Derek Lambert - I, Said the Spy

Such obsessive reticence naturally arouses curiosity, and in the cities of Berne, Zurich, Geneva and Basle there are many agencies dedicated to undermining the system. Among them professionals described euphemistically as industrial consultants, blackmailers and spies.

George Prentice, recruited to British Intelligence when he was precociously teaching at Oxford, represented all three categories. He knew the identities of sixty-nine eminent personages holding numbered accounts – knowledge which had rubber-stamped his entry into the monied Establishment – and was about to make Karl Werner Danzer the seventieth. Although in Danzer’s case, he was reversing the process: he knew the name but not the number.

The information concerning numbered accounts is known only to two or three bank executives. It was therefore these worthies that Prentice cultivated. Many proved intransigent – it is difficult to bribe a wealthy banker – a few succumbed readily to Prentice’s blandishments.

Danzer banked with a relatively small establishment in a side street near Zurich’s railway station. The modest pretensions of the bank had encouraged Prentice: its officials were likely to be paid less than their counterparts in the big banks, and would thus be more resentful of their customers’ wealth.

Prentice’s contact at Danzer’s bank was Hans Weiss. Weiss, plump, middle-aged and embittered, had lost most of the money he earned gambling with currency. He hated Danzer who gambled similarly but successfully.

Prentice met him in a small café frequented by taxi-drivers and printers. It was crowded and noisy and cigarette smoke floated in shafts of sunlight. Weiss was eating a cream cake and drinking chocolate.

Prentice ordered tea. ‘Well?’ he said as Weiss licked a dab of cream from the corner of his mouth.

‘Have you got the money?’

‘If you’ve got what I want.’

‘It’s here.’ Weiss slid his hand inside his jacket. ‘Where’s the money?’ He glanced around the café nervously.

‘The information first please.’

Weiss stared at him speculatively. Prentice was used to the expression; it was frequently assumed when people first became aware of the hardness in his voice. And when they suddenly realised that, beneath his indifferent clothes, his body was just as hard.

A waiter brought the tea. The tea-bag had been placed in the milk at the bottom of the cup. Prentice added boiling water but it made little impression on the tea-bag.

Weiss said: ‘How do I know you’ll give me the money?’

‘You don’t.’

Weiss sipped his chocolate. His hand holding the cup was trembling. Prentice knew he badly needed the money, two thousand dollars jointly funded by the CIA and MI 6.

‘It isn’t fair,’ Weiss finally said.

The remark sounded ludicrous, the words of a schoolboy negotiating a sale of marbles. ‘No one said it was.’ Prentice pushed his cup aside in disgust. ‘The envelope please.’

Reluctantly Weiss handed it over. Prentice glanced at the contents – a photostat of Account No. YT 43 9/8541. The balance in Swiss francs was the equivalent of five hundred thousand dollars. He asked: ‘How can I be sure this is Danzer’s account?’ and would have forgiven Weiss if he had replied: ‘You can’t.’

But Weiss’ mind was on the money. ‘The letter,’ he said.

Folded inside the photostat of the account was a copy of a letter signed by Johann Beyer, the manager of the bank. It assured Karl Danzer of the bank’s best attention at all times and confirmed the number of the account.

Prentice handed over the envelope containing the money. Weiss snatched it from his hand, ruffled the bills inside with his thumb.

Prentice said: ‘Try pa-anga this time.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The currency of the Tonga Islands. A hundred seniti to one pa’anga. If you’re going to speculate you could do worse. But I know what I’d do with that money if I were you.’

‘What would you do?’

‘Put it in a numbered account,’ Prentice said as he stood up and strode out of the café into the sunshine.

The cable surprised Karl Danzer. They usually telephoned from the Soviet Embassy in Berne to make appointments. A change of policy, perhaps. The coded message instructed him to report to an address on the Limmat Quai at 10 pm that evening.

Walking to work in the crisp morning sunshine, Danzer considered the immediate implications of the cable. A nuisance, nothing more. He had planned to take Helga Keller to dinner, then to bed. Perhaps not such a nuisance…. He would cancel the dinner and still take her to bed, thus avoiding the boredom of answering her ridiculous questions as she gazed at him across the table like a schoolgirl with a crush on a pop star. In bed Danzer found her ardour and inexperience stimulating; soon, he surmised, she would do anything he asked. Except, perhaps, sleep with other men; in that respect, Danzer sensed, she was different to the other girls.

All in all the recruitment of Helga Keller had been a thoroughly worthwhile exercise. Not only was she an assistant in the Investor’s Club where financial advice was dispensed free of charge but, being the daughter of an eminent Zurich banker, she moved in influential circles. Already she was learning to hate the people with whom she mixed. When she described a dinner party thrown by her father, Danzer reminded her of the starving millions in the Third World countries; when she mentioned some million-dollar deal of which she had heard, Danzer painted word pictures of peasants reaping the harvest in Russia and sharing their wages.

In fact Zurich, with its secrecy, complacency and affluence, was the ideal location to seize a young girl’s confused ideals and give them direction.

Danzer turned into the Bahnofstrasse, glancing appreciatively at the shops filled with gold, jewels, watches and cream cakes. He was really managing his life exceedingly well. He lived well but without excess; he was trusted by his mentors in Moscow; he was accepted at Bilderberg and had been given to understand that he would be invited again; he had salted away enough money to ensure an early retirement, in South America perhaps.

He entered his business premises, discreetly imposing with a brass nameplate and a small, marbled foyer, listened for a moment to the gabble emanating from the room where his staff juggled with telephones and currencies, and entered his own oak-panelled office where his secretary awaited him with the day’s business attached to a clip-board under her arm.

The secretary, middle-aged and homely, knew a considerable amount about the affairs of Danzer Associates. What she didn’t know was that a sizeable proportion of the profits were creamed off into the hard-currency reserves of the Soviet Union; nor did she know that a percentage was also channelled into the secret coffers of Karl Danzer.

The day progressed predictably. Danzer’s sense of well-being swelled as a small fortune was made out of the wobbling dollar and the rock-hard German mark. He took a light lunch and, in mid-afternoon, a sauna.

In the evening he retired to his apartment to change. He had a couple of drinks and set off for the address on the Limmat Quai, blissfully unaware that his euphoria was about to be terminated for ever.

He wondered without any particular concern why the KGB wanted to see him. A development, perhaps, from the information – admittedly sparse – that he had gathered from Bilderberg… a lead on the American team of financiers who had just arrived in Zurich… a progress report on his latest recruit, Helga Keller….

He stopped outside the guildhouse named in the cable. The moon shone fleetingly from the low clouds that had detached themselves from the mountain peaks to sweep across the lake. From the shadows came a voice: ‘Herr Danzer?’