Moneypenny Diaries: Guardian Angel

by Samantha Kate

  There was no one near the building and, thankfully, the jeep was still where I’d left it. I walked across purposefully, trying to ignore the gunfire that was rattling out from all sides. As I got into the driver’s seat, I glanced upward in time to see the helicopter swoop back around over the compound. He must be trying for more photographs. I drove towards the gate, miraculously ignored. The gate, however, was closed and I was approached by the guard. I smiled. ‘General Igor didn’t want the jeep after all,’ I said, and pointed towards the main road. The guard shook his head. ‘Havana. General Igor said I should take the jeep to Havana,’ I insisted, pointing and nodding furiously, but he refused again and, miming making a telephone call, he started walking back to his guard-post. I knew I had no option: they would never let me out easily. I slammed my foot hard on to the accelerator and ploughed through the still-closed gate, sending it flying back. Then I drove for my life back towards San Cristóbal, not once looking back.

  I swung off the road, down the track towards our lodgings. They could only be minutes behind me. I ran around the back and grabbed the radio and the rest of James’s stuff and, thrusting a handful of dollars into the startled hands of our landlady, jumped back into the jeep and headed down the track, deeper into the lush vegetation. When it petered into a single-lane path, I jammed the jeep into a thick bush. From the map, I remembered that the railway crossed just to the south of the town; if I was lucky, the path should take me there. I half walked, half ran along the path, the radio case knocking against my knees, startling a farmer driving a hump-backed bullock in front of him with a long whip.

  After a short while, I emerged from the forest and found myself overlooking a vast plain. Just below me, I could see the railway tracks. Gambling that the station would be back towards the town, I turned right and continued walking until I could make it out in the distance. I felt suddenly weak, but I made myself keep going. It was mid-afternoon, but the heat was still punishing. I reached the station a minute before my legs finally gave way and I fell to the ground shaking all over.

  The next thing I remember, I was sitting on a chair in the stationmaster’s office, a fan turning overhead and my bags down by my feet. A kindly old man in a tattered uniform was offering me a glass of what looked like cloudy water. I took it and gulped – it was the most delicious coconut-water. I smiled weakly and collapsed back into tears. Here I was sitting in the middle of nowhere, unable to speak the language, with no idea whether James was alive or not. ‘Havana?’ I asked the stationmaster. ‘Train to Havana?’ He nodded. ‘Si, la Habana.’ He pointed to the clock on the wall and put one hand straight into the air and another pointing down. Six o’clock. I had two hours to wait. I sat back and closed my eyes.

  I must have drifted off to sleep, because I was woken by the noise of shouting in what I immediately recognised to be Russian. My heart started pounding as I looked around the bare room for a hiding-place. Behind the door would have to do. I heard more voices, this time spitting out words in broken Spanish. ‘Hombre e mujer, Ingles?’ My heart leapt. They were searching for both of us; they must have realised we were working together. And James too; he must have got away. I heard the stationmaster saying ‘No, no hay hombre aquí.’ The door opened. From where I was standing I could see the radio case, under the chair I’d been sitting on, and prayed they would not notice it. After what seemed like minutes, the door closed again, and I heard the sound of a car starting up. I sat down and put my head in my hands and wept. I don’t know if it was fear or relief or exhaustion – probably a combination of the three – but at that time I would have done anything to be back at my familiar, solid desk, working through the daily signals, chatting with the girls in the powder room, exchanging the occasional banter with the oo agents. I don’t know how they do it, how they live with this level of tension and fear on a daily basis. Yes, one hears about the addictive lure of adrenalin – and to a certain extent I had felt it on both my trips to Cuba – but I couldn’t deal with it on an extended basis. No wonder 007 had been so destroyed by Tracy’s death – his chance to escape from the unending precipice.

  The train journey was long and hot, but otherwise mercifully uneventful. I wrapped my scarf around my head and neck like the Cuban women and slept. As we were approaching Havana, the train lurched to a stop and I heard doors opening and shouted questions in Spanish. Again, they were asking for an English woman and a man. I kicked my bags under the seat. The lady opposite looked intently at me, then reached across to put her cage of two squawking chickens on to my lap. She smiled and looked away. It worked: when the soldiers came into our carriage, they looked no further than the chickens before moving on.

  When we drew into the station, I picked up my cases and the chicken cage and followed their owner unchecked through the guards and out into the warm Havana night. Once relieved of my clucking companions, I hailed a taxi and sank back into the red leather seats for the journey into the town centre. Even in my shaken state, I couldn’t fail to appreciate the beauty and drama of the Cuban capital – the grand colonial houses, painted in ice-cream pastels, lining the Malecon4 on one side, with missile-launchers and huge cannon on the other, manned and pointing out to sea. We turned right, up a broad, tree-lined avenue, and stopped outside an impressive hotel, painted terracotta pink. ‘La Sevilla,5 my taxi-driver announced as uniformed doormen flocked to greet me. Within an hour, I was between cotton sheets.

  Monday, 15th October

  I’ve been back for only two days, but the San Cristóbal episode feels as if it happened to another person. Even the three nights at the Sevilla, waiting anxiously for James to arrive, and my relief when he eventually knocked on the door, grey with dirt and exhaustion after being hunted across the country by the KGB and the Cuban security forces, both baying for his blood. It was only when he was in the room, with the door locked, that I felt safe, for the first time in what seemed like weeks. Then the intricate plans to slip out of the country unobserved: the Cuban underground, new passports, disguises, decoy cars and the last-minute dash for the Air France Caravelle.

  Smith met us at Heathrow and whisked us straight back to the Office on Saturday, where M was waiting, a wonderfully familiar sight with his pipe and spotted bow-tie. I wanted to hug him; I would have loved to have seen his face had I tried. I placed the radio transceiver on his desk. He seemed relieved to see us, even if he could not show it. ‘There’s a courier waiting from the American Embassy, ready to take the films straight to Washington,’ he said. ‘They plan to send a U-2 up tomorrow to take some more pictures at the co-ordinates you supplied. Q Branch is going to be disappointed about the photographs; I know they wanted to take a look first, but we can’t keep the Cousins waiting – this is their show. And speaking of Q Branch – you have some explaining to do, 007. A small matter of an abandoned beetle named Bugsy.’

  James groaned. ‘Sir, with respect, it would have been impossible to retrieve the submersible. I had half the Cuban army after me, not to mention an entire Russian missile division.’

  ‘I understand that you stole a Russian helicopter from a suspected nuclear missile base, 007,’ said M, in an icy tone. ‘Did you consider the potential consequences of them using nuclear weapons on you? Or the possibility of retaliation elsewhere – perhaps Berlin? At the least, your rash actions placed a substantial section of Cuba in jeopardy, as well as yourself and Miss Moneypenny.’

  ‘Sir, you said the photographs were imperative.’

  ‘You can explain everything in your final report. You were very lucky to escape and these photographs could prove to be important. But in the future, you have got to act less recklessly. You look dreadful. Go home now and report back on Monday morning.’

  Once he’d left, M turned to me: ‘Miss Moneypenny, good work. As you know I was not in favour of your participating in an active mission. But you got that confounded radio back here safely and acquitted yourself with credit. Now you go home too and on Monday I want to see you back where you belong.’

/>   It’s funny, but my desk didn’t feel like where I belonged when I got to it, this morning. I had longed for it on numerous occasions in Cuba, when 007 was lost and in peril, when I felt the Cuban army breathing at my shoulders, but now it was here in front of me, familiar, solid, comforting even, it seemed so far removed from where I had just been and from the part of myself that I had discovered – or perhaps rediscovered – in Cuba. I’m sure that as time passes I will settle back into the rhythm of Office life. I just didn’t expect to feel so disconnected.

  M is acting as though I had never been away. I even had to hear from Bill that the film we had taken had arrived safely at the National Photographic Interpretation Centre in Washington,6 where it has presumably already been developed and examined. Perhaps I’ll never know exactly what it was we photographed?

  Wednesday, 17th October

  I am a hero on the Powder Vine. It must be one of the most efficient news-gathering operations in the world. I haven’t had time to tell anyone the complete story of my Cuban adventures, just a word here and there to Mary and Janet. But before the ink on my report had dried, every secretary in the building appeared to know that I’d shared a small submersible with 007, which seemed to excite them far more than being chased by Russians. Perhaps we all have a natural appetite for gossip, which, forced to suppress outside the Office, we explore with ravenous hunger within?

  I can’t plead exemption. Within hours of my return to work, I knew that Mary and 006 had spent a weekend together in the Peak District; that Raine had resigned to work as a nanny to poor Clive Mostyn’s children – his wife, Amelia, has apparently had a nervous breakdown – and that the true mole had been unearthed. By the end of the day, I knew what only eleven people in the country, including the Prime Minster, were officially supposed to – that the traitor was Bobby Prenderghast [since 1958, Head of Southern Africa]. It has come as a tremendous shock – to everyone except Dorothy Fields, who apparently had him marked from the beginning.

  Prenderghast’s sexual proclivities were widely suspected – and often discussed in the privacy of the powder room. But his work had never been in doubt, at least not so far as I knew. After Burgess, checks on those suspected of having homosexual tendencies have been doubled, but I’m sure I would have heard had there been question marks about P. To be blunt, apart from the sex thing, he doesn’t fit the normal profile. He wasn’t at Cambridge for a start – King’s, London, as far as I can remember – and, certainly superficially, he isn’t in any way like them. He wears drab, mid-grey suits, plain ties and socks, and he sort of shambles down corridors as though intent on repelling attention. I’d have described him as a bit weak, particularly in the field of human relationships. Not at all a typical Firm employee. Yet he is said to be brilliant, with an elastic mind capable of analysing the potential effects of any given action, many steps down the line. I know M rated him highly; he was personally responsible for his elevation to Head of SA.

  M was particularly shaken at the revelation, by all accounts; Dorothy told him the day he returned from our trip to Washington and apparently he spent the following days – while we were in Cuba the first time – closeted in this office. There was even a rumour that he’d offered his resignation, but the PM had turned him down.

  The effects of P’s treachery will be far-reaching. We’ll probably spend the best part of the next year unravelling the mess – which agents have been blown, which codes compromised; whether he was working directly with anyone else. Then there’ll be the knock-on effects to our reputation and the regard in which we are held, particularly by our allies.

  At the moment P is in a suite at Claridge’s,7 with guards on the door, being interrogated for ten hours a day. Head of X is taking turns with various Africa specialists, with a chief inspector from the Special Branch sitting in. It can only be a matter of time before it leaks out.

  No wonder M is not in the best of moods. It makes Cuba seem even further away.

  Monday, 22nd October

  M was summoned to Downing Street this afternoon. He returned in a state of uncharacteristic – but barely perceptible – excitement. He called me into his office. ‘Moneypenny, we’ve done it,’ he said. ‘Those pictures you and 007 took in Cuba were indeed nuclear missiles, as we guessed – what the Russians call R-12s, Medium Range Ballistic Missiles.8 The Americans have been sending their spy-planes up all week to try to confirm their exact placement, but there’s been high-level cloud over the entire western sector of Cuba.9 There appears to be a great deal of action around the sites, but they haven’t yet managed to get a clear picture of the missiles themselves. Based on your and 007’s pictures, however, they’re convinced that Redland plans to attack the US.10 The President told the PM that he couldn’t wait much longer. They need to take action. He’s making a speech tonight.’

  I don’t think M has ever talked to me like that before. Perhaps he’d momentarily forgotten my place in his scheme of things? I could see in his eyes that hard glitter of excitement of a man of war confronted with a challenging foe. I wish I could share it, but I can’t help but feel afraid. Is the world on the brink of nuclear conflict? What if they unleash those missiles on America? Were they placed there for defence or attack? By finding them, have we hastened the world to war, or saved it?

  Tuesday, 23rd October

  I stayed up to listen to President Kennedy address the world last night. He announced that ‘unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.’ Unmistakable evidence? I do hope so.

  Millions of people listened to his speech. It was a humbling thought. He announced a quarantine of military equipment being shipped to Cuba and went further, to declare, ‘It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response on the Soviet Union.’11

  I cried when I heard it. I am terrified by our current situation, and I am terrified for Cuba.

  Wednesday, 24th October

  The blockade began today.12 I called James on the inter-office phone, but there was no answer.

  Thursday, 25th October

  I’ve bought a television. I rush home from work to watch coverage of the Cuban Missile Crisis, as it has been dubbed. Today, at the United Nations, the American Ambassador showed photographs of the missile sites purported to have been taken by US reconnaissance planes. I can’t help but wonder … 13

  Sunday, 28th October

  Escaped to Cambridge for the weekend. Helena, Lionel and I watched television incessantly. We saw the announcement late on Saturday night that an American spy-plane had been hit by a surface-to-air missile and crashed into the jungle.14 I hated coming back to London tonight. No one can think about anything else. People stop you in the street to talk about it. Sometimes they cry. Complete strangers.

  Monday, 29th October

  The crisis is over, apparently. Khrushchev wrote to Kennedy last night announcing that he had ordered the dismantling and removal of all Soviet offensive weapons in Cuba.15

  As soon as the news came through, I rushed down to James’s office. But his desk was empty. ‘Never came back from lunch,’ said Mary. ‘He’s in the dumps again. Arrived late this morning still in his dinner-jacket. Drunk as a skunk. Said he’d lost half his savings at the baccarat table last night. He sat down at his desk, picked everything out of his In tray and slapped it straight into the Out tray without so much as a glance. He’s going to get himself into trouble again.’

  I sat down. ‘What self-indulgent twaddle. I thought that Cuba had got him back on track. He really did a terrific job – but the OM still gave him a dressing-down about reckless behaviour when we got back. Maybe that’s what’s eating him? He hasn’t even been to see me since then.’
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br />   ‘Do you think he’s still mourning Tracy?’

  ‘I imagine so. I don’t know what else it can be. Unless he’s really fallen out of love with this place. I certainly wouldn’t want to live through another two weeks like we’ve just had – knowing that our actions, in some way, could have tipped the world into war. But now that it’s over … I can’t describe the feeling – midway between relief and exhilaration, I suppose. It’s certainly put the rest of my worries into perspective.’

  ‘So what happens now?’

  ‘I don’t know. The OM’s patience is running pretty thin. He’s booked lunch with Molony again on Friday, perhaps to talk about 007? I just hope he snaps out of it. Otherwise I’m going to give him a piece of my mind.’

  November

  A conversation I once had with my aunt came back to me. It took place in 1987, the summer of my A-levels. I was staying with her in Scotland while waiting for my results. We were taking our usual dusk walk along the beach behind her cottage, discussing the options for my gap year. I had signed up with Voluntary Service Abroad (VSO), and was trying to decide between placements in Africa and Latin America. ‘Where in Latin America?’ she asked.

  ‘Possibly Guatemala, Mexico, or Cuba,’ I replied.

  She stopped in her tracks. When I turned to see why, she was staring out to sea. I couldn’t see her expression, but her voice, when she eventually spoke, was soft – with hindsight, possibly regretful. ‘Cuba,’ she said. ‘You’d love Cuba.’

  I asked if she had ever been. She half turned towards me. ‘I always meant to take a holiday there. If you go, perhaps I’ll visit.’ Then she smiled. ‘But then I’ll visit you wherever you end up – if you want me to, of course.’