It was a wrench to leave that job in the summer of 1981, but I was looking forward to starting at Cambridge.
2. CULTIVATION
FRIDAY, 8 JUNE 1984
GONVILLE & CAIUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
A sweltering May week was drawing to a close and the rounds of drunken garden parties that undergraduates organised to celebrate the end of final exams were winding down. My engineering tutor had just told me at the Caius College garden party that the faculty had awarded me first class honours in my aeronautical engineering final exams. Too much Pimms and the evening sun slanting into Gonville court were making me drowsy as I returned to my rooms.
`Tomlinson?' an unfamiliar voice called from behind. `You're Tomlinson, aren't you?' I turned round to see Dr Christopher Pilchard, a tutor in law, leaning out of the open window of his ground-floor study. His face was familiar, but having never met him it was surprising that he knew my name. He was notorious in the college because of his ginger wig, the result of a bicycle accident many years earlier which had caused all his hair to fall out. Slightly tipsy, it was difficult to resist casually examining his hairline for signs of it as he spoke. `Tomlinson, have you thought about what you're going to do with yourself after you leave?'
`Yes, sir,' I replied cautiously, wondering why he should be interested.
`I'm joining the navy, the fleet air arm.'
Pilchard snorted dismissively, as if he didn't approve of the military. `Listen, Tomlinson, if you ever change your mind, but would like to try your hand at another form of government service, then let me know.' With that he ducked back into his study, taking care not to catch his wig on the lip of the window sash.
Continuing on to my rooms, it felt flattering to have been approached. For it had been a discreet invitation to join the British Secret Intelligence Service, more commonly referred to by its old wartime name, MI6. Every Oxford and Cambridge college and leading British university has a `talent spotter' like Pilchard, a don sympathetic to MI6 who looks out for suitable recruits. The majority of MI6 recruits come this way from the two most prestigious universities in Britain, though it is not foolproof - Philby, Maclean and Burgess were all recruited into MI6 the same way.
Pilchard's approach was flattering but, climbing the creaky wooden stairs to my digs at the top of D staircase, I decided not to pursue the offer - for the moment at least. Having read a few John Le Carr‚ novels, I reckoned the job seemed stuffy and desk-bound. Nor did I identify much with the other undergraduates whom Pilchard had approached - conservative, establishment arts students who spent most of their days lolling around drunk in the college bar. For them, getting a tap on the shoulder from Pilchard was a rite of passage, a sign that they had made their mark on college life. If that was the sort of person MI6 wanted then it wasn't the right career for me.
Inspired by the books I had read in my spare time at Cambridge, I wanted a career that offered travel and adventure: Wilfred Thesiger, the desert explorer who crossed the Arabian `empty quarter' when only in his early 20s; Sir Francis Chichester, who single-handedly circumnavigated the world by sail and almost by light aircraft; Antoine de St Exup‚ry, the French pioneer aviator whose semiautobiographical novel Vol de Nuit, set in pre-war Argentina, I had so greatly enjoyed; Captain Oates, a former member of the college, who selflessly sacrificed himself on Scott's 1914 Antarctic expedition and whose flag was displayed in the college dining-hall, reminding us of his exploits every evening. It seemed to me that the best way to lead an adventurous life like these role-models, and in a structured and secure career, was to join the armed services, and the navy appealed to me the most.
Pilchard's suggestion, however, was intriguing. Lying back on my narrow bed in the garret room, the evening light slanting in through the open window, I wondered what had marked me out amongst the other undergraduates. On matriculating in the university in 1981, I had been determined to do more than just study. My uncle in South Africa had been a member of the Cambridge University Air Squadron, a flying club sponsored by the Royal Air Force, and he enthused me to join up. The opportunity to learn to fly at the exacting standards of the RAF and even get paid a small stipend was an opportunity too good to miss. The Air Squadron became the focal point of my extracurricular and social activities at the university. We learned to fly in the Bulldog, a robust dual-seat training aircraft. My instructor, Flight Lieutenant Stan Witchall, then one of the oldest still-active officers in the RAF, had been a young Hurricane pilot in the Battle of Britain. Twice a week I bunked out of engineering lectures and cycled up to Marshall's airfield, seven kilometres from the centre of Cambridge, for flying lessons.
Scuba-diving was another activity which enthused me, inspired by the films of Jacques Cousteau. After I had qualified with the university club, Easter holidays were spent in Cornwall diving on the wrecks and reefs of the murky, cold Channel waters, then getting drunk in the evenings on the strong local brews of the old fishing and smuggling villages. It was nothing like the paradises portrayed in Cousteau's films, but was still exhilarating.
The summer holidays of 1982 were spent travelling around Europe on a rail-pass that allowed unlimited travel for a flat fee. My budget was tiny, so nights were spent sleeping on trains and the days sightseeing. Thousands of miles of slumber got me as far afield as Morocco and Turkey. The experience gave me the travel bug, enthusing me to go further afield.
The next year a vacation job in a local bakery yielded enough savings for a trip to the Far East. Two months were spent backpacking around Thailand and Malaysia on a shoestring budget. My return flight was with Aeroflot, the cheapest ticket available, and a brief refuelling stop was scheduled in Moscow. But it was the day after a Russian Air Force Mig 17 had shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 over the Sakhalin peninsula, killing all 269 persons aboard the Boeing 747. In reprisal, the Western powers had banned all Aeroflot flights from their airways shortly after my plane arrived at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport. Along with the other 200 passengers, I was stranded in Moscow for two days, waiting for a British Airways jet to arrive from London to pick us up. Aeroflot put us up in a cheap hotel near the airport, but refused to unload our hold luggage, leaving us with just hand-luggage and the clothes we'd been wearing on leaving sweltering Bangkok. But inappropriate attire wasn't going to spoil my unexpected opportunity to see Moscow. With an equally inappropriately dressed Australian whom I'd met on the plane, I tramped around in the freezing autumnal rain and fog in T-shirts and flip-flops, to the bemusement of the dour Muscovites.
It had been a busy three years as an undergraduate, and perhaps my industry and travel was one of the reasons for Pilchard's invitation. Several years later I learned that MI6 was lacking in officers with sufficient technical expertise to understand the increasingly scientific nature of its work and Pilchard, like the other university talent-spotters, had been briefed to look out for science graduates - which was probably another reason he approached me. His invitation was interesting, but I put it to the back of my mind as there were more pressing projects. In a fortnight's time, with five friends, I would be flying to the Philippines for a university-sponsored research expedition to investigate the effects of pollution on the fragile coral reefs of the Philippine archipelago. It was to be a real Cousteau experience, diving in crystal-clear tropical waters.
Three months later, back from the Far East, I made the long trip from Cumbria to the naval town of Portsmouth to take the AIB (Admiralty Interview Board), the entry test for a naval career. After sailing through the exams and practical tests, I assumed the medical exam, held the next day, would be straightforward. I was wrong. Examination of my medical records revealed that I had experienced a mild case of asthma when aged seven, and that was enough to fail me. A Surgeon Lieutenant Commander explained that the expense of training a naval pilot was too great to risk him redeveloping later in life a childhood illness that might jeopardise his operational effectiveness. My aspirations to join the navy were dashed and it was shattering news.
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bsp; Mooching around London a few days after the AIB, a poster in a Kensington underground station showing a girl wading up to her waist in a tropical swamp caught my eye. It was an advertisement for recruits to join Operation Raleigh, a youth adventure expedition, and it looked just the sort of challenge to get over the disappointment of my rejection. I sent off an application form, was accepted and a few months later was on my way to the Caribbean to join the expedition's square-rigged sailing brig, the Zebu, to learn the intricacies of crewing a square-rigger.
Back in the UK three months later, I still could not get enthusiastic about any particular career and so decided to go back to university. I applied for and won a Kennedy Memorial scholarship to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA - a fantastic prize, especially since the scholarship included transatlantic passage to New York on the QE2. I started at MIT in September 1985, but was in for a shock. Whereas life as an undergraduate at Cambridge had been carefree and easygoing, life as a graduate student at MIT was a lot of hard work. But sticking at the task was rewarded with a masters degree in the autumn of 1986. Shortly before the graduation ceremony, the Rotary Foundation wrote to me informing me that they had awarded me a further prize for a year of study in any country of my choice. My only problem was deciding where to go. Inspired by Argentine friends at MIT and their descriptions of Peronism, radicalism, hyper-inflation, military coups and the Malvinas question, I decided to use the prize to experience their country first hand. A few months later in January 1987, a Swissair flight took me to Buenos Aires International Airport.
Gripping my bag hard between my knees I braced myself for the inevitable impact. For the third time, the taxi-driver swerved the battered Renault 12, its worn tyres protesting, around the back of the belching Mercedes bus into the tiniest of gaps in the outer lane of the autopista. The journey from the airport to downtown Buenos Aires was proving an uncomfortable baptism. As we passed a huge blue-and-white billboard bearing the slogan `LAS MALVINAS SON ARGENTINAS' the beetle-browed driver, who had been glaring at me in the rearview mirror for several kilometres, took a long draw on his cigarette and flicked it out of the window into the darkness. `De donde es, usted?' he asked, suspiciously.
For a moment it occurred to me to lie. It was only a few years after the Falklands war and I was not sure how a British visitor would be received. But curious to see his reaction, I cautiously answered, `Soy Britannico.' He glanced in his mirror again, as if he hadn't heard. `Britannico ... Inglaterra,' I said, this time a bit louder.
He fixed me with his glare again and I wondered if my answer might have been undiplomatic. `Senora Thatcher,' he replied, his dark eyes flashing under his eyebrow, `She is good woman. I wish she come here - make better.' He gesticulated with a sweeping motion of his hand, and broke into a gold-toothed smile.
That was typical of the reaction of many Argentines during the coming year. The bitter memories of the Falklands war were fresh in their minds, but their antipathy was tempered by the long-standing cultural and commercial links with Britain.
That evening, after finding a room in a modest hotel, I met up for dinner with Schuyler, an American student of the same age who had also won a Rotary prize. He had majored in Latin American studies at Stanford and was amusing and laid-back. The next day we rented a flat together in central Buenos Aires.
The main objective of the Rotary prize was to get to know a different culture through travel and friendships, but we were also expected to follow a course of study. Schuyler and I enrolled in a postgraduate political science course, held in evening classes at the University of Buenos Aires. Our fellow students - senior military officers, left-wing journalists, aspiring politicians and a Peronista Catholic priest - were a microcosm of the powers in Argentine society. Democracy, under Raul Alfons¡n's Radical party, was still in fragile infancy after years of tyrannical rule by the discredited military junta. As representatives of the imperialist `Yanquis' and `Britannicos', the other students spared us no quarter in the spirited and occasionally fierce classroom debates. Schuyler was soon embroiled in political activity, attending rallies, demonstrations and student meetings. When Alfons¡n's government nearly fell to a military coup on Easter Sunday, 1987, we went together to the Casa Rosada to see the passionate Argentine crowds rallying to support democracy.
But most days, I left Schuyler to his own activities. I wanted to start flying again and one of the Air Force officers in my class put me in touch with an instructor, Rodolfo Sieger, who operated out of San Fernando airfield, a couple of hours by `Colectivo' bus from central Buenos Aires. A German immigrant, Sieger fought in the Luftwaffe during the Second World War, flying Messerschmitt Me109s in the Battle of Britain. After the war, his own family wiped out in the Dresden fireball, he emigrated to Argentina, becoming a civilian pilot, and retired as a senior pilot in Aerolineas Argentinas. Needing to supplement his pension, he bought a 1930s vintage Luscombe Silvaire, a sort of aerial Citroen 2CV, and set up as a flying instructor. It was not the safest machine in which to take the Argentine pilot's licence exam, but it was cheap to hire and it was appealing to learn from a man who may have been one of Flight Lieutenant Witchall's aerial adversaries.
Over the next few weeks, preparing for my practical tests and theory exams, I learned of another aspect of Rodolfo's business. At the time there were very heavy duties on consumer electronics in Argentina, whereas in Paraguay, only a few hundred kilometres away, there were none. There were therefore incentives to smuggle in such goods, though the Argentine customs service naturally did their best to combat this trade. Once a week, Rodolfo flew over the River Plate to a grass airstrip in Paraguay and loaded up the Luscombe with video recorders and televisions. The underpowered aircraft barely staggered into the air and Rodolfo flew back in the dark of night, skimming the waves to avoid detection by Argentine naval radar.
One day we flew out to Mendoza, in the foothills of the Andes. Rodolfo had tracked down a much-needed and rare spare part for the old aeroplane just over the border in Chile and asked me to collect it. The tiny Luscombe was not powerful enough to fly over the Andes, so this stage of the journey would have to be done by bus.
On arrival at the isolated border crossing, nestling in the shadow of Aconcagua, it dawned on me that I had a problem. My New Zealand passport was best for travelling in and out of Argentina as, unlike the British passport, it required no visa. In Chile, however, the British passport was more convenient because, unlike New Zealanders, Brits needed no visa. Rushing to pack for the trip, I had grabbed just my British passport.
The two surly Argentine border police who boarded the bus at the checkpoint might not overlook it, however. Realising that my New Zealand passport with its Argentine entry stamps was in my bedside locker in Buenos Aires, there was no option but to bluff my way over the border. I claimed that my New Zealand passport had been stolen and I was going to Santiago, the only New Zealand embassy in the southern cone, to get a replacement. The elder of the two guards believed my story, but the younger got suspicious and ordered me off the bus to search me. He soon found my unstamped British passport in my rucksack and arrested me on suspicion of having entered the country illegally.
They took me back to Mendoza police station, strip-searched me and dumped me in a dirty cell furnished with a damp mattress and a bucket. After a couple of boring hours they escorted me to an office where two scowling officers sat behind a steel desk. To my bafflement, they were suspicious that I was a spy and interrogated me. Details of my activities, my address, my friends were earnestly noted in little black books. After an hour, their questions seemed absurd. `What is the name of your dog?' one asked.
`Jesse,' I replied, barely containing my exasperation.
They held me overnight in the dirty cell and in the morning a colonel from the Argentine air force came out from Buenos Aires to interrogate me again. `What is the name of your dog?' he asked menacingly.
`I told the other bloke that last night,' I replied innocently, wonderi
ng why our lakeland terrier puppy was such a threat to Argentine Skyhawks. It later dawned on me that he was testing my cover. If I really was an innocent exchange student, it would be easy to remember inconsequential details like my dog's name. But if I was a spy under cover, spontaneously and correctly answering trivial questions from one day to the next would be harder. The lesson was useful when I did become a spy.
They released me later that day, though not without first making me play an impromptu game of rugby. They reasoned that any genuine New Zealander would be an excellent wing-forward, and my protests to the contrary fell on deaf ears. Mendoza is one of the main rugby-playing provinces of Argentina and some of their players were very good. They made me suffer and on returning to Buenos Aires the following day, my right eye was badly blackened. `So you met some of my Gestapo friends,' Rodolfo laughed. I wasn't sure whether he was joking.
A few weeks later, a Swiss diplomat friend invited me to a barbecue at the Swiss embassy. Britain and Argentina still had not reestablished diplomatic links after the Falklands war, so British interests were looked after by a few British diplomats working inside the Swiss embassy. My Swiss friend introduced me to one of them, a tall, gangly fellow a few years older than myself, who was a second secretary. He was fascinated to hear about my flying and asked eagerly about the range and load-carrying ability of the Luscombe. He seemed a bit disappointed when he learned that it struggled to carry more than a television and a video recorder.
The Big Breach Page 2
