The Cambridge Theorem
Read The Cambridge Theorem Online
Authors: Tony Cape
Tony Cape
F
ELONY
& M
AYHEM
P
RESS
 ⢠ N
EW
Y
ORK
Prologue
T
HE OLD SPY SAT
at his study window and watched the dusk gather. It had stopped snowing, and the street-sweepers had left. Below him a streetlamp blinked on and began humming.
Determinedly, an aging matron made her way down the corridor of cleared pavement, her shoulder bowed beneath the weight of a grocery bag. With her other arm she held firm a wriggling child, who jabbed at the embankment of snow and ice with a short stick.
He raised his eyes past the featureless rooftops that were Stalin's architectural legacy to the city. By craning his neck he could just see the illuminated onion domes of St. Basil's in the failing light. After so many years, the sight still cheered him faintly. The matron, no doubt housekeeper to some dignitary such as himself, was turning into the building like a frigate returning to port. The boy hurled his stick into the air as a Chaika limousine drew up and disgorged two passengers before slithering away down Mira Prospekt like a dark fish. At this hour the deskmen from Dzerzhinsky Square returned steadily, always in pairs.
He reached for the glass of whisky at his elbow and contemplated again the crossword he had clipped from
The Times
that morning. As he had done every day for almost twenty years, he had laboriously ironed the dense cylinder flat before beginning his unhurried review of its contents. He had often reflected that if the KGB were to choose between a mole in the British cabinet, and a subscription to
The Times
, he would recommend the latter. Arriving every morning to his post office box, the newspaper had been indispensable to the arc of his career. As a member of the British Establishment himself, he saw through the veiled code of its news reporting like glass, and it had been the simple source of the mordant analyses that had fuelled his career in the First Chief Directorate. Now, in restive retirement, he continued quietly to steer his reports to the chairman's office, where he knew they were appreciated. He had usually completed the crossword by mid-afternoon, but today a final clue eluded him. “Put it with the stars and it flies,” two blanks “r,” three blanks “s,” a singular clue with a plural ending. He pushed the clipping aside in annoyance and lit another cigarette, then took a drink of whisky. The smoky taste was familiar and comforting, and he felt the ache across his skull ease. Since his doctor's warning that his liver would not much longer withstand his habitual half-liter a day intake, he now limited himself to two glasses, most nights.
The two Chekists below stamped their feet on the swept flagstones before walking briskly into the building, their breath a white fog against dark coats and hats. He could see clearly where the zone of privilege ended at the street corner, where the government building's swept walkways gave way to the corrugated ice of Moscow's public streets. It was early April, 1981, and even for Moscow the frigid weather was lingering. He turned to the other document on his desk, the case officer's report clipped to Conrad's decrypted message, and the polite, handwritten request for his comments from Veleshin. Since his forced retirement he still received the occasional request for commentary on European, and particularly British, affairs, but he suspected it was only the chairman's patronage that overrode objections to the practice from his enemies in First. Here was corroboration. Veleshin, head of the Third Directorate, was rumored to have become one of the chairman's senior advisers, and the expensive writing paper confirmed that the inquiry came via the chairman's suite itself, not from Veleshin's office at First. He and the chairman were two of the handful of people still alive who knew Conrad's identity, so the invitation was not perhaps surprising. Blunt had known, of course, but although Blunt was blown he would never, ever reveal his knowledge. He had personally assured the chairman of this conviction.
He read again the decrypt of Conrad's puzzling appeal for assistance. A student, of all people? Such a request would have to be met, obviously, uncharacteristic though it seemed. He was being asked to respond to the case officer's opinion, who was predictably recommending that heavy equipment be rolled out of Department Five. But the old spy knew Cambridge, and knew such an approach was unwise. It was then an idea occurred to him.
He thought with sudden nostalgia of his old friend Conrad, a man who was his superior in every way. Conrad was undoubtedly the most successful deep penetration agent in Soviet history, a solitary, an agent so trusted and skilled no controller had ever run him from Britain. His cover and fieldcraft had always been impeccable, and his commitment unwavering. That he now perceived a threat from such an unlikely source seemed odd, suggesting even the infirmity of age. Certainly, his retirement had been richly earned, but given crucial developments in Britain and America, the reactivation had been essential. He wondered if Conrad felt resentment at the unsung nature of his work, but dismissed the idea immediately. He had never sought reward.
The canaries began their customary evening song. He glanced at them through the jungle of hanging plants and ferns, the legacy of Eleanor, his third wife.
From the bedroom, he heard Rufa's low voice, crooning a lullaby to their youngest boy. The voice rose sharply into an angry, scolding tone. He knew what had happened. The boy, wide-eyed and enraptured, had put his finger to his nose and then to his mouth, a reflexive habit that enraged his mother. She had a quick temper, this central registry clerk turned watcher turned devoted wife. She was his fifth, and he presumed, his last.
He let his mind scan the implications of responding to Conrad's request by playing the new agent, Painter. He had seen the chairman's hand once more in the decision to circulate the recruitment memo to him. The chairman knew his personal file intimately, and would have been amused by the coincidence, the strange personal connection from so long ago. He had been impressed by the simple but ingenious recruitment, the combination of dogged research and initiative that it displayed. But the head of the Mosque field office was one of the new breed that the chairman had cultivated; subtle, intelligent and daring. Painter was untried and relatively untrained, but an unorthodox response was perhaps what was needed. Maybe it was his mood of nostalgia. He remembered cutting his teeth in the sewers of Vienna during the Dollfuss pogrom and wanted to offer this unknown scion of former flesh a like opportunity. He would need to convince the chairman to waive the normal repercussions that followed the discovery of Conrad's identity. It had been a ruthless and expensive rule over the years, and was a potentially awkward issue. He knew also if he held sway, his enemies at First would exult, willing the mission to fail. But if it succeeded?
The ailing peasant who nominally occupied the general secretary's chair could only have a year or two to live, and the chairman was now poised to move. The renewed intelligence from Conrad would only burnish his star, and his files on potential rivals were sedulously groomed, as they all knew. When the move came, the senior offices of the nomenklatura would be shaken up, and perhaps even head of the First Chief Directorate would be in the offing. He had not chosen to retire. If the threat to Conrad were removed, through his recommendation? It was probably only a policing action, after all.
He stared out into the thickening night and thought again of Conrad's extraordinary career, and his seamed face broke into a slow grin. Stripes, of course. Put it with the stars, and it flies. The Stars and Stripes. Quite appropriate. He reached for a pencil and carefully completed the crossword puzzle, then slowly inserted two sheets of paper, with carbon, into the old Cyrillic typewriter. He finished the whisky, which would be his last that evening. This memo must be meticulously composed, and would take him the rest of the night.
The Prime Minister of Great Britain closed the file and placed it carefully on the rosewood desk, adjusting it so its corner aligned perfectly with the leather writing panel. She understood now why Sir Keith Bowman, her science adviser, had insisted she read it before that afternoon's meeting of the Economic Policy Committee. She reached for the button below her desk to summon her private secretary, but checked herself and adjusted her coiffure, an involuntary gesture.
As she often did in times of reflection, she turned her chair to look across the Downing Street lawn to the sky above Westminster. Heavy metallic clouds were looming in from Stockwell, presaging another autumn storm. October had already been one of the wettest on record.
If the report were not exaggerated, British science was on the threshold of the biggest military breakthrough since the Manhattan Project. The implications were extraordinary.
A movement on the lawn distracted her. A stooped figure dressed like a cricket umpire in a white smock and black trilby was pushing a wheeled contraption across the manicured surface, dispensing pellets across a spiked drum. She really should ask the cabinet secretary where he found such a gallery of eccentrics to tend the grounds. But then she supposed they must all have special clearance, and she ought not interfere.
The brilliance of British scientists was really most reassuring. At least they weren't all lured away to America by huge research fellowships. The President of the United States had already confided to her at their private meeting in Ottawa the previous year the importance he attached to the research. This third generation of nuclear weapons had the potential to render all other nuclear forces obsolete. They could practically emasculate the Soviet threat.
“The shortness of the wavelength, my dear. That's the key to the destructive power, as my science people explain it. We really must get there firstâbetween us,” he had told her.
The gardener had moved away from his machine towards a group of pigeons that blocked his path, flapping his hands at them as if signalling a boundary. They fluttered away and settled a few yards to his right. He resumed his mechanical grooming hesitantly after a glance at the sky. Large spots of rain hit the window with surprising force.
She was pleased the breakthrough had been made in British laboratories. The Americans would not like it, but the Americans would have no choice. It would mean millions in defense contracts and inestimable prestige for her government. The Wets would be silenced, once and for all. Wimps, the President had called them, she thought with a smile. For all their vulgarity, the Americans could occasionally turn the right phrase. Let them all defect to the Wine and Cheese Party. Her Conservatives, the real Conservatives, would be swept into a second term.
She would be sure to give Sir Keith's request for an additional research appropriation her full endorsement.