across the quagmire lawn to find him.
There was despair on the Deputy-Under-Secretary's face when he came back and the water ran on his neck and stained his collar. 'I won't be able to go to Hodges's tonight. I'm sorry, dear.'
'Not the bloody office?' she commiserated.
' I shall have to go to Chequers.'
'What does he want?'
' I've requested the meeting. There's a bit of a mess…'
'They're a boring crowd at1 the Hodges', you always say we'll never go again…' she said irrelevantly.
'Darling, tonight I'd have given my eye teeth for a boring evening,' the Deputy-Under-Secretary said. He turned to accept a customer for the last of the potted fuchsias.
At the Campingplatz 'Alte Schmiede' in the woods outside Suplingen tents could be hired for the weekend, and sleeping bags. Just the one they used. Ulf and Jutte wriggling with laughter into the warm constriction of the bag, no clothes, no impediments. The tent was pitched slightly less than 12 miles from the Inner German Border and due east of Weferlingen. Before they had negotiated the constraints of the sleeping bag Jutte had several times asked Ulf how and where they would make their attempt. He would tell her in the morning, he had said… for now she was safe in his arms.
The cell door in the basement corridor crashed shut. As the officer in uniform beside him thrust the bolt across, Gunther Spitzer wiped a blood smear from the leather of his glove with his handkerchief.
'He will know now who he is with… in a little while when he has had time to frighten himself we shall start again.'
Chequers was no easy place to find at night. Far from any main road, outside the village of Great Kimble, a pin-head in the Chiltern Hills, 30 miles west of London. It had taken the Deputy-Under-Secretary more than three hours to negotiate the winding roads with only his taciturn personal guard for company.
An ugly building it was too. Ridiculous that this should be the best that the nation could provide for the Prime Minister's country retreat.
The official cars were parked in an orderly line in the courtyard at the back. The dull cigarette flares betrayed the chauffeurs who waited for the dinner to be finished, the guests to depart. The Deputy-Under-Secretary was shown to the Long Gallery and requested to wait.
Would he like a drink, a cigar, the day's newspapers?
He wanted nothing, only the ear of the Prime Minister.
The dinner party was continuing, the Prime Minister was hosting the Trade Delegation of the German Democratic Republic, and would come as soon as was convenient now that the Deputy-Under-Secretary had arrived. He smiled ruefully at the young man who had escorted him into the house. He was content to wait until it was suitable for the Prime Minister to leave his table. The great irony, the coincidence that could make him vomit… East Germans munching the food and swilling HMG's wine on the floor below and offering their dining room toasts of comradeship and friendship and co-operation. • and Mawby berserk beside a telephone in Berlin, and an agent loose in Magdeburg, and a mission triggered, and damn little but catastrophe in prospect.
The Prime Minister swept through the door. A brandy glass for an orb, a cigar for a sceptre. A little flushed, a little loud, a little overwhelming.
Saturday night, the night off, the night without crisis, and the Deputy-Under-Secretary recognised the inroads of the decanter and the bottle.
'What can I do for you, my friend?'
The Deputy-Under-Secretary sketched the news that had been relayed to him by Century House.
'What am I supposed to bloody well do?'
' I thought you should know the situation, sir, and I've been very frank.'
' I had a damned promise from you, Deputy-Under- Secretary. I remember your words, you told me risk had been eliminated… that's what you told me… it was a bloody lie…' And his eyes rolled and his brow furrowed, and he sought to concentrate his resentment.
'Everything you were told yesterday, sir, we believed at that time to be true.'
' I told you myself, I told you to cancel it. I gave that instruction.'
'And after deliberation with Cabinet Secretary you changed your mind, sir.'
'You're a crafty bugger, Deputy-Under-Secretary, you've trapped me.. You tricked me, you've landed me. I'm not afraid of taking responsibility for my decisions, but I damn well expect the briefings to be straight. I've the right to demand that.' The Prime Minister's anger was sudden.
'We have to face the fact, sir, that there can be repercussions. They will be questioning this man with whom we have dealt. We have to be prepared to deny their allegations. We may have to ride a bit of a storm.'
'The run can't be managed?'
'At this notice we don't have the paperwork capability. More important, if this man provides them with information then the pick-up zone is compromised.'
'You have to wind it all up… P'
'Yes.'
'And your man there, what happens to him?'
'He has to get clear… we have to hope that's possible. We'll not know till the morning the extent of the damage.'
'There's no way to salvage something… you can't pull anything back from it?'
'I'm afraid not, sir.'
'It's a damned shame. You know I'm really rather sorry. I think I'd started to root a bit for this freelance fellow of yours. Things are going to be horrid for him, I suppose.'
'That's fair comment.'
The Prime Minister shrugged, tried to focus his eyes on the Deputy-Under-Secretary. '… Are you sure you won't have a drink yourself?'
'Thank you, sir, no. I'm going back to London. I ought to be on the road
… I am desperately sorry, Prime Minister.'
'It's a damned shame.'
The fool doesn't understand, the Deputy-Under-Secretary thought.
Getting high, loosening his collar with the German Democratic Republic, sliding his feet under the table. But he would understand in the morning, and God help the Service then.
He left the Prime Minister to his cigar and his glass, an empty room and the unlit grate, left him ruminating behind closed eyes.
Time to run for London. Time to be in Communications, to be watching the telexes and reading the telephone transcripts.
The Deputy-Under-Secretary brooded in the back of his car while the bodyguard drove towards Century House.
What in Heaven's name had Mawby thought he was at? Six weeks he'd had to plan DIPPER, all the resources and finance he'd asked for. And it ended like this, in crawling apologies to his Prime Minister who was tipsy in the company of the opponents of the day. What a damned mess.. Where did the blame lie, at whose door? He had pushed Mawby hard, pushed him because that was the way to gain the best from an ambitious Assistant Secretary. Pushed him too far…? He remembered the caution that Mawby had shown in his office on the last night, at the final briefing.
The fiasco would lie on the desk of the
Deputy-Under-Secretary.
The Prime Minister had called it a damned shame. Not for Mawby, he would be shuffled, slotted into Agriculture and Fisheries or Social Services. A damned shame for the Deputy-Under-Secretary, and he'd called it the best show of the year.
'Family well…?'
'Very well, sir, thank you. The little girl's just starting school.'
' I don't suppose you see much of them.'
'Not too much, sir, no.'
Not the problem of the Deputy-Under-Secretary. He would see all he wanted of his wife and sons and his
