Spy Sinker. Len Deighton

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СКАЧАТЬ said Sir Henry. ‘Of that you can be quite sure. We have a number of people … I know you wouldn’t expect to go into details … But several. Men and women we have been patiently playing to the Russians for years and years, in the hope that one day we’d be able to do something spectacular with one of them.’

      ‘And for her that day has come?’ said Bret. He extended an open hand towards the fire to sample its heat. He hadn’t been really warm since getting out of his car. That was the trouble with these stately old homes, they could never be efficiently heated. Bret wished he’d taken a chance on what sort of evening it would be, and worn warmer, more casual clothes: a tweed jacket perhaps. Sir Henry probably wouldn’t have cared or even noticed.

      The D-G looked at Bret to see if there was an element of sarcasm there. There wasn’t: it was just another example of the American directness of approach which made Bret the best candidate for looking after a really promising double agent. He turned on the charm. ‘You started this thing rolling, Bret. When, a few weeks back, you floated this idea I didn’t think much of it, to tell you the truth. But I began looking at possible candidates, and then other things happened that made it seem more and more possible. Let’s just say that the float has twitched and that may be a sign the other side is ready to bite. It may be, that’s all.’

      Bret suppressed a temptation to say that in too many such situations the Russians had devoured the bait so that the Department had reeled in an empty hook. Everything indicated that the Russians knew more about turning agents than their enemies did about running them. ‘But a woman …’ said Bret to remind the D-G of his other reservation.

      ‘An extraordinary woman, a brilliant and beautiful woman,’ said the D-G.

      ‘Enter Miss X.’ Bret’s feelings were bruised by the D-G’s stubborn reluctance to provide more details of this candidate. He’d expected to be having a say in the final selection process.

      ‘Mrs X, to be precise.’

      ‘All the more reason that the Russkies will not want her over there. It’s a male-dominated society and the KGB is the last place we’ll ever see change.’

      ‘I’m not sure I agree with you there, Bret.’ The D-G permitted himself a little grin. ‘They are changing their ways. So are we all, I suppose.’ He couldn’t hide the regret in his voice. ‘But my feeling is that we’ll gain from their old-fashioned entrenched attitudes. They will never suspect that we would try to plant a woman into the Committee.’

      ‘No. I guess you’re right, Sir Henry.’ It was Bret’s turn to wonder. He liked the way the old man’s mind worked. There were people who said the D-G was past it – and the D-G sometimes seemed to go to great lengths to encourage that misreading – but Bret knew from first-hand experience that, for the overall strategy, the old man had an acute mind that was tortuous and sometimes devious. That was why Bret had taken his idea about ‘getting a man into the Kremlin’ to Sir Henry in person.

      The old man leaned forward. The polite preliminaries, like the evening itself, were coming to an end. Now they were talking as man and master. ‘We both know the dangers and difficulties of working with doubles, Bret. The Department is littered with the dead bodies of people who have misread their minds.’

      ‘It goes with the job,’ said Bret. ‘As the years go by, a double agent finds it more and more difficult to be sure which side he’s committed to.’

      ‘They forget which side is which,’ said the D-G feelingly. He reached forward for a chocolate-covered mint and unwrapped it carefully. It was the very devil trying to do without a cigar after dinner. ‘That’s why someone has to hold their hand, and get inside their head, and keep them politically motivated. We learned that from the Russians, Bret, and I’m sure it’s right.’

      ‘But it was never my idea to become the case officer,’ said Bret. ‘I have no experience.’ He said it casually, without the emphasis that would have been there had he been determined not to take on this new task the D-G was giving him. That softening of attitude was not lost upon the D-G. That was the first hurdle.

      ‘I could give you a million reasons why we don’t want an experienced case officer on this job.’

      ‘Yes,’ said Bret. The sight of a known case officer in regular contact with an agent would ring every alarm bell in the KGB.

      But the D-G did not put that argument. He said, ‘I’m talking about an agent whose position and opportunity may be unique. So this is a job for someone very senior, Bret. Someone who knows the whole picture, someone whose judgement I can trust completely.’ He put the mint in his mouth and screwed the wrapper up very tight before placing it in the ashtray.

      ‘Well, I don’t know if I fit that picture, Sir Henry,’ said Bret, awkwardly adopting the role that Englishmen are expected to assume when such compliments are paid.

      ‘Yes, Bret. You fit it very well,’ said the old man. ‘Tell me, Bret, what do you see as our most serious shortcomings?’

      ‘Shortcomings? Of the British? Of the Department?’ Bret didn’t want to answer any questions of that sort and his face showed it.

      ‘You’re too damned polite to say, of course. But a fellow less inhibited than you, speaking recently of British shortcomings, told me that we British worship amateurism without having intuitive Yankee know-how; result disaster.’

      Bret said nothing.

      Sir Henry went on, ‘Whatever the truth of that assessment, I am determined that this operation is going to be one hundred per cent professional, and it’s going to have the benefit of that “can do” improvisation for which your countrymen are noted.’ He raised his hand in caution. ‘I will still need to go through the details of your plan. There are a number of points you raise that are somewhat contentious. But you realize that, of course.’

      ‘It’s a ten-year plan,’ said Bret. ‘They are in a bad way over there. A well-planned attack on their economy and the whole damned communist house of cards will collapse.’

      ‘Collapse? What does that mean?’

      ‘I think we could force the East German government into allowing opposition parties and free emigration.’

      ‘Do you?’ The idea seemed preposterous to the old man, but he was too experienced in the strategies of Whitehall to go on record as a disbeliever. ‘The Wall comes down in 1988? Is that what you are saying?’ The old man smiled grimly.

      ‘I don’t want to be too specific but look at it this way. In World War Two RAF Bomber Command went out at night and dropped bombs on big cities. Subsequent research discovered that few of the bombers had found their way to the assigned targets, and the few that did bombed lakes, parks, churches and wasteland so that only one bomb in ten was likely to hit anything worthwhile.’

      Sir Henry was fingering the coloured cards upon which there were graphs and charts showing various statistics mostly concerned with the skilled and unskilled working population of the German Democratic Republic. ‘Go on, Bret.’

      ‘When Spaatz and Jimmy Doolittle took the US Eighth Air Force into the bombing campaign they went in daylight with the Norden bombsight. Precision bombing and they had a plan. They bombed only synthetic-oil plants and aircraft factories. No wasted effort and the effect was mortal.’

      ‘Weren’t they called panacea targets?’

      ‘Only СКАЧАТЬ