Spy Story (8 page)

I wanted the end of the live concert on Radio 3 but got the news on Radio 4. On Monday the car workers would strike for a thirty-five per cent wage increase, and a six-week paid holiday. The Russians had announced the six-man team that would go to Copenhagen for the German reunification talks. Two of the Russian team were women, including its leader, who was in the running for chairman of the whole circus. (A proposal energetically supported by Women's Liberation, who planned to march to Westminster on Sunday afternoon.) There'd been a fire in a Finsbury Park hairdresser's, and a stick-up in a pay-office in Epsom. The weather forecast was frost, overcast skies and rain following. And I'd missed the best part of the concert.

There is no limit to the number of staff officers or advisers in either Suite, nor need the Red and Blue Suite staffs be of equal size.

RULES
. ‘
TACWARGAME
'.
STUDIES CENTRE
.
LONDON

The Studies Centre – now
STUCEN LONDON
– is a particularly appalling example of Gothic revival, that in anywhere but Hampstead would have been too conspicuous to house secrets.

‘Caledonia', for such was deeply incised on its portals, was built by a nineteenth-century ironmaster to celebrate the Royal Navy's decision to reinforce the wooden walls of England with ironclads.

It was a three-storey maroon and mustard monolith, with turrets, domes and slots for bowmen. The main staircase would not have cramped Busby Berkeley, and the marine life depicted in mosaics in the hall might well have made Disney feel quite proud.

The smell of cheap metal-polish and warm machine-oil penetrated even to Ferdy's stove-heated den, and the carbolic that they used to swab down the hall was probably what was killing the winter lettuce that I was trying to grow in the conservatory.

But it was probably the ballroom – with its glazed dome roof – that attracted the men who chose Caledonia as the Studies Centre. Most of its panelling was intact. And, although it had suffered under a decade or two of military footwear, the inlaid sprung floor would still have supported a light fantastic or two. The minstrels' gallery had been extended and glass-faced to make a long Control Room – or ‘god box' – from which the Director and his staff could look down upon the War Table.

The Table took up most of the ballroom. It was well over seven yards wide and at least twelve yards long. In the bottom left-hand corner there was the tiny Jan Mayen Island. The North Pole was halfway up the left of the table, the right showed the ragged northern coast of the Soviet Union, from the Laptev Sea and the New Siberian Islands right the way down to Murmansk and a slice of Norway.

The whole Table could be folded away and replaced by other latitudes, but this was our bread and butter. Sections of the Table hinged to give access to plotters who couldn't reach far enough across Lapland to find the Barents Sea. But conveniently close to the bottom edge of the board there was the almost land-locked White Sea which sheltered Archangel, where Soviet Undersea Warfare Command had built a large underground control centre, and a powerful series of transmitters to control the Northern Fleet submarines.

Only a few hundred miles away was the Northern Fleet's HQ at Murmansk, and farther along the Kola Fjord was Poliarnyi. Ice free almost all the year round, from here came the Russian Navy's Tupolev 16s: the gigantic ‘Badgers', noses full of guidance radar, slung with intelligence pods and Kennel air-breathers under each wing, so bedecked with missiles and gear that they'd had to extend the runway by five hundred metres to get them into the air. These were the boys that came sniffing into Hamish Sound and down even to the Thames Estuary and out to the Atlantic: timing the defences, listening to the radio traffic and watching the shipping all the way to eastern Canada.

From here too came the big jet flying boats, crammed with homing torpedoes and nuclear depth charges, patrolling the Northern Sea Route in summer, and in winter the Arctic ice. And here were helicopters of all shapes and sizes, from two-seaters to sky cranes. All nice kids without a doubt, but don't think they were staging their all-weather patrols in case some Russian Chris-craft owner needed winching to safety.

‘Are we all here?' Ferdy asked, and waited while the last two visitors caught up with us.

It wasn't Ferdy's job to show visiting teams around the Centre, but, now that I was Schlegel's PA, it wasn't mine either. We compromised; I stayed close to the tour while Ferdy shepherded them through the building.

They'd seen the Blue Suite, where they would sit for a week fighting the battle of the Northern seas. It was a fine room on the first floor, with chubby angels entwined each side of the fireplace and a crystal chandelier. So far the chandelier had survived the drastic changes that had made the elegant library into an Operations Room of the sort that one might find on a Guided Missile Destroyer, only with more central floor space. Adjoining it, a box room had been converted to a Sonar Control Room that we used for special tactical games that were subordinated to the main action. Today the shutters were open and Blue Ops was lighted by daylight, but tomorrow the room would be dark except for the visual displays and the side-lit plastic sheets that depicted the action, bound by bound.

The library – as we still called it – had a door opening on to the upper gallery. Its fine carved mahogany balustrade provided a place from which one could see the brightly coloured mosaic paving of the entrance hall below. It was easy to imagine it crowded with men in frock coats, talking about Dreadnoughts, and women in ostrich feathers and silk, whispering about Edward VII's love life.

The room adjoining the library, once a small bedroom, was now a conference room with closed-circuit television showing the most vital displays from Blue Ops. This was where the visitors would spend most of their time, watching the VDUs and agonizing over whether to resort to nuclear depth charges or abandon their advanced submarines. On the same level there were bathrooms, bedrooms, a well-stocked bar and a sentry to make sure none of the visitors tried to see what was displayed downstairs on the big War Table. For only the ballroom Table showed the true state of affairs for both sides. Blue Suite, just like Red Suite in the basement, had only the results of reports and analysis. And that was another name for guesswork.

‘For the big strategic game we often assume that the coast of northern Norway has already been occupied by the Soviet Union,' said Ferdy. ‘If war came, that would be inevitable – and we believe it would be fast.'

Once he'd put it even more bluntly than that to a group of senior officers from
AFNORTH
at Kolsaas. None of them, especially the Norwegians, had proved readily convertible to Ferdy's instant strategy.

But today there were no Norwegians. I looked at them, all lined up along the War Table. Behind the two VIP American Admirals and their aides, there was the usual rag-bag: cocky thirty-year-olds, earnest forty-year-olds, desperate fifty-year-olds, career officers who, in their ill-chosen civilian suits, looked more like insurance salesmen. There were seldom any surprises. An elderly, soft-spoken New Zealand Captain from the purchasing commission, a bald Dutch senior intelligence officer, two American submarine Captains, fresh from a staff tour at
CINCPAC
, a civilian war-game specialist from
SACLANT
(Striking Fleet), some embassy free-loaders and a one-eyed German who'd already confided to us twice that he'd sunk over a hundred thousand tons of Allied shipping. ‘During the war, of course,' he added, but we had only his word on that.

‘There's a problem with all these games,' warned one of the embassy attachés, a Canadian. ‘If you don't introduce the element of chance – dice or random machine – you get no idea of what happens in war. But introduce it, and you're into the gambling business.'

I winked at Ferdy but he had to keep a straight face while this Canadian mastermind was looking at him. We'd often said that no matter how slow you take the briefing, one of these hoorays is going to ask that very question. You could put it on the big machine and trip it for a print-out.

‘It is not a war-game in that sense,' said Ferdy. He smoothed his rumpled hair. ‘You do better to regard it as a historical reconstruction.'

‘I don't dig you,' said the Canadian.

‘Some history might be instructive, other aspects of history less so. If you learn from experience here, then that of course is spendid, but it's dangerous to start off thinking of the process as a future event.'

‘Is that why your set-up is civilian operated?'

‘Perhaps it is,' said Ferdy. Nervously he picked up one of the plastic plot markers from that morning's test run-through. ‘Let's be clear. We don't control any Fleet elements from here and neither do we predict what they might do in any future action. Once we made a strenuous effort to stop the word “game” being used about anything we do here – “studies” is the operative word – but it was no use, people like “game” better.'

‘That's because your material is too out of date by the time it's ready for the Table?' said the Dutchman.

‘The material used here is collected from intelligence ships and aircraft. We probably could radio it back and have fairly recent data on the Table, but unless we processed the game at the same speed as an actual battle there would be little or no advantage.'

‘I'll tell you something, Mr Foxwell,' said the German Captain. ‘If, God forbid, we ever have to start retransmitting electronic intelligence from the Barents Sea …' he tapped the War Table, ‘… I'll give you a dozen five-figure groups before they trip the nuclear minefields and end your game for ever.'

The New Zealand officer said, ‘And game-time is always much slower than normal?'

‘Yes, for many reasons it has to be. Tomorrow, when you are in the Blue Suite trying to control this ocean full of ships, submarines and aircraft, worrying about supplies and air cover for your bases – when you're trying to judge which of the sighting reports are a Soviet strike force, and which are liver spots – you'll wish you had double the bound time that you'll get.'

‘But you'll fight us single-handed?' said the German.

‘No,' said Ferdy, ‘I'll have the same size staff that you'll have.'

I interrupted him. ‘Mr Foxwell is being modest,' I said. ‘Red Suite Command Staff is a coveted assignment for those of us who want to catch up on their light fiction.'

‘I've been the Red Admiral many times by now,' said Ferdy. ‘I can remember so many of the computer responses for my logistics. I can keep the overall line-up in my mind's eye more easily than you'll be able to. And I know all the tactics you are likely to pull out of the hat. By the way, have you decided which of you will be with me on the winning side?'

‘Me,' said one of the American submarine Captains.

‘The confidence you display, Mr Foxwell.' The German smiled acidly. ‘Is that because the standard of the visiting staff officers is so low, or are you so expert?' He licked his lips as if tasting the last drips of lemon juice.

‘I'll tell you my secret,' said Ferdy. ‘You're mostly experienced naval men with many years of sea duty. All sailors are romantics. You look at this table and you see frigates, cruisers and nuclear subs. You hear the breakers, smell the warm diesel and hear the voices of old friends. Committing those units – and the men inside them – to battle is a traumatic experience for you. You hesitate, you vacillate, you die.'

‘And you are not a naval man, Mr Foxwell?' the German asked.

‘As far as I'm concerned,' said Ferdy, ‘you're just a bag of plastic markers.' He picked up one of the plot markers that gave the strength, direction and identity of a naval force steaming past the Jan Mayen Island. Gently he tossed it into the air and caught it. Then he hurled it into the far corner of the room where it landed with a noise of breaking plastic.

The War Room was silent. The two Admirals continued to look at Ferdy with the same polite interest with which champions eye contenders at weigh-ins.

‘Then we'll see you all tomorrow, gentlemen,' said Ferdy. ‘And come out fighting.'

The success or failure of
ALL
games will be measured
ONLY
by the lessons learned through post-game analysis (
POGANA
). In this respect the object of each game is not victory.

‘
NOTES FOR WARGAMERS
'.
STUDIES CENTRE
.
LONDON

When there was a game in progress, the Studies Centre became a different sort of place. The mess served forty lunches and there wasn't even standing room in the upstairs bar. My new job as Schlegel's personal assistant meant that I spent a great deal of time in the Control Room looking down from the balcony to the War Table. Also I was one of the few people permitted to visit both Blue Suite and Red Suite while the game was in progress.

Ferdy and his five deputies were in Red Ops in the basement. His conference room adjoining it was seldom used unless a real crisis occurred. Ferdy liked to be in the darkened Ops Room watching the Visual Display Units and arguing with the plotters. Even then he got bored sometimes, and would invent complex disputes just so that Schlegel would send me down there to sort it out. Not that there was ever an outward sign of the pandemonium that was in the staff's minds. Even in Blue Suite on the first day they were cool calm and collected, reading data print-outs or asking for clarification from one of the Technical referees.

Like the opening moves in a chess game, the first few bounds were predictable. The knight's opening – and its offensive-defensive posture – was directly comparable with both sides putting their nuclear subs up close to the coastal cities of the enemy. For such a move inhibited attacks on them (for fear the submarine's atomic missiles would be triggered by depth charges and their cities destroyed). Pulling the bishops out through the gaps could be likened to the fighting for the northern coastline of Arctic Norway, for the Russian Navy needed ice-free ports to utilize its full surface fighting strength in the Atlantic.