“What happens to the documents you picked up?”
“I’ll hand them back to you when we’re finished.” He half-smiled. “One original and two copies. All in safe hands.”
“Tell me about Deeming. How did you get on to him?”
“He was screwing the wife of a local man who found out and beat him up. Your boy was shooting a James Bond line with her to get her into bed, and she talked to a girl-friend who told her boy-friend, a local policeman. We were just doing a routine surveillance.”
“Why wasn’t the husband prosecuted?”
“Nobody knew what had happened except the wife and her husband … and us of course … so nobody had any interest in letting it blow up. I’d guess the husband didn’t intend to kill him, just beat the hell out of him and went too far.”
“When do you want my guys to start?”
“Soon as you can fix it.”
“They call me Ziggy. What do they call you?”
“My name’s Tom but they call me Nick. I hate it, but I’m stuck with it.”
“Let me use your phone here and I’ll get us both plane seats for tomorrow. I’ll fly back with you. Unless you’ve got anything else to do in Washington.”
“That’s fine. I’ll give you my ticket details.”
10
It was in mid-March 1969 that the car drew up outside the house and Symons walked out to see who it was. It was Grabowski looking strangely respectable in a neat blue suit and a Hardy Amies tie, with black brogues and a white shirt.
Grabowski barely touched Symons’s offered hand, sweeping past him into the house as if he not only owned it but knew his way around it. Inside the big beamed hall he stood waiting impatiently for Symons to close the outer door.
“Where’s your friend?”
“He’s upstairs, typing.”
“Have you got a secure room where we can talk?”
“Yes. Our workroom where Pete’s working.”
Petersen was typing on a portable on the table and he didn’t look up as Grabowski walked into the room. Symons coughed a warning and as Petersen looked up from his typing he stared at Grabowski with disbelief. “Jesus God … angels and ministers of grace defend us, be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned etcetera, etcetera. What have we done to deserve this?”
Grabowski ignored the comment and Petersen, and glanced around the sparsely furnished room, picked the only comfortable chair, pulled it towards him and sat down, his briefcase beside him.
“I’ve got mail for both of you. I’ll give it to you later, after we’ve talked.”
Petersen grinned. “You been steamin’ it open, Grab?”
Grabowski wasn’t amused but he shuffled his backside more comfortably into the chair.
“I’ve got work for you two. Langley thinks it’s time you started earning your corn.”
Neither of them responded and he turned to look at Symons.
“You had a girl … a singer … she was used by you for MKULTRA. Remember?”
Symons nodded but said nothing.
“You’re gonna use her again.”
“She’s not a United States national and she doesn’t live in the States.”
“I know all that. She lives in London. You and Mortensen were using her as a courier just before you came over here. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“We want to use her again.”
“What for?”
“Same again. As a stake-out and as a courier.”
“Is this for Bill Mortensen again?”
“No. We’ve got ourselves a problem. She’s the solution. Or part of it.”
“What’s the problem?”
“The Brits. SIS know you’re over here. They want to know why.”
“You didn’t tell them, for God’s sake?”
“Of course we didn’t. But the guy who spotted you knows what your speciality is and he wants a piece of the action.”
“What’s that mean?”
“He wants to use you. Both of you. And if we play ball then he plays ball and says nothing. If not he’ll tell the brass at Century House.”
“He’ll probably tell them anyway.”
“That wouldn’t matter. They’ve no idea why you’re here, and they’d never put it together. They’d just raise hell that we’ve got two CIA men in this country who they don’t know about.”
“Who’s this SIS guy?”
“Maclaren. He’s bringing in another fellow. Sturgiss.”
“Have you checked on them?”
“You betcha. I’ll give you a summary that you can keep. Maclaren’s an old hand. A dirty-tricks man. I’d say he’s pretty good at it. Very rough. Sturgiss is in his thirties. Another rough boy. Not as experienced as Maclaren but a real bastard.” Grabowski tapped the side of his head. “I’d put him down as a psycho. But I leave that sort of thing to you boys.”
Symons said, “When do we go back Stateside?”
Grabowski bent his arm and scratched slowly at the back of his neck and both Symons and Petersen wondered if it was a diversionary gesture or a genuine itch.
“A month or two.”
“That girl’s going to come apart if there’s too much pressure. The screws were coming loose last time we used her.”
“Then what happens?”
“She goes in the bin.”
“Would she talk?”
“No. She doesn’t know anything. It’s wiped each time so there’s nothing for her to tell. If I told her when she’s normal what she’s done under hypnosis she wouldn’t believe me. For her it’s never happened. She could only talk under hypnosis. And you’d need the code which she only knows at another level. And there are safety controls I can build in if she’s operating for the Brits.”
“Like what?”
“It’s better you don’t know, Grab.”
Grabowski shrugged. “Maclaren and Sturgiss are coming up tomorrow to brief you on how they want to use her. I’ll stay until it’s all settled.”
Grabowski seemed to know both Maclaren and Sturgiss quite well. He introduced them with no more background than to say they were SIS and highly respected by CIA HQ at Langley.
Maclaren was tall and gangling with a raw, red face that was all bumps and cavities and looked as if it had been scrubbed over-enthusiastically. Sturgiss was small and sinewy, and although he was the younger of the two his red hair was sparse like a halo round his freckled
