The Factory

by Brian Freemantle

  Davies realized apprehensively that this was the severest challenge with which he’d so far been confronted. Clearly the Russians knew the photographs to be of British intelligence officers. And the likelihood was that although they were presented to him namelessly the Russians also knew all the names and were asking him for the identities as yet another trial of his intention to cooperate absolutely. It was one he had never anticipated.

  Davies went through the pile apparently with great care, in reality using the time desperately to think of what to do. He decided it was obvious that the Russians would already know the embassy personnel here in Moscow and so he picked them out and added names, one by one. Bell and Thurlow were two he had already provided and so he picked out those, too. Which left the five attached to London headquarters, all of whom he knew. But only one of whom, Peter Whitehead, he had so far offered during the debriefing because he knew Whitehead had been seized during an operation in Latvia and that he was disclosing nothing by naming the man. Protracting his supposed examination as long as he dared, Davies agonized over what to do. He couldn’t point a finger at any more. But if he didn’t and the Russians knew they had been his colleagues at the Factory then he exposed himself: ruined an operation that had taken more than a year to set up to get himself deep within the very heart of Soviet intelligence.

  ‘I don’t think I know anybody else,’ he said.

  There was a long silence from Oleg. ‘Sure?’ the man pressed.

  The suspicion was obvious: maybe the man did know, already! Shaking his head uncertainly, Davies said: ‘You must understand that in England we operate the traditional intelligence system, with everything compartmented. You can work in a building with people but never come into contact with them: never know their names. This man for instance …’ Davies picked up the photograph of George Fowler, who had occupied the office next to him at the Factory and whom he knew well, on occasions even going to dinner at the man’s home. ‘… he looks familiar. But I’m not sure. Certainly I don’t have a name. I only want to provide what I know to be absolutely accurate, as I always have.’

  Oleg put Fowler’s photograph separate from the others who had been positively identified and said: ‘Any more who look familiar?’

  Oleg was going to keep on and on, Davies thought: on and on until he was forced to make a decision between himself and men and women who’d been trusted friends. People upon whom at least twice his life had depended. Could he, whatever the importance of his own mission, risk their lives? Anthony Marshall! The man’s image stared up at him from one of the prints, and Davies remembered how the man had been killed, on an assignment no one at the Factory had ever truly understood. He jabbed his finger down. ‘Him, I think! Yes, I’m practically certain. But he left the department. I never knew where: upon assignment, I suppose.’

  ‘Again, no name?’

  Davies shook his head, deciding that having denied knowing the man for so long it would be a mistake suddenly to appear to remember. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Oleg heavily. ‘So am I.’

  ‘So where are the discrepancies?’ demanded Viktor Lezin. The First Chief Directorate official was a plump, fussy man who had been showing increasing impatience over the time Oleg had taken clearing the Englishman.

  ‘Only with the photographs,’ conceded Oleg. ‘According to our KGB people at the London embassy, who have been trying to identify agents with whom Davies worked in London, there were five he should have picked out. One of the two he was positive about is dead, the other under our arrest, in Latvia. He was vague about a third, insisting he didn’t know a name, and ignored the other two completely.’

  ‘What about the compartmenting he talked about?’ picked up Lezin. The dacha debriefings were all recorded and Lezin had studied the transcripts.

  ‘It’s an explanation, I suppose,’ said Oleg doubtfully.

  ‘An acceptable one, I would have thought, put against all the material he’s provided us with in the past,’ said Lezin.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Yours is the decision,’ said Lezin forcefully. ‘Having considered all the evidence is there sufficient cause to prevent our accepting him?’

  Oleg allowed one of his familiar pauses, although for a different reason this time. Finally he conceded: ‘No, there is not.’

  ‘Excellent!’ said Lezin enthusiastically.

  ‘I have a suggestion, though.’

  In Paris, Bell and Ann stayed at the George V hotel and tried to forget all about the problems of the London headquarters. They strolled along the banks of the Seine and he bought her a flower, a rose, and on the first evening they ate on a bateau-mouche, one of the glass-topped boats that at night cruise romantically up and down the floodlighted river. They drove out to the palace at Versailles and on another day took an open carriage ride through the forests of the huge Bois de Boulogne.

  Bell drank, of course. The first night was all right, although he was quite drunk at its end, but on the second, at dinner, he clumsily spilled a wineglass and there was a brief moment of embarrassment. On the third there was an unnecessary argument with a taxi driver whom he accused of overcharging, which the man had, but not sufficient to justify the row.

  At lunch the following day, Ann said: ‘I know it’s difficult for you to love me, as much as I love you. Maybe it’s the hurt of a failed marriage …’ She raised her hand, stopping the denying protest he moved to make. ‘… I accept that. But there’s something you could do, my darling, to prove that you love me a little. Care, at least.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Stop drinking so much. You’re destroying yourself, Sam. You’re probably one of the best Directors General the department has ever had and you’re risking it all … everything … through this damned whisky …’

  Not all through whisky, Bell thought: the department was being put at risk by something far more dangerous than that. He said: ‘I’ll try,’ and meant it.

  Oleg was noncommittal about his being moved, telling Davies that they just felt it was time for a move from the dacha down into the city but refusing outright to say whether it meant Davies had been accepted. Which, in fact, he hadn’t, not completely. Lezin had agreed to the compromise, but reluctantly and upon a strictly imposed time limit.

  ‘What about the debriefing?’ persisted Davies.

  ‘I think we’ve finished with that, for the time being,’ said the Russian, noncommittal still.

  ‘So what am I to do?’

  ‘Settle in,’ said Oleg vaguely. ‘Improve your Russian: we will make arrangements for you to have a teacher.’

  That surely indicated some sort of acceptance, thought Davies: why then was the other man behaving so awkwardly?

  Davies was taken to an apartment on Ploschchad Street, a conversion of a once imposing mansion. There was just one living room, one bedroom, a very small bathroom and a minute kitchen, curtained off from the living area. All the furnishings appeared old.

  ‘Is this where I am to live?’ asked Davies.

  ‘Maybe,’ shrugged Oleg.

  ‘How will I know about the language classes?’

  ‘You’ll be collected. Ten tomorrow morning.’

  Davies’ Russian was already of a high standard because there had been instruction before he left London, so he found no difficulty with the classes. Very quickly he started anticipating them eagerly, however, because they became his only effective contact with another human being although his teacher, a stiffly correct, elderly woman named Borishev, offered no friendship.

  Otherwise he was achingly lonely. Which was something else he hadn’t anticipated. He had expected constantly to be with people, interrogators and debriefers and then, hopefully, with other intelligence professionals, although Russian not British. But not to be abandoned like this. The first few days he had been unsure if he were expected to remain inside the apartment and so he had, cooking for himself, but then, as an experiment, he ventured out one evening and there was no challeng
e. He still kept close to the Ploshchad building on that first occasion but gradually began extending the outings, seeking out restaurants and cafés although always remaining careful to avoid not just the places but the entire districts he knew to be favourites of people from the British embassy, who would have recognized him.

  And then, at the end of the third week, Davies picked up the surveillance and realized, with sinking relief, how wise he’d been in that avoidance. He hadn’t been abandoned and he hadn’t been accepted. The move into Moscow and leaving him entirely alone was yet another test to see if he were a sincere defector or whether he would attempt some surreptitious prearranged contact with someone from his own embassy.

  At once Davies’ loneliness went because it meant he was working again, professionally. He continued his evening and weekend outings – but never going near the favoured Western places – and diligently studied his Russian, curious as to how long the Russians would sustain the now wasted exercise.

  It was a month.

  On a Tuesday, quite unexpectedly, Oleg appeared instead of the driver taking him to the language course and announced: ‘No more school.’

  Davies thought the man seemed more irascible than during their encounters at the dacha. He said: ‘What then?’

  Oleg’s hesitation this time seemed more reluctance than an interrogation ploy. ‘You are to see people in our intelligence,’ the man said at last.

  Davies was attached to Viktor Lezin’s secretariat, which was where he wanted to be because it was through this department that the raw, incoming intelligence was channelled, particularly from England. He settled in carefully, polite to everybody, deferring to every instruction, in no hurry to start his true, infiltrating function until he was completely accepted by everyone.

  He started to forget the debriefing sessions at the dacha and so when the order came, personally from Lezin, Davies was surprised.

  ‘A press conference?’ he queried.

  ‘I have decided it would be worthwhile,’ said the plump man. ‘It will be unsettling for them to remind the British of how much they have lost. Of the damage they have suffered.’

  And shatter his parents anew, thought Davies. There was, however, an advantage, although he did not feel that it in any way balanced the hurt to his mother and father.

  The KGB maximized the effect of his appearing before the world media, announcing it in advance and staging the encounter in a vast hall close to the Kremlin. He tried to look as smart as he could although the one suit he possessed had begun to bag from constant wear: at least the university tie remained crisp. The Russians imposed no time limit and the press conference went on for a very long time, which Davies found a strain. Towards the end it became increasingly hostile, too. Davies insisted that Britain and America were aggressors to Moscow’s peace efforts. He said he despised the intelligence efforts of both countries and would do his best, having defected to Russia, to reverse their efforts. He insisted he had no regrets, although he was sorry for the hurt he might have caused his family. Replying to a persistent British questioner, Davies said he had already and would continue to cooperate in every way with the Russians and when the same man asked if that meant he was disclosing information about his previous intelligence career, said the man could construe his earlier reply however he wished.

  Decided that it was the moment to introduce what he wanted, Davies said: ‘For the rest of my life I wish to work to achieve peace.’

  The Director General watched the television transmission in full in his office at the Factory, with Jeremy Thurlow.

  ‘The swine!’ erupted the deputy. ‘How can a man do a thing like that!’

  ‘Not easily,’ said Bell, more to himself than to Thurlow. That concluding phrase, about Davies working to achieve peace, was the code the two of them had arranged for Davies to convey the confirmation that he had been accepted in some capacity within the KGB. Despite his promise to Ann, Bell poured himself a whisky from the desk bottle – but in celebration, not need. Now they were equal, he decided. The KGB has someone in his department and he had someone in theirs. And through Davies the Director General was determined to find out who his mole was.

  6

  The Disgrace

  Robert Dixon’s had been a brilliant career. Brought up by a widowed mother, he’d left school as soon as he was able, when he was still under sixteen, to support the two of them on a railway clerk’s wage. He joined a trade union because everyone did. And through the trade union became interested in politics. He was, of course, a socialist. It was local politics at first, the youngest town councillor at the age of nineteen, with no thoughts of anything higher. It soon became evident that he would go higher, however. He emerged as a skilful orator and debater, able to out-argue any opposition, which brought him to the quick notice of the local party officials. He was a superb organizer, instinctively knowing the secret of delegating responsibility, and within two years took from conservative to labour supremacy his party’s control of the council. And he was universally liked, even by political opponents whom he defeated in public arguments. His selection as parliamentary socialist candidate in a general election seemed practically automatic when it happened, although it was recognized as a safe Conservative constituency, with no chance at all of Dixon winning. He did though, overwhelmingly, as did the socialist party of the country as a whole to take over the government of Britain for the first time in ten years. The career – and the fame – of Robert Dixon had begun to take off.

  He became a junior Trade Minister within a year. Through his organizational ability – largely in private – and his debating ability in the House of Commons, he rose to become minister for the entire department. Throughout he earned ever-increasing and widespread support among his colleagues: six months before the next government election he was unanimously elected party leader. And won the election for the second time with the largest margin of votes in its history.

  Dixon appeared to grow in stature and reputation as Prime Minister. Always, as he had at local level, he delegated, awarding someone a job or a position and then letting them get on with it without interference. It enabled him to devote himself to the big occasions, which meant dominating the world stage. As a socialist he was regarded warmly by Moscow and quickly became a conduit and sometimes a mediator between Russia and the United States. He became recognized as the leading statesman within the European Economic Community. He committed himself to achieving a lasting peace agreement between Arabs and Jews, and succeeded. It was Robert Dixon who hosted the international conference at which all countries of the world – including Latin America – finally agreed strict environmental rules to control and hopefully diminish the heating up of the global atmosphere to cause the Greenhouse Effect. Although he failed to win the Nobel Peace Prize, it was confidently expected that it would be awarded on a subsequent nomination.

  So when the scandals broke, one after the other, they caused an international sensation.

  The insider-trading revelation was the first. The exposé in one of Britain’s most prestigious and respected Sunday newspapers was minutely detailed and supported by a variety of documents and photographs. The most damning was a photocopy of a letter signed by Dixon and written from the address of his privately owned home in Buckinghamshire. It was to a bank, asking them in turn to arrange on his behalf for a firm of City stockbrokers to buy on the London and New York stock exchanges at £2 each ten thousand shares of an internationally quoted company three days before a new Rights issue. The £2 shares jumped to £5.50 a share, giving Dixon a profit of £35,000. The newspaper story reminded its readers that Dixon had begun his political life in the Trade Ministry, that the ministry was aware in advance of the new capital-raising shares issue and that two of the directors of the company were friends of Dixon.

  There were denials from Dixon that he’d made the purchase application and from the two directors that they’d ever discussed the matter with the Prime Minister, but the evidence was crushing. Dixon
called a press conference the day after the story’s appearance to repeat his denials, and the two friendly directors issued separate denials. None was believed.

  Certainly not after the following weekend. The Sunday newspaper which had made the first revelation devoted practically its entire front page to Robert Dixon’s secret, numbered Swiss bank account in Zurich, this time with photostats of a statement showing a credit balance of £750,000 and another of a letter requesting the opening of the account signed in Dixon’s recognizable signature. An additional withdrawal insistence was that the bank teller recognize Dixon from a supplied photograph, which was reproduced in the newspaper. It was of Robert Dixon.

  On the Monday, Samuel Bell summoned John Walker to his top-floor office at the Factory.

  ‘What do you think?’ demanded Bell. He’d gone without a drink all of the previous night and was proud of himself, although he had a bad headache.

  ‘I think our much-admired Prime Minister and international statesman is a crook who’s been caught out,’ judged Walker at once. He was a dark-haired, saturnine cynic of a man: denied confirming evidence, he always thought the worst rather than the best of anyone.

  ‘Don’t you think that’s what you’re expected to do?’

  ‘A plot, you mean?’

  ‘Isn’t it all a bit too neat and convincing?’ suggested Bell. ‘Let’s take a look. He’s either a crook. Or the victim of some foreign intelligence service. Let’s find out which.’

  ‘The civilian police will be investigating,’ insisted Walker.

  ‘Don’t get in their way,’ said the Director General. ‘And do better than they do.’ Often he was more cynical than Walker.

  ‘I don’t know anything about it! Nothing at all!’ insisted Dixon. They were in the first-floor study at Downing Street, the Prime Minister’s official residence. Dixon was baggy-eyed from tiredness and worry and was carelessly shaved, a razor-nick red against his cheek. The suit was neat and he wore a fresh shirt but he slumped in his seat, creasing everything.