“How did you know that?”
Preston produced his copy of Sir Bernard’s instruction. Burkinshaw studied it. “Wow. From the DG himself. Join the party, then. Just stay out of sight.”
“Got an extra radio?”
Burkinshaw nodded down the street. “Round the corner, on Radnor Place. Brown Cortina. There’s a spare in the glove compartment.”
“I’ll wait in the car,” said Preston.
Burkinshaw was puzzled. No one had told him that Preston was joining them as field controller. He had not even known that Preston was in Czech
Section. Still, the DG’s signature carried a lot of weight. For his part, he would just get on with his job. He shrugged, popped another mint, and went on watching.
At 8:30 Winkler left the hotel. He was carrying his suitcase. He hailed a passing cab and gave his instructions to the driver.
When Winkler stepped out of the doorway, Burkinshaw called in his team and his two cars. He jumped in the first one and they were a hundred yards behind the cab across Edgware Road. Preston was in the second car. Ten minutes later they knew they were heading east, toward the station. Burkinshaw reported this.
Simon Margery’s voice came back from Cork. “Okay, Harry, our field controller is on his way.”
“We’ve already got a field controller,” said Burkinshaw. “He’s with us.”
This was news to Margery. He asked the controller’s name. When he heard it, he thought there had been a mistake. “He’s not even with K2(B),” he protested.
“He is now,” said Burkinshaw, unfazed. “I’ve seen the chit. Signed by the DG.”
Margery called Charles Street. As the cavalcade cruised east through the dusk, a flap ensued at Charles. The instruction from Sir Bernard was traced and confirmed. Margery threw up his hands in exasperation. “Why can’t the buggers up there in Charles ever make up their minds?” he asked an uncaring world. He called off the colleague he had designated to take over at St. Paneras Station. Then he tried to trace Brian Harcourt-Smith to complain.
Winkler paid off his cab, headed through the brick archway into the vaulted dome of the Victorian railway station, and consulted the departure board. Around him the four watchers and Preston vaporized into the throng of passengers in the brick-and-cast-iron concourse.
The 9:25, calling at Leicester, Derby, Chesterfield, and Sheffield, was at platform two. Having found his train, Winkler walked up the length of it, past the three first-class carriages and the buffet car, to the three blue-upholstered second-class carriages near the front end. He selected the middle one, hefted his suitcase onto the rack, and sat quietly awaiting the train’s departure.
After a few minutes, a young black man with earphones over his head and a Walkman clipped to his belt came in and sat three rows away. Once seated, the man nodded his head in time to the apparent reggae blasting into his ears, closed his eyes, and enjoyed his music. One of Burkinshaw’s team was in place; the earphones were silent of reggae music but were picking up Harry’s instruction on strength five.
One of Burkinshaw’s team took the front carriage, and Harry himself and John Preston the third, so that Winkler was boxed. The fourth man took a first-class seat in the last car in case Winkler did a “runner” down the train to shake off what he thought was a tail.
At 9:25 on the dot the Inter-City 125 hissed out of St. Paneras and headed north. At 9:30 Brian Harcourt-Smith was traced to the dining room of his club and called to the phone. It was Simon Margery. What he heard caused the Deputy Director-General of Five to hasten outside, grab a taxi, and race the two miles across the West End to Charles Street. On his desk he found the order written out earlier that afternoon by Sir Bernard Hemmings. He went quite pale with rage.
He was a highly self-disciplined man, and after thinking the matter over for several minutes, he picked up the phone and in his usual courteous manner asked the operator to get the service’s legal adviser at his home. The legal adviser is the man who does most of the liaison between the service and the Special Branch. While the call was going through, Harcourt-Smith checked train times to Sheffield. The legal adviser was plucked from his seat in front of the television in Camberley and came on the line.
“I need Special Branch to make an arrest,” said Harcourt-Smith. “I have reason to believe an illegal immigrant suspected of being a Soviet agent may escape surveillance. Name: Franz Winkler; supposed Austrian citizen. Holding charge: suspected false passport. He’ll be arriving by train from London at Sheffield at eleven-fifty-nine. Yes, I know it’s short notice. That’s why it’s urgent. Yes, please get on to the commander of Special Branch at the Yard and ask him to alert his Sheffield operation to make the arrest when the train arrives at Sheffield.”
He put down the phone grimly. John Preston might have been sicced on him as field director of the surveillance team, but an arrest of a suspect was a policy matter, and that was his department.
The train was almost empty. Two carriages instead of six would have amply accommodated the sixty passengers on board. Barney, the watcher in the front carriage, shared the space with ten others, all innocent passengers. He was facing aft, so that he could see the top of Winkler’s head through the window in the intercarriage door.
Ginger, the young black with the headphones who was with Winkler in the second carriage, had five other passengers in there with him. There were a dozen sharing sixty seats with Preston and Burkinshaw in the third. For an hour and a quarter, Winkler did nothing. He had no reading matter; he just stared out of the window at the dark countryside beyond.
At 10:45, when the train slowed for Leicester, he moved. He took his suitcase off the rack, walked up the carriage, passed out to the toilet area, and pulled down the window of the door giving onto the platform. Ginger informed the rest, who prepared to move at short notice if they had to.
Another passenger pushed past Winkler as the train stopped. “Excuse, please, is this Sheffield?” Winkler asked.
“No, it’s Leicester,” the man said, and descended to the platform.
“Ah, so. Thank you,” said Winkler. He put down his suitcase, but stayed at the open window, looking up and down the platform during the brief stopover. As the train pulled out, he returned to his seat and put his suitcase back on the rack.
At 11:12 he did it again at Derby. This time he asked a porter on the platform of the cavernous concrete hall that forms Derby Station.
“Derby,” sang out the porter. “Sheffield is the one after next.”