Gerald Seymour - Archangel

Amongst the papers was a brown folder stamped

'SECRET'. A reference number had been typed on white paper and glued to the folder. With an ink nib had been added the name of Michael Holly.

Of course the Deputy Under Secretary had not been beyond the reach of Century House while in Mombasa.

Twice a week a Second Secretary accompanied by a High Commission security officer had driven down from Nairobi with a gutted digest of the Service's affairs telexed from London. He had known of the death of Oleg Demyonov, he had been told of the Soviet retaliation, he had been informed of the visit by the Consul to Lefortovo gaol.

Before opening the file he added his initials to the readership list gummed to the top right corner.

There had not been many there before him, reading the file on Michael Holly.

But then he, himself, had never concerned himself greatly with the case of Michael Holly. The man had been recruited before the start of the Deputy Under Secretary's reign at Century, recruited and arrested and tried. The transfer arrangements for Holly and Demyonov had been basically a Foreign and Commonwealth matter, and rightly so. It had never been admitted that Michael Holly, small-time en- gineer, was anything other than a falsely-accused business representative on lawful business in the Soviet capital. The wrinkle of annoyance creased the Deputy Under Secretary's mouth. Idiotic and dangerous to send an untrained man to Moscow… inadequate preparation on East Europe desk

… incompetence… and now the turned bloody ankle of embarrassment. The sort of affair that would not be tolerated now that he held the stewardship of the Service.

And yet the matter had so nearly been blessed in a strange and unforeseen way, the Service had almost wriggled off the hook through no credit to itself… Incredible, bloody incredible, that the Service should have found itself within a whisker of escape, within a few heartbeats… Extraordinary that the Soviets had not already grilled and broken this man, unbelievable that they had permitted a trial for espionage to go ahead without the evidence of a confession. There was a reason why they had foregone the privilege of having a singing canary in the dock. They, along with their British colleagues and brothers across the Curtain, had thought only in terms of a swap. They had wanted Demyonov back.

Perhaps it had been a decision taken by a General of KGB in the Lubyanka, perhaps the papers had gone to the Politburo or even to the President, but the matter had not been pushed.

There was an unspoken and unrecorded understanding between the two teams of far-divided intelligence men… anything was possible of those buggers he'd inherited. The minimum of diplomatic finger-pointing over Holly in return for the homecoming of the major operative that was Demyonov.

But Demyonov was dead. Demyonov had gone home last week in an elaborate casket dark inside the cargo hold of a Tupolev airliner.

Holly's easy ride was over.

They'd want a damned confession, they'd want exposure, they'd want to milk the man. The Deputy Under Secretary rubbed his nose, watched a flake of skin pirouette down to the opened pages of the file. Damn.. . what a fool he'd look if his face peeled. He anointed himself again with vaseline, bruised the jelly into his nose. He reached for his telephone.

'Maude, I'd like Mr Millet, East Europe desk, to come up.

Soonest, please…'

Whenever he spoke to the woman he regretted that he had not stamped his authority and demanded that Gwen should be released from Leconfield and transferred with him, but they had said in Century's personnel that he must have a secretary who knew the ropes of the Service, and he had acquiesced. A tepid little frog of a woman, that was his view of Maude Frobisher, and probably harbouring a latent spinster love for his sacked predecessor. Because she dis-liked it so, he found a fleeting pleasure in calling her by her first name.

The Deputy Under Secretary thought that he liked the look of Alan Millet. A young man without the priggishness that the Deputy Under Secretary believed he could identify in all Public School pupils, without the conceit of a Cambridge College.

'Sit down, Millet.'

'Thank you, sir.'

The Deputy Under Secretary warmed to respect, detested condescension. The former years in the Colonies with the regimen of rank had left their imprint.

'Michael Holly… '

'Yes, sir.'

'Where is he now?'

'Mordovian ASSR, in the Dubrovlag complex, Camp 3 we think… '

'That's Barashevo, right?'

'Correct, sir.'

It pleased the Deputy Under Secretary to display his knowledge. If the chief hasn't mastered minutiae then his subordinates can hide behind the drape of his ignorance, that was a favourite theme of the Deputy Under Secretary.

'They're going to try to break him… you agree?'

'I agree he's a tough time ahead of him, yes.'

'Bloody tough, Millet… and what's he going to do when the going's hard and bad, what's his break point?'

'Everyone has a break point, sir.'

Millet shifted in his chair. It was the first time he had been alone and across the desk from the Deputy Under Secretary.

'That's a cliche, Millet. This man wasn't prepared for deep interrogation. You might just as well have sent him out naked round the privates. I want information, Millet, I want to know how he's going to cope. We've never admitted involvement, neither has he, I want to know if it's going to stay that way. 1 want to know whether we're going to be blushing when they put him up in the Foreign Ministry at a press conference and he spills.'

'That's difficult to say, sir.'

'Of course it's difficult to say. It's impossible, impossible because you don't know, Millet, the homework hasn't been done. When you've done that homework, then you'll come back and give me your answer.'

'Yes, sir.'

'I don't like to be in ignorance, Millet, I detest it. The Prime Minister doesn't like it either. There will be a bright little man at Camp 3, very clever and on the up, and your Michael Holly is going to be his pride and joy, and when he can wheel your man into that press conference he's going to be very smug. And I'll tell you what we'll be, we'll be on the floor, and it hurts down there. You understand me?'

'Yes, sir.'

'When you netted this young man, unproven, untrained, did you tell him of the risks?'

'Not exactly, sir. Well, it wasn't really discussed.'

'Should those risks have been discussed, Mr Millet?'

'I didn't want to go into any more detail than absolutely necessary. But perhaps, perhaps they should have been discussed. Yes, sir.'

'And if they had been discussed then he might not have gone. That's surely worth brooding on, Mr Millet.'

'Yes, sir.'

'On your way then, lad, and I'll offer you one thought to tide you over. Michael Holly didn't come to you, you recruited him. You put him where he is now. Camp 3 at Barashevo won't be fun, not in summer, not in winter. It'll be bloody awful there. You won't forget that, Millet?'

'Yes, sir.' Millet was rising from his chair. ' N o… I mean, no I won't forget that, sir.' _

The roof of the porch was shallow. It offered Alan Millet little protection from the rain that drove across the street and battered against his body.

He had rung the bell twice, listened to its chime and heard a distant door open and the call of voices.

He was pressed against the wood face, his hips hard onto the letter box, and he cursed the slow reaction. Below his raincoat his trousers showed the damp, and his shoes were lustreless from their soaking.

The door opened, a few inches only, the limit of a security chain.

'My apologies for coming without warning… it's Mr Holly, isn't it?'

'I am Holly, Stephen Holly.'