Deep Blue

by Alan Judd

  ‘So MI5 know all about—’

  ‘Director K does, your desk officer doesn’t. No need to know.’

  ‘And Director K doesn’t know what—’

  ‘He’s checking all UK, US and NATO systems and projects but no Deep Blues have come up yet. You’ll be the first to know if it does. I’ve got a meeting now. Any questions?’

  Charles told him about the Greek liaison visit.

  Hookey shrugged. ‘Well, you’ll just have to dump them if it happens. Leave them at the Castle. They can look after them.’

  ‘I’d better square it with Angus Copplestone, who takes over tomorrow. What can I tell him about—’

  Hookey’s secretary put her head round the door. ‘They’re here.’

  Hookey stood. ‘Nothing. Don’t tell him anything. Cross that bridge when you come to it. Refer him to me.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Present

  ‘Elspeth is not . . .’ Robin Cleveley sighed and shook his head. Like Melanie Stokes, he too-obviously relished the intimacy implied by using a minister’s first name. ‘Elspeth is not best pleased.’ They were sitting over coffee in Charles’s club, in corner chairs in the morning room. ‘But I’ve reassured her that you weren’t deliberately seeking publicity because you resented not having been knighted. I told a white lie – I said you weren’t bothered about getting a K, or anything else.’

  ‘It wasn’t a lie.’

  Charles had described the origin of the Sunday Times story, swallowing his resentment at having to account to Robin for it rather than the Foreign Secretary herself. They had pulled at all the loose ends of the subject without untangling it.

  ‘What I do get,’ said Robin, ‘is that, having got her dainty hands on MI5, Melanie wants to do down MI6 in the competition for head offices and resources. She’s going the wrong way about it, in my view, but the motive is at least comprehensible. What I don’t get – given her closeness to the Home Secretary and her ambitions with regard to the governing party – is why she’s shacked up with a far-left creep like Micklethwaite. Still less why she should participate in furthering his agenda, whatever it is. I mean, personally – from what you say – and certainly politically, they’ve got no more in common than . . . well, you and him.’

  Charles let that pass. They did indeed seem an unlikely pairing. ‘Maybe it’s one of those relationships that goes back a long way and is hard to get out of.’

  ‘Hasn’t stopped her playing around, though. With the Home Sec, for one. Before he became it. But it must be politically and socially awkward. If it was just a phase from early life you’d think she’d have moved on by now. Maybe he’s got some kind of hold over her.’

  ‘Hard to break relationship habits, sometimes.’

  ‘Could she be a sleeper? I mean, not just a sleeper-around but, you know, worming her way into us in order to report back to James and his activist friends?’

  ‘Then surely the last thing she’d do is parade her association with him.’

  When eventually he stood to go, Robin looked proprietorially about him. ‘I’m beginning to wonder about a club.’

  Charles struggled with a suitable reaction. ‘Have you looked at many others?’

  ‘A few. I rather like Brooks’s.’

  ‘Good choice. Smart, very elegant. Worth considering.’

  ‘But this place has its charms.’

  ‘They all do in their different ways.’ Some awkwardnesses, however awkward, could be turned to advantage. They walked slowly from the morning room. ‘I’ve been meaning to say, you remember asking me if I knew anything about something called Deep Blue and all I could think of was the chess computer? What was that about?’

  Robin shook his head. ‘Wish I knew. It was a blog from one of your friend James’s friends, a Triple A fanatic. Was SNP until he was expelled with a couple of like-minded cronies who were all for direct action: you know, burning English-owned houses, smashing shop windows, that sort of thing. He seems to have teamed up with James at about the time Triple A espoused nationalism – for Scotland, that is. So maybe we can expect a conflagration of second homes, bijou pads, manor houses and castles throughout the kingdom now.’ He smiled.

  They reached the steps outside. ‘But what did he say about Deep Blue?’

  ‘Nothing much. That was what was so interesting, given the reaction. We monitor these people on social media, know your enemy and all that. They tell you a lot about themselves. We all do, I’m afraid.’ He surveyed Pall Mall from the top of the steps. ‘World looks all right from here.’

  ‘So what did he say?’

  ‘Oh, it was just something like, “Good talk with Jam the other day about reviving Deep Blue, blast from the past. On your way, Trident.” But you don’t, do you? Do social media?’

  ‘And what was the reaction?’

  ‘Taken down the same day, disappeared. Elspeth was wondering whether you should, you know, raise the profile of MI6, sharpen the image. Start blogging yourself. C’s blog. Get a lot of attention. I mean, if the Prime Minister can have one, why not C? That’s her thinking.’

  ‘She can think again. Tell her that from me.’ Charles held out his hand. ‘Who was he, this chap?’

  ‘Calls himself “Rob’s Ready” – Rob S. Ready. Don’t know whether that’s his real name. Is there a waiting list?’

  ‘Probably. Might be quite long, dead men’s shoes and all that.’

  Robin grinned. ‘Daresay you could arrange a few of those. Let me know.’

  That afternoon in Croydon was largely taken up by a visit from the head of the Indian service, who was concerned less with matters of mutual interest than with warning about what his Pakistani opposite number was doing. Charles had hosted the Pakistani the week before and had been lectured on the iniquities of the Indian service. Each then went off to spend a few days at CIA headquarters in Langley. At the end of the afternoon he did what he had been tempted to do immediately after coffee with Robin but had resisted, more because he was usually suspicious of his own impulses than because he had thought better of it. He picked up his phone and dialled Melanie Stokes.

  Her greeting was effusive even by her standards, which he interpreted as anxiety that he was going to attack her over the Sunday Times piece. He didn’t mention it. ‘A quick drink this evening,’ he said. ‘Possible?’

  ‘Yes . . . yes, that would be great.’ She sounded relieved. ‘Anything I—’

  ‘Just a small matter of mutual interest. Won’t take more than a glass. Maybe two.’

  When he rang Sarah at work to tell her he would be late home, there was an uncharacteristic edge to her voice. ‘You’re seeing her? Why?’

  ‘There’s something she might know that I might be able to get out of her.’

  ‘Don’t go thinking you’ll charm it out of her. She won’t give anything away unless she’s getting something.’

  ‘I won’t be on a charm expedition.’

  ‘She will. Remember, I warned you about her.’

  He was surprised; Sarah was not normally jealous of other women – or not so that she let show – and he thought it would have been obvious that Melanie, spiky and clearly out to impress, was not what he found alluring. Not that he was looking to be allured, though he was always content to be charmed.

  They met in the bar of a newish hotel behind MI5’s Thames House headquarters. It was busy with young people whom he guessed were her staff. ‘I should have suggested somewhere farther from your office,’ he said, nodding at them.

  She shook her head and, for the second time in about a minute, pushed back her hair. ‘Doubt they’re mine. This place is too expensive for them.’

  It was tempting to take her up on her use of the possessive, since she had no executive authority at all, theoretically, but he let it pass.

  ‘Any news on a new head office?’ she asked.

  ‘Gone quiet. Presumably being masticated somewhere in the bureaucratic maw.’

  She did not pursue it. She would
be doing all she could to undermine him but would see no point in further exposing her hand. She was waiting to hear what he wanted to discuss and probably still expected a row about the Sunday Times article. She pushed back her hair again.

  He kept her waiting while the waitress brought their drinks. ‘What do you want?’ he asked.

  ‘What do I want?’

  Her surprise was genuine and he waited as she looked to see whether he was being playful or serious. ‘In life. D’you want to be prime minister or the world’s richest woman or founder of a dynasty or saviour of the world or what? Or none of the above?’

  She smiled and relaxed. ‘Or all of the above. I don’t really know what I want. Except to be able to do whatever it is I want when I want. Do you? Do you know what you want? Or have you already got it?’

  ‘I certainly never looked for this.’ He smiled back. ‘Wouldn’t you like to be DG of MI5, though? Shape it and run it as you want rather than be a bird of passage, perched on the masthead?’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to be a bureaucrat. I’m no good at it, I just don’t have the patience. Anyway, they wouldn’t want me, I’d bring too much of the wrong kind of baggage.’

  Charles raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Political baggage. All my contacts. My adult life has been taken up with the political and you’re not supposed to be political in the intelligence agencies, are you? Not actively political, anyway. And then there’s personal baggage, a certain amount, anyway.’

  ‘Drug dependency, gambling, alcohol addiction, mountain of debts and promiscuous intimacy with terrorists?’ He guessed she would enjoy the attentiveness that came with teasing.

  She smiled again, nodding and pushing her hair back. ‘Plus, my living with a Triple A activist who’s organising the Trafalgar Square peace protest.’

  ‘But that’s public-order business, isn’t it, really? Police business, as you were saying the other day? Nothing to concern MI5.’

  ‘That’s what I think, but there are those such as Michael Dunton who think some of what Triple A are doing constitutes subversion – you know, all that reds-under-the-beds Cold War stuff, spying on loyal trade unionists and all that. Fortunately, Michael’s out of the way for the time being at least and Simon Mall just waits to be told what to think. Bears the imprint of the last person to sit on him. As for me, I think we need to keep well away from all that subversion stuff. And that’s not just because of who I live with, though I guess James would be seen as baggage.’

  Charles nodded, put down his glass and leaned forward, elbows on knees. ‘Actually, it was terrorism, not subversion, I wanted to talk about.’

  He didn’t need to invent. Islamist terrorism was overwhelmingly MI5’s main concern but also occupied a substantial and growing portion of MI6’s effort and budget. There were always issues to be resolved, turf or territorial, ownership of cases, disagreements over tactics in joint cases. They were mostly sorted out at working level but were occasionally escalated to the boards of the two services. He rehearsed a couple of cases which he knew were on the point of resolution and which she wouldn’t know about, seeking her agreement for what he knew would happen anyway.

  She was intrigued and flattered. ‘I don’t normally get involved in operational discussions. Perhaps I should. The only way I hear about what’s going on is if I ask.’

  ‘We should keep in touch.’

  When they stood to go, he said, ‘Good to see James the other night. Trip down memory lane.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought you two had much in common.’

  ‘We used to see a fair bit of each other.’ It was an exaggeration. ‘Hope he doesn’t get into trouble with this Triple A stuff, this peace protest he’s organising.’

  ‘Plus, he raises money for the peace camp outside the nuclear submarine base at Faslane. He wants to make it as big as the women’s camp at Greenham Common was. Ticks all the boxes, does James.’ She was more relaxed now.

  ‘Thinks we should ditch the deterrent, does he? No more Trident?’

  ‘Ultimately, yes, but for the time being the idea is to get it kicked out of Scotland as a first stage. They’ve got a cunning plan they’re very excited about, like a lot of schoolboys. No idea what, I don’t ask. Better not to know.’

  ‘Called Deep Blue?’

  She looked surprised. ‘There is something called Deep Blue but I don’t know what. You must know more than I do.’ She paused at the door. ‘I probably shouldn’t have mentioned any of this. You won’t use it, will you?’

  He shook his head. ‘That sort of thing’s your patch, not ours.’

  ‘Thanks for the drink.’

  They touched cheeks but he made no move to go. ‘Why are you with him?’ He tried to make it sound as if the question had only just occurred.

  She remained still, looking at him. ‘Long story.’

  He nodded. ‘Another time.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  The 1980s

  Charles’s memories of the Greek-liaison visit were partial but vivid, though he couldn’t recall anything resembling useful liaison. He remembered the train journey to Hartlepool and how the group had fallen silent after Peterborough, sparing him the embarrassment of maintaining a stilted conversation audible to the entire first-class carriage. He stared at the wide East Midlands fields and the canal paralleling the railway, recalling that while still at school he had applied to become a lock-keeper. He had imagined a cosy cottage with a good fire and a solitary life of productive contemplation with no more than a barge a day to deflect him from poetic greatness. Oxford, the army and MI6 had knocked that out of him but the possibility of another life still lay dormant in a mental lumber room somewhere, cluttered with other forgotten fantasies.

  He had three companions. The senior, Anatole, was a youthful major from military intelligence, good-looking and with good English. The others, from civilian intelligence, were Adrienne, darkly glamorous with a flashing smile and good English, and Mikolas. Mikolas was squat and tubby, his eyes enlarged by thick-lensed spectacles. He looked as if he found the passing English scenery, trains, his coffee cup, life itself perhaps, puzzling. His English was poor. They had travelled that morning from the Castle, the training establishment on the south coast, where they had been lectured on developments in the Soviet intelligence threat and on new preventative measures. As light relief they had also been taken to the firing range to fire a variety of Russian weapons. Anatole proved to be a good shot and Adrienne an enthusiastic novice. Mikolas’s glasses would not permit him to focus at the required range, nor could he see the target without them. The AK47 was taken from him after a single wandering burst. Charles suspected that Anatole had spent the night in Adrienne’s room.

  ‘We are back in London to a hotel tonight?’ asked Anatole as they waited to change trains on the windswept Northallerton platform.

  ‘No, we’re staying in Hartlepool. We have a hotel there.’

  Anatole smiled and exchanged glances with Adrienne.

  Mikolas had two bags, whereas everyone else had one, and there was trouble getting him off the train when they reached Hartlepool because his glasses fell under the seat. Charles had to go back and help.

  ‘I lose my glass,’ said Mikolas when they finally gained the platform.

  ‘Yes, but it’s OK now.’

  ‘I have two bags.’

  ‘They’re both here, look.’

  A Ford Transit minibus from the power station was waiting for them. The driver stacked their bags in the back except for one of Mikolas’s, which he refused to release. ‘I keep,’ he said in wide-eyed appeal to Charles.

  ‘You keep,’ said Charles.

  Anatole and Adrienne sat together in the minibus, speaking quietly in Greek. Charles felt obliged to sit with Mikolas. ‘This town is historic,’ he said, ‘quite old.’ Nineteenth-century red-brick buildings alternated with dilapidated 1960s houses and office blocks. ‘Older than it looks,’ he added. Then, after further thought, ‘Not as old as your towns and
cities, of course.’

  ‘How old you are?’

  ‘Not me, the town. Hartlepool. All this.’ He pointed at Cameron’s imposing brewery.

  ‘I am thirty-four.’

  Later, as they headed south towards the Tees estuary, Charles pointed to the steel works, where nothing much seemed to be happening. ‘It used to be well-known for its fishing and its industry.’

  ‘How old you are?’

  The power station gates were open. They crossed the railway track, beyond which was a barrier, already raised. The driver barely slowed, merely waving at the man in the cubicle when he looked up from his paper. Anatole smiled and turned to Charles. ‘Very good security, very quick.’

  They were met by Jackie, their guide for the day. She wore a grey trouser suit and smiled whenever she spoke. In the visitor centre they were served coffee and biscuits and told they could leave their bags. The start of the briefing was delayed by Mikolas, who spent a long time in the toilet, with his bag. They were shown a short film about nuclear fission followed by another about the building of the power station.

  ‘Now we’ll start from outside and work inwards,’ said Jackie. ‘I’ll have to ask you all to wear these badges, which are for identification only and are not indications of radiation levels. I must stress that you do not need to worry about radiation. You won’t be exposed to any more than in normal life.’