Gentleman Traitor

by Alan Williams

  Philby reacted without hesitation. He apologized to the waiter, and walked out, not hurrying, along to the lift and down to the street where he asked the doorman to call him a taxi. His mind was clear, his nerves firm. Yet he was experiencing a sensation that he’d known once before in his life, back in Istanbul in 1944 when the Soviet agent, Volkov, had defected, and Philby had come closer to being unmasked than at any time in his career — including Beirut in 1962, when he had at least anticipated a show-down and had been able to prepare his escape.

  For like the Volkov incident, the sight of Carter-Smythe talking to Pol, in a far-off corner of the crumbling Portuguese Empire, caught him totally off-guard. He felt exposed, helpless, even foolish. Yet as soon as he began to consider the matter more rationally, he realized that he should not have been entirely surprised: for the idea of Pol betraying him was certainly not new to him. This chance encounter in the ‘Girasol’ only confirmed it. He’d always known that Roland Carter-Smythe had never been one of the pious mandarins who had agreed to the deal in Beirut; nor was he any diplomatic buccaneer who would lend his name to Pol’s current activities in Rhodesia. Smith’s régime might continue to be a nuisance to Whitehall; but the mere hint that HMG was lending a hand to terrorism and murder in order to topple that régime would create a political scandal that would rival even the secret knowledge that Philby possessed.

  Carter-Smythe could only be conferring with Pol for one reason. Kim Philby, alias Duncan Saunders, was to be written off.

  By the time his taxi dropped him at the Polana, he had decided what to do. There remained forty minutes before his appointment with Pol. He ordered a stiff Scotch and sat down in the lounge to wait.

  CHAPTER 26

  ‘Hit and run,’ Pol repeated in English, his lips dripping with melted butter. ‘Here, there — everywhere! In the important places — les endroits de classe — where the big people go, the rich, the snobs, the tourists. A bomb, un attrape-nigaud — how do you say it?’

  ‘A booby-trap,’ said Philby.

  Pol nodded vigorously and his fat little hands ripped open a lobster claw, his fingers almost indistinguishable from the white meat and pink shell, as he dipped it in the butter and scooped it into his mouth.

  ‘You see the strategy?’ he continued: ‘Hit, run, like the classic guerrillas, as the handbook says — to use the jungle like the fish use the water.’ He licked his fingers and reached for the napkin. ‘You, my dear Duncan —’ he giggled — ‘you are like the barracuda. Or perhaps better, what you English call a Portuguese man-of-war?’ And he relapsed into French: ‘Lying in the sea, your tendrils drawn in, waiting.’

  ‘Waiting for what?’ said Philby. They were in a little restaurant by the port; from up the street came the baying of Afrikaners outside a striptease club that specialized in Zulu girls.

  ‘I have planned a little operation for next week,’ Pol continued in French. ‘Something rather special that will upset your new compatriots. Something that will be quite a surprise!’ He sat back and patted his belly. Philby waited, saying nothing.

  ‘As I have emphasized,’ Pol went on, ‘security remains our top priority. For the moment the Rhodesian authorities are confused. They are not used to having the foxes escape from the poultry-run. They know they are dealing with a well-organized unit, but they probably still suspect the Frelimo, or some other African outfit. Our great advantage is that they do not know who they are looking for. Once they do, they will change their tactics and our whole strategy will have to be revised. Therefore they must not find out. That is where you come in, Duncan.’ He paused to order another bottle of Mateus Rosé.

  ‘However, I think it better — for your sake — that for the moment you do not know too many of the details.’ He gave a grandiose shrug: ‘Just the remote possibility, you understand, that the plan fails and you are interrogated. Their methods of interrogation are very effective,’ he added, ‘and far from scrupulous, particularly here in Mozambique.’ He sniggered over his wine, as though taking an indecent relish in the idea.

  ‘Come to the point,’ said Philby, in English.

  ‘Yes. You have heard, I think, of the Hillcrest Hotel, between Umtali and Inyanga? A favourite tourist spot — very good for trout fishing, I understand.’

  ‘You intend to make it your next target?’ said Philby quietly, still in English, while Pol continued in French: ‘Not precisely. We intend to use it more as a rendezvous. You will meet us there — after you have satisfied us all that the terrain is secure.’

  ‘And how the hell do I do that? Cut the telephone wires?’

  Pol looked at him gravely. ‘There is no necessity to use sarcasm, please. You will ascertain, for instance, that there are no police patrols around the hotel on Tuesday night —’

  ‘Tuesday?’ Philby repeated in French.

  Pol nodded. ‘You will go to the hotel on Monday. If you have trouble getting a reservation, you must use what influence is necessary. It is vital that you be there.’

  ‘And how do I get in touch with you?’

  ‘One of us will be in touch with you. By telephone, or possibly in person.’

  ‘But why can’t you find out if there were any patrols yourself?’

  ‘We could — but it would mean sparing an extra man. Our work is both dangerous and demanding. And besides, none of us are exactly English gentlemen. But you, Duncan — you have the perfect credentials to visit the Hillcrest Hotel. You will attract no unwelcome attention.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Philby. ‘But you will have no objections if I take my own precautions? I am not known at the Hillcrest. I may decide to travel under an alias. In case, as you said, something goes wrong.’

  ‘An alias?’ said Pol.

  Philby smiled wearily. ‘I have a second passport, remember? Issued to me in Moscow by my kind protector at the British Embassy, Mr Hann.’

  ‘But I understood that you surrendered that passport in Helsinki?’

  ‘That was the plan,’ said Philby. ‘But I never believe in doing anything in life without taking out proper insurance.’

  A sly smile crept over Pol’s epicene features, then his whole body began to wobble with laughter. ‘Ah, you are a man of spirit and resource, my dear Duncan! And a man of caution, too. So, for the next week, you will cease to be Monsieur Saunders and become Monsieur Fielding again?’

  Philby nodded and took a long drink of wine. A police siren wailed somewhere across the docks. A door banged up the street and there was yelling in Portuguese, followed by laughter. ‘It is, as I said, only a precaution,’ he added.

  ‘And no one in Salisbury will know you have gone to the hotel?’

  ‘No one. I don’t have that many friends over here.’

  ‘Quite.’ Pol turned and snapped his fingers for the bill. ‘Monday night then, at the Hillcrest? And Tuesday we will contact you.’ He paid with a thousand-escudo note, leaving the waiter an extravagant tip, and asked for a taxi.

  ‘I still don’t understand why it was necessary,’ Philby said, ‘for us both to come all this way so that you could give me these instructions?’

  ‘Not necessary, perhaps,’ said Pol, ‘but advisable. I wanted to see you personally — see how Monsieur Duncan Saunders was comporting himself in his new role as expatriate.’ He put a finger to the side of his tiny nose and belched. ‘I prefer the personal touch, you understand? It is something that does not come with writing letters or talking on the telephone. I also like my instinct to guide me.’

  Philby did not inquire in what direction his instincts were guiding him this evening. When they reached the Polana, Pol was in high spirits and anxious that Philby should join him up in his room for a night-cap; but on one of the rare occasions in his life Philby declined. He preferred a quiet night, alone. He slept badly, however, and had one of his regular nightmares, waking with the sheet twisted round his body and soaking wet, despite the air-conditioning.

  When he finally rose and went down to breakfast, he found that Pol h
ad already checked out. He had left no message.

  Philby flew back into Salisbury that afternoon — a Saturday. The plane was full, and he had no reason to notice a small round-shouldered man in a rumpled grey suit who sat a few rows in front of him, holding a bulky briefcase. At the airport he had disappeared before Philby passed through Immigration.

  His name was Paul Rebot; he was fifty-seven years old, a law graduate and holder of the Croix de Guerre for his work in the Resistance, and for twenty-five years he had been a detective with the French Police Criminelle. During the last four of these he had been attached to the headquarters of Interpol in Paris.

  His mission to Rhodesia was of a highly unorthodox nature, complicated by the fact that the Smith régime is not recognized by the 117 nations who subscribe to Interpol. Officially, Rhodesia remains subject to the writ of the British courts; and for the past month Rebot’s superiors had been engaged in a series of intricate negotiations involving the British Embassies in both Paris and Moscow, secret conversations with members of the Soviet Diplomatic Service; and finally — the most delicate stage — contacts with the Rhodesian authorities. Here the first overtures had been made through an intermediary, an Anglo-Portuguese businessman resident in Beira, whose work took him frequently, and usually quite legally, to Salisbury.

  While the chiefs of Interpol, who are mostly French, no doubt appreciate the diplomatic niceties of dealing with a blackballed regime, their work is not concerned with politics, but with crime. Political crimes, which include hijacking, as well as those loosely described as ‘having a political, military, religious, or racial character’, are still outside their jurisdiction.

  The case with which Rebot was now entrusted was on the border-line. The crime was murder — the premeditated murder of a British woman in the Soviet Union. And murder is almost the only crime which is universally recognized as an extraditable offence. Even between countries which do not have a precise extradition treaty.

  The complications had begun when the identity of the alleged murderer was given as a former Soviet subject, since stripped of this citizenship, to have it replaced by that of a bona fide British subject, born in Britain, and until lately resident there. The true identity of the man was not discussed, officially. All that concerned Interpol were the details of the crime, and the Soviet authorities had presented these in an impressive and convincing dossier. Interpol was satisfied, and so was London.

  It was this dossier, together with a formal request for the extradition of the alleged murderer, that Rebot had brought with him to Salisbury, and which he now conveyed to a senior member of the Rhodesian Security Police, in a discreetly guarded house in the suburbs of the city.

  The officer was called MacIntyre, a spare man with dry humourless features, deeply tanned and speckled with the benign cancer-spots that come with long exposure to the sun. He had been a detective-sergeant with the Edinburgh Constabulary before emigrating to Rhodesia after the war, and still spoke with a Lowland burr which was deceptively reassuring. His manner with Rebot was studiously courteous. He knew most of the details already, but insisted that the Frenchman confirm the whole case from the beginning.

  When it was over, MacIntyre grunted and rang for tea. ‘Highly irregular,’ he said at last: ‘Most highly irregular. We can surmise, I take it, who the man is? Even in this little backwater of the world, Inspector Rebot, we have our sources of information.’

  ‘London has not been entirely frank in this affair,’ said Rebot quietly; ‘but the motives of our British friends are not my concern.’

  MacIntyre nodded slowly. ‘Verry convenient for London, and, I might add, verry convenient indeed for the Rooshians.’ He put his big spotted hands on the pile of documents which lay in artistic confusion across the table, and nodded again. ‘There’s just one wee matter that disturbs me, Inspector. As ye’ll have heard, there have been several serious terrorist incidents in this country over recent weeks. It is not beyond the realm of possibility, do you not think, that this man may somehow be involved?’

  Rebot sat with his hands on his knees, saying nothing; and suddenly MacIntyre gave him a bony grin. ‘If it’s the man I think it is, I’ll be gladly rid of him — don’t you worry yourself about that. Some may call me and my kind rebels — but at least we’re not traitors!’ His grin hardened, as he stretched out and detached one of the documents. ‘You will, of course, have realized that we have no extradition treaty with any country besides Portugal and the Republic of South Africa?’

  Rebot replied, almost without moving his lips: ‘The Soviet Union has such a treaty with Zambia.’

  ‘Ah yes, Zambia.’ MacIntyre’s hand slid back on to his hollow lap, still holding the document. ‘Yes, that might indeed be a most fortunate way of expediting matters.’ He looked down at the paper in his hand. ‘I assure you that on behalf of the Rhodesian Government I undertake to comply with this order. However — with the greatest respect to you and your organization, Inspector, we would appreciate it if you would allow us a few more days before taking action. In the interests of our own security, as well as that of our Intelligence Service, it would be useful to observe the activities of this man a little more closely. He may have made contacts here in Rhodesia which would be of interest to us.’

  Rebot raised no objection. A room had been reserved for him at the Park Lane Hotel, and an unmarked police car drove him straight there from the meeting.

  CHAPTER 27

  It was on Sunday morning, just before lunch, that Philby first realized that he was being followed. He was driving to Meikle’s for his midday tipple, when he noticed a blue Volkswagen about a hundred yards behind. It followed him to the corner of Cecil Square, and was waiting for him when he came out of the hotel half an hour later. There was only one man inside, reading a newspaper. Philby strolled across to the ‘Abominables’, collected his Telegraph and had a drink with a few casual friends; then, not feeling hungry, he decided to drive out to Lions’ Den and the Sinoia Cave, about fifty miles north-west of the city.

  The Volkswagen followed him for the first fifteen miles. Then just outside Mbinga it disappeared. The driver had kept too far away for Philby to see him clearly, but he hadn’t looked like any of Pol’s men. A few miles further on, he noticed a brown Renault driving at a steady distance behind him, although he kept his own speed down to less than 50 mph, allowing a number of cars to pass; then a few miles before Sinoia he pulled up at a gabled house with thatched roof and leaded windows, which advertised itself as ‘The Sundowners’ Pub’. He sat down at a table outside, and a moment later saw the Renault draw up, and a young couple get out and disappear into the pub.

  He stayed long enough to drink a beer and let the couple inside make the necessary phone call. They did not follow him when he left; and five miles back down the road towards Salisbury he spotted the relief ‘tail’ — this time a Land Rover with two men inside. It stayed with him until he was two blocks from Cambridge Drive, then left him.

  For the moment he was more puzzled than worried. The idea that Pol might be in cahoots with the Rhodesians seemed unlikely; a more plausible explanation was that London, or some section in London, had tipped off the Rhodesians; but for the time being — at least for the next twenty-four hours — he preferred the optimistic view that it was a routine screening that involved most newcomers to the country: that his open-handed welcome at the airport five weeks ago was now being balanced by a more thorough check by the Security service. What he absolutely refused to countenance was the possibility that by some slip of the tongue, or some flaw in Horne’s briefing, he had himself aroused suspicion.

  He stayed at home that night, cooked himself a curry, and drank himself to sleep. But in the small hours he woke from another nightmare — this time with Pol’s naked body making love to the bloated corpse of a woman with no face. He got up and gave himself another drink; and in the silence of the house he began to view his situation in a less sanguine light. The police were shadowing him: there had been a
leak somewhere — his passport, bank account, even a pro-Rhodesian agent in London.

  And for the first time since leaving Russia, he began to consider seriously cutting his losses and bolting.

  He still had two lucrative and legal bank accounts outside Rhodesia. As for his identity, passports could be bought, forged, exchanged; he could vanish on the next plane down to Jo’burg, then perhaps go to the East, to South America, even to one of the Arab countries.

  But by morning, despite a painful hangover, his mood had become more aggressive. After all his varied fortunes, Kim Philby was not going to allow himself to be scared off by a few Rhodesian police thugs, or by a conniving Ananias in Whitehall, or even by the murderous Pol and his gang of mercenary butchers.

  By lunchtime he had recovered enough to make a boisterous entrance into the ‘Abominables’, where he ran into Freddie Frobisher and a crowd of his cronies. They had lunch together and Philby drank too much and had to be driven home. He was in no state to notice if any car were following them — though he had spotted one earlier, on his drive into town.

  Then, in the late afternoon, when he’d slept it off, he discovered that his telephone was being tapped. He had put through a call to Fielding, and heard that brief silence, followed by the tiny familiar click as the dialling tone started. Fielding had come on the line with forced cheerfulness.

  ‘You’ll be there later this evening?’ Philby asked.

  ‘’Course, old man — where else? It’s as dead as a morgue round here after dark. Don’t think I can stick another week of it.’

  Philby had said he looked forward to seeing him again back at Meikle’s and hung up; then instantly lifted his receiver and again heard the tell-tale click. He knew of subtler, less detectable ways of tapping a phone, but they were expensive, and he concluded that the Rhodesians were still unaware that they were dealing with an expert. To hell with them anyway, he thought. Only a few more hours to go.