‘I spent a lot of time in Switzerland,’ said the DG. ‘As you probably know from Jennifer, my wife and I go there every year… although nowadays I’m a little too old for climbing. I had a fall when half a dozen of us tried our luck on the Zmutt ridge of the Matterhorn. That was ten years ago. I said, Ryden old chap, you’re too old for this sort of thing. Never mind all these modern contraptions-pitons, snap links and stirrups-the fact is that sleeping one night at that sort of altitude could kill an old man.’
‘You fell, sir?’
‘Damn near fifty feet, Stuart. Into soft snow, thank God. But it was a lesson. A man ignores such signs at his peril.’ The DG moved across the room with a restlessness that Stuart found distracting.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Stuart wondering if the DG was trying to tell him something. The director was rather fond of imparting suggestions by means of such parables.
‘I go there regularly and smell the air, Stuart. Know what I mean?’ The DG didn’t wait to hear if Stuart knew. ‘Good people, the Swiss. God-fearing, industrious and logical. I like them, and they have helped the department a lot from time to time. Yet what do you ever hear about the Swiss intelligence service-nothing! That’s what I like about them, Stuart.’
Stuart noted it. He inferred that fear of God, industry and logic were probably the virtues the DG would have claimed for himself, had he not been saddled with that old-world reticence of which he made so much. ‘They seem to have taken your bait, sir,’ said Stuart. ‘ Geneva reports a lot of activity at the lakeside house, opposite the one owned by the American colonel. One neighbour says that security company cars arrived with boxes of guns… ’
‘Boxes of guns?’ The DG was amused. ‘You mean boxes with the word “guns” stencilled on the outside?’
Stuart did not rise to this provocation. ‘It’s one unconfirmed report, sir. From a neighbour… and we know how unreliable neighbours can be.’
‘Guns, you say?’ The DG smacked some invisible speck of dust from his fine new trousers.
‘Security company cars-armoured cars by the sound of it, wire netting on the windows and so on. It’s not the sort of van that delivers groceries, sir. It was driven to the back of the house to unload… heavy crates… ’
‘Very well, Stuart. You make your point. No need to labour it. Yes, it sounds like guns. And Stein knows about his son? We’ll have to release him soon. I’m coming under considerable pressure from the Home Office.’
‘The Los Angeles controller put it all to Stein senior yesterday morning-they are eight hours behind us, of course.’
‘Yes, eight hours behind us, Stuart. I’m not quite senile.’
‘No, sir. Well, Stein drove down to Sunset Boulevard and bought an airline ticket, we don’t know where to yet.’
‘Why don’t we?’
Stuart suppressed a sigh. ‘We’ll have to get it off the airline computer, and that means several different airlines. A direct approach to the travel agency is very likely to get back to Stein.’
‘And do we care if it gets back to him?’
‘The field agents have to live in that town,’ said Stuart. ‘It’s all very well to sit in London critical of everything the field men do, and impatient to close the dossier, but our man who goes to the travel agent might be storing up trouble for himself, dangerous trouble.’
‘This is vitally important, Stuart.’
‘It’s all important,’ said Stuart angrily. ‘When was the last time a field agent was briefed to take his time? All the dockets in the traffic room are red ones. Where are the stickers that say “Take your time” or “Watch out for your back-this is just something to buy promotion for some London desk man”? Where are they?’
The DG seemed amused by Stuart’s outburst, or was his fixed grin just a nervous and angry reaction to it? ‘There are no stickers like that, Stuart. Perhaps we should ask the stationery office to let us have some.’
‘Perhaps we should, sir.’
The DG stopped his pacing. For, a moment he seemed about to rebuke Stuart but he swallowed his annoyance. He put both his hands into his trouser pockets and rattled his change. ‘Suppose we are wrong, Stuart? Suppose Stein has got the Hitler Minutes in the house on Lake Geneva?’
Stuart said nothing. The two men looked at each other.
The DG continued with his gloomy scenario. ‘In that case we will have sent Kleiber and his thugs to the very spot that we don’t want them to be. They will get those damned documents, Stuart. And we will have given them every assistance. How will I explain that to the PM?’ En passant he smacked the newspaper’s account of Mrs Thatcher’s speech with the back of his hand.
‘I’m very busy downstairs, sir, without the added task of compiling explanations for mistakes that we’ve not yet made.’
The DG wet his lips and stared out of the window. He knew that his son-in-law was having some sort of affair-a liaison was perhaps a better word-with the blonde secretary who worked for the deputy chief of Operations (Region Three). He had mentioned it to his daughter Jennifer but she insisted that she didn’t mind. The marriage is all over and finished with, she had said, and Sir Sydney had been pleased by her determination. Young people were different today, more’s the pity, but that would not prevent him from posting the blonde secretary away. He felt uneasy about the relationship: Boyd Stuart was ‘agent in charge’ of one of the most delicate operations they had mounted, and the girl was secretary to one of his key officials. It was bad security; he should have done something before this. He remembered that she had brought his own personal file up from the vault. That was something he did not like being handled by anyone but himself. He did not want even senior SIS staff to know that he had once been Elliot Castelbridge. ‘Don’t meet trouble halfway, you mean?’ the DG said and nodded, still looking out of the window. ‘Quite right, quite right.’ Then he turned to face Stuart.
Stuart waited, knowing that the DG was about to say something more. The old man had this disconcerting habit of pausing before he spoke. Probably he was rehearsing the exact words he would use, to ensure that he was revealing nothing more than was absolutely necessary. ‘Don’t worry about this chap Kleiber and his house full of guns, Stuart. Our Swiss friends will take care of that’
Stuart waited for more information, but none was forthcoming. So that was it. The DG had given the Americans a ‘hands-off’ undertaking on Kleiber. Now he was arranging that the Swiss security people pick Kleiber up. How very convenient; the Swiss computer was not available to the Americans and the DG knew that all too well. It would be interesting to hear the DG protesting his innocent surprise when the CIA liaison man came over here with news of Kleiber’s arrest in Switzerland.
The DG watched Stuart carefully. It was always instructive to see how long it took one of his departmental employees to work out what was happening when provided with sufficient facts. He smoothed his hair and touched in passing the hearing aid. ‘Think it’s going to rain, Stuart?’
‘When the wind drops.’
‘Well, let’s hope you’re right. Not about the rain, of course.’ He gave his deadpan grin. ‘About Stein and Pitman not having those documents in the lakeside house in Geneva.’
38
Charles Stein also arrived in Geneva on that first Saturday of August. He was worried. His telegram to Colonel Pitman had said they would meet at the ‘nut house’. He wondered if Pitman might have forgotten that when the bank had been at its original premises near the cathedral-a chaos of muddle and excitement-they had always called it the ‘nut house’, and when Madame Mauring took over, filling the new shop window with almond cakes, the name seemed newly appropriate.
‘I need something from the safe.’ The cathedral clock chimed and Stein looked at his watch.