Len Deighton - Spy Line

'Matter?' I said. I was as puzzled as he seemed to be.

'Enrolling Stinnes… getting him to go back there and work for us was brilliant. It was the master touch,' said Silas. His eyes were bright and alert now. 'If Stinnes eventually comes back intact the Department will break every rule in the book to get a K for Bret Rensselaer.'

I looked at him carefully. So Stinnes was working for us. But surely what he really meant was if Fiona eventually comes back intact, but he didn't want to be that candid with me. 'Was that Bret's doing?'

'No. But sending Stinnes back was originally Bret's idea. Bret pushed and pushed for it.'

'It was madness,' I said. 'Maybe Stinnes pulled it off; maybe they are playing with him. Who can be sure? Either way sending him back was reckless. It endangered Fiona.'

'Can't you see it, even now?' said Silas. He shook his head at my slowness. 'We didn't care a jot what happened to Erich Stinnes, and we still don't. Stinnes was sent back there for one reason, and for one reason only: to reinforce the story that Fiona was a genuine defector.'

'Not to work alongside Fiona?'

'No, no, no. That was the beauty of it. No one revealed to Stinnes that Fiona went back to work for us; because virtually no one there knows. Every one of our people believes that Fiona's defection was the worst blow the Department ever suffered, and whatever suspicions passed through his mind Stinnes went back believing that too.'

I said, 'Do you mean Stinnes was told to report and defuse what Fiona was supposedly doing to us?' It was beautiful. It had the symmetry that distinguishes art from nature.

Silas smiled contentedly as he watched me thinking about it. 'Yes, "Operation Damage Control", that's what Bret told Stinnes he was. Stinnes was just a means to an end.'

'And so was I,' I said bitterly. 'I've been made a fool of, right from the start.' The revelation that my wife was a heroine, rather than a traitor, should have made me rejoice. In some ways it did, but on a personal level I felt bitter at the way I'd been used. My anger extended to everyone who knew about Fiona's long-term commitment, and had kept it from me. Everyone included Fiona. From outside, the sound of the chainsaw was now continuous. They must have been cutting through the trunk.

'You mustn't look at it like that,' said Silas. He sighed. It wasn't one of the histrionic sighs he'd used in the old days. It was the sigh of a sick old man who finds the effort of living too much for him. 'You played a vital role in what happened. What sense was there in having you worry about the operational side?'

'That's what Fiona said. Was this what you wanted to see me about?' I asked.

'That damned quack says I could go any time.'

I nodded. He looked ill. Mrs Porter wasn't worrying unnecessarily.

'I suppose Mrs Porter told you that. She tells everyone. I can see from the look in their faces when they come in here to talk to me.'

'She's very discreet,' I said to calm his anger.

'What will happen when I go, I've been asking myself. Bret is sick, and anyway Bret doesn't know the whole story. The D-G knows but no one will listen to him because they say he's batty. What do you think about him?'

These were dangerous waters and I navigated away. 'I haven't seen him for a long time,' I said.

The rumour is that he has Alzheimer's, but my quack says the only way they can confirm Alzheimer's is by means of a post-mortem.' There was a sudden silence and then a soft thud and a muddle of voices as the felled tree hit the wet lawn. The sound of its death saddened me. Silas gave no sign of having heard it but I knew he had. 'Do you know what I think?' He shifted restlessly. A man as big and powerful as Silas was apt to resent infirmity in a way that other men did not. He eyed me to make sure I was giving him my full attention. Then he said, The old man's deaf.'

'Yes,' I said. 'Everyone knows that.'

'Even more deaf than he admits,' said Silas. They all think he's crazy because he's too damned vain to get himself a modern hearing aid. I think the D-G is as smart as you and I.'

'I'd like to think you are right,' I said, and then tried to get back to the point. 'So you, Bret and the D-G are the only ones who know that Fiona is one of ours?'

'That's exactly right. Even the Vienna team who arranged the meeting for you last week think she was acting for Moscow.'

I'm relieved to hear it.'

'If all three of us – me, Bret and the D-G – go at once, and that's not beyond the bounds of credibility, you and Fiona will be the only ones who know the true story. Even the case officer processing her report is not really a case officer; he doesn't know where they come from.'

'And so I'd have little chance of convincing anyone that she's one of ours.'

'And Fiona won't dare try.' He gave a little cough to clear his throat. 'Yes, that's the position, Bernard. That's why I sent for you.'

'What do you propose we do?' I said.

'Wait.' I looked at him. His face was white and bloated but ill or not, it still displayed the fierce determination that he'd always shown. 'We can't pull Fiona out until the time is right.'

'Don't wait too long, Silas,' I said. 'Agents get over-confident, we both know that. She'll have to be ordered out. I wanted her to come back with me.'

'And undo everything she's worked for? Bernard your wife is a perfectionist. Surely you must have realized that during your married life with her?'

'No,' I said. All I'd discovered during my married life with Fiona was that, although I'd shared with her just about every idea, thought and emotion I had, she'd guarded her own secrets with a discipline that was no less than obsessional. I felt as if I'd been swindled. Not bilked, burned or ripped off for a short-term loss but systematically deceived for years and years by the person who had vowed to love me and care for me. Fiona Kimber-Hutchinson, do you take this bachelor? Yes, I was taken.

'She wants to stage her own death, so that they won't be alerted to what she's been doing over there. Stage her death and then go to ground somewhere for six months or so. We could continue using her material for ages if they are not alerted to what she's been doing.'

I followed the reasoning but the implications made my head swim. If Fiona was to be hidden away somewhere, would I be there with her? And what reason could Gloria be given for my sudden disappearance; telling her the whole truth would be out of the question. And what about the children?

Silas added, 'She's given us all sorts of wonderful stuff that we haven't used for fear of endangering her. Once she was safe we could really pull all the stops out.'

He might have said more but Mrs Porter came and set out tea for us. She had excelled herself today: homemade sausage rolls and a Kugelhopf; a sweet bread she'd learned to make after discovering that it brought back to Silas happy memories of times long ago.

'I can't eat all that, woman,' said Silas fiercely.

'Don't fuss! Mr Samson will eat it. It's a long drive; he must be hungry.'

Silas reached in his pocket for the keys that were on a ring at the end of a gold chain. He held one key up. 'You see this fellow, Mrs Porter? If anything should happen to me, you take this little item and you give it to Mr Samson. You phone him and tell him to come here, and you give it to him and to no one else. You understand that, don't you, Mrs Porter?'

In a carefree gesture, worthy of a boulevardier, he swung the keys round on the end of the chain before tucking them back into his pocket. Outside the chainsaw noise began again.

'I can't bear to think of such a thing, Mr Gaunt.'

'You'll do as I say now. I can depend upon you, can't I?'

'You know you can, sir.'

'That's good. Now toddle along. I don't want you weeping all over me.'