What Happened in Vienna, Jack?

by Daniel Kemp

  Monday Morning In London

  Group

  “Fiona, get me the director at the doughnut on a red line then fetch a fresh brew and Giles Phillips from Archives, please. Tell Perkins to come as well with that young assistant of his. Clear my appointments for this afternoon. I'll be busy.”

  Geoffrey Perkins, a man in his early fifties and a reincarnated life-long oil-burner was the first to arrive, by which time Sir Archibald Thomas Finn was on the phone to his counterpart at the government's listening post, GCHQ.

  “Yes, Joseph! Absolutely everything you can find in the last fifty years, or more if that's necessary. Use a microscope with the finest of lenses possible. We need this information urgently.”

  “How far did you get at the Palace, sir?” Perkins asked as Sir Archibald replaced the telephone receiver.

  “Nowhere. They clammed up tighter than a lion's jaw around its prey, Geoffrey, but they know something about Sir Horace Butler, of that I'm sure. We will have to find it all ourselves, I'm afraid. How far has the training of that assistant of yours got to? Can he be assigned to a desk yet?”

  Perkins had no time to volunteer his judgement on that matter as Giles Phillips was next through the door. Giles had been a private man for the twenty-two years since his early divorce from Ann, his wife of five months. He adored the sterility of old documents. He found pleasure in tracing long forgotten codes and names hidden in the barren isolation of his underground retreat without the thought of the revenging daggers that haunted Geoffrey's protégé.

  Daniel Cardiff was the last to enter. The IRA were occupying most of Geoffrey's devotional oil-burners hence Daniel had been fast-tracked in the two months since signing on straight from Cambridge. He had very little training in covert operations, but oodles of enthusiasm to learn, a dangerous combination that could lead to one of two things: soaring success or agonising failure. There was no middle ground on which to find cover.

  “Gentlemen, we must find everything connected to a ghost, Sir Horace Butler is a mystery that demands our meticulous attention.” Sir Archibald declared.

  * * *

  At the end of Craig Court, a cul-de-sac leading off Whitehall at its Trafalgar Square end, was where the offices of the National Strategic Liaison Group could be found, but not by any accidental tourist, that is. It was inside the inner concrete and lead-lined shell of a shabby red-brick building that at the beginning of the First World War years the oil lamps were burned late into the night and early morning analysing threats to the British Empire from its enemies. Other than the identity of those enemies little had changed in the fifty-eight years that had passed since then. Those that plunged their hands into hazy secrets had kept their oil burning until this day. The reasons for keeping secrets seldom change, it's the custodians that do.

  There was no sign affixed anywhere on this nondescript edifice to proclaim its importance, nor was there an actual front door, as entry was strictly controlled via the maze of tunnels that connected the building to its more illustrious neighbours nearby: The Admiralty, The Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Number 10, to name a few. Those who worked here provided the knowledge that ultimately found its way to the desk of Sir Archibald T. Finn before he informed the Joint Intelligence Committee of the Secret Intelligence Service and then the department heads of MI5 and MI6. The NSLG, or just plain Group as it was known throughout those who knew of its existence, had no classification within the intelligence community. It was answerable only to the Minister of Defence, or so it was thought.

  Daniel Cardiff's first assimilation into the actual covert workings of the NSLG was undertaken by Geoffrey Perkins early that morning in his office on the top floor; it didn't stay in that room for long.

  “My late uncle had a butler named Horace, sir. Not sure if he's still alive though. The butler that is, not my uncle.” Daniel announced, slightly embarrassed. “Uncle Maurice died earlier this year. I think it was in March.”

  “Really, and who exactly was your Uncle Maurice when alive, Cardiff?” Geoffrey asked.

  “Admiral Sir Maurice Curtis, sir, one of my mother's many brothers. He was the personal private secretary to His Royal Highness Prince Philip until he died. Not Prince Philip, but my uncle! Huge funeral. Most of the Royal Household came, sir. I remember his butler, Horace, but only vaguely, sir.”

  One hour later Sir Archibald took a government car from the front door of the Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture to the tall building on the other side of Westminster Bridge. The one that every Tom, Dick and Harry in London knew as the headquarters of MI6. He took the express lift to the top floor, then swallowed hard.

  “We think Price was in Vienna twice in his service career. The first time was in '45, then again when he was sent overseas in 1948, but the file was closed and sealed with no mention of where he went or to whom he reported. We are now assuming he went back there. To all intents and purposes that's when he died on us. What we are now trying to find out is how he and young Craig's uncle became acquainted. I've managed to find that Sir Maurice Curtis and the Duke of Edinburgh had met at the Royal Naval Collage, Dartmouth as far back as 1939, but how on earth our Jack Price got invited into that circle, I've no idea.”

  “He was briefly one of ours, this Jack Price, Archie, after being a resident spotter at 5 for many years. All I can find out so far is that we dispensed with his services in the late forties sending him back to 5. I've checked their assembly roll. No one there is holding his hand. Who did you speak to at the Palace?”

  “The present private personal secretary to Prince Philip.”

  “Did you mention Price to them?”

  “I did, yes. They denied knowledge of him quicker than St Peter denied Christ, and they were almost as convincing.”

  “He's on the firm, that's what he is. He's one of theirs, Archie. Were any of Philip's Nazi-leaning sisters or brothers-in-laws in Austria around about that time?”

  “I wouldn't think it was impossible. The Mountbattens have Royal connections everywhere, don't they.”

  “Got any idea where Price is now?”

  “Not the foggiest, but we're looking, Dicky. Believe me we'll find him,” Sir Archibald announced confidently.

  “I expect you're choked to the full on Irish matters, Archie. General Ford's 1st Para not withstanding! You must be running out of room for other enquiries. This all sounds a bit inessential to the points at issue for the time being. I'll have words with the Home Office and have your enquiries shifted from the Ministry Of Defence onto my desk. We can't have Royalty rumoured to be mixed up in anything untoward at present. Very bad timing all round for that to happen. Got any idea as to who fired first over in Derry that the press are get their knickers in a twist over?”

  “We're backing the official line, Dicky. Our boys simply returned fire.”

  Dicky Blythe-Smith gazed down across the rooftops towards the spires of Westminster and wondered how much truth was in that statement.

  “Tell me more of this Jack Price, Archie. Rum old bird as I seem to recollect. Saw his file once, but can't recall precisely why that should have been.”

  Dicky held back the truth when saying that. There was no reason that he could see to be more open at this stage either here with his old friend, or, when eventually he had to present his department's case for handling this 'inessential' matter and not where it should have been handled; the internal service back across the river.

  “I met him a couple of times when I was in Ireland,” Sir Archibald was speaking. “But then he turned into a bit of a maverick. Runs operations using unregistered personnel, ex-military and the like. That's part of the reason that we became involved at Group. His name first popped up on our screens four years ago in of all places South Vietnam. We never wiped it off.

  The Tet offensive was underway with the Americans starting to lose troops, hardware and positions left right and centre. I was summoned to a meeting at St James's Palace. Prince Philip's then PPS presided with me and the Foreign Mi
nister in attendance. I was told that GB had two very important observers in Vietnam that needed urgent extraction, but no accountable units from this country could be used. A private agency was to be employed in the task. One endorsed by Prince Philip. We, at Group, and General John at 5, who were to supply the necessary equipment, but were to stay away and make absolutely no mention of it in any Cabinet or Privy Council meeting if we were so summoned. I'm sorry to say that my curiosity got the better of me, Dicky, as I'm sure yours would have. I followed the contraband and requisition forms, turning up Price and a retired Marine known only as Job. In time there were five who flew out from here, touching down at a US airbase outside of Saigon. Price stayed put on station, but Job and his team ventured north and successfully brought the two VIPs out.”

  “I take it that it was the present PPS and not the one that your young recruit mentioned, Archie?”

  “It was, yes.”

  “And the VIPs? Names of note, old bean?”

  “Not ones we had flagged at that time, Dicky, no. One was a rear Admiral who worked for an armaments manufacturer, the other was the owner of Courcy's Intelligence Service; a Kenneth de Courcy. Set up, so the prospectus said, to provide early warning intelligence to businesses and governments.”

  “Interesting stuff, Archie. Know much about what happened to those two once back here on terra firma?”

  “I do. The rear admiral left the company he represented and is now skipper of the Royal Yacht Britannia, but the other, Kenneth de Courcy, is still on all joint security screens. He was listed because of his comments to overthrow Wilson and his socialist government a few years ago. He hasn't stopped in that resolve apparently, just has it on hold whilst Wilson's out of office leading the opposition.”

  “What brought Jack Price's name to reappear on your screens recently, Archie. What's he been up to that's disturbed your sleep?”

  Some people are incapable of listening to what they're told. Others only hear the parts they want to, preferring snippets to the whole, in order to grasp hold of single words or phrase helping to build their own complementary tales, or ones of a contrary nature, around them. Dicky did not fit into either type. He was one of the unusual breed who not only listened intently with the sole purpose of absorbing the orator's entire words but to hear what was not said, either through ignorance or with intent to deceive. He had an astute and quick mind, careful in assessment and razor-sharp in analysis. He would not have been C at the international branch of the Military Intelligence Services if he was not so equipped.

  As well as a brute of a man in build, he was the same in temper. Throughout their military careers he had outranked his contemporary at the internal security branch, General John Mark Hampton, but since the more colourful arm of the intelligence services had made demands of his talents he had deemed himself as secondary in the hierarchy to his rival's offices. If he had a weakness that's where it lay; a resentment of General John, as his counterpart of C at 5. Caused by a nagging wife who wanted him to have closer ties at home, particularly with the Home Office for the parties they threw and honours they bestowed.

  As Sir Archibald's car drove away from the underground carpark, Dicky first phoned the unit head of his own section four.

  “I want all you can get on a young Cambridge graduate name of Daniel Cardiff. He's presently working undercover for Group as a Grade Two at the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. I want his full family history with emphasis on an Admiral Sir Maurice Curtis, late of the St James's Palace on the firm variety. I also want the name of his recruiting agent and any back mention to departments within the Joint Intelligence Committee. I need you to run a trace on someone for me. I'll send you the details in code by in-house messaging. Be a love and mark it urgent and deal with it yourself, Catherine, there's a dear. Oh, and by the way, no phone calls to Curzon Street on this one. No point in disturbing them whilst they are settling into their new abode.”

  He then poured a large brandy and made dinner reservations for eight o'clock that night. “Yes, for two,' he told the maître d' at Claridge's Hotel. “It's our wedding anniversary, but I don't want any fuss, you understand, just a quiet, peaceful meal, Marco.”

  Next he buzzed his section head at Pipeline and Acquisitions, Fraser Ughert, five floors below, only two above the ground floor.

  “I need a spare native from the Fatherland, who's treading our green and pleasant pastures as we speak, Fraser. Young, responsive, good-looking and not averse to military uniforms and horse whips if the need arises. The more German she is the better. Need to make a present of her to a rather well placed individual who will not be easy prey. Make it a priority, old chap, and just between the two of us. How's the wife by the way?” He heard Fraser's reply but didn't dwell on it. There were others to call before he could indulge in banal responses.

  I ran into you once, Jack Price, a long, long time ago and from what I saw on that day and heard later you're a shifty bloody pain in the arse carrying a bag full of envy on your back. Still there is it, Jack? he silently asked as he finished his phone calls and the last sip of his second swirling brandy.

  “Have my car readied, Louise. I'm off to my club for the rest of the day. Would you be so kind as to call Barrington Trenchard. You'll have to call Scotland Yard for his telephone number. Have him meet me there for a late lunch, please. Tell him to bring his memory and any notebook he has on Harrow School with him. Oh, and if he declines the offer, tell him it's an order, please.”

  * * *

  Dicky had been seated in the royal blue, ornately decorated and plush members' dining room at the Travellers Club for no more than ten minutes when Trenchard arrived. During which time he had brooded over the previous evening's conversation he'd had with Sheila his wife. She was trolling on about her favourite subject; Dicky's reluctance to move sideways.

  Marjorie and John are off to their retreat in Cornwall again this coming week. According to her he has so much spare time nowadays that he's joined the local chrysanthemum society down there. He's able to delegate most of his work. She said they're considering buying another house in Buckinghamshire as John is spending more time away from his London office than ever. It's all well and good being knighted, Richard, but it's a peerage you need and you'll only get that if you're nearer home, constantly in people's minds. I'm damned if I know any retired Chief of MI6 in the House of Lords. Normally they are put out to pasture and kept quiet forever and a day. Can't you request a transfer across to the side of the river that counts, Richard?

  He had reluctantly applied once before, but the parcel containing the keys to the department one numeral below his own had been on the person's lap before his when the music stopped playing. C of '6' or Chief, or, if one wanted to be pedantic about it; Captain, as the first head of the then combined departments was a naval captain, held more celebrity status than General John's office dealing with home affairs, but that held no sway with Sheila. What was brewing in the Irish suburbs of Liverpool or Manchester might not compare with Paris or, even Port-au-Prince at a push, but according to Sheila he needed less excitement and she needed more of the prestige that could be measured by the company one kept. He was in no mood for unnecessary prolonged exchanges.

  “Know much about an aircraft crash in 1942 carrying the Duke of Kent, Barrington old chap?” Picking up on where Sir Archibald had left off, but avoiding the real point of his invitation, he opened the game.

  “I know more than what's in the file, Dicky, if that's what you mean. And there was I thinking you wanted a chat for old times' sake,” he replied.

  “Oh, I do, old man, I do. That's precisely what I want to chat about. Thought here would be the ideal place. They serve a really stupendous apple crumple on Mondays. It's one of the reasons I renew my annual membership. If the pastry chef ever moves then I swear I will too!”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Midday Tuesday In New York

  Adam Berman

  There was a lot of what Jack had told me that just did
n't fit. Why, for example, was there the need for the Sir Horace Butler façade, plus where was the incentive for Richard Stockford's compliance and continued association with Price? If Jack was hiding the fact that Hitler was Penina's father from the family, why would Richard be helping Jack with information on Weilham at the same time as Leeba was pointing me along a different path overhanging with Nazi sympathisers? If Richard and Leeba didn't know the secret behind Penina's birth then why were they helping to keep it? Where was the benefit in blackmailing the Stockfords? I wanted to access a computer away from Leeba's offices, so I used the rear entrance of the Immigration Centre opposite to avoid being seen.

  There were several entries under the name of Sternberg as it was not an uncommon surname, but I checked by year and country of origin, soon finding one in 1936 detailing seven immigrants of that name listing film production as their occupation. I looked at 1937, but found no more. However, a Mayanna Stockford with two children, Richard and Leeba arrived on the twenty-sixth of November 1937 from Vienna, Austria. Everything was too easy and convenient for my liking. On a whim I next looked up the name of Aberman.

  It was a large, old, Hewlett Packard cumbersome computer, slow with a keyboard widely spaced, worn and sticky from overuse. As I typed the 'A' it separated from the next letter and threw up—A. Berman, I clicked on the name and explored further. Adam Berman came to America via Belgrade eleven years later than Richard and Leeba, but in the same year that Jack Price was last registered as an MI6 operative; 1948. There was another oddity that I hadn't seen on any other page I'd come across before, a cross reference to something called the Central Agency for Jewish Emigration and a redirection to The Government Accountability Office. I made notes and returned to my office across the road. As it was lunchtime I believed the office to be empty, so I used the more modern machine that was installed in my office to probe into those two departments.