Len Deighton - Berlin Game

Fiona was standing at one of the machines, waiting for it to whine down to a complete standstill. Then she pressed the button, and a drawer purred open. She dropped a cover over the disk and snapped the catches before closing the machine again. It was Fiona's boast that she could stand in for any one of the Data Centre staff. 'That way they can't tell you it's a long job, or any of the other fairy stories they invent to get home early.'

I went to the nearby terminal, a typewriter keyboard with a swivel display screen and printer. There was a roller-foot typist's chair pulled close to it, and a plastic bin spilling over with the wide, pale green paper of the terminal's printer.

'You remembered,' said Fiona. Her face lit up as she saw me. 'You remembered. That's wonderful.'

'Happy anniversary, darling,' I said.

'You know we're going to the school to watch our son win his race?'

'Even that I remembered.' It was a convention of our marriage that I was the one who was overworked and forgetful, but Fiona gave more hours to her work than I ever did. She was always making mysterious journeys and having long late meetings with people she did not identify. At one time I'd simply felt proud of having a wife senior enough to be needed so much. Now I was no longer sure of her. I wondered who she was with and what she did on those nights when I was alone in my cold bed.

She kissed me. I held her tight and told her how much I loved her, and how I missed her when we were apart. A girl wheeling a trolley loaded with brown boxes of new magnetic tapes saw us, and thought she'd discovered some illicit romance. I winked at her and she smiled nervously.

Fiona began tidying the papers spread across her metal desk; behind her, shelves of files, books and operator manuals were packed to capacity. She had to move a pile of papers before she could sit down. She began to speak, but changed her mind and waited as a nearby tape suddenly went into high speed and then ran down to silence. 'Did you phone Nanny and tell her to give the children early dinner?'

'She was doing something in the garden. I told Billy to tell her.'

'You know how Billy gets everything mixed up. I wish she would stay with the children. I don't want her doing something in the garden.'

'She was probably doing something about the children's clothes.'

'We have a perfectly good tumble dryer,' said Fiona.

Nanny preferred to hang the clothes to dry in the garden, but I decided not to mention this. The dryer was an endless source of disagreement between the two women. 'Phone her again if you like,' I said.

'Are you going to be long?'

'No. Just one personnel printout,' I said.

'If you're going to be here for half an hour or more, there's work I could do.'

'Ten minutes,' I said. I sat down at the terminal and entered open. The machine purred and the screen lit up with 'Please type your name, grade and department.' I typed that and the screen went blank while the computer checked my entry against the personnel file. Then 'Please ensure that no other person can see the screen or the console. Now type your secret access number.' I complied with that request and the screen said 'Please type the date and time.' I did it. The machine requested 'Today's code number, please.' I entered it.

'What time does this sports show begin?' Fiona called across to me. She was hunched over her desk giving all her attention to the task of painting her nails Passion Red.

The screen said 'Program?'; I responded with kagob to enter the KGB section. 'Seven-thirty, but I thought we'd have a quick drink in that pub opposite.'

The same girl who'd seen us kissing came past carrying a huge bundle of computer output clutched to her bosom. There were plenty of other boxes for secret waste, but she obviously wanted to have a closer look at the lovers.

I typed in the other codes, 'Redland Overseas' and the name of 'Chlestakov', and the screen asked 'Screen only?' It was a 'default query', which meant the material was typed on the printer unless the operator specified otherwise. I pressed start.

The terminal made a loud buzzing noise. It was running background, which meant it was rejecting millions of words that were not about Chlestakov. Then suddenly the printer cleared its throat, hiccupped twice, and rattled off four lines of text before the machine settled into background again. 'And don't tug at the printout,' Fiona called to me. 'The new lot of continuous tracking paper has got something wrong with the sprocket holes. We've had three printouts jam this afternoon.'

'I never tug at the printout.'

'If it doesn't feed, dial 03 on the internal for the duty engineer.'

'And say goodbye to being anywhere before midnight.'

'Don't tug at it and it won't jam,' she said. She still hadn't raised her eyes from peering closely at her nails.

The printer suddenly came to life and produced a long section of data on Chlestakov, the daisy wheel whizzing backwards and forwards. It always amazed me the way it printed every second line backwards. It was a little like Leonardo da Vinci mirror writing. No doubt its designers wanted to make human operators feel inferior. The run ended with a little tattoo of end codes to show that all the relevant data had been searched, and the printer was silent. The red light on the console came on to systems busy, which is computer language for doing nothing.

Fiona walked from her desk waving her extended fingers at me in a manner I would have regarded as threatening had I not seen her drying her nails before. 'You had nice weather for your jaunt to Berwick House. You should have taken the Porsche.'

'Everybody expects such big tips when they see a car like that.'

'How was poor Giles?'

'Feeling sorry for himself.'

'Did he take a lethal dose or was it a cry for help?'

'A cry for help? You've been mixing with sociologists again.'

'But was it?'

'Who can tell? The bottle of tablets was empty, but it might have only had a couple of tablets in it. Thanks to his sister's quick action, he vomited before the tablets all dissolved.'

'And the doctor didn't say?'

'He was only a kid, and Dicky had obviously filled his head with dark hints about the secret service. I don't think he knew what he was doing. It was Trent 's sister who did the medical treatment. She only called in the doctor because nurses – even ex-nurses – are brainwashed to believe that they must have a doctor to nod at them while they make the decisions and do all the work.'

'Do you think he'll try again?' said Fiona. She blew on her nails.

'Not if he knows what's good for his sister. I told him I'd make sure she stood trial if he did a bolt in any direction.'

'You hate him, don't you? It's a long time since I saw you like this. I'll bet you scared the daylights out of poor Giles.'

'I doubt that very much.'

'You don't know how frightening you can be. You make all those bad jokes of yours and your face is like a block of stone. That's what made me fall for you, I suppose. You were so damned brutal.'

'Me?'

'Don't keep saying "Me?" darling. You know what a tough bastard you can be.'

'I hate the Giles Trents of this world. And if that's what you call being tough, I wish like hell there were more tough people like me. I hate the Communists and the stupid sods in this country who play their game and think they are just being "caring, sharing, wonderful people". I've seen them at close quarters. Never mind the smooth-talking little swines that come over here to visit the TUC or give talks on international friendship. I've seen them back where they come from, back where they don't have to wear the plastic smiles or hide the brass knuckles.'

'You can't run the Soviet Union as though it were the Chelsea Flower Show, darling.'