That must have cut 007 to the quick. He’s proud to be head of the 00 section and would normally have hated the idea of another agent being given his assignment. 006 looked happy. Although they get on well, there’s a tangible rivalry, a hangover from their service days. I know 006 gives 007 a bit of gyp about being a ‘chocolate sailor’ – because he was RNVR2 in the war, while 006 was a marine commando. It’s good-natured, of course, as 007’s bravery has never been in doubt – rather the reverse – and his war record for daring missions is unparalleled. But the rivalry between them is definitely there. M does nothing to discourage it – he believes it gives them an edge.
According to Mary, 007 spent the rest of the day closeted in his office, probably with the whisky bottle. When 006 passed by, James said, ‘Good luck, old boy. Watch out for snipers in the second-floor window of the Office building on the corner of Wilhelmstrasse, but otherwise you shouldn’t have any trouble. I’ll buy you a drink when you get back.’ 006 flew that evening to Tempelhof. He goes over the day after tomorrow, and if all goes to plan, will be back across Zimmerstrasse with 625 by the end of the week.3
It is his first time across since the Wall went up. 007 has been once before, which was probably why M wanted him to go this time. It might have done him the power of good. He’s going to have to take the next job the OM dangles at him, otherwise it’s the long corridor for him and I’m pretty sure he would not survive that.
He has now spent nearly a decade in the oo section, by far the longest-serving agent. I think the average is about three years – by which time they have normally burnt out, or worse. The pressure of living on the edge of death must be profoundly affecting. I can hardly count the number of occasions on which he has nearly not returned from a mission. Even in the last year or so, he’s been up against Blofeld twice and lost his wife as a direct result of his job.
And for what? A salary that is merely comfortable4 and the prospect of early retirement on a meagre pension, if indeed he lives that long? Add that to the trauma he must have suffered from seeing so many people he knew and cared about blown to oblivion – indeed, having to kill others in the name of duty (I have lost count of the number of CFFs [Collateral Fatality Forms] I have had to file with the Ministry on 007’s behalf) – and surely you have a recipe for breakdown? We shouldn’t be surprised that he is suffering from some sort of extended hangover caused by excess death. Yet we can’t afford to make too many allowances for it, for too long.
Sunday, 4th March
I can’t bear it. Another weekend with R has disintegrated into conflict and accusations. I cannot believe it. On Friday night, I opened the door to Ennismore Gardens5 and was immediately enveloped in the glorious aroma of simmering onions. R appeared in the kitchen doorway, saying that he had borrowed my spare key from Maura and was going to cook dinner tonight. At the time, it was a wonderful surprise. Steak with béarnaise sauce and French beans, followed by baked apple with cinnamon and cream. There is no way I could ever concoct anything quite so delicious. I ate myself into a stupor – to the point where I was almost ready to pledge my life to him. Then we sat in front of the fire, listening to Brahms, until my eyes drooped. At midnight, when I woke, he was gone.
Yesterday morning, we packed Rafiki into the Mini6 and drove to Henley, parked and walked for miles along the river until we found an unspoilt inn. We ate pub sandwiches and drank cider and it wasn’t until the walk back that R asked me, quite out of the blue, whether I was committed to my work, if I ever thought about leaving. I was surprised, and answered that I hadn’t. He looked at me for a minute, then changed the subject, asking about my family and what it was like to grow up in Kenya.
Perhaps because I was relieved to have left the work issue, I told him more about myself than I have ever revealed to anyone. We walked for hours and I talked about Pa and his disappearance, about Ma and her dreadful, painful end.7 He listened quietly as I berated myself for having failed to warn her about the real and imminent perils of Mau Mau, then put his arm around me and held me tight. ‘Do you hate Kenya?’ he asked. I had to stop and think for a second, before replying that yes, I did, probably to about the same degree that I loved it. I started telling him what it was about Africa that held me captive – the natural beauty, the huge skies that make you feel like you can see heaven, the sense of time drifting by instead of charging away from you at full tilt as it seems to here. Once I started talking, I couldn’t stop. I told him about the game that lived wild on the farm, about Evie, the meerkat, who would follow me everywhere, and about how we had been adopted by an orphan warthog – Pa had shot his mother after she turned on our dog – whom we had christened Winnie, because he reminded Pa of Churchill. And I was suddenly filled with a longing to be back there. If the uprising hadn’t happened, would I be there now? I might be following in Ma’s footsteps, trying to help the Africans to help themselves – instead of raping and pillaging their God-given wealth, which is what the majority of our settler ‘friends’ seemed intent on doing.
R stayed quiet as I talked on and on. We drove back to London and after a cup of tea, I once again fell asleep on the sofa. The long walk, reliving those memories, had left me exhausted. But then I woke up with a start; I don’t know why, I couldn’t have been asleep for long. R wasn’t in the room, and when I turned towards the kitchen I noticed a sliver of light under the study door. Thinking that perhaps he was reading in the study, waiting for me to wake up, I opened the door quietly. He was sitting behind my desk with, on either side, the bottom two drawers open, as if he was searching them. The colour drained visibly from his face as he quickly closed them. ‘I was, er, looking for your passport,’ he said. ‘I needed the number. I wanted to take you away somewhere, as a surprise. Needed your passport number …’
We both knew he was lying. I just didn’t have the energy to confront him. I suppose he was searching for clues about my work, not that he would have had any success at home. We have been happy; why does he have such a desperate urge to know more? He left soon after, saying he had work to do.
Wednesday, 7th March
I ran into that bloody Troop today. The timing couldn’t have been much worse. At first I thought he was going to ignore me. I was all in favour of this, but after a minute’s thought, it seemed odd. So I inched across to him. ‘Captain Troop, hello. How’s your vetting going?’
He gave a grunt and said. ‘The wheels of the investigation are in motion. We are pursuing various angles. That is all I can say to you.’
Despite what had happened at the weekend, I was taken aback. I hadn’t seriously thought it would take more than a minute to clear R. I searched through my memory for anything that might appear suspicious, but there was nothing. From what he had told me, he had a ‘normal’ upbringing, his parents were both teachers in Dulwich. He qualified at the Architectural Association. He likes travelling, loves his work, had nearly married a few years back, but it fell through at the eleventh hour. He has no apparent political bent – nor even, so far as I can tell, interest. But since the vetting procedure normally takes only a few days, it sounded as if Troop had found something not quite right. I can’t imagine what it might be.
Friday, 9th March
I got back to my desk at lunchtime to find 007 pacing up and down the room. ‘Penny, what’s the latest on Blofeld? M’s not telling me anything and I need to know. I think about that bloody man night and day. I can’t bear the idea of him getting away with this. He’s laid down the gauntlet and I can’t just turn away like some kind of weakling. What am I doing, wasting time with this Cuba stuff and all the infernal paperwork when I could be out there looking for him?’
I reminded him gently that he had threatened to resign when he was assigned full-time to the search for Blofeld the last time he went to ground, after the Thunderball affair,8 and had begged M for a return to active duty from ‘routine police work’. ‘This time you’ve turned down a mission and want to go after him. I assure you that we’ve alerts out to every station a
nd are doing all we can to track him down.’
‘Do we have any idea where he is?’
I said he should really ask Bill about it. ‘As far as I know, after Istanbul, he seems to have made his way to Mexico – we had a tentative ID from one of our agents in Mexico City, who thought he saw him walking around the medical district. It would make sense for him to change his physical identity again. We never found out where he had it done last time, but from what you said, they made a good job of it.’
James nodded. ‘Yes, it was extraordinary,’ he agreed. ‘Even down to his ear-lobes.’9
‘Well, we’ve had all our people in Mexico City working on it full-time, talking to all the plastic surgeons in town. The trouble is, of course, that most of them are working on the grey market, servicing American women who don’t want to pay New York prices – as well as the occasional old Nazi on his way to a new life in Argentina, so they’re not exactly talkative. Then, three days ago, we had another suspected sighting in Mexico, this one at the airport, boarding a flight to Madrid, but by the time we got the report, the plane had already arrived and the passengers disembarked. The Madrid station has been alerted, but so far, no news. Please, James, leave it to M. He wants Blofeld as much as you do.’
‘Penny, I love you.’
‘I love you too, James, but I’m quite busy right now – if you could make an appointment we could discuss this in detail at a more convenient time … dinner would be good for me …’ But he was already halfway out of the door. I’m sure he doesn’t know the effort it costs me to be light-hearted in these exchanges. Even in misery, he is diverting.
Saturday, 10th March
An intriguing encounter last night. I had a ticket to listen to Isaac Stern and the LPO [London Philharmonic Orchestra] playing Brahms’s Violin Concerto at the Royal Albert Hall. It’s one of my favourite pieces and I’d been looking forward to it. R was meant to be coming with me, but after the débâcle of Saturday night, he obviously thought it wouldn’t be a good idea, and left a note saying that he would have to work. It was a relief; I don’t know quite how to confront his behaviour. So I telephoned the box office, who agreed to let me return his ticket. To cheer myself up, I wore my new Marion Foale lace dress – it’s wonderful what a fillip new clothes can give. At the interval, I decided not to brave the bar and stayed in my seat instead. I was gazing idly at the wonderful gilt embellishments along the box edges, when the man beside me cleared his throat. ‘Excuse me, please. May I look at your programme?’ I smiled and handed it to him. After a few minutes, he passed it back. ‘A wonderful performance so far, don’t you think?’ I agreed. ‘It is the first time I have heard it in concert,’ he continued, ‘but I feel like I know every note. I grew up in Africa and my parents had a wind-up gramophone which they would play every night. This was one of their favourites, and now one of mine too.’
I told him that I’d also grown up in Africa and asked where he had lived.
‘My family had a farm in Tanganyika10. I am German – West German now, of course.’
I said that I’d thought his English was too perfect for an Englishman. He laughed. He had had an English governess in Africa, he told me. His parents were great Anglophiles. But that hadn’t helped them after the war, when their land was reclaimed and they were forced to return to Berlin. He’d been a young boy at the time, but had never forgotten it.
The orchestra filed back to their seats, the conductor returned to a torrent of applause and the house lights dimmed. I sat back and concentrated on the music. But as soon as it had finished, I was aware of my neighbour; I was aware of wanting to talk to him some more, the old lure of a shared African experience. As I turned towards him, he said, ‘Excuse me. Permit me to introduce myself. I am David Zach. I hope you don’t think it is forward of me, but could I buy you a drink?’
We walked around the corner to the ground-floor bar of a small hotel on Queen’s Gate. ‘I’m afraid it’s not very glamorous,’ he said. ‘I moved to London six weeks ago and I’m still trying to get my bearings. I haven’t explored much outside the area around my flat.’
At the moment he’s living in a serviced company apartment in Egerton Gardens, intended for visiting employees and important clients, while he looks for a place of his own. He’s planning to stay for at least two years in London, where he’s setting up a new department for his company’s London branch. He sounded almost ashamed to admit he was a banker.
‘But perhaps I will never leave? Berlin has never really felt like home. I know I went when I was quite young, but I still feel like an outsider. I like it that way. To tell you the truth, I’ve never wanted to stay in one place for too long, and I’ve never had much reason to do so.’
We ordered drinks and moved to deep sofas near the front window. I asked whether he would consider returning to live in Africa.
‘No, I don’t think so. It has some sad associations for me. I have been to visit, though.’
‘You have? I want to – it has taken me a long time to get to this point, but yes, I think I would like to go now, to see whether my childhood memories are real, or enhanced by the passage of time.’
He asked why I hadn’t been before, and for some reason I ended up telling the story of Ma and Pa – for the second time in as many weeks. ‘So you see, we were virtually orphaned,’ I said, ‘and those last years had changed my view of the country I thought I loved so passionately. I saw so much that was ugly and cruel, and I realised I was not a true African; I could only ever be an intruder, a representative of the ruling class, and that also shamed me.’ My mouth opened in an involuntary yawn. ‘I’m sorry, I have to go now. It’s been a lovely evening, thank you. I enjoyed talking about Africa – it’s rare to find someone who understands.’
He stood and held out his hand. ‘Perhaps then we can do it again? Would it be a great intrusion if I were to telephone you some time?’ Feeling faintly guilty, I gave him my number.
Tuesday, 13th March
007 hasn’t been in to the Office for two days. Mary has no idea where he is. She telephoned May, who said that she was sure he was all right, and that she shouldn’t worry. It sounded fishy to me – May is normally most concerned about James’s safety. So this evening, after work, I went round to his place11 and rang the doorbell. I would have recognised May even before she started talking: she looked exactly as I had envisaged her, from our occasional telephone conversations over the years. ‘Miss Moneypenny, why it’s a delight to meet you at last,’ she said, after I’d introduced myself. She showed me into the sitting-room, which was lovely: masculine, yet immaculately stylish – an accurate reflection of 007. The walls were covered in navy rough silk, with walnut bookcases taking up the best part of three sides, and an ornate Empire desk in front of the broad window looking out over the plane-trees in the square on the fourth.
‘I’m afraid the Commander’s not here at present,’ she said, looking a little uncomfortable.
I asked whether she knew where he was. ‘I’m afraid I can’t say. I don’t exactly know, that is …’ she tailed off.
‘May, if you know where he is, please tell me. If the Chief finds out that he’s taken off without permission, he could get in all sorts of trouble – perhaps even lose his job. If you give me some sort of clue, I’ll try and track him down before that happens. Please, you’ve got to help him.’
She looked even more uncertain. ‘Well, he didn’t tell me exactly, but I did overhear him asking after flights to Spain, Madrid it was.’
I should have guessed. My fault. Now how to spirit him back before the OM notices he’s gone?
Wednesday, 14th March
A meeting of the Cuba committee. I seem to have been appointed official secretary for the group – which makes a nice change for me and delights Bill. Apologies from Ross, who stayed in Jamaica, where he is looking into a series of unexplained fires in the sugar plantations. He suspects they might be arson, orchestrated by a freelance assassin based in Havana.12 The Americans have stated
categorically that they are not involved. 007 was not present – I made his apologies and explained that he was unwell. I’m not sure M was convinced. Bloody James – if I’m not careful, he could get me into trouble too. Why do I feel impelled to protect him?
Scott reported that the operational HQ for Operation Mongoose has been set up in the CIA station in Miami, known as JM/WAVE.13 Based in a wooded compound on the south campus of the University of Miami, it sports a misleading brass nameplate identifying it as a technical enterprise. It’s staffed by more than 250 Americans, running over 2,200 Cuban agents, most of them first-generation exiles, all directed towards developing and implementing a new strategy to overthrow the Castro régime. But, as Head of A pointed out, it’s well known that the Cuban community in Miami is about as riddled with informers as a wheel of Emmental cheese; what’s the betting that they’ve already infiltrated JM/WAVE?
The sabotage operations have begun. Teams of agents routinely open all freight bound for Cuba. With those containing machinery, they break crucial gears; additives are infiltrated into lubricating-oils so they wear out more quickly; foodstuffs are tainted with contaminants. At the same time, the Americans are supplying hardware to any of the hundreds of exile organisations based in the Little Havana area of Miami who can convince them they have plans to sail to Cuba. Sometimes, they’re accompanied on their operations by an American agent or contractor, who supervises the blowing-up of sugar mills, oil refineries, factories and ships in harbour. ‘We’re hoping that the underground opposition forces in place are going to realise that they have significant support Stateside,’ said Scott. ‘Enough to stimulate them into action.’
Moneypenny Diaries: Guardian Angel Page 6
