The Contract (30 page)

Spottiswoode stiffened. 'You call him a defector, Prime Minister, which to me implies someone who has chosen and quite voluntarily to come to our country. This young man was in a state of abject terror when found, which I suggest is hardly the characteristic of a willing participant in whatever matter the Intelligence people were hatching ... I will continue. He was taken to the home of my constituent, soaked and chilled, and while he was there he specifically requested protection from the people holding him at Holmbury. He made a most serious allegation there in the presence of the householder and the local constable who had been summoned by telephone. He claimed that he was being forced to provide information which was to be used to facilitate the murder of his elderly father. I understand that his father is a citizen of the Soviet Union, but of East German extraction and that he takes his holiday in the country of his birth each summer, where the killing will take place. This young man alleged that the plan was far advanced, that the actual assassin was present at Holmbury.'

'It sounds a complete tale of fabrication.' A flush was in the Prime Minister's cheeks, the testiness in his words.

' I haven't finished. I'm sure you'll want to hear me out. . .'

Spottiswoode said. 'As a result of the information being passed through police channels that the boy had been taken to the house of my constituent, these freebooters from Holmbury were told of his presence.

They arrived, abused the police there, were vilely rude to a most pleasant lady, and dragged this young man from the premises half naked. There was no question of returning him into the hands of his former captors of his own free will.'

Anger was settling on the Prime Minister's face. He should have been sitting quietly, brooding with his speech, left to himself and his closest cronies. 'I'll look into it, you can be sure of that.'

'It's my hope that you will look into it, and most thoroughly at that.'

Spottiswoode was not to be easily moved from his bone and the marrow fat. 'Personally, I think it's a damned scandal if government agencies can cloak themselves in secrecy to cover what is at best disgusting behaviour, at worst a heinous and criminal act...'

' I have said, Sir Charles, I will look into the matter.'

'This is not a land of private armies, nor is this a police state. We should not tolerate Security and Intelligence carrying on like bandits ... I have assumed throughout this interview, Prime Minister, that the actions of these people at Holmbury in this case do not have government approval

'You won't expect me to pass comment on that.'

The Prime Minister shifted in his chair, his fingers twisted on the fountain pen in his hand. Irritation and embarrassment. Could he admit that the Service often acted without informing the head of government?

Well enough known that was a fact, whispered about in the corridors of Westminster that the Service was a law to itself. But not for him to say in his own office to a querulous backbencher that he did not control the day to day activities of SIS. Admit that and he was not fitted for the high office he held.

But this was the grey area of the unmentionable - National Security -

the area discussed by politicians with the same enthusiasm that a table of cigarette smokers will bring to the topic of terminal cancer. One of his predecessors, Harold Macmillan, had told the House that 'it is dangerous and bad for our national interest to discuss these matters'. Another occupant of Downing Street, Sir Harold Wilson, had written that a Prime Minister questioned in this field should phrase his answers to be

'uniformly uninformative'.

'I trust that those responsible in this case will be brought to heel and sharply. It would be unfortunate if people in this country, hard working and law abiding people, were to believe that there are agencies here that operate above democratic life . . . beyond your control, Prime Minister.'

There was a knock and the PPS came into the room. He coughed for attention.

' I think there are one or two points that have come up in debate that you might wish to rebut, Prime Minister . . .'

The Prime Minister gazed steely eyed across at the back- bencher.

'Thank you for your time. As far as is possible I will inform you of what I discover. I'm most grateful to you.'

'Thank you, Prime Minister. I hope I've been of help.'

They shook hands. With Sir Charles Spottiswoode gone the Prime Minister smacked a clenched fist onto the cards for his speech, scattered them across the table. The PPS, without comment, swept up his glass, took it to the cabinet, filled it heftily. No oil for the troubled waters, gin would have to do the job.

On a Thursday evening in Bonn it was usual for a representative of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) to meet with a senior official of the Bundesamt fur Verfassungeschutz (BfV). It was the regular conversation on matters of mutual interest between the Federal Intelligence Service and the Federal Internal Security Office.

Consultation between the two agencies had been demanded by successive Chancellors after the retirement of General Reinhard Gehlen, who had founded BND after the war and run the organisation with autonomous secrecy. It had been determined that never again would an arm of the secret service be permitted such free ranging power, and if BfV maintained a gentle spy role over the more senior brother there would be no complaint by the political administration.

There was always much for them to discuss. The damaging and publicised drain of defecting government secretaries to the East, the knowledge that within the Ministries existed the deep sleeper agents positioned by East Berlin, the efforts of DDR operatives to prise their way into the lives of lonely, menopausal female clerks. There were grounds for constant vigilance, the stability of the nation was threatened.

It was little more than 5 years since the worm had crawled to the very heart of the apple, since Willi Brandt had resigned after the discovery that an East German spy had nibbled his way to the Chancellor's private office.

The early talk in the office of the BND representative had concerned the vast scale of Positive Vetting procedures authorised by government.

The files were now locked back in their holding cabinets. Neither man was in a hurry to be on his way though their main business was completed. For each this had been the last appointment of the day and all that faced them was the traffic on Koblenzer Strasse, the tedium of the homeward journey. One produced a packet of cigarettes, the other his pipe. Time to ease back in their chairs, time to replace their pens in the inner pockets. The liaison worked well. They were old friends, men who had worked as young officers in Fremde Heere Ost, the section of staff officers in the former Wehrmacht that had concerned itself with Eastern front intelligence. They could confide in each other.

'Did you know that the British . . . SIS . .. had been round us, their man here, they sought a recommendation. They wanted a name of one of the organisations for bringing people from the East.' The BND officer dragged at his cigarette.

'They haven't been to us.'

'It was not a request through the usual channels, there is a procedure for the exchange of information, they did not use that.'

'And before they had been asked for what purpose they needed such information?'

'The intention must be clear . .. they wish to bring someone from the DDR.'

'They live in a delusion of their former times.' The BfV man coughed through the pipe smoke. 'Thirty-five years after the war, and you find those of them that believe they are still the occupying power.'

'Nothing about this was handled properly. I telephoned their man for guidance on their intentions, he was not available and he did not call back. He cancelled the usual liaison meeting for last week, so again we did not talk. Now they have said that we will meet next week . ..'

'Which will be when their business is completed . . . they think they can walk over us.'

'It poses a difficulty, certainly, if we adhere to the policy of the Chancellery at this moment. Escape across the frontier is totally discouraged when aided by commercial organisations. If the request for the information they sought had been properly presented I doubt that it would have been granted. You have the risk of our involvement in a potential incident.'

'Whose name were the British given?' There was a glaze of hostility in the BfV man's face.

'Lentzer . . . Hermann Lentzer

'A Nazi, I know of him.'

'The British should not have gone about their business in this way, not in the country of an ally, a close ally. And afterwards when they have gone back to London, when they have dismantled their circus it is we who are left with the recrimination and sniping from East Berlin. And bad at this time, with the meeting of the Chancellor and Honecker coming . . .' The BND officer shrugged, enough time had been used. The Koblenzer Strasse traffic would be thinning.

'What are you going to do about it?'

'The Chancellor will not thank me for drawing him into the matter . . .

The British would accuse us of gross interference in their plans, whatever they may be ... I am going to do nothing.' The BND officer was on his feet, briefcase in hand.

'They never change, the British . . . they have never learned to accept their new place.'

As they parted a few minutes later in the car park a persistent drizzle sprayed them and the lights gleamed and shone and cast far shadows on the streets. His temper aroused by what he had been told, his forehead ploughed with irritation, the BfV man rattled his horn as he nudged into the traffic flow.

A black and miserable evening and a slow trek home.

Outside the door of his private office the Prime Minister accepted the congratulations of his supporters. Many crowded round him and his ears rang with the acclamation of their praise.

'A triumph, Prime Minister . . .'

'Absolutely marvellous stuff, sir, just what the party needed

'Quite destroyed them, kicked them where it hurts, damn good. ..'

The Prime Minister's face was set, furious and aggressive. His eyes ranged the corridor for the arrival of his PPS from the Chamber. The decision was taken on the course of action he would follow. Was it supposed to be one man government? Was he supposed to oversee every bloody department of Whitehall ? Those buggers from the Service playing their games, living prehistoric dreams. He had been softened up and knocked down by an arrogant fool and that treatment from Spottiswoode outweighed the sycophancy gathered around him.

The PPS came smiling to the Prime Minister's side.

'Fine show. . .'

'What do I have tomorrow?'

'TUC economic committee at 10. Egyptian ambassador at 12 and he's lunching. Away for Chequers at 3.' The PPS marshalled the timetable effortlessly.

'Get hold of the Cabinet Secretary,' the Prime Minister said quietly.

'He's to bring the SIS man to Downing Street at 9 tomorrow . . . That's an instruction.'

The PPS slipped away from the gathering throng around the star of the night. He was baffled. Why on an evening such as this should the Prime Minister speak with such anger?

Friday morning. Johnny rose at six and dressed at once. The noise of the first trams and buses of the day boomed along the street below his window. Friday, and the coming of the critical hours.

He sat at the table and took a sheet of hotel notepaper. Otto Guttmann would have followed instructions, would not have reported the contact.

That was Johnny's feeling and he had backed it by sitting in the foyer the previous evening and watching. He would have seen the policemen coming to the lift . . . there had been none . . . Better to use the hotel paper, to blazon the proximity, because anything that disturbed the old man suited Johnny's purpose. He wrote the clear directions that Guttmann should follow and on the reverse side drew a map of the route to the railway bridge by way of Sandtor Strasse and Rogatzer Strasse.

Simple, bold lines for the map. He slipped the paper into an envelope and sealed it.

Johnny took the lift downstairs, walked out into the street and towards the square behind the Centrum. It was where he had seen the telephone kiosks. He rang the number of the International, spoke in natural German, and asked for the number of the room of Dr Otto Guttmann. He was a friend, he said, later he would be sending a book to the hotel and he wanted to ensure that the package was correctly addressed. The girl on the switchboard would be busy at this time of the morning with the waking calls. Over the line he heard the yawn, then the turning of paper as she searched for the information.

'Doctor Guttmann, or Miss Erica Guttmann?'

'Doctor Guttmann.'

'Room 626.'

'Thank you.'

Johnny replaced the receiver and strolled away. It had rained in the night, but the day promised well and the banking clouds were falling behind the Elbe and the sun flickered after them. He went back to the hotel and to any who watched him in the hallway he would have seemed a man who had slept badly and taken an early walk to freshen himself.

Unremarkable behaviour. Johnny had been a good pupil to Smithson.

He nodded the day's greeting to Comrade Honecker . . . he took the lift to the sixth floor.

There was a maid in the corridor with her trolley and bucket and brooms and stacked clean sheets. Johnny waited, admired a grim water colour of hills and lake shores until she had found a vacated room where she could work. He walked the length of the corridor looking for 626, and paused outside Otto Guttmann's door.