"What sort of people are they?"
"The SAS team? Good blokes, very polite chaps. They make no trouble for me and my mates at all."
"What about the Americans?" Popov asked. I've never really known any, but you hear stories about how they do things their own way and-"
"Not in my experience. Well, I mean, only lately have we had any at the base, but the two or three I've worked for are just like our chaps-and remember I told you, they try to tip us! Bloody Yanks! But friendly chaps. Most of them have kids, and the children are lovely. Learning to play proper football now, some of them. So, what are you doing around here?"
"Meeting with the local ironmongers, trying to get them to carry my brands of tools, and also the local distributor."
"Lee and Dopkin?" The plumber shook his head. "Both are old buggers, they won't change very much. You'll do better with the little shops than with them, I'm afraid."
"Well, how about your shop? Can I sell you some of my tools?"
"I don't have much of a budget but, well, I'll look at your wrenches."
"When can I come in?"
"Security, mate, is rather tight here. I doubt they'll allow me to drive you onto the base… but, well, I could bring you in with me-say, tomorrow afternoon?"
"I'd like that. When?"
"Tomorrow afternoon? I could pick you up here."
"Yes," Popov said. "I'd like that."
"Excellent. We can have a ploughman's lunch here and then I'll take you in myself."
"I'll be here at noon," Popov promised. "With my tools."
Cyril Holt was over fifty, and had the tired look of a senior British civil servant. Well dressed in a finely tailored suit and an expensive tie - clothing over there, Clark knew, was excellent, but not exactly cheap - he shook hands all around and took his seat in John's office.
"So," Holt said. "I gather we have a problem here."
"You've read the intercept?"
"Yes." Holt nodded. "Good work by your NSA chaps." He didn't have to add that it was good work by his chaps as well, identifying the line used by the rezident.
"Tell me about Kirilenko," Clark said.
"Competent chap. He has a staff of eleven field officers, and perhaps a few other off-the-books helpers to do pick ups and such. Those are all `legals' with diplomatic cover. He has illegals as well who report to him, of course. We know two of them, both covered as businessmen who do real business in addition to espionage. We've been building up this book for some time. In any case, Vanya is a competent, capable chap. He's covered as the embassy's third secretary, does his diplomatic duties like a genuine diplomat, and is well liked by the people with whom he comes into contact. Bright, witty, good chap to have a pint with. Drinks beer more than vodka, oddly enough. He seems to like it in London. Married, two children, no bad habits that have come to our attention. His wife doesn't work at all, but we haven't seen anything covert on her part. Just a housewife, so far as we can discern. Also well liked in the diplomatic community." Holt passed across photographs of both. "Now," he went on, "just yesterday our friend was having a friendly pint in his favorite pub. It's a few blocks from the embassy in Kensington, close to the palace-the embassy dates back to the Czars, just like the one you have in Washington-and this pub is rather upscale. Here's the enhanced photo of the chap he had his beer with." Another photo was passed across.
The face, Clark and Tawney saw, was grossly ordinary. The man had brown hair and eyes, regular features, and was about as distinctive as a steel garbage can in an alley. In the photo, he was dressed in jacket and tie. The expression on his face was unremarkable. They might have been discussing football, the weather, or how to kill someone they both didn't like-there was no telling.
"I don't suppose he has a regular seat?" Tawney asked.
"No, usually sits at the bar, but sometimes in a booth, and rarely in the same seat twice in a row. We've thought about placing a bug," Holt told them, "but it's technically difficult, it would let the publican know we're up to something, and it's very doubtful that we'd get anything useful from it. His English is superb, by the way. The publican seems to think he's a Briton from the North Country."
"Does he know you're following him?" Tawney asked, before Clark could.
Holt shook his head. "Hard to say, but we do not think so. The surveillance teams switch off, and they're some of my best people. They go to this pub regularly, even when he's not there, in case he has a chap of his own there to do counter surveillance. The buildings in the area allow us to track him fairly easily by camera. We've seen a few possible brush-passes, but you both know the drill on that. We all bump into people on a crowded sidewalk, don't we? They're not all brush-passes. That's why we teach our field officers to do it. Especially when the streets are crowded, you can have a dozen cameras on your subject and not see it being done."
Clark and Tawney both nodded at that. The brush-pass had probably been around as long as spies had. You walked down a street and at most you pretended to bump into someone. In the process, his hand delivered something into yours, or dropped it in your pocket, and with minimal practice it was virtually invisible even to people watching for it. To be successful, only one of the parties had to wear something distinctive, and that could be a carnation in your buttonhole, the color of a necktie or the way one carried a newspaper, or sunglasses, or any number of other markers known only to the participants in the mini-operation. It was the simplest of examples of fieldcraft, the easiest to use, and for that reason the curse of counterespionage agencies.
But if he did a pass to this Popov guy, they had a photograph of the bastard. Maybe had it, he reminded himself. There was no guarantee that the guy he'd drunk with yesterday was the right fellow. Maybe Kirilenko was swift enough that he'd go to a pub and strike up a conversation with some other patron just to piss the "Five" people off and give them another randomly selected person to check out. Doing that required personnel and time, neither of which the Security Service had in infinite quantities. Espionage and counterespionage remained the best damned game in town, and even the players themselves never really knew what the score was.
"So, you'll increase your coverage of Kirilenko?" Bill Tawney asked.
"Yes." Holt nodded. "But do remember we're up against a highly skilled player. There are no guarantees."
"I know that, Mr. Holt. I've been in the field, and the Second Chief Directorate never got their hands on me," Clark told the visitor from the Security Service. "So anything at all on Popov?"
He shook his head. "That name is not in our files. It's possible, I suppose, that we have him under another name. Perhaps he's been in contact with our PIRA friends-that;actually seems likely, if he's a terrorism specialist. There are many such contacts. We've got informers inside the PIRA, and I'm thinking about showing the photograph to some of them. But that's something we have to do carefully. Some of our informers are doubles. Our Irish friends have their own counterespionage operations, remember'."' "I've never worked directly against them," John said next. "How good are they?"
"Bloody good," Holt assured him, catching a nod also from Bill Tawney. "They're highly dedicated, and superbly organized, but now the organization's fragmenting somewhat. Obviously, some of them do not want peace to break out. Our good friend Gerry Adams is by profession a publican, and if the Troubles come to an end, and he fails to get himself elected to high public office, as he clearly hopes, then his fallback job is rather lower in prestige than the position he now holds-but the majority of them seem willing to terminate their operations, declare victory. and give peace a chance. That has helped our infomer-recruiting somewhat, but there are elements of the PIRA who are more militant today than they were ten years ago. It's a cause for concern," Holt told them.