I, Said the Spy

by Derek Lambert

  It was these railings that were occupying the attention of Owen Anderson one showery day in March six weeks before the Bilderberg conference was due to assemble. They gave him little encouragement, a professional would be up and over them like greased lightning.

  He took a micro-recorder from the pocket of his belted raincoat and spoke into it. ‘Install electronic burglar alarm system plus closed circuit television surveillance.’

  The Château Saint-Pierre, Anderson concluded as he continued his reconnaissance, posed two forbidding security problems. One was its rambling design; the other was its situation. On one side lush fields and clumps of trees; on the other meadows and orchards separating the château from the village half a mile away; during the conference it would be patrolled by armed guards, but it wasn’t impenetrable; the actual gardens, he hoped, would be.

  The most likely threat from a sniper’s bullet lay on the village side of the château, where there were several vantage points. Again Anderson spoke into the black and silver recorder: ‘Make sure guests with the most clout occupy rooms on the opposite side to the village.’ Snipers wouldn’t want relative nonentities in their sights.

  At the heavy, gold-barbed gates, Anderson paused to survey the château. This year’s manifestation of his annual nightmare. One bomb, one clutch of bullets and World War III could be ignited. Especially this year after the seizure of the American hostages in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. If only the United States had in the past presented a stronger face to its enemies instead of internally savaging its own security.

  Well, for the last time he would do his damndest to safeguard the unofficial Summit as it debated the tenuous future. He had already told Danby that he wanted to be relieved of the Bilderberg responsibility. It had been a long time. Danby had been remarkably sympathetic.

  Anderson began to walk along the lane, which was flanked by hedgerows leading to the village. The sun shone warmly after a recent shower and steam rose from puddles. As he walked, he planned six weeks ahead. To Anderson, the château wouldn’t be a sequestered retreat: it would be Fort Knox. And the ‘pleasant pastoral setting’ (the brochure’s description) would be a theatre of war ….

  In the dripping woods and thickets would be day-and-night patrols equipped with guns and two-way radios – primarily from the host country, France, but augmented by security guards from other countries – and electronic beams tripping intruders.

  In the interior of the château there would be surveillance and detection equipment, ranging from simple bug alerts and analysers to a central alarm system relaying ultrasonic waves to the security HQ on the ground floor and the nearest police station.

  In fact, the usual array of equipment, except that each year it became more sophisticated.

  One of the main obstacles to be overcome was friction between the security organisations. In three weeks time they were meeting in Paris to thrash it out. Anderson, who had been through it all before, guessed that the meeting would end in complete agreement, which meant that the discord would ferment below the surface.

  You couldn’t blame any of them: they were clandestine organisations.

  The most difficult to appease would be the French. Understandably – the convention was being held in their country. What they would resent most was his overall authority which, although tacit, was blazingly obvious.

  Anderson had a great regard for French Intelligence. He deeply regretted that they seemed to be following the example of Britain and the United States and rounding on their own security service instead of the enemy’s. Only two months ago they had appointed a conventional gendarmerie officer to head the security section of the SDECE, the French intelligence service, in place of a veteran espionage expert. The security service had been accused of conducting a witch-hunt! The Russians, Anderson thought, must have been transported with joy.

  He saw a children’s home-made house perched in an oak tree. It could be used …. He noted it in the tiny recorder.

  He entered the village. It was quite small, with a cobbled main street glistening after the rain, a church with a green dome, a few snug shops nestling between thin grey houses, plane trees with flaking barks sparsely lining the side-streets. Old men in black berets were emerging like cats after the rain; the smell of new bread issued from the patisserie; the breath from the inn was overpowering. About 800 inhabitants, Anderson guessed, warily independent and suspicious of strangers.

  Children pointed at him and stared as he recorded some notes. He was, he supposed, something of a phenomenon—a black dude talking into his closed fist.

  Half way down the main street he sensed that he was being watched with more than usual intensity. Or perhaps imagined it; you developed an exaggerated wariness over the years; a bug in every cocktail olive.

  Or perhaps he was under surveillance – by the French.

  He paused outside the church. Ah, the belfry. The hunchback of Notre Dame! The point was, could you see the château from the belfry?

  He walked past the wet gravestones. Daffodils bloomed in the grass, spring teasing the long-dead.

  A priest greeted him at the open doors. He was a cadaverous man – more like an undertaker, Anderson thought – any animation that he might once have possessed, paralysed by the village iniquities confided in the Confessional. Or so it seemed. Then the priest smiled and was transformed. ‘Good morning, my son.’ No surprise at beholding the black Mafia seeking sanctuary. ‘What can I do for you?’ And in perfect English.

  ‘I’d like to see your church, father.’

  The priest smiled again. Sunshine lighting a craggy cliff. ‘And so you shall. Are you interested in any particular aspect?’

  Anderson paused. He was described in his own file as ‘well-read’. But his erudition didn’t extend to ecclesiastical architecture.

  ‘The belfry perhaps?’ the priest said.

  Anderson stared at him.

  ‘You are no ordinary tourist, are you?’ Then taking Anderson’s arm and leading him into the scented gloom: ‘I mean that you are not here merely to soak up the atmosphere of rustic Gallic life.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Anderson said, about to make his prepared statement seeing the country before taking up a position at the United States Embassy in Paris.

  The priest said: ‘I’m very fond of Shaft.’

  The prepared statement took flight. ‘Good God!—sorry, father.’

  ‘And James Bond, of course.’

  ‘You really read that stuff?’

  ‘Why not? It isn’t one of the deadly sins as far as I am aware.’

  ‘It encompasses a few.’

  ‘So does the Bible, my son.’ The priest pointed to a wooden spiral staircase. ‘Those lead to the belfry, I believe that is what you are interested in.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘You remind me of Shaft. And, after all, Bilderberg is only six weeks away.’

  Anderson spread his hands. ‘I give up. Are you Father Brown?’

  ‘My favourite,’ the priest said as he climbed the worn stairs in front of Anderson.

  The bells hung huge and impotent from the domed ceiling. To the right of them, Anderson noticed a small aperture that had once contained glass. He peered through it – and saw the château.

  The priest said: ‘An ideal spot, eh?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Then we shall have to keep our belfry under lock and key.’

  Downstairs Anderson slipped a fifty-franc note in the offertory box and thanked the priest.

  ‘Can I be of any further help?’ the priest asked.

  They walked into the sunshine; Anderson thought he noticed a movement to the side of a big, arched gravestone. Imagination? Or the French police ….

  ‘I wondered—’

  ‘I’m afraid my help cannot extend to revealing the secrets of the Confessional.’

  Anderson grinned. ‘You must be psychic.’

  ‘Divine guidance, my son.’

  ‘B
ut you might be able to give me some … some indications. You see, father, terrorists aren’t really the greatest danger in a situation like this. We can contain them. You wouldn’t believe the precautions we take. You pluck a blade of grass and wham! we’ve got you.’ He shook his head. ‘No, the greatest dangers are nuts … lunatics. They are totally unpredictable, imponderable. Especially the ones who act normally.’

  ‘Like you and me?’

  ‘I sometimes wonder about myself, father.’

  The priest smiled his wondrous smile again. ‘And you want me to list any likely candidates.’

  ‘If you would, father.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed. Do you know, I can’t even think of one. We’ve had our fair share of unfortunates who have been deranged. But they’ve been taken to hospitals.’

  Anderson shrugged. ‘Well, if you come up with anything give me a call. I’m living at the château.’

  ‘A wonderful setting,’ the priest said.

  ‘For what, father?’

  ‘A murder mystery. Simenon, perhaps?’ He took his smile back with him into the church.

  After checking out the village Anderson returned to the château to vet the staff—123 of them – concentrating on anyone who had been employed within the past six months. Chefs, pastry-cooks, waiters, cashiers, chambermaids, telephonists …. Some of them lived in the village, some in the annexe of the Château.

  He was half way through the list, checking references and credentials, when he came upon the name Nicholas Foster. Very English. What was a Mr Foster doing in a French château working as a trainee manager? Anderson added his name to a short list of staff to be double-checked.

  The following day he began the preliminary sweep inside the château. He had been joined by a colleague from the Secret Service in Washington, an FBI agent, a member of Britain’s Special Branch and a French detective inspector named Moitry. There was a Moitry at every conference, the local police officer who was blamed if anything went wrong.

  Together they swept every room and corridor with detectors. No bombs, of course. But they were able to eliminate, or pin-point on a plan of the hotel, every metal item that might confuse a later search.

  Then they turned their attention to the hotel’s antiquated telephone system. Only eleven lines but more would be provided.

  Watched resentfully by the French inspector, he checked the switchboard, using an analyser that monitored the lines for a distance of ten miles and located the position of any eavesdroppers. Nothing. Not yet.

  That evening more electronic equipment arrived in two packing cases, shipped via the American Embassy in Paris. The United States was more conscious of security than the other nations involved: they had to be: they couldn’t afford to lose Americans as influential as those on the guest list.

  On his fourth day at the château, Anderson interviewed members of the staff on his short list, recording their replies on a voice stress analyser. The degree of stress provoked by a lie was conveyed to the interviewer on a numerical readout.

  To intimidate his subjects, Anderson conducted the interviews in an imposing ante-room, lined with Italian marble and hung with 18th century Beauvais tapestries, overlooking the fountains and the maze.

  ‘Have you ever been a member of any political organisation?’

  The room-service waiter, slightly-built with the dated good looks of a French film star in the ’40s, said firmly: ‘Non, monsieur.’

  The stress analyser thought otherwise; the number on the readout was high.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Anderson consulted all the available information on the waiter compiled by a computer in Paris. ‘You will excuse me asking this, but do you have any particular sexual preferences?’

  The waiter smiled. ‘Handsome black police officers. Does the fact that I am gay, as you Americans put it, have any effect on security?’

  Privately Anderson didn’t think it mattered a damn. In this day and age homosexuality didn’t make you any more vulnerable to blackmail than heterosexuality.

  ‘You were truthful about that. Why did you lie about your political activities?’

  ‘If you know about them, why ask?’

  Anderson, who hadn’t the faintest idea what the waiter’s political affiliations were, asked ‘How long were you a Communist?’

  ‘A couple of years, maybe less. That is no crime, not in France.’ He combed his sleek hair with the tips of his fingers. ‘All that matters, Monsieur Anderson, is that you are enjoying yourself. A Communist pervert. What a catch!’

  ‘You’re wrong, comrade, I’m not enjoying it one little bit.’

  Once he had enjoyed the game. Not any more. Not since the advent of the Holy Brigade, the self-appointed censors of intelligence procedure; the same genre that decried the ill-treatment of terrorists and ignored the horrors they perpetrated. What was the point in defending America against its enemies when Americans were doing the enemies’ job? Even if things had got a little better since Iran.

  ‘Well?’ The waiter had become more nervous during the pause.

  Anderson said: ‘When did you leave the Party?’

  The waiter mustered his failing resources. ‘I quit when I felt like it. As I quit my job now.’ He stood up, lips trembling. ‘If this interrogation is part of democracy, I shit on it.’

  He turned and walked quickly out of the ante-room, built up heels of his shoes clattering on the marble floor.

  You’ve got a point, comrade, Anderson thought, you’ve got a point. He struck the waiter’s name off the list, one who wouldn’t have to be temporarily relieved of his duties during the conference.

  Nicholas Foster walked in and sat down as Anderson waved him to the carved oak chair on the opposite side of the table.

  ‘I’m sorry about this,’ he said to Foster, scrutinising him. Somehow the black jacket and striped trousers didn’t quite go with the man. Hotel managers had to be disciplinarians, but there was a controlled aggression about Foster that was out of place.

  ‘No need to be sorry.’

  Observing the cleft chin, dark wavy hair and grey eyes, Anderson asked: ‘Are you Irish by any chance?’

  Foster grinned at him. ‘Not a drop of Liffy water has touched my lips.’ He’d been asked that one before, Anderson thought.

  ‘Do you mind telling me how you got that limp?’

  ‘Not at all. A drunken idiot with a spear-gun mistook my leg for a fish. In the Greek Islands,’ he added.

  Anderson made a note on a pad, then asked:

  ‘Mr Foster, why did you decide to take up hotel management at the ripe old age of twenty-eight?’

  ‘I’m sure you know, Mr Anderson. My father owns a chain of hotels and I’m training for the family business. I left it a little late. It was my privilege.’

  ‘But this hotel isn’t one of your father’s.’

  ‘My father is a friend of the owner, Monsieur Gaudin.’ Anderson glanced at the analyser which, from Foster’s side of the table, looked like an open brief-case. The figures revealed nothing suspicious about Foster’s answers. Anderson wondered if stress would be revealed in the voice of an accomplished liar; or perhaps someone accustomed to the thrust and parry of an interview – a journalist perhaps. ‘What exactly did you do after you left college, Mr Foster? There seems to be a blank in the hotel records.’

  ‘Not a lot,’ Foster said. ‘I travelled. Bummed my way around.’

  ‘Financed by your father?’

  ‘No, Mr Anderson, not financed by my father.’

  ‘Any political affiliations?’

  ‘I voted for Mrs Thatcher.’

  ‘Good on you, Mr Foster. Any youthful indiscretions?’

  ‘I was caught in bed with the matron at school.’

  ‘I meant political, Mr Foster.’

  ‘I’ve never been into politics, I don’t intend to kidnap the former American Secretary of State, and I haven’t the slightest intention of
robbing any of the millionaires.’

  No excessive reaction from the analyser. ‘I’m glad to hear it. You wouldn’t get very far.’ Anderson stared through the window at the trimmed hedges of the maze. ‘How are you enjoying your training here?’

  ‘It’s fine. You can’t beat the French at this business.’

  ‘And your French?’

  ‘It’s adequate,’ Foster told him.

  ‘You know why I’m here, of course?’

  ‘Of course,’ Foster said. ‘Bilderberg.’

  ‘Did you know about Bilderberg when you applied for this job?’

  Foster shook his head; nothing the analyser could do about that.

  ‘When did you find out?’

  ‘A week or so ago.’

  ‘An impressive guest list for a trainee manager.’

  ‘A challenge,’ Foster replied.

  ‘For me too,’ Anderson said grinning. ‘Okay, Mr Foster, thanks for your time. Take care.’

  Anderson advised Gaudin, the proprietor, to suspend two members of the staff with criminal records, and one who had been seen in the company of members of an urban guerrilla movement in Paris.

  Gaudin had once been an Olympic fencing champion, individual foil. He was now middle-aged, commanding quiet authority and distant charm, a former head waiter at Maxims, who was now acknowledged to be one of the best hoteliers in France. Gaudin was honoured by Bilderberg’s choice, but not overwhelmed like his co-directors.

  He pointed at a pile of correspondence from his fellow directors on his desk. ‘The excitable French, the foreigners’ conception of us.’ He spoke in English.

  ‘What’s worrying them?’ Anderson asked, easing his bulk into a Louis Quatorze chair.

  ‘Security mostly.’

  ‘You can’t blame ’em. It worries me.’

  ‘You don’t look as though anything ever worries you.’ ‘Thirst does,’ Anderson said.

  Gaudin, dressed in a neat charcoal-grey suit, opened a refrigerator cased in walnut. ‘A glass of wine? An aperitif?’

  ‘A beer would be fine.’

  ‘As you please.’ Gaudin poured a beer and a glass of white wine for himself.

  Anderson drank some beer and spread a plan of the château on the desk. ‘One of our biggest headaches is where we’re going to house the delegates.’