The Tightrope Men / The Enemy (26 page)

‘You know that Kidder tried to con me into believing he was with the CIA. I always thought that American accent of his was too good to be true. It was idiomatic, all right, but he used too much idiom—no American speaks with a constant stream of American clichés.’ He struck a match. ‘It seems the Russians were with us, after all.’

‘Sometimes you get a bit too sneaky for me,’ said McCready.

‘And me,’ said Lyn. ‘Giles was right—you’re a thoroughgoing bastard.’

Carey puffed his pipe into life. ‘George: our friend, Giles, has had a rough day. Let’s put him to bed.’

Denison walked across St James’s Park enjoying the bland, late October sunshine. He crossed the road at the Guards Memorial and strolled across Horse Guards Parade and through the Palace arch into Whitehall itself, neatly avoiding a guardsman who clinked a sabre at him. At this time of the year the tourists were thin on the ground and there was not much of a crowd.

He crossed Whitehall and went into the big stone building opposite, wondering for the thousandth time who it was wanted to see him. It could only have to do with what had happened in Scandinavia. He gave his name to the porter and stroked his beard while the porter consulted the appointment book. Not a bad growth in the time, he thought somewhat vaingloriously.

The porter looked up. ‘Yes, Mr Denison; Room 541. I’ll get someone to take you up. Just sign this form, if you please, sir.’

Denison scribbled his signature and followed an acned youth along dusty corridors, into an ancient lift, and along more corridors. ‘This is it,’ said the youth, and opened a door. ‘Mr Denison.’

Denison walked in and the door closed behind him. He looked at the desk but there was no one behind it and then he turned as he saw a movement by the window. ‘I saw you
crossing Whitehall,’ said Carey. ‘I only recognized you by your movements. God, how you’ve changed.’

Denison stood immobile. ‘Is it you I’ve come to see?’

‘No,’ said Carey. ‘I’m just here to do the preparatory bit. Don’t just stand there. Come in and sit down. That’s a comfortable chair.’

Denison walked forward and sat in the leather club chair. Carey leaned against the desk. ‘I hope your stay in hospital wasn’t too uncomfortable.’

‘No,’ said Denison shortly. It had been damned uncomfortable but he was not going to give Carey even that much.

‘I know,’ said Carey. ‘You were annoyed and worried. Even more worried than annoyed. You’re worried because I’m still with my department; you would like to lay a complaint, but you don’t know who to complain to. You are frightened that the Official Secrets Act might get in the way and that you’ll find yourself in trouble. At the same time you don’t want me to get away with it—whatever it is you think I’m getting away with.’ He took out his pipe. ‘My guess is that you and Lyn Meyrick have been doing a lot of serious talking during the last fortnight. Am I correct?

Carey could be a frightening man. It was as though he had been reading Denison’s mind. ‘We have been thinking something like that,’ he said unwillingly.

‘Quite understandable. Our problem is to stop you talking. Of course, if you did talk we could crucify you, but by then it would be too late. In some other countries it would be simple—we’d make sure that you never talked again, to anyone, at any time, about anything—but we don’t do things that way here.’ He frowned. ‘At least, not if I can help it. So we have to convince you that talking would be
wrong.
That’s why Sir William Lyng is coming here to convince you of that.’

Even Denison had heard of Lyng; he was somebody in the Department of Defence. ‘He’ll have his work cut out.’

Carey grinned and glanced at his watch. ‘He’s a bit late so you’d better read this. It’s secret, but not all that much. It represents a line of thought that’s in the air these days.’ He took a folder from the desk and tossed it into Denison’s lap. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

He left the office and Denison opened the folder. As he read a baffled look came over his face, and the more he read the more bewildered he became. He came to the end of the few pages in the folder and then started to read from the beginning again. It had begun to make a weird kind of sense.

Carey came back half an hour later; with him was a short, dapper man, almost birdlike in the quickness and precision of his movements. ‘Giles Denison—Sir William Lyng.’

Denison got up as Lyng advanced. They shook hands and Lyng said chirpily, ‘So you’re Denison. We have a lot to thank you for, Mr Denison. Please sit down.’ He went behind the desk and cocked his head at Carey. ‘Has he…?’

‘Yes, he’s read his homework,’ said Carey.

Lyng sat down. ‘Well, what do you think of what you’ve just read?’

‘I don’t really know,’ said Denison, shaking his head.

Lyng looked at the ceiling. ‘Well, what would you call it?’

‘An essay on naval strategy, I suppose.’

Lyng smiled. ‘Not an essay. It’s an appreciation of naval strategy from quite a high level in the Department of Defence. It deals with naval policy should the Warsaw Pact and NATO come into conflict in a
conventional
war. What struck you about it? What was the main problem outlined?’

‘How to tell the difference between one kind of submarine and other. How to differentiate between them so that you can sink one and not the other. The subs you’d want to sink would be those that attack shipping and other submarines.’

Lyng’s voice was sharp. ‘Assuming this country is at war with Russia, what conceivable reason can there be for
not
wanting to sink certain of their submarines?’

Denison lifted the folder. ‘According to this we wouldn’t want to sink their missile-carrying submarines—the Russian equivalent of the Polaris.’

‘Why not?’ snapped Lyng.

‘Because if we sink too many of them while fighting a conventional war the Russians might find themselves losing their atomic edge. If that happened they might feel tempted to escalate into atomic warfare before they lost it all.’

Lyng looked pleased and glanced at Carey. ‘He’s learned the lesson well.’

‘I told you he’s a bright boy,’ said Carey.

Denison stirred in the chair. He did not like being discussed as though he were absent.

Lyng said, ‘A pretty problem, isn’t it? If we don’t sink their conventional submarines we stand a chance of losing the conventional war. If we sink too many of their missile-carriers the war might escalate to atomic catastrophe. How do you distinguish one submarine from another in the middle of a battle?’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Not our problem—that’s for the scientists and the technologists—but do you accept the validity of the argument?’

‘Well, yes,’ said Denison. ‘I see the point, but I don’t see what it’s got to do with what happened in Finland. I suppose that’s why I’m here.’

‘Yes, that’s why you’re here,’ said Lyng. He pointed to the folder in Denison’s hand. ‘That is just an example of a type of thought. Do you have anything to say, Carey?’

Carey leaned forward. ‘Ever since the atomic bomb was invented the human race has been walking a tightrope. Bertrand Russell once said, “You may reasonably expect a man to walk a tightrope safely for ten minutes; it would be unreasonable to do so without accident for two hundred years.”’ He hunched his shoulders. ‘Well, we’ve walked that tightrope for thirty years. Now, I want you to imagine that tightrope walker; he carries a long balancing pole.
What would happen if you suddenly dropped a heavy weight so that it hung on one end of the pole?’

‘He’d probably fall off,’ said Denison. He began to get a glimmer of what these two were getting at.

Lyng leaned his elbows on the desk. ‘A man called Merikken invented something which had no application when he invented it. Now it turns out to be something capable of carving up missiles in mid-flight. Mr Denison, supposing Russia developed this weapon—and no one else. What do you think might happen?’

‘That depends on the ratio of hawks to doves in the Russian government, but if they were sure they could stop an American strike they might just chance their arm at an atomic war.’

‘Meyrick blabbed in Stockholm before he came to us,’ said Carey. ‘And the news got around fast. Our problem was that the papers were in Russia, and if the Russians got to them first they’d hold on tight. Well, the Russians
have
got the papers—but so have we, in photocopy.’

Denison was suspicious. ‘But you sold them to the Americans.’

‘Kidder was a Russian,’ said Carey. ‘I let it be known that I was willing to be bought, but the Russians knew I’d never sell myself to them. After all, I do have certain standards,’ he said modestly. ‘So they tried to pull a fast one. I didn’t mind.’

‘I don’t quite understand,’ said Denison.

‘All right,’ said Carey. ‘The Russians have the secret and they’ll know, when we tell them, that we have it, too, and that we’ll pass it on to the Yanks. And we’ll let the Yanks know the Russians have it. We drop the heavy weight on
both
ends of the balancing pole.’

Lyng spread his hands. ‘Result—stalemate. The man remains balanced on the tightrope.’

‘There were a lot of others involved but they were small fry,’ said Carey. ‘The Czechs and the West Germans.’ He
smiled. ‘I have reason to believe that the man who bopped you on the head at Kevo was an Israeli. The Israelis would dearly like to have a defence against the SAM III missiles that the Syrians are playing around with. But, really, only America and Russia matter. And maybe China.’ He glanced at Lyng.

‘Later, perhaps.’ Lyng stared at Denison. ‘This country has just lost an Empire but many of its inhabitants, especially the older ones, still retain the old Imperial habits of thought. These modes of thought are not compatible with the atomic era but, unfortunately, they are still with us. If it became public knowledge that we have handed over to the Russians what the newspapers would undoubtedly describe as a super-weapon then I think that one of the minor consequences would be the fall of the government.’

Denison raised his eyebrows. ‘Minor!’

Lyng smiled wintrily. ‘The political complexion of the government of the day is of little interest. You must differentiate between the government and the state; governments may come and go but the state remains, and the real power is to be found in the apparatus of state, in the offices of Whitehall, in what Lord Snow has so aptly described as the corridors of power.’

Carey snorted. ‘Any day I’m expecting a journalist to write that the winds of change are blowing through the corridors of power.’

‘That could very well happen,’ said Lyng. ‘The control of power in the state is not monolithic; there are checks and balances, tensions and resistances. Many of the people I work with still hold on to the old ideas, especially in the War Office.’ He looked sour for a moment. ‘Some of the senior officers in the Navy, for instance, were destroyer commanders during World War II.’

His hand shot forward, his finger pointing to the folder in Denison’s lap. ‘Can you imagine the attitude of such men,
steeped in the old ideas, when they are expected to issue orders to young officers to sink one type of enemy submarine and not another?’ He shook his head. ‘Old habits die hard. They’re more likely to say, in the old tradition, “Full speed ahead, and damn the torpedoes.” They fight to win, forgetting that no one will win a nuclear war. They forget balance, and balance is all, Mr Denison. They forget the man on the tightrope.’

He sighed. ‘If the news of what has been done in Finland were to be disclosed not only would the present government fall, a minor matter, but there would be a drastic shift of power in the state. We, who strive to hold the balance, would lose to those who hold a narrower view of what is good for this country and, believe me, the country and the world would not be the safer for it. Do you understand what I am saying, Mr Denison?’

‘Yes,’ said Denison. He found that his voice was hoarse, and he coughed to clear it. He had not expected to be involved in matters of high policy.

Abruptly the tone of Lyng’s voice changed from that of a judge reviewing a case to something more matter-of-fact. ‘Miss Meyrick made a specific threat. She derided the efficacy of “D” notices and said that the students of twenty universities would not be bound by them. I regret to say that this is probably quite true. As you know, our student population—or some sections of it—is not noted for its coolheadedness. Any move towards implementing her threat would be potentially disastrous.’

‘Why don’t you talk to her about it?’ said Denison.

‘We will—but we believe you have some influence with her. It would be a pity if Miss Meyrick’s anger and compassion were to cause the disruption I have described.’

Denison was silent for a long time then he sighed, and said, ‘I see your point. I’ll talk to her.’

‘When will you see her?’ asked Carey.

‘I’m meeting her at the Horse Guards at twelve o’clock.’

‘That’s in ten minutes. You talk to her, and I’ll have a word with her later.’ Carey stood up and held out his hand. ‘Am I forgiven?’

‘I wanted to kill you,’ said Denison. ‘I very nearly did.’

‘No hard feelings,’ said Carey. ‘I seem to remember hitting
you
pretty hard.’

Denison got up and shook Carey’s hand. ‘No hard feelings.’

Lyng smiled and busied himself with the contents of a slim briefcase, trying to efface himself. Carey stood back and looked at Denison critically. ‘I wouldn’t have believed it—the change in you, I mean.’

Denison put his hand to his face. ‘Iredale unstuck the eyelid—that was easy—and took away the scar. He had a go at the nose and that’s still a bit tender. We decided to leave the rest—getting the silicone polymer out would amount to a flaying operation so we gave it a miss. But the beard covers up a lot.’ He paused. ‘Who did it, Carey?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Carey. ‘We never did find out.’ He looked at Denison quizzically. ‘Has Iredale’s handiwork made much difference with Lyn?’

‘Er…why, yes…I think…’ Denison was unaccountably shy.

Carey smiled and took out a notebook. ‘I’ll need your address.’ He looked up, ‘At the moment it’s Lippscott House, near Brackley, Buckinghamshire. Can I take it that will be your address until further notice?’

‘Until further notice,’ said Denison. ‘Yes.’

‘Invite me to the wedding,’ said Carey. He put away his notebook and glanced through the window down into Whitehall. ‘There’s Lyn,’ he said. ‘Admiring the horses. I don’t think there’s any more, Giles. I’ll keep in touch. If you ever need a job, come and see me. I mean it.’

‘Never again,’ said Denison. ‘I’ve had enough.’

Lyng came forward. ‘We all do what we think is best.’ They shook hands. ‘I’m glad to have met you, Mr Denison.’