Brooks.’
‘Jesus!’ Contradictions, fears, all kinds of devils shrieked in Bond’s head. ‘
‘Yes,’ she smiled, looking directly into his eyes. ‘
‘Barely – as a young recruit.’ His throat was dry, and as he looked at Nina, he suddenly realised where her dark, wondrous looks came from. ‘I certainly remember all the pictures. Emerald Lacy was quite a lady.’
Nina gave him a tiny nod. ‘She was certainly a lady.’
In his mind, he saw the famous photograph of Emerald Lacy hanging in the Rogues Gallery at headquarters, the one used by the press and TV at the time – Emerald leaning over one of the copying machines, chatting to the other girls in the cryptography pool – dark hair, lustrous complexion and the smile old hands said would make you think you were the one person who interested her. Senior officers used to call her the jewel in the crown, she was so good. The whole story returned, complete and unadulterated in all its disturbing detail, an epic film played out on the wide screen of his mind.
Michael Brooks began his career with the Secret Intelligence Service working for the old Special Operations Executive during World War II. He had been a contemporary of Philby, Burgess, Maclean, Blunt and Cairncross – those Cambridge graduates who had so successfully penetrated the British secret world at the behest of their KGB masters – so effective that they were known in the corridors of Dzerzhinsky Square as the Magnificent Five. Michael Brooks’ name had never been associated with them, not even after his story came out – or that part of it which was allowed to be released and put under the public microscope.
Brooks had an incredibly successful war. He had run agents out of Lisbon, was parachuted into France and, much later, Jugoslavia. When the peace came he was a natural for the Secret Intelligence Service and spent some time on the Middle- and Far-East Desks before moving, in the early years of the Cold War, to the Russian Desk, flitting between London and Berlin – debriefing agents, running three networks which Philby’s final unmasking in 1964 caused to be closed down.
In the Secret Intelligence Service they said that should you write a history of operations from 1945 to 1965, Michael Brooks’ handwriting would turn up in every chapter. He was omnipresent, you could sense him everywhere, from Malaya and Hong Kong to Berlin and the Soviet satellite countries. More, he seemed unstoppable, this tall, lean man with the patrician nose and iron-grey hair matched by the colour of his eyes. Impeccably turned out, always a military man in mufti, in some ways an anachronism next to the sweaters and slacks brigade who looked like mad scientists or refugees.
In the end, Brooks was just pipped at the post for Deputy Chief. Then, for a reason never revealed to either the public or his colleagues, he was suddenly cut adrift. Early retirement on pension and with no hint of dishonour.
A few weeks later, Michael Brooks disappeared. A fortnight after that the alarms went off. Emerald Lacy flew out to Bonn on a routine assignment, went missing, and reappeared, complete with photographs, at Moscow’s main Soviet wedding palace. The groom was Michael Brooks and it was only then that people began to wake up in horror, claiming the happy couple had been Moscow Centre penetrators, at it for years.
The story was played down. Brooks even issued a statement from Moscow. He had simply decided to live out his retirement in the Soviet Union. His political views had altered over the years.
The press kept it going as long as they could. Brooks’ name appeared in the so-called true espionage books. Accusations flew around, but only those with immense, stratospheric security clearance were allowed to peep into the hall of distorting mirrors which constitutes the real world behind the myth of modern espionage.
Within the deep paranoia which surrounds intelligence communities the world over, the name Michael Brooks became taboo. At the very mention of the man, cabinet ministers became tight-lipped; D-notices showered on to editorial desks and journalists who were heavy-handed and stupid enough to mention him found themselves out of the door before they knew what had hit them. Stories persisted. Rumours remained rife, even with the passing of time.
James Bond was one of those who had been Sensation Cleared, as the wags dubbed the Michael Brooks/Emerald Lacy case, cryptoed Brutus, for reasons best known to those who make the decisions on coding. Now Bond looked at the lovely Nina with a renewed interest.
‘I was educated in Russia and, later, England; my maternal grandmother took care of that side of things. I was passed off as her orphan grandchild.’ Nina had a disconcerting way of standing perfectly still. She did not emphasise anything by using her hands. It was as though her voice and a slight change in expression were enough.
‘When I was seventeen, it was a
‘I spent a year in Switzerland,’ Nina said, ‘then came back to Moscow and, given my father’s history, did the training and became an illegal. The Chairman wanted to keep my name off the official lists, and that was done. I spent two years in Washington with straight secretarial cover. I’ve never been blown because I’ve never been on an official KGB file.’ She bit her lip, just a tiny movement, quick as a finger snap. Again, Bond saw the photograph of her mother. The girl was a mirror-image, looking up from under her eyelids, a hair’s-breadth from flirting.
‘As you probably know,’ she was swallowing Bond with her eyes, ‘my father and mother were both killed in a car wreck in January 1989. I was just getting over the shock when Bory came to me. He came, as he always does, at night and very well guarded. Bory can get around the city and the country like a ghost. He wanted me for his department, but he wanted me in absolute secrecy. So, I died.’
Bond did not blink. ‘In a riding accident, I believe. I recall one of our more sensational tabloids carried an exclusive. The tragedy of Michael Brooks’ family. A curse on your house. Something like that. You’ve ceased to exist, then? Though I suppose, as far as KGB’s concerned, you’re really the daughter of the regiment.’
She gave him another smile, and he saw a gold light reflected off the taut, silky skin running from jaw to ear. ‘Something like that,’ she said, and sat down, flicking her blue skirt with the back of her left hand, as though to brush away stray crumbs. Bond recalled, from somewhere, that Brooks had been left-handed. Strange how trivia lodged itself persistently in the mind.
Stepakov still did not smile. ‘She was riding. Horseback. In the woods west of Moscow. The weather had been bitter. Earth like bricks. Treacherous. The horse bolted. Threw her. The body was missing for three days. Two foresters found her. She was frozen stiff as a board. It was in the papers, this terrible tragedy. Could have happened to anyone. Just bad luck it was her. As you say, James, the tragedy of the Bibikovs.’
‘Okay, Bory, so you’ve made your point.’ Bond was polite, but firm, casting the Michael Brooks legend to one side. ‘But there’re other things I’d like to know. Things about our comrades in arms. Our French friends. They claim to have snatched Josif Vorontsov. What did they do with him, and why are they still among us?’
Stepakov gave a small burp of laughter. ‘Don’t the British say the French are always with us, like the poor?’
‘Hadn’t heard it that way.’
‘Well, they
As he spoke, Bond was conscious of a tiny electronic noise like a whining in the ears.
Stepakov nodded to Nicki who slid back the inner door and let himself out.
‘The little noise. The singing in the ears.’ Stepakov started to laugh as though to himself. ‘It is our alarm signal down here. We have no telephone, so there is this small sound to alert us in case there’s news or a message.’ The laugh welled up. ‘There’s an old joke we make about it. We say it is dogs blowing people whistles.’
Bond moved the questions in close again, fast before Stepakov could sidetrack them. He wanted to know many things from Vladimir Lyko. Did the professor have any idea if any other recruiters were working for
