wizened man spoke through the interpreter. ‘Can you tell us what you know about her?’
‘Miranda Somers is a very idealistic woman who rejected the wealth and privilege of her background to become a socialist.’ Catesby was careful not to say what sort of socialist. ‘She has embraced your struggle against US imperialism and has come here to help. And the only reason I have come here is to interview Miranda. My presence has nothing to do with Vietnam. If Miranda were in Timbuktu, I would be there instead.’
The wizened man spoke again, but this time no translation followed. He remained seated with eyes cast down as the others filed out of the room in silence. When their footsteps had finally faded, he looked up and spoke in French. ‘You are in a very difficult and dangerous situation, Monsieur Catesby.’
The Whitehall Mandarin Page 33
