“Yes. We don’t have to keep dwelling on it. What aroused your curiosity again?”
“Sir. Here was a signal from the Yanks in Stockholm, carrying just a name, making an inquiry. I never heard of it, have you, sir?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“And when I run it through Seeker, I get this rude note from the computer questioning my identity, my need-to-know, all sorts of stuff. I shouldn’t be surprised if a couple of men from Internal Security come round and ask me questions. That’s why I came to you, sir. Internal Security has no need-to-know on what Special Section is up to. But if I start answering their questions, I’m going to have to bring in the American signal we picked up from Stockholm and that could lead to all sorts of complications.”
Wickham tapped a pencil against his lip as he contemplated the neat problem for a moment. It was a characteristic habit. He also chewed pencils and pen caps in moments of stress and his desk was littered with their remains, like the small bodies of dead animals.
“What paperwork do you have on this?”
“Sir.” Mowbrey handed over three sheets, including the original code of the American signal from Stockholm received Saturday, the code breakdown, and the classification of the code. It was Aram One, one of the simpler American codes, indicating the inquiry was at a low level of security. Because of the notorious insecurity of the telephone systems in Scandinavia, the American signal might have had its origins anywhere: The Russians, Danes, Norwegians, Finns, Swedes, and the Americans had so many line taps operating in the vast sweep of Scandinavia from the Arctic to the Baltic that frequently a single telephone line would carry two or more taps from competing intelligence organizations.
The second sheet contained Mowbrey’s routine search request to Seeker. The third sheet contained the computer’s chilling response.
Yes, Wickham thought. High-level stuff and mighty strange. This was really out of Mowbrey’s hands now.
He glanced up at the younger man and managed a smile. The avuncular Wickham was back on stage after a momentary lapse.
“An interesting business, don’t you think?”
“Yes, sir, I do and that’s why I brought it straight to you, sir.”
“Now what about Miss Ramsey?”
Violet Ramsey was operations officer, American section, Special Section, and the likely superior that Mowbrey should have spoken to about the matter in the first place.
“Sir, I took it right to you, and Miss Ramsey didn’t have need-to-know. This was an experiment with our machines, sir. Special Section hasn’t even tapped into Stockholm yet. I did that, sir.”
“Did you?”
Mowbrey managed a grin that he intended to convey a sense of modesty. Unfortunately, two blackened teeth to the right-center of his mouth dampened the effect.
“So no one in Special knows about this signal?”
“No, sir. Only you, sir, and Seeker, of course.”
“I’ll take care of Seeker,” Wickham said. Though a lazy man, he saw something vaguely important in the business that Mowbrey had brought to him. Perhaps a chance for promotion; perhaps a chance to take on a good foreign posting inside Auntie. “How did you answer Seeker?”
“Didn’t, sir. Figured it was better to tell you and shut down Seeker at my terminal.”
“All right, Mowbrey. Leave these papers here and I’ll inquire into this for you. I’m sure we can find something about this and why all this mysterious business about… what was his name? Kelly…”
“Crohan, sir. Tomas Crohan.”
“Yes.”
Three hours later, Wickham had managed to duplicate the original inquiry about the identity of Tomas Crohan and feed it into Seeker. Scarcely twenty minutes later, the computer repeated the questions that it had asked of Mowbrey but this time Wickham identified himself, his position, and his grade number and demanded to know why he could not inquire further into the matter of Tomas Crohan.
Seeker did not answer.
The business frustrated Wickham to the point where he circumvented the computer entirely.
It was just after four and the cows above had long been driven to their barns. Darkness poked at the edges of the sky.
Wickham had locked the door of his office. He had taken the blue telephone out of the locked box at the bottom of his desk. He had not dialed a number; he merely picked up the receiver and waited.
“Yes.” A woman’s thin voice with a London accent.
“George, please.”
“One moment.” A buzz on the line and another voice. This one was a man.
“Who is it?”
“Bluebird,” Wickham said.
“Yes. I expected as much. I was just going to get around to you.” The voice of “George” was as thick as a heavy gravel walk in Kew Gardens.
“You were?” Wickham was truly surprised and his voice conveyed that impression.
“Was this something of your Special Section?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Crohan, man. You made two inquiries in the last five hours to Seeker. Why didn’t you identify yourself the first time? Could have saved us half a morning running around.”
“I–I had no idea.”
“Not the first time you’ve ever said that, I’ll wager.”
Silence.
“Well, Bluebird, why did you tumble to a name like that? After all these years.”
“Sir, this is the highest level—”
“Yes, damn you. What are you raving about? I am Security, there is no level above my level.”
“I’m sorry, George.”
“Where did you pick this up?”
Wickham was completely shaken. He felt trapped in his own ambition. Why hadn’t he left the whole business to Miss Ramsey? Damn that Mowbrey. Now he had gotten in on it and he would have to see it through.
“Signal, sir. Bit of an experiment in Section. I thought I would take some of their… spaghetti—”
Spaghetti was listening-post slang for the millions and millions of pieces of cable, secret and radio chatter picked up every day in places like Cheltenham. There were so many conversations, orders, messages, and sometimes real secrets that it was a losing battle on the part of listeners inside Auntie to actually sift through all the material and isolate those bits that were truly significant. It was an enormous plate of spaghetti and by digging away at it diligently each day, bits and pieces of worth were found… while other worthwhile bits were never discovered at all because of the sheer amount of material that had to be sifted.
“American spaghetti, was it?”
“Yes, sir. How did you know?”
“What the hell is Special Section supposed to be working on if not tapping the Yanks?”
Wickham was shocked to hear George state it so baldly. After all, it was a safe phone but no one ever spoke of the project inside Special Section. The Americans were allies, after all; American liaison offices actually worked in the public buildings aboveground in Cheltenham with their British counterparts. Auntie — the nickname everyone used for the Ministry for External Affairs (Extraordinary) — was an open secret at Cheltenham, but Special Section was a secret buried within a secret and the probe of American intelligence security was the last secret of all, so sacred that none spoke of it.
“Where was it, Bluebird?”
“Stockholm, sir.”
“Stockholm?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t like this at all.”
“What, sir?”
“Nothing, Bluebird. Are you absolutely certain you handled this strictly on your own?”
Wickham lied without compunction. He had done so all his life. “Yes, sir.”
“Good. Now I want you to forget the whole business.”
“Forget it?”
“Exactly what I said,” the gravel voice rumbled. “If you’ve made notes for yourself, destroy them. Everything. And don’t breathe a word about this if you value your neck.”