by Bob Cook
Since then, Wyman had visited the village a number of times, and had come to feel at home there.
On June 2 Margaret had arrived at Turin airport. They had driven down to Nirasca, and stayed at the village’s tiny hotel, the Albergo dei Santi. Wyman no longer used the Ryle passport, and instead travelled under his own name.
“I suppose it’s all over now,” Margaret said.
“What is?” Wyman asked.
“You know, all that business with the Firm. They will leave us alone, won’t they?”
“I think so. But there’s one more matter to be resolved. Shall I get the coffee?”
They were sitting at a table outside a café in the village square. Wyman went inside to order two coffees while Margaret watched the villagers begin the day’s business. It was a cool morning, but the cloudless sky presaged a hot afternoon. Wyman returned with coffee.
“What’s this unfinished business?” Margaret asked.
“Yesterday I received a telegram from Geneva. Apparently Rawls turned up at the Banque Descartes, as I suspected he would. I think we can expect him to arrive here any time.”
“What does he want?”
“My head on a plate, I should think. I’ve put him to an awful lot of trouble, you know.”
“Will he…will there be trouble?” Wyman smiled.
“I don’t see why,” he said. “I intend to be most hospitable.”
Margaret stirred some sugar into her coffee.
“I hope you’re right,” she said doubtfully.
“Of course I’m right,” Wyman grinned. He lit a cigarette and took a sip of coffee. “Up until very recently, Mr Rawls thought I was a harmless idiot. I suspect he has now revised his opinion of me.”
“And if he hasn’t?”
“Then it is Mr Rawls who is the idiot.”
Margaret laughed and drank her coffee.
Five minutes later, a yellow Triumph Spitfire rolled into the square and parked by the café. A soberly dressed man with tinted spectacles got out of the car and walked to Wyman and Margaret.
“Good morning,” Wyman said.
“Maybe,” Rawls said. He was not smiling.
Wyman stood up politely and beamed affably at the American.
“May I introduce my fiancée? Mr Rawls—Margaret Ramsey.”
“How do you do?” Margaret said.
“I don’t do very well,” Rawls snapped. “At least, not as well as your fiancée.”
Margaret stiffened in embarrassment.
“I think I’ll go for a walk,” she said. “I’m sure you’d prefer to talk in private.”
“Yes,” Wyman said. “I’ll be over for lunch at the hotel.”
“Cheerio, then. Goodbye, Mr Rawls.”
“Pleasure meeting you,” Rawls said, not making it sound very pleasurable.
Margaret walked away.
“Can I get you a coffee?” Wyman said. “Or perhaps some thing stronger?”
“Just coffee,” Rawls grunted.
He sat down and waited for Wyman to get the coffee.
“I must say,” Wyman remarked as he returned, “you don’t exactly look full of the joys of spring.”
“That’s because I’m not. In the last few weeks I’ve been thrown around the world, beaten up, and nearly had my ass shot off in Germany, just so you could sting the Firm for two million sterling. How would you feel?”
“You have my sympathy,” Wyman said.
“Sure. I bet you cried all the way to the Banque Internationale Descartes.”
“Did you visit Erfurt, then?”
“Yeah. Nearly got killed for my pains.”
“You should have taken Major Bulgakov’s advice.”
Rawls’ face lit up in surprise.
“You know Bulgakov?”
“Not intimately. He came round to my flat one evening and said that the search for a ferret in the Firm was a waste of time. Of course, I knew that better than anyone else, but I had to lead him along. He told me that he’d paid you a similar visit.”
Rawls nodded and looked grimly at the nonchalant Wyman.
“I suppose you’d better tell me the whole story,” he said. “I want to know how you set the whole thing up. And I want to know why your friends in Geneva were waiting for me to show up.”
Wyman smiled and leaned back in his seat.
“I’m surprised that you haven’t worked out most of it already. Perhaps you have, and you just want it confirmed. Anyway, the story runs as follows.
“I was responsible for the Grünbaum file, and I was therefore in a position to alter it. When Grünbaum was killed in a genuine accident, I obtained the names of various other people who’d been arrested in previous, wholly unrelated incidents. By adding their names to the file, I made it appear that members of Grünbaum’s network had been blown before Grünbaum himself. Since this cannot happen with an F-network, it gave the impression that there was a Soviet infiltrator in London who was feeding network details back to Moscow Centre. I wanted the Firm to believe this, as I knew that I would be put in charge of the investigation.
“Of course, all those other arrests had nothing to do with Grünbaum, and those people had never even heard of him, but how was the Firm to know that? Their names were on the file, and that was all that was needed.
“As soon as Owen gave me the task of finding this mythical Soviet plant, I invented a new DDR contact, whom we code-named Plato. I explained to Owen that Plato was a well-placed informer who could discover the full circumstances of Grünbaum’s arrest. However, Plato had not been suborned. He was a mercenary, and he would only supply the information we needed for an exorbitant fee: two million pounds. I was eventually entrusted with the money (since Plato would only deal with me) and having put the money in Geneva, here I am.”
“Very cute,” Rawls observed drily. “So why involve the Company in all this?”
“Thanks to the Government, the Firm has been forced to economize severely. Stations have been closed down or put on ice all over the world. People are being made redundant, and there’s very little spare cash around. Even after I had tampered with the Grünbaum file, I knew it would be difficult to persuade my superiors to part with all that money.”
“You mean they didn’t believe you had a Moscow ferret?”
“They weren’t sure and, under the circumstances, they preferred not to believe it. I needed something else to tip the scales, something that would convince them of the gravity of the situation.
“So I decided to bring you into it. I knew that if I got Frank Schofield to make inquiries in Rome, it would eventually get back to Langley. Given the Company’s traditional doubts about security at the Firm, I knew you would want to find out what was going on. And I was right. When you arrived at Percy Street on the 21st, I was fully aware of what you were after. I couldn’t believe my good fortune when you left your fingerprints all over the filing cabinet, and switched the typewriter ribbon.”
“You checked all that out?” Rawls said incredulously.
“Oh yes. You see, I needed to prove that the Company was involved in the affair. Of course, I knew perfectly well that you were only snooping, but that wasn’t the way I presented it to Owen.
“As far as my superiors were concerned, it was proof positive that you also knew we had a ferret in London, and that you were trying to track him down. Up until then, nobody wanted to believe that we had a Moscow plant, and nobody wanted to spend two million on Plato. Your arrival changed all that.”
“I bet,” Rawls said. “And Bulgakov’s involvement made up their minds, I guess.”
“Bulgakov was a positive godsend. He knew about my first trip to Europe, and he knew about your arrival. I suppose he couldn’t keep his nose out of it, but when he became involved it set everybody’s mind racing.”
Wyman lit a cigarette and blew out a long trail of smoke.
“What happened in Germany?” he asked.
“I nearly got killed, that’s what happened. Bulgakov warn
ed me away, so I figured he had something to hide. I snooped around in Erfurt, and found out that Neumann was a real nut after all. That was your best move, Wyman. Everybody thinks that Communist mental hospitals are full of sane dissidents. Nobody ever stops to think that they’ve got real screwballs too. When I found out the truth about Neumann, things started to click. Then I was taken by some of Bulgakov’s friends, and they threw me out of the country. Bulgakov thinks the whole thing’s a real scream.”
“I’m sure he does,” Wyman grinned.
Rawls shook his head.
“I still don’t get it,” he said. “How did you know I’d get to Geneva?”
“The typewriter ribbon,” Wyman said. “I’d typed all my memos to Owen on it. I also wrote a few notes of my own on it, and when I realized you’d exchanged the ribbon, I guessed that you would find out about the bank account. That didn’t bother me too much, since I’d already laid my plans. It was known that I was the agent for the account, and therefore it would be presumed that the beneficial owner was somebody else: the elusive Plato. But nobody knew that I had opened the account with a false passport, and that the beneficial owner was Michael Wyman.
“Hence, it would only be a question of time before you appeared in Geneva to force the bank into giving you Plato’s identity. I wanted you to try it, so that you would get my letter and come here.”
“Why?”
“I want you to tell my former masters what has happened. You must explain to them that there is no infiltrator in the Firm, as far as I know, and that Plato does not exist. My dealings with the Firm are finished— you must make that quite clear.”
“Why me? Why not tell them yourself?”
“They probably wouldn’t believe me. They were seldom inclined to believe me when I was employed by them, so I doubt if they would believe me now. Besides, it will sound better coming from a disinterested party like yourself.”
“They’ll want their money back.”
“They can’t have it.”
“They’ll kill you for it.”
“No.” Wyman shook his head emphatically.
“What makes you think you’re safe? They can send out a hitman any time they like. And there’s your fiancée…”
“No,” Wyman repeated. “There’s an added twist. You see, I’m not quite the happy imbecile I’ve been taken for. I have placed signed documents in the hands of various European lawyers. These documents explain all that has happened, in minute detail. Should anything happen to me, or my fiancée, these documents will be given to the editors of certain left-wing European publications that have little sympathy for Britain.
“I’m sure you can imagine what would happen if this story were published. The Firm would be internationally disgraced, and the Government would have a lot of talking to do. I’d be obliged if you explained all this to the Firm when you see them. Owen will be delighted.”
Rawls gazed at Wyman in silence for a few moments. He found it hard to credit the Englishman with the sort of ingenuity he clearly possessed. Wyman looked and sounded like a plump, overgrown schoolboy. It occurred to Rawls that Wyman’s success lay entirely in his ability to convince others of his own ineptitude and harmlessness. Rawls’ face creased into a broad grin.
“Shit!” he exclaimed. “You’ve really screwed them, haven’t you?”
Wyman nodded solemnly.
“One more thing,” Rawls said. “Why did you do it? Maybe that’s a stupid question, but I don’t understand.”
“You wouldn’t. And I’m not sure if I can explain it to you properly.”
“Try me. You owe me that much.”
“Very well. I’ve no doubt that you’ve read the file on me quite carefully. You know that I’m an academic, and that I’ve served the Firm faithfully for about thirty years.
“To spend a lifetime in both these fields, one must have a belief—no, ‘belief’ isn’t a good word for it, that implies some thing conscious. Let’s call it a deeply imbedded assumption about what one is doing, and why one does it. You might call it patriotism, but it’s nothing so crude.”
“I think I know what you mean.”
“I hope so, because it isn’t easy to describe one’s most fundamental convictions. Individual opinions about single issues: those are easy to explain. But the fundamental source of all those opinions—the well-spring of one’s ideas and beliefs—how do you explain that? It’s an interesting epistemological dilemma.”
Rawls coughed uncomfortably.
“I’m sorry,” Wyman smiled. “I’ll put it this way: I believed in a particular scheme of things, a system, if you like. I believed that this system went beyond trifling questions of money and power. What mattered most, as far as I was concerned, was that the system took care of its own, and loyalty was repaid with loyalty. And above all, Mr Rawls, the system worked. We governed nations with it, we won wars with it, and we knew it was the envy of the world. It was just and reasonable, and it spawned some of the finest minds on this planet.”
“Yeah,” Rawls said. “I’ve heard all that before somewhere.”
Wyman laughed.
“I know. But unlike the politicians who put such phrases in their speeches, I genuinely believed it all. I never actually stated these opinions, because I regarded them as self-evident truths. And then, just a few weeks ago, reality caught up with me.”
“You mean you got fired. So what?”
“That’s right, but it wasn’t simply a question of ‘getting fired’. It was made clear to me that I was no longer of any use to anyone. I was treated with all the sympathy and consideration that one affords a used contraceptive. There was no recognition of my work or loyalty, merely a desire to be rid of a spent component. I was hurt and insulted.”
“So you got your revenge by creaming your people for two million. That’s what I call an eye for an eye.”
“I can’t defend my actions on moral grounds, and I admit that I wanted to exact some form of vengeance. That may be puerile, but if you rob someone of the moral framework they’ve lived by for nearly sixty years, you must expect them to behave amorally, I think.
“Besides, there were other considerations. My fiancée is expecting a child, and I still have alimony to pay on my last marriage. Since I’m not receiving a pension from either the Firm or my College, my conscience won’t be too troubled by what I’ve done. Does that explain my motives, Mr Rawls?”
“I guess so. I’ve got a feeling one or two other people are going to be fired over this.”
“Perhaps,” Wyman said.
“That doesn’t bother you?”
“It bothers me slightly less than my predicament bothered them. The only person I owe an apology to is yourself. I’ve put you to a lot of trouble and expense, and there isn’t much I can do except offer you my heartfelt apologies. And a drink.”
Rawls leaned back and grinned sheepishly.
“Okay,” he said. “Whisky and soda, and we’ll call it quits.”
“Splendid,” Wyman said, and they both laughed.
Epilogue
OWEN PUT DOWN the telephone receiver and stared blankly at the opposite wall. He took a couple of paracetamol and suppressed an urge to vomit all over his desk.
“The bastard,” he croaked. “The utter bastard.”
He tried to collect his thoughts, but nothing fully registered. Wyman had invented the whole story—it was a total fiction. He had stolen the two million pounds and was now completely untouchable. He had deceived everybody and walked off scot-free. He had humiliated Owen and the Minister in the eyes of the Prime Minister and the Americans. And the worst of it was, he probably couldn’t care less.
“The bastard,” Owen repeated. “How could he?”
It occurred to Owen that Wyman had not just done this for the money. He had wanted to disgrace the Firm; he had taken revenge in the form of an elaborate, and expensive, practical joke.
“The utter bastard,” Owen said. Shock seemed to limit his vocabulary.
&nbs
p; He pressed a button on his intercom and asked for a cup of tea.
He looked out of the window and shook his head. Where had they gone wrong?
There was, he reflected, one small crumb of consolation in all this. The original panic could now be forgotten: there really was no infiltrator in MI6. He sighed in relief as Mrs Hobbes walked in.
“Here’s your tea, Mr Owen,” she said. “White, no sugar.”
All the characters and events portrayed in this work are fictitious.
DISORDERLY ELEMENTS
A Felony & Mayhem mystery
PUBLISHING HISTORY
First U.K. print edition (Victor Gollancz): 1985
First U.S. print edition (St. Martin’s): 1986
Felony & Mayhem print edition: 2006
Felony & Mayhem digital edition: 2014
Copyright © 1985 by Bob Cook
All rights reserved
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63194-035-4
To my parents
You are reading a book in the Felony & Mayhem “Espionage” category, which features spies and conspiracies from World War I to the present. If you enjoy this book, you may well like other “Espionage” titles from Felony & Mayhem Press.
“Espionage” titles available as e-books:
Tony Cape
The Cambridge Theorem
Bob Cook
Disorderly Elements
Paper Chase
“Espionage” titles available as print books:
Reginald Hill
The Spy’s Wife
Who Guards a Prince
Traitor’s Blood
Carolyn Hougan
The Romeo Flag
Shooting in the Dark
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