The Night Watch

by Julian Dinsell

  The conversation seemed to be moving towards fantasy and Thornhill could think of nothing to say that would not sound incredulous. The Pole seemed offended and studied the board. Then he moved a knight to threaten a bishop that Thornhill had left exposed.

  “You have been to Amsterdam,” the man said without looking up, “and you have visited the Rijksmuseum.” It was more of an accusation than a question.

  “Some years ago,” Thornhill admitted cautiously.

  “That’s not important,” Kloptik said impatiently. “The Night Watch by Rembrandt; what you have seen you have not forgotten.”

  It was an accurate prediction. Thornhill remembered the picture. It showed a group of wealthy merchants self-consciously setting out to do ceremonial civic duty. They were all elaborately dressed and stared at the artist, much as the subjects of Victorian photographs stared at the camera.

  “That’s how it began, our own Night Watch. I was young then, but many of the others were older and they knew they would not see the dawn.” As Kloptik developed the analogy, Thornhill was beginning to understand. “How naive we were when we began. We had not the slightest understanding that the Burghers of Amsterdam had a vastly easier task than ours. You see, securing the City Gate is one thing, defending the Mindgate is entirely another.”

  The analogy was baffling, but Thornhill did not interrupt.

  The Pole continued. “There were fifteen of us at the start, all of us people of prominence or promise in our chosen professions.” His prim manner was devoid of arrogance. “Those were days of despair. In America they had McCarthy, witch-hunts and Rock and Roll. You had the Coronation and delusions of Empire. We had Stalin in the Kremlin and tanks in the streets.”

  *

  Thornhill stood up and paced across the office. Though the conversation had taken place long ago, it was sufficiently unusual for him to remember it in forensic detail. It was the mood and feel of the time that his opponent at chess described which was much more difficult to recapture. The defunct Soviet Empire was fast becoming as remote from the realities of daily life as the empires of Britain or Spain. The grey days and dark nights of Eastern Europe were all but forgotten. Now, everything had changed. But back then, such hopes were only for the most private of dreams.

  Thornhill circled the room as his memory continued to play back Kloptik’s story. “None of us were heroes, we did not protest. Who would have listened? You must understand that at a time like that, a time from which there is no escape, both the oppressed and the oppressors live in an equilibrium of fear. Those without power fear those with it. And those with power fear losing it. The child of such fears is silence; a silence which only the prospect of liberty, or final desperation, can break. We watched and we remembered, it was our substitute for hope.” The chess game was forgotten; they had made no more than a dozen moves.

  *

  “As time passed, our numbers gradually grew. We had no organisation and sought no recruits. We grew organically. As we encountered like-minded people, they were drawn into the circle. When the Soviets went home, we all thought it was over. But then everything was for sale and a new Imperialism arrived. He who has the most dollars wins. Dollars are not the currency of a single nation but a language, the Esperanto of our time, the world’s first universal tongue. Many big people have a wide vocabulary in this language; many dangerous things are devised with it. So the Night Watch continues and if we live long enough, we may make history, Mr Administrator Thornhill.”

  Was this a fantasy or was he being presented with a gold mine?

  He remembered what the Pole went on to say. “And why do I speak to you like this now?” He answered his own question. “Because we know our value, but we are not for sale; in turn, we know who you are and will not disguise the value you could be to us.”

  “I need to know what you mean,” Thornhill replied.

  “We will not spy for you, Mr Thornhill, but there will come a moment when we must speak, a moment when we will be of great importance to you.”

  “When?” Thornhill remembered trying not to sound impatient.

  “I can’t tell you. Maybe soon, maybe never. None of us sought martyrdom. But even in those dark days we all secretly realised that hope, despair or danger might force action upon us.”

  “What kind of action?” Thornhill needed clarity.

  “An alarm, a fire alarm in the night, but the moment never came and we thought our task was done.”

  “What’s changed?” Thornhill asked sharply.

  “The night may be over, but have you ever wondered where the dark goes when the light comes on?”

  “Are you going to tell me what you mean?”

  “Not yet, but when that time comes, we will be your ally. Will you be ours?”

  “Perhaps. What do you want in return?”

  “Credibility. Who will listen to a fire alarm at dawn? It somehow lacks the urgency of midnight, doesn’t it? We have to know that we will be believed. You may need to respond very quickly.”

  The chess pieces had remained untouched for too long. A waiter came to the table and they ordered more drinks. Thornhill moved his second knight.

  “How soon?” Thornhill insisted.

  “Not yet.”

  “How may we keep in touch?”

  “We shall not, that is why I speak to you now. Just remember; Kloptik, a childhood nickname of no consequence, but that is the name I shall use when the time comes.” He continued briskly. “The question is, are you powerful enough to serve our purpose? Of course,” Kloptik added, “you will understand that this is a question I have to ask, just as surely as I understand you cannot answer it.”

  Kloptik was wholly unlike any potential recruit Thornhill had met before. Indeed it was unclear who was recruiting whom. Kloptik pushed away the chessboard with its unfinished game and sat upright, as if preparing for a speech.

  “Now, Mr Thornhill, your instincts will be, as the Americans say, ‘to check us out’ with your computers and to make vigorous enquiries in London. This could be dangerous to us. Will you promise not to do it?”

  Thornhill had replied without hesitation. “No, I won’t give you any such undertaking, and if I did, you wouldn’t believe me.”

  For the first time, Kloptik smiled and laughed out loud. “Excellent! I do believe we understand each other. However, I think you will be disappointed if you imagine you will find out much about us from such sources…”

  Thornhill’s desk was beginning to fill up. He reached for the file sent up from the registry. He had wanted to test his memory first. Carefully, he went over the notes he had made at the time. There was nothing more; the imprint on his memory had been remarkably complete.

  He thought hard. What unfinished business could there be for the Night Watch, now that the night had passed? Where, indeed, did the dark go when the light came on?

  As he closed the file another thought struck him. What if it was not unfinished business but new business: a threat of a different kind? His dilemma was acute. Raising an alarm about a threat to the summit, if it were to have any value, would have to be communicated to all of the governments involved. If false, it would destroy both him and his department. Most alarms were false and he was expected to exercise his judgement.

  “Trust,” Kloptik had said at the first meeting. “We have to know that we will be believed.”

  Thornhill sat and stared into space, wishing he had the comforting view of the river to focus his thoughts, to help him decide between Wordsworth and Shelley.

  He lifted the phone and spoke to Lloyd-Emlyn in the outer office. “Robert, make an appointment with the Minister, please. You may tell the Permanent Secretary that it is a matter of urgency.”

  He put the phone down. The die was cast.

  Chapter 7 - Bermuda

  “ExecAir Fyfer One Seven Niner, cleared to taxi.” The La Guardia controller’s voice came through the crowded chatter of New York air traffic.

  “Worse than Grand Central on
Thanksgiving,” said Murphy as the elderly HS 125 rolled slowly forward to join the long line of aircraft inching towards the end of the runway for take-off.

  Nobody responded to his attempt at conversation.

  From several rows back, Latchford, the Embassy doctor, sized up his fellow passengers. Unless there was an emergency, his job was to do nothing. There were eighteen seats, only five were occupied. He studied the elderly Pole who, gaunt and grey, sat in near-catatonic stillness. Latchford thought how like delivering a baby an operation like this was. You could never tell whether the central figure would turn out to be a hero or villain, the cause of triumph or disaster. And only very occasionally did you ever find out.

  Anwar Darzi was a high-flier from a humble background. His parents, when they arrived in Manchester from Pakistan, had opened a corner shop. The family of six only had two downstairs rooms. In recognition of his need to study, he was given one of them. His parents, three brothers, numerous friends and the TV were crowded into the remaining room.

  It was an investment that paid off in a succession of scholarships that propelled Darzi to a prominent position in psychology at Imperial College in London.

  Across the aisle sat Morag, whose usual working day involved ‘research’, which was as good a euphemism as any for searching vast quantities of trade journals, scientific papers and industrial statistics. ‘Like stoking the boilers of the Titanic’ was how she described feeding the voracious appetite of the Cray super-computers deep beneath the flashy new office block on the south bank of the Thames. Morag was a woman with a sharpness of mind overlaid by a dullness of appearance, which those who knew her well realised was a defence against casual intrusion into her private space. The satellites could tell you what was happening; Morag could tell you why it was happening. As an analyst, she had no experience of work in the field and had been drawn into the operation almost by accident.

  As ever, the new Russia was causing a lot of travel among those whose business it was to assess risk and predict outcomes. She had been in New York, on a visit to Columbia University, when she was called back to the office in Midtown where she was given a fifteen-minute briefing and sent to 5th Avenue with a roll of dollar bills and instructions to get dressed for the part.

  Ostentation was foreign territory and it showed. Her impatience with Gucci and expensive perfume made them seem like the disguises that they really were.

  You’ve got to want to turn heads before you can do it, Latchford thought. But, the result was better than anyone might have expected. The unintentional double bluff of a see-through disguise succeeded magnificently. She really did look like a bright young PhD from a wealthy family, who had been persuaded to spend a few days at a seminar in Bermuda with her Austrian professor. And together the group would pass for a team of academics whose travel was paid for by a multinational think-tank; the cover story hastily devised before departure.

  Murphy sat next to Kloptik, his rumpled bulk like a giant teddy bear beside a nervous child. He knew it was important to stay close. They were at cruising altitude before Kloptik spoke. To Murphy, his mannered English brought back a flood of memories of Oxford professors and tutors whose language was of another age.

  “I would deem it a favour if you would call me Josef.”

  “Sure,” Murphy replied, not offering his Christian name in return. That would be a card to play later in the game.

  Kloptik continued. “I am Professor Josef–”

  Murphy cut him short; he was about to hear something that he did not need to know. “Josef,” he said, using the newfound influence of the name, “why don’t you get some sleep? There’s a lot of talking to do tomorrow, when your friends from London come visit us.”

  To pre-empt a response, Murphy got up, tossed one of the skimpy airline pillows into Kloptik’s lap and shambled to the rear of the aircraft. He filled a paper cup with indifferent coffee from the urn and took two doughnuts from the big paper bag beside it. He didn’t offer anything to anybody else.

  Darcy was the team leader. He was in his mid-thirties and looked and dressed like a merchant banker. Savile Row suits, designer shirts and handmade shoes were possible because he had no family to support and useful because they were a most effective set of props. Everyone welcomes a man with money to invest. Recently, he had begun to wish he were the real thing, rather than working in what everyone could see was a declining industry. Having climbed close to the top of his chosen pyramid, he found it slowly deflating beneath him. ‘Three years of Russian and Slavic studies at Cambridge and a Doctorate in dark alleys and deceit in Warsaw and Moscow aren’t the career credentials that they once were,’ he often complained. But this ‘little caper’, as he thought of it, was something different; more like old times.

  The hurried departure from La Guardia had gone without a hitch. The cover story was plausible and the oncoming weekend fortuitous. Dozens of private jets left New York every Friday night. Getting into the United States could be a problem, getting out rarely was. His chief disappointment was Morag. Darcy thought of himself as having a way with women and history supported his opinion. But Morag simply seemed not to notice him and he found it unsettling.

  He moved across the aisle and sat next to Kloptik.

  His Polish was good enough for casual conversation. “Less than two hours to Hamilton, then you can get to bed,” he said, thinking that the use of his native language would help the old man relax.

  Instantly he realised that this was a mistake. He recognised ‘The Bulgarian Jam Syndrome’, common in Eastern Europe before the fall of Communism. In those days, consumer goods were universally appalling but Bulgarian jam was a shining exception, much sought after by eco-fashion-conscious customers in the supermarkets of Kensington and White Plains. But anywhere east of the Elbe it was rejected as a poor substitute for the highly coloured, additive-laden Western imports at five times the price of the local product. So it was with Darcy’s Polish. Those with power spoke nothing but English. Kloptik looked on Darcy’s expensive suit and silk tie as the uniform of a concierge at a fancy hotel and he spoke as if he was rebuking a minor factotum.

  “This diversion is both unnecessary and unacceptable; the matter is of the greatest importance. Sir Jack should be here.”

  Darcy was surprised that the old man knew about the forthcoming knighthood, which was not due to be announced for another two weeks. Darcy judged that Kloptik’s secret and his dignity were the only two things he had been able to bring with him. Yet there was more to it than that; the old man had a natural magnetism that was intriguing.

  Darcy waited for a moment before replying. “Sir Jack will be here in the morning, he’s flying out from London. I’m his Deputy. My speciality is Eastern Europe. He asked me to look after you.”

  “Young man…” Kloptik began. It was a long time since anybody had called Darcy that, but somehow, coming from Kloptik, it didn’t seem strange. “I am flattered, but I do not understand. Why are we not flying directly to London? Why go to this tiny island?”

  “Tiny islands have their advantages,” Darcy replied.

  “Why?” Kloptik asked sharply.

  “Because right now, suspicion is very unfashionable. Everyone wants to be inside the circle of the rich, the powerful and the ruthless; they’re all climbing over each other. That’s what the summit is all about. Very few questions are being asked. So the market for the sort of trouble you seem to be bringing is a difficult one.”

  Kloptik thought for a moment, taking in the implications of the information. “So I am unwelcome?” He suddenly sounded vulnerable.

  Darcy decided to be direct. “In a word, yes. A political inconvenience.”

  Kloptik looked out at the night sky. Sirius, the Dog Star, followed Orion the Hunter as he climbed over the horizon.

  Kloptik spoke thoughtfully, as if to himself. “In the Roman Empire they used to kill the bearers of bad news…”

  “Dreadful manners, the Italians,” Darcy said.

  Two ro
ws back, Bullivant, a broad-shouldered figure, was immersed in isometric exercises, tensing and relaxing his muscles in slow succession. He heard the conversation but did not understand a word. An ex-para corporal, he was the firepower of the team and he felt redundant.

  *

  “Who is Kloptik?” the Minister asked with an edge of impatience in his voice.

  Thornhill knew the man well. Arnold Braithwaite had been an MP for twenty years and this was his first cabinet appointment. He brought with him political cunning, a gift for self-protection and very little else. His instincts were to keep the infection of unwelcome news at a distance.

  “I cannot reveal that,” Thornhill replied with the cool exactitude that senior British civil servants have used for centuries when dealing with truculent political masters.

  Braithwaite was really angry now. It was his turn to use formality as a weapon. He was careful to use Thornhill’s forthcoming knighthood with a politeness close to mockery.

  “Then what, Sir Jack, is the point of this meeting? I have to brief the Prime Minister in less than an hour. The most important summit in history is close to being agreed upon. I cancelled two important working sessions to see you, and all I get is some fantasy character whose identity you won’t reveal, or more likely don’t know.”

  Braithwaite was dangerously close to the truth. Thornhill felt a flicker of doubt and hesitated for a moment. The sound of traffic in Whitehall rumbled through the dusty windows and mingled with the cold sunlight that fell across the desk between them.

  Thornhill spoke with deliberation. “The purpose of this meeting is to warn Her Majesty’s Government of an attempt to sabotage the summit about which you are to give your briefing.”

  He was trapped; there was no other way to put it. Until he could reach Kloptik, he knew no more, and if he were to get the Minister to take the threat seriously he could express it in no lesser terms. The diversion to Bermuda had been a calculated risk. It ensured that the debriefing would take place with minimum interference, but it lost time – a valuable twenty-four hours.