The Factory (19 page)

‘I have the right to call in an independent investigation without reference to you,' threatened Jeremy Thurlow. ‘Since we lost Harding, we have had one operative killed. One positive defection. Two other operatives seized, before this latest arrest of Deedes. At least five operations have been destroyed. You know and I know that we've been penetrated by the Soviets. And we both know why you've done nothing about it. Because of your drinking and because you're sleeping with your personal assistant and you know you'll be fired when it's discovered by an outside investigation.'

‘That's a good-enough summary,' agreed the Director General. He was glad that he hadn't drunk too much the previous night. He felt very clear-headed. ‘I'm surprised it's taken you so long. I've been waiting.'

‘Waiting?'

‘Why haven't you exercised the right before now?'

‘I …' started his deputy, then stopped, understanding. ‘You suspect me!'

‘I suspect everybody.'

Thurlow flushed, furious. Stiffly he said: ‘I am giving you official notice, which I am not required to do but which I am doing, because of our past but now apparently ended friendship, that when I leave this room I intend at once to demand an investigation that should have been initiated by you months ago.'

‘You're right,' said Bell sadly. ‘It should have been, shouldn't it? You're right, too, about why I didn't call for it.'

The two men, who had once been close colleagues, stared at each other, each wanting the other to speak first. It was Thurlow who spoke: ‘I don't want to do it. I don't want to destroy you.'

The Director General didn't respond for several minutes, the decision swirling in his mind. Finally he said: ‘I wanted Deedes to be arrested: that he has been, incidentally, is a confirmation we hardly needed that there's a Soviet spy here in the Factory.'

‘What!' exclaimed Thurlow, astonished.

‘I'm going to uncover whoever it is,' vowed Bell. ‘And Deedes isn't the only trap I've set. I hope there's another source, although I can't be absolutely sure.'

The man upon whom the Director General still attached a slender hope was William Davies. The problem was that from the moment of his supposed defection to Moscow and being paraded by the Soviets on world TV there had been no contact at all from the man with London.

William Davies had succeeded in everything the Director General had asked of him, but he was aware he wasn't safe. He'd convinced the KGB that his defection was genuine and was actually employed as an assessor of intelligence relayed from England, but the Russian who had debriefed him and whom he still knew only as Oleg was not completely satisfied. Davies had twice identified the man following him around Moscow, and also suspected that his government-awarded apartment was bugged. Which was why he'd made no effort whatsoever to get any message back to London. He had a lot to tell them, although not the one thing he had been infiltrated to learn. Davies believed he saw most of the material coming in from England but never once had he come across any indication of who the traitor was back there in the Factory. The only conclusion had to be that whoever it was communicated through a different channel: the diplomatic bag, for instance. So it was pointless to remain in Moscow any longer. Soon he'd have to think of a way to get back.

They had taken away all his clothes and given him a prison uniform which was thin cotton and stank of the person who'd worn it before. There was no heating in his cell at the Butyrki prison and Deedes was numbed by cold, unable to stop shivering. He hoped it would stop when he was questioned, otherwise it would look as if he were frightened. He was trying very hard not to be frightened.

It was the following day before he was summoned. He was taken to a room on the same level as his cell. There was just a table and a chair, upon which his interrogator sat. Deedes had to stand. It was bitterly cold and he continued shivering.

‘You are a spy,' accused the man at once. He wore a heavy topcoat. He was fat and red-faced, as if he suffered from high blood pressure.

‘I am a visiting British diplomat auditing the embassy purchasing accounts,' said Deedes, presenting the cover story that had been created for his visa application. ‘My arrest is an outrage. I demand to be allowed to contact my embassy.'

The interrogator sighed, unimpressed. He said: ‘You are employed in an overseas division of British intelligence. Your Director General is named Samuel Bell. You are twenty-eight years old, a graduate of Oxford University and currently unmarried …' The man stopped and smiled, an abrupt on-off expression. ‘We know a great deal more about you but there's no purpose in telling you about yourself, is there? We want to know why you came to Moscow.'

The knowledge could only have come from within the Factory, from whoever their informant was, Deedes realized. He said: ‘I have told you the reason for my visit here.'

‘I can break you,' said the man conversationally. ‘I can reduce you, mentally, to the level of an animal: make you crawl to me, on your belly, pleading to tell me everything I want to know. But don't waste my time, having to do that. Tell me what I want to know.'

Deedes' shivering was not only caused by the cold now. He said: ‘I demand to be released!'

‘Do you know of aminazin?' said the man.

‘No.'

‘It's one of the drugs we use,' the interrogator explained. ‘It completely destroys the mind, eventually. There's no recovery: a person becomes a vegetable. Are you prepared to become a vegetable, Mr Deedes?'

‘I have nothing to tell you,' insisted Deedes.

‘Or maybe I'll simply deprive you of sleep. That's remarkably effective. Forty-eight hours is normally sufficient. There is often permanent psychiatric damage but I am not concerned with that.'

Deedes remained silent. He thought of Elizabeth, who he wanted to marry, and of his parents, who were so proud of him. Could he expect them to care for him if he were eventually repatriated, mentally crippled? It wouldn't be fair: certainly not to burden Elizabeth.

‘What's it to be?' demanded the man brightly. ‘Cooperation? Or stupidity.'

‘I have nothing to tell you,' repeated Deedes.

The Russian gave another of his theatrical sighs. ‘So it's stupidity,' he said.

They deprived him of sleep.

He was returned to a different, windowless cell, where there was no cot, and made to lean forward against the wall supported by his outstretched fingertips. A blindingly bright light was recessed into the ceiling, behind thick glass. When the guards left, Deedes attempted to sit, with his back against the damp-slimed wall. But they saw him through the peep-hole in the door and came back in and made him stand again. And kept on doing so, every time he slumped down. When, eventually, his legs collapsed through sheer exhaustion, they came in with a hose and drenched him with freezing water which soaked his clothes so he became colder still and was convulsed with shivering. Deedes lost any estimation of time. He began to hallucinate. Once he imagined that Elizabeth was in the cell with him and began a slurred conversation with her. On another occasion he found himself singing. He lost count of the times he fell down and had the hose turned on him until he stood. Finally the guards let him lie where he was but stayed permanently in the cell then, a changing procession of them, shaking and prodding him awake every time he closed his eyes.

Guards had to walk either side, supporting him, when he was taken back to the interrogation room, and he was so disoriented that he watched the man's lips moving but couldn't hear the words. He strained to concentrate, to listen.

‘Why are you in Moscow?' said the man.

‘Nothing to say,' mumbled Deedes.

‘You foolish man.'

How long would Deedes hold out, wondered the Director General. He was a strong man, very fit, and there was extensive training at the spy schools on resisting interrogation. It had been a week since the message from Pugh reporting the seizure: every day he'd watched and listened at the Factory, for the panic he hoped would tell him there'd been a warning from Moscow to the traitor, but there'd been nothing.

‘You're quiet.'

Bell looked across the restaurant table at Ann. He said: ‘I'm sorry. I was thinking.'

‘About Deedes?' Like everyone else at the Factory his personal assistant knew about the seizure but not why the man had been sacrificed.

‘Yes,' said Bell.

‘They'll have to let him go, eventually, won't they?' she said. ‘He wasn't carrying anything incriminating, was he?'

‘I hope not,' said Bell.

‘Why did you send him to Moscow?'

‘He was going to pick something up,' said the Director General, continuing the lie. Until he'd uncovered the spy in the department he couldn't even trust Ann.

The prick of the needle going into his arm woke Deedes, who realized at once why they'd let him sleep, to make the injection possible. He struggled, trying to get his arm away from the hypodermic, but they'd bound him while he slept and he couldn't prevent it: whatever the drug was it burned as it was pumped into him.

He felt it start to take effect as he was marched to the interview room. The burning sensation worsened, as if his flesh were being exposed to great heat, and he felt a roaring in his ears, making them ache. Then a strange optical illusion began. Objects like cell doors and windows and light bulbs grew hugely in his vision but then, just as abruptly, receded to become very small before growing again, crowding in upon him. Deedes cried out in fear and had the impression of falling, which he would have done if he had not snatched out, grabbing the arm of one of his escorts for support.

By the time he was confronted by the interrogator the sensation of falling had increased and he stood with his hands half raised in front of him, to protect himself when he hit the ground. Oddly, he didn't fall after all.

‘You're a spy, aren't you?' said the man at once. It had been the beginning of every exchange between them.

‘No,' slurred Deedes. He had to admit nothing, concede nothing.

‘Why did you come to Moscow?'

‘I came to …' started Deedes, to repeat his cover story, but the table and the questioner behind it suddenly grew grotesquely, to monstrous size, and he couldn't remember what the cover story was any more.

‘What was your mission?'

Pain. He needed physical pain to force his concentration, Deedes decided. He couldn't think of what to do and then caught the inside of his lip between his teeth and bit, hard.

‘Tell me what your assignment was.'

Deedes tasted the salt of his own blood but there wasn't the pain there should have been and he couldn't block the man's words out of his mind.

‘You came to spy, didn't you?'

‘Not a spy.'

‘Your headquarters is known as the Factory, isn't it?'

‘Don't know any factory.'

‘Your deputy director is named Thurlow, isn't he?'

Deedes' teeth met through his lip, which was completely numbed and didn't hurt at all any more. He shifted the pressure to another part, biting again.

‘Were you to meet somebody here? Was that it?'

‘Came to the embassy …' managed Deedes, but couldn't complete the sentence.

‘Why did you come to the embassy?'

‘Needed to.'

‘Did Bell, your Director General, brief you personally?'

‘Don't know.'

The interrogator shifted impatiently, looking behind Deedes. To one of the escorting guards he said: ‘How much was he given?'

‘The maximum dose,' said the guard.

‘It's not working.'

Beating them, thought Deedes in a brief moment of lucidity. He was beating them. His body felt as if he were on fire and his ears hurt badly from the roaring noise and he wondered how it was being made to happen.

‘Listen to me,' ordered the interrogator. ‘Why were you in Moscow?'

‘Meet,' said Deedes. Had he said that? Had to stop. Had to … His mind wouldn't hold the thought and he couldn't think of what he had or had not to do.

‘Yes,' said the man eagerly. ‘Who were you going to meet?'

‘No one.' That was better. Admit nothing, say nothing.

‘Yes you were. You were going to meet someone. Who were you going to meet? Tell me a name.'

‘Don't know.' Careful: shouldn't have said that.

‘You didn't know the person you were going to meet?'

‘No.'

‘How was it to happen?'

‘Walking.'

‘Walking by St Basil's Cathedral?'

‘Don't …' Deedes tried to shake his head but felt immediately dizzy, so he stopped.

‘Tell me where you had to walk?'

‘Cathedral.' No harm. They'd known he was there: that's where they'd picked him up.

‘You had to walk to the cathedral: that's where you were going to meet?'

‘Yes.' No! He shouldn't have said that. Stupid. He had to stop conceding things. If only he hadn't felt so hot: if his head hadn't hurt so much. Couldn't think straight. Why was the man so big? Huge. Coming at him, hugely.

‘Who was it, this person you had to meet?'

‘Don't know.'

‘But they knew you?' guessed the questioner.

‘Yes.' What had he said? Deedes knew he'd spoken but couldn't remember what it was the moment the words were out.

‘What were they going to give you?'

‘Name.' He was going to fall over: he knew he was! Deedes cried out and put his hands further out in front of him.

‘What name?' said the man. ‘The name of a person or a place?'

‘Person.' Couldn't cause any harm: didn't know the name anyway.

‘Was it an important name?'

‘Course it was.' Silly question, Deedes thought.