‘… This is a disaster!’ endorsed the second official. ‘This will end any technological cooperation between us and the United States for years…a disaster…!’
‘…I think…’ began his colleague but Wilson cut him off, trying to restore some order. ‘Please be quiet!’ he said. He didn’t shout but despite the frailty there was authority in his voice and everyone stopped talking at once. The Director General looked around the room and said, more forcefully: ‘Let’s stop behaving like a lot of frightened chickens with a fox in the henhouse! I want to understand what we’ve got here, not listen to a bunch of hysterics!’
There was some embarrassment in the silence that settled. Harkness said: ‘I do not think the observation I made should be ignored.’
‘Nothing is being ignored,’ said Wilson, and on this occasion Charlie was convinced there was a note of weariness in the Director General’s tone towards the other man. He was aware of Wilson looking at him ‘Charlie?’ he invited.
‘Like you said,’ supported Charlie. ‘Don’t panic. The first thing to do is confirm that it is something from the space project.’
‘It means delay…’ the Welshman began to protest.
‘…no it doesn’t,’ corrected Charlie. ‘The Isle of Wight is less than an hour away, by helicopter. The factory even has its own landing pad. We already know Springley’s address: the local police can have him there waiting for us before the machine arrives…’
‘Yes,’ accepted Wilson at once, nodding towards Witherspoon. ‘Organize that now.’
‘Blackstone,’ insisted Harkness. ‘The man has to be arrested!’
‘No, he doesn’t!’ said Charlie, as Witherspoon left the room accompanied by Abbott, the second Special Branch officer. ‘And for the same reason as before: we don’t know yet if there’s a cut-off warning system in operation. We’ve got to take things in their proper order.’
‘Your accomplice…’ started Harkness, and Charlie exploded.
‘For Christ’s sake!’ he shouted, so loudly that Harkness actually stepped back and Smedley started forward from his guard position at the door before stopping again.
‘Listen!’ implored Charlie, more controlled. ‘Just listen and think. You want to argue that I received that drawing from Blackstone, put it in the safe deposit facility and then told Moscow, correct…?’
Harkness blinked back at him, saying nothing.
‘How?’ demanded Charlie. ‘Tell me – tell us all – how! And why! The bloody drawing is dated, isn’t it! With what is almost yesterday’s date. You know to the second where I’ve been for the past three, almost four days: that I haven’t been anywhere near the Isle of Wight to make any pick-up. You now who I’ve met, so you’re equally well aware that Blackstone hasn’t come to London, to give me anything. According to what you’ve said in this very room, I was actually under arrest when the message was intercepted to Moscow saying King William Street had been filled. So it couldn’t have been me who filled it, could it! Or sent the message, because you’ve also told us the transmission and receiving point is inside the Soviet embassy in Kensington Palace Gardens. And why was that message sent at all? Just to go on fooling you, like it’s fooled you all along. Why should the Soviet embassy receiving material from a dead letter box in King William Street alert Moscow before they pick it up! Surely even you can see the nonsense in that. Standard procedure – the only procedure – is to empty a box and then advise what you’ve got, if you want to, although that doesn’t make a lot of sense either…’ Charlie had to stop, breathless. He said: ‘You were fed the numbers-for-letter code, like you were fed everything else…the dead letter drop that got you an arrest…the courier against whom you couldn’t move. What did they amount to, either of them? Think about it! They didn’t matter a damn. It was just the bait, for you to swallow. Which you did. Moscow has sucked you up and blown you out in bubbles. That code is Boy Scouts’ stuff: senior Boy Scouts, maybe, but little more. It should never have been relied upon…had importance attached to it.’
‘I think that’s enough,’ halted the Director General. ‘I will say, however, that at this stage I agree with what has been said. It would seem to me that we are dealing with two separate things here. And for the moment the overwhelmingly important one is the discovery of a British document carrying the highest security classification being where it has no right to be. I want that run to ground first: everything else can wait.’
Harkness discernibly sagged. His immediate, concerned concentration focused upon the Whitehall officials and Charlie became even surer that they were in some way connected to the all-important Joint Intelligence Committee.
Everyone settled down to another period of waiting, for the arrival of Robert Springley. Harkness returned to the evidence table – although to the folders, not the drawing. The two Whitehall men withdrew pointedly to a part of the room where they could not be overheard and at once started an intense, head-bent conversation. The stenographer and the recording operator sat back, stretching, grateful for the temporary rest. The stiff-legged Wilson was the first to stand. The Director General caught Charlie’s eye, jerking his head, and Charlie crossed to where the man was, beyond the half-moon table.
Wilson said: ‘I think you’ve publicly made your point with sufficient forcefulncss for the moment. No more.’
‘Yes, sir,’ accepted Charlie.
‘I still want a further explanation.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘For Christ’s sake stop parroting “yes, sir” at me!’
‘I’m pretty sure the drawing is from the Isle of Wight.’
‘You’re in deep trouble if it came from a man you let run.’
‘I accept that.’
‘Why the hell did you let it go on!’
‘I thought I’d closed him off: that the risk was justified.’
Wilson snorted, in impatient anger, nodding in the direction of the intensely talking government officials. ‘They’re right, you know. If something involving America’s Strategic Defence Initiative has reached the Russians from one of our places the shutters are going to come down with a sound we’ll hear all the way from Washington. The Americans would actually have to consider abandoning it: starting all over again.’
‘I realize that, too.’
‘Christ!’ said Wilson again but more to himself than to Charlie. ‘I can’t think of a comparable disaster! Nothing!’
They both turned, at movement from the door. Witherspoon entered first, followed by Springley. The white-haired project chief had had time during the flight to recover from being roused from his bed but he was still blinking in bewilderment. He was wearing a carelessly put on tweed jacket over a roll-neck sweater. The man frowned around the room in continuing confusion, his face breaking slightly at recognition of Charlie Muffin.
When he spoke it was to Charlie. He said, complaining: ‘No one will tell me anything, except that there’s some sort of crisis: that this is a security committee. What is it? What’s happened?’
Wilson said to Charlie: ‘You might as well take him through it. He knows you.’
Harkness didn’t hear the exchange but his look was one of undisguised hatred – and without caring that it was undisguised – as Charlie went to the project chief, to lead him back to the table where Harkness still stood. Charlie ignored the deputy Director. He picked up the flimsy drawing, offered it to Springley and said: ‘Can you identify that?’
Springley only looked at it briefly, for no more than seconds. After which his gaze came up, first to Charlie and then more widely, out into the room. He was smiling slightly, the smile of someone completely baffled but who imagines they are having some incomprehensible trick played upon them. He said: ‘What is this?’