John Gardner - Man From Barbarossa

‘Exactly. I . . .’

‘So they will have all-relevant details of your department, the Stepakov Banda. This means they probably know about this dacha, they have names, dates, photographs, personalities . . .’

‘No!’ Stepakov whip-cracked. ‘No, not quite all.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because the important aspects of what insiders call the Stepakov Banda are just not in the computer systems. We made it that way. We organised it in that manner because we consider ourself an elitist force. At the end of 1989 all our records were removed from the data bases. We regrouped, we reorganised . . .’

‘Then why no men? Why nobody who can successfully pose as a British camera crew?’

‘Because we have very few new agents available, James. People like Alex and Nicki, here, were never listed. They were never field agents. We’re long on executive personnel, but very, very short on field people. Those I have are men and women trained since November ’89, and they’re at full stretch. It took eight people to babysit Lyko in London and that was only one fragment of an operation. It hasn’t been easy. I have no spare male bodies, James. I do happen to have one, and only one, female who can do the job off the top of her head. I have Nina because she doesn’t appear on any lists. Nowhere. I told you about that. Even Washington doesn’t list her and as far as current KGB data’s concerned, she doesn’t show because . . .’ he paused, looking towards Nina Bibikova as though awaiting her permission to reveal something about which there was great secrecy. Bond just caught the small nod, the almost imperceptible jerk of her head, allowing Stepakov to continue.

‘She doesn’t show,’ he paused again, swallowing. ‘She doesn’t show . . . because she is dead.’ He was not smiling as he said it.

‘Shall I explain, Bory?’ Nina had the kind of voice that made Bond think of velvet and honey. A voice smooth and deep as a cello. The brief words they had exchanged above ground in the dining room had not prepared him for the instrument that was released now as Boris Stepakov nodded.

‘My father,’ she began, standing unselfconsciously and looking at each person in turn, ‘my father was Mikhail Bibikov, and that probably means nothing to any of you, for you all knew him under another name. Michael Brooks.’

‘Jesus!’ Contradictions, fears, all kinds of devils shrieked in Bond’s head. ‘ The Michael Brooks?’ The name stuck in his throat.

‘Yes,’ she smiled, looking directly into his eyes. ‘ The Michael Brooks. KGB never released his true name. Not even when he died. He returned to Moscow, followed shortly afterwards by my mother, in 1965. I was born later that year. I don’t know if you knew my mother, Captain Bond?’

‘Barely – as a young recruit.’ His throat was dry, and as he looked at Nina, he suddenly realised where her dark, wondrous looks came from. ‘I certainly remember all the pictures. Emerald Lacy was quite a lady.’

Nina gave him a tiny nod. ‘She was certainly a lady.’

In his mind, he saw the famous photograph of Emerald Lacy hanging in the Rogues Gallery at headquarters, the one used by the press and TV at the time – Emerald leaning over one of the copying machines, chatting to the other girls in the cryptography pool – dark hair, lustrous complexion and the smile old hands said would make you think you were the one person who interested her. Senior officers used to call her the jewel in the crown, she was so good. The whole story returned, complete and unadulterated in all its disturbing detail, an epic film played out on the wide screen of his mind.

Michael Brooks began his career with the Secret Intelligence Service working for the old Special Operations Executive during World War II. He had been a contemporary of Philby, Burgess, Maclean, Blunt and Cairncross – those Cambridge graduates who had so successfully penetrated the British secret world at the behest of their KGB masters – so effective that they were known in the corridors of Dzerzhinsky Square as the Magnificent Five. Michael Brooks’ name had never been associated with them, not even after his story came out – or that part of it which was allowed to be released and put under the public microscope.

Brooks had an incredibly successful war. He had run agents out of Lisbon, was parachuted into France and, much later, Jugoslavia. When the peace came he was a natural for the Secret Intelligence Service and spent some time on the Middle- and Far-East Desks before moving, in the early years of the Cold War, to the Russian Desk, flitting between London and Berlin – debriefing agents, running three networks which Philby’s final unmasking in 1964 caused to be closed down.

In the Secret Intelligence Service they said that should you write a history of operations from 1945 to 1965, Michael Brooks’ handwriting would turn up in every chapter. He was omnipresent, you could sense him everywhere, from Malaya and Hong Kong to Berlin and the Soviet satellite countries. More, he seemed unstoppable, this tall, lean man with the patrician nose and iron-grey hair matched by the colour of his eyes. Impeccably turned out, always a military man in mufti, in some ways an anachronism next to the sweaters and slacks brigade who looked like mad scientists or refugees.

In the end, Brooks was just pipped at the post for Deputy Chief. Then, for a reason never revealed to either the public or his colleagues, he was suddenly cut adrift. Early retirement on pension and with no hint of dishonour.

A few weeks later, Michael Brooks disappeared. A fortnight after that the alarms went off. Emerald Lacy flew out to Bonn on a routine assignment, went missing, and reappeared, complete with photographs, at Moscow’s main Soviet wedding palace. The groom was Michael Brooks and it was only then that people began to wake up in horror, claiming the happy couple had been Moscow Centre penetrators, at it for years.

The story was played down. Brooks even issued a statement from Moscow. He had simply decided to live out his retirement in the Soviet Union. His political views had altered over the years.

The press kept it going as long as they could. Brooks’ name appeared in the so-called true espionage books. Accusations flew around, but only those with immense, stratospheric security clearance were allowed to peep into the hall of distorting mirrors which constitutes the real world behind the myth of modern espionage.

Within the deep paranoia which surrounds intelligence communities the world over, the name Michael Brooks became taboo. At the very mention of the man, cabinet ministers became tight-lipped; D-notices showered on to editorial desks and journalists who were heavy-handed and stupid enough to mention him found themselves out of the door before they knew what had hit them. Stories persisted. Rumours remained rife, even with the passing of time.

James Bond was one of those who had been Sensation Cleared, as the wags dubbed the Michael Brooks/Emerald Lacy case, cryptoed Brutus, for reasons best known to those who make the decisions on coding. Now Bond looked at the lovely Nina with a renewed interest.

‘I was educated in Russia and, later, England; my maternal grandmother took care of that side of things. I was passed off as her orphan grandchild.’ Nina had a disconcerting way of standing perfectly still. She did not emphasise anything by using her hands. It was as though her voice and a slight change in expression were enough.

‘When I was seventeen, it was a very good year.’ She gave a smile which lit up her face, her eyes alive, her mouth changing shape, showing the two small creases of laugh lines bracketing her lips.

‘I spent a year in Switzerland,’ Nina said, ‘then came back to Moscow and, given my father’s history, did the training and became an illegal. The Chairman wanted to keep my name off the official lists, and that was done. I spent two years in Washington with straight secretarial cover. I’ve never been blown because I’ve never been on an official KGB file.’ She bit her lip, just a tiny movement, quick as a finger snap. Again, Bond saw the photograph of her mother. The girl was a mirror-image, looking up from under her eyelids, a hair’s-breadth from flirting.