I, Said the Spy

by Derek Lambert

  Grinning, he turned and followed Anderson out of the door. Foster and Suzy heard a bolt slot into place and a key turn in the lock.

  They lay back listening to the views of the Swedish Prime Minister on the fuel crisis.

  XXXII

  It was 9 am and within ten hours they would all be dead.

  And he would be gone, identity assumed five years ago discarded. A nice touch that, to revert to your former self.

  As he dressed in the apartment over the tabac, he ran over in his mind the final details.

  All he had to do while panic reigned in the Château was reach his new car hidden in a lock-up garage, change his clothes make a few alterations to his appearance – spectacles worked miracles – and drive away.

  By the time road-blocks were set up he would be on the autoroute to Paris. And when the police stopped him, he would be Jacques Bertier with papers to prove it. No-one would be looking for Jacques Bertier ….

  Once in Paris he would register at the small hotel where he had made an advance reservation and sit back and watch television as the first reports of the massacre filtered through.

  The hierarchy of Capitalism removed from the face of the earth! By a man who had once been regarded as a nonentity … because he had possessed only half an identity.

  Now at last Jacques and Georges Bertier were about to triumph in their pre-ordained crusade, which had faltered only because they had been born as two ….

  An error rectified by death. He made the sign of the cross on his forehead.

  When he had finished dressing he made some coffee, adding a little rum. The plan really had worked perfectly, so different from the crude methods of today’s terrorists.

  The old German rifle – returned during the night to the hiding place in the countryside – the photostats of the guest list …. What can they have made of the crosses against certain names? They would only find the solution later today, when it was too late.

  When the filth had been exterminated!

  Carefully he picked up the means of extermination and carried it down to his old grey van parked outside the tabac.

  He placed it on the seat beside him where it could be plainly seen by any curious guards at the gates to the château.

  Then he switched on the ignition, let out the clutch and drove in the direction of the Château Saint-Pierre.

  XXXIII

  Among those whose thoughts were concentrated that morning on Bilderberg was Nicolai Vlasov, chairman of the KGB.

  And his thoughts were murderous.

  Sitting at his enormous desk in his office in Moscow, he re-read the message that had just been brought to him.

  If it was to be believed, then he had been betrayed and he would be plucked from his luxurious office with its Persian carpets and mahogany-panelled walls and tossed ignominiously into obscurity.

  On the eve of his retirement.

  Vlasov had been mounting his attack on the dollar for two years. It was to be his triumphant valediction. The monumental finale to a career always finely balanced between subversion and political conformity.

  Along with the President of the Soviet Foreign Bank he had watched the carefully managed dollar reserves multiply. They had now reached such proportions that if they were dumped on the foreign markets they would, with sufficient support from other sources, launch a world-wide wave of panic-selling.

  Opponents of the scheme urged that Russia needed the dollars to buy essential commodities. Not so, claimed Vlasov; if the United States was destitute they would sell their produce for chocolate bars.

  The man who had first suggested the plan had been Pierre Brossard. Now, according to the message in his hand, Brossard had double-crossed them.

  But had he?

  Why should Brossard, like himself on the brink of retirement, destroy a future in which even his peculiar pleasures had been catered for?

  No, the message stank.

  It was allegedly a Telex communication transmitted by Brossard from the Château Saint-Pierre to his newspaper office in Paris, cancelling the vital newspaper column that would ignite the processes to bring down the dollar. It had been taken from Brossard’s briefcase by Helga Keller and handed to an agent in Paris at dawn that morning.

  If the Midas column failed to appear then the speculators, poised to sell, would draw back. And the Soviet Union would be left out on a limb selling dollars which might then rally. The Kremlin – not the White House – would be humiliated!

  Banished to obscurity? Hardly a fitting punishment for such a catastrophe. No, he would be taken to Lubyanka Prison which lay somewhere beneath his own office. The head of the KGB suffering the same fate as the thousands he had personally consigned to the bleak white-tiled dungeons. Vlasov pondered on their fate and his soul was touched with ice.

  He decided to visit the President of the Foreign Bank and seek his assessment of the crisis. He told his secretary to call his chauffeur.

  The black limousine pulled away from the bleak building – part of it once owned by the All-Russian Insurance Company before the Revolution, the other portion built partly by Germans captured in World War II – and Vlasov settled back in the cushions.

  He had three alternatives:

  (1) Call the whole thing off. He would be disgraced and prematurely retired but at least he would be able to salvage some dignity.

  (2) Proceed with the plan without consulting the Politburo, which would only acknowledge complicity in the event of success.

  (3) Get to Brossard who was apparently incommunicado and force him to publish the column.

  The whole operation, he ruminated, had started to go wrong with the attempt to kill Brossard. In all probability, according to a previous message from Helga Keller, the work of a madman.

  The limousine stopped outside the headquarters of the bank and Vlasov was ushered into the presence of the President, Sergei Visotsky.

  Visotsky, a bulky man with incongruously tiny hands, produced a bottle of Stolichnaya vodka and two glasses. He chain-smoked and his crumpled suit was scattered with ash. He always appeared to be weighted with worry, and when he sat down it was as though the weight had dragged him to the seat.

  Vlasov handed him the decoded message, waited while he read it and said: ‘Well, what do you think?’

  ‘It’s a disaster.’

  Visotsky drank his vodka in one swallow and picked up the bottle again with his little hands.

  Vlasov looked at him contemptuously. Fear should be contained in company: it was part of an unwritten code. He had seen men die under torture without displaying it.

  ‘The point is,’ Vlasov said, ‘is it true?’

  ‘How should I know? That’s your job.’

  ‘Agreed. But why should a man with everything to win and nothing to lose by publishing lies, suddenly back out? I’m asking,’ Vlasov said, ‘because you know the man as a financier. I only know him as a spy.’

  ‘He would only do it if he thought the dollar was going to rally. Obviously he would buy then rather than sell.’

  ‘Without informing us?’ Vlasov put his fingers to his fragile-looking temples. ‘No, Monsieur Brossard wouldn’t do that. He knows the penalty for betrayal.’

  ‘Are you suggesting he didn’t cancel the column?’

  ‘It’s a possibility.’

  ‘Then what are you going to do?’ a little courage gained from the bottle.

  Vlasov listed the three alternatives.

  Visotsky said: ‘In the circumstances we cannot possibly proceed without informing the Politburo.’

  ‘That is for me to decide,’ Vlasov snapped. ‘All I want to know from you is this: Can we succeed without Brossard’s column?’

  ‘It’s possible – if other parties start selling on a large enough scale. And if we issue a statement through Tass which will be picked up by the Western media. But I wouldn’t advise it.’

  ‘I didn’t think you would. Bankers are not by nature adventurous. But don’t worry, comrade, it’s
my responsibility. You are under my orders and if anything goes wrong it is I who will suffer.’

  They were silent for a moment, musing on the form the suffering would take.

  ‘Anyway,’ Vlasov said, ‘we still have a little time. I have to make contact with Brossard.’

  ‘Is that so difficult?’

  ‘If he is reluctant, yes. As you know he is at Bilderberg – and he is surrounded by police. But I can make contact with his secretary. It so happens that she works for us.’

  ‘And is she completely trustworthy?’

  Vlasov, who trusted no-one, considered the question. Within his own personal assessment of human frailty, Helga Keller was as trustworthy as any agent. However ….

  He told Visotsky: ‘She has served us well,’ and thought: ‘It would be the simplest thing in the world for Helga Keller to have transmitted a false message to Paris.’

  Vlasov stood up. ‘Leave it to me, Comrade Visotsky. Stay close to your telephone.’ He paused at the door. ‘And please remember that this conversation has been confidential. You will not discuss it with anyone.’

  ‘I understand,’ Visotsky said, reaching once again for the bottle of fire-water.

  Back in his office Vlasov composed a message to be coded and sent to the Soviet Embassy in Paris.

  Then he picked up the dossier on Pierre Brossard. Really, the bastard didn’t deserve to live. If he had betrayed them then, of course, he wouldn’t. It would be a job for Department V.

  * * *

  Mayard read the Telex message, which had been waiting for him on the machine, when he got to the newspaper office.

  He read it with relief.

  The column had been altogether too sensational. Barely credible. Granted Brossard had access to exclusive information at Bilderberg. But surely a financial editor would have heard at least a whisper of such incredible developments.

  The cancellation now presented one outstanding problem: a great blank space on the front page.

  Mayard reached for a cigar from the box on his desk and re-read the message.

  CANCEL COLUMN TRANSMITTED YESTERDAY STOP NONE OF THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THE COLUMN MUST BE PRINTED STOP REPEAT NONE SIGNED BROSSARD.

  Did Brossard intend to write a substitute column?

  In a way Mayard wished Brossard hadn’t cancelled his story. If, as it appeared, the facts were wrong then Brossard would have become a laughing stock. Mayard would have enjoyed that.

  Now he had to determine Brossard’s intentions. He picked up the telephone, called the Château Saint-Pierre and asked for Brossard.

  The telephonist told him that Brossard was not to be disturbed. All calls were being referred to Fraulein Metz. Mayard shrugged: it was virtually the same as talking to Brossard.

  He waited for a couple of minutes while they contacted her.

  ‘So,’ Mayard said when she came on the phone, ‘he has got cold feet. Quite rightly I should think. The point is, does he intend to write another column?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Helga said. ‘He’s suffering from shock.’ She told Mayard about the shooting.

  Mayard listened incredulously and thought: ‘Why did the stupid bastard miss?’

  ‘Of course, none of this must be repeated,’ Helga said. ‘And naturally there must be no mention of it in the paper.’

  ‘Naturally. So what shall I do? Write his column for him? You are his eyes and ears.’

  ‘The decision is yours. After all, you are the editor.’

  ‘Thank you for reminding me, Fraulein Metz.’

  Mayard replaced the receiver and stared at the blank sheet of paper on which he had to make up the front page. Should he write the Midas column? No, he thought, to hell with it; another row within the EEC, blaming as usual the British, would suffice for the lead story.

  But if only the gunman had taken better aim ….

  * * *

  In Washington Vlasov’s opposite number on the CIA, William Danby, had also considered a report from the Château Saint-Pierre with alarm.

  According to Owen Anderson, there was a possibility that their shared annual nightmare might come true: a homicidal maniac might have found a way to perpetrate mass murder.

  Danby shook his head. No, that was crazy. And yet Anderson was a level-headed agent who had weathered the storm when he had been under investigation, apparently without rancour.

  Danby had sympathised with Anderson; the self-righteous patriots were hell-bent on destroying their own country’s defences. Nor had he been surprised when Anderson asked to be relieved of the Bilderberg assignment: Danby fully expected his resignation from the Agency to follow.

  Who could blame him?

  In fact Danby had also decided to quit. But he wanted an honourable discharge, not a resignation forced upon him by a debacle at Bilderberg.

  He glanced at the clock on the wall of his office. It was 10.15 am, mid-afternoon in France. Another twenty-four hours until the conference broke up.

  Danby asked his secretary to bring him another cup of coffee. Then he called the President of the United States because, irrespective of whether he was campaigning to remain in office, it was necessary to inform him about the threat to the government-outside-the-govemment.

  * * *

  In addition to Mayard, one other person tried to contact Brossard that day, a man named Yuri Shilkov, a second secretary at the Soviet Embassy in Paris.

  Shilkov contemplated driving to the Château Saint-Pierre. But what chance did a Russian have of being admitted to Bilderberg? As much chance as an American being admitted to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union!

  Instead he telephoned and Telexed Brossard. Both messages were intercepted by Helga Keller.

  On the telephone she told Shilkov that Brossard had confirmed to her orally that he had cancelled his column. She also said that Brossard was in a deep, drug-induced sleep from which he could not be awoken.

  Which was true because she had dissolved three barbiturate tablets in his after-lunch coffee.

  XXXIV

  At 3.30 pm George Prentice sat at a desk in his room putting the final touches to the speech he was shortly to deliver.

  But his concentration was impaired by the knowledge that, provided a madman didn’t find some way of liquidating the nucleus of the Establishment, he would soon be a millionaire.

  He shuffled the papers in front of him. In a way the speech was his credo. The crystallisation of what he had learned from his professional life.

  He was not against the Capitalist system. Far from it – as his address would avow. The delegates would doubtless listen with the soporific detachment reserved for speakers such as himself, invited for the sake of the Bilderberg image.

  Until his closing remarks – the last paragraph on the last sheet of paper lying on the desk in front of him. George Prentice smiled to himself as he imagined the impact those last few sentences would have.

  * * *

  ‘I rise in our defence.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Foster as the spool of the tape-recorder whirred, ‘that must be Prentice.’

  ‘Is it?’ Suzy pressed her almost naked body against his. He could feel the small breasts against his chest, the hardness of her nipples.

  ‘I’m trying to concentrate,’ Foster told her.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s important.’

  ‘But it’s being taped.’

  Foster didn’t reply. If they hadn’t been bound hand and foot by steel bands he would have left Prentice to the tape.

  ‘Nicholas Foster, you’re a hypocrite,’ Suzy said.

  ‘And a liar!’

  She kissed him, and for a few moments he lost the trend of what Prentice was saying.

  * * *

  ‘Not merely in the defence of Bilderberg,’ Prentice said, ‘but in the defence of Capitalism.’

  The delegates sitting at oak tables arrayed in front of the lectern, regarded him with ill-disguised boredom, their faces as expressionless as those of
the ancestral portraits on the walls. The rain which had thinned to a drizzle, trickled down the windows overlooking the gardens.

  ‘And in the defence of Communism.’

  Those delegates who had heard him frowned. The grizzled features of the German industrialist who had just been appointed chairman contorted in dismay, and his hand reached for the button which lit the red light signifying that a speaker had consumed his allotment of time.

  ‘You,’ nodding towards the Bilderbergers, ‘have all endured your share of criticism because you have committed the crime of acquiring riches either by inheritance or endeavour. Few of those who attack you have ever paused to consider the employment you have created or the enrichment which your products have given to the deprived.’

  The chairman’s hand withdrew from the button.

  ‘Few who indict our system have ever paused to consider the alternatives. Blinded by the zealot’s barb, they ignore the repression and the erosion of human dignity that has always accompanied the practical application of Marxist ideals.’

  A few delegates nodded. Most of them looked puzzled: hardly a defence of Communism.

  ‘I believe that the majority of those assembled here today go about their business honourably and for the benefit of our Society. There are, of course, exceptions such as those who, in the guise of philanthropists, persuade the relatively poor to invest in their enterprises; in these exceptions the only beneficiary is the benefactor.’

  Paul Kingdon stared at him coldly and said: ‘May I suggest that the speaker gets to the point.’

  ‘I am about to. I am suggesting that we have reached a watershed in history. I am suggesting that the future of this small globe of ours is as bright as any star in the firmament.’

  He raised his hand as though warding off objections to such an unfashionable philosophy.

  ‘I said I would also defend Communism. By that I meant its origins and ideals. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. Working men of all countries, unite! I don’t have to tell you that I am quoting from the Communist Manifesto. And could any of you here today really say that there was anything reprehensible about such a rallying cry at the time it was made?’