“I might indeed,” Shaw murmured. “They could hook Conroy off the coach and that would be that.” He looked musingly at Treece’s set face for a moment. “Or — would it?”
“Not quite,” Treece answered. “Or so, it appears, the PM believes. I agree with him. That Cabinet Office memo isn’t exhaustive, by the way. We’ve had the strictest orders that nothing is, on any account, to be revealed to the Russians. If they were alerted, they’d be bound to hook off everyone aboard that coach and hold ’em indefinitely — obviously enough, there’s no Conroy as such in the nominal list of passengers, and if we don’t know who he is, I doubt if the Russians do. Your contact may not have got his facts right anyhow, let’s face it! Maybe he isn’t on the coach at all. Well — the arrest and indefinite detention and grilling of an entire coach-load of tourists at the Berlin Wall would lead to all kinds of East-West tensions and complications. The governments concerned would react most strongly, and that would snowball. Why the mere fact that a British or American national was officially admitted to be entering the Soviet Union on such a mission as Conroy’s would unquestionably be seized upon by the Russian extremists, and Communists everywhere, as a heaven-sent opportunity to make all kinds of trouble. The keynote of the whole counter-plan,” he emphasized, “has got to be — keep the whole show dead quiet. Right away from the public eye, the police forces, and what-have-you. Peace is best served by letting the public know damn-all, Commander — and it’s up to you to bring this off and intercept Conroy quietly, unobtrusively, and entirely anonymously. Even after you’re successful, the facts must never be known. Is that clearly understood?”
“It’s clearly understood all right,” Shaw answered, “but I’d like to know how you propose to keep his trial quiet?”
Treece grinned and pulled at his moustache. “We don’t propose to have a trial. The whole point is this: Once you’ve picked Conroy up, you get the full story out of him. Satisfy yourself beyond a doubt that you’ve got the right man and that he was genuinely going in to kill Kosyenko…”
“And then?”
Treece said simply, “Then he meets with an unfortunate accident.”
“You mean?”
“I mean your orders, my dear fellow, are to kill Conroy.”
“Judge and executioner — just like that?” Treece nodded. “Just like that. Believe me, it’s necessary. The order comes from very high up. It hasn’t exactly been put in writing… but I rather like the phrase ‘inhibit Conroy,’ don’t you?” Treece chuckled coarsely, then added, “I see you’re not amused — but you’ll do precisely as you’re told, Shaw! And by the way, we shall approve any method you like to use.”
“And the MVD — or the KGB, who are the bigger headache these days?” Shaw asked sardonically. “Will they approve too?”
“Russian security’s your worry, Commander, and so for that matter is how you get out of the country after you’ve ‘inhibited’ Conroy.” Treece dismissed the whole thing with a shrug of his heavy shoulders. “All I can say is, keep out of trouble all you can. We don’t come into this officially, of course, and we won’t back you if anything goes wrong — you’ll understand that. Remember, espionage is a very filthy word in my service and we never acknowledge the employment of special agents—”
“And when something like this crops up?”
“We prefer to call them security officers detached for particular duty.” Treece looked down at his blotter. “However… in case we have messages to pass to you, you will ring the Embassy on arrival in Moscow, if you haven’t bowled Conroy out earlier. You will ask for a man called Jones, P.P.L Jones. You will say you’re a British tourist and you’ve lost all your money. Jones will quite understand and he will tell you to call at the Embassy at a time he’ll specify. You will not, however, go to the Embassy. At the time stated you’ll go to the Sokolniki Park, that’s a largely wooded area north of Izmailovo—”
“I know it.”
“Good. Well, you’ll go in by the main gateway in Rusakovskaya Street and then take the fourth radial path from the south. Jones will be waiting on the second bench and he’ll have your description. You’ll get the details as to how to make the actual contact before you leave. Once you’ve established contact you can pass any messages to him for transmission to London, and he will pass any from this end to you. He’ll also inform you as to the method you should use to make contact with him, if necessary, thereafter, should you have any information to pass back. You will, of course, ask no help from the Embassy unless it is absolutely vital for the success of your mission — and even then you must contact nobody except Jones. For your information, in case of real emergency only, he has a flat at 73 Rogoskaya Street. Before you leave London,” Treece added, “you’ll be shown a photograph and given a frill description of Jones for easy identification, together with the available particulars of Conroy — though, as I’ve indicated, there isn’t very much we can tell you.”
“What about a physical description of Conroy?”
Treece frowned and made a hissing noise through his teeth. “No. That’s just the awkward point! His description is one of the things missing from the file… I’m assuming there was a description of him, since he was known to security…”
Shaw’s eyes narrowed. “You mean the file’s been deliberately tampered with?”
“I don’t know.” Treece fiddled with a ballpoint pen on his desk. “I didn’t say that, but I’ll admit it’s the only conclusion I can come to, and if that is the case, well, I’m bound to say it points to something fishy inside the security services of the day. You can leave all that to me, though. What we’ve got you’ll be able to study and then hand back.”
Shaw nodded. “Right. Now, how do I get inside Russia?”
“In the coach, since that’s our one and only lead. The party will currently be en route from Brussels to Hanover, and the coach is fully booked. However, if you go to the Superluxury offices in Regent Street at noon you’ll find they’ve just had a telephone message from the police in Bradford to inform a certain lady passenger that her husband has had a street accident that may prove fatal.” Treece’s eyes were blank. “Phoney, of course, but very effective… She’ll be buttered up afterwards and told that her return has been of enormous help to her country in an unspecified manner, as indeed we all hope it will have been. She’ll leave the party either in Hanover or Berlin, and you’ll fly out tomorrow morning for Berlin to take her seat. You’ll book in the name of Stephen Edward Jessop Cane, and tell Superluxury you’ll bring your passport later. That’s all you need to know for now. I want you to come back here this afternoon for full and final briefing.”
“And the passport — do I pick that up this afternoon too?”
“Yes. Now remember — the coach reaches Moscow in six days from now. Every moment after that, Kosyenko’s life is in danger… and I won’t remind you of what was in that Cabinet Office memo. Kosyenko himself is currently on a round of visits to the workers in the factories and shipyards, fields and so forth. Until you get to Moscow, he’ll be in the Leningrad area, returning to Moscow the day the coach is due. I’m not sure how long he intends remaining in the capital, but he goes on from there to Eastern Russia — Kyakhta on the Mongolian border, to be exact. That’s if he lives.”