The Intercom Conspiracy (9 page)

‘As you please. I will have the German rate converted and a receipt made out.’ I pressed the buzzer for Nicole and offered him a cigarette.

He refused the cigarette with a graceful twitch of the hundred-franc note he had produced and then placed the note on top of the subscription form. While I was giving Nicole the necessary instructions he took a Dutch panatella from his pocket and lit that. He seemed to be in no hurry. That was fine with me.

‘It is not often,’ I said, ‘that we have the opportunity of meeting our subscribers face to face. Many write to us, of course, but …

‘Of course. But
Intercom
is a far-flung enterprise, not a parish magazine.’ He had suddenly started to speak English. It was
strongly accented, but the intonation was English-English, not North American.

‘Nevertheless –’ I went into English too –‘we are always interested in our correspondents’ views and suggestions. They are often of great value to us. I take it, sir, that you are in Geneva on business.’

He nodded vaguely. ‘Yes, business.’ He was peering over my shoulder at the bookshelves now.

‘Would you mind telling me how you came to hear about
Intercom
?’

I had his wandering attention again. ‘Not at all, Mr Carter. I have a friend who subscribes.’ His smile sweetened. ‘However, since I was careless enough to lose one issue that he gave me to read he has become an unwilling lender. So, you gain a subscriber.’

‘And you retain a friend. I see.’ I made a mental note to check on other subscribers in the Hamburg area. ‘Of course, we have always known that many copies of
Intercom
are read by more than one person,’ I said. ‘We are glad that they are. We have never been interested in big circulation figures. Influence, in our case, is measured in terms of quality, not quantity.’

It sounded phony to me even as I said it. I might have been an advertisement-space salesman from some new shiny-paper magazine venture trying to gouge a little action out of Rolls-Royce. I saw his eyebrows go up.

‘But we like to know these things,’ I added lamely.

‘And understandably.’ His hands spread out over my desk in a kind of benediction. ‘You are performing an invaluable public service and so are always on the alert for ways of enlarging and extending it.’

It was said far too solemnly. For a moment I had a nasty suspicion that he was putting me on. Still, I could only play it straight.

‘Just so,’ I said.

He leaned forward intently. ‘May I ask you a question, Mr Carter?’

‘By all means.’

‘Have you ever been threatened?’

‘Our American attorneys have been kept quite busy from time to time.’

He shook his head. ‘I was not thinking of legal action, Mr Carter. After all,
Intercom
’s persistent questing after truth must have made it powerful enemies, enemies who would stop at nothing to silence it.’ The regretful smile was still in place but the eyes were wide and anxious. I decided that I had been wrong about his trying to put me on. He was just another nut like the rest of
Intercom
’s fans.

Still, he was entitled to value for his money. I gave him the stern, no-nonsense editor look.

‘Mr Siepen, anyone who came here making threats or looking for any other sort of trouble would be out of luck.’

‘But what would you
do
?’

‘That would depend on the circumstances.’

‘Let us say that you are approached by someone who demands to know the source of some information you have published. What would be your attitude?’

‘We never reveal sources. I’d tell him to go to hell.’

‘You have a pistol?’

‘No, I don’t have a pistol.’ This one, I thought, was really wacky.

‘Suppose there is pressure, a threat of personal violence perhaps.’

‘It hasn’t come to that yet, Mr Siepen.’

‘But if it should come, Mr Carter, how would you respond?’

He was looking at me very earnestly now. He really wanted to know. I suddenly had the feeling that this was some sort of test question for him, so I thought before I answered.
Intercom
was supposed to be as tough on pacifism as it was on communism, and I didn’t want this idiot reporting back to Bloch’s arms-dealing pals that I was unreliable. On the other hand I wasn’t prepared to talk the bombastic he-man nonsense that I assumed he wanted to hear. I know my limitations; in the he-man area I am just not convincing. I tried laughing the question off.

‘That would depend on who is applying the pressure or making
the threat, Mr Siepen. If he were smaller than I am I might try throwing him out myself. Otherwise I dare say I’d get the concierge up to help.’

He was not amused. ‘Do you not feel, Mr Carter, that violence or threats of violence are best dealt with by those whose business it is?’

‘You mean by armies and police forces? Certainly.’

His pals couldn’t object to that, I thought; but he hadn’t finished with me yet, he still hadn’t made his point.

‘Then the threatened or pressured person should call for help?’

‘Obviously he should, if he needs it.’

‘And if he is in no position to call for help or if no help is available, what then? What then does he do?’

I was tired of this fooling around by then. ‘Mr Siepen,’ I said, ‘I’m not very good with hypothetical questions. You tell
me
what he does.’

He really smiled then, and I noticed that he had had bridge-work done on the left upper jaw. ‘Mr Carter,’ he said, ‘the man of sense submits to the pressure with good grace and does as he is told. As a man of sense yourself, would you not agree?’

How do you reply to that? Start talking about Galileo, or stand to attention and give him Henley’s ‘Invictus’? Luckily I didn’t have to reply because Nicole came back then with his receipt and change. He immediately got up and left. He just said goodbye. He didn’t wait to hear whether I agreed with him or not.

I’ll tell you what I thought then, Mr L. I thought that I’d been at the wrong end of a sounding-out and softening-up process. In that I think I was right. Where I got it wrong was in concluding that the pressures to which the man of sense was going to be subjected and to which he should, with good grace, submit would be coming from Mr Siepen’s direction. An understandable error, in my opinion.

Mr L, I think that I met Colonel Jost before you did.

I think that ‘Mr Siepen’ was Colonel Jost and that the bastard stopped by that day just to let me know in advance that I couldn’t
win and, for his own comfort and convenience, to leave me with the thought that it would be better not to try.

So, my physical description of ‘Mr Siepen’ tallies with that of Colonel Jost.

Thank you, Mr L, for letting me know. Your congratulatory pat on the head is also appreciated, although I must say that I find your contention that the gallant Colonel’s visit to me was ‘a kindly gesture of concern’ for my welfare on his part hard to stomach. As I see it, that gesture was about as kindly as the slap on the rump the lamb gets from the farmer when it’s being loaded into the truck for the slaughterhouse. All Colonel Jost was interested in – if you’ve got your facts right, that is – was in seeing that his ‘part of the operation’ ran smoothly and quickly. The attempt to soften me up in advance was just a little oil in the works. You say that he took ‘a certain risk’ in coming to my office. What risk, for God’s sake? Even supposing that one of the bogeymen had come to me later with a photograph of him – none of them ever did, of course, but let’s suppose – and asked if I recognised the face, what could I have said to compromise him? ‘Yes, I’ve seen that man. He took out a subscription under the name of Siepen.’ So what? They know he’s Jost, but what does that prove? Just that there’s one more secret-service bigwig who didn’t like
Intercom
and that this one gave it the personal onceover.

Kindly gesture, my foot!

On November 4, Dr Bruchner called to tell me that the executors had accepted Arnold Bloch’s offer for the
Intercom
shares. Because the executors were in America, he said, the legal transfer would take some days to complete, but I could now proceed as if it were an accomplished fact. In due course, no doubt, Herr Bloch would be communicating with me directly.

That was on a Friday. The first communication from Arnold Bloch was a letter which arrived the following Tuesday. It was written in English on his Munich office paper, but airmailed, I happened to notice, from Brussels. It was addressed to me personally
at the
Intercom
office and was set out in the form of a memorandum.

CONFIDENTIAL

You will have been advised by the Director of Intercom Publishing Enterprises A.G., Dr Martin Bruchner of Bâle, of my organisation’s acquisition of a controlling interest in the publication
Intercom Newsletter.

The character of this publication is already well known to me and my associates, and Dr Bruchner has informed you that no changes in its present character and editorial aims are either contemplated or desired. This decision I confirm
.

We will, however, from time to time be furnishing you with items of news and information for inclusion in the publication. Such items will in all cases be of a type entirely suitable for inclusion, and will consist of technical bulletins likely to be of special interest to readers employed in government service. These bulletins will generally be brief and it is particularly requested that they are published exactly as they are received by you without elaboration or comment. Their predominantly technical character makes it necessary for us to insist upon this point
.

As a conscientious editor you must naturally be at all times concerned that the material you publish is authentic. Special information bulletins coming from me or from my associates may be communicated to you by mail, telegram, Telex and, on occasion, telephone. In order that their source may in all cases be authenticated to you personally, and so accepted by you with complete confidence for immediate publication, the code designation
SESAME
will precede all such bulletins. If the designation
SESAME
is absent, this will mean that the bulletin is not authentic and that it should therefore be ignored
.

No acknowledgement of
SESAME
bulletins need be made. Bulletins arriving too late for inclusion in the issue of the newsletter normally airmailed on Tuesdays should be included in the issue of the following week. Any questions arising out of the receipt or publication of
SESAME
bulletins should be addressed to me personally by telegram, though if the procedure outlined here is carefully followed such a necessity is unlikely to arise.

A final word concerning your own position. I am glad to confirm formally your tenure of the post of Managing Editor pro tern of this publication. However, in the near future I and my associates may wish to discuss with you the possibility of changing the title of your post to that of ‘Managing Editor and Publisher’. At that time, it is thought that a discussion of the corporation’s financial arrangements with you and the possibility of their improvement at an early date may also be appropriate
.

A brief acknowledgement by telegram of this memorandum would be appreciated
.

It was signed
Bloch
.

When I say that this memorandum made me feel uneasy I am not indulging in hindsight.

I knew one thing for certain. The only way to keep
Intercom
afloat without a total subsidy was to see that it continued to be pretty outrageous and, above all, lively. The vision, which the memorandum conjured up, of commercial plugs by the dozen pouring in by mail, telegram and Telex was a depressing one. The promise that they would generally be brief I just couldn’t believe. In my experience businessmen with things to sell can almost never bring themselves to be brief. Unless these ‘technical bulletins’ were going to be written by professional admen, an unlikely prospect, they were bound, I thought, to be long-winded and dull. With much of that sort of stuff to carry,
Intercom
would soon be about as outrageous and lively as a mail-order catalogue.

The ‘code designation’
SESAME
thing bothered me for a different
reason. Not only did it seem to me to be a piece of childish hanky-panky – ‘open Sesame’ and the treasure house is revealed – it also suggested that Mr Bloch and his associates took themselves and their investment so seriously that they feared that their competitors might try to muscle in on the act by sending in technical bulletins of their own. That argued delusions of grandeur. It also implied that they were counting on their
Intercom
promotion campaign to produce business results on a really important scale. Which meant in turn that if their grandiose expectations were to be disappointed – and I thought they probably would be – I could say goodbye to subsidies and my job.

The bit at the end about my new title and the improved financial arrangements only made me laugh. ‘Be a good boy and you may get another cooky.’ Even for a public-relations consultant, that, I thought, was a trifle crude.

I was right to be uneasy. I just picked the wrong reasons for uneasiness and assigned them the wrong priorities.

I sent a brief telegram acknowledging the memorandum. ‘Received and understood,’ I said.

Only the first part of that statement can now be considered true.

Two days later I received, by mail postmarked Bonn, on Bloch’s Munich paper, the first
SESAME
bulletin.

It was anything but brief. It was also, as I had expected, dreary.

You can look all this up in the
Intercom
file, Mr L, but I remember that it started something like this: