asset, as Charlotte had claimed, somewhere in the vaults of Soviet intelligence there would be a file on Edward Crane. Whether or not, in the wake of Tsars, he would be granted access to the files by the Russian authorities was a different matter altogether.
Chapter 11
Ordinarily, the activities of an anonymous London academic conducting research at the National Archives in Kew would not have been drawn to the attention of the head of the Secret Intelligence Service. But Edward Crane was no ordinary spy. When Gaddis had made a formal request for his war record, an automated alert had been sent from Kew to Sir John Brennan’s private office at MI6 headquarters. When Gaddis had then typed ‘Edward Crane’ and, minutes later, ‘Thomas Neame’ into Google on a public computer, a second automated message had flashed up at Vauxhall Cross. Within an hour, Brennan’s secretary was placing a report on his desk. PERSONAL FOR C / GOV86ALERT / 11-1545-09 Samuel Gaddis, Doctor of Russian History at UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES), made a formal request this morning at NA/KEW for the war record of Edward Anthony Crane. Alert shows that a member of the public, also thought to be Gaddis, later conducted separate, related Google searches on a public computer at NA/KEW for ‘Edward Crane’ and ‘Thomas Neame’.
By the end of the day, Sir John Brennan had discovered, via a third automated message, that Gaddis had also run Crane and Neame through the Janus server at Churchill College, Cambridge. Who had tipped him off? Less than half a dozen people on the planet knew about the ATTILA cover-up. What had happened to make one of them start talking?
He found Neame’s number in his desk and dialled his private room at the nursing home in Winchester. It had been six months since Brennan had last given any thought to Edward Crane, and years since he had used the Henderson alias. For all he knew, Thomas Neame was dead.
The number rang nine times. Brennan was about to hang up when the old man picked up, his voice dry and cracked as he said: ‘Two double one seven.’
‘Mr Neame? This is Douglas Henderson. I’m calling you from London.’
‘Good Lord! Douglas. How long has it been?’
The accent was as clear and precise as the wireless announcers of Neame’s youth.
‘I’m very well, Tom. And you? How are you keeping?’
‘Oh, can’t complain at my age. So, so. To what do I owe the pleasure?’
‘Business, I’m afraid.’
‘It always is, isn’t it?’
Brennan heard the note change in Neame’s voice, the charm going out of it. ‘Have you been talking to anyone, Tom?’ he asked. ‘Had any visitors to your room? Been roaming around the Internet?’
Neame feigned ignorance. ‘The what?’ He was ninety-one years old and could comfortably pass for a Luddite, but Brennan recalled very well how much he liked to play the fool.
‘The Internet, Tom. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Tim BernersLee. The World Wide Web. Bringing us all closer together. Pulling us all further apart.’
‘Oh, the Internet. Yes. What about it?’
‘Let me be frank.’ Brennan was looking out at the grey Thames, pleasure boats sliding towards another winter. ‘Have you been in contact recently with anybody in relation to our friend Mr Crane?’
A prolonged silence. Brennan couldn’t tell if Neame was offended by the question or merely struggling to put together a reply. At one point it sounded as though he might have fallen asleep.
The old man eventually spoke. ‘Eddie? Good God no. Haven’t thought about him for twenty years.’
‘It hasn’t been that long,’ Brennan replied quickly. ‘An academic by the name of Samuel Gaddis has been asking questions. About you. About him. Running around Kew, requesting war records, that sort of thing.’
‘About bloody time.’
Brennan was stopped short. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It means exactly what you think it means. It means that it was only a matter of time before somebody started scratching around. You chaps couldn’t keep a secret like that for ever.’
‘We’ve done a pretty good job of keeping it secret for the past fifty years.’
When Neame did not respond, Brennan decided to take a risk. ‘So, are you helping him scratch around? Are you throwing light on Eddie’s past for some reason? I’m sorry, but it’s my duty to ask.’ He was surprised that he had landed the accusation so directly.
‘Don’t be bloody ridiculous. Every part of my body aches. I need help getting into the bath. If I walk down the corridor, a nurse has to hold my hand. I can barely remember my own name.’ The words sounded heartfelt, but when it came to Thomas Neame, Brennan didn’t know what to believe. ‘You know I’ve always taken a vow of silence about Eddie. If anybody came knocking on my door, I’d know what to do. And if this Gaddis chap, by some miracle, manages to associate me with him, believe me, I have ways and means of putting him off the scent.’
That, at least, was true. ‘Well, that’s good to hear.’
‘Was that all, Douglas?’
‘That was all.’
‘Good. Then I will thank you to leave me in peace.’
Brennan was, both by nature and by the definition of his chosen trade, a resourceful man, clear-sighted and unflappable. He would not allow the abruptness of Neame’s mood to unsettle him. Three floors below there was an open-plan office awash with thumb-twiddling spooks: fast-stream wunderkinds eagerly awaiting their first postings overseas, as well as older hands whose idealism had long ago been broken by one too many stints in the godforsaken outposts of a vanished empire. As he replaced the receiver, he realized that he would need an attractive woman. There was no way around this, no denying the implications of gender, no means of avoiding the ancient human truth that bachelor academics are as vulnerable to attractive women as they are to a pay rise. Brennan already knew that Gaddis was divorced. He also knew — from a cursory glance at his Internet and telephone traffic — that he had recently been seeing a woman named Holly Levette, who was almost half his age. Given a choice between spending an evening with a charming, intelligent man, and a charming, intelligent woman, Dr Samuel Gaddis was almost certainly going to opt for the latter.
One name sprang to mind immediately. Having spent two years as a graduate student at LSE prior to joining the Service, Tanya Acocella could speak the language of academia. She was fluent in Russian and had proved a vital, imaginative member of SIS Station in Tehran, playing a crucial role in the recent defection of a senior figure in the Iranian military. Since returning to London, Tanya had become engaged to her long-term boyfriend, much to the frustration of several fast-stream alpha males, and was scheduled to take a four-month sabbatical after her wedding in the summer. Matching her wits with an intellectual of Gaddis’s calibre would be just the sort of challenge she would relish.
He put a call down to her desk. Three minutes later, Acocella was in the mirrored lift to the fifth floor. It was a measure of her self-confidence that she felt no need to check her appearance in the panelled glass.
‘Tanya, do come in. Have a seat.’
They exchanged pleasantries for no more than a few seconds; an officer of Acocella’s pedigree did not need to be put at her ease.
‘I want you to put CHESAPEAKE to one side for a few weeks.’ CHESAPEAKE was an operation against a Russian diplomat in Washington whom SIS were sizing up for recruitment. Tanya was running the London end in conjunction with a junior colleague. ‘I’ve found something else to exercise your talents.’
She nodded. ‘Of course.’
Brennan stood up and paced in the direction of a bookshelf. He was aware that staff members who came into his office were often on their best behaviour. It was one of the drawbacks of his position: an excess of polite rigidity. Still, he stopped short of offering her a drink. A little hierarchical posturing never hurt anybody.
‘Long ago,’ he began, ‘I learned that spying isn’t about strengths in human nature — ideological conviction, duty, loyalty to one’s country. Spying is about weaknesses — the lust for money, for status, for sex. This is the guilty secret of our secret trade.’
Tanya felt that she was expected to agree with this thesis, so she said: ‘Right’ and stared at Brennan’s tie.
