A Very British Ending (Catesby Series)

by Edward Wilson

  ‘We certainly have ignored those recommendations which, if followed, would be a breach of security. On one hand, you recommend that certain officers be denied access to secrets until further positive vetting. But, on the other hand, you criticise us for not widely circulating FLUENCY conclusions which contain sensitive secret information that should only be shared on a need-to-know basis.’ What Catesby really wanted to say was that FLUENCY created an atmosphere of fear that destroyed morale. Ferret and his ilk wanted to bring the McCarthy-ite witch-hunt to Britain.

  Ferret tried to come back in, but Catesby caught the eye of the chairman. ‘May I continue, Sir Stewart?’

  ‘What point do you wish to make, Mr Catesby?’

  ‘I want to put FLUENCY investigations into the wider context of intelligence gathering and espionage – and explain what effect FLUENCY is having on those operations.’

  ‘Go on, but be brief.’

  ‘FLUENCY is counter-espionage – and counter-espionage is a defensive operation. The more time and resources you spend on counter-espionage, the less you have for offensive operations.’ Catesby paused and looked around the room. ‘An excellent strategy for an enemy intelligence service is to trick the services opposing them to spend more on counter-intelligence – hunting moles and threats that don’t exist. In fact, by creating an atmosphere of fear and paranoia, you can destroy an intelligence service.’ Catesby paused again. ‘I am not saying that this has happened here, but it is something of which we should be aware.’

  The Permanent Secretary stirred. ‘Are you suggesting that dedicated counter-intelligence officers, our brave spy-catchers, may, in fact, be undercover Soviet agents?’

  ‘No, but they may be unwitting dupes of those who are.’ Catesby made an effort not to look directly at Ferret, but could see from the corner of his eye that the Security Service DG was restraining him. The committee room had descended into an embarrassed hush.

  ‘As Head of Sov Bloc T Section,’ said Catesby, ‘the essence of my job is keeping an eye on Soviet weapons and their deployment. One recent initiative – and please don’t minute this – is investigating the drinking habits of Soviet officers and personnel who have control of nuclear weapons. I’m not being facetious; this is a serious issue. At the moment, a nuclear war that destroys Britain is more likely to begin by accident than intention. Such intelligence could prove a useful bargaining point for the Foreign Office and the Americans in their ongoing SALT discussions – an agreement about monitoring the alcohol use of personnel dealing with nuclear weapons could save all our lives. Vodka in the control room is more likely to cause a nuclear war than ideology. In any case, such intelligence gathering is seriously hindered when the officer leading the op is summoned to FLUENCY for his umpteenth positive vetting. Meanwhile, the Strategic Rocket Force boozers and the KGB are delighted, because we – too busy gazing into our own navels – are off their backs.’

  The peer, even though he seemed a little more whiskyed than at the last JIC, gave a firm nod of assent.

  The Permanent Secretary, on the other hand, wasn’t giving any sign of approval. As Catesby finished and sat back, he noticed that the Permanent Secretary was staring at him in a strange way. Catesby wondered if he should have had his hair cut before the JIC.

  Before they could move on to the next agenda item, the Permanent Secretary intervened. ‘Your argument, Mr Catesby, against wasting money on FLUENCY and counter-intelligence in general is a very convincing one.’ He paused, but continuing staring. ‘In fact, just the sort of argument an undercover Soviet agent would make.’

  The embarrassment was tangible. People didn’t know where to look.

  ‘Not,’ said the Permanent Secretary, ‘that I’m accusing you of being a KGB spy.’ He paused and looked around the table. ‘Which isn’t to say that there are no Soviet spies in this room. I am sure there are.’

  Catesby noticed others exchanging glances and surreptitious nods. He obviously wasn’t the only one who had noticed that the Permanent Secretary had been strange of late.

  The Permanent Secretary looked at his watch. ‘I must leave now. I have a meeting with the Prime Minister about something of urgent state importance. Utterly urgent. Please don’t stop on my account. Carry on the meeting and send me the minutes by courier.’

  There was complete silence as the Permanent Secretary made his way to the door and down the stairs. The mandarin from Treasury got up and looked out the window, obviously checking on the Permanent Secretary’s exit and progress.

  ‘Is he all right?’ said the Chairman.

  ‘I think so,’ said the man from Treasury. ‘But I’d better check just in case.’

  ‘By all means.’

  Treasury collected his papers and left.

  The rest of the meeting went smoothly and quickly and ended twenty minutes later.

  As Catesby emerged from the Cabinet Office building, Whitehall was bathed in a rare burst of winter sun. He was looking forward to a brisk walk back to Century House across Westminster Bridge, but with umbrella at the ready. It had been a wet winter, although a mild one. God only knows what would have happened if the current fuel shortage had been exacerbated by a winter like ’47 or ’63.

  Catesby had got no further than Downing Street when he sensed someone at this elbow. It was the Treasury mandarin who had left the meeting early.

  ‘Mr Catesby, could I trouble you for a second?’

  ‘Of course, how can I help?’

  ‘We’re having a spot of bother at Number 10.’

  ‘Only a spot?’

  ‘Well, it is a rather large spot.’

  Catesby smiled. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘I believe that you were in SOE during the war?’

  Catesby nodded.

  ‘So you know all about hand-to-hand combat and first-aid.’

  ‘I’m sure the duty cop on the entrance would be better at both.’

  ‘But I think a member of the Secret Intelligence Service would be more appropriate.’

  ‘This sounds intriguing.’

  The man from the Treasury gave a weary smile. ‘It is rather bizarre.’

  *

  The Permanent Secretary was lying on the floor in the Prime Minister’s study. He was totally naked and smoking a cigarette. At first, Catesby thought he looked like a Rubens’ nude. Although on reflection, Lucien Freud’s recent work would be a better comparison. The Permanent Secretary’s body was fleshy, but not sensuous. In fact, neither artist would have given the subject the human compassion he deserved. The Permanent Secretary was in a terrible state and Catesby felt sorry for him.

  It was the first time that Catesby had met the Prime Minister and he seemed to be taking it very calmly. Heath looked at Catesby and said, ‘We’ve telephoned his wife and the hospital, but he won’t move – and he is a big man. He started behaving strangely this morning before the JIC meeting. He said he had something vitally important to tell me, but that we had to go some place that wasn’t bugged.’

  Maybe, thought Catesby, the Permanent Secretary wasn’t as mad as he seemed.

  ‘When he came back from JIC,’ said the Treasury man, ‘he told all his staff to go home and prepare for the Battle of Armageddon.’

  ‘That,’ said Catesby nodding at an assortment of inkwells, teacups, fag packets and matches meticulously arranged in opposing battle formations, ‘explains the armies.’

  The Permanent Secretary stirred and pointed across the carpet. ‘That is the Red Army. They landed in East Anglia last night and are wheeling south to capture London in a pincer movement with other Red forces who landed on the South Coast at midnight.’ He pointed to a line of bone china nearer him. ‘The Blue Army is here. I fear they’ve deployed too late. Frankly,’ the Permanent Secretary for once sounded oddly sane and articulate, ‘our system is collapsing and our world is coming to an end. And I’m sorry to report, Prime Minister, that there is very little we can do to prevent it. Calling a snap general election won’t help.’

/>   The Prime Minister looked around at those present. ‘Even if you are not a member of the Privy Council, please treat that piece of information as if you are.’ The Prime Minister leaned over and spoke to the Permanent Secretary in a kind voice. ‘Thank you for your advice. You need a bit of rest. Why don’t you go home and come back tomorrow which is going to be very busy.’

  ‘No, Prime Minister, I am not going to leave my post at such a crucial moment in our country’s history.’

  Catesby remembered the tour Henry Bone had given him so long ago of the secret tunnel system known as Q-Whitehall. He turned to the Treasury mandarin and whispered, ‘I believe that 20 Downing Street is part of your patch.’

  ‘Yes, it is. Used to be the Tithe Commission, but we took it over.’

  ‘Have you got a discreet parking place for your vans full of gold bullion?’

  ‘There is a parking place on the Whitehall side.’

  ‘Can you get an ambulance there?’

  ‘Shouldn’t be a problem.’

  Catesby turned to the PM and shouted, ‘Prime Minister, we can longer guarantee your safety in this location. We must evacuate you and your essential staff to Q-Whitehall.’

  ‘I agree,’ shouted Heath.

  Catesby leaned over the Permanent Secretary. ‘The Prime Minister would like to have a word.’

  The PM leaned over and said, ‘We need, Permanent Secretary, to evacuate to the war room in Q-Whitehall.’

  ‘Q-Whitehall,’ echoed the Permanent Secretary. ‘For god’s sake, I’ve been urging relocation there ever since we declared a State of Emergency. Thank god someone’s finally listened.’

  A few minutes later they had descended through the basements of Downing Street and into the tunnel system. The Permanent Secretary was led back up into the Treasury building at number 20 and into the waiting ambulance. As a result, the nervous breakdown of one of the UK’s most senior civil servants had been kept from public view and treated with dignity.

  It was raining again when Catesby walked back over Westminster Bridge. The surprising thing wasn’t that one Permanent Secretary had broken down under the pressures of 1974, but that others had not. The senior civil servant had caught a bad dose of Red virus. Its victims were not just the targets of the witch-hunts; the Red virus destroyed the hunters too. Madness was in the air.

  Agency News: 7 February 1974

  Heath Calls Snap Election

  The Prime Minister has called a snap general election in response to the coal miners’ threat of industrial action. Edward Heath has appealed to the miners to suspend their planned strike action during the three-week election campaign.

  After a week with no sign of a breakthrough in talks with the National Union of Mineworkers, the Prime Minister has decided to call an election to ‘let the voters decide who governs the country’. Mr Heath said the country was ‘fed up with industrial action’ and has called on people to use their vote to show the miners how they feel.

  State of Emergency to Continue

  The crisis began in the autumn when war in the Middle East sent oil prices soaring. The miners introduced an overtime ban in November – and the electricity workers followed suit.

  Mr Heath responded by introducing petrol rationing and declaring a State of Emergency and a three-day working week

  The miners, however, have stood firm and support for them appears to be strong despite widespread power cuts.

  It now seems almost certain that the miners will go ahead with their industrial action, which is due to start in three days’ time.

  Conservative MP Enoch Powell shocked colleagues at Westminster by announcing he would not be standing in what he called ‘an essentially fraudulent election’. In a letter to his constituency chairman he wrote: ‘I consider it an act of gross irresponsibility that this general election has been called in the face of the current and impending industrial situation.’

  Today has also seen the second in a series of one-day strikes call by ASLEF, the rail drivers union, which has caused more disruption to services.

  CIA HQ, Langley, Virginia: 16 February 1974

  It was a Saturday, but Angleton was still at his desk. He gazed through a haze of cigarette smoke and tried to catch a fleeting glimpse of the deceptions hidden in the mist, but they remained in hiding. He was lost in a wilderness of mirrors. The Watergate nonsense was also dragging him and everyone else into the mire. For the first time he began to wonder if his position was secure. But, he thought with a smile, Britain was in even more of a mess than the USA. It was a country that he knew well. He had been educated there at a leading public school before going to Yale. Some said that he still spoke with a slight English accent. Despite the betrayals of Philby and the others, he remained fond of Britain. Perhaps he could do something to help the Brits, to put them back on the right path while he still had the power to do so.

  The latest cable from London had come directly to him bypassing the Director’s Log. Angleton knew that the DCI wouldn’t be pleased. On the other hand, the Director would never find out.

  From OSO London Station to ADOCCI:

  Despite the best efforts of SM/DOGGED, who remains our most important asset within the British Security Service, MI5 are still restricted and squeamish about doing the things that need to be done to counteract Communist subversion in the UK.

  The upcoming UK general election poses a dilemma for US interests. In some ways, it’s a pity there has to be a winner – and maybe there won’t be. Edward Heath has proved a weak and ineffectual Conservative Premier. On the other hand, the return of Labor under Harold Wilson could be dangerous. The following are very serious points of concern:

  – A new Labor government would impose severe reductions in UK defense spending.

  – Wilson would also bring in budget and personnel reductions in the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service, further hampering their already limited effectiveness in tracking down subversives.

  – An incoming Wilson government would increase trade with the Soviet Union providing greater opportunities for KGB activity in Britain.

  At the moment, our best successes in the UK have been with the press and media. We have discussed with SM/REVEAL the possibility of a no-holds-barred anti-Wilson media campaign involving personal as well as political innuendo. Meanwhile, the FORUM FOR CONFLICT STUDIES is going from strength to strength. It has recently received a considerable financial boost from an anonymous millionaire benefactor. FCS has recently succeeded in placing front-page stories about ‘Sources of Conflict in Industry’ which suggest Communist influence in the Trade Union movement. Another brilliant FCS coup was getting a television documentary about the KGB sandwiched between two Labor Party political broadcasts. Perfect!

  Angleton lit another cigarette. It was far from ‘perfect’, but it was better than nothing. Perhaps the answer to the British problem weren’t the security agencies – which were totally corrupted and penetrated by Soviet moles – but private armies and media propaganda supported by big money.

  Mayfair, London: 19 February 1974

  The banker eyed down his cue stick. He had finally agreed to give the colonel a game.

  ‘Difficult shot,’ said the colonel trying to put him off.

  ‘Shh,’ said the banker. He then gently and perfectly potted the black to win the frame. The banker smiled, ‘Who pays wins.’

  Meanwhile, the general topped up his whisky. ‘What about you, JJ?’

  The ex-SIS officer held out his glass. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘What a mess, eh?’ said the general.

  ‘Heath doesn’t deserve to win,’ said JJ. ‘We tried to give him some ammunition and he turned it down.’

  ‘Which particular ammunition?’ said the colonel.

  ‘The CIA docs about Soviet involvement in the miners’ strike for one.’

  ‘What was Heath’s excuse?’ said the peer.

  ‘He said the CIA investigation wasn’t definitive and he didn’t want to alienate the trad
e unions.’

  ‘Feeble,’ said the banker.

  ‘And Heath also said,’ continued JJ, ‘that he doesn’t want the Conservative Party to get its hands dirty with personal smear stories.’

  ‘We all know why that is,’ said the peer.

  ‘In some ways,’ said JJ, ‘it would be a good thing if Heath loses this election. It means we can replace him with a strong leader with a backbone – someone who will take on the unions and the Reds.’

  ‘Who do you have in mind?’ said the colonel.

  JJ told them.

  ‘Nice pair of ankles,’ said the peer.

  Pimlico, London: 22 February 1974

  As soon as Catesby saw the Lisburn postmark on the letter he knew who it was from. But before opening it, he checked the letter for wires. It wasn’t heavy enough for a big device, but he didn’t want to lose a finger or an eye. He decided it was safe and slid out the latest from Captain Zero.

  Beware, Mr Catesby. The Powers of Darkness are in the ascendant. This place is not so much a military headquarters as Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell. Our job is supposed to be public relations work and psychological warfare operation against the IRA, but there are other aspects that have nothing to do with Northern Ireland. Beware of something called Operation Clockwork Orange. It will be very interesting to see who wins the coming election and what happens next.

  More anon. Meanwhile, stay cool.

  CZ

  Catesby put the letter in his suitcase. Since his safe had been cracked, he had found another way of hiding secret documents in the wilds of Suffolk. He wanted to protect Captain Zero. No one should ever leave anything lying around in a London flat. Ferret’s gang at the Security Service were the capital’s best burglars.

  Agency News: 4 March 1974

  Wilson Returns to Downing Street

  Four days after an election that saw the first hung Parliament since 1929, Harold Wilson has entered Downing Street as leader of a minority government.

  Following the failure of coalition talks between the Conservatives and the Liberals, Edward Heath announced his resignation paving the way for Wilson to become prime minister for the second time.