Karpov respected Chelsea, as he despised Prime and Berenson. Unlike the other two, Chelsea was not an agent but a contact, a man high in his own country’s establishment and a man who, like Karpov, was a pragmatist, a man wedded to the realities of his job, his country, and the surrounding world. Karpov never ceased to be amazed at journalistic references in the West to intelligence officers living in a world of fantasy; for Karpov, it was the politicians who lived in a dream world, seduced and bemused by their own propaganda.
Intelligence officers, Karpov believed, might walk on shadowed streets, lie and deceive to carry out their missions, but if they ever wandered into the realm of fantasy, as the CIA’s covert-action people had done so often, that was when they came badly unstuck.
Chelsea had twice dropped hints that if the USSR continued on a certain course there would soon be a fearsome mess for them all to clear up; twice he had been right. Karpov, able to warn his own people of impending danger, had scored a mountain of credits when he turned out to be correct.
He stopped and forced his mind back to the present problem. Borisov was right; the General Secretary was mounting some kind of personal and private operation right under his nose, and inside Britain, but excluding the KGB from any part of it. Karpov sensed danger; despite his years as Chairman of the KGB, the General Secretary was not a professional intelligence officer. Karpov’s own career might hang in the balance, but it was vital to find out what on earth was going on. But carefully, very carefully.
He checked his watch. Half past eleven. He beckoned his driver forward, climbed into the Chaika, and was driven home to Moscow.
Barry Banks arrived at the headquarters of the SIS at ten to nine that Monday morning. Sentinel House is a large, square, and surprisingly tawdry-looking building on the south bank of the Thames and is leased to a certain government ministry by the Greater London Council. Its elevators are erratic and around its lower floors a mosaic mural is forever shedding its tiles like ceramic dandruff.
Banks identified himself at the front desk and went straight up. The Master, bluff and genial as he always was toward aspiring underlings, received him at once.
“Do you know a chap at Five named John Preston, by any chance?” asked C.
“Yes, sir. Not well, but I’ve met him several times. Usually in the bar at Gordon, when I’ve been over there.”
“He heads C1(A), doesn’t he, Barry?”
“Not anymore. He’s been transferred to C5(C). He started there last week.”
“Oh, really? That was rather sudden. I heard he’d done rather well at C1(A).”
Sir Nigel felt no need to inform Banks that he had met Preston at the JIC meetings or that he had used him as his personal ferret in South Africa. Banks knew nothing of the Berenson affair, nor did he need to know. For his part, Banks wondered what the Master had in mind. So far as he knew, Preston had nothing to do with Six.
“Very sudden,” Banks replied. “In fact, he was only at C1(A) for a few weeks. Up till the New Year he was head of F1(D). Then he must have done something that upset Sir Bernard—or, more likely, Brian Harcourt-Smith. He was booted out of there and into C1(A). Then last month he was given the heave-ho again.”
Ah, thought Sir Nigel. Upset Harcourt-Smith, did he? Suspected as much. Wonder why. Aloud, he said, “Any idea what he could have done to annoy Harcourt-Smith?”
“I did hear something, sir. From Preston. He wasn’t talking to me, but I was close enough to hear. He was in the bar at Gordon at the time, about two weeks back. He seemed a bit upset himself. Apparently he spent years preparing a report, and submitted it last Christmas. He thought it was worth attention, but Harcourt-Smith NFA’ed it.”
“Mmmmmm. F1(D) ... that’s Extreme Left activities, isn’t it? Look, Barry, I want you to do something for me. No need to make a song and dance about it. Just quietly. Find out the file number on that report and draw it from Registry, will you? Put it in the bag and send it over here, marked for me personally.”
Banks found himself back on the street and heading north toward Charles at just before ten.
The Aeroflot crew had a leisurely breakfast and at nine-twenty-nine First Officer Romanov checked his watch and went to the men’s room. He had been there before and ascertained the cubicle he was to take. It was the second from the end. The one at the end already had its door closed and locked. He went into the adjacent one and locked the door.
At nine-thirty he placed a small card, on which he had written the prescribed six figures, on the floor next to the partition. A hand came under the partition, withdrew the card, wrote something on it, and placed it back on the floor. Romanov picked it up. On the reverse side were the six figures he had been expecting.
With identification established, he placed the transistor on the floor and the same hand drew it silently into the next cubicle. Outside, someone was using the urinal. Romanov flushed the toilet, unlocked the door, washed his hands until the urinal user had left, then followed him out. The minibus for Heathrow was at the door. Courier One had delivered.
Barry Banks phoned Sir Nigel just before the hour of noon. It was an internal line and very secure.
“It’s rather odd, sir,” he said. “I secured the file number of that report you wanted and went to Registry for it. I know the file clerk pretty well. He confirmed it’s in the NFA section. But it’s out.”
“Out?”
“Out. Withdrawn.”
“By whom?”
“A man named Swanton. I know him. The odd thing is, he’s in Finance. So I asked him if I could borrow it. That’s the second odd thing. He refused, said he wasn’t finished with it yet. According to Registry, he’s had it three weeks. Before that, it was out to someone else.”
“The lavatory attendant?” asked Sir Nigel wryly.
“Almost. Someone in Administration.”
Sir Nigel thought for a while. The best way to keep a file permanently out of circulation was to keep it on permanent withdrawal to oneself or to one’s protégés. He had little doubt Swanton and the other man were Harcourt-Smith’s own men. “Barry, I want you to find out Preston’s home address. Then meet me here at five o’clock.”