Brian Freemantle - The Blind Run

‘Damn the pension people,’ said Wilson. ‘Let me know if there’s a difficulty.’

Harkness nodded and said, ‘I don’t think there will be. What about the funeral?’

The director considered the question. ‘The Soviets will swamp it, of course,’ he predicted.

‘Inevitably, I would think,’ said Harkness.

‘Better for no one important to go then…’ Wilson hesitated. ‘Richardson!’ he suddenly decided. They’ll know about Richardson now.’

‘Might even make them think there was something that Wainwright didn’t tell them, after all,’ said Harkness.

‘Good point,’ nodded Wilson. He paused for several moments and said, ‘Don’t suppose there’s any doubt that he didn’t tell them everything?’

‘None at all, I wouldn’t imagine,’ said Harkness. ‘They’ll expect us to change the code now. Not only because of Wainwright but because they’ll know we’ve detected their alterations, from our listening facilities.’

‘Let’s not designate a sender any more,’ ruled Wilson. ‘I don’t want to lose anyone else, in the Russian panic to find out what’s happening.’

General Kalenin was extremely careful preparing his entrapment information because the suspected twelve men who received it were consummate professional intelligence officers who would have recognised at once not only if it did not appear absolutely genuine but if it were something going beyond the knowledge they were entitled to receive. Which meant, the KGB chairman accepted with great reluctance, that the material had to be genuine. He attempted to console himself with the thought that the accepted cure for oil-well fires were explosions within the well head itself, extinguishing a destructive blaze with a bigger – but briefer – conflagration. He tried to limit the potential damage as much as possible, sifting through what had already been leaked and where applicable adding titbits that would not seriously worsen an already bad situation but with twelve possible sources to cover that was not completely possible. He had to include intelligence concerning Soviet preparations in the event of an open, armed conflict with the Chinese along the border area at Alma Ata and some indication of troop strength and disposition plans if a Chinese conflict did develop necessary from the need to switch from the Warsaw Pact front.

The British changed their transmission code within a fortnight of Wainwright’s body being returned to the country. Kalenin was surprised they didn’t do it earlier. He imposed fresh pressure upon the code-breaking cryptologists and underwent two frustrating weeks of uncertainty before the mathematicians found the key. It was another mathematical code, this time based upon a factor of five, and Sampson was again utilised, in an effort to transcribe ripple designation and the prefacing identity line that once more was created from a different code structure. As should have been expected from their expertise – and their computers – it was the mathematicians who isolated the ripple figure which made the code work, but it only happened after the suggestion from Sampson that the second formula might be linked to the first. There was no longer the disparaging attitude towards Sampson that there had been before and so the cryptologists listened to the suggestion and acted upon it, taking the activating numeral of the initial code – two – and dividing it into the activating numeral of the second. Which produced a figure of 2.50. Using that as the multiplier, they experimented with their computers for a further week, running random subtractions and multiples and finally found their entry into the messages by quadrupling the activating 2.50 and then multiplying it by the base figure, with the final multiplication by a further 2.50 for the actual message.

The deciphering experts were hampered by only having three messages upon which to work. The first, when they transcribed it, concerned a difficulty in raising foreign currency from gold sales because of failures in the ore producing mines of Muruntau. The second recorded the troop dispositions necessary to maintain the Soviet control of Afghanistan. Neither had been included in the entrapment messages that Kalenin devised. The third, which was electrifying, said the Russian source intended to make contact and use the identifying phrase.

Sampson remained involved through the transcriptions and succeeded in deciphering the identity line ahead of the mathematicians’ success with the first message. Rose was again the key, which in later discussions with Berenkov when the Russian tried to argue carelessness, the increasingly confident Sampson argued the alternative, the actual cleverness of adapting an existing device because of the logical explanation that they would attempt something completely new. On the second occasion the rose-loving British Director had confined his key to a single species – the centifolia – and when he transcribed it Sampson asked for an immediate meeting with Berenkov, because of the difference he found. Berenkov, conscious of the importance, saw Sampson the same day.

The two men met in Berenkov’s office, a conference table cleared and unnecessarily large for the limited file that Sampson brought with him. It was a simple exposition for the Englishman, only a few moments comparison being necessary.

‘No sender?’ Berenkov realised at once.

Pedantically Sampson went through the line, wanting to prove his worth. ‘The first block identifies Wilson, MD again,’ he said. ‘The second block is simply a dating and timing configuration. The sender is identified only by the word “Residency”.’

‘So now we don’t even have a transmission name at this end.’

‘We do know that the contact has been maintained. Despite Richardson’s withdrawal. And despite Wainwright’s death. And something else.’

‘What?’

‘The third message. Reference to an identification phrase,’ pointed out Sampson. ‘There’s no indication in anything that we’ve intercepted of what it will be.’

Berenkov nodded. ‘How do you interpret that?’

‘Richardson hand-carried it,’ guessed Sampson. ‘That’s why he was withdrawn.’ He paused and said, ‘There’s something else about the messages – all of them – don’t you think?’

‘What?’ demanded Berenkov.

Before answering Sampson laid everything out upon the conference table, the new messages and then all those that had preceded them, in the other code. ‘Ignore the contact message,’ said Sampson. ‘Look at all the others very closely and analyse them beyond the decoding. Almost without exception – just four, to be precise – everything emanates from an operational or planning level. And even the four that don’t conform – four devoted entirely to trade decisions – have an operational application so there is probably some cross-referencing somewhere.’

Berenkov didn’t hurry. He went painstakingly through every message, frequently appearing to refer back to a message he had already examined because the inference was obvious and at the end he said, ‘Thank you. That was an extremely astute observation.’

It was the judgment that Berenkov repeated, during the later meeting with Kalenin. Like Berenkov before, the KGB chairman examined all the messages and finally looked up stern-faced and said, ‘Absolutely right. The trade messages threw me off track, but Sampson’s absolutely right. It’s entirely operational or planning.’

‘My divisions,’ acknowledged Berenkov, openly.

Kalenin realised it reduced the possible sources from twelve to just seven men. Which was still seven too many but a small improvement. ‘Yes,’ he said, shortly.

‘I would understand, if you chose to suspend me until the enquiries are complete,’ said Berenkov, formally.