they can get into serious financial trouble as a result.”
C was in his Belgravia townhouse, sipping some Louis XIII brandy and chatting with a friend. Sir George Hendley was a colleague of thirty years’ standing. By profession a solicitor, he’d worked closely with the British government for most of his life, often consulting quietly with the Security Service and the Foreign Office. He had a “Most Secret” clearance, plus one into compartmented information. He’d been a confidant of several prime ministers over the years, and was considered as reliable as the Queen herself. He thought it just came along with the Winchester school tie.
“The Pope, eh?”
“Yes, George,” Charleston confirmed. “The PM wants us to look into protecting the man. Trouble is, I haven’t a clue at the moment. We can’t contact the Vatican directly about it.”
“Quite so, Basil. One can trust their loyalty, but not their politics. Tell me, how good do you suppose their own intelligence service is?”
“I’d have to say it’s top-drawer in many areas. What better confidant than a priest, after all, and what better way to transfer information than inside the confessional? Plus all the other techniques that one can use. Their political intelligence is probably as good as ours—perhaps even better. I would imagine they know everything that happens in Poland, for example. And Eastern Europe probably has few secrets from them as well. One cannot underestimate their ability to call on a man’s highest loyalty, after all. We’ve kept an ear on their communications for decades.”
“Is that so?” Hendley asked.
“Oh, yes. During World War Two, they were very valuable to us. There was a German cardinal in the Vatican back then, chap named Mansdorf—odd, isn’t it? Sounds like a Jewish name. First name Dieter, archbishop of Mannheim, then promoted to the Vatican diplomatic service. Traveled a lot. Kept us posted on the inner secrets of the Nazi Party from 1938 through to the end of the war. He didn’t much care for Hitler, you see.”
“And their communications?”
“Mansdorf actually gave us his own cipher book to copy. They changed it after the war, of course, and so we got little more in the way of their private mail later on, but they never changed their cipher system, and the chaps at GCHQ have occasional success listening in. Good man, Dieter Cardinal Mansdorf. Never got recognized for his service, of course. Died in ‘fifty-nine, I think.”
“So how do we know that the Romans don’t know about this operation already?” Not a bad question, Charleston thought, but he’d long since considered that one.
“It is being held very closely, our defector tells us. Hand-delivered messages, not going out on their machine ciphers, that sort of thing. And a bare handful of people involved. The one important name we do know is a Bulgarian field officer, Boris Strokov, colonel in the DS. We suspect he’s the chap who killed Georgiy Markov just up the road from my office.” Which Charleston considered an act of lese-majeste, perhaps even executed as a direct challenge to the Secret Intelligence Service. CIA and KGB had an informal covenant: Neither service ever killed in the other’s capital. SIS had no such agreement with anyone, a fact that might have cost Georgiy Markov his life.
“So, you think he might be the prospective assassin?”
C waved his hands. “It’s all we have, George.”
“Not much,” Hendley observed.
“Too thin for comfort, but it’s better than nothing. We have numerous photos of this Strokov fellow. The Yard was close to arresting him when he flew out of Heathrow—for Paris, actually, and from there on to Sofia.”
“Perhaps he was in a hurry to leave?” Hendley suggested.
“He’s a professional, George. How many chances do such people take? In retrospect, it’s rather amazing that the Yard got a line on him at all.”
“So, you think he might be in Italy.” A statement, not a question.
“It’s a possibility, but whom can we tell?” C asked. “The Italians have criminal jurisdiction to a point. The Lateran Treaty gives them discretionary jurisdiction, subject to a Vatican veto,” Charleston explained. He’d had to look into the legalities of the situation. “The Vatican has its own security service—the Swiss Guards, you know—but however good the men are, it’s necessarily a thin reed, what with the restrictions imposed on them from above. And the Italian authorities cannot flood the area with their own security forces, for obvious reasons.”
“So, the PM has saddled you with an impossible task.”
“Yes, again, George,” Sir Basil had to agree.
“So, what can you do?”
“All I can really come up with is to put some officers in the crowd and look for this Markov fellow.”
“And if they see him?”
“Ask him politely to depart the area?” Basil wondered aloud. “It would work, probably. He is a professional, and being spotted—I suppose we’d ostentatiously take photographs of him—would give him serious pause, perhaps enough to abandon the mission.”
“Thin.” Hendley thought of that idea.
“Yes, it is,” C had to agree. But it would at least give him something to tell the Prime Minister.
“Whom to send?”
“We have a good Station Chief in Rome, Tom Sharp. He has four officers in his shop, plus we could send a few more from Century House, I suppose.”
“Sounds reasonable, Basil. Why did you call me over?”
“I was hoping you’d have an idea that’s eluded me, George.” A final sip from the snifter. As much as he felt like some more brandy for the night, he demurred.
“One can only do what one can,” Hendley sympathized.
“He’s too good a man to be cut down this way—at the hands of the bloody Russians. And for what? For standing up for his own people. That sort of loyalty is supposed to be rewarded, not murdered in public.”
“And the PM feels the same way.”
“She is comfortable taking a stand.” For which the PM was famous throughout the world.
“The Americans?” Hendley asked.
Charleston shrugged. “They haven’t had a chance to speak to the defector yet. They trust us, George, but not that much.”
“Well, do what you can. This KGB operation probably will not happen in the immediate future, anyway. How efficient are the Soviets, anyway?”
“We shall see” was all C had to say.
It was quieter here than in his own house, despite the nearby presence of the motorway, Ryan thought, rolling out of bed at 6:50. The sink continued the eccentric British way of having two faucets, one hot and one cold, making sure that your left hand boiled while the right one froze when you washed your hands. As usual, it felt good to shave and brush and otherwise get yourself ready for the day, even if you had to start it with Taster’s Choice.
Kingshot was already in the kitchen when Jack got there. Funny how people slept late on Sunday but frequently not on Saturday.
“Message from London,” Al said by way of greeting.
“What’s that?”
“A question. How would you feel about a flight to Rome this afternoon?”
“What’s up?”
“Sir Basil is sending some people to the Vatican to suss things out. He wants to know if you want to go. It’s a CIA op, after all.”
“Tell him yes,” Jack said without a moment’s thought. “When?” Then he realized he was being impetuous again. Damn.
“Noon flight out of Heathrow. You ought to have time to go home and change clothes.”
“Car?”
“Nick will drive you over,” Kingshot told him.
“What are you going to tell Oleg?”
