"What job did you have in London?"
"Banking section; supervision of agents" salaries, overseas payments for clandestine purposes. A child could have managed it. We got our orders and we signed the drafts. Occasionally there was a security headache."
"Did you deal with agents direct?"
"How could we? The Resident in a particular country would make a requisition. Authority would put a hoof-mark on it and pa.s.s it to us to make the payment. In most cases we had the money transferred to a convenient foreign bank where the Resident could draw it himself and hand it to the agent."
"How were agents described? By cover names?"
"By figures. The Circus calls them combinations. Every network was given a combination: every agent was described by a suffix attached to the combination. Karl"s combination was eight A stroke one."
Leamas was sweating. Peters watched him coolly, appraising him like a professional gambler across the table. What was Leamas worth? What would break him, what attract or frighten him? What did he hate; above all, what did he know? Would he keep his best card to the end and sell it dear? Peters didn"t think so: Leamas was too much off balance to monkey about. He was a man at odds with himself, a man who knew one life, one confession, and had betrayed them. Peters had seen it before. He had seen it, even in men who had undergone a complete ideological reversal, who in the secret hours of the night had found a new creed, and alone, compelled by the internal power of their convictions, had betrayed their calling, their families, their countries. Even they, filled as they were with new zeal and new hope, had had to struggle against the stigma of treachery; even they wrestled with the al most physical anguish of saying that which they had been trained never, never to reveal. Like apostates who feared to b.u.m the Cross, they hesitated between the instinctive and the material; and Peters, caught in the same polarity, must give them" comfort and destroy their pride. It was a situation of which they were both aware; thus Leamas had fiercely rejecte4 a human relationship with Peters, for his pride precluded it. Peters knew that for those reasons Leamas would lie; lie perhaps only by omission, but lie all the same, for pride, from defiance or through the sheer perversity of his profession; and he, Peters, would have to nail the lies. He knew, too, that the very fact that Leamas was a professional could militate against his interests, for Leamas would select where Peters wanted no selection; Leamas would antic.i.p.ate the type of intelligence which Peters required--and in doing so might pa.s.s by some casual sc.r.a.p which could be of vital interest to the evaluators. To all that, Peters added the capricious vanity of an alcoholic wreck.
"I think," he said, "we will now take your Berlin service in some detail. That would be from May 1951 to March 1961. Have another drink."
Leamas watched him take a cigarette from the box on the table and light it. He noticed two things: that Peters was left-handed, and that once again he had put the cigarette in his mouth with the maker"s name away from him, so that it burned first. It was a gesture Leamas liked: it indicated that Peters, like himself, had been on the run.
Peters had an odd face, expressionless and gray. The color must have left it long ago--perhaps in some prison in the early days of the Revolution--and now his features were formed and Peters would look like that till he died. Only the stiff gray hair might turn to white, but his face would not change. Leamas wondered vaguely what Peters" real name was, whether he was married. There was something very orthodox about him which Leamas liked. It was the orthodoxy of strength, of confidence. If Peters lied there would be a reason. The lie would be a calculated, necessary lie, far removed from the fumbling dishonesty of Ashe.
Ashe, Kiever, Peters; that was a progression in quality, in authority, which to Leamas was axiomatic. of the hierarchy of an intelligence network. It was also, he suspected, a progression in ideology. Ashe the mercenary, Kiever the fellow traveler, and now Peters, for whom the end and the means were identical.
Leamas began to talk about Berlin. Peters seldom interrupted, seldom asked a question or made a comment, but when he did, he displayed a technical curiosity and _expertise_ which entirely accorded with Leamas" own temperament. Leamas even seemed to respond to the dispa.s.sionate professionalism of his interrogator--it was something they had in common.
It had taken a long time to build a decent East Zone network from Berlin, Leamas explained. In the earlier days the city had been thronging with second-rate agents: intelligence was discredited and so much a part of the daily life of Berlin that you could recruit a man at a c.o.c.ktail party, brief him over dinner and he would be blown by breakfast. For a professional it was a nightmare: dozens of agencies, half of them penetrated by the opposition, thousands of loose ends; too many leads, too few sources, too little s.p.a.ce to operate. They had their break with Feger in 1954, true enough. But by "56 when every Service department was screaming for high-grade intelligence, they were becalmed. Feger had spoiled them for second-rate stuff that was only one jump ahead of the news. They needed the real thing--and they had to wait another three years before they got it.
Then one day de long went for a picnic in the woods on the edge of East Berlin. He had a British military number plate on his car, which he parked, locked, on a gravel road beside the ca.n.a.l. After the picnic his children ran on ahead, carrying the basket. When they reached the car they stopped, hesitated, dropped the basket and ran back. Somebody had forced the car door--the handle was broken and the door was slightly open. De long swore, remembering that he had left his camera in the glove compartment. He went and examined the car. The handle had been forced; de Jong reckoned it had been done with a piece of steel tubing, the kind of thing you can carry in your sleeve. But the camera was still there, so was his coat, so were some parcels belonging to his wife. On the dnving seat was a tobacco tin, and in the tin was a small nickel cartridge. De Jong knew exactly what it contained: it was the film cartridge of a subminiature camera, probably a Minox.
De Jong drove home and developed the film. It contained the minutes of the last meeting of the Praesidium of the East German Communist Party, the S.E.D. By an odd coincidence there was collateral from another source; the photographs were genuine.
Leamas took the case over then. He was badly in need of a success. He"d produced virtually nothing since arriving in Berlin, and he was getting past the usual age limit for full-time operational work. Exactly a week later he took de Jong"s car to the same place and went for a walk.
It was a desolate spot that de Jong had chosen for his picnic: a strip of ca.n.a.l with a couple of sh.e.l.l-torn piliboxes, some parched, sandy fields, and on the east-. em side a spa.r.s.e pinewood lying about two hundred yards from the gravel road which bordered the ca.n.a.l. But it had the virtue of solitude--something that was hard to find in Berlin--and surveillance was impossible. Leamas walked in the woods. He made no attempt to watch the car because he did not know from which direction the approach might be made. If he was seen watching the car from the woods, the chances of retaining his informant"s confidence were ruined. He need not have worried.
When he returned there was nothing in the car so he drove back to West Berlin, kicking himself for being a d.a.m.ned fool; the Praesidium was not due to meet for another fortnight. Three weeks later he borrowed de long"s car and took a thousand dollars in twenties in a picnic case. Ho left the car unlocked for two hours and when he returned there was a tobacco tin in the glove compartment. The picnic case was gone.
The films were packed with first-grade doc.u.mentary stuff. In the next six weeks he did it twice more, and the same thing happened.
Leamas knew he had hit a gold mine. He gave the source the cover name of "Mayfair" and sent a pessimistic letter to London. Leamas knew that if he gave London half an opening they would control the case direct, which he was desperately anxious to avoid. This was probably the only kind of operation which could save him from superannuation, and it was just the kind of thing that was big enough for London to want to take over for itself. Even if he kept them at arm"s length there was stifi the danger that the Circus would have theories, make suggestions, urge caution, demand action. They would want him to give only new dollar bills in the hope of tracing them, they would want the film cartridges sent home for examination, they would plan clumsy tailing operations and tell the Departments. Most of all they would want to tell the Departments; and that, said Leamas, would blow the thing sky-high. He worked like a madman for three weeks. He combed the personality files of each member of the Praesidium. He drew up a list of all the clerical staff who might have had access to the minutes. From the distribution list on the last page of the facsimiles he extended the total of possible informants to thirty-one, including clerks and secretarial staff.
Confronted with the almost impossible task of identifying an informant from the incomplete records of thirty-one candidates, Leamas returned to the original material, which, he said, was something he should have done earlier. It puzzled him that in none of the photostated minutes he had so far received were the pages numbered, that none was stamped with a security cla.s.sification, and that in the second and fourth copies words were crossed out in pencil or crayon. He came finally to an important conclusion: that the photo copies related not to the minutes themselves, but to the _draft_ minutes. This placed the soUrce in the Secretariat and the Secretariat was very small. The draft minutes had been well and carefully photographed: that suggested that the photographer had had time and a room to himself.
Leamas returned to the personality index. There was a man called Karl Riemeck in the Secretariat, a former corporal in the Medical Corps, who had served three years as a prisoner of war in England. His sister had been living in Pomerania when the Russians overran it, and he had never heard of her since. He was married and had one daughter named Carla.
Leamas decided to take a chance. He found out from London Riemeck"s prisoner of war number, which was 29012, and the date of his release which was December 10, 1945. He bought an East German children"s book of science fiction and wrote in the fly leaf in German in an adolescent hand: _This book belongs to Carla Riemeck, born December 10, 1945, in Bideford, North Devon. Signed Moons.p.a.cewoman 29012_, and underneath he added, _Applicants wishing to make s.p.a.ce flights should present themselves for instruction to C. Riemeck in person. An application form is enclosed. Long Live the People"s Republic of Democratic s.p.a.ce!_ He ruled some lines on a sheet of writing paper, made columns for name, address and age, and wrote at the bottom of the page: _Each candidate will be interviewed personally. Write to the usual address stating when and where. you wish to be met. Applications will be considered in seven days_.
C.R.
He put the sheet of paper inside the book. Leamas drove to the usual place, still in de long"s car, and left the book on the pa.s.senger seat with five used onehundred dollar bills inside the cover. When Leamas returned, the book was gone, and there was a tobacco tin on the seat instead. It contained three rolls of film. Leamas developed them that night: one film contained as usual the minutes of the Praesidium"s last meeting; the second showed a draft revision of the East German relationship to COMECON; and the third was a breakdown of the East German Intelligence Service, complete with functions of departments and details of personalities.
Peters interrupted. "Just a minute," he said. "Do you mean to say all this intelligence came from Riemeck?"
"Why not? You know how much he saw."
"It"s scarcely possible," Peters observed, almost to himself. "He must have had help."
"He did have later on; I"m coming to that."
"I know what you are going to tell me. But did you never have the feeling he got a.s.sistance from _above_ as well as from the agents he afterwards acquired?"
"No. No, I never did. It never occurred to me."
"Looking back on it now, does it seem likely?"
"Not particularly."
"When you sent all this material back to the Circus, they never suggested that even for a man in Riemeck"s position the intelligence was phenomenally comprehensive?"
"No."
"Did they ever ask where Riemeck got his camera from, who instructed him in doc.u.ment photography?"
Leamas hesitated.
"No . . . I"m sure they never asked."
"Remarkable," Peters observed drily. "I"m sorry-- do go on. I did not mean to antic.i.p.ate you."
Exactly a week later, Leamas continued, he drove to the ca.n.a.l and this time he felt nervous. As he turned into the gravel road he saw three bicycles lying in the gra.s.s and two hundred yards down the ca.n.a.l, three men fishing. He got out of the car as usual and began walking toward the line of trees on the other side of the field. He had gone about twenty yards when he heard a shout. He looked around and caught sight of one of the men beckoning to him. The other two had turned and were looking at him too. Leamas was wearing an old mackintosh; he had his hands in the pockets, and it was too late to take them out. He knew that the men on either side were covering the man in the middle and that if he took his hands out of his pockets they would probably shoot him; they would think he was holding a revolver in his pocket. Leamas stopped ten yards from the center man.
"You want something?" Leamas asked.
"Are you Leamas?" He was a small, plump man, very steady. He spoke English.
"Yes."
"What is your British national ident.i.ty number?"
"PRT stroke L 58003 stroke one."
"Where did you spend VJ night?"
"At Leiden in Holland in my father"s workshop, with some Dutch friends."
"Let"s go for a walk, Mr. Leamas. You won"t need your mackintosh. Take it off and leave it on the ground where you are standing. My friends will look after it."
Leamas hesitated, shrugged and took off his mackintosh. Then they walked together briskly toward the wood.
"You know as well as I do who he was," said Leamas wearily, "third man in the Ministry of the Interior, Secretary to the S.E.D. Praesidium, head of the Co-ordinating Committee for the Protection of the People. I suppose that was how he knew about de long and me: he"d seen our counterintelligence files in the Abteilung. He had three strings to his bow: the Praesidium, straightforward internal political and economic reporting, and access to the flIes of the East German Security Service."
"But only _limited_ access. They"d never give an outaider the run of all their files," Peters insisted.
Leamas shrugged.
"They did," he said.
"What did he do with his money?"
"After that afternoon I didn"t give him any. The Circus took that over straightaway. It was paid into a West German bank. He even gave me back what I"d given him. London banked it for him."
"How much did you tell London?"
"Everything after that. I had to; then the Circus told the Departments. After that," Leamas added venomously, "it was only a matter of time before it packed up. With the Departments at their backs, London got greedy. They began pressing us for more, wanted to give him more money. Finally we had to suggest to Karl that he recruit other sources, and we took them on to form a network. It was b.l.o.o.d.y stupid, it put a strain on Karl, endangered him, undermined his confidence in us. It was the beginning of the end."
"How much did you get out of him?"
Leamas hesitated. "How much? Christ, I don"t know. It lasted an unnaturally long time. I think he was blown long before he was caught. The standard dropped in the last few months; think they"d begun to suspect him by then and kept him away from the good stuff."
"Altogether, what did he give you?" Peters persisted.
Piece by piece, Leamas recounted the full extent of all Karl Riemeck"s work. His memory was, Peters noted approvingly, remarkably precise considering the amount he drank. He could give dates and names, he could remember the reaction from London, the nature of corroboration where it existed. He could remember sums of money demanded and paid, the dates of the conscription of other agents into the network.
"I"m sorry," said Peters at last, "but I do not believe that one man, however well placed, however careful, however industrious, could have acquired such a range of detailed knowledge. For that matter, even if he had he would never have been able to photograph it."
"He _was_ able," Leamas persisted, suddenly angry. "He b.l.o.o.d.y well did and that"s all there is to it."
"And the Circus never told you to go into it with him, exactly how and when he saw all this stuff?"
"No," snapped Leamas. "Riemeck was touchy about that, and London was content to let it go."
"Well, well," Peters mused.
After a moment Peters said, "You heard about that woman, incidentally?"
"What woman?" Leamas asked sharply.
"Karl Riemeck"s mistress, the one who came over to West Berlin the night Riemeck was shot."
"Well?"
"She was found dead a week ago. Murdered. She was shot from a car as she left her fiat."
"It used to be my flat," said Leamas mechanically.
"Perhaps," Peters suggested, "she knew more about Riemeck"s network than you did."
"What the h.e.l.l do you mean?" Leamas demanded.
Peters shrugged. "It"s all very strange," he observed. "I wonder who killed her."
When they had exhausted the case of Karl Riemeck, Leamas went on to talk of other less spectacular agents, then of the procedure of his Berlin office, its communications, its staff, its secret ramifications-- flats, transport, recording and photographic equipment. They talked long into the night and throughout the next day, and when at last Leamas stumbled into bed the following night he knew he had betrayed all that he knew of Allied Intelligence in Berlin and had drunk two bottles of whisky in two days.
One thing puzzled him: Peters" insistence that Karl Riemeck must have had help--must have had a highlevel collaborator. Control had asked him the same question--he remembered now--Control had asked about Riemeck"s access. How could they both be so sure Karl hadn"t managed alone? He"d had helpers, of course; like the guards by the ca.n.a.l the day Leamas met him. But they were small beer--Karl had told him about them. But Peters--and Peters, after all, would know precisely how much Karl had been able to get his hands on--Peters had refused to believe Karl had managed alone. On this point, Peters and Control were evidently agreed.
Perhaps it was true. Perhaps there was somebody else. Perhaps this was the special interest whom Control was so anxious to protect from Mundt. That would mean that Karl Riemeck had collaborated with this special interest and provided what both of them had together obtained. Perhaps that was what Control had spoken to Karl about, alone, that evening in Leamas" fiat in Berlin.
Anyway, tomorrow would tell. Tomorrow he would play his hand.
He wondered who had killed Elvira. And he wondered _why_ they had killed her. Of course--here was a point, here was a possible explanation--Elvira, knowing the ident.i.ty of Riemeck"s special collaborator, had been murdered by that collaborator. . . . No, that was too farfetched. It overlooked the difficulty of crossing from East to West: Elvira had after all been murdered in West Berlin.
He wondered why Control had never told hun Elvira had been murdered. So that he would react suitably when Peters told him? It was useless speculating. Control had his reasons; they were usually so b.l.o.o.d.y tortuous it took you a week to work them out.
As he fell asleep he muttered, "Karl was a d.a.m.n fool. That woman did for him, I"m sure she did." Elvira was dead now, and serve her right. He remembered Liz.
* * 9 * The Second Day
Peters arrived at eight o"clock the next morning, and without ceremony they sat down at the table and began.
"So you came back to London. What did you do there?"
"They put me on the shelf. I knew I was finished when that a.s.s in Personnel met me at the airport. I had to go straight to Control and report about Karl. He was dead--what else was there to say?"
"What did they do with you?"
"They said at first I could hang around in London and wait till I was qualified for a proper pension. They were so b.l.o.o.d.y decent about it I got angry--I told them that if they were so keen to chuck money at me why didn"t they do the obvious thing and count in all my time instead of bleating about broken service? Then they got cross when I told them that. They put me in Banking with a lot of women. I can"t remember much about that part--I began hitting the bottle a bit. Went through a bad phase."
He lit a cigarette. Peters nodded.
"That was why they gave me the push, really. They didn"t like me drinking."
"Tell me what you _do_ remember about Banking Section," Peters suggested.
"It was a dreary setup. I never was cut out for desk work, I knew that. That"s why I hung on in Berlin. I knew when they recalled me I"d be put on the shelf, but Christ!"
"What did you do?"
Leamas shrugged.
"Sat on my behind in the same room as a couple of women. Thursby and Larrett. I called them Thursday and Friday." He grinned rather stupidly. Peters looked uncomprehending.
"We just pushed paper. A letter came down from Finance: "The payment of seven hundred dollars to so and so is authorized with effect from so and so. Kindly get on with it"--that was the gist of it. Thursday and Friday would kick it about a bit, file it, stamp it, and I"d sign a check or get the bank to make a transfer."
"What bank?"