And Is There Honey Still For Tea? (33 page)

He drained his glass of
oud
with a flourish.

‘And so it continued,' he said, ‘from 1948 to 1960.'

56

Stepanov had asked for a comfort break. Ben and Ginny were also anxious to stretch their legs for a while. Ginny stepped into the hallway where she could walk up and down. Ben stood quietly by the window, and looked out over the dark street in front of the house. The street looked exactly the same as it had when they arrived, but in the intervening period the world had changed. He had still not fully recovered from the shock of learning the identity of the man who had arrived at the house as Kurt Weber. He was already imagining the conversation he would have to have with Bernard Wesley and Herbert Harper, and then with Sir James Digby. It was one he was not looking forward to. He sensed that what he had learned was important enough to justify the massive departure from protocol involved in his presence at this house in The Hague. He doubted that anyone would be in the mood to question what he had done. But the case had been turned inside out. Digby and his legal team would now have to take decisions which would decide the fate, not only of Digby's reputation, but of his future life; and the omens were not promising. He was intrigued by Ginny's reaction. She could have been forgiven if she had shown some kind of pleasure or satisfaction about the change in her client's fortunes; but she had remained completely impassive, apparently focused intently on every word that Stepanov was saying, without any overt display of emotion. Probably just good manners, he concluded. She must be waiting until Stepanov had gone and Baxter left them alone before dinner. They could talk then.

Paula van Harten had entered the room quietly with a small trolley, from which she unloaded a fresh jug of water, fresh glasses, a new bottle of
jong
, a pot of coffee with cream, and sugar, a plate of
speculaa
biscuits, and a clean ashtray. Having placed them on the table, she withdrew as softly as she had entered.

‘Things began to change in the middle years of the 1950s,' Stepanov continued, when they had re-assembled. ‘Moscow Centre was always fuelled by paranoia, but never like this. Everyone was under suspicion. Officers were being recalled from abroad, and either subjected to torture and show trials, or simply summary execution. The lucky ones were sent into exile to some God-forsaken city in the middle of nowhere with snow on the ground for most of the year. And these were, as far as anyone knew, loyal and competent people. The future of the Service was uncertain. It was not possible to continue indefinitely under these circumstances. But because of the paranoia, no one seemed to care.'

Baxter had opened the new bottle of
jong
, and was filling the fresh glasses.

‘No one outside the top echelons even understood what was going on,' Stepanov said. ‘Morale was at rock bottom and we had a lot of defections, but of course, that only increased the paranoia. In 1959, the Comrade Director told me that my relationship with Digby was being called into question. It was thought that the information we were providing was not sufficiently important, and they were worried about the information we were giving to Digby. They had endless questions. Who is he? Why should we trust him? What if he is a double agent? From an intelligence point of view, James had impeccable credentials, but the professionals were not being listened to any more. The professionals employed reason to make their calculations, but paranoia has no time for reason.'

He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.

‘At the end of 1959, the Comrade Director was removed and sent to live in one of those cities in the middle of nowhere with snow on the ground. A new man was installed as Director, a major from a tank regiment, suddenly promoted to full colonel in the KGB, probably because his wife's uncle was a big noise in the Communist Party, or he was in favour with the Politburo for a few days for betraying one of his colleagues. This man knew nothing of intelligence work and seemed to think that the use of force was the solution to every problem. But so it went at that time.'

He drank deeply of his water, then a shot of jenever.

‘James came to the 1960 championship in Leningrad,' he continued, ‘and we met as usual at the Hotel Peking. But I had to tell him that our work was now finished, at least until times changed again and Moscow Centre was once more ruled by reason. I advised him against returning to the Soviet Union until then. It would not have been safe for him. It was not safe for me, but I had no choice. After that I lay low. I did not apply for permission to travel to any tournaments abroad in 1961. I continued to teach at the Academy in Moscow, and generally made myself useful to the Soviet Chess Federation. I translated one or two chess books into German for the Soviet Foreign Languages Publishing House. Every day I waited for the knock on the door which would indicate that the Directorate considered me to be a traitor.'

He lowered his head down on to the table and covered it with his hands for some time. Ginny looked at Baxter, but he shook his head. Eventually, Stepanov lifted his head again.

‘The knock never actually came,' he said. ‘Apparently, the good major-turned-colonel had a limited attention span, and it took him most of his time just to keep up with developments in his Directorate. But it was just a matter of time. I had not been forgotten altogether, and some good friends advised me that my safety could not be guaranteed for long. So, in 1962, I applied for permission to travel to Varna, Bulgaria, for the Chess Olympiad to assist the Soviet team as a translator and interpreter. As often happens in the Soviet Union, the left hand had no idea what the right hand was doing, and whatever suspicion may have attached to me within the Directorate, no one thought that my application to travel to Varna posed any problem. I had a good record for being useful at international tournaments.'

He paused for some time.

‘We sometimes take decisions without being in possession of all the facts, or knowing what the consequences will be. Sometimes we are just in the right place at the right time. By now, I was sure that they would come for me eventually, and I was desperate. If I had been in the West, I would have made a run for it. I would have tried to defect immediately – I would have gone to the local police or some friendly embassy, asked for political asylum, whatever I could do – and without proper planning, the result would probably have been catastrophic.'

Baxter refilled his glass.

‘As it was,' he said, ‘I found myself importuning an American. He was a college professor of political science who spoke good Russian, and he did for the American teams at these events what I did for the Soviets. So we had met during negotiations from time to time, and he was the only American I felt able to approach. Certainly, I could not approach any member of their team. His name is Francis Hollander.'

He smiled wryly.

‘I acted completely recklessly, irresponsibly. I threw whatever tradecraft I had to the winds. I almost dragged him out of the tournament hall during a quiet moment, with no warning at all, to some bar in a backstreet somewhere. It was madness. There were minders everywhere, as always. But somehow, we got away with it. Perhaps it was because we were so direct about it. Perhaps it was so blatant that they assumed it was just tournament business. In any case, we sat at a corner table, and I begged him to speak to the American authorities about allowing me to defect. I knew that I had to offer him something of value if there was to be any chance that he would take me seriously; and so I told him the whole story about what had been going on between Digby and myself – well, actually,
almost
the whole story. Desperate as I was, I realised that I must keep something back, so I refused to divulge the details of what our work had accomplished in terms of the loss of western agents. I said that I would reveal that only to the CIA once I was safely out of the Soviet Union. He listened to what I had to say in complete silence. For some time I thought I had failed to persuade him. But then, he promised that he would speak to the CIA when he returned to the United States. I gave him my address and telephone number. We invented a cover story to explain our visit to the bar, something to do with the order of the matches to be played, and we avoided each other for the rest of the tournament.'

Baxter leaned forward with his arms on the table.

‘And there,' he said, ‘I am afraid I must draw the line. All I will tell you is that the CIA were considerably more interested in Viktor than they led Professor Hollander to believe. They contacted my department. There was then a joint operation between the CIA and our Service, to extract him from the Soviet Union. The details of that operation are, and will remain, secret. Suffice it to say that, fortunately, it was successful.'

‘But the Soviets would have realised eventually that the bird had flown the coop,' Ginny said. ‘They would have waited a while before declaring that he died in respectable circumstances; but in the meantime he had been given asylum in the Netherlands, with a new identity. And here we are today.'

‘I didn't say that he had been granted asylum in the Netherlands,' Baxter pointed out. ‘The Hague is easily accessible by train from a variety of countries in western Europe.'

Ginny smiled. ‘Of course.'

‘Are there any more questions?' Baxter asked.

Ben shook his head.

‘No. Thank you,' Ginny added.

They stood and shook hands all round.

‘I must ask one thing,' Stepanov said, as he was about to leave the living room. ‘It sounds rather strange, no doubt. But I would like to pass on my best wishes to both parties in this case. I owe my life, everything, to Francis, of course. It is a debt I can never repay. But to James also I owe much. I always liked James. I hope very much that nothing bad will happen to him. If you have any influence at all, I hope you will intercede for him in some way. He has done some things which it is difficult for those in his country to forgive. I know that. But he is an honest man, and you don't meet so many honest men any more.'

* * *

‘Would I be right in thinking that Kurt Weber is not the actual name he is using?' Ben asked.

‘He is using it today,' Baxter replied blandly.

Ben laughed.

‘All right. But you have given us a lot of information. Miss Castle and I have to go back and help our clients make some major decisions. Is there any evidence of identification I can take back to them? That's the first question they are going to ask – how do we know it was Stepanov we met?'

Baxter picked up his briefcase from the floor and took out a passport.

‘Soviet passport in the name of Viktor Stepanov issued in 1958,' he announced, handing it to Ben open at the page bearing the photograph. ‘It is genuine. You can believe me, or not, as you choose, Mr Schroeder, but it was the first thing we checked when we took him out of Russia. You can count on that. We had to satisfy ourselves that he was who he said he was. Our experts went over it with a fine tooth comb. It is the real thing.'

He waited for Ben and Ginny to examine it as thoroughly as they wished.

‘Besides,' he said, ‘you know the man you met today is Viktor Stepanov. You know that without my having to tell you.'

He took the passport back.

‘Well, we have some time before dinner,' he said. ‘Why don't I leave you two alone until then? I'm sure you have a few things to talk about. After all, I've done all I can now. The rest is up to you.'

* * *

Ben stood slowly and walked back to the window, looking out into the street. Ginny watched him for some time, then pushed her chair back, stood and walked quietly over to join him.

‘I'm sorry, Ben.'

He turned to look at her.

‘I'm not. We did the right thing.'

‘Yes.'

‘If we had not heard this evidence, Digby would have won his case next week, and Hollander would have been ruined, just for speaking the truth.'

They were silent for some time. She put her hand on his shoulder.

‘But I am sorry for you, Ben. Digby betrayed you, didn't he? You, Bernard, Herbert Harper, all of you.'

‘We are the least of his betrayals,' Ben replied quietly.

57

Monday, 11 October

Once Baxter had left with the signed forms, it took Ben Schroeder slightly more than forty minutes to relate the details of his trip to The Hague, and summarise the evidence provided by the man who had been introduced as Viktor Stepanov. He was not interrupted once. When he finished, a tense, shocked silence permeated Bernard Wesley's room. Wesley had turned his chair almost half way around, partly so that he could look out of his window over the Middle Temple Garden, and partly so that he could avoid looking at James Digby. Digby sat in front of Wesley's desk, leaning forward, his hands on his knees, his head hanging down. His face was white, and he was breathing heavily. Herbert Harper sat next to Digby. Ben was sitting beside Barratt Davis to the side of Wesley's desk. Wesley slowly returned his chair to its original position.

‘Extraordinary,' Herbert Harper said. Another period of silence followed.

‘Well, I think we can all agree that this changes the landscape,' Wesley said eventually. ‘Is there anything you want to say about this, James?'

It took Digby almost a minute to reply.

‘It's impossible,' he replied, trying unsuccessfully to control the tremor in his voice, ‘quite impossible. Viktor Stepanov is dead. You've seen his obituary. Even Hollander says he is dead.'

‘It appears that Hollander may have been misinformed,' Wesley said.

‘It appears,' Ben said, ‘that Stepanov's alleged death from heart failure was a story put out by the Russians after a decent interval, to cover their embarrassment.'

‘Says who?' Digby protested. ‘MI6?'

Ben nodded. ‘Losing a grandmaster through defection to the West is one of their worst nightmares under any circumstances. But it was even worse in Stepanov's case. Stepanov knew too much. He had a lot of very sensitive information. They had to assume he would blow their entire network in England and the United States wide open.'

‘Of course, someone in MI6 or the CIA was bound to realise his potential,' Wesley said.

‘Yes,' Ben replied. ‘Baxter wouldn't give me any details, of course. But he told me that MI6 engaged in a joint extraction operation with the CIA. As soon as Hollander returned from the Varna Olympiad, he went to the CIA and told them that Stepanov wanted to defect, just as he wrote in his article. The CIA was grateful to Hollander for the information, but they kept him in the dark about their plans, for obvious reasons. Viktor Stepanov was dead to Hollander anyway, and to the world of chess, as soon as he left Moscow. He would become Kurt Weber, or whoever he is now. But the CIA saw immediately that Stepanov might have a lot to tell them about the leakage of information to Moscow which had been going on for several years, so they proposed to MI6 that they cooperate in getting him safely out of Moscow, re-settling him somewhere in the West, and debriefing him at leisure when he was safe. They thought that justified what must have been a very risky operation. I don't see any reason not to believe Baxter about that.'

There was another silence.

‘Mr Schroeder, did Baxter show you any evidence of identification of Stepanov?' Herbert Harper asked.

Ben nodded. ‘A Soviet passport in Stepanov's name, with his photograph and signature.'

‘All of which can easily be forged,' Digby snorted, still struggling to breathe evenly. ‘I saw many documents of that kind during the War, which were plausible at first glance, but which turned out to be false on closer examination. Any security service could fabricate such a document.'

Ben exhaled deeply.

‘Baxter said that they went to great lengths to authenticate it,' he replied. ‘That makes sense to me. They would have to make sure they knew who they were dealing with.'

He looked directly at Bernard Wesley.

‘Bernard, I suppose I can't rule out entirely the possibility that MI6 involved myself and Ginny Castle in an elaborate charade: taking us all the way to The Hague to meet a man who is falsely claiming to be Viktor Stepanov; producing a false passport to support his claim; allowing the man to tell us a pack of lies about recruiting James to be a spy, and then collaborating with him to exchange stolen information over a number of years. But I can't think of a good reason why they would do so.'

‘Neither can I,' Bernard Wesley said.

Digby affected a look of anger, but remained silent.

‘Well,' Herbert Harper began slowly, ‘I suppose MI6 might have their own reasons for wanting to build a case against James, if they suspect him of carrying information to Russia during all those chess tournaments.'

Barratt Davis sat up in his chair.

‘In that case, why not just arrest him?' he asked. ‘If they think this evidence from Stepanov, or whoever he is, will stand up, why haven't they at least brought James in to be interrogated? It doesn't make sense.'

‘In addition to that,' Ben added, ‘there are two good reasons to assume that the man we met is Stepanov. First, his story explains the documentary evidence we were given previously. Those documents suggested a link between James's visits to Moscow every year, and the pattern of bad things happening to western agents behind the Iron Curtain. Until now, we were able to write that off as a coincidence. We can't do that any more. Stepanov provides the link, doesn't he? In fact, Stepanov would be the most likely source of the evidence, wouldn't he? MI6 gave us the documents, hoping that they would result in some settlement of the case. It didn't work, so now they are filling in the gaps for us. I think the message they are sending is rather clear.'

‘They are pulling the wool over your eyes,' Digby replied. He was almost shouting. ‘Can't you see that?'

Ben did not reply.

‘You said there was a second reason, Ben,' Wesley said.

Ben nodded.

‘We recognised him from his photograph, even before we saw the passport,' Ben replied. ‘Ginny recognised him the moment he walked through the door, even though he has grown a beard and a moustache.'

Wesley smiled.

‘I don't doubt that you were both convinced,' he said, ‘but we all know how dangerous evidence of visual identification can be.'

Ben shook his head vigorously.

‘Both Ginny and I know that, Bernard,' he replied, ‘and yet we are both sure of what we saw. And think about this for a moment: the odds of finding someone who looked so exactly like Stepanov, and who would be willing to live the life he is living would be unbelievably small. Whoever this man is, he is exposing himself to all kinds of danger.'

‘From whom?' Digby objected. ‘The Russians know that Stepanov is dead, whether he died from a heart attack, or whether they killed him themselves. Whoever this man is, he poses no threat to them.'

‘On the contrary,' Ben replied. ‘I believe the Russians know perfectly well that Stepanov is alive, and that he poses a great danger to them'.

‘If Stepanov is in fact dead, James,' Wesley said, ‘we have to explain why MI6 is spending so much effort, not to mention a considerable amount of money, on this elaborate charade.'

‘There was something else, too,' Ben said quietly.

‘Go on.'

He turned to Digby.

‘Well, I have already told you what he said about recruiting you in The Hague. What I didn't tell you was how detailed his account was; the detail he gave about your meetings in the Hotel des Indes; about a long walk you took together late at night in The Hague; about what you told him during that walk.'

‘Indeed?' Digby sounded almost indignant. ‘And what exactly did he say about that?'

‘He said that you talked about your bitterness about not being free to play chess professionally; your concerns about the lack of social justice in Britain; and about the death of your brother Roger in Spain; that these were all reasons you gave him for being willing to work for the Soviets.'

‘Anyone could have told him about those things,' Digby insisted. ‘I have never made any secret of any of that.' But he had taken a little too long to reply; his moment had passed. A long silence ensued. Herbert Harper eventually broke it.

‘Bernard, I suppose there is no reason why we couldn't ask for the Soviet passport to be examined by an independent expert?' he suggested. ‘I know Customs and Excise have experts who examine passports all the time. They must see Soviet passports regularly enough.'

Wesley nodded, as if to indicate that he did not disagree with what Harper had said, but he did not reply.

‘Or we could ask that they allow James to be confronted with this man,' Harper added.

‘I think it was fairly clear from what Baxter told us,' Ben said, ‘that they would not allow that.'

‘They will have to allow it if Hollander calls him as a witness,' Harper replied.

Wesley shook his head.

‘I think not' he said. ‘They have already persuaded Mr Justice Melrose that he has a duty to conduct the trial
in camera
while any sensitive evidence is given. This afternoon, Miles may persuade the Court of Appeal that he ought to hold the whole trial
in camera
. In any case, I assume that the judge would have no difficulty in allowing sensitive witnesses to give evidence from behind a screen of some kind.'

‘That would not preclude having him properly identified,' Harper pointed out. ‘Perhaps we should apply yet again to re-open that question.'

‘Perhaps,' Wesley said. ‘What do you think about that idea, James?'

The question was asked sharply, abruptly. Harper looked expectantly at his client. But Digby bowed his head again and did not reply.

‘Well, would you at least care to deny what this man, whoever he was, told Ben?'

Digby sat up in his chair, raised his head, and looked away, in an apparent attempt to suggest that denying such allegations was beneath his dignity.

* * *

‘I see,' Bernard Wesley said quietly.

For a considerable time, no one spoke.

Barratt Davis stood and walked slowly to the window to the left of Wesley's desk.

‘I would like to put forward a suggestion about where we should go from here,' he said. ‘I don't think it goes too far outside my role of keeping an eye on things from a criminal point of view.'

Wesley spread his arms out in front of him above his desk.

‘By all means,' he said.

‘I think Ben is correct in saying that Baxter is trying to send us a message – on behalf of those he works for, of course,' Barratt began. ‘What we have to do is to make sure we interpret that message correctly. I don't believe that they have any interest in the outcome of the case as such, in terms of whether there is a settlement or not. I believe that what they are agonising over is whether they want to try to prosecute James. They may be less assured about their ability to keep it all quiet in a criminal court, and they may be uncertain about whether they have enough evidence. There may even be questions from on high about whether this kind of prosecution is desirable at all. It seems to me, from the way they are dealing with this, that they are balanced on a knife edge, and are waiting to see how the civil case ends before they make a decision.'

Wesley nodded. ‘Go on.'

‘If we look at what has happened recently,' Barratt continued, ‘it would be possible to argue that the policy of prosecuting everyone ruthlessly, as in the cases of Lonsdale, Blake and Vassall, has been counter-productive, except for the satisfaction of putting them behind bars. We know that those prosecutions have led to a further loss of confidence in the intelligence services. The Government may well be feeling that the satisfaction of putting spies behind bars is not worth the price of falling confidence.'

‘Are you suggesting,' Herbert Harper asked, ‘that if we were to abandon the case, it might influence the Government not to prosecute?'

‘It might,' Barratt replied. ‘In any case, I don't see that we have anything left to lose. I agree with Ben; it is very unlikely that this new evidence is all a huge fraud by MI6; that they have spent all this money and gone to all this trouble for the sole purpose of sowing the seeds of doubt and confusion in our camp. I think we flatter ourselves if we believe that. The strong probability is that Viktor Stepanov is alive and well and that he has told them all about it.'

He paused.

‘Hollander has his evidence. This case has slipped away, gentlemen. It is time to accept that it is no longer a case we can win. The only remaining question is how badly we are going to lose. It is time to focus on a way of limiting the damage, a way of salvaging whatever we can from the wreckage.'

‘I agree that we must do all we can to prevent James from being prosecuted,' Bernard Wesley said, after a long pause. ‘But I am reluctant to commit myself to throwing our hand in without knowing more. Unfortunately, I don't see any way of testing the waters except by opening up a direct line of communication with someone very high up in the Home Office. That would be a very dangerous thing to do, because if they are minded to prosecute, we would be playing into their hands, and there would be no way back.'

‘I agree,' Barratt said. ‘But I think there may be another approach.'

Every eye in the room turned to him.

‘Consider the case of Kim Philby,' he said.

Digby looked away into space.

‘Details are hard to come by,' Barratt continued, ‘but over the years, they had their eye on Philby. We all know that. Yet, all the signs are that he was allowed to disappear from Beirut rather than being taken into custody. It may be that the information he provided satisfied them; or it may be that they didn't have the stomach for another trial. I come back again to the fact that James has not been arrested, despite the evidence we know they have, whether that evidence came from Stepanov or from anyone else.'

Wesley stared down at his desk for some time.