Archangel (20 page)

He'd reckoned she didn't approve of Grade II men having direct access to the DUS. It would not have been acceptable under the former regime at Century. A Grade II man would report to a Principal Officer or at most to an Assistant Secretary, never to the Deputy Under Secretary direct.

And Miss Frobisher, damn her, believed that old ways were best ways. And chaos she caused, because the DUS was snapping his orders through and the young men couldn't get back to him with their answers. Millet had been forced to play the old-fashioned game. An early morning rise, an early morning train into London, and he was loitering outside the DUS's door a quarter of an hour before Maude Frobisher would be sharpening her pencils and dousing her hyacinth bulbs. A hell of a way to run a Secret Intelligence Service...

But Millet had seen his man, arranged the time of a morning meeting and braved Miss Frobisher's anger when he had presented himself.

'I tell you this, Millet, and I tell you frankly, I wouldn't have sanctioned any of this Holly business if I'd been in the driving-seat. No way that it would have landed on this desk and been approved.'

'A suggestion was made, sir . . . not at my level, at Assistant Secretary level... the suggestion was accepted. I was told to get on with it.'

'I'm not blaming you, lad, I'm just stating the fact. I've read your report.'

'I don't think we really knew that much about Holly when we roped him in.'

'You seemed to have known bugger-all of nothing.'

'Something like that, sir.'

'And that's past history.'

'Past history, as you say . . . I don't suppose, sir, that it's much help to anyone at this stage but, as you will see from my report, everyone I spoke with reckons that Holly is a fighter

The Deputy Under Secretary slammed his hand onto his desk.

'For God's sake, Millet, we're not talking about an under-age kid playing in a big boy's football game. We're talking about a man who is serving Stria Regime in a Correctional Labour Colony of the Soviet Union. They don't piss about there. Psychological torture, physical torture, nutritional deprivation, sleep deprivation. That's just for starters, Millet, and they can get better and nastier just as soon as they want to.'

Millet fidgeted in his chair.

'I can only repeat, sir, what I wrote in my report.'

'Am I supposed to be impressed?' The Deputy Under Secretary sighed in theatrical exasperation. 'You talk with a retired suburban schoolmaster, with a lecturer from the Technical College, with a small time businessman who's going broke fast, with a secretary from a Building Society.

Humdrum little people, and you reckon they can tell you how a man is going to cope at Camp 3, Barashevo. . . ? Am I supposed to be impressed?'

i was impressed.' There was a singe of anger in Millet's voice.

'And when they throw the book at him, he's going to keep his mouth shut?'

'I think so.'

'When they go to work?'

'I think so.'

'They're not very gentle, Millet. . . Michael Holly, whom you picked off the street, he can stand up to that?'

Millet hesitated. He tried to picture an interrogation room with a shining light and the turning spool of a tape-recorder. He tried to imagine the bruised lip and clenched fist.

'I don't know, sir.'

'Neither do I.'

'I suppose we didn't think it would come to this.'

'I'm sure you're right.' The Deputy Under Secretary spoke with a soft compassion. The lilt of the Brecon hills made a music of his words. 'For what the Service has done to Michael Holly, the Service should feel a great sense of shame.'

Millet bridled. 'Of course everyone was very sorry when he was picked up.'

'I'll tell you something, so that you'll learn the way I intend to run Century and the Service. I don't believe that sitting behind this desk gives me the right to play with people's lives unless the very security of our nation depends on it. I'm not a chess man, Millet, I don't like seeing grubby pawns knocked off the board and rolling on my carpet. The recruitment of Michael Holly was shabby, inexpert. You're wondering why we've gone longer than the fifteen minutes you asked for, I'll tell you . . . I care on two counts about Michael Holly. I care that a young engineer faces fourteen years in the Soviet Union's camps. I care also that we may face embarrassment and humiliation that we will have brought down on our own shoulders. You understand me?'

'Yes, sir.'

It was the fragile co-operation that existed between the Security Service and Century House that had provided the name of Michael Holly.

When a British subject booked a flight reservation to Moscow, his name came to the attention of Security, and Security passes that name to Century. The field man in Moscow was never happy on drops and dispersals — too risky. All the diplomats were subject to surveillance, part and parcel of the job. The Second Secretary (Consular/Visa) at the Embassy would have wanted nothing to do with anything as vulgar as placing packets in rubbish bins.

Century had an old faithful, a businessman who was a regular on the British Airways Trident to Sheremetyevo, good as gold, reliable as a Jap clock. On the plane every six weeks for a three-day trip. In a briefcase stacked full with costings and sales brochures the packets went to Moscow; in the same briefcase the material of the agent returned to Century. But the old faithful had fallen ill, pneumonia with a suspicion of pleurisy, and so faithful had the courier been that his sickness left them flattened on that section of the East Europe desk that handled the agent in the Soviet capital. So Alan Millet had sifted the names on the flight reservations for the coming month and played the computer tabs and found a cross-reference on Michael Holly, and traced back through Stepan Holovich and the case-history of an Alien's file. He'd described the recruitment to his Assistant Secretary superior as a 'piece of cake'. Seemed simple enough when you were high above the Thames looking at the world from behind the sealed plate-glass of Century House. Nothing ever went wrong, did it? Michael Holly in the park on the Lenin hills and all to keep a routine and a rhythm intact. All to keep a contact with a typist who worked within the Kremlin's walls, and who saw little that was important. What she typed she reported and, for what she reported, Michael Holly had been press-ganged into the service of his country. Alan Millet could remember the afternoon that the news had been relayed from Foreign and Commonwealth to Century House, the report that a British national had been arrested in the foyer of the Rossiya hotel and that he would face charges of espionage. He remembered that as a miserable afternoon, an afternoon when he had shivered in the face of Century's central heating. 'One of yours. . . ?' the FCO minute had drily queried.

'That's all, Millet. . . you'll not forget him?' The Deputy Under Secretary turned away. The meeting was terminated.

'No, sir.'

if I thought you'd forget him I'd break your neck.'

Millet let himself out of the room. As he closed the door quietly he heard the lifting of a telephone.

'Maude . . . I'd like an appointment this afternoon with the Permanent Under Secretary at Foreign and Commonwealth.'

'PUS at FCO, I'll arrange it.'

It had been an absurdly slow and uninteresting evening, even for so travel-scarred a diplomat as the Ambassador.

For close to four years he had performed his duties of office at the Kremlin's receptions. They never improved, they never crawled above the level of extreme tedium.

With the Diplomatic Corps he had stood in line for thirty-five minutes in the St Andrew's Hall, waiting for what he usually referred to as the Home Team to make their appearance with their principal guest. They had been late, and he had felt around him the sweat of the Third World, the noise of the New World, the breath of the Old World.

The Home Team had finally emerged to lead, in ponderous convoy, the mincing clan of diplomats up the sweeping staircase. It was one of the Ambassador's tasks to watch the procession of the leaders. The order in which they formed up was of importance, who was relegated to the fourth row, who was brought from the back to the second row, who required the help of a stick. The President was heavy on his feet again, worse than last month, better than in the summer.

And so to the food.

Standing around tables laden with caviar and smoked sturgeon, holding a glass that was resolutely refilled with vodka or Armenian brandy, he waited for an opportunity to speak quietly into the ear of an interpreter should one of the great men of the regime hover close to him. He never chased after them at a function such as this, sometimes they came and sometimes they did not. He'd explained that to Foreign and Commonwealth.

The instructions from London had been quite specific.

They wanted the matter raised as an informal question, not taken to the Ministry during working hours. Through an ocean of Third World faces the Minister caught the eye of the Ambassador, nodded an acknowledgement and made a path for himself through the guests. The interpreter hovered close by, treated with the respect an old man gives to his truss but indispensable for all that.

'Excellency . . . '

'Good evening, Sir Edward . .. you are enjoying yourself?'

'As always the hospitality is extreme. I hope that soon we can reciprocate the entertainment at the Embassy.'

They never came to the Embassy if they could avoid it.

Juniors only for the Queen's Birthday Party.

'You have a Parliamentary delegation here in a few days, the arrangements are completed?'

'I am confident that the visit will be splendidly interesting to our Members of Parliament.'

The Ambassador had worn a monocle since he had been an undergraduate at Cambridge. For effect only, plain glass, but from his first day in Moscow the Soviets had been bemused by its eccentricity. Whenever it seemed likely to slip, the Ambassador grinned and the movement of his muscles held fast the monocle over his eye.

The Minister smiled back, perhaps he had lost a moment of humour through the passage of translation. 'We must meet again soon . .

'Excellency . . .'

'I have many guests to meet.'

'One matter. .. briefly . . . '

The Minister laughed. The medal of the Order of Lenin flapped slightly on his breast. 'Are we working tonight?'

'Excellency, it is my hope that the visit of our Parlia-mentarians will start to ease the climate of misunderstanding that has prevailed between our two governments in recent months . . .'

'I hope so too, Sir Edward.'

'There is another matter where an action of clemency from the Soviet government would be received with great gratitude by my government.'

'Clemency? In what case do you request our clemency?'

For both men the banter was concluded. The Minister looked sharply into the Ambassador's eye and monocle.

'A young British national named Michael Holly. He has served one year of a fifteen-year sentence.'

'Refresh my memory.'

it was alleged in court that he was engaged in espionage activities. The allegation was strenuously denied by both my government and by the young man in question. An act of clemency now would have far-reaching effects on the relations between your government and mine.'

The Minister's eyes narrowed behind his steel-lipped spectacles. The Ambassador grinned and the monocle wavered.

'A bit of paper would settle it, Sir Edward,' the Minister replied crisply. 'A bit of paper from your government for public release that acknowledges the involvement of this young man in espionage activities on behalf of the British secret services against my country. I would have thought that after the release of such a text we would regard your request for clemency most favourably . . . As you see, Sir Edward, I have many who are waiting to see me . . . I hope that you enjoy the rest of your evening.'

The Ambassador sought out the Australian and the Cana-dian. In times of adversity it was general for the Old Commonwealth to stand shoulder to shoulder.

They had never beaten the Whitehall pigeons, the Foreign Secretary reflected. For all that Public Works spent in frightening the little beasts away, they returned in perpetuity to ladle their droppings over the walls and windows of the centre of government. Heaven only knew what it cost to clean the ranks of FCO windows and it had been done last week with an army swinging from cradles and ladders. But the smears were back. He watched one dribble sinking on the pane through which he looked out over St James's Park.

The view from his office was one of the great pleasures of government. In winter the sounds of the traffic flow were sealed outside, and the cars and lorries and taxis moved in a silent ballet. The troopers of the Household Cavalry tripped the length of the Mall behind the noiseless marching of a brilliantly decorated military band. The secretaries came with paper bags to feed the birds of the park's ponds. Only the bloody pigeons, wheeling and arcing and crapping, spoiled the serenity of the view. They'd have to be culled, come to that in the end, and bugger what the old ladies said.

'DUS is here, Foreign Secretary.'

He turned reluctantly from the panorama. The Permanent Under Secretary always entered with the footfall of a ghost, as if he was above knocking.

'I did tell you he was coming, Foreign Secretary.'

'Of course you d i d . . . about Michael Holly, yes?'

'About Michael Holly . . . '

The Permanent Under Secretary lowered himself into an armchair. The Foreign Secretary glared. Who ran the bloody place, PUS or Minister? The Deputy Under Secretary was still standing, there at least were some manners.

'Won't you sit down, DUS ?'

'Thank you, sir.'

'Don't call me that, for Christ's sake. I've told you that before.'

The Foreign Secretary was at his desk. The Deputy Under Secretary sat forward on a settee. The Permanent Under Secretary lolled back in his armchair. Three men who had gathered in an upstairs office of Whitehall to talk of a man serving time in a Correctional Labour Colony.

'The Ambassador's not hopeful,' the Permanent Under Secretary intoned, in a way he had a bit of luck last night, managed to get the ear of the Foreign Minister, and that's higher than he could have hoped. The message came back loud and clear. If we admit to espionage in the Holly case, then we can have him. But we have to claim him, we have to wear the hair shirt.'