“Yes, two years more at Arzamas-16. But we need to know it all. You understand?”
Blinov nodded. Before dawn he had memorized the address in East Berlin and accepted the can of shaving foam with, somewhere in the midst of the aerosol, the small vial of invisible ink for his one single letter. There could be no question of penetrating Arzamas-16. There would have to be one meeting and handover, and a year later the escape with everything he was able to bring.
As he walked out into the lobby, a small voice inside Jason Monk said: You are a grade-A ratfink. You should have let him stay here, now. Another voice said: You are not a Family Reunification charity. You are a fucking spy. That’s what you do, it’s all you do. And the real Jason Monk swore that one day Ivan Yevdokimovich Blinov would live in the States with his wife and his son, and Uncle Sam would make it all up to him, every last minute of those two years.
¯
THE meeting took place two days later in Sir Henry Coombs’s top-floor office at Vauxhall Cross, jocularly known as the Palace of Light and Culture. The title had originated with an old warrior, long dead, called Ronnie Bloom. An Orientalist, he had once found a building of that name in Beijing. It seemed to contain very little light and not much culture, reminding him of his own headquarters at Century House. The name stuck.
Also present were the two Controllers, East and Western Hemisphere, Marchbanks as head of Russia Section, and Macdonald. It was Macdonald who reported for close to an hour, with occasional supplementary questions from his superiors.
“Well, gentlemen?” asked the chief at last. Each gave his reactions. They were unanimous. The presumption had to be made that the Black Manifesto had indeed been stolen and was the genuine blueprint for what Komarov intended to do when he came to power: create a one-party tyranny to carry out external aggression and internal genocide.
“You’ll put all you have told us in written form, Jock? By nightfall please. Then I’ll have to take it higher. And I think we should share with our colleagues at Langley. Sean, you’ll handle that?”
The Controller Western Hemisphere nodded. The chief rose.
“Damnable business. Has to be stopped, of course. The politicians have to give us the green light to put a stop to this man.”
But that was not what happened. What did occur was that just before the end of August Sir Henry Coombs was asked to visit the senior ranking civil servant of the Foreign Office in King Charles Street.
As Permanent Under-Secretary, Sir Reginald Parfitt was not only a colleague of the chief of SIS but one of the so-called Five Wise Men who, with his opposite numbers in Treasury, Defense, Cabinet Office, and Home Office, would offer their recommendation to the Prime Minister for the chiefs successor. Both men went back a long way, both had a friendly relationship, and both were acutely aware that they ruled over quite different constituencies.
“This damn document your chaps brought out of Russia last month,” said Parfitt.
“The Black Manifesto.”
“Yes. Good title. Your idea, Henry?”
“My station chief in Moscow. Seemed pretty apposite.”
“Absolutely. Black is the word. Well, we’ve shared it with the Americans, but no one else. And it’s been as high as it can go. Our own Lord and Master”—he meant the British Foreign Secretary—“saw it before he went off to the pleasures of Tuscany for his holidays. So has the American Secretary of State. Needless to say, the revulsion has been universal.”
“Are we going to react, Reggie?”
“React. Ah, yes, well now, there’s the problem. Governments react officially to governments, not foreign opposition politicians. Officially, this document”—he tapped the Foreign Office copy of the manifesto on his blotter—“almost certainly does not exist, despite the fact we both know it does.
“Officially, we are hardly in possession of it, seeing as it was undoubtedly stolen. I’m afraid the received wisdom is that officially there is nothing either government can do.”
“That’s officially,” murmured Henry Coombs. “But our government, in its no doubt infinite wisdom, employs my Service precisely in order to be able to act, should occasion require, unofficially.”
“To be sure, Henry, to be sure. And no doubt you are referring to some form of covert action.”
As he spoke the last two words Sir Reginald’s expression indicated that some fool must have opened a window to admit the odor from a gasworks.
“Evil maniacs have been destabilized before, Reggie. Very quietly. It’s what we do, you know.”
“But rarely with success, Henry. And that’s the problem. All our political masters on both sides of the Atlantic seem to be seized of the notion that however covert something appears to be at the time, it always seems to leak out later. To their great discomfort.
“Our American friends have their endless succession of ‘gates’ to keep them awake at night. Watergate, Irangate, Iraqgate. And our own people recall all those leaks, followed by commissions of inquiry and their damning reports. Backhanders in Parliament, arms to Iraq. ... You catch my drift, Henry?”
“You mean, they haven’t the balls.”
“Crude but accurate as ever. You always did have a talent for the delicate phrase. I don’t think either government will dream of extending trade or aid credits to this man, should he or when he comes to power. But that’s it. As for an active measure, the answer is no.”
The Permanent Under-Secretary escorted Coombs to the door. His twinkling blue eyes met those of the spy chief without a hint of humor.
“And Henry, that really does mean no.”