Knox had also been given his own office on the fifth floor of Leconfield House again, next to Holland’s and one that had been put aside for White but which he never used, preferring to stay down in the depths of the building with his engineers.
With Operation Pipistrelle still secure, White had vigorously campaigned for an expansion of its scope and use. He also insisted that primary control be brought in-house to MI5 from GCHQ and Atlas turned back on. After balancing the ever-growing need for better-quality intelligence with the increased potential for a breach that more Pipistrelle bugs in the field could cause, Holland cautiously agreed to both.
Holland had also faced repeated questions from Michael Finney about Pipistrelle. He had scolded Knox for revealing the name of one of MI5’s most important secrets to the CIA, but he also enjoyed seeing Finney squirm, aware that British intelligence had some sort of trick up their sleeve he knew nothing about.
The two men who had attacked Knox in Strand station and the man who had tried to assault Bennett in Hyde Park had been picked up by the police shortly after their identikit descriptions had been drawn and circulated. They’d all identified Peterson when they were shown his photograph. But none of them admitted to knocking Knox out in Kemp House, or being part of the masked team that had kidnapped Valera in Stockholm.
Knox’s first job once he’d been discharged from hospital was to work out just how badly Peterson had compromised MI5 over the years. The answer was, it seemed, mercifully little.
The Service had been very lucky. Knox combed through all of MI5’s most important operations over the last decade, as well as intelligence supplied by MI6 about Russia’s activities over the same period. He couldn’t find any major strategic decision or tactical move by the Soviet Union or operational problem that could be attributed to a KGB mole at the heart of British intelligence. In fact, it had taken getting access to Peterson’s bank accounts to establish when he’d started working for the Russians.
As Peterson had made clear to Knox as he stood over him in the suite in the Richmond, he wasn’t an ideological traitor. His relationship with the KGB had been strictly based on remuneration, and they’d paid him very well over the years for very little return. Peterson hadn’t left a record of exactly what he’d passed on to Russia, but by cross-referencing the timings of his second salary Knox was confident in his conclusion that the KGB had either ignored or chosen not to act on whatever information Peterson had given them.
The only loose end that still worried Knox was the ghost of Cecil Court. Even after she’d been sentenced, Sandra Horne had refused to confirm if it had been Peterson who had been helping the Calder Hall Ring. Knox couldn’t tell if she was trying desperately to hold on to one last sliver of power, or if she was bluffing and actually had no idea who the mysterious contact had been. Holland was happy to leave this particular thread dangling so it could be pulled on in the future if needed.
After Knox had completed his report and compiled a list of ongoing operations that should be closely monitored just in case the KGB knew about them, Holland insisted that he take a holiday.
Knox decided to go back to Sweden. He flew to Stockholm, and spent a couple of days exploring the city and, inevitably, having some conversations with the Swedish security service. Their representative was a very tall, straight-talking man called Alve. Knox liked him immediately.
Alve filled in some of the details about Valera’s long, hard journey from Russia to Sweden, and Knox reassured Alve that sending illicit extraction teams into foreign capitals was not standard MI5 procedure. Learning more about Valera and her life gave Knox a greater appreciation for what she’d gone through, but he still wasn’t sure he’d ever forgive her for shooting him.
He then spent another week driving a rented Saab along the southern Swedish coast, on Alve’s recommendation. A fortnight after he’d returned to London several crates of teak furniture and Scandinavian art arrived at Kemp House.
Since the new year, most of Knox’s time had been taken up with monitoring the Committee of 100, the direct-action wing of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. It had spent 1961 committing increasingly bold acts of civil disobedience, staging protests across London and at military bases all over the country. But the wheels were now starting to come off, and Knox was in charge of making sure they didn’t cause any damage when they did. MI5 had braced itself for a long summer of watching the Committee implode. But, after the CND’s annual Easter march, things had gone quiet. It turned out the Committee and the CND were both almost broke.
Knox’s last few months had been fairly subdued, consisting mainly of reviewing reports, catching up on training, and waiting for the events of the previous summer to come back and haunt him.
It had taken Finney two weeks to arrange for Bennett to be accepted into CIA field agent training and be sent back to America. Given the events around the OECD conference he couldn’t deny that she was talented, but she also needed some of her rougher edges smoothed, and ideally somewhere far away from him. He didn’t enjoy being accused of treason by his junior staff.
‘Are you sure it’s what you want?’ Knox had asked when she told him. ‘You’re still more than welcome at Leconfield House.’
‘I will miss this city,’ she’d replied. ‘But I hate to walk away from a challenge. Especially one I made for myself,’ she added with a smirk.
On her last day in London, Knox had taken her to Bar Italia. After they’d both finished their espressos, she pulled two photographs out of her bag and slid them over the counter.
‘Who are we after now?’ he asked.
‘A going-away present,’ she replied, smiling.
‘I think I’m supposed to get you one, not the other way round.’
She split the two photographs, revealing both faces, and pointed at them in turn. ‘That’s Patrick Dixon, the NASA scientist, and that’s Phinneus Murphy, his CIA liaison.’
After saying goodbye to Bennett, Knox had taken the photos straight to Leconfield House. A single phone call by Holland to MI6 had established Dixon’s role in the Corona spy satellite programme, and a conversation with White had revealed why the Americans had been so suddenly interested in Valera. Knox was fascinated and terrified by what he’d learned about both. Pipistrelle and Atlas paled in comparison to the potential of Corona, and Valera might just be the greatest intelligence asset ever to slip through MI5’s fingers. It was some consolation that she was now in the hands of an ally, but not much.
For the last year, people at the top of MI5 and MI6 had been anxiously speculating about what Valera and the CIA might cook up together. Now, at long last, Knox thought, they were about to find out.
CHAPTER 66
Knox crossed the secretarial pool on his way to the lifts. For once, discipline had completely broken down and no one minded at all. Desks had been cleared and a small television set in a wooden box had been set up in the middle of the room. A large group of people were already huddled around it. Knox checked his watch. He still had three minutes – plenty of time to reach Holland’s office.
Five floors up he found another group of people gathered in front of a considerably bigger television screen. The director general’s private sanctum was normally reserved for one-on-one meetings, but today the heads of all MI5’s various departments swarmed it en masse. Holland didn’t like this, which explained his hectoring of White, who was still adjusting the television as Knox made his way to the space that had been left for him next to Holland.