Gerald Seymour - Condition black

He had asked if he could telephone his wife, because she was expecting him, and the Ministry policeman had shaken his head.

He needed to telephone his wife, he'd said, because she was going out that evening, and again the shake of the head. God, she'd be furious, and for once that was going to be the least of his troubles.

He sat with his misery and his shame.

It would be half round the Establishment by the middle of the next morning… Frederick Bissett caught at the Falcon Gate, taken out of his car, marched to a police van, taken off for questioning.

He heard the footsteps approaching in the corridor.

The Security Officer came in with the Inspector behind him.

The Ministry policeman was dismissed and the Inspector stood in his place. The Security Officer came forward and took the chair at the table. Bissett could smell the sherry on his breath.

The small eyes pierced him. He doubted there were more than a dozen out of the 5000 who worked at the Establishment who would not have recognised the Security Officer. The eyes were bright, sparkled at him.

" D r Bissett, Dr Frederick Bissett?"

He had to strain forward to hear the softness of the voice.

" Y e s, that's me."

"Senior Scientific Officer?"

"In H3, yes."

"And how many years have you been with us, Dr Bissett?"

"Since 1979, that's when I joined…"

" S o you're not a new boy?"

" N o. "

" Y o u know the procedures?"

" Y e s. "

There was a slow, dead silence in the interview room. The Security Officer's eyes never left his. When he moved his head right, left, dropped it, those eyes followed his. It was what they said a stoat did with a rabbit, first capture its eyes, then create terror, then kill.

" Y o u are a signatory to the Official Secrets Act, Dr Bissett?"

He stammered, " Y e s, yes I am…"

" A n d you are cognizant of the security measures applied at this Establishment?"

"Of course, I am, yes."

A quiet whiplash in the voice. "What were you doing taking classified papers, that should under no circumstances leave the Establishment, off the premises?"

He felt so utterly feeble. He explained. The pressure of work as dictated by his Senior Principal Scientific Officer, Reuben Boll. The pressing need for this paper to be completed by the morning. The parent-teacher evening at school. His wife having agreed to attend, his having to be home to be with his young boys, his intention to work at home, through the night if necessary, on this badly needed paper.

"Has this happened before?"

"What? Being stopped and searched, do you mean?"

" N o, Dr Bissett. I mean, is this the first time you've tried to smuggle classified material out of the Establishment?"

"I can't have that. I'm sorry. I won't have 'smuggled'…"

" Y o u are asking me to believe that your behaviour was not criminal, merely crassly stupid?"

His head was in his hands again. Unless he laid the weight of his head on his hands he thought his body might keel over from the chair and down to the linoleum-covered floor.

"I have been very stupid… "

"Just Stupid?"

He raised his head He looked into the eyes of the Security Officer. What the hell was the bloody man talking about? What in God's name was the bloody man at?

"What else?"

" T o work at home with those papers would be stupid, to have any other purpose for those papers could be criminal He pushed himsell up from the table. He felt his voice surge.

"That's idiotic, and I'm not having it."

"What's idiotic, Dr Bissett?"

"The suggestion that I'm a criminal…"

"I don't think you heard me say that, Dr Bissett. I don't think you heard me accuse you of any such thing I expect you'd like to go home now, Dr Bissett."

From the upper window of the interview room, through the marginally raised Venetian blind, the Security Officer watched Bissett, a pathetic creature, led from the doorway of the police building to a car.

Before he left the police building, he congratulated the Inspector on the vigilance of his men, and he took away with him the files marked SECRET.

Before he left for home, he put through a call to the Night Duty officer of the D Branch of the Security Service to request that a telephone intercept procedure should, immediately, be commenced on the home receiver of Frederick Bissett, 4 Lilac Gardens, Tadley, Berks. Merely precautionary, he explained, probably this Bissett was over stressed, no more. He would review the request in a week.

The Inspector's men, some of the younger and brighter members of his force, God willing, would be sufficient to keep a covert watch in Lilac Gardens overnight. And the rest could wait until the morning.

The boys were in the living room, watching 'Dynasty'. It was past their bedtime, and they were still dressed. Neither of them had looked at him. They were both bright, they both did well at school. They would both have been given high marks by their teachers if their mother or father had been at the meeting tonight.

Neither looked at him. He loved those boys, and there were too many times when he did not know how to show them his love.

Sara was not in the dining room, and she was not in the kitchen.

His supper was on top of the oven. A plate covered by an upturned plate. The sausages had died, the beans congealed, the mashed potato was the colour of lead. The plates were stone cold.

He climbed the stairs, and went into their bedroom. She was in bed, and she had her shoulder turned away from the door.

There was the prettiness of her hair upon the pillow, and the clear white of her shoulder against the hair. Her light was off.

He sat on the bed beside her. He tried to take her hand, but she wouldn't give it him.

He told her what had happened. He told her of the paper that had to be finished by the morning; of his intention to work at home while she was at the school; of his arrest; of the long wait in the police building; of being interviewed by the top Security Officer. He told her what the Security Officer had said to him.

She turned to face him at last.

" H e was quite right. 'Crassly stupid', on the nail."

" H e said I was stupid, not a criminal."

" Y o u wouldn't have the balls to be a criminal, but I don't suppose criminal is what he had in mind. If they sent for the top man I expect they were more fussed about your being a spy or a traitor. Well, I could have reassured them on that front as well."

He left her in the darkened room, and went down to the kitchen to see if any alternative could be found to the supper on offer.

The courier was brought from Heathrow to the Embassy by a car carrying C. D, plates. In the Embassy basement, next to the coding and enciphering room, was the secure Communications Area. The Communications Area was no more than a metal box that measured twelve feet by twelve feet by seven feet high. It was the one area of the Embassy where the Military Attache felt able to discuss the confidential aspects of their work with Faud of the Cultural Centre and Namir who was the chauffeur to the Commercial Attache. The box was regularly scanned with a voltmeter and a spectrum analyser. The briefing from the Colonel was read by each of them in turn. From the briefing's requirements, a list of priorities was drawn up. A message was prepared, to be taken that night to the drop on Wimbledon Common.

When they were out of the suffocating atmosphere of the box, Faud took a taxi to Sussex Gardens and the home of the Trade Attache. Once there, he requested in a whisper that the Trade Attache immediately, despite the late hour of the evening, telephone Mr Justin Pink and arrange a meeting in the morning, on a serious matter involving a contract.

He had wondered whether they would come again in an early-morning call with their handguns and sledgehammers. Instead there came, by messenger, a handwritten letter from the Home Office addressed to Major R. Tuck, M.C. C. de G., inviting him, civilly enough it had to be said, to lunch at the Reform Club.