few people, and they had to be trusted to keep their mouths shut. But someone had not.
‘Have you told your allies?’ He meant the French and the Soviets.
‘Of course, and we also Major Gibson told, your SIS man at British embassy.’
Who would have surely passed that back to London and it would have been given to those at the very top of the Government, which made Cal wonder why he was here. That did not last long; it was like those envoys Vansittart had talked of — it had either been discounted or not even rated as true.
‘Force levels?’
‘Foolish to attack without men enough.’
Was Moravec being cagey or did he have those facts too? Alone, that should have been enough to show the likes of Chamberlain that Hitler was talking rubbish when he claimed he wanted a peaceful solution. Yet Vansittart had described the PM as vain and convinced of his own political genius and leading a cabinet that would not challenge him. He needed more.
‘I have lived in Germany, General Moravec, and I know, as do you, that to overturn the Nazi state will not be easy — too many ruthless people have a stake in its continuance. Likewise, those who might act will not do so unless they know it will have an effect. The ordinary Germans do not want war any more than the ordinary Czech or Briton, they suffered too much in the last show.’
Cal waited for a response, but none came.
‘You do not have the ability to get them to act, otherwise you would be doing so. I mean no insult when I say that to those people your country is of no consequence. Only the threat of an attack in the West will give Hitler pause…’
Moravec finally responded with another laugh. ‘You understand not, Mr Moncrief. An attack in West Hitler expects.’
‘He doesn’t have the manpower.’
‘But,’ Moravec replied, finally changing to German. ‘Hitler is a madman. He believes all he needs is the will and success is guaranteed. Is that not how he rose to power in the first place? Go back to the hotel and wait. I need to think.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
Peter Lanchester had been somewhat disingenuous with Cal Jardine about the fellow he suspected might have dished them in La Rochelle, because, despite what Quex had told him, he had been doing a spot of gentle digging around to add some meat to what were, from his boss, suppositions.
It was absolutely certain, given the desk he ran, that the information about the shipment of light machine guns from Brno, as it should, had come to Noel McKevitt first; whom he had shared that knowledge with, apart from his own department, Quex and the top floor, was an unknown.
But it transpired he had been poking about asking questions since shortly after Peter had gone to Czechoslovakia, enquiries that had continued all the time he had been absent and had not abated on his return, no doubt prompted by the fact that he had not himself been asked to pursue a matter that fell under his area of responsibility.
‘Do you know this Lanchester fellow?’ ‘Any idea about his areas of speciality?’ ‘Bit weak on the dictators I hear.’ There had even been a blatant one. ‘Anyone got a notion of where he is? I want him to do a job for me.’
Such enquiries might appear innocent to those he was asking, but the answers — fragments in fact from a culture of in-house and after-hours barroom gossip — put together, could form a picture that would make for uncomfortable reading for both parties. It was a fair guess he had found out about the Brno mission in the process; now, with Quex’s clearance, Peter was finally making that visit to talk to him.
Physically, Peter thought, the man looked like the perfect undercover operator and he had once been that, having held the intelligence job at two important embassies, Paris and then Berlin, just before Hitler became chancellor. McKevitt’s face was pinkish and bland, the forehead unlined, his receding hair fair and wispy, while his green eyes seemed, regardless of what was being discussed, devoid of expression.
It was said by some Peter had asked that he was a man you could insult with impunity, he would never show any reaction, only for those same people to find out in time that he was a fellow who never forgot an affront, being the type to lock it away and wait for an opportunity to pay back the slur in spades, quite often at the point where a rival needed to be removed or diminished.
Working for the Secret Intelligence Service abroad was not a task that could be glorified with the designation of ‘spy’, despite what the Gestapo claimed for Captain Kendrick; MI6 officers in foreign embassies usually held the lowly post of passport control officer, a job that could safely be left to minions while he got on with the real task of sniffing out bits of information the forces of the country they were stationed in would rather keep to themselves.
In a world where you could never trust anyone’s stated opinion — the truth might be the polar opposite of what they said in public — McKevitt was one fellow who made no effort to avoid being pigeonholed. He was open in his admiration for firm government and never hid his hatred of trade unions under a bushel, particularly ‘bloody miners and their Bolshevik chums’.
He was wont to tell anyone who wanted to listen or not, always in a particularly grating Northern Irish accent, that the best way to deal with recalcitrant workers was to shoot them. That he always followed such a view with a braying laugh did little to diminish the chilling effect.
The man was efficient, of that there was no doubt; he had run his embassy operations faultlessly and brought in good intelligence about the intentions of the political masters of the countries in which he operated, all of which was filtered and passed to the Foreign Office so that the diplomats could formulate Government policy.
In time, he had been brought into MI6 HQ in Broadway to command a regional desk for Central Europe — at the time of appointment not the hot potato it had become since the crisis had blown up in Czechoslovakia. Yet it was still not one of the senior positions in the firm, not the German or French Desk, and it was well known that was what he craved — the other obvious thing about McKevitt was his ambition.
‘Quex heard you have been asking about me,’ Peter lied, given his boss had said nothing of the sort, reverting quickly to the truth. ‘He thought I should come in and let you know what happened in the operation I was tasked with, not that it is at all clear. Better you hear it from the horse’s mouth, what?’
‘He sent you to Brno, did he not?’
‘He did, which I think he has the right to do, but I’m curious how you know about it since it was supposed to be top-floor only.’
Any hope of embarrassing him was futile. ‘If I choose to make contact with the man we have there, that is my affair. What concerns me more, Lanchester, and you know it, is the job should have properly been left to me to initiate.’
The use of the surname was irritating; it was normal to get on to first-name terms with your SIS colleagues quite quickly, even if, as in this case, they were not well known to each other. McKevitt was being condescending and he was equally determined to show his pique at being sidelined.
‘It was no doubt felt that, with what is going on already in Czechoslovakia, you had quite a lot on your plate.’
There was no reaction to what both men knew to be a lie and it was at that point Peter Lanchester realised how very rarely the other man even blinked.
‘Not that there is much I can tell you,’ Peter added, ‘that you don’t already know.’
‘Not really my concern now,’ McKevitt replied, and given his control of his features, there was no indication if that was the truth either.
In the life of an intelligence operative, working in several different countries, the name of the game was contacts. Few people go in for outright betrayal of their national cause — the odd one yes, for principle or money and they are gold dust, but mostly an SIS man will work on collective small indiscretions, the little things let slip by numerous folk he talks to that add up to something worthwhile in the whole.
Given McKevitt’s way of openly stating his political leanings, it was a fair guess that many of those contacts he had made abroad would subscribe to his views; that was how you got talking to someone with inside knowledge,
