‘How will we do it?’
Something else he had not properly formulated in his mind. ‘The simpler the better,’ said Charlie. ‘I’ll fix it.’
‘Take me to bed, Charlie.’
He did and it was better than before because neither of them was as anxious to prove anything. Afterwards Charlie said: ‘In a few days we’ll be together all the time.’
Beside him he felt Natalia suddenly shiver, as if she were cold. She said: ‘Make it happen: please make it happen.’
Richard Harkness’ emotions were mixed. There was immense satisfaction, at being named controller of the special, inter-agency task force to combat whatever the Soviets were evolving, because he saw that as the surest indicator yet of his inevitably getting the permanent, more important appointment. But there was also some caution. There unquestionably was an operation under way and they had cable exchanges to prove it. But not the slightest evidence yet what it was. Which created the dilemma for Harkness. Precisely because his task force was inter-agency whatever he did now would make him the focus of those agencies, particularly Ml5 who would regard the matter rightfully theirs as internal counter-intelligence and resent his usurping their authority and responsibility. If he got it right – he had to get it right – the prestige and the accolades would be his. But if there were a mistake and things went wrong, the backbiting and sniping would start at once, ridiculing and denigrating him. So as well as being a satisfied man Richard Harkness was a worried one.
Within an hour of his return from the Joint Intelligence Committee meeting at which the task force had been created with him in charge Harkness summoned Witherspoon, who immediately responded with congratulations, through which Harkness sat patiently, nodding and smiling. Then he said: ‘But we haven’t got one definite fact to guide us!’
‘Yes we have,’ challenged Witherspoon at once. ‘And so far we’ve overlooked it.’
‘What?’ demanded Harkness. The other man was young, much younger than officers were normally considered for promotion, but Harkness was thinking increasingly of elevating Witherspoon when he himself got the full director generalship. These past few months Witherspoon had proven himself an invaluable sounding board.
‘The embassy itself!’ insisted Witherspoon. ‘That’s where the Moscow messages are going to. And from which they’re being answered.’
‘And upon which there is a permanent watch!’ accepted Harkness.
‘Recorded observation which you’ve now got authority to call for,’ reminded Witherspoon. ‘The surveillance reports could take us to the next link in the chain.’
‘I’ll demand them,’ said Harkness at once. ‘And I want you to take control of the search: it should be fairly concentrated because we’ve got the date of the first intercepted message. There wouldn’t seem to be any point in going back further than that.’
‘Thank you for the confidence,’ said Witherspoon.
‘Still nothing from King William Street?’
Witherspoon shook his head. ‘At least we’ve now got more manpower to carry on the observation.’
‘Visitor and guest,’ mused Harkness. ‘Who’s the visitor and who’s the guest?’
‘And who or what has been reactivated!’ added Witherspoon.
‘That could be another pointer,’ seized Harkness at once. ‘Let’s widen the search of the other agency files. Find out if there’s been an inquiry that ended inconclusively, with no action taken.’
‘What about our own records?’ queried Witherspoon.
‘Yes,’ agreed Harkness, although doubtfully. ‘I suppose we should.’
‘It’ll come,’ said Witherspoon confidently. ‘I’m sure the breakthrough will come.’
Five miles away, in the Kensington safe house, Vitali Losev held the telephone loosely, keeping any impatience from his voice at the repeated and obvious attempt by Henry Blackstone to protract what he was saying and make it sound important.
‘I thought you’d like to know that the American has gone,’ said Blackstone.
‘I do,’ said Losev, forcing the enthusiasm. ‘That’s very useful.’
‘And I’m expecting to hear any day about my reapplication,’ lied Blackstone.
‘I’ve got something to tell you at last,’ announced Losev, following the newly arrived orders from Moscow. ‘You’re going to get your retainer. And soon someone other than myself to deal with. He’ll be known to you as Visitor.’
‘Thank you,’ said Blackstone. ‘For the retainer I mean. Thank you.’
‘We regard you as important,’ mouthed Losev.
‘How will I recognize him, this new man?’
‘I’m coming to explain it to you,’ promised Losev. ‘And you’ll recognize him well enough.’
37
Hubert Witherspoon had begun that evening, within an hour of his briefing from Harkness. And very quickly found that with such extensive facilities at his instant disposal his role as overall coordinator was not going to be as difficult as he’d initially believed it would be. At no time, however, did he imagine the break coming as quickly as it did.
That first night he requisitioned a conference room on the ninth floor, deciding he needed more room than there was in his cramped offices adjoining Charlie’s and because the move brought him closer, with immediate access, to Richard Harkness. He ordered the photographic surveillance in King William Street increased and called for the observation reports of all the other agencies – but particularly Ml5 – over the previous month upon every Soviet and Eastern bloc installation, not just embassies and consulates but trade missions, tourist offices and national airline buildings. He demanded, for comparison, all cable and radio traffic intercepts and asked for a squad of four cryptologists to do nothing but run those comparisons against what they had obtained via the Soviet number-for-letter code. To speed that process he overnight asked scientists at Britain’s worldwide listening facility, the Government Communications Headquarters at Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, to programme a computer to respond to trigger words and to feed in each – and then a combination of each – from the cables they had been reading in the hope of some earlier recognition. Gathering together the cryptologists gave Witherspoon the idea and he extended it, ordering the formation of small groups of men – never more than four or five – specifically to monitor and backcheck every suspicious report or inexplicable event involving Eastern bloc activity over the period being investigated. Again, for speed, Witherspoon requested a computer be programmed to throw up any connection with the Soviet code. He further had a physiognomy programme created for tell-in-seconds computer analysis of all surveillance photographs against known or suspected Eastern bloc officers operating in Britain.
The intended organization was as comprehensive as Witherspoon could conceive, although issuing the encompassing orders for its creation by others was completed comparatively quickly, before midnight. Fuelled by adrenaline, Witherspoon was back in his elevated ninth-floor room, high above all the activity he had initiated, soon after dawn, running it all through his mind in a search for anything he might have forgotten. It was all-encompassing, he assured himself. Yet the need was for a positive target, a way forward, and he hadn’t been able to isolate that. The Soviet embassy, he thought, remembering the previous day’s conversation with the acting Director General. They had agreed that was the conduit so it was upon the embassy that he had to concentrate. Witherspoon reviewed the requests and instructions he had already sent out covering the Kensington Palace Gardens building, looking for gaps and not finding them. He was sure he had covered everything. He’d demanded biographies upon the entire diplomatic staff, with the known and therefore more easily monitored rezidentura, and all available details of movements in and out, and the Foreign Office were checking visa applications, to show up any changes in the last month. A new arrival could fit the cable words, reflected Witherspoon: visitor or guest. How ironic it could be if the lead came as easily as that, without the necessity of everything else he had set up. The reflection ran on. Visitor and guest, thought Witherspoon, actually writing the words down on a reminder pad in front of him. Who in God’s name was Visitor and who was Guest! Who…he began again and then halted. Who indeed! Were there visitors: guests? Witherspoon felt a lurch of anxiety because it was obvious – blatantly, absurdly obvious – and he hadn’t thought of it! They hadn’t thought of it! Maybe he’d been wise, calling upon God in time. It wasn’t too late to recover, to add this demand to all the rest. It wouldn’t appear an oversight, even, because it could be argued that the orders he’d already given covered parties of visiting Russians. What he now had to do was focus the demand, with a direct reference and connection to the embassy.