The Deceiver

“Excellent,” beamed the Permanent Under-Secretary, whether he felt it was or not. “Then let us turn to something that does fall within my purview. I don’t know what your staffing position is, but we are facing some difficulties with regard to staffing the expanded Service that will result from the end of the Cold War and the liberation of Central and Eastern Europe. You know what I mean?”

Sir Mark knew exactly what he meant. The virtual collapse of Communism over the previous two years was changing the diplomatic map of the globe, and rapidly. The Diplomatic Corps was looking to expanded opportunities right across Central Europe and the Balkans, possibly even miniembassies in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia if they secured independence from Moscow. By inference, he was suggesting that with the Cold War now laid out in the morgue, the position for his colleague in Secret Intelligence would be just the reverse: reduction of staff. Sir Mark was having none of it.

“Like you, we have no alternative but to recruit. Leaving recruitment to one side, the training alone is six months before we can bring a new man into Century House and release an experienced man for service abroad.”

The diplomat dropped his smile and leaned forward ear­nestly. “My dear Mark, this is precisely the meat of the discussion I wished to have with you. Allocations of space in our embassies, and to whom.”

Sir Mark groaned inwardly. The bastard was going for the groin. While the FCO cannot “get at” the SIS on budgetary grounds, it has one ace card always ready to play. The great majority of intelligence officers serving abroad do so under the cover of the embassy. That makes the embassy their host. No allocation of a “cover” job —no posting.

“And what is your general view for the future, Robert?” he asked.

“In future, I fear, we will simply not be able to offer positions to some of your more ... colorful staffers. Officers whose cover is clearly blown. Brass-plate operators. In the Cold War it was acceptable; in the new Europe they would stick out like sore thumbs. Cause offense. I’m sure you can see that.”

Both men knew that agents abroad fell into three categories. “Illegal” agents were not within the cover of the embassy and were not the concern of Sir Robert Inglis. Officers serving inside the embassy were either “declared” or “undeclared.”

A declared officer, or brass-plate operator, was one whose real function was widely known. In the past, having such an intelligence officer in an embassy had worked like a dream. Throughout the Communist and Third Worlds, dissidents, malcontents, and anyone else who wished knew just whom to come to and pour out their woes as to a father confessor. It had led to rich harvests of information and some spectacular defectors.

What the senior diplomat was saying was that he wanted no more such officers any longer and would not offer them space. His dedication was to the maintenance of his department’s fine tradition of appeasement of anyone not born British.

“I hear what you are saying, Robert, but I cannot and will not start my term as Chief of the SIS with a purge of senior officers who have served long, loyally, and well.”

“Find other postings for them,” suggested Sir Robert. “Central and South America, Africa ...”

“And I cannot pack them off to Burundi until they come up for retirement.”

“Desk jobs, then. Here at home.”

“You mean what is called ‘unattractive employments,’ ” said the Chief. “Most will not take them.”

“Then they must go for early retirement,” said the diplomat smoothly. He leaned forward again. “Mark, my dear chap, this is not negotiable. I will have the Five Wise Men with me on this, be assured of it, seeing that I am one myself. We will agree to handsome compensation, but ...”

The Five Wise Men are the Permanent Under-Secretaries of the Cabinet Office, the Foreign Office, the Home Office, the Ministry of Defense, and the Treasury. Among them, these five wield enormous power in the corridors of govern­ment. Among other things they appoint (or recommend to the Prime Minister, almost the same thing) the Chief of the SIS and the Director General of the Security Service, MI-5.

Sir Mark was deeply unhappy, but he knew the realities of power well enough. He would have to concede. “Very well, but I will need guidance on procedures.”

What he meant was that, for his own position among his own staff, he wanted to be visibly overruled. Sir Robert Inglis was expansive; he could afford to be.

“Guidance will be forthcoming at once,” he said. “I will ask the other Wise Men for a hearing, and we will lay down new rules for a new set of circumstances. What I propose is that you instigate, under the new rules that will be handed down, what the lawyers call ‘a class action’ and thus establish specimen counts.”

“Class action? Specimen counts? What are you talking about?” asked Sir Mark.

“A precedent, my dear Mark. A single precedent that will then operate for the whole group.”

“A scapegoat?”

“An unpleasant word. Early retirement with generous pen­sion rights can hardly be called victimization. You take one officer whose early departure could be envisaged without demur, hold a hearing, and thus set your precedent.”

“One officer? Had you anyone in mind?”

Sir Robert steepled his fingers and gazed at the ceiling.

“Well, there is always Sam McCready.”

Of course. The Deceiver. Ever since his latest display of vigorous if unauthorized initiative in the Caribbean three months earlier, Sir Mark had been aware that the Foreign Office regarded him as a sort of unleashed Genghis Khan. Odd, really. Such a ... crumpled fellow.

* * *

Sir Mark was driven back across the Thames to his headquar­ters, Century House, in a deeply introspective mood. He knew the senior civil servant in the Foreign Office had not merely “proposed” the departure of Sam McCready—he was insisting on it. From the Chief’s point of view, he could not have chosen a more difficult demand.

In 1983, when Sam McCready had been chosen to head up the new desk, Sir Mark had been a Deputy Controller, a contemporary of McCready and only one rank above him. He liked the quirky, irreverent agent whom Sir Arthur had ap­pointed to the new post—but then, so did just about every­body.

Shortly afterward, Sir Mark had been sent to the Far East for three years (he was a fluent Mandarin-speaker) and had returned in 1986 to be promoted to Deputy Chief. Sir Arthur retired, and a new Chief sat in the hot seat. Sir Mark had succeeded him the previous January.

Before leaving for China, Sir Mark had, like others, specu­lated that Sam McCready would not last long. The Deceiver, or so ran the received wisdom, was too rough a diamond to cope easily with the in-house politics of Century House.

For one thing, he had thought at the time, none of the regional desks would take kindly to the new man trying to operate in their jealously guarded territories. There would be turf wars that could only be handled by a consummate diplo­mat, and whatever else his talents, McCready had never been seen as that. For another, the somewhat scruffy Sam would hardly fit into the world of smoothly tailored senior officers, most of whom were products of Britain’s exclusive public schools.

To his surprise Sir Mark, on his return, had found Sam McCready flourishing like the proverbial green bay tree. He seemed to be able to command an enviable and total loyalty from his own staff while not offending even the most die-hard territorial desk heads when asking for a favor.

He could talk the lingo with the other field agents when they came home for furlough or a briefing, and from them he seemed to amass an encyclopedia of information, much of which, no doubt, should never have been divulged on a need-to-know basis.

It was known he could share a beer with the technical cadres, the nuts-and-bolts men and women—a camaraderie not always available to senior officers—and from them occa­sionally obtain a phone tap, mail intercept, or false passport while other desk heads were still filling out forms.

All this—and other irritating foibles like bending the rules and disappearing at will—hardly caused the Establishment to become enamored of him. But what kept him in place was simple—he delivered the goods, he provided the product, he ran an operation that kept the KGB fully stocked with indi­gestion tablets. So he had stayed ... until now.

Sir Mark sighed, climbed out of his Jaguar in the under­ground car park of Century House, and took the lift to his top-floor office. For the moment he need do nothing. Sir Robert Inglis would confer with his colleagues and