Comrade Charlie

jerk to make them dance to whatever tune he chose to play. He smiled at his metaphor and then continued it: dance they would be made to do and it was time to turn up the music.

The message was already prepared and waiting for transmission to London on the broken code, because Berenkov had the sequence well established in his mind now. The transmission was in the full and supposedly more difficult combination code, mixing Cyrillic Russian with English with two numbers – three and five – introduced as variables. The message consisted of twenty-six digits.

It was instantly intercepted, which Berenkov was sure it would be, and partially deciphered within two hours by decoders now exclusively assigned to its transcription and therefore familiar with all the permutations that the Russian Technical Division had designed.

Richard Harkness attached enormous personal importance to his service’s ability to read the cipher transmission, believing his proper utilization of it to be the way to his permanent appointment as Director General. He had taken a risk, which was quite out of character, in so early bringing the code-breaking to the attention of the Joint Intelligence Committee – and could still remember their frowned surprise – but it had paid off brilliantly with the two quick successes. Now they no longer frowned, because they were impressed, which they should have been. And Harkness was determined to continue impressing the group upon which his future so closely depended.

Always the man of rules, Harkness had issued a written decree that he should be alerted at the moment of an interception – even before its successful translation – and by the time Hubert Witherspoon responded to the summons to the top floor of Westminster Bridge Road the decode and its original lay side by side on the expansive and meticulously tidy desk.

‘Another one?’ anticipated Witherspoon at once. He was enjoying the increased favouritism since Harkness had got the acting directorship and was convinced it could only get better.

‘But incomplete,’ qualified Harkness, swivelling the message, already in its file binder, so that the other man could read it. The latter part of the transmission was deciphered in full – King William Street – but it was preceded by a group of nine numbers, 759001150.

Witherspoon frowned up. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘No one in the decoding division does, either,’ said Harkness. ‘It won’t decipher. Whichever key the decoders try it still comes out gibberish. They’re reprogramming the computer but they’re not happy.’ Neither was Harkness. So far there had not been any difficulty that hadn’t been quickly overcome, and the hindrance made him uneasy: he wanted uninterrupted success, not setbacks.

Witherspoon had stood to read the message. He sat back now, pulling at his lower lip, which was a mannerism. He immediately saw a possible explanation and was glad he could so quickly prove his cleverness to the other man. ‘So!’ said Witherspoon. ‘We’ve got to assume a connection between this and the other message that is so far meaningless to us: REACTIVATE PAYMENT BY ONE THOUSAND?’

‘Yes,’ said Harkness cautiously.

‘Then it fits, doesn’t it?’ invited Witherspoon.

Harkness wished he wasn’t being asked to give an opinion because at that stage he didn’t have one, but he was unembarrassed in front of the younger man. Harkness decided he’d been wise in making himself Witherspoon’s protector. He said: ‘How do you see it fitting?’

‘The first message is most likely a payment instruction?’

‘Yes?’ agreed Harkness, still doubtful.

Witherspoon was aware of his mentor’s difficulty and decided to make the next question rhetorical to avoid worsening it. ‘And what do we have in King William Street? The Moscow Narodny Bank!’

‘Oh yes!’ agreed Harkness at once. ‘That fits: that fits very well indeed. We’re getting the beginning of an operation.’

‘Maybe not the beginning,’ qualified Witherspoon at once. ‘The first message says reactivate. Something had been ongoing and was suspended. Now it looks as if it’s being resumed.’

This was enough, calculated Harkness: enough to make a preliminary report to the joint planners, which had more than one benefit but all to his advantage. It would continue to prove their – and by ‘their’ the unavoidable inference was his – exceptional access to a vital intelligence source. And at the same time it eased the ultimate responsibility if things went wrong or failed completely to be interpreted because all the other agencies were represented and would be ordered to contribute, so any failure would be a shared one. Overly theatrical Harkness, who was a devotee of American crime series on television, said: ‘All we’ve got to do is find out what it was. And is.’

‘We’ve got no access into the bank?’

Harkness shook his head. ‘None. Nor are we likely to get it.’ The man paused. ‘Could those digits be something as simple as a bank account number?’

‘Possible,’ said Witherspoon. ‘The grouping looks too large, though. And there are too many for it to be a telephone number.’

‘We should impose surveillance at once,’ determined Harkness, pleased with a decisive action that would make his report appear even more complete. ‘It’ll be an enormous job but I want photographs so that we can run a comparison upon all known Soviet bloc people in London.’

‘That will be an enormous undertaking,’ said Witherspoon, coming as near as he felt able to querying the order.

‘I’m not expecting us to get everybody,’ accepted Harkness. ‘Our man might just be among the ones we do get. Once we’ve got a face and an identity we’ll have a lead to follow.’

‘What else can we do?’ asked Witherspoon.

‘Continue to rely upon the code interception,’ said Harkness confidently. ‘That’s our best chance.’

33

That night Charlie was in the bar at the same time as the previous evening but there were some Russians ahead of him, all men, and three he did not recognize from twenty-four hours earlier. His corner stool was vacant, however, and his regular drink served as he took it. Charlie was tight with excited anticipation and was glad the shaking of the morning wasn’t showing. He would not have been surprised if it had. All he could think about was how soon the reunion was going to be. Soon now. So very soon.

‘How’s it been?’ said Charlie to the barman, wanting any useful gossip before it became too busy for the man to talk.

‘They were at Farnborough so it was quiet at lunchtime, thank God,’ said the barman. ‘I needed the rest after yesterday.’

‘Kept you busy then?’

‘There were about eight who didn’t want to go to bed. And wouldn’t.’

‘I’ve heard it said the Russians are big drinkers,’ offered Charlie encouragingly. ‘What happened in the end?’

‘One of the party came down and ordered them all out: a quiet one who was in earlier, when I think you were here. Kept to himself and drank only mineral water. You remember him?’

‘No,’ lied Charlie. Confirmation of KGB, he thought contentedly: ten out of ten and go to the top of the class. He said: ‘They all go to bed then?’

‘Like lambs,’ said the man. ‘Which merely left me with another hour to clear up.’

‘Good for business, though?’

They don’t seem to have heard much about gratuities,’ the man complained heavily.

He moved away to serve some more of the Soviet group who entered and Charlie gazed with apparent indifference across the bar but in fact straining to pick up a comprehensive conversation. He got most of one, from the first four men, and it intrigued him. It was devoted to that day’s show and they appeared to be making a critically open assessment of two of their Ilyushin airliner exhibits compared to a Boeing aircraft on display. Neither of the two KGB men were in the bar yet and Charlie supposed the speakers wouldn’t expect an outsider to be able