“Are you Houghton?”
“Yes. Who are you?”
The man put his big leather-gloved fist in front of Houghton’s face, and as Houghton instinctively backed away a pair of strong arms went around him from the other side and he realised that there were two of them.
“What the hell’s going on?”
“Open the trailer door. Look slippy.”
Houghton’s hand shook as he fitted the key into the lock and then one of them opened the door and shoved him up the steps and inside.
“Put the light on.”
Houghton switched the light on and turned to face the two men. The tall one said, “Why didn’t you telephone when you got the Hoover leaflet?”
“I don’t understand. Who are you?”
“We brought you a message, sonny boy.”
“What …”
And he groaned as the knee went into his crotch. And then the two of them worked him over. Carefully, professionally, leaving his face unmarked as the blows thudded into his stomach and kidneys. Even after they had finished and they stood panting, looking down at his body on the floor, he was still half-conscious and he heard one of them say, “Next time we’ll do your old woman as well. The new one. So watch it, mate.”
It was four o’clock when he came to. The light was still on inside the trailer but the street lights were out. They had left the door open and snow had drifted onto the shabby linoleum. He groaned as he slowly picked himself up.
He made himself a hot whisky and stirred in a spoonful of sugar and lay down in his clothes on the bunk. The light still on, the door of the trailer still open and swinging in the wind.
19
When Shapiro got the news he had called Morton immediately and they were still in Morton’s smoke-filled office at four the following morning. Ashtrays full of cigarette ends and cigar butts, trays full of coffee cups, two jugs of cold coffee and several plates with a variety of curling sandwiches.
They had talked for hours, sat silent for minutes at a time and they were no nearer to a solution and no nearer to deciding what to do. They were sprawled in the leather armchairs around a low glass-topped table.
Morton started them off again. “Let’s go over it again, Joe. Piece by piece. Agreed?”
Shapiro nodded and shifted in his seat to try and get comfortable again.
Morton sighed. “So. Back to square one, Joe. Are they absolutely certain that he’s been picked up?”
“He was supposed to ring the Moscow number that evening at nine local time. Just ring and they would give the password. Just that one word and then they’d both hang up. He didn’t ring.”
“What about the Warsaw end?”
“We know he got on the airport bus. We know he was at the airport. The girl was watching him and when the call came he went to the correct boarding gate. That was the last time he was seen.”
“What happened at Sheremetyevo?”
“Our guy watched for the plane. Just as a routine check. There was no contact intended.” He paused. “The flight number was never called and there was no flight from Warsaw announced or accounted for until the following morning. And that was the normal 9 a.m. flight from Paris and Warsaw.”
“So not only our boy missing but a whole planeload of passengers missing?”
“Yes.”
“Any indications of a crash anywhere on that route?”
“No. But you know what they’re like about air disasters.”
“Could it have been diverted because of bad weather?”
“I got Met to check. They say there was heavy snow and some wind but nothing that wasn’t normal for the time of year.”
“Where would they divert to if there had been a problem?”
“God knows. There are a dozen or more airfields around Moscow that could take an old Antonov. And they could have diverted to some place way out of Moscow.”
“No way of checking if there was a diversion?”
“RAF intelligence say no. Even internal domestic flights in Warsaw Pact countries are classified. And we haven’t got good enough contacts anyway.”
Morton nodded. “There’s one good indication.”
“Tell me.”
“If they’d picked him up and he’d talked they would have tried phoning that number—and they didn’t.”
“It was a bit early for that.”
“Agreed, but it weighs against any thoughts he might have defected.”
Shapiro shrugged without speaking and Morton said, “Was he in Moscow to do anything top-grade?”
“No. Not as far as I know. It was just a routine visit as liaison officer.”
“So why the telephone contact?”
“Routine. A precaution.”
There was another long silence and then Morton said, “So we’re left with deciding whether we do nothing—or something—and if something—what?”
“There are only two things we can do. We can’t make an official diplomatic complaint. He’s officially—genuinely—a Polish national. We’ve got no diplomatic standing in the case. We could try an unofficial deal and admit that he was ours. Or we could offer an exchange.”
Morton shook his head. “We haven’t got anybody in the bag who’s anywhere near an equivalent. Put half a dozen together and they aren’t worth offering to Moscow. They’d just laugh at us.”
“Diplomatic pressure?”
Morton laughed harshly. “Our masters wouldn’t go along with it. Détente is the reigning policy. The FO were never informed about the operation in the first place.” He shrugged. “But they were bloody glad to get the stuff he provided.” He shook his head, sighing. “Forget ’em, they wouldn’t lift a finger to help us.
“Apart from all that we can’t really make any move until we know that he’s in the bag, and that they’ve broken him. We could be confirming their suspicions if he hasn’t talked already. I recommend that we do nothing except keep a close monitoring of the situation.”
When Morton finished Shapiro looked at him. “What do you think?”
“How many people know about Phoenix?”
“You, me, Sir Peter and FO liaison, Saunders.”
“Nobody in the FO. Not the Foreign Secretary?”
“No. Nobody. There’s
