Secret Kingdom (10 page)

‘No, no,’ Leman protested, wondering how on earth Sykes had got his hands on classified information. ‘That won’t be necessary.’

‘Their assessment is that there will be an uprising, probably before the end of the summer. You’ve got the evidence to support that in your hands.’

Leman leafed through the papers. Details of the arrival and departure of high-level Kremlin officials over the last three months. More than twice the number in the previous three months, apparently. Dates of meetings between Soviet leaders and senior members of the Hungarian government, lists of attendees from both sides. Leman didn’t miss the overwhelming prevalence of military rank among
the Soviet participants. Troop movements. He read the words “counter-revolution” more than once. Names of prominent Hungarians arrested in what were described as ‘a series of purges designed to remove anyone considered to be a threat to the regime’. Reports of men and women executed or imprisoned. Continuing evidence of savage repression. Signs of local tolerance being pushed to breaking point.

‘Is that enough to convince you that the Soviets are worrying about any threat to their position in the region?’ Sykes asked confidently.

‘Even if it is,’ Leman said, still unsure where this discussion was leading, ‘I don’t see where that takes us.’

‘If there is an uprising in Hungary or Poland, say, and armed civilians were able to hold out for a few weeks against the might of the Red Army, then Soviet power would be exposed as dangerously flawed. Not the invincible force it’s cracked up to be. There’s no way the Kremlin could put the lid on a bombshell like that, though it would try like hell to do so. It would be a signal for a wholesale resistance to begin across all the satellite countries. That, would be catastrophic for the Soviet hegemony. In time it might even lead to the break-up of the Soviet empire. That’s why the stakes in Hungary are so high. The Soviets can’t afford to show the slightest sign of weakness. Any uprising has to be suppressed before it’s begun.’

He leaned over the desk in his excitement, fired now by his own ideas. His voice rose and he beat his left hand on the desk to emphasize his argument. ‘Think of it! The Soviet military with all its men and machines stopped in its tracks by a civilian army. What a story! Goliath felled by David. The consequences are unimaginable. The Hungarians rock the Soviets back on their heels, the satellites rise up against Soviet imperialism. The Soviet Union, unable to respond on so many fronts at the same time, begins to disintegrate. The beginning of the end of communism. Destroyed by its own contradictions.’

For a moment Sykes had let his mask of self-control slip and Leman had caught a glimpse of something he found hard to define. Was he seeing Sykes’s hopes? His dreams? Was he a madman, or a genuine social reformer?

‘Is that really how you believe it will happen?’

‘Why not? Marxism is a flawed ideology and the day of its
unravelling, when the lies and deceptions come home to roost, sooner or later has to come, and then the world will really change.’

‘In what way?’ Leman asked.

‘The first casualty in a post-communist world would be the collapse of any possible argument for the West to sustain the present levels of defence funding. You can’t go on tilting at imaginary Soviet windmills for ever, certainly not when the world has rumbled that they don’t exist. There’s the scenario to reverse the policy that is destroying this country.’

‘Then what?’ Leman saw from his expression that this was the question Sykes had been waiting for him to ask.

‘Millions of pounds are spent each year on the production of arms, many of them nuclear, that will never be used in anger. Expose the myths of Soviet military power, and very quickly the Government will have to tell us why we spend money we can’t afford on arms we no longer need. Look at the resources we could make available for health, education, the welfare state, rebuilding our industries. We could eliminate disease – poverty, there’s almost nothing we couldn’t do. We’d build a better, fairer society.’ Sykes paused, his pale face flushed by this expression of his vision. ‘Sometimes in my bad moments, I think we are all victims of a giant conspiracy.’

Incompetence Leman could understand. Folly, even. Conspiracy was far-fetched. It strained his credibility, he said. Sykes was undeterred.

‘Since the war we have been misled by successive governments, whatever their colour, who have never had the courage to face up to the harsh truth about our country’s finances. We continue to play in the big political league without the economic power to support our aspirations. That’s dangerous nonsense, and it will end in tears. Britain will never have the resources to build a bomb
and
a welfare state. It simply can’t be done. Our economy’s neither big enough nor strong enough to afford both. You don’t need a degree in economics to know that. We should be told the truth so that we can decide which route we want to take. It’s time we forced this Government to give us that choice because this is the time when the choices must be made.’

‘It won’t happen,’ Leman said. ‘Not a chance.’

Sykes’s argument, he thought, had the kind of beguiling plausibility of the soap box. In the face of reality, it would disintegrate.
Only a fool could doubt the ever-present threat posed by the Soviets. The idea of the Hungarians taking to the streets and defeating the military might of the Soviet army even for a day or two was unthinkable. It didn’t add up.

‘You’re right, of course.’ There was a genuine bitterness in Sykes’s voice. ‘Even if we had the courage to grasp the opportunity, we won’t do so because our leaders will make sure we don’t. They’ve got too much to lose. They’d rather bankrupt the country than admit their policies are wrong. The only certainty in this world is that the innocent will die, and that is what will happen in Hungary. Tears will be wept, the newspapers will carry columns of outrage, there will be talk of betrayal, speeches of recrimination. Historians will write books about the squandering of an opportunity to knock a hole in communism. It will all be too late, as it always is. No one will accept responsibility for doing nothing; no one will say I got it wrong, I am guilty, blame me. The dust will settle and we will go on our way, glad that we were not asked to face the test of dying for our beliefs. The Soviets will have got away with murder once more. And so it will go on.’

‘What’s the Government’s reaction to these reports?’ Leman asked. ‘Are they taking these warnings about Hungary seriously?’

‘For God’s sake, Joe, don’t be naive. The last thing they want to hear is what Martineau is telling them. He’s talking to an empty room, only the poor sod doesn’t know it. That’s what’s so wrong. The Government is doing what governments always do when faced with news they don’t want to hear. They pretend it doesn’t exist. They bury it. Real head-in-the-sand stuff. Their behaviour is monstrous.’

The silence of the evening fell on the room. Leman was touched by Sykes’s unexpected humanitarianism. Perhaps behind the controlled exterior of the publisher there was another man, driven by the dictates of his heart, prepared to put his energies behind what he believed to be right. He had misjudged him earlier. He might not like him – he didn’t think there was much that was likeable in Sykes – but he could respect him for what he appeared to stand for. He felt his instinctive opposition to the man begin to erode.

‘How do you get the Government to answer a case that officially doesn’t exist?’ Sykes was saying. ‘How do you get them to understand that there’s a crisis brewing in the Soviet satellites, and that Hungary
may present us with the best opportunity yet to start the process of dismantling the Soviet empire? Those are the questions that have to be answered.’

‘I’ve no idea how that could be done,’ Leman said, wondering if it was time to leave.

‘I do,’ Sykes said, smiling. ‘I know exactly what to do and I’m looking for someone who might be persuaded to do it for me.’

‘I could do with a drink after all that.’ Martineau fanned himself with his programme as they edged their way down the narrow row of seats towards the aisle.

‘Good idea.’

Emerging into the evening air brought no relief from the heat that had built up inside the Opera House during the endless last act. It had rained during the performance and though the sky had now cleared, the night air was clinging with moisture, the atmosphere close, heavy and enveloping, making their bodies uncomfortably damp.

What happened next took them both by surprise. One moment Hart was discussing the performance with Martineau (‘Not my idea of Alfredo at all, was he yours?’) the next he was knocked to the ground by a sudden movement in the crowd. He looked up to see a phalanx of uniformed police running towards him, batons at the ready.

‘Are you all right?’

Martineau pulled him to his feet as the crowd seethed dangerously around him. Those at the front were retreating from confrontation with the police while those still coming out of the auditorium pressed onwards, unaware of what was happening only a few yards away. A conflicting tide of people surged and boiled in front of them.

‘What the hell’s going on?’

‘The police want to clear the street.’

‘What on earth for?’

‘Follow me.’ Martineau’s voice was filled with urgency. He pointed to the other side of the street. ‘Get over there as fast as you can.’

Without waiting for a reply, he ducked under a temporary barrier that had been erected and raced across the street, evading a policeman’s attempt to stop him. Hart followed. Martineau’s decision was right. They were behind the police cordon and out of danger. From the safety of their vantage point they were able to watch the increasingly desperate attempts by the police to move the crowd back more quickly. Voices were raised, harsh shouts of instruction delivered through megaphones. Even in Hungarian, the message was clear. ‘Get back. Clear the street. Go back.’

Suddenly a truncheon cracked down on the skull of someone at the front. It was a random action by a policeman who had lost his nerve and it had its effect. That single act was enough to release the violence that had threatened since the start of the incident only moments before. As if by instruction, all pretence of restraint was abandoned. A group of police charged, striking their batons relentlessly at anyone standing in their way. Men and women fell before of their blows. The screaming intensified. The crowd retreated.

‘They’ll kill someone if they go on like this.’ Hart saw a woman emerge dazed on the other side of the street, her face and the front of her dress covered in blood from a wound in her head. ‘Bloody barbarians.’