The Factory

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘What!’ exclaimed Thurlow, astonished.

  ‘I’m going to uncover whoever it is,’ vowed Bell. ‘And Deedes isn’t the only trap I’ve set. I hope there’s another source, although I can’t be absolutely sure.’

  The man upon whom the Director General still attached a slender hope was William Davies. The problem was that from the moment of his supposed defection to Moscow and being paraded by the Soviets on world TV there had been no contact at all from the man with London.

  William Davies had succeeded in everything the Director General had asked of him, but he was aware he wasn’t safe. He’d convinced the KGB that his defection was genuine and was actually employed as an assessor of intelligence relayed from England, but the Russian who had debriefed him and whom he still knew only as Oleg was not completely satisfied. Davies had twice identified the man following him around Moscow, and also suspected that his government-awarded apartment was bugged. Which was why he’d made no effort whatsoever to get any message back to London. He had a lot to tell them, although not the one thing he had been infiltrated to learn. Davies believed he saw most of the material coming in from England but never once had he come across any indication of who the traitor was back there in the Factory. The only conclusion had to be that whoever it was communicated through a different channel: the diplomatic bag, for instance. So it was pointless to remain in Moscow any longer. Soon he’d have to think of a way to get back.

  They had taken away all his clothes and given him a prison uniform which was thin cotton and stank of the person who’d worn it before. There was no heating in his cell at the Butyrki prison and Deedes was numbed by cold, unable to stop shivering. He hoped it would stop when he was questioned, otherwise it would look as if he were frightened. He was trying very hard not to be frightened.

  It was the following day before he was summoned. He was taken to a room on the same level as his cell. There was just a table and a chair, upon which his interrogator sat. Deedes had to stand. It was bitterly cold and he continued shivering.

  ‘You are a spy,’ accused the man at once. He wore a heavy topcoat. He was fat and red-faced, as if he suffered from high blood pressure.

  ‘I am a visiting British diplomat auditing the embassy purchasing accounts,’ said Deedes, presenting the cover story that had been created for his visa application. ‘My arrest is an outrage. I demand to be allowed to contact my embassy.’

  The interrogator sighed, unimpressed. He said: ‘You are employed in an overseas division of British intelligence. Your Director General is named Samuel Bell. You are twenty-eight years old, a graduate of Oxford University and currently unmarried …’ The man stopped and smiled, an abrupt on-off expression. ‘We know a great deal more about you but there’s no purpose in telling you about yourself, is there? We want to know why you came to Moscow.’

  The knowledge could only have come from within the Factory, from whoever their informant was, Deedes realized. He said: ‘I have told you the reason for my visit here.’

  ‘I can break you,’ said the man conversationally. ‘I can reduce you, mentally, to the level of an animal: make you crawl to me, on your belly, pleading to tell me everything I want to know. But don’t waste my time, having to do that. Tell me what I want to know.’

  Deedes’ shivering was not only caused by the cold now. He said: ‘I demand to be released!’

  ‘Do you know of aminazin?’ said the man.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s one of the drugs we use,’ the interrogator explained. ‘It completely destroys the mind, eventually. There’s no recovery: a person becomes a vegetable. Are you prepared to become a vegetable, Mr Deedes?’

  ‘I have nothing to tell you,’ insisted Deedes.

  ‘Or maybe I’ll simply deprive you of sleep. That’s remarkably effective. Forty-eight hours is normally sufficient. There is often permanent psychiatric damage but I am not concerned with that.’

  Deedes remained silent. He thought of Elizabeth, who he wanted to marry, and of his parents, who were so proud of him. Could he expect them to care for him if he were eventually repatriated, mentally crippled? It wouldn’t be fair: certainly not to burden Elizabeth.

  ‘What’s it to be?’ demanded the man brightly. ‘Cooperation? Or stupidity.’

  ‘I have nothing to tell you,’ repeated Deedes.

  The Russian gave another of his theatrical sighs. ‘So it’s stupidity,’ he said.

  They deprived him of sleep.

  He was returned to a different, windowless cell, where there was no cot, and made to lean forward against the wall supported by his outstretched fingertips. A blindingly bright light was recessed into the ceiling, behind thick glass. When the guards left, Deedes attempted to sit, with his back against the damp-slimed wall. But they saw him through the peep-hole in the door and came back in and made him stand again. And kept on doing so, every time he slumped down. When, eventually, his legs collapsed through sheer exhaustion, they came in with a hose and drenched him with freezing water which soaked his clothes so he became colder still and was convulsed with shivering. Deedes lost any estimation of time. He began to hallucinate. Once he imagined that Elizabeth was in the cell with him and began a slurred conversation with her. On another occasion he found himself singing. He lost count of the times he fell down and had the hose turned on him until he stood. Finally the guards let him lie where he was but stayed permanently in the cell then, a changing procession of them, shaking and prodding him awake every time he closed his eyes.

  Guards had to walk either side, supporting him, when he was taken back to the interrogation room, and he was so disoriented that he watched the man’s lips moving but couldn’t hear the words. He strained to concentrate, to listen.

  ‘Why are you in Moscow?’ said the man.

  ‘Nothing to say,’ mumbled Deedes.

  ‘You foolish man.’

  How long would Deedes hold out, wondered the Director General. He was a strong man, very fit, and there was extensive training at the spy schools on resisting interrogation. It had been a week since the message from Pugh reporting the seizure: every day he’d watched and listened at the Factory, for the panic he hoped would tell him there’d been a warning from Moscow to the traitor, but there’d been nothing.

  ‘You’re quiet.’

  Bell looked across the restaurant table at Ann. He said: ‘I’m sorry. I was thinking.’

  ‘About Deedes?’ Like everyone else at the Factory his personal assistant knew about the seizure but not why the man had been sacrificed.

  ‘Yes,’ said Bell.

  ‘They’ll have to let him go, eventually, won’t they?’ she said. ‘He wasn’t carrying anything incriminating, was he?’

  ‘I hope not,’ said Bell.

  ‘Why did you send him to Moscow?’

  ‘He was going to pick something up,’ said the Director General, continuing the lie. Until he’d uncovered the spy in the department he couldn’t even trust Ann.

  The prick of the needle going into his arm woke Deedes, who realized at once why they’d let him sleep, to make the injection possible. He struggled, trying to get his arm away from the hypodermic, but they’d bound him while he slept and he couldn’t prevent it: whatever the drug was it burned as it was pumped into him.

  He felt it start to take effect as he was marched to the interview room. The burning sensation worsened, as if his flesh were being exposed to great heat, and he felt a roaring in his ears, making them ache. Then a strange optical illusion began. Objects like cell doors and windows and light bulbs grew hugely in his vision but then, just as abruptly, receded to become very small before growing again, crowding in upon him. Deedes cried out in fear and had the impression of falling, which he would have done if he had not snatched out, grabbing the arm of one of his escorts for support.

  By the time he was confronted by the interrogator the sensation of falling had increased and he stood with his hands half raised in front of him, to protect himself when he hit the g
round. Oddly, he didn’t fall after all.

  ‘You’re a spy, aren’t you?’ said the man at once. It had been the beginning of every exchange between them.

  ‘No,’ slurred Deedes. He had to admit nothing, concede nothing.

  ‘Why did you come to Moscow?’

  ‘I came to …’ started Deedes, to repeat his cover story, but the table and the questioner behind it suddenly grew grotesquely, to monstrous size, and he couldn’t remember what the cover story was any more.

  ‘What was your mission?’

  Pain. He needed physical pain to force his concentration, Deedes decided. He couldn’t think of what to do and then caught the inside of his lip between his teeth and bit, hard.

  ‘Tell me what your assignment was.’

  Deedes tasted the salt of his own blood but there wasn’t the pain there should have been and he couldn’t block the man’s words out of his mind.

  ‘You came to spy, didn’t you?’

  ‘Not a spy.’

  ‘Your headquarters is known as the Factory, isn’t it?’

  ‘Don’t know any factory.’

  ‘Your deputy director is named Thurlow, isn’t he?’

  Deedes’ teeth met through his lip, which was completely numbed and didn’t hurt at all any more. He shifted the pressure to another part, biting again.

  ‘Were you to meet somebody here? Was that it?’

  ‘Came to the embassy …’ managed Deedes, but couldn’t complete the sentence.

  ‘Why did you come to the embassy?’

  ‘Needed to.’

  ‘Did Bell, your Director General, brief you personally?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  The interrogator shifted impatiently, looking behind Deedes. To one of the escorting guards he said: ‘How much was he given?’

  ‘The maximum dose,’ said the guard.

  ‘It’s not working.’

  Beating them, thought Deedes in a brief moment of lucidity. He was beating them. His body felt as if he were on fire and his ears hurt badly from the roaring noise and he wondered how it was being made to happen.

  ‘Listen to me,’ ordered the interrogator. ‘Why were you in Moscow?’

  ‘Meet,’ said Deedes. Had he said that? Had to stop. Had to … His mind wouldn’t hold the thought and he couldn’t think of what he had or had not to do.

  ‘Yes,’ said the man eagerly. ‘Who were you going to meet?’

  ‘No one.’ That was better. Admit nothing, say nothing.

  ‘Yes you were. You were going to meet someone. Who were you going to meet? Tell me a name.’

  ‘Don’t know.’ Careful: shouldn’t have said that.

  ‘You didn’t know the person you were going to meet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How was it to happen?’

  ‘Walking.’

  ‘Walking by St Basil’s Cathedral?’

  ‘Don’t …’ Deedes tried to shake his head but felt immediately dizzy, so he stopped.

  ‘Tell me where you had to walk?’

  ‘Cathedral.’ No harm. They’d known he was there: that’s where they’d picked him up.

  ‘You had to walk to the cathedral: that’s where you were going to meet?’

  ‘Yes.’ No! He shouldn’t have said that. Stupid. He had to stop conceding things. If only he hadn’t felt so hot: if his head hadn’t hurt so much. Couldn’t think straight. Why was the man so big? Huge. Coming at him, hugely.

  ‘Who was it, this person you had to meet?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘But they knew you?’ guessed the questioner.

  ‘Yes.’ What had he said? Deedes knew he’d spoken but couldn’t remember what it was the moment the words were out.

  ‘What were they going to give you?’

  ‘Name.’ He was going to fall over: he knew he was! Deedes cried out and put his hands further out in front of him.

  ‘What name?’ said the man. ‘The name of a person or a place?’

  ‘Person.’ Couldn’t cause any harm: didn’t know the name anyway.

  ‘Was it an important name?’

  ‘Course it was.’ Silly question, Deedes thought.

  ‘Why? What was important about the name?’

  ‘Traitor.’ He felt exhausted and wanted to sleep again.

  ‘A British traitor.’

  Deedes nodded, too tired to speak.

  ‘You were going to get the name of a British traitor?’

  Deedes nodded again, agreeing. ‘Need to sleep.’

  ‘You can go to sleep soon now,’ promised the questioner. ‘Just tell me where this British traitor is.’

  ‘At Factory.’

  ‘Your Factory? Your headquarters building?’

  ‘Yes.’ Deedes closed his eyes and kept them shut, to stop the man growing and shrinking in his vision, but at once felt sick so he jerked them open again. He couldn’t remember what he’d said.

  ‘Is he known, this traitor?’

  ‘Director knows. Wanted confirmation.’ Abruptly Deedes thought it was funny and laughed. ‘Won’t get it, not now.’

  William Davies had been right in surmising that the spy within the Factory bypassed the department in which he had been placed by using the diplomatic bag from the London embassy. But because they believed their informant had been discovered and the emergency justified it, the KGB used the department to send the warning message. And Davies saw it. But there was no positive identification. It said: ‘Warn the Charles is blown.’

  He planned to get back to London that night. He set out on foot and by a very circuitous route to disguise his destination as the British embassy, from which he could communicate with Samuel Bell at the Factory before being repatriated under embassy guard protection. He moved constantly alert for any surveillance, particularly from the distrustful Oleg who he had detected following him on other occasions. It became impossible to conceal where he was heading at the very end, however, when he was crossing the river, so he began to hurry, although he was fairly confident he was not under observation. He was about fifty yards from the embassy gates and safety when he heard the acceleration of a car and turned, seeing the vehicle. It was still a fair distance away but Davies could see Oleg at the wheel and another man behind.

  Davies ran. He fled arms pumping and head thrown back, those embassy gates tantalizingly too far away, the car screaming in pursuit easily gaining on him. He snatched a look behind, seeing Oleg’s passenger leaning out of the window with something in his hand, and heard the crack of the shot, but the bullet missed. The second shot didn’t. Davies was actually through the gates and in the forecourt when he felt a crushing blow in the back and then the numbness as his spine was shattered.

  Andy Pugh was one of the first to reach him. Davies gasped: ‘Charles. Say Charles,’ and died.

  ‘What did he say?’ demanded one of the embassy guards.

  ‘Nothing that made sense,’ said Pugh.

  11

  The Listening Post

  Richard Axton was one of the particular specialists at the Factory. He was a small man, with a hedge of hair around the edge of a completely bald head and vague eyes which conveyed the impression that he was thinking about something else during a conversation, which he frequently was. His predominant training had been in higher mathematics although he did not follow the art like the financial experts in the department: in fact money and finance often confused him and brought sharp letters from his bank manager. He also held a First-Class Honours degree in electronic theory and engineering. He did word puzzles and arithmetic riddles, the most difficult he could find, and played chess at a club which was on his way home to his bachelor apartment in the Hampstead district of London. Axton was a man of few regrets but one of them was that the security needs of the Factory made it impossible for him ever to attend the Grand Master tournaments in which the great Russian exponents played. He read their books, though, and followed the competition moves when they were reproduced in newspapers. There were occ
asions when Axton felt his standard sufficient to have confronted them: and others when he dismissed the ambition as a daydream.

  There was a consolation during those daydreams that he was daily confronting Russians in another sort of competition: maybe even unknowingly opposing some of the chess masters themselves because it was rumoured that they were sometimes used by the KGB to do what Axton did.

  Axton broke and read Soviet codes. Or at least attempted to. And created those for British intelligence that would hopefully be unreadable by Russian experts, although he accepted, objectively, that codes rarely remained unbroken for long. For that reason he had introduced at the Factory a system of operating codes only for a limited time, usually a month. At the end of every month all the code keys were changed, whether or not they were suspected of having been broken. If they had been, it greatly reduced the damage. If they hadn’t, it meant the Eastern bloc codebreakers had wasted their time for four weeks and had to start all over again on a different cipher. It had actually provided Axton with the intelligence that some of his codes had been broken: over the course of time he’d realized that Russia and Poland, for instance, had copied him and were switching their transmission code every month, as well.

  Ironically the incredible advances in computer and space technology had been of mixed benefit to the code senders. Messages, having been encoded, can be recorded on electronic tape and sent at speeds of a fraction of a second, inaudible to the human ear: the procedure is called spurt transmission. However, permanently space-based satellites of both sides can hear well enough and, having recorded the split-second babble of a spurt transmission, break it down to an intelligible speed and set out the puzzle for the code-breaker. Modern telephones no longer operate by underground cable but by above-ground radio and electronic frequencies. And those frequencies are more easy to tap, again by satellite, than the underground cables ever were.

  People rarely talk in code for any prolonged period, so telephone eavesdropping produces what is technically referred to as conversation in clear, which simply means the normal spoken word. Britain, with the United States as its most active partner although there is cooperation with other European countries, listens by satellite to all telephone conversation between government ministries in East European capitals and certainly to every known intelligence wavelength. The potential daily result would be literally tons of printed paper, far too much to be read before the arrival of another daily batch. So computers are used. The eavesdropped conversations are played at the speed of spurt transmission through computers programmed to react to fed-in trigger words and print out an actual transcript. The theory is that a conversation between an intelligence officer and his wife about that day’s shopping list is ignored. If the man uses a phrase like Warsaw Pact or secret or classified, the computer print-out is activated.