by Graham Ison
“Oh really? When’s that, then?”
“Quite soon. Mind you, when I say north, I don’t mean far north. Just north of London – but too far to continue using this pub so often. Pity, just as we were getting to know each other.”
“Yes,” said Armitage. “Shame, that.”
“I was thinking, though.” Dickson shot a sideways glance at Armitage. “You might just be able to help me. It’s a cut-throat business, computers. Always trying to keep one step ahead of the opposition, if you know what I mean.”
“Yes, I think so.”
“It’s much more useful to us to get field reports – unbiased views, I mean. I know we do a lot of experimental work, testing other people’s equipment to destruction, but that’s not as good as knowing what the blokes who are actually using it think.”
“No, I can see that.” Armitage ordered more drinks. “Well, I shouldn’t think there’d be much harm in that. What d’you want to know?”
Dickson passed a piece of folded paper discreetly along the bar. “There’s one or two questions there, Jack.” He smiled. “It would be very helpful, and you wouldn’t find me ungrateful. After all, it would be a sort of business arrangement, wouldn’t it?”
Armitage nodded. “How do I get the answers to you, Peter?”
Dickson appeared to consider that for a moment. “Well, as I said, I won’t be able to get in here as often from now on, but I could make a point of being here, say a week today. Would that be long enough?”
“Depends what the questions are, doesn’t it?”
*
Gaffney now had to work very fast. Immediately after Armitage had been presented with the photographs, Gaffney had enlisted the aid, once more, of the Provost-Marshal. Brigadier Parker had introduced him to another brigadier, Armitage’s superior officer at the MOD. Although unavoidably widening the circle of confidentiality, it was essential that when Dickson’s demands came, Armitage should be in a position to supply him with material which was both convincing, at least in the short term, and unlikely to damage the national interest. Already it was starting to get complicated.
As for Armitage, he had been surprised at the naivete of the questions posed by Dickson and expressed the view to Gaffney, through Marilyn, that the Russians must know the answers already. Marilyn conveyed Gaffney’s explanation that it was all part of the trap. Once Armitage had handed over that information, no matter how innocuous, he would have committed an offence. After that, he had to keep on supplying under threat of betrayal to the police. Again, Armitage marveled at the stupidity of anyone falling for that. But he knew that quite a few had.
*
It proved to be true. When Dickson kept the appointment in the pub a week later to receive the answers to the questions, he straightaway handed Armitage another list as feeble as the first. This was followed by a request for a harmless print-out – nothing sensitive, of course. Then it got serious. A print-out showing the deployment of certain military formations was asked for. That demand was made at their last meeting in the pub.
“I shan’t be able to get here any more,” said Dickson, whose relationship with Armitage had, over the weeks, changed imperceptibly from one of friendship to that almost of master and servant.
“Well how am I going to get it to you? I’m not going to put it in the post.”
“Damn’ right you’re not,” said Dickson sharply. “D’you know Teddington Lock?”
“I know where it is – roughly, but—”
Dickson handed him an envelope. “Destroy that when you’ve learned it – for your own sake, Jack. It shows a place near the lock, on the Surrey side, where you can leave it. It’s quite specific.”
“When do I put it there?”
“You’ll receive a card through the post. It will congratulate you on your recent success, and it will be signed ‘Alex’. Put the negative of the print-out into an empty beer can, and leave it in that place at seven o’clock in the evening of the Thursday following.” Dickson handed Armitage a small package. “That’s a Minox camera and some film. Don’t use it for holiday snaps, will you?”
“Will it take photographs of guys in bed with blondes?” asked Armitage acidly.
Dickson laughed. “It’s not very good for that. Now, is that all clear?”
“Yes.” The simplicity of it all worried Armitage, not because it was dangerous – he was acting under instructions – but because he was afraid that Dickson might know he was being set up; he was getting results far too easily.
“Incidentally,” said Dickson, impervious to Armitage’s fears, “you’ll find a small sum of money in the place where you leave the film. Just a token of our gratitude.”
“Our gratitude?”
Dickson smiled. “Yes,” he said. “Me and the company I work for. Oh, by the way, the same system will operate the next time I’ve got some questions for you: I’ll leave them at seven on the following Thursday evening, Okay?”
*
“The thing that worries me, sir,” said Gaffney, “is that MI5 might not have bloody well noticed that there’s a spy at the MOD, but more to the point that there is a Russian ‘illegal’ in the shape of the man known as Peter Dickson, alias Alex.”
The use of that name had almost sent Gaffney into hysterics; it had been used by the Russians so often that they might as well have signed themselves “KGB”.
Commander Frank Hussey turned to face his chief superintendent, the light from his desk lamp glinting on his horn-rimmed spectacles. “What do we know of this man Dickson? Do we know he’s an illegal?”
“No, sir – although it’s fairly obvious, unless he’s a cut-out. But I’ve done no enquiries at all. I thought it unwise in the circumstances. After all, officially I know nothing of this.”
Hussey sat staring at his blotter for some seconds before replying. “This is one of those damnable situations where our duty to the rule of law intrudes on the practicalities of an intelligence-gathering operation. We can’t afford to let it run on for too long. The sort of information we’re feeding through Armitage is going to be sussed out as worthless sooner or later – sooner I reckon. If Dickson takes flight on those grounds, it’ll be because he realizes he’s been set up. That we don’t want. It would mean we’d have to start all over again, because MI5 wouldn’t even get a sniff of it before he took it on his toes.”
“So what do we do?” Gaffney put his empty glass on the edge of the commander’s desk and looked hopeful.
“We’ve got to make damned sure they know without letting them know we know,” said Hussey, pushing the Scotch bottle across the desk towards Gaffney.
“What about an anonymous telephone call?”
“You’re joking?”
“No, seriously, sir. It’s happened before. Supposing a member of the public sees Armitage poking about at this DLB on the towpath at Teddington, thinks it’s suspicious and phones the police.”
Hussey looked doubtful. “Who’s your anonymous caller?”
“Me?”
Hussey laughed. “Everybody in the branch would recognize your voice.”
“I could ring it into the local nick…”
Hussey shook his head. “What and have the local CID crawling all over your DLB looking for stolen gear? No, John, that would blow it completely. It’d be all over the MPD in no time; the average nick’s about as water-tight as a leaky colander.” He paused in thought. “Who’s that WDC you’ve got holed up with Armitage?”
“Lester, sir – Marilyn Lester.”
“Get her to do it. Wouldn’t be the first woman to inform on her husband,” he said with a laugh.
*
The problem with anonymous telephone calls is the number of them that the police get. Gaffney’s one fear was that the Special Branch officer at the Yard who received it might dismiss it as not worth recording. And there was no way that he could check, supposedly knowing nothing of the operation. Nonetheless, Marilyn Lester, by now beginning seriously to wonder what the hell h
er new career was all about when her boss told her to make an anonymous call to her own branch, made her way to Teddington on the Friday following Armitage’s drop. Gaffney had told her to do that so that she could describe accurately the area where she had supposedly seen these suspicious goings-on.
From a public telephone box – the third she had tried, the first to be working – she rang Scotland Yard and asked for Special Branch. Declining to identify herself, she told the officer who took the call what she was supposed to have seen, being careful not to use any jargon which might identify her as a police officer, and finishing up by saying that she thought it was a bit suspicious.
Fortunately for the whole plan, the officer recorded the call, mildly reproved Marilyn Lester for not having told them as soon as she had witnessed this strange behavior, and passed it on to the duty officer at MI5.
Chapter Five
“I know that you set this up, Mr Gaffney, but it’s become serious now. After all, there is a genuine ‘illegal’ involved. Surely you can give me some idea what’s going on.”
“Sir Edward, we knew all along that a genuine ‘illegal’, as you call him, would become involved. That was the object of the exercise, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, I know, but—”
“This case,” said Gaffney, interrupting, “has got to break on your service in exactly the same sort of way that they all do. If you feed information to your assistant director, he’ll wonder what the hell’s going on. Where would you tell him it had come from? No, leave it as it is, sir. You can’t have your cake and eat it. Which is more important: to catch yet another ‘illegal’, who, let’s face it, hasn’t received any genuine information and won’t, or to detect a traitor in your midst?”
Griffin remained silent. That last comment of Gaffney’s had hurt, the more so because he knew it was true; but it was just as unpalatable for all that. Eventually, he said, “You’re quite right, of course, Mr Gaffney.”
“We won’t make it too difficult, Sir Edward, but I am going to need the names.”
“Of course. But I haven’t been told of anything untoward yet. You know as well as I do that this type of information comes to us from all sorts of sources. Hodder will put the watchers on the DLB, and take it from there – I just hope that they don’t tire of it before Dickson makes his next move.”
“There is a way we can accelerate that, although I’m loath to do it for fear of alerting Dickson, but Armitage – my man – can send him a message if he wants to speed up the next drop, but he’d have to have a good reason. Frankly, I’d prefer to leave it alone for the time being.”
“All right,” said Sir Edward. “Leave it like that at present, and we’ll wait and see what happens.” He passed a hand wearily across his forehead. “I’m a bit impatient, I suppose, but the sooner this whole distasteful business is over and done with the better.”
*
It was three weeks before Armitage received another greetings card which was Dickson’s instruction for him to leave the next consignment of sensitive material.
The dead-letter box was a tree just off the towing path, and was difficult to keep under observation; which was probably why Dickson had chosen it. The MI5 team of watchers had surveyed the area thoroughly, and had managed to establish a number of observation posts, one of which was on the roof of a block of flats some four hundred yards away on the other side of the river. The major problem for the surveillance officers was that although Marilyn Lester, playing the part of the anonymous caller, had said that the strange goings-on, which she was supposed to have witnessed, were on the Surrey side of Teddington Lock, it was possible to approach it from either side of the river. There were thick banks of stinging nettles and brambles near the DLB which afforded not only reasonable cover for one of the watchers, but also tended to dissuade the inquisitive from poking about in the bushes, and were definitely discouraging to courting couples. Most of the watchers were, however, plainly visible, but gave the appearance of being there for an entirely innocuous purpose.
Armitage followed the same route as on his first visit, driving over Richmond Bridge and along the west side of the river. He had told Marilyn Lester that he would approach the DLB from the Teddington side, as he had done before, but there was no way that Gaffney, when he heard, could pass that on to the Security Service without their wondering how he knew. He just had to hope that nothing would go wrong.
Unlike the first time, traffic on this occasion was extremely light, and Armitage found himself near the rendezvous with twenty-five minutes to spare. He parked in Ferry Road and waited.
At five minutes to seven, he locked his car and walked casually over the footbridge, occasionally pausing to give the impression that he was admiring the view. He mounted the steps of the second bridge, crossed to the other side, and turned right. There were two or three young couples strolling along the towing path, arms encircling each other’s waists and lost in their own private worlds, and three fishermen, spaced at intervals, gazing blankly into the water.
Armitage hesitated, acutely aware of his vulnerability; what he was about to do would be nerve-wrackingly obvious to anyone, he thought. Admittedly, he had done it before, but he knew that this time he was being watched by people not in on the secret, and although he was only playing a part, the adrenalin was pumping, probably because he was as keen as Gaffney for the ploy to work, whatever it was. He stood for a minute or two watching an expensive motor cruiser, which had just cleared the lock, glide effortlessly up river, before finally deciding that he could wait forever if he was going to leave his information only when the towing path was completely deserted.
He walked swiftly to the same horse-chestnut tree as before and, without pausing, tossed the drink-can with its bogus secret contents into the opening in the trunk.
He strolled on for a bit before turning and slowly retracing his footsteps, oblivious – despite looking for signs of them – to the watchers who were reporting his every move.
Armitage was also unaware that his arrival in Ferry Road – along with the arrival of several innocent citizens – had been the subject of several radio transmissions, and that the time it had taken him to make his drop had been used by MI5 to station surveillance vehicles in position ready to house him when he moved.
Dickson, being a professional, was far more relaxed in his approach to the DLB. He appeared from the Kingston end of the towing path, sauntering along as though he had all the time in the world; a man out for an evening walk. Despite his professionalism, he did not realize that he had been under observation for the past hour, having on this occasion left a sum of money – an insultingly small amount as it happened – at the DLB; a deposit which Armitage, in his concern for discretion, had omitted to collect. During that interval – between leaving the money and returning to collect the drink-can – Dickson had walked into Ham, consumed a half pint of beer, and returned.
He sat now on one of the benches and read an evening paper, casually lowering it from time to time to look around. It seemed to be a glance in admiration of the view, but the watchers knew that he was looking for them. Nothing had occurred to suggest that he was under observation, but he was an extremely careful man.
Eventually, Dickson folded his paper and wandered along the towing path once more. As he passed the tree, his hand shot into the gap and retrieved the drink-can; he had previously placed an old beer crate, which he had found nearby, in the gap to ensure that Armitage’s deposit would fall only just below the level of the natural fissure in the trunk. To any casual busy-body, looking inside, there would be nothing more than a crate and an empty beer-can; all too familiar detritus along the banks of the river. As Dickson grasped the can, his hand had brushed against the screwed up newspaper containing the banknotes, but he had decided against recovering it; to pause might arouse suspicion, and if Armitage didn’t want the money, so be it.
Instead of hurrying away, Dickson now began to walk slowly back towards Kingston, occasionally stopping to loo
k at the river, but in reality searching for anyone who might be taking an interest in him. Then he continued, unaware that the man who was “following” him was actually ahead of him; a method of surveillance which required great skill and years of practice.
Armitage meanwhile drove carefully back to Battersea, deliberately not employing counter-surveillance techniques, of which, in any case, he knew little. Despite looking for them, he had not seen a single surveillance officer by the time he reached the flat at Battersea; that worried him, and it was only later when Marilyn told him that they had been there that he realized how good they were.
The watchers’ leader had monitored the progress of Dickson and was convinced that sooner or later, he would get into a car. Consequently, when he unlocked a Mercedes parked in Lower Ham Road and drove off, the mobile team were in place and waiting. By the use of a variety of vehicles, two-wheeled as well as cars and vans, they were able to tail him all the way back to his flat north of Oxford Street.
The operation had been a success; MI5 now knew who was giving the information and who was receiving it.
*
The record of the anonymous telephone call that Marilyn Lester had made to Special Branch had been passed to Geoffrey Hodder, a senior intelligence officer in the Security Service. It was one of dozens of snippets of information to come his way in the course of a working day, but this had certain hallmarks which had made it of interest. It was Geoffrey Hodder who had assigned the team which had witnessed the incidents at Teddington. And it was to Geoffrey Hodder that the report was sent the following morning.
He read the report thoroughly, accepting without question the efficiency of the watchers who had completed their task by following the two principals to their places of residence – known in the trade as “housing” them.
Geoffrey Hodder, however, was not a happy man. Last summer, he had been in charge of an operation involving a man called Nikitin. Special Branch had been involved in that too. But at the very point where an arrest was to be effected, Nikitin had disappeared, only to be heard of months later when MI6 had reported his reappearance in Moscow. As if that were not bad enough, two months ago, an East German, Gesschner, had disappeared as well, just as MI5’s operation was intensifying.
