The Warsaw Document

'Someone I met in a bar. I didn't see him again.'

'Because if it was anyone here in the Embassy we'd have to fix things'

'No.'

The door clicked open: there was a draught somewhere and the catch hadn't quite sprung home when he'd shut it. He could never do anything properly. He pressed it harder this time.

'They told you they'd send those to your father?'

'Yes. And to a Sunday paper.'

Sir Walford Merrick, K.C.M.G., O.B.E., Equerry to the Queen's Household. An initialled spoon beside the silver eggcup, the paper-knife arranged beside the mail and in the mail a letter with a Polish stamp and in the newspaper the headline.

'First thing you did was to throw yourself under that tram?'

'Yes.'

Never anything properly.

I hooked a chair from the desk and sat on it and the organism woke up and squealed that we'd got no shelter here because there wasn't any diplomatic immunity, British territory or not, and no hope of a plane and no frontier that didn't border a Russian-controlled state, but there were some things I needed to know and only Merrick could tell me.

'They asked you to give them information on Czyn. What else?'

Suddenly he said: 'Why did they choose me?'

'You were in Prague in August '68 so they were going to pin that one on you too. You'd already got friends in Czyn so you could develop your access to information on their programme. You've got personal tendencies so they could take pictures to entrap you. Your father's position was their guarantee that you'd obey orders and it also gave you great value as an exchange-monkey if there was no uprising and therefore no invasion and therefore no trial.'

He was only taking some of it in: the first time he'd known he was being groomed as a star turn in the Moscow circus was a few minutes ago when he'd heard my signal through the open doorway of the cypher-room, and he was having to look back over the recent past and see it in this new light.

I was thinking suddenly of Egerton again, sitting up there rubbing the bloody ointment in while both Merrick and I were headed for perdition. It was a case of murderous incompetence and I'd have him roasted for it. The worst hazard of them all is a mission formulated on false concepts and in this case it was his belief that Merrick was just another second secretary willing to do a little bit on the side for the U.K. secret services. He's been fully screened, of course.

I had to stop thinking about it. Egerton was done for anyway: the document included references to Merrick's recruitment by the K.G.B. prior to his sick-leave in London.

'What are you going to do with me?'

His eyes watched me, vulnerable, submissive.

'Send you home.'

He nodded. 'How — how long will they give me?'

'What's that mean?'

'For what I've done.'

'You think you've done anything that matters?'

'I worked for them. For Moscow.'

'Don't get any illusions of grandeur. You made a mess and I've cleared it up, that's all.' The poor little bastard was trying to get rid of some of the guilt by picturing a stretch in the Scrubs. 'You'll be declared persona non grata for having engaged in inadmissible activities and put on a plane. They might try fixing you up with a bad smash on the way to the airport because you've been witness to their operation but I'm going to stop that one.' Then suddenly I saw what he meant. 'Listen, Merrick. Once you're in London the whole thing's over for you. In a case like this there won't be any muck-raking because it won't suit anyone's book: we've bust their project wide open and the press handouts are going to be strictly propagandist. Even the F.O. won't know the full story and it won't ask any questions because they'll be too busy putting the flags out. You'll leave the Diplomatic Service and go into some other ministry with first-class recommendations and that'll be that, so if you're thinking of trying another trick with a tram you can forget it.' Slowly I said: 'Your father will know absolutely nothing. Nothing about the photographs, nothing about your involvement with the K.G.B. Nothing.'

His face was perfectly blank. I couldn't tell if it had got through to him. Then I knew it had.

'I'm just going to be let off.'

'Christ, haven't you paid enough? Stop thinking about crime and bloody punishment, will you, it's old hat. You got caught in the works, you're not the only one. And you've been lucky, so settle for that.' I was fed up with his chocolate-box morality, with his inability to know that in the Intelligence services you've got to wrench your sense of values round till they face the other way. 'Look, I want to know some things: what were they after, specifically, when they told you to volunteer for a U.K. espionage job while you were on sick-leave in London?'

'I'm sorry, I don't quite — '

'Oh come on Merrick.' He was still lost in his dreams of atonement. 'The K.G.B. recruited you and you tried to kill yourself and it didn't come off so you went on leave and while you were in London they told you to fish around for a job in one of the hush services and I'm asking you why they did it.'

Because I couldn't make it fit. They'd picked him for the show trial, not for infiltrating the opposition.

'It wasn't their idea.'

My head seemed to freeze and thought went cold. After a bit I said

'Whose was it?'

'Mine.'

'You'd better tell me.'

Then he had to get the bloody thing out and pump it. 'Excuse me.'

'Get a chair.'

'Yes.'

'Right.'

'When I was on leave I told Mr Frazer about — '

'Who's he?'

'Head of Personnel at the Foreign Office. We all like him, because he takes a lot of real interest in us and — '

'All right, Dutch uncle, well?'

'I told him about the photographs, and asked him what I could do. He was very worried — '

'Oh my, God.'

The whole picture began coming up: the one I hadn't been able to see when I'd stood at the window scratching the ice away with my nails. At that time I didn't have the facts. I had one now.

Egerton had known.

'What's the matter?'

'He was worried. What did he do?'

'He said he'd get someone's advice.'

Frazer could have gone to someone he knew in M.I.6 or the O.I.B. or the Security Service but it had happened to be Egerton. Frazer was in a bad spot because the press wouldn't have any mercy on him if it came out that yet another homosexual had been posted to a Curtain embassy, a high security risk because of his susceptiblity to being compromised. Since the Vassall case the public had lost patience and this time there were added dangers: the person of Sir Walford Merrick increased the menace of the photographs and at the same time brought the risk of explosive scandal close to the Throne.

'He didn't say who's advice he was going to get?'

'No. He just said it was someone who knew about things like that.'

'Then the bastards did a deal.'

'I'm not sure — '

'Never mind.'

Cosily, over a glass of sherry. Well what d'you expect me to do about it? I don't know, but I'd be grateful for any advice. Think he'd be willing to do a bit of work for us? I'd imagine so — he's in a pretty awful state about those damned snapshots. All right then, send him along and we'll find a little job for him, then you can both stop worrying.

The time had been right. Things looked like getting rough in the Polish Republic and the U.K. was interested in what the chances were of revolt and subsequent invasion and what the effect would be on the East-West talks. Merrick could keep his ear to the ground and at the same time pass back info on the K.G.B.: their orders to him would be analysed in London to provide an insight into the way Moscow was thinking.