by John Gardner
Her father and mother split up when she was still only a child. “The Ma couldn’t stand the lonely nights, when Pa was away doing some piece of nonsense like this.” She paused and apologised, remembering Herbie’s speech. “Anyway, Pa came home unexpectedly one night and caught her at it. Sensitive time. The bloke she was fucking turned out to be Service—a brother officer and, when you come to breaking rules, as you well know, that’s the ultimate sacrilege. Scandal.”
Miriam spent her adolescence shuttling between the separated parents, who saw to it that she had good schooling. She had an eye to the future, and her father had his own eye on her. She was good Service potential. “The lovable old bugger played me like one of his own assets. I went up to Oxford to read physics, and ended up specialising in electronics. Pa did that. He could read the stars, knew what the future held. They recruited me at Oxford—openings for people with my kind of skills. That was about seven years ago, just when the Service had its big love affair with electronics. My own first job was putting all these bloody great Registry files on microfilm.” The laugh was genuine now. “Isn’t it bloody silly? They’ve got all that microfilm, yet they still use the paper files—talk about a builder running out of money. Treasury’s never allowed cash for the whole system, and they’re not sanctioned to use the secret vote for it. Waste of time and energy.”
Worboys knew all about that. He said the old guard felt unhappy about destroying the files. They did not trust the microfilm computers. “Each generation resists change. It’ll come. They all laughed when Christopher Columbus …”
She agreed, then continued. She met a bloke. It happened towards the end of her noviciate with the Service. As she put it, “I was just about to take my vows of chastity and obedience—oh, and poverty; that government was in.” Anyway, she met a man, and the impact devastated her.
“I’d had blokes, of course; but this was the shape of things to come. Immediate explosion. An overnight success: made for life, or at least a very long run. Rave reviews. Within two days I was the star, walking around singing the lyrics: word perfect.”
Her bloke worked in the Street—by which she meant Fleet Street. “Foreign correspondent. Name of Grubb, so he couldn’t use it as a by-line because of its connotations: Grub Street and all that. You’d know his nom de plume.” She took another of Worboys’ cigarettes. He had given her one at the start; now she chain-smoked her way through the private ordeal.
The Service gave permission for a wedding. “Quiet. Only a hundred or so guests.” A pretty grimace. “Even the Ma came, with some horrible little man from the city. She and Pa didn’t even exchange a spit. It was one month to the day after we first met—wedding bells, Mendelssohn, a three-tiered cake, the lot. Bliss …” For the first time Miriam faltered—a slight choke, the eyes damp again.
They had two and a half years of the bliss. But tragedy was on hand, as it nearly always is.
“Happens all the time; only when it happens to you, you cry, ‘Why me?’ You just get happy when the old man with the grey beard comes along and cuts it all down.”
Her lover-husband—she called him Richard to Worboys, though there was no way of telling if that was correct—being a Foreign correspondent, was away for long periods. “But I was busy, and happy. In some ways it made us better. The partings were hell, but the homecomings … well. I wasn’t like the Ma.” She used this strange expression, ‘The Ma’, whenever speaking of her mother. “There was nobody else. There is nobody else who can take his place. He was the one I needed. He fed my mind and body. Lord, Richard was my mind and body. Never a dull moment. It sounds like a bundle of women’s mag clichés—the diary of a happy child bride. Richard was all I ever needed.” She thumped her chest with a balled fist at the ‘I’.
Two and a half years. Then all over. He had a sudden assignment. “Just called me at the office. Going to Tel Aviv. Three days. Back Thursday afternoon. See you then. Keep everything warm for me. I love you.”
The next morning, the Director sent for her. “A car from Pangbourne where I was doing some trials in the Lab: Soviet mikes some fink had swapped for the usual thirty pieces of silver. They wouldn’t let me have the radio on in the car, I remember. The thing I’ve never really understood is that nobody let on he was Service. Between husband and wife there’s supposed to be intercognisance. Richard never let on. The Director said it was because he only used him from time to time—a temp: not full-fledged. That wasn’t true, I found out later.”
Richard had arrived safely in Tel Aviv. They knew that. It was all they knew—all they ever knew. Except for the fact of his body, found next morning, smashed up by three nine-mil bullets, in a stolen car parked in some back street. “Richard had been doing one of his occasional black bag ops. I was in a wasteland.”
Naturally they offered her leave. She refused. In the evenings she went home from the electronics shop at Pangbourne and methodically packed up everything that had belonged to her beloved husband. “I had him in my head. There was no need for the physical reminders.” She disposed of the lot. “People said it would pass. Give it time. But I knew myself—and Richard. It wasn’t just an emotional phase: not simply grief clogging the valves. Nothing could ever be the same again with another man. It cannot.”
For a year she had lived chaste, like a nun. “But the sex drive is strong in a woman like me. It returns. Not the same, mind you. Just for comfort, and the warmth of somebody beside you, and inside you.” When the year was over, Miriam composed her set of rules.
First, she would be her own woman, within the confines of Service discipline. Second, she would never again allow herself to become emotionally involved with a man. Third, she would be dominant. If there was a man she fancied then she would take him; make the running; avoid all emotion and sentiment. There was, of course, a codicil to this last. She would have no man outside the Service, and would stick to the dogma which said you could not commit adultery with the husband—or wife—of any other Service officer: the law her mother had broken, long ago.
Miriam Grubb had kept to her rules.
Worboys let the silence lie between them. His mind circled the facts of how little he knew of life—the sheltered upbringing, lack of real pain. Did he even lack conviction in the job he was now doing? Behind him there were only thirty-odd years of dross. Nothing you could call a real crisis.
Slowly he reached forward, taking her in his arms; wishing he could bear some of the twisted pain. He rocked her, as one lulls a baby into sleep. “You poor old love,” he said; then repeated it, “You poor old love. I understand. Thank you for telling me. I do understand now.”
After a while she stirred and answered; eyes quite dry as she looked into his. “Yes, Tony. I believe you do. I really believe you do.”
“I certainly know the devil now—the one you’re running from. It’s the way to destruction, Miriam.”
“As long as I do my work as well as I’m able; up to the end; I’ve still got the right of choice. Freedom. Big Herbie says so. Does it matter so much if, eventually, my way turns me into stone, or a pillar of salt? Richard was destroyed.”
“It might matter to me. I don’t know.” He kissed her lightly on the mouth.
Miriam folded herself against him, returning his kisses. He could feel damp patches on his cheeks, and knew she wept again. They made love for a long time, on the bedrolls, and with Worboys concentrating all his efforts on exorcising the devil of grief, and bitterness, chattering in the black shadows of her mind.
10
IT WAS FOUR O’CLOCK on the dot when Herbie Kruger telephoned his wrong number routine to the Trepan team. Max had been told they would need the car ready to drop off Spendthrift, they were then to go on to the Mehring Platz at four forty-five.
“But he doesn’t leave on his coach before six-thirty,” Max objected.
“Then he’ll have plenty of time to run the back-doubles. Be there well in advance; avoid suspicion, Max.” Herbie smiled genially, then heavily underlined the fo
ur forty-five by putting it another way—“A quarter-to-five, Max. Exact.”
Saturday had turned sunny. Berlin and his wife would be out in force, strolling the Ku-damm, looking at the goodies in the little glass kiosks; shopping; going for picnics, and a spot of boating at Wannsee; hand-holding in the Tiergarten; drinking in the bars and cafes. No such luck for Big Herbie and Spendthrift. They worked all day. Herbie did everything the Director suggested: the whole Svengali routine, the psychological black arts, a brain transplant—knowledge, intuition, method, technique. If Spendthrift really was going to unearth the broken link in the Telegraph Boys’ chain he could not have been better prepared.
Herbie thought to himself that if Max was sending reports every hour, on the hour, to London, both the Director and Tubby Fincher should be well pleased. Maybe, by mid-afternoon, they would feel happy enough to take the rest of the day off—the Director to his butterflies; Tubby Fincher to the kites, which everybody knew he flew from Kensington Gardens on his off-duty week-ends.
Charles answered the telephone when Herbie did the wrong number bit.
“Stand by, babies,” he called; and the rest of the Trepan team began to get themselves organised.
Tiptoes and Miriam Grubb seated themselves in front of the wizardry equipment, Miriam giving Worboys a small, affectionate smile as he took his own seat to her right. He was an innocent when it came to the scanner, but they had explained the rudiments; and the receiver—which was his job—presented no mystery. Worboys switched on and ran an eye over the green and red lights which popped into life. “Like a bloody fun fair.” Miriam leaned across, double checking the frequency setting; watching Worboys as he locked-on, set the four-hour open-reel tape running, and turned up the volume. He put the headset on, then let it drop from his ears, draping around his neck.
Tiptoes knocked the switches on the scanner, and a fuzz of snow made a blizzard of the large screen. “Come on, girl,” he looked at Miriam, “let’s get the film in.”
The film was a thin sheet of microfilm the size of a paperback novel, set into a plastic frame. Miriam took it gently from its case, sliding it into a slot in the control consol. The microfilm was an entire map of Berlin—West, East and environs.
Within the complex body of the scanning equipment a small high-powered lens tracked over the microfilm, projecting it on to the screen, where it came out full size—its scale over four times that of the old British inch-to-the-mile Ordnance Survey maps.
The frame around the film snapped home, and Tiptoes played with the focus. The screen went bright and settled. Above them the map section around the Brandenburg Gate came into sharp relief: everything showed on this map, up to the number of strands of barbed wire, and individual tank traps, in the Todesstreifen—the death strips—on the Eastern side of the Wall.
Miriam switched to manual, slowly tracking the picture by hand, running it backwards and forwards over the screen. Even the trees were marked in, for the map had been made from high-fly recce photographs and satellite pictures.
When the technicians were happy with the picture Tiptoes selected automatic, setting the frequencies to correspond with those of the homing device. The homers would bounce their signals, on a cleared channel, to one of the communication satellites. In a fraction of a second they would relay the pulses to the dish antennae on the roof. The four antennae passed the signal into the box of tricks, which would do a rapid triangulation, then swing the lens straight on to the area of the map from which the signals were being sent. Tiny bright lights, and accompanying sound, would give an exact location. To Worboys it was a miracle he accepted; but could never begin to understand.
“Big Herb said it should be about ten minutes after the call,” Miriam sounded calm, eyes not moving from the screen.
Tiptoes nodded. After a while he said it should be any minute now.
Almost as he spoke the screen moved, and a series of long bleeps started, so loud that Miriam reached out quickly to adjust the sound. The screen showed the Ku-damm, and a bright pinpoint of light coming from half way up the Dahlmannstrasse.
In the background Charles said he knew the house well.
The long bleeps stopped. Five seconds later the pin of light began to pulse again: dot-dash. “Dip-Dah, Dip-Dah,” the tone said through the speaker.
“And for my next trick,” Miriam leaned forward, “we get the answer. Which one is it to be?”
The light bleeped again. Fifteen seconds, as Herbie had said. The series of long bleeps.
“Okay, Spendthrift’s using the long bleeps. Just so we know if anyone tries to be funny and latches on.” Tiptoes turned sharply to Worboys; telling him he had better get the earphones on: the screech would be through any minute.
There was background interference, mainly static, in the headphones. Worboys tried a little squelch to reduce it, pushing in a filter as added help. He hoped that was the right thing to do. In reality his communications training was barely adequate. He need not have worried, the screech took him by complete surprise, and he knew by the afterburn in his ears that the volume setting was too high. Two seconds. Less. A swish of sound. Very strong. There and gone. “Got it,” he said, a shade too calmly, pressing the stop key on the recorder.
“Have fun,” Miriam said, filching one of his cigarettes. Worboys now had to relocate the screech on the tape, transfer it to a cassette, then run it through the unraveller at his elbow. Transfer. Slow. Key-in the day’s word; then watch the numbers come up. Tear off the print-out, and tap away at the numbers on the small keyboard. The en clair should then show on the small oblong screen above this little miracle of science, together with a print-out.
With a sigh, Worboys began to concentrate.
In the Dahlmannstrasse Herbie pocketed the watch containing the dot-dash tone homer. “I get packed up now,” he said. Schnabeln strapped on his watch. It looked suitably cheap and used. The book, containing the fast-sender and tape, lay on the table. “You got everything now? In the head, I mean,” Herbie said for Max’s benefit, tapping his forehead like someone insinuating that another is crazy.
Schnabeln touched his own head and winked. Herbie had given him the Gorky phrase only just before they did the test runs with the homers. He repeated it now because Herbie’s eyes asked for it. “A man can teach another man to do good—believe me.”
As Schnabeln said it, Herbie heard the whole quotation in his mind—Jail doesn’t teach anyone to do good, nor Siberia, but a man—yes! A man can teach another man to do good—believe me.
As he lumbered away to complete his packing Herbie wondered what dark ironies had made Vascovsky choose that particular phrase. When he heard it in his head—in its entirety—it was the voice of an actor. The line took on a stagey feel. He could not place the actor for a moment, then realised it was his old favourite, Anthony Quinn. The words would sound good in Quinn’s Zorba voice. Am I married? Are not all men foolish? Homespun philosophies such as the Gorky phrase hung in that actor’s voice like comfortable, adequate watercolours in a room one recalled with love.
Herbie unlocked the closet, taking out his suitcase and the briefcase. He arranged things, delving into secret places for the papers—from the cobbler of documents, in Camden Town—putting them in his inside pocket. The horn-rimmed spectacles went into his jacket. Making sure of everything else, Herbie took out the Browning, pushing it into his belt, banging the butt down so that it almost touched his genitals, the barrel pointing out and clear of the body. In the movies they shoved the things into their waistbands, muzzle down. “The quickest way to lose a foot—or your future,” they used to say at the school.
Clutching the two cases in his great hands, Herbie clumped out of the bedroom, shouting for Max in the loudest, most commanding voice he could muster.
“He’s getting the car,” Schnabeln said. “You sure this …?”
Herbie silenced him with a look. Always be suspicious: survival depended on it. Herbie was all for survival. Why else would he put himself at suc
h risk now? Between them Vascovsky and Mistochenkov had ruined his pride, his life, and, maybe, holed the Service he held in such respect. Yes, he knew the black box intelligence lobby would finally win, but—for a time at least—his Telegraph Boys, on the ground, had kept the Service in information, giving them an edge on the black box boys. Even the Americans were impressed. Not an easy accomplishment.
Max came up. The car was ready. Herbie nodded to the bags. With a small hesitation Max took them. In the street he shoved the bags into the Merc’s boot, while Herbie settled himself in the front passenger seat. Spendthrift got into the rear. Max acted with the grace of an unruly ape at a wedding.
“I do the directing, Max,” Herbie said quietly. “A few passes from my youth. Just for the hell of it.”
“Where we going to drop him off, then?” Max started the engine.
“I’ll lead you. Straight ahead, Max. Then turn right at the Niebuhrstrasse. There are some side streets there. I’ll run you through them. It’ll be an education.” The Niebuhrstrasse lay almost parallel to the Ku-damm; a couple of blocks removed. Unless they had done a lot of rebuilding since his day Herbie knew of one or two alleys off that street which would serve his purpose.
They drew away into the traffic, and Herbie turned, nodding to Schnabeln who pressed his homer switch—a ten-second burst.
The bleep sounded, showing clearly on the screen in the Mehring Platz. “They’re off,” Miriam said, like a racing commentator.
Worboys had the screech on a cassette now. He sat back and lit a cigarette. There was plenty of time. He could unzip the thing in less than half an hour. Herbie would not be with them for at least an hour.
“Where next?” Max asked, sounding edgy.
Herbie told him, quietly, there was a narrow turn coming up. Not this one. The next. Here.
The Merc swung to the left, and Herbie prayed he had got it right: a cul de sac, running between two buildings, and walled in at the end. Max swore—“Wrong, love; wrong. Bloody dead end”—and with delight Herbie saw the old red brick wall ahead, laced with cement, and some half-baked political slogan daubed in white paint. Max put on the anchors shifting his body to get a good view of the rear for the reverse.
