Len Deighton - Spy Sinker

Bret nodded.

'Leave them in the earth and you get a sweeter-tasting carrot but if there is a really severe frost, you lose them.' He found a carrot and pulled it up. It was small and thin but of a beautiful colour. 'On the other hand if you lift them, you can be sure that they haven't been got at by the worms and slugs. See what I mean, Bret?'

'So how do you decide when to pull them?'

'I consult,' said Silas. 'I talk to the experts.'

Bret decided to ignore the wider implications of Silas's agricultural nostrums and return to the subject of Bernard Samson. 'But once that decision was taken, it might have been wiser to move Bernard Samson out of Operations. He's too damned curious about what exactly happened.'

'That's natural enough,' said Silas.

'He pries and asks questions. On that account, and a few others too, Samson was not the man to send to talk to a potential KGB defector in Mexico City, or anywhere else.'

'Why?' asked Silas sardonically. 'Because he hasn't been to University?'

'This KGB fellow: Stinnes – whatever his motives or intentions – will be expecting an Oxbridge man. Sending a blue-collar type like Samson will make him think he doesn't rate.'

'You're a dedicated Anglophile, Bret. No disrespect, I'm delighted that you should be. But it sometimes leads you into an exaggerated regard for our old British institutions.'

Bret stiffened. 'I have always supported Samson, even when he was at his most intractable. But Oxford and Cambridge attract the most competitive students, and will always be the Department's finest source of recruits. I'd hate to see the day come when that policy changed.'

Silas ran his hand lovingly over the outdoor tomatoes. One of them, full size and deep red, he picked and weighed in his hand. 'Oxford and Cambridge provide an excellent opportunity to learn, although not better than any well-motivated student can find in a first-class library. But an Oxbridge education can make graduates feel that they are members of some privileged elite, destined to lead and make decisions that will be inflicted upon lesser beings. Such elitism must of necessity be based upon expectations that are often unfulfilled. Thus Oxbridge has not only provided Britain with its most notable politicians and civil servants but its most embittered traitors too.' Silas smiled sadly, as if the traitors had played a long-forgiven and half-forgotten prank upon him.

'Elite?' said Bret. 'You'd search a long way to find someone more arrogant than Bernard Samson.'

'Bernard's arrogance comes from something inside him: some vitality, force and a seemingly inexhaustible fund of courage. Our great universities will never be able to furnish inner strength, no one can. What teachers provide is always superimposed upon the person that already exists. Education is a carapace, a cloak laid upon the soul: a protection, a coloration or something to hide inside.'

To get the conversation back on to a more practical plane Bret said, 'And Samson drinks too much.'

'That's rather judgemental,' said Silas. 'Few of us would be absolved from that one, truth be told.' Silas took a clasp-knife and cut the tomato in hah 0to study it before biting a piece out of it.

'You're right, of course,' said Bret deferentially, and added, 'Remember I recommended Samson for the German Desk.'

Silas swallowed the piece of tomato but some of the juice dribbled down his chin. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, 'Indeed you did. But you didn't do it with enough vigour and follow-through to get it for him.'

'I plead the Fifth, Silas.' Bret decided not to explain that his decision was deliberate and reasoned: it would take too long. 'But let's not argue. Samson and Cruyer are both in Mexico. We have a lot riding on this one; a careless move now could set us back severely.'

'Yes, we must move with great caution,' said Silas. 'We have the woman installed in the East and now we must hope that all continues to go well for her. No contact yet?' He offered the remaining half of tomato to Bret, but Bret shook his head. Silas threw the tomato on to the rubbish.

'No, Silas, no contact. I'm leaving her alone for as long as possible. It's not primarily an intelligence-gathering operation at this stage of the game. I think you and the D-G both agreed that it shouldn't be. We said that right at the start.'

'Yes, Bret, we did. She has enough problems, I'm sure.'

'For the time being, let her masters digest the material she's providing them with.' Bret had been moving restlessly, looking round to be sure that they were not observed or overheard. Now he fixed his eyes on Silas. 'But before too long we must provide the Soviets with some really solid affirmation of Mrs Samson's creed. It's going well but we must exploit and reinforce success.' These final words were spoken with fervour.

Silas looked blankly at Bret. The words Bret had emphasized were the sort of axiom to be found in the works of Sun-tzu, Vegetius, Napoleon or some wretch of that ilk. Silas did not believe that such teachings embodied truths of any relevance to the craft of espionage, but decided that this was not the right time to take that up with Bret.

Thinking that Silas might not have heard, Bret said it again. 'We must exploit and reinforce success.'

Silas looked at him and nodded. Despite that glacial personality there was a certain boyish enthusiasm in Bret, a quality not unusual in Americans of any class. Bret combined it with another American characteristic: the self-righteous passion of the crusader. Silas had always thought of him as warrior prince: hand-woven silk under the heavy armour, marching through the desert behind the True Cross. Austere and calculating, Bret would have made an invincible Richard the Lionheart but an equally convincing Saladin.

Silas said, 'I hope you're not thinking of anything costly, Bret. The other evening I calculated that the code and cipher changes and so on that the D-G ordered after Mrs Samson went over there must have cost the Department nearly a million sterling. Add in the costs that we don't shoulder, I'd say there was a worldwide bill for three million. And that's without the incalculable loss efface we suffered at losing her.'

'I'm watching the bottom line, Silas.'

'Good. And what did you conclude about this fellow in Mexico City, Bret? Animal, vegetable or mineral?' Silas bent over and fingered the spinach like a child dabbling a hand in the water.

'That's what I want to talk about. He's real enough; a forty-year-old KGB major of considerable experience.' Bret put on the speed-cop style glasses that he used when reading, and, reaching inside the stained waterproof that Silas had loaned him, he produced a concertina of computer printout. 'No need to tell you that our records don't normally extend down to KGB majors, but this fellow has a high profile so we know something of his background.' Bret looked down and read from the paperwork. 'Sadoff. Uses the name Stinnes. Born 1943. Regular officer as father. Raised in Berlin. Assigned to KGB, Section 44, the Religious Affairs Bureau. With Security Police in Cuba…'

'For God's sake, Bret. I can read all that piffle for myself. I'm asking you who he is.'

'And whether he really wants to come over to us. Yes, of course you're asking that, but it's too early yet.' He passed the computer printout to Silas, who held it without looking at it.

'What does Cruyer say about him?'

'I'm not sure that Cruyer has actually seen him yet.'

'Then what the devil are those two idiots doing out there?'

'You'll be pleased to hear that it was Samson who saw Stinnes.'

'And?'

'This one is worth having, Silas. We could get a lot out of him if he's properly handled. But we must go very slowly. For safety's sake we must assume he is approaching us under orders from Moscow.'