Charles McCarry - The Miernik Dossier

4. In this officer’s opinion Christopher’s judgment has to some extent been impaired by an apparent attraction to Zofia Miernik. Nothing in Christopher’s report made specific reference to this point, but he reports on the activities of this girl with less than his usual objectivity.

5. Christopher was, in addition, very favorably impressed by Sasha Kirnov. His attitude seems to be a mixture of professional admiration for the manner in which Kirnov conducted the border-crossing operation, and what must be regarded as personal liking for Kirnov. Christopher has by no means abandoned his caution with respect to Kirnov the KGB man. But he states openly that he found Kirnov the human being quite admirable. (Christopher is more than usually sympathetic to Jews who suffered under the Nazi regime, and this is not the first time Christopher’s operational effectiveness has been compromised by his inability to be objective about the Jewish victims of World War II.)

6. As an indication of Christopher’s considerable intuitive equipment, this officer mentions that Christopher expressed a caveat about Ilona Bentley before I had briefed him on our suspicions concerning this woman. He found her appearance in Naples questionable and had already begun to regard her as a potential opposition agent. Christopher cites Bentley’s sexual relationship with Miernik and presumably with Collins as a classic Soviet tactic to compromise and control these individuals. His mind is open as to whether Bentley is in place as an independent reporting asset for the Soviets, with instructions to monitor Miernik’s performance of his assignment. He thinks it possible also that Bentley has been assigned to influence, and report upon, Prince Kalash el Khatar.(See Christopher’s reporting for a claim by Khatar that he too had sexual relations with Bentley on 23 June.) If this is the case, Bentley merits the closest possible surveillance by Christopher.

7. In accordance with instructions, this officer refrained from giving Christopher a full briefing on the situation in Sudan concerning the Anointed Liberation Front. Khartoum should note that Christopher knows nothing of (a) interception of Soviet radio traffic; (b) the existence of Firecracker; or (c) the proposal to co-opt symbolic leadership of the ALF through the use of Prince Kalash as an agent provocateur.

As arranged, Prince Kalash el Khatar and I went on the morning of 1st July to the Splendid Garage in Heliopolis to take delivery of the weapons. I should have preferred to make this journey in a hired car, but Prince Kalash insisted on travelling in his Cadillac, which attracted a great deal of attention. While waiting to be admitted to the garage the car was surrounded by a troop of boys begging for money. Even Prince Kalash was unable to disperse them, and they hung about peering through the dirty windows of the garage even after we had driven inside. I have no doubt they were able to see the loading of the weapons, which were not wrapped, and the ammunition boxes. It was altogether a sloppy operation. I found your man still asleep and unshaven; he gave off a distinct odor of arak. The weapons, three Sten guns, two Walther pistols, and several hundred rounds of ammunition, were lying loose under his bed. There were traces of rust on all the weapons, and the bores of two of the Sten guns were clogged with grease. We took delivery of the weapons and ammunition and concealed them in the Cadillac. This motorcar is equipped with a “secret” compartment behind the rear seat, a fact I had not hitherto been aware of. Prince Kalash, at least, is delighted with the firearms transaction. The exact amount I paid over to the gun dealer was 8oo United States dollars. We returned to the hotel and joined our companions without further incident.

2. Prince Kalash has informed me that he has invited Ilona Bentley to accompany us to the Sudan. He says that he admires Miss Bentley’s pluck in following us all the way to Cairo. I had not been aware that this was her intention when we parted in Naples, but I cannot say that I am surprised that she turned up. She travelled by air in company with Miernik. This turn of events is at worst an inconvenience, and although I would prefer that no passengers be added, I am unable to prevent Prince Kalash from carrying whomever he pleases in his own car.

3. We depart early on 2nd July. There is some dispute over the route. Prince Kalash wishes to take the shorter coastal road along the Gulf of Suez. Miernik argues in favor of the highway along the Nile, which would take us through the Valley of the Kings. He desires to see the tombs and funerary temples there. I expect that this controversy will not be resolved until we are under way, but in any case I will make contact as arranged on arrival in Khartoum, probably on 6th or 7th July.

4. In our conversations I have given you as many details as are known to me concerning the actions of Miernik and his “sister.” There has been nothing in their behaviour that would lead one to think that they are along on this journey for any reason other than pleasure. They have not so far responded to my questioning on any matter of substance. I shall take your advice and abandon my attempts to reach them through the methods I have been using. For the balance of the journey I shall be as matey as possible with a view towards establishing an atmosphere in which confidences can be exchanged.

2 July. Ilona Bentley is a natural mimic. She does a very funny Winston Churchill, and as she emerged from the Hilton this morning to see the Cadillac groaning under the camping gear Kalash has lashed on its roof, she paused and puffed up her body like a fat man’s. In Churchill’s voice she asked, “Is this the end of the beginning, or the beginning of the end?”

A good question. We started for the desert in a spirit of amity, if not of gaiety, and arrived at the Pyramids only a few minutes after dawn. Much wonderment on everyone’s part: how did they do it without pulleys and geometry? Miernik, of course, turns out to be an amateur Egyptologist able to quote dimensions, angles, and the exact number of dressed stones in Cheops’s Pyramid. In the shadow of the Sphinx, Kalash gave us more Shakespeare; he played Antony as well as Othello for the drama society before he was expelled from Oxford. “I was found by a languid don with three unclothed English girls in my college room,” says Kalash, explaining his dismissal. “Poor fellow never imagined that heterosexuality existed on such a scale.”

Miernik’s wishes prevailed, as they usually do, and we followed the road along the west bank of the Nile to the Valley of the Kings, and afterward went to Karnak (Thebes, you know). These ruins have no operational importance, so I won’t linger over a description. Even Miernik was struck dumb by the Temple of Amen Ra at Karnak and broke silence only to decipher a few of the enormous hieroglyphs on the broken columns and on Thotmes’s obelisk. Even when these buildings were whole, five thousand years ago, they must have known the stealthy footfall of spies; some Hittite Miernik undoubtedly was watched through peepholes by agents of the pharaoh. (He cannot be what he seems… He seems to be what he is not. The knife! says one. Not until we know his purpose, says another.) It’s a very old profession.

We were all in favor of staying at a hotel in Luxor, but Kalash was anxious to camp out. He shipped an elaborate outfit from Geneva-tents, sleeping bags, folding tables and chairs, stoves, and so on. “As for me, I need nothing but a burnoose and a gun,” says Kalash. “But I wanted you white explorers to have some of the comforts you’re used to.” Kalash does not believe in maps, but I am keeping track of our route as best I can on a big Michelin map. We turned east just south of El Kab and in a few minutes were passing through the empty desert. This is fairly hilly country; the land is the color of old bones.