The Cipher

Chapter 10-1

London, January 1965“You would work directly to me. No contact, either overt or covert, with the Embassy or the local CIA stations where you are operating. You work at arm"s length, independently, with no chaperoning.

You would work directly to me. No contact, either overt or covert, with the Embassy or the local CIA stations where you are operating. You work at arm"s length, independently, with no chaperoning.You try knocking on their doors, they"ll tell you to take a hike and that they don"t know what you"re talking about. I will give you a series of telephone numbers; you check in regularly to give and receive up to date intelligence. After each successful "hit", I will release a designated amount to a personal bank account of your choice. You don"t complete the contracts; you don"t get paid. Questions?”

You try knocking on their doors, they"ll tell you to take a hike and that they don"t know what you"re talking about. I will give you a series of telephone numbers; you check in regularly to give and receive up to date intelligence. After each successful "hit", I will release a designated amount to a personal bank account of your choice. You don"t complete the contracts; you don"t get paid. Questions?”The tape player clicked off with a deep thunk. It had come, mid conversation, toward the end of the spool.

“So is it fortune or fraud?” asked C.

The faces – all men he knew and trusted, stared back – all non-committal. They saw the deceptively youthful looking face of C, reclining in his chair, debonair with spectacles perched precariously on the end of his nose as he read through his files. He looked like a gentleman official from one of the better banking institutions: amiable, kindly, forgiving – all of which he could be if the occasion warranted.

But the four men knew this to be a facade. C was as tough as an old iron-spike when he had to be. The Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, or C as he was known to his officers, knew what they were thinking; they needed more concrete information before they were willing to give their opinions. He didn"t blame them. But that did nothing to confront the problem they were facing, and he needed answers pretty damn soon.

The five men, the hierarchy of the Secret Service, were sitting around the old mahogany conference table in the "War Room", which was situated on the top floor of 54 Broadway Buildings. The room was dark and brooding and was in sync with their collective mood. Stacked all around the rooms and corridors were boxes and security-sealed filing cabinets, all in place ready for the organizations big move over the coming weeks.

Broadway was a huge monolith of a building; slab grey, austere and parked away in a quiet backstreet in Westminster. It had, for over thirty years, been the headquarters of the British Secret Service. Its maze-like corridors and annexes had, over the years, baffled even the most intrepid of spies and visitors alike. It had survived wars, conflicts, skirmishes and political intrigue, but with the onset of the Cold War, even its most ferocious protectors had recognized that Broadway"s day had come to an end. Plans were afoot to make a move across the river to a more modern building in Lambeth, with internal rumblings that the powers that be were intent on keeping the spies away from the corridors of power and moving them further away into the shadows.

The five men had been here for the best part of the morning, thrashing out the contents of the scratchy audio recording that the technicians had done their best to clean up. It was audible, but muffled, and the boffins had decided that it was prudent to supply a transcript of the recording lest anything be misunderstood or misinterpreted. The empty teapot, cups, saucers and overflowing ashtrays had been pushed to one side, ignored, and the men had their noses firmly pushed into the transcripts hoping to find a clue that could give them a definitive answer.

C sat at the head of the table, as his seniority allowed. To his immediate left sat his Vice-Chief, Barton, a bullish man who had cut his espionage teeth working for the sabotage service during the war. To his immediate right sat the Director of Soviet Operations, Harper, a career intelligence officer who had been at the helm of Soviet Operations for as long as anybody could remember. Both men had different styles of operating within SIS, something that caused much internal friction.

Bringing up the lower echelons of the table was the "Constellation" network controller and its senior case officer, Bernard Porter, a former Oxford Don who had been recruited from academia. The final officer present was the Head of the Redaction Unit, Colonel Stephen Masterman.

It had been several weeks since the audio tape had been recovered from the dead letter drop by the Head of Station/Vienna. The tape had been listened to, and then listened to again, phone calls had been made and then it had hastily been posted into the diplomatic bag marked “URGENT – C – EYES ONLY” and then headed for London.

When it had arrived at Broadway it had dropped on them not with a bang, as would be associated with red hot intelligence, but instead with a whimper. No one seemed to know what to make of it. Was it genuine and if so, said the old intelligence hands, what does it have to do with us?

There was the argument that the information should be shared with Broadway"s sister service, MI5, the Security Service. After all, the mention of Soviet agents who had been recruited for Western organizations could provide vital clues to the spy hunters. This was quickly pooh-poohed by the older hands at Broadway, who preferred to keep it to themselves until they knew exactly what they were dealing with.

whatFinally, at the weekly department heads meeting, someone had mentioned to the Director of Soviet Operations about a report that had come in from Vienna. It was nothing out of the ordinary, just another possible piece of the intelligence jigsaw. That was until someone mentioned the phrase "a military liaison officer in NATO is alleged to be working for the Russians".

Then the explosion of activity had happened. The Soviet Operations desk had quickly swung into action demanding an in-depth report and investigation into the recording and its background. It had caused panic, concern and not a little consternation. The follow-up reports of the murder of the informant Max Dobos had sent the top floor of Broadway into a flurry of action. Hence the high level meeting that was now taking place.

“So… thoughts?” prompted the Chief, determined to kick-start the analysis. The group had been batting forth ideas about the overall meaning of the information contained in the recording, now he needed them to look at the fine detail.

“Well, from the unconventional way we received it, it"s bound to be a fake,” said Barton, bullish as ever.

“And yet, Head of Station Vienna mentions in his report that he had used this man, Max Dobos, on and off for years,” countered Harper. “Low level stuff certainly, but always reliable.”

“He"s an intelligence hawker; he sells bits and bobs of information all over. To us, the Americans, the Germans, even the French, God help him,” said Barton.

“Just because he sells intelligence to a variety of services, doesn"t equate that he"s a liar. He evidently thought it was important enough to pass it on to us,” countered Harper.

“Bit thin isn"t it… hardly cast iron evidence,” replied Barton gruffly.

“Well, that and the fact that he was found recently with his throat slit suggests that he was involved with something that was nefarious, even in our trade. Was he out of his depth? Is someone tying up loose ends?” said Harper in his most courteous tone.

The two men – Harper and Barton – came to the end of their sparring match. They both sat there, each weighing up the other, planning their next move in an ever continuing turf war that had become legendary within headquarters.

“The tape is obviously incomplete. Almost as if we"ve come in half way through a conversation. Therefore, we have to assume that this Dobos character either didn"t start recording the conversation soon enough and he ran out of tape before the meeting finished,” said C.

“Or he was disturbed and had to stop the recording,” said Barton.

“Possibly. The fact that he was killed in Vienna rather than in Luxembourg where we are led to believe that this meeting took place, seems to suggest that he simply ran out of tape rather than being caught in flagrante. If he had been caught red handed, it is assumed that he would have been murdered on the spot,” replied C.

The committee all nodded their agreement at the Chief"s assessment. In their shoes, they would have done the same thing. Why leave a witness to your crimes?

“So are we to assume that the people in this recording are completely unaware that they have been the victims of surveillance? To them, they are in the clear, haven"t been compromised and the killing of this informant in Vienna has been standard procedure for them?” mused the Chief.

“Agreed. They think the integrity of their operation is intact. That gives us the tactical advantage… for the moment at least,” said Harper.

“And we"re definitely sure it"s the Americans, are we?” asked Barton.

“On the face of it that certainly seems to be the case. An American player, numerous mentioning of the Agency, a former CIA asset by all accounts being re-recruited, the targeting of Russian agents. Has the Americans Cold War policy perhaps gotten a bit out of hand?” replied Harper.

A smile spread across C"s face. He didn"t think the Americans knew the meaning of "out of hand". They always seemed able to raise the bar to the next level of recklessness. “And have the technicians been able to identify anything useful from the voices on the tape?”

Harper shrugged. “Not much, Sir. The American voice is West Coast, late 50"s, educated. "Mr. Knight" is almost certainly a working name and aside from that, we haven"t been able to positively identify him from the conversation.”

“And the other voice, what of him?” asked C.

“Again, not much. European certainly, possibly from Spain or France, but the accent has been eroded over the years. Hint of German in there somewhere, so possibly travelled around a lot. Younger, somewhere in his 40"s. I"ve checked through our agents files in the registry and it"s no one that we"ve used before. Apart from that, it"s a dead end.”

There was a nod from C as he considered his options. “Mmm… So what to do,” he said.

“Well, excuse me for stating what is glaringly obvious, but can"t we just pull these agents out and temporarily isolate them until the threat has passed?” said Barton.

“Or at least put a security team with them?” suggested Harper.

“I"m afraid that won"t be possible or indeed feasible.” This time the voice was the jowly rumble of Porter.

“Please tell us why, Bernie? Give us reasons why we can"t, perhaps some background to your operation might make it clearer to us mere mortals outside your games,” said C.

And it was then that Bernard Russell Porter, a tubby little man of indeterminate age, gave the collective minds of British Intelligence the harsh truth about running a covert network of double agents at the sharp end of the Cold War.