There were several nods as they recalled the contents of Berenson’s file. He had started his career, straight out of the university, in the Foreign Office. He had progressed quite well, serving abroad on three occasions and rising steadily, if not spectacularly, in the diplomatic corps.
In the mid-1960s he had married Lady Fiona Glen and shortly afterward had been posted to Pretoria, where he was accompanied by his new wife. It was probably there, confronted by the traditional and almost limitless South African hospitality, that he had developed his deep sympathy and admiration for that country. With a Labour government in power in Britain and Rhodesia in rebellion, Berenson’s increasingly outspoken admiration of Pretoria had not gone down very well at home.
On his return to Britain in 1969, word had apparently reached him that his next posting was likely to be somewhere less controversial—say, to Bolivia. The men around the table could only surmise, but it was perfectly likely that Lady Fiona, while prepared to take Pretoria in her stride, had put her foot down flatly at the idea of leaving her beloved horses and social life to spend three years halfway up the Andes.
Whatever had been the reason, George Berenson had applied for a transfer to the Ministry of Defense, which was regarded in the Foreign Office as going down-market. But with his wife’s fortune, he didn’t care. With the constraints of the diplomatic service removed from his life, he had become a member of several pro-South African friendship societies, usually the preserve of those politically of the right wing.
Sir Peregrine Jones, at least, knew that Berenson’s known and too-overt right-wing sympathies had made it impossible for him, Jones, to recommend Berenson for a knighthood, something he now realized might well have fueled Berenson’s resentment.
When reading the report an hour earlier, the senior civil servants had assumed Berenson’s pro-South African sympathies to be the cover of a secret Soviet sympathizer. Now Sir Nigel Irvine’s suggestion had put a different cast on things.
“A false flag?” mused Sir Paddy Strickland. “You mean he really thought he was passing secrets to South Africa?”
“I am seized by this enigma,” said the Chief of the SIS. “If he was a secret Soviet sympathizer or closet Communist all along, why didn’t the Center run him with a Soviet controller? I can think of five in their embassy who could have done the job equally well.”
“Well, I confess I don’t know,” said Sir Anthony Plumb. At that moment he glanced up and looked down the table, catching Sir Nigel’s eye. Irvine dropped one eyelid quickly down and then back up again. Sir Anthony forced his gaze back to the Berenson file in front of him. You cunning bastard, Nigel, he thought, you’re not speculating at all. You actually know.
In fact, two days earlier, Andreyev had reported something interesting. It was not much, just canteen scuttlebutt from inside the Soviet Embassy. Andreyev had been drinking with the Line N man and discussing tradecraft in general. He had mentioned the usefulness, on occasion, of false-flag recruitment; the Illegals Directorate representative had laughed, winked, and tapped the side of his nose with a forefinger. Andreyev took the gesture to mean that there was a false-flag operation going on in London at that moment of which the Line N man knew something. Sir Nigel, when he heard, had taken the same view.
Another thought occurred to Sir Anthony. If you really do know, Nigel, it must be because you have a source right inside their rezidentura. You old fox. Then another thought, which was less pleasant: Why not say so outright? They were all completely reliable around that table, were they not? A cold worm of unease stirred inside him. He looked up. “Well, I think we should seriously consider Nigel’s suggestion. It does make sense. What have you in mind, Nigel?”
“The man’s a traitor, no doubt about that. If he’s presented with the documents that were anonymously returned to us, I’ve no doubt he’ll be pretty shaken. But if he’s then given John Preston’s South Africa file to read, and he did think he was working for Pretoria, I don’t think he’ll be able to mask his collapse. However, if he was a secret Communist all along, he’ll have known the truth about Marais, so it won’t come as a surprise to him. I think a trained observer should be able to tell the difference.”
“And if it was a false-flag approach?” asked Sir Perry Jones.
“Then I think we’ll get his complete and unstinted cooperation in damage assessment. More, I think he could be persuaded to ‘turn’ voluntarily, enabling us to mount a major disinformation operation against Moscow. Now that we could take to our allies as a big plus.”
Sir Paddy Strickland of the Foreign Office was won over. It was agreed to pursue Sir Nigel’s tactic.
“One last thing: who goes to see him?” asked Sir Anthony.
Sir Nigel coughed delicately. “Well, of course, it’s really up to Five,” he said, “but a disinformation operation against the Center would be for Six to handle. Then again, I happen to know the man. Actually, we were at school together.”
“Good Lord,” exclaimed Plumb. “He’s a bit younger than you, isn’t he?”
“Five years, actually. He used to clean my boots.”
“All right. Are we agreed? Anyone against? You’ve got it, Nigel. You take him, he’s yours. Tell us how you get on.”
On Tuesday, March 24, a South African tourist from Johannesburg arrived at London’s Heathrow Airport, where he passed through the formalities without difficulty. As he emerged from the customs hall carrying his suitcase, a young man moved forward and murmured a question in his ear. The burly South African nodded in confirmation. The younger man took his bag and led him outside to a waiting car.
Instead of heading toward London, the driver took the M25 ring road and then the M3 toward Hampshire. An hour later they drew up in front of a handsome country house outside Basingstoke. The South African, relieved of his coat, was ushered into
the library. From a seat by the fire an Englishman in country tweeds and of the same age rose to greet him.
“Henry Pienaar, how good to see you again. It’s been too long. Welcome to England.”
“Nigel, how have you been keeping?”
The heads of the two intelligence services had an hour before lunch was called, so after the usual preliminaries they settled down to discuss the problem that had brought General Pienaar to the country house maintained by the SIS for the hospitality of notable but clandestine guests.
By evening Sir Nigel Irvine had secured the agreement he sought. The South Africans would agree to leave Jan Marais in place to give Irvine a chance to mount a major disinformation exercise through George Berenson, assuming he would play ball.
The British would keep Marais under total surveillance; it was their responsibility to ensure that Marais would have no chance to do a moonlight flit to Moscow, since the South Africans now had their own damage assessment to face—forty years’ worth of it.
It was further agreed that when the disinformation exercise had run its course, Irvine would inform Pienaar that Marais was no longer needed. The South African would be called home, the British would “house” him aboard the South African jet, and Pienaar’s men would make the arrest when the jet was airborne—that is, on South African sovereign territory.
After dinner, Sir Nigel excused himself; his car was waiting. Pienaar would spend the night, do some shopping in London’s West End the next day, and take the evening flight home.