Len Deighton - XPD

‘This is vitally important, Stuart.’

‘It’s all important,’ said Stuart angrily. ‘When was the last time a field agent was briefed to take his time? All the dockets in the traffic room are red ones. Where are the stickers that say “Take your time” or “Watch out for your back-this is just something to buy promotion for some London desk man”? Where are they?’

The DG seemed amused by Stuart’s outburst, or was his fixed grin just a nervous and angry reaction to it? ‘There are no stickers like that, Stuart. Perhaps we should ask the stationery office to let us have some.’

‘Perhaps we should, sir.’

The DG stopped his pacing. For, a moment he seemed about to rebuke Stuart but he swallowed his annoyance. He put both his hands into his trouser pockets and rattled his change. ‘Suppose we are wrong, Stuart? Suppose Stein has got the Hitler Minutes in the house on Lake Geneva?’

Stuart said nothing. The two men looked at each other.

The DG continued with his gloomy scenario. ‘In that case we will have sent Kleiber and his thugs to the very spot that we don’t want them to be. They will get those damned documents, Stuart. And we will have given them every assistance. How will I explain that to the PM?’ En passant he smacked the newspaper’s account of Mrs Thatcher’s speech with the back of his hand.

‘I’m very busy downstairs, sir, without the added task of compiling explanations for mistakes that we’ve not yet made.’

The DG wet his lips and stared out of the window. He knew that his son-in-law was having some sort of affair-a liaison was perhaps a better word-with the blonde secretary who worked for the deputy chief of Operations (Region Three). He had mentioned it to his daughter Jennifer but she insisted that she didn’t mind. The marriage is all over and finished with, she had said, and Sir Sydney had been pleased by her determination. Young people were different today, more’s the pity, but that would not prevent him from posting the blonde secretary away. He felt uneasy about the relationship: Boyd Stuart was ‘agent in charge’ of one of the most delicate operations they had mounted, and the girl was secretary to one of his key officials. It was bad security; he should have done something before this. He remembered that she had brought his own personal file up from the vault. That was something he did not like being handled by anyone but himself. He did not want even senior SIS staff to know that he had once been Elliot Castelbridge. ‘Don’t meet trouble halfway, you mean?’ the DG said and nodded, still looking out of the window. ‘Quite right, quite right.’ Then he turned to face Stuart.

Stuart waited, knowing that the DG was about to say something more. The old man had this disconcerting habit of pausing before he spoke. Probably he was rehearsing the exact words he would use, to ensure that he was revealing nothing more than was absolutely necessary. ‘Don’t worry about this chap Kleiber and his house full of guns, Stuart. Our Swiss friends will take care of that’

Stuart waited for more information, but none was forthcoming. So that was it. The DG had given the Americans a ‘hands-off’ undertaking on Kleiber. Now he was arranging that the Swiss security people pick Kleiber up. How very convenient; the Swiss computer was not available to the Americans and the DG knew that all too well. It would be interesting to hear the DG protesting his innocent surprise when the CIA liaison man came over here with news of Kleiber’s arrest in Switzerland.

The DG watched Stuart carefully. It was always instructive to see how long it took one of his departmental employees to work out what was happening when provided with sufficient facts. He smoothed his hair and touched in passing the hearing aid. ‘Think it’s going to rain, Stuart?’

‘When the wind drops.’

‘Well, let’s hope you’re right. Not about the rain, of course.’ He gave his deadpan grin. ‘About Stein and Pitman not having those documents in the lakeside house in Geneva.’

Charles Stein also arrived in Geneva on that first Saturday of August. He was worried. His telegram to Colonel Pitman had said they would meet at the ‘nut house’. He wondered if Pitman might have forgotten that when the bank had been at its original premises near the cathedral-a chaos of muddle and excitement-they had always called it the ‘nut house’, and when Madame Mauring took over, filling the new shop window with almond cakes, the name seemed newly appropriate.

‘I need something from the safe.’ The cathedral clock chimed and Stein looked at his watch.

‘Here’s the key, Mr Stein. You’ll find everything in good order. There’s not much petty cash, I’m afraid.’

‘I don’t want to touch anything of yours, Madame Mauring,’ Stein told her. ‘I want that packet I left here.’

‘It’s all as you left it, Mr Stein. You help yourself.’

The safe was an absurdity-a single key operating a set of four spring bolts. It would impress no one, except perhaps some proud owner. On the other hand, who would be looking for anything very valuable in the safe of a small tea room? And there was more to it than that. Stein leaned to direct the green-shaded desk light into the safe’s shallow interior. Using both hands he inserted the stubby index fingers of both hands into small recesses. It was awkward and Stein breathed heavily with the exertion of it, until with a soft metallic click the whole back wall of the safe’s interior hinged forward, to reveal the dials of a far more modern safe.

Stein had committed the combination to memory and now he quickly twirled the dials, before opening the inside door. From it he got an envelope. It was no larger than a medium-sized book, perhaps a centimetre thick. Stein opened it to check the contents. These were Hoffmann-La-Roche bearer shares. Each sheet had a nominal value of 3.3 Swiss francs, and an actual value of about £25,000. The contents of this packet were worth some two and a quarter million dollars to anyone who pushed them across a bank counter anywhere in the world. Then, reverently, he took from the safe another package even more valuable: the Hitler Minutes. It was not impressive looking: a cheap office folder, as thick as a packet of cigarettes.

Stein had brought with him the small brown canvas bag which he usually carried on trips. Now he emptied it on the table to make room inside it for the packet of bearer bonds. The outer pocket contained a toothbrush, shaving tackle, Bufferin tablets, nail clippers and an unopened plastic box containing one tablet of Roger & Gallet soap. Charles Stein was most particular about soap and he had used this particular brand-sandalwood perfumed-for over twenty years. In the bag’s larger pocket there were shirts, underwear, socks and handkerchiefs. He felt inside the plastic wrapping of the shirts to be sure that the identity papers he had got from Delaney were still there. He looked again at the Brazilian passport. Stein’s photo was not a recent one but it would do.

‘The colonel has arrived,’ said Madame Mauring looking round the door. ‘More coffee and cake?’ She seemed to sense that something terrible was about to happen.

‘Yes, please, Madame Mauring.’

‘The colonel said coffee doesn’t agree with him.’

‘Maybe today he won’t care,’ said Stein.

She smiled and opened the door so that Colonel Pitman could enter the room. ‘I say, today maybe you’ll have coffee,’ said Stein, speaking slightly more loudly so that Pitman would hear.

‘Yes, please, Madame Mauring.’ He waited until she had gone. ‘So this is where you hid the Hitler Minutes.’

‘They’re right here,’ he said. ‘You want to see?’

Colonel Pitman nodded. Stein indicated the package on the table and then Madame Mauring brought the coffee tray. She pushed the Hitler Minutes aside to make room for the cups and saucers. Pitman picked them up. The cardboard folder had been blue originally but now the colour had faded to almost light grey. A long time had passed since some clerk of the US Army’s Government Affairs Group, G-5 Section, had hurriedly typed the inventory tag: ‘Merkers H-6750. Typewritten documents, German language, approx. 300 pages’. American metal seals, and earlier German wax ones, were still in place but the tapes and strings had been cut. The initials of the archive specialist from the MFA &A were still faintly legible on the box-shaped, rubber-stamp mark. Pitman riffled the corners of the documents, like a card sharp preparing for a good evening.