London Match (46 page)

'I heard the same thing, but I could tell you a few people who'll do everything they can to stop him getting it.'

'Dicky, you mean?'

'I think so,' I said.

'Why? Dicky would become Bret's boss. Isn't that what he's always wanted?'

Even Werner didn't fully understand the nuances of London Central's command structure. I suppose it was uniquely British. The German desk is senior to Berlin Resident in certain respects, but has to defer to it in others. There is no hard-and-fast rule. Everything depends upon the seniority of the person holding the job. When my dad was Berlin Resident, he was expected to do as he was told. But when Frank Harrington went there, from a senior position in London Central, he wasn't going to be taking orders from Dicky who'd spent a lot of his departmental career attached to the Army.'

'Dicky should never have had his Army service credited to his seniority,' said Werner.

'Don't get me started on that one, Werner,' I said.

'It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to you, it wasn't fair to the Department, and it wasn't fair to anyone who works for the German desk.'

'I thought you were a supporter of Dicky,' I said.

'Only when you try to tell me he's a complete buffoon. You underrate him, Bernie, and that's where you make a bad mistake.'

'Anyway, Dicky will probably oppose the idea of Bret getting Berlin. Morgan — the D-G's hatchet man — hates Bret and wants Dicky to oppose it. Dicky will do as Morgan wants.'

'Then you'll get it,' said Werner with genuine pleasure.

'No, not a chance.'

'Why? Who else is there?'

'A lot of people will be after that job. I know Frank keeps saying it's the Siberia of the service and the place where careers are buried, and all that may well be true; but everyone wants it, Werner, because it's the one job you've got to be able to say you did.'

'You have enough seniority, and you're the only one who has the right experience. They can't pass you over again, Bernie. It would be absurd.'

'The way I hear it, I'm not even going to be shortlisted.'

'See the D-G,' suggested Werner. 'Get his support.'

'He doesn't even remember my name, Werner.'

'What about Frank Harrington? You can count on him, can't you?'

'They won't listen to what Frank says about who should take over. They'll want a new broom in there. A strong recommendation from Frank would probably be counterproductive.' I smiled; 'counterproductive' was one of Dicky's words, the sort of jargon I used to despise. I was going soft behind that desk.

Werner said, 'Did Frank Harrington oppose the idea of letting MI5 people sit on the Stinnes committee?'

'I was there, Werner. Frank just said, "Yes, sir", without discussion or argument. He said it was 'an admirable solution'. He's close to the D-G. The D-G must have told Frank what he intended and got his support beforehand.'

'Frank Harrington said okay? Why? It's all a mystery to me,' said Werner. He stopped pinching his nose and looked at me, hoping for a solution.

'The D-G wants Bret out of the Department. There's a lot of discussion about Bret right now. Hysterical discussion.'

Werner looked at me for a long time. He was wearing his plastic inscrutable mask and trying not to look smug. 'This is a new development,' he said, unable to keep the note of triumph out of his voice. 'I seem to remember a Christmas party when you'd come back from Lange — your head was filled with suspicions of Bret Rensselaer.' He was grinning. Only with effort was he able to keep his voice level now, as though he wasn't poking fun at me, just retelling the story.

'I only said that all the leads should be investigated.'

Werner nodded. He knew I was retreating from my former position as prosecutor and it amused him. 'And now you don't think that?'

'Of course I do. But I hate to see the way it's being done. Bret is being railroaded. And I especially don't like the way he's being isolated. I know how it feels, Werner. Not so long ago I was the one whose friends were crossing the street to avoid me.'

'Did you take it any further? Did you report your suspicions?'

'I was with Uncle Silas for the weekend . . . this is some time back . . . before Christmas. Brahms Four was there. I asked him about the receiving end of the intelligence over there.'

'You told me all that. But what does he know about it?' said Werner scornfully.

'Not much, but as I told you, it was enough to convince me that the Miller woman was running two agents.'

'In London Central? Make up your mind, Bernie. Are you still trying to prove that Bret is a KGB man or not?'

'I don't know. I go round and round in circles. But there were two agents: Fiona was coded,
pig iron
,
the other was
jake
.
Brahms Four confirmed that, Werner.'

'No, no, no. If Bret was feeding material back to Moscow . . . it doesn't bear thinking about. It would mean they knew about all the Brahms Four material as soon as we got it. . . .'

'So we have to find out if Moscow was monitoring the Brahms Four material all the time we were getting it.'

'How would you discover that?'

'I just don't know if we could. It would be the hell of a task to go through the archives, and I'm not sure how the D-G would react to a suggestion that we do it.'

'It would look damned funny if they forbade you going to the archives, wouldn't it?'

'They wouldn't have to say they didn't trust me,' I said. 'They could simply point out how difficult it would be to ascertain that from the archive material. They'd also point out that if the KGB had a good source, they wouldn't compromise it by acting on every damned thing they got. And they'd be right, Werner.'

'I can't believe that Moscow knew what Brahms Four was telling us all those years and let him get away with it. Even if Bret
was
monitoring the stuff for them.'

'Finally they let Brahms Four escape,' I said.

'They didn't exactly let him escape,' said Werner. 'You rescued him.'

'
We
rescued him, Werner, you and me together.'

'If Bret was reporting to Moscow, Brahms Four would still be in East Berlin.'

'They had no warning, Werner. I made sure Bret didn't know what I was going to do. And until the last minute when you came to London and told Dicky, no one at London Central knew I was going to pull Brahms Four out.'

'Your wife knew; she ran. She could have told Bret.'

'Not enough time,' I said. 'I thought of that, but there wasn't enough time for Bret to find out and get a message to Moscow.'

'So Bret is suspect and the D-G has put him on ice while he decides what to do about it?'

'It looks that way,' I said.

'Only the Miller woman knows the truth, I suppose,' said Werner. There was some unusual expression in his face that made me look at him closely.

'And she's in the Havel,' I said.

'Suppose I told you that I'd seen the Miller woman?'

'In the morgue? Did she come out at Spandau locks?'

'She's not dead,' said Werner smugly. 'I saw her looking fit and well. She's a clerk. She works in the
Rote Rathaus
.'

The Red Town Hall was the municipal centre for East Berlin, a massive red-brick building near Alexanderplatz, which, unlike so much around it, had survived for well over a century. 'Alive and well? You're sure?'

'Yes, I'm sure.'

'What's it all about then? Who is she? Was it all a stunt?'

'I found out a little about her — I have a friend who works there. Everything she said about her father living in England and about being married and so on seems to be true. I couldn't actually check her out, of course, but the story she gave you was true, as far as her identity is concerned.'

'She just forgot to mention that she was a resident of the Democratic Republic and worked for the government.'

'Right,' said Werner.

'What luck that you spotted her! I suppose they thought she was tucked well away from us in that place. There wasn't much likelihood of anyone who'd seen her on this side going into an office in the East Berlin town hall.'

'It was a million to one chance that I had to go there again. I remembered her because she once helped me with a tricky problem. An East German truck I use broke down in the West on a delivery trip. I went round in circles trying to find someone who had the necessary permissions to tow it from West to East. That was a year or more ago. Then, last week, I was in there again getting my ration cards.'

'And she didn't recognize you? She must have seen you that night they arrested her and I got her to give me a statement.'

'You did the interrogation. I waited outside. I only caught sight of her very briefly. I knew I'd seen her somewhere before, but I couldn't think where. I mean, it's not the sort of face you never forget. Then, after I'd given up and stopped thinking about her, I walked into the Rathaus and saw her sitting at her desk. This time I took a close look at her.'

'She was no amateur, Werner. She made her suicide attempt convincing enough to get herself slammed into the Steglitz Clinic.'

'Suicides in police cells — cops get very nervous about such things, Bernie. I looked into it. He was a young cop on duty at night. He played it safe and sent for an ambulance.'

'And then they covered their tracks by taking her from the Steglitz Clinic and running the ambulance into the water.'

'It must have been a diversion while another car took her across to the East.'

'It worked all right,' I said. 'When I remember spending my Christmas Eve standing on that freezing cold wharf, waiting for them to lift that bloody vehicle. . . .'

'I hope you're not going to suggest trying to get hold of her again. We couldn't grab her, Bernie, not there in the Mitte. They'd have us in the bag before we even got her to the car.'

'It would be difficult, wouldn't it?'

'It wouldn't be difficult,' said Werner. 'It would be impossible. Don't even think about it.'

'You'd better put all this in writing, Werner.'

'I've got it drafted out. I thought I'd wait until I came to London so I could check with you first.'

'I appreciate that, Werner. Thanks.'

We sat for a few minutes drinking the coffee and not saying anything. I was fully occupied in trying out all the configurations that this new piece of the jigsaw puzzle presented.

Then Werner said, 'How does this affect Bret?'

'You didn't tell the committee anything about this Miller woman being alive, did you?'

'You said not to tell them departmental secrets. This seemed like a departmental secret.'

'So secret that only you and I know of it,' I said.

'That's right,' said Werner.

'Why, Werner? What the hell was it all about? Why did they use the Miller woman to pick up the material?'

'Suppose everything she told you was exactly true. Suppose she had been a radio operator handling the material from Bret Rensselaer and the stuff from your wife. Suppose Fiona pulled her out when she went over to them. The Miller woman decides she's getting too old for espionage and tells Moscow that she wants to get out cf the business — she wants to retire. Fiona encourages her because the Miller woman knows too much. So they find her an easy little job issuing licences in the town hall. It happens all the time, Bernie. Probably she has a small pension and card for the
Valuta
shops so that she can buy Western goods. Every thing is lovely, everyone is happy. Then one day, at short notice, they need someone to go to Wannsee and pick up the package. They need someone who has the right sort of papers for coming over to the West side of the city. It seems like a routine task. Little likelihood of danger. She'll only be in the West for a couple of hours, and she won't be searched by anyone on the West side when she goes through with the package.' He fiddled with his coffee spoon, pushing it backwards and forwards. 'Or perhaps it's not a one-off. Perhaps she does a lot of little jobs like that to eke out her salary. Either way, I have no trouble believing it. There's nothing that doesn't fit together.'