Shadow of Shadows

by Ted Allbeury

‘How do you know? How can you be sure?’

  ‘Just give Moscow the message. I cant stop.’

  It was dawn when he let himself into the flat in Platanen Allee.

  12

  BERLIN

  Alwyn Bowden peered over the top of his heavy-rimmed glasses, his bushy eyebrows raised in judicial enquiry.

  ‘You realize that there’s no come-back, George, if you refuse. You’re doing a good job and we’re quite happy to let you carry on doing it. But you’ve got exceptional qualifications for extending your usefulness. It’s up to you entirely.’ George Blake looked back at him, his willingness, his enthusiasm, written on his face.

  ‘I’ll take it on, Mr Bowden, if that’s what you want.’

  ‘You realize that you will be running considerably more risk than you are at the moment. There’s your family to consider. I want you to take a couple of days to think it over. Don’t be over-keen, or over-persuaded by me.’

  Bowden stood up, pushing his glasses back up his nose. A habit that had been much mimed in the days when he had taught at Eton before he was drawn into MI6’s operations.

  ‘You did well with Kretski, George.’ Bowden smiled. ‘Our friends in East Berlin are going to be very peeved when they realize we’ve got him in the bag.’

  ‘He didn’t put up much resistance. But he’s worried about his wife in Moscow.’

  ‘Yes, of course he is, they’ll take it out on her. What have you got in mind?’

  ‘I thought we might suggest a deal. He co-operates fully. Names, addresses, safe-houses, drops, and we let him loose. He’s pretty harmless, and he’s talked.’

  ‘Could be. Sound him out. No commitments but dangle it around a bit. See if he takes the bait. Give me a call in the next few days. Take all the time you need before you decide.’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  When his superiors at SIS, who operated what was coyly called the External Affairs Division at the old Olympic Stadium in Charlottenburg, suggested that George Blake should penetrate the Soviet intelligence organization in East Berlin in the guise of a double agent they were providing him with a perfect cover for his treason. For George Blake had been an agent of the Soviet intelligence services since he was a young man.

  In the early days when, as a teenager, he acted as a courier for the Communist-run Resistance group in Holland, he had been spotted by a shrewd Dutch Communist and subtly and slowly drawn into a more positive commitment. His flight from the Gestapo had been genuine, but by then he was already committed to Moscow. It was several years before he was used beyond small tests of loyalty, but from the moment he was posted to Hamburg he was a Soviet agent under instruction.

  His capture in Seoul had been a blunder made in ignorance by the North Koreans, but it had necessitated a complicated scenario to preserve his cover as a loyal SIS officer. The Soviets took a risk in releasing the small group that included Blake several months before the armistice was signed, and many months before other prisoners were released. The risk paid off for nobody had thought to analyse why that small group should receive such privileged treatment. There had been other clues that SIS overlooked. Small but definite clues, whose overlooking might have indicated laxity or further treason, to a more suspicious agency.

  There was a rough circle with a vertical line through it in pink chalk on the fence of the cemetery and Blake drove to the KO department store in East Berlin. Kaufhaus des Ostens was used extensively by Allied personnel, and if his car was noticed in the car park it would be assumed that he was at KO like all the others, for fresh fruit and vegetables. Although buying goods in East Berlin was frowned on by the Allied authorities it was considered a good thing to buy fruit and vegetables to save importing scarce supplies from West Germany. He bought their usual weekly requirements and put the two cardboard cartons on the back seat of his car where they could easily be seen.

  Ten minutes later the taxi dropped him by the ruins of the church in Becher Strasse. From there he walked to the book-shop. He bought the second-hand copy of Vom Winde verweht and walked through the bead curtains to the corridor. The door at the far end opened as he raised his hand to knock. The Russian stood aside as he walked in.

  ‘I’ve got no more than twenty minutes,’ he said as he flopped into the soft armchair.

  ‘Moscow have gone berserk about Kretski. ‘

  ‘Tell them not to worry.’ He smiled. ‘I’m going to fix a deal and release him.’

  ‘How in hell can you do that?’

  ‘They never knew who he really was. They knew he was something, but he stuck to his cover story, and I didn’t probe beyond the superficial stuff.’

  ‘My God, they’ll be relieved.’

  Blake smiled at him. ‘I’ve got better news than that.’

  ‘Tell me. I need some good news.’

  ‘I’ve agreed to be a double agent, my friend.’

  The Russian frowned. ‘I don’t understand, Georgi.’

  ‘My masters want me to penetrate the Soviet intelligence organization in East Berlin. I have been ordered to offer my services to the MVD.’

  The Russian sat down slowly. ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘I’m not, I assure you.’

  ‘Why did they choose you? Do you think they’re suspicious? Do you think it’s a trap?’

  ‘You underrate me, Tolya. I speak German. I speak Russian. I’m an experienced operator. And I’m going to be very successful as a double agent.’

  ‘Georgi! This is fantastic. But Moscow won’t believe it. It’s too good to be true.’

  ‘I come carrying gifts and expecting a reward.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘The date planned for the workers’ rising in East Berlin is June the seventeenth. It will start in Marx-Engels Platz with the railway workers. Another group will come from Alexander Platz station. ‘

  ‘Can you give us names?’

  Blake smiled. 7 can, but I won’t. Warning is enough. If you stop it happening I should be blown in hours.’

  ‘And what do you want from me?’

  ‘A nice low-grade agent who’s working for you and isn’t very important. What have you got?’

  Anatoli Mikhailovich Petrov walked over to the small freestanding metal safe. He brought out a small cardboard box and laid it on the settee beside him. He flipped open the lid and went slowly through the white cards. Twice he took out cards as he went through them. He picked them up and read both sides of each and then slid one back in the box.

  He turned to look at Blake. ‘I’ll have to clear this first with both Karlshorst and Moscow.’

  ‘What are you offering?’

  Petrov read from the card. ‘Fraulein Ursula Schmidt, aged twenty-nine. Works as a typist at an RAF base. Provides copies of secret and top secret documents on RAF and USA fighter-bombers and their equipment. She gets one thousand two hundred marks a month from us. She has two German associates. They don’t do much but I could throw them in.’

  ‘Why are you ready to throw her away?’

  Petrov scratched his chest and smiled. ‘We’ve got the manuals and detail drawings for all current fighter-bombers from another source. We don’t need her any longer.’

  ‘She’ll do for a start.’ Blake stood up. 7 want at least three new dead-letter drops or I shall get my lines crossed.’

  ‘I’ll contact you through the man at the reception desk at Hotel am Zoo. You’ve used him before, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes. But I don’t like using him.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He’s crooked, and what’s more he looks like it.’

  Petrov laughed. ‘We’ve got him under control. We’ve got some photographs that would surprise his wife. Hell behave.’

  It was five months before Fraulein Schmidt was tried. She and her two helpers were sentenced to just over four years, and George Blake, whose bona fides as an agent were never in doubt, had established himself with MI6 as a successful double agent.

  It was shortly afterwards that Blake
was given an assistant. He was warned never to meet him at either the Olympic Stadium offices or at his own home. Horst Eitner, codenamed ‘Mickey’, was a tough professional.

  13

  Lawler spent the whole day reading the first two of the Blake files and by mid-afternoon he had had enough. He phoned Siobhan Nolan and she agreed to see him, but she sounded very reluctant.

  He had never been inside her flat before and he was surprised. In contrast to the happy-go-lucky girl the flat was furnished and decorated with elegance. The large, square living-room was floored with cork tiles. The walls were pine-boarded and spotlights from an aluminium strip were the only lighting. Cushioned seating lined three walls, and on the fourth wall were bookshelves and a row of framed prints of French Impressionists.

  Siobhan Nolan looked more Italian than Irish in a white dress with large red poppies around the skirt. She looked amused at his obvious surprise.

  ‘Well, what did you expect, pigs in the parlour and potheen in the kitchen?’

  ‘It’s beautiful, Siobhan. It really is.’

  ‘And me?’

  He smiled. ‘And you’re beautiful too.’

  ‘You’re allowed to sit down. D’you fancy a whisky?’

  ‘That would go down well.’

  She poured him a large whisky from a bottle of Jameson Ten Year Old, and handed it to him.

  ‘There. Get that down ye, and stop looking so bloody miserable.’

  She sat down on a big leather pouffe alongside him, looking at his face as she sipped her whisky.

  ‘And ye’ve come to tell me what a lovely husband he’d make, yes?’

  Lawler sighed. ‘I thought we could talk about it.’

  She crossed her long legs. ‘What did he tell you?’

  ‘He said that he bought you an engagement ring, asked you to marry him, you refused him, and then you both got pretty angry with one another.’

  ‘Did he tell you why he bought the ring?’

  ‘Yes. It was an engagement ring.’

  ‘Was it hell.’

  ‘What was it then?’

  She looked down at the shiny toe of her black court shoe, and it was several seconds before she looked back at his face.

  ‘It’s not really fair to tell you. It would spoil things between you and him.’

  ‘How could it do that?’

  Her soft brown eyes looked at him. ‘He told you a lie about why we had a row. And he told you a lie about why he bought the ring.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  She shook her head. ‘No. It wouldn’t be fair. God save him, he needs all the support he can get. But he can’t get it from me.’

  ‘I thought you liked him. You told me you did. You said he cared for you, that it wasn’t just sex.’

  ‘I know. And I do. But let’s just leave it at that.’

  ‘Has he done something to offend you?’

  She hesitated then said, ‘No. But there’s no way we could marry. It would be crazy.’

  ‘Is it something to do with you being a Catholic?’

  ‘No. It’s because I’m me and not somebody else. Nothing more than that. But it wouldn’t be good for me and it wouldn’t be good for him.’

  ‘Will you see him from time to time?’

  ‘I’ll see him any time he wants, provided he never talks about love or marriage. We can be friends. He can still screw me, but that’s as far as it goes.’ She looked away from him towards the window and he saw again, vividly, how beautiful she was. And it caught him unawares as she turned her head quickly to look at him. ‘There’s something I had better tell you.’

  She looked at him as if she were expecting a sign of approval. He nodded and she said, sighing, ‘He told me his background. What he’s doing here.’

  ‘All of it?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  He closed his eyes, slowly shaking his head. ‘Jesus God,’ he whispered. ‘You know what this means?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It means you have to be screened. Sign the Official Secrets Act and be under surveillance.’

  She shrugged. ‘I’ll sign anything they goddamn want. What’s signing?’

  ‘You don’t understand, kid. You’ll be under continuous surveillance. Twenty-four hours a day.’

  ‘Send me pretty ones, that’s all I ask.’

  ‘Don’t joke, Siobhan. It’s serious. What made him tell you? He must have been out of his mind.’

  She said softly, ‘He is out of his mind, Jimmy. He’s scared you’re gonna kill him. He says you’ve done it before, or your people have.’

  ‘Nobody’s going to kill him, Siobhan. It’s just become an obsession.’

  ‘He says he’s seen the guy who’ll do it or arrange it.’

  ‘Where? Who?’

  ‘He wouldn’t say any more. He said they might kill me too.’

  ‘That’s rubbish, Siobhan.’

  ‘He said you didn’t understand because it’s your people who are involved.’

  He stood up slowly. ‘Let me take you out for a meal.’ She smiled. ‘I’m going to like being under surveillance.’

  ‘Don’t joke about it, sweetie. You’re going to hate it.’

  Adam Silvester’s flat off Curzon Street looked like an annexe of the Reform Club. Masculine, leathery, and expensively gloomy. There were plenty of books, but in closed glass-fronted bookcases, and there were stuffed fishes in their natural surroundings in glass cases. And Silvester himself looked distinctly formal, even in his dressing-gown and slippers. There were drinks on the bamboo table. In decanters, not bottles, and carefully arranged on silver coasters.

  Lawler had broken the news, but Silvester obviously believed in first things first, and he held the whisky up to his nose and then the light before he sipped it.

  ‘What have you got in mind, James?’

  ‘I want to persuade her to come and stay permanently at my place with Petrov until I’ve got things sorted out.’ Silvester sat down heavily in what was clearly his own personal chair.

  ‘Do you think you can sort them out?’

  ‘It’s going to take longer than I thought.’

  ‘That’s no answer. Are you going to be able to get Petrov back in line?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you feel you’ve made any progress at all?’

  ‘Yes. But every time I get over one hurdle there always seems to be another. And there’s always this phobia about Blake in the background.’

  ‘How carefully have you looked into the Blake case?’

  ‘I’m about half-way through the files.’

  ‘Any clues as to what he’s on about?’

  ‘Not a thing. It just doesn’t hang together. He escaped from Wormwood Scrubs and that’s that.’

  ‘It might pay you to have a word with Special Branch liaison.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘It was an IRA man who helped Blake escape. I’ve forgotten his name but he was in the Scrubs part of the time that Blake was there. He got his pay-off from the Soviet Embassy. There might be something there.’

  ‘I’ll check it out.’

  ‘You do that.’

  ‘I’d better have copies of your chap’s surveillance reports on my place just in case I miss something.’

  ‘You can phone Carter and he can read them out to you.’

  ‘Nothing new from your side?’

  Lawler noticed the momentary hesitation but put it down to Silvester having other things on his mind.

  ‘Nothing of any importance.’

  Silvester stood up and Lawler took the hint and left.

  Lawler took them down for the week-end to his parents and the magic seemed to work again. Petrov chopped logs and trimmed hedges, shelled peas and sprayed pesticide with venom on the greenflies on the roses. And Siobhan Nolan and his mother regaled one another with amiable banter laced with quotations from Somerville and Ross and Oscar Wilde.

  Petrov and Lawler walked in the fading sunlight around the edge of
the cricket field and up the slope that led to the forest. On a fallen tree-trunk they sat looking across to the village.

  ‘I’m more than half-way through the Blake files, Tolya.’

  Petrov turned to look at him. ‘What year are you up to?’

  ‘About 1955.’

  ‘And what have you discovered?’

  ‘Nothing that’s relevant.’

  ‘What about Curiel?’

  ‘The uncle in Cairo?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But he was a child when he was there.’

  ‘What about Paris?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Nineteen fifty-one onwards.’

  ‘There’s no mention of his uncle apart from the time he spent with him in Cairo after his father died.’

  ‘What about his prison sentences?’

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘Curiel’s. That’s why he moved to Paris. Farouk put him in jail because of his Moscow connections. And Nasser put him inside again and then expelled him for organizing Arab revolutionaries. When he was expelled he went to live in Paris.’

  ‘But that’s Curiel, not Blake.’

  Petrov gave a short laugh. ‘Blake was in touch with him all the while. He went to see him in Paris in 1952.’

  ‘You mean he was Blake’s contact?’

  Tor a short period he was, and Curiel was the one who passed the money to get him out of your prison.’

  ‘Do you know where Curiel lives now?’

  ‘He doesn’t, my friend. In 1961 the French put him inside for collaborating with the Algerian FLN guerrillas. He was a contact later on for the terrorist Carlos, and the Japanese Red Brigade. A rightwing terrorist group called Delta shot him at his home in May last year. Half an hour after they killed him a Paris news agency got an anonymous telephone call. The caller said that the KGB agent Henri Curiel, a traitor to the country which had taken him in, had ceased all activity that day.’

  ‘Curiel was never mentioned in the files apart from the time Blake spent with him in Cairo as a child.’

  ‘Do you believe me now?’

  ‘Believe what?’

  ‘Believe that you don’t know why I think they could kill me.’

  ‘There’s no connection, Tolya. Maybe there were things we didn’t know but the fact is that he got away.’