A Game for Assassins (The Redaction Chronicles Book 1) (11 page)

Rowlands preached to his officers that the role of the professional intelligence officer was to downplay what the agent thought was priceless information, not only to bring the price down, after all no one wants to pay top prices no matter how good the intelligence is, but also to give the officer time to accurately assess and analyze the material. Is it real or is it a fake?
There you bugger, that will take the sting out of your tale,
thought Rowlands.

He flicked through to the following communication transcript. It was the same day, but two hours later. Dobos was going for his second bite of the cherry. Either the Germans or the French had told him that they weren't interested or he was determined to get a deal exclusively from SIS. Either way, he had put himself at a serious negotiating disadvantage which Rowlands knew his deputy would have taken ruthless advantage of.

Green had handled it well, thought Rowlands. He had given the agent a tentative option whilst also being fair and professional. Anything less and it turns into the tail wagging the dog with the agents trying to run rings around their case officers.

Rowlands rubbed his eyes, God, he was tired. Only one more to go he thought as he flicked through to the final transcript. The final message was short, terse, as if Dobos was at the end of his tether. The message read:

He rubbed the tiredness from his eyes and ruminated about the previous few days' events. Dobos had approached the Vienna station with possible high end intelligence. He had agreed to terms and conditions for a trade of the material and had lodged it in the dead letter box codenamed ABEL.

Rowlands checked the duty reports for the station operations over the past week. He found the correct file entitled 'Agent Management' and flipped through the section dealing with deliveries to and from the three main dead letter box sites for low level informants like the CH4's which were KANE, ABEL and ENOCH.

According to the file the only one to have been serviced by the station officers over the last few days had been ENOCH, which meant that the team hadn't gotten around to emptying ABEL.
I'll have their balls for that,
he thought. He scribbled his initials next to the ABEL heading, meaning that he would take sole responsibility for collecting whatever Dobos had left for the SIS station there.
But not tonight,
he thought.
I need to get home and get some bloody sleep.
He checked his watch. It was 2.30am. Just in time to make his way home, trying not to disturb Joyce, grab a few hours of shut eye before he had to go and empty an agents' dead letter box on what was effectively enemy territory.

He sighed and rose from his chair, felt the muscles in his aching back click, picked up his set of keys to lock the station office and headed for his car. His weekend break was ruined, and in those tired few minutes in the middle of the night he was sick to the back teeth, in fact had had a bellyful, of Vienna, being a spy and getting himself involved in murder mysteries where the victim had had his throat ripped out like a stag that had been gralloched.

* * *

The very next morning, looking refreshed and wearing his best suit and overcoat, Her Majesty's diplomatic servant the Right Honorable Cecil Rowlands strolled casually along Krummbaumgasse, his destination was the old Karmelitermarkt.

He did his best to fight his way through the busy Christmastime shoppers and keep the rain from his spectacles, which was not an easy task for someone of Rowlands' size and grace. He was more your strongman than your athlete, his wife would say.

If anyone had taken the time to ask this distinguished member of the diplomatic community where he was off to on that fine morning, he would simply have said that he was on a small errand of a personal nature before he began his day's toils in the British Embassy. If pressed further, he would have confided to his acquaintance that he was on a mission to get back in his wife's good books. A small, but modestly expensive pre-Christmas gift, to apologize for ruining their weekend together when he had been called back to the 'office' to deal with a temporary problem. Some truffles from the specialist truffle seller in the market, he would say. Joyce did so love to cook and it was a rare treat that he was able to afford luxury items.

Of course it was a good story – not true – but a good tale nonetheless.

“Cover, ladies and gentlemen, is important,” he would drum into his field agents. “Always have a good reason for doing anything nefarious. You want to meet an agent at the opera; then I recommend that you at least know your Wagner's from your Verdi's, because you can bet your yearly wage that you'll bump into someone who will chatter about it for days and be a fully accredited aficionado. I'm not saying you have to be an expert, but you at least need to be able to hold a conversation without making anyone suspicious… at least until you get the opportunity to bugger off double quick!”

Why the Karmelitermarkt? Well the most obvious reason was that there was an excellent truffle stall on the far side of the market. The ruse also gave him the opportunity to visit the ABEL dead letter box which was located nearby on the fringes of the market. Its exact location was behind a billboard at ground level. He just hoped that Max Dobos had secured it properly behind the loose wooden panel that held the timber frame together.

He strolled casually, moving through the throng, nodding to his fellow shoppers in greeting or in thanks. He perused the various meat, cheese and coffee stalls. There was nothing hurried about his manner and aside from his duties at the Embassy he looked like a man content to while away the rest of the day exploring the commerce of Vienna.

Rowlands did two rotations of the ABEL site, passing by it to confirm that there was no overt surveillance, then around the block and back for one more pass. A third pass would have been suspicious, shopkeepers and market traders do have a tendency to remember a face that they have seen before. The third and final time would be the emptying of ABEL.

Was the vegetable seller looking at him a bit too closely? That road sweeper – he'd been there an awfully long time, since his second pass in fact? Or what about that couple at the cafe who were drinking their coffee, had they been observing him all along as he passed by the ABEL drop? Were they Russian informants or were they KGB agents running a hostile surveillance operation on a suspected SIS drop site?

In truth, there was no way of knowing and Rowlands knew that when it came down to the wire all the field agent on the ground could do was pray, hope for the best, and take a massive leap of faith that he wasn't about to be caught or compromised.

The dead drop was within a few feet. He did an awkward duck-shuffle and looked down in mock annoyance at his shoes. He had purposefully loosened his shoe laces this morning when he had set off knowing that they would work themselves free in time. A few more steps and he was finally at the billboard. Not stopping he began to bend in one fluid motion and then the seasoned intelligence officer reached down casually to tie his lace, and when he was sure that there were no observers his fingers explored around the gap between the brick wall and the billboard. It was only a space of roughly four inches, but it was big enough to conceal a decent-sized package.

Nothing! Damn!

He pressed his fingers in further, groping into the crevasse, a bit more, and then… there it was. Roughly the size of a pack of playing cards wrapped in sturdy brown paper and sealed with heavy duty tape and glue. A quick glance around the street revealed no one, and then the package was swiftly placed in his inside coat pocket. A quick tying of the laces and he was up, off and on his way. He spent the next thirty minutes running counter-surveillance maneuvers, just to be sure. Rowlands was an old pro who had done his fair share of shaking off a tail in his long and murky past.

* * *

An hour later Rowlands arrived back at the SIS station. He threw his overcoat into his office and gave strict instructions to his secretary, a Welsh harridan by the name of Eleanor, that he wasn't to be disturbed for the rest of the day.

He sat in the security room and unpacked the package from the dead drop. “Now then Herr Dobos, let's see what all this fuss is about.” Rowlands carefully opened the package, removing the tape with small neat cuts with his penknife. Inside was a single sheet of paper, handwritten in English, and a small pool of audio tape.

The note read:

He placed it to one side and went to fetch the audio tape player, a big brute of a machine that came complete with headset, from the station equipment cupboard. He locked his office door and set about rigging up the tape in the machine. When it was all connected and tested he took a single piece of paper and a pencil, pressed the PLAY button, closed his eyes and began to listen. His pencil would make a short scribble every now and then, picking out a word or a phrase that interested him.

Thirty minutes later the tape had finished. Rowlands removed the headphones and stared down at the notes on the paper. Dobos had either edited the tape not to include too much detail, perhaps hedging his bets for a better deal later, or the people speaking on the tape were security conscious, thus suggesting that they were indeed professionals. He scribbled out things that he judged unimportant, donned the headset once again and listened to it for a second time.

“Bloody hell,” he said to himself when he'd finished. If the information was accurate and judging by Dobos previous work for them it always had been, then he had inadvertently stepped into the fringes of an American-backed operation. Not just any old operation either, from the sounds of it –a bloody assassination plot.

He now doubted that the Max Dobos murder had been a robbery gone wrong or a gangland affair, as there was just too much coincidence in the timing. Day One: Dobos offers information relating to a series of contract killings. Day Two: Dobos is murdered, violently, and his body searched. There was more to this than he'd expected, and false modesty aside, it was becoming unwieldy and needed to be looked at by people higher up the chain of command.

So, with the winter sun glaring through his office window, he pulled out the station codebook and started very carefully to compose what was to be in the fullness of time, an explosive communiqué to Broadway.

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 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.

Finally, 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.

* * *

Porter leaned in to them, almost trying to project his argument even more by the crowding of his body. He looked the exact opposite of the debonair agent-runner who existed in the current spate of spy movies or indeed the adventure novels of fiction.

He was neither youthful nor attractive to women. He was mid-fifties, bumbling, with a mop of dark curly hair flecked with grey and settled above a frayed, three-piece pinstripe suit. His speech came in a staccato machine gun fire that people sometimes found hard to decipher.

“The Constellation Network started as a small mission to disrupt Russian operations in Europe. Nothing fancy, nothing too technical, just a simple smoke and mirrors operation. Things that we do all the time to make the Russians look one way while we do devilish things the other. This was post-Philby.”

The name 'Philby' still sent chills around the corridors of SIS and Porter hurried on with his briefing, lest the name should stir up evil ghosts from the past.

“We had been decimated by his betrayals and we had to start from scratch, rebuilding networks, operations and planning. Constellation was a part of that, small at first as I say, but it quickly grew. Its overall aim was to spread disinformation into the Russians' backyard.”

Porter cleared his throat and continued. “Our head agent is
CIRIUS
. British Army Major stationed in Germany after the war and later when the wall went up. He has a lot of experience in Berlin. We worked it so that he got himself involved in a sex-trap and therefore, at least in the eyes of the Russians and East Germans, had compromised himself. We also added in his frustrations with post-war British colonial policy, lack of promotion, a shortage of cash and we had a nice little 'dangle' for the Russians to bite at, which is exactly what they did. The Major himself is a very brave man, a true patriot and is the longest serving agent in Constellation.”

All eyes looked over the transcript once again as if to confirm that the man that Porter spoke of was the same person mentioned in the report. Porter continued with his briefing, his pace slowing, so as to ensure that each man understood the gravity of the situation they were dealing with.

“With our head agent in place, our aim then was to slowly integrate more operatives into the KGB's line of sight and set about building a network. Want the run down on who the rest of them are, within reason of course?”

Murmurs of agreement rose from around the table and a confirming nod came from the Chief to carry on. Porter counted each of the agents off on his fingers, holding onto each respective one like a man holding onto a rope in a sea storm.

“So,” continued Porter, “we have
ORION
, a Dutch citizen who has risen to be a senior executive with the AGIG Bank in Zurich. He passes the information to Moscow about IMF funding and advises the KGB on the moving of monies for its agents and operations in the West.”

“
CIRIUS
we know, and then we have
LYRA
. If
CIRIUS
is our longest serving agent, then
LYRA
is our star agent.
LYRA
is a former Italian Member of Parliament and currently Special Advisor to the UN. British mother, Italian father: she was married to an American businessman who had close ties to the current US Administration. He died several years ago. Moscow believes that she is the KGB's eyes and ears inside both the UN and the White House. Her importance to the network can't be overstated.”

“Next we have
SCORPIUS
. I know, that codename sounds very dramatic doesn't it, but it belies his commitment to destroying the KGB and the Communist regime. He's a former Nazi engineer, a protégé of Van Braun no less, who currently works at the Weapons Research facility in Hampshire, where he is part of a team heading the next phase of submarine delivered nuclear missiles. He passes his KGB control 'doctored' technical information about missile guidance and propulsion systems.”