There were no other points. At the General Secretary’s nod, the steward propelled the wheelchair and its occupant back through the double doors. The four advisers rose and prepared to leave.
Two days later, in the country dacha of one of the two academics, the Albion Committee went into intensive session.
Book title or not, Preston was making some progress. Even while the inaugural session of Paragon was going on, he was ensconced in the Registry, deep under the Ministry of Defense.
“Bertie,” he had told Brigadier Capstick, “so far as the staff here are concerned, I’m a new broom making a bloody nuisance of myself. Put it about that I’m only trying to make a mark with my own superiors. Routine checking of procedures, nothing to worry about, just a pain in the arse.”
Capstick had done his bit, trumpeting that the new head of C1(A) was going through all the ministries showing what an eager beaver he was. The Registry clerks rolled their eyes to heaven and cooperated with thinly veiled exasperation. But Preston was given access to the files— the withdrawals and the returns, who had seen the documents and, most important, over what dates.
He had one early break. All the papers but one would have been available at the Foreign Office or the Cabinet Office, since they all touched upon Britain’s NATO allies and the areas of joint NATO response to a variety of possible Soviet initiatives.
But one document had not gone outside the Defense Ministry. The Permanent Under Secretary, Sir Peregrine Jones, had recently returned from talks in Washington at the Pentagon; the subject had been joint patrolling by British and American nuclear submarines in the Mediterranean, Central and South Atlantic, and Indian Ocean. He had prepared a draft paper on his talks and circulated it to a score of senior mandarins inside the ministry. The fact that it was among the stolen papers, in photocopy form, meant at least that the leak was inside the one ministry.
Preston began an analysis, going back for months, of the distribution of top-secret documents. It became clear the papers in the returned package covered a period, first to last, of four weeks. It was also plain that every mandarin who had had all those documents on his desk had also had more than these. So the thief was being selective.
There were twenty-four men who could have had access to all ten, Preston established at the end of his second day. Then he began checking absences from offices, trips abroad, incidences of flu—eliminating those who could not have had access within the period of theft.
He was hampered by two things: He had to pretend to examine a host of other withdrawals in order not to draw attention to those particular ten documents. Even Registry clerks gossip, and the source of the leak could have been a low-level staffer, a secretary or typist, capable of exchanging coffee-break gossip with a clerk. Second, he could not penetrate to the floors above to check on the number of photocopies made of originals. He knew it was common for one man to have a top-secret document officially out to him by name, but that man might wish to take the advice of a colleague. So a photocopy would be run off, numbered, and given to the colleague. On its return it would be shredded—or, in this case, not. The master document would then go back to Registry. But several pairs of eyes could have seen the photocopy.
To solve the second problem Preston returned to the ministry with Capstick after dark and spent two nights on the upper floors—empty apart from the incurious cleaning ladies—checking the number of copies run off. More eliminations were made possible where a document had gone to a senior civil servant who made no copies at all before returning it to Registry. On January 27 Preston reported back to Charles Street with an interim progress sheet.
It was Brian Harcourt-Smith who received him. Sir Bernard was away from the office again.
“Glad you’ve got something for us, John,” said Harcourt-Smith. “I’ve had two calls from Sir Anthony Plumb. It seems the Paragon people are pressing. Shoot.”
“First,” said Preston, “the documents. They were carefully selected, as if our thief were taking the sort of stuff he had been asked for. That requires expertise. I think that counts out really low-level staffers. They would operate according to the magpie syndrome, grabbing what came by. It’s tentative but it cuts down the numbers. I think it’s somebody of experience and with an awareness of content. Which counts out clerks and messengers. In any case, the leak isn’t in Registry. No broken bag seals, no illicit withdrawals or unauthorized copying.”
Harcourt-Smith nodded. “So you think it’s upstairs?”
“Yes, Brian, I do. Here’s the second reason why. I spent two nights checking every single copy made. There are no discrepancies. So that leaves only one thing. The shredding of copies. Someone has had three copies to shred and destroyed only two, smuggling the third out of the building. Now to numbers of senior men who could have done that.
“There were twenty-four who could have had access to all ten documents. I think I can count out twelve because they got only copies—one each—on a give-me-your-advice basis. The rules are quite clear. A man receiving a photocopy on that basis must return it to the man who sent it to him. To retain one would be irregular and arouse suspicion. To retain ten would be unheard of. So we come to the twelve men who had the originals out from Registry.
“Of these, three were away for varying reasons on the days shown as the withdrawal dates on the photocopies returned by the anonymous sender. Those men made their withdrawals on other days and must be counted out. That leaves nine.
“Of these nine, four never had any copies made for advisory purposes at all, and of course unauthorized copying without logging is not possible.
“And then there were five,” murmured Harcourt-Smith.
“Right. Now, it’s only tentative, but it’s the best I can do for the moment. Three of those five, during the period, had other documents on their desks that fall well within the type of the stolen papers, and which were much more interesting, but which were not stolen. By rights they ought to have been stolen. So I come down to two men. Nothing certain, just prime suspects.”
He pushed two files across the desk to Harcourt-Smith, who looked at them with curiosity.
“Sir Richard Peters and Mr. George Berenson,” Harcourt-Smith read. “The first being the Assistant Under Secretary responsible for International and Industrial Policy, and the second the Deputy Chief of Defense Procurement. Both men would have personal staffs, of course.”
“Yes.”
“But you are not listing their staffers as suspects? May I ask why?”
“They are suspects,” said Preston. “Those two men would probably rely on their assistants to make the copies and later shred them. But that widens the net to a dozen people. If one could clear the two top men, trapping the underling with the department head’s cooperation would be child’s play. I’d like to start with the top two.”
“What are you asking for?” said Harcourt-Smith.
“Total covert surveillance on both men for a limited period, with postal intercept and telephone tap,” said Preston.
“I’ll ask the Paragon Committee,” said Harcourt-Smith. “But these are senior men. You’d better be right.”
The second meeting of Pa