XPD

  There were other things too: a GPO receipt for a registered letter addressed to ‘General Delivery, Terminal Annex, Post Office, Los Angeles, California 90054’, dated almost one week earlier; a battered Reich Chancellery pass, stamped each month and signed up to the end of 1944. It was a good souvenir. There was a sepia, postcard-size photo, taken in some provincial studio by the look of it, the photographer’s name and an Austrian address in flamboyant script on the back. A young child posed stiffly in front of a painted backdrop of snow-covered mountains. One could almost hear the anxious father calling to the child to hold still.

  The other photo was unmistakably amateur: a grubby snapshot from a cheap camera, the print now cracked and dog-eared. Three men were standing self-consciously in what looked like a factory yard. Behind them posts or perhaps factory chimneys and, beyond those, low rolling hills. The reproduction was too grainy to see any detail but one jackbooted young man in leather overcoat and mountain cap looked like Max Breslow. Alongside him, Wever stood in an awkward jokey pose, his elbow resting on Breslow’s shoulder, the other hand on his gun holster which was worn over a mottled camouflage jacket. The third man was in civilian clothes: a long black overcoat and, in his hand, a wide-brimmed felt hat. On the back of the photo ‘Max’, ‘Franz’ and ‘Rb. Dir. Dr Frank’ were written in pencil.

  Stuart put the passes, the Führerkopie of the sheet of minutes and the photographs into his pocket before putting the rest of it back into the broken safe. Then he clambered over the debris and ran back to his car. Even before he started the engine, he could hear the wail of the police and ambulance sirens. By the time his car was at the main road he could see the flashing blue lights twinkling through the haze of rain as the police cars bumped along the track that marked the end of Wever’s few acres.

  Chapter 14

  ‘And all this happened yesterday evening?’ said Sir Sydney Ryden. They were in the SIS Ziggurat building. The Prime Minister’s visit to Tokyo had provided him with a respite from her continual questions. The DG had hardly moved from a position alongside his desk while Boyd Stuart had been telling him about the visit to Franz Wever. It was disconcerting to talk to a man who stood with his eyes lowered to his drink and his feet planted firmly apart, scarcely moving except when he occasionally raised a hand to flick back his long hair or touch his ear.

  ‘That’s right, Sir Sydney.’ He glanced at the newspapers scattered on the armchair. It had been too late for the morning papers – except for some of the late London editions – to use the story, but the evening papers were all giving it the front page. ‘IRA Bomb Factory Blast – Man Dies.’ ‘Bomb Squad Arrests in London Follow Explosion at Farmhouse.’

  ‘There were no arrests by the Bomb Squad,’ said Sir Sydney.

  ‘I guess it is just the newspapers’ way of linking the explosion to terrorism. It sells more newspapers, I suppose.’

  ‘Don’t be too hard on Fleet Street, Stuart. We have some good friends there.’

  Stuart looked up sharply. So that was it. It was the DG’s doing; the cunning old devil had manufactured the terrorist story to put everyone off the scent.

  ‘Better that way,’ said the DG. ‘And, with Wever being a rather taciturn German, his neighbours out there in Suffolk were only too ready to invent all kinds of evil doings.’

  ‘Norfolk actually, sir,’ said Stuart. ‘He said he worked for us.’

  The DG pursed his lips in distaste. ‘For one of the departments in Whitehall,’ he said icily. The correction left Stuart in little doubt that Wever was some sort of employee of MI5, an organization for which Sir Sydney showed little admiration. ‘And you found a photo of this fellow Max Breslow in the ruins of his farmhouse?’

  ‘It’s been down to the archives, Sir Sydney,’ said Stuart, reaching for his wallet to show him the photo. ‘There is still one German unidentified.’

  The DG waved him away. ‘No point in my looking at it, Stuart. It’s not likely to turn out that he’s on the committee of my golf club or anything.’ It was as near as the DG ever went to making a joke. The DG picked up a cactus plant and held it in the palm of his hand as if trying to estimate its weight. ‘So what do you make of it, Stuart?’

  ‘At first, I thought Wever was lying about Breslow stealing the document. Later, when I’d had time to think about it, I was less sure. I think Breslow sent that sheet of Hitler’s daily conference through the post to Wever, together with the photograph of Wever and himself. I think it was a way of reminding Wever who Breslow was …’

  ‘Renewing an old acquaintance, you mean?’ said the DG with a trace of condescending amusement.

  ‘Or of putting pressure upon him.’

  ‘Pressing him in what direction?’ The DG was looking at the cactus, but his thoughts were entirely upon the subject discussed.

  ‘Not to tell us the story he told us,’ Stuart suggested.

  ‘Or indeed, to tell us the story he told us, rather than tell us the truth,’ said the DG.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘But you believe him?’

  ‘Wever claimed that our people were harassing him, sir. He said he’d told the same story over and over.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said the DG. ‘No one else has talked to him on this matter.’

  ‘Shall I let you have my written report in person?’ Stuart asked him.

  The DG wrinkled his nose and swallowed a little of his whisky as if it were nasty medicine. ‘No written reports, for the time being, Stuart. We’ll keep this strictly between you and me.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I know it’s unusual, but this one is rather touchy. The PM is taking a personal interest and I’d like to keep the paperwork to a minimum.’

  ‘I see, sir,’ said Stuart. It was going to be one of those operations for which all the reports were going to be written with the advantage of twenty-twenty vision – hindsight. Well, Stuart knew what happened to field men who made any sort of mistake in that situation: the desk men buried them.

  ‘Simply for security purposes,’ added the DG. He looked at his watch.

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  ‘Let me give you another drink.’ He took Stuart’s cut-glass tumbler from him and poured a careful measure of malt whisky, as a chemistry teacher might demonstrate how to handle some dangerous compound. It was nearly 5.40 P.M.: time for BBC 1’s early evening news bulletin. The DG went to the small TV set built into an antique bookcase. He switched on in time for an announcement about programme changes. Then came the news. The two men watched a short clip of film which showed the remains of the Wever cottage. Mrs Wever had been in the milking shed when the explosion occurred, and had escaped unharmed. She told the interviewer that her husband was not interested in politics, adding that the chicken farm was said to have been sited near an old US Army Air Force bomb dump. A spokesman for the local authority did not deny it, saying that an inquiry was being started. The next item concerned preparations for the Queen’s visit to Africa. The DG switched the news off. ‘I think it will be all right,’ he said. ‘Luckily we had one of our chaps in Thetford. He hurried along to have a word with Mrs Wever.’

  ‘Was there a wartime airfield near there?’ Stuart asked.

  ‘Bomb dumps do not necessarily have to be in close proximity to airfields,’ said the DG. ‘Anyway, it was the best story that Operations could cook up at an hour’s notice. If we can sustain the doubt for another twenty-four hours interest in the story will fade.’ He smiled and raised a hand to press a finger against the pink hearing aid concealed by his long hair. ‘What I still don’t know is why you got there early, Stuart.’

  So that was it. ‘I was given no particular time to be there, sir. The written note my Los Angeles controller gave me just said that Franz Wever would be at his home from two P.M. onwards that day. In the event, it wasn’t correct; Wever was a devout churchgoer. Once a week he volunteered to clean the church.’

  ‘Is that so?’ said the DG, committing that departmental error to his memory. He
smiled. ‘Well, all I can say is that you are doing a grand job, Stuart. Keep at it, and try and give me something for the PM when she returns from the Heads of Government meeting. These politicians are a restless and impatient breed.’ The DG tipped the rest of his whisky and water down his throat and gave a grim smile. It was an unmistakable sign of dismissal. Boyd Stuart swallowed the rest of his malt and got up to leave.

  ‘Going?’ said the DG as if surprised. ‘Oh well, I imagine you have lots to do. Were you thinking of returning to Los Angeles immediately?’

  Stuart opened the door. ‘Probably next week, sir.’

  ‘Well, you know best,’ said the DG, leaving Stuart wondering whether the DG thought his stay in London was too long or too short.

  Chapter 15

  ‘The DG gives me the creeps.’

  ‘Come back to bed, Boyd,’ Kitty said. ‘It’s two o’clock in the morning.’

  ‘I know he’s a nice family man who helps old ladies across the street and takes stray dogs home, and my ex-wife adores him, but he really gives me the creeps. Wever told me that our people had talked to him over and over again. The DG won’t admit it.’

  ‘Are you going to sit looking out of that window all night? What are you staring at?’

  ‘There are two men in a car outside the butcher’s on the corner. They’ve been sitting inside that green car ever since we came back from the restaurant.’

  Kitty laughed. ‘Are you getting paranoid? Are you starting to imagine that little men are following you?’

  He did not answer.

  ‘Boyd, I’m serious,’ she said. ‘It’s just not in character. Come to bed and forget it. In the morning the men will be gone, the car will be gone and you will have slept off the effect of that Spanish burgundy.’

  ‘The DG asked me why I was early going out to see that man Wever,’ said Stuart. ‘I didn’t tell him what time I got out there. I didn’t tell Operations. I didn’t tell my controller. I didn’t tell you. I didn’t tell anyone. How the hell would the DG know, unless he had someone following me from the airport?’

  ‘If it’s just hurt pride, I would forget it,’ said Kitty. ‘Internal Security run regular monitoring checks on everyone from time to time. There is no significance in your being followed from the airport. It’s nothing to get hysterical about, darling.’

  ‘Then let me tell you something that is worth getting hysterical about,’ said Stuart softly. ‘Suppose I hadn’t chanced across an old woman who happened to know that Wever was in church? Suppose I’d followed instructions to the letter: turned up a little later, gone straight to the Wever house, had a cup of tea with his wife and waited for him to come back. Then what?’

  ‘What are you trying to say, Boyd?’

  ‘Then it would have been me blown up with that bloody bomb! That’s what I’m trying to say, Kitty.’

  ‘Don’t get angry with me, Boyd.’

  ‘I’m all ready to get angry with someone. I narrowly missed being killed in a car in Los Angeles. And that was murder; I’m certain of it.’ He looked at Kitty. ‘The commercial attaché’s assistant was killed. He was an outsider, Kitty. You know how much the department hates that.’

  ‘Yes, you told me.’

  ‘Someone phoned Wever. Someone phoned him and checked I was there before detonating that bomb.’

  ‘You don’t know what the caller told him; you said you couldn’t hear.’

  ‘He had a phone call,’ said Stuart slowly, carefully and with mounting anger. ‘There were a lot of yeses, and a few minutes after that the house was blown up by someone close enough to detonate a radio fuse.’

  ‘How can you possibly know it was a radio fuse detonated within sight of the house?’

  ‘Because I know the department, Kitty. I know how these things are done. And when I said Wever worked for us the DG didn’t bat an eyelid.’

  ‘MI5, you said.’

  ‘So the DG admits that “Five” is running Wever. We all know that the DG can make them leap through flaming hoops if he feels like it; and this job has all the clout of the PM behind him.’

  Kitty King ran a hand through her hair. She was wide awake now. ‘But what for, Boyd? Tell me what for?’

  ‘Except for a minor miscalculation by the ordnance technicians, Wever would have disappeared, I would have disappeared and all that evidence you receipted tonight and put in the red safe would have disappeared too.’

  ‘Boyd!’

  ‘And just by some remote lucky chance, the department happens to have someone in Thetford this afternoon. Someone they can contact at a moment’s notice. Someone the DG can trust with the delicate task of putting a roll of pound notes into Mrs Wever’s mouth.’

  ‘Conjecture,’ said Kitty. ‘That’s largely conjecture.’ She sat up in bed.

  ‘Don’t switch on the light,’ said Stuart, speaking quietly and holding the curtain open so that he could see down into the street below.

  Kitty forced a little nervous laugh. ‘Are you trying to tell me that your father-in-law arranged to have you killed? XPD, expedient demise; is that what you are saying?’

  ‘There’s no getting round the facts, Kitty.’

  She leaned forward towards him but he didn’t turn to look at her. ‘The DG has no contact with any XPD orders, Boyd. You know the system; XPD orders come only on the personal authority of each individual Regional Ops Chief, and are then countersigned by the DG’s deputy. It’s always been done that way. The DG has no say in it.’

  Stuart let the curtain move slowly back into position, then he turned to look at her. ‘Yes, it’s always been done that way, Kitty, so that any DG can go before secret parliamentary committees and truthfully swear that he has no knowledge of expedient demise or any other authorized killings. I know how it’s all done, Kitty. Believe me I do.’

  ‘No one knows about it,’ said Kitty. ‘Not even my boss knows how they assign the XPDs or even which of our agents handle them. But I’ll tell you one thing, Boyd. There’s no way that Sir Sydney could arrange it without the collusion of others, and I’ve worked there long enough to know that he wouldn’t get it.’

  ‘Are you seriously telling me that in the time you’ve worked in Operations, you’ve never seen an order for expedient demise?’

  ‘For defectors, Boyd. For traitors. For people with heads filled with secrets like the whereabouts of field agents. Then only after the department is certain that they are on the point of betraying everything to Moscow. They never XPD field people like you, pursuing an operational task to the best of your ability.’

  ‘Do you mind if I take notes,’ said Stuart sarcastically. ‘You’re talking just like a field manual.’

  ‘Thanks a lot! And now I’ve had enough of your bad temper. I’m going home!’

  ‘Oh, stop it, Kitty. You know I didn’t mean to say that.’

  ‘Do you know what it’s like for me, being in this bloody flat with you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that everywhere I look there are bits and pieces belonging to your other women.’

  ‘Woman, not women,’ said Boyd Stuart. ‘Jennifer’s things, you mean?’

  Kitty’s lips tightened. Even hearing the name of the woman with whom Boyd Stuart had shared his life was enough to make her feel the pangs of jealousy, and feeling the pangs of jealousy made her angry. ‘Yes, your bloody Jennifer. That’s right. How did she talk? Not like a field manual … How then? Like a sex manual …?’ She found a handkerchief.

  ‘Oh, my God, Kitty, don’t start crying, I can’t stand it.’

  ‘That’s it!’ she yelled. ‘Of course! Not “Don’t cry, Kitty, because I hate to see you unhappy” – not “Don’t cry, Kitty, what can I do for you?” It’s “Don’t cry, little Kitty, because your man can’t stand it.”’ She was very angry now. She threw the bedclothes aside and jumped out of bed. She was still sniffing as she pulled on her tights and looked under the bed for her shoes.

  ‘Your car is miles away,’ Stuart remin
ded her.

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ she said tartly. ‘I’m not frightened of little green men in flying saucers.’

  ‘Oh, go to hell,’ said Stuart and meant it. After he heard the front door close he went down, wondering if she would be waiting there for him, but she had gone home. He undressed and went to bed but it was not easy to go to sleep. Awake in the darkness, he listened to the sound of the traffic going along Millbank. The road alongside the river was never quiet; it was one of the penalties of living here. Would Kitty King report the conversation they had just had, he wondered. How would that affect his career prospects? He chuckled to himself: what kind of career prospects does a man have when he suspects that his employer is trying to kill him? And if his employer is also his father-in-law? It was a problem still unresolved by the time he drifted into a deep sleep. When he awoke, very late the next morning, the sun was shining and the green car outside the butcher’s shop and the men inside it had gone as if they had never existed.

  So that, by Monday morning when he started work, the idea that someone from his own department would plot to have him killed was almost gone from his mind.

  Chapter 16

  At that same time – 10.30 on the morning of Monday, 2 July 1979 – Sir Sydney Ryden was attending the regular weekly intelligence meeting. It is held in a small conference room on the first floor of 12 Downing Street. The room contained a long polished table, with eight chairs, four coloured telephones, some red leather armchairs, a fireplace with highly polished fire irons, and a small oil painting by Winston Churchill placed above the hearth. The only incongruously modern item was a machine with two ‘letter boxes’ in its top: a paper shredder.