The Human Factor Part 3

'Oh yes, fis.h.i.+ng's your game, isn't it? Well, you might say we've got a bit of fis.h.i.+ng on hand now.' He cracked a log with his poker. 'Useless,' he said, 'but I love to see the sparks fly. There seems to be a leak somewhere in Section 6.

Percival said, 'At home or in the field?'

'I'm not sure, but I have a nasty feeling that it's here at home. In one of the African sections-6A.'

'I've just finished going through Section 6,' Daintry said. 'Only a routine run through. So as to get to know people.'

'Yes, so they told me. That's why I asked you to come here. Enjoyed having you for the shoot too, of course. Did anything strike you?'

'Security's got a hit slack. But that's true of all other sections too. I made a rough check for example of what people take out in their briefcases at lunchtime. Nothing serious, but I was surprised at the number of briefcases... It's a warning, that's all, of course. But a warning might scare a nervous man. We can't very well ask them to strip.'

'They do that in the diamond fields, but I agree that in the West End stripping would seem a bit unusual.'

'Anyone really out of order?' Percival asked.

'Not seriously. Davis in 6A was carrying a report- said he wanted to read it over lunch. I warned him, of course, and made him leave it behind with Brigadier Tomlinson. I've gone through all the traces too. Vetting has been done very efficiently since the Blake case broke, but we still have a few men who were with us in the bad old days. Some of them even go back as far as Burgess and Maclean. We could start tracing them all over again, but it's difficult to pick up a cold scent.'

'It's possible, of course, just possible,' C said, 'that the leak came from abroad and that the evidence has been planted here. They would like to disrupt us, damage morale and hurt us with the Americans. The knowledge that there was a leak, if it became public, could be more damaging than the leak itself.'

'That's what I was thinking,' Percival said. 'Questions in Parliament. All the old names thrown up Va.s.sal', the Portland affair, Philby. But if they're after publicity, there's little we can do.'

'I suppose a Royal Commission would be appointed to shut the stable door,' Hargreaves said. 'But let's a.s.sume for a moment that they are really after information and not scandal. Section 6 seems a most unlikely department for that. There are no atomic secrets in Africa: guerrillas, tribal wars, mercenaries, petty dictators, crop failures, building scandals, gold beds, nothing very secret there. That's why I wonder whether the motive may be simply scandal, to prove they have penetrated the British Secret Service yet again.'

'Is it an important leak, C?' Percival asked.

'Call it a very small drip, mainly economic, but the interesting thing is that apart from economics it concerns the Chinese. Isn't it possible-the Russians are such novices in Africa-that they want to make use of our service for information on the Chinese?'

'There's precious little they can learn from us,' Percival said.

'But you know what it's always like at everybody's Centre. One thing no one can ever stand there is a blank white card.'

'Why don't we send them carbon copies, with our compliments, of what we send the Americans? There's supposed to be a detente, isn't there? Save everyone a lot of trouble.' Percival took a little tube from his pocket and sprayed his gla.s.ses, then wiped them with a clean white handkerchief.

'Help yourself to the whisky,' C said. 'I'm too stiff to move after that b.l.o.o.d.y shoot. Any ideas, Daintry?'

'Most of the people in Section 6 are post-Blake. If their traces are unreliable then no one is safe.'

'All the same, the source seems to be Section 6- and probably 6A. Either at home or abroad.'

'The head of Section 6, Watson, is a relative newcomer,' Daintry said. 'He was very thoroughly vetted. Then there's Castle he's been with us a very long time, we brought him back from Pretoria seven years ago because they needed him in 6A, and there were personal reasons too-trouble about the girl he wanted to marry. Of course, he belongs to the slack vetting days, but I'd say he was clear. Dullish man, first-cla.s.s, of course, with files-it's generally the brilliant and ambitious who are dangerous. Castle is safely married, second time, his first wife's dead. There's one child, a house on mortgage in Metroland. Life insurance payments up to date. No high living. He doesn't even run to a car. I believe he bicycles every day to the station. A third cla.s.s in history at the House. Careful and scrupulous. Roger Castle in the Treasury is his cousin.'

'You think he's quite clear then?'

'He has his eccentricities, but I wouldn't say dangerous ones. For instance he suggested I bring those Maltesers to Lady Hargreaves.'

'Maltesers?'

'It's a long story. I won't bother you with it now. And then there's Davis. I don't know that I'm quite so happy about Davis, in spite of the positive vetting.'

'Pour me out another whisky, would you, Percival, there's a good chap. Every year I say it's my last shoot.'

'But those steak-and-kidney pies of your wife's are wonderful. I wouldn't miss them,' Percival said.

'I daresay we could find another excuse for them.'

'You could try putting trout in that stream...'

Daintry again experienced a twitch of envy; once more he felt left out. He had no life in common with his companions in the world outside the borders of security. Even as a gun he felt professional. Percival was said to collect pictures, and C? A whole social existence had been opened up for him by his rich American wife. The steakand-kidney pie was all that Daintry was permitted to share with them outside office hours-for the first and perhaps the last time.

'Tell me more about Davis,' C said.

'Reading University. Mathematics and physics. Did some of his military service at Aldermaston. Never supported anyway openly the marchers. Labour Party, of course.'

'Like forty-five per cent of the population,' C said.

'Yes, yes, of course, but all the same... He's a bachelor. Lives alone. Spends fairly freely. Fond of vintage port. Bets on the tote. That's a cla.s.sic way, of course, of explaining why you can afford...'

'What does he afford? Besides port.'

'Well, he has a Jaguar.'

'So have I,' Percival said. 'I suppose we mustn't ask you how the leak was discovered?'

'I wouldn't have brought you here if I couldn't tell you that. Watson knows, but no one else in Section 6. The source of information is an unusual one-a Soviet defector who remains in place.'

'Could the leak come from Section 6 abroad?' Daintry asked.

'It could, but I doubt it. It's true that one report they had seemed to come direct from Lourenco Marques. It was word for word as 69300 wrote it. Almost like a photostat of the actual report, so one might have thought that the leak was there if it weren't for a few corrections and deletions. Inaccuracies which could only have been spotted here by comparing the report with the files.'

'A secretary?' Percival suggested.

'Daintry began his check with those, didn't you? They are more heavily vetted than anyone. That leaves us Watson, Castle and Davis.'

'A thing that worries me,' Daintry said, 'is that Davis was the one who was taking a report out of the office. One from Pretoria. No apparent importance, but it did have a Chinese angle. He said he wanted to reread it over lunch. He and Castle had got to discuss it later with Watson. I checked the truth of that with Watson.'

'What do you suggest we do?' C asked.

'We could put down a maximum security check with the help of 5 and Special Branch. On everyone in Section 6. Letters, telephone calls, bug flats, watch movements.'

'If things were as simple as that, Daintry, I wouldn't have bothered you to come up here. This is only a second-cla.s.s shoot, and I knew the pheasants would disappoint you.'

Hargreaves lifted his bad leg with both hands and eased it towards the fire. Suppose we did prove Davis to be the culprit-or Castle or Watson. What should we do then?'

'Surely that would be up to the courts,' Daintry said.

'Headlines in the papers. Another trial in camera. No one outside would know how small and unimportant the leaks were. Whoever he is he won't rate forty years like Blake. Perhaps he'll serve ten if the prison's secure.'

'That's not our concern surely.'

'No, Daintry, but I don't enjoy the thought of that trial one little bit. What co-operation can we expect from the Americans afterwards? And then there's our source. I told you, he's still in place. We don't want to blow him as long as he proves useful.'

'In a way,' Percival said, 'it would be better to close our eyes like a complaisant husband. Draft whoever it is to some innocuous department. Forget things.'

'And abet a crime?' Daintry protested.

'Oh, crime,' Percival said and smiled at C like a fellow conspirator. 'We are all committing crimes somewhere, aren't we? It's our job.'

'The trouble is,' C said, 'that the situation is a bit like a rocky marriage. In a marriage, if the lover begins to be bored by the complaisant husband, he can always provoke a scandal. He holds the strong suit. He can choose his own time. I don't want any scandal provoked.'

Daintry hated flippancy. Flippancy was like a secret code of which he didn't possess the book. He had the right to read cables and reports marked Top Secret, but flippancy like this was so secret that he hadn't a clue to its understanding. He said, 'Personally I would resign rather than cover up.' He put down his gla.s.s of whisky so hard that he chipped the crystal. Lady Hargreaves again, he thought. She must have insisted on crystal. He said, 'I'm sorry.'

'Of course you are right, Daintry,' Hargreaves said. 'Never mind the gla.s.s. Please don't think I've brought you all the way up here to persuade you to let things drop, if we have sufficient proof... But a trial isn't necessarily the right answer. The Russians don't usually bring things to a trial with their own people. The trial of Penkovsky gave all of us a great boost in morale, they even exaggerated his importance, just as the CIA did. I still wonder why they held it. I wish I were a chess player. Do you play chess, Daintry?'

'No, bridge is my game.'

'The Russians don't play bridge, or so I understand.' Is that important'

'We are playing games, Daintry, games, all of us. It's important not to take a game too seriously or we may lose it. We have to keep flexible, but it's important, naturally, to play the same game.'

'I'm sorry, sir,' Daintry said, 'I don't understand what you are talking about.'

He was aware that he had drunk too much whisky, and he was aware that C and Percival were deliberately looking away from each other they didn't want to humiliate him. They had heads of stone, he thought, stone.

'Shall we just have one more whisky,' C said, 'or perhaps not. It's been a long wet day. Percival...?' Daintry said, 'I'd like another.'

Percival poured out the drinks. Daintry said, 'I'm sorry to be difficult, but I'd like to get things a little clearer before bed, or I won't sleep.'

'It's really very simple,' C said. 'Put on your maximum security check if you like. It may flush the bird without more trouble. He'll soon realise what's going on if he's guilty, that is. You might think up some kind of test-the old marked fiver technique seldom fails. When we are quite certain he's our man, then it seems to me we will just have to eliminate him. No trial, no publicity. If we can get information about his contacts first, so much the better, but we mustn't risk a public flight and then a press conference in Moscow. An arrest too is out of the question. Granted that he's in Section 6, there's no information he can possibly give which would do as much harm as the scandal of a court case.'

'Elimination?

'You mean...'

'I know that elimination is rather a new thing for us. More in the KGB line or the CIA's. That's why I wanted Percival here to meet you. We may need the help of his science boys. Nothing spectacular. Doctor's certificate. No inquest if it can be avoided. A suicide's only too easy, but then a suicide always means an inquest, and that might lead to a question in the House. Everyone knows now what a "department of the Foreign Office" means. "Was any question of security involved?" You know the kind of thing some back-bencher is sure to ask. And no one ever believes the official answer. Certainly not the Americans.'

'Yes,' Percival said, 'I quite understand. 'He should die quietly, peacefully, without pain too, poor chap. Pain sometimes shows on the face, and there may be relatives to consider. A natural death...'

'It's a bit difficult, I realise, with all the new antibiotics,' C said. 'a.s.suming for the moment that it is Davis, he's a man of only just over forty. In the prime of life.

'I agree. A heart attack might just possibly be arranged. Unless... Does anyone know whether he drinks a lot?'

'You said something about port, didn't you, Daintry?'

'I'm not saying he's guilty,' Daintry said.

'None of us are,' C said. 'We are only taking Davis as a possible example... to help us examine the problem.'

'I'd like to look at his medical history,' Percival said, 'and I'd like to get to know him on some excuse. In a way he would be my patient, wouldn't he? That is to say if...'

'You and Daintry could arrange that somehow together. There's no great hurry. We have to be quite sure he's our man. And now-it's been a long day too many hares and too few pheasants sleep well. Breakfast on a tray. Eggs and bacon? Sausages? Tea or coffee?'

Percival said, 'The works, coffee, bacon, eggs and sausages, if that's all right.'

'Nine o'clock?'

'Nine o'clock.'

'And you, Daintry?'

'Just coffee and toast. Eight o'clock if you don't mind. I can never sleep late and I have a lot of work waiting.'

'You ought to relax more,' C said.

3.

Colonel Daintry was a compulsive shaver. He had shaved already before dinner, but now he went over his chin a second time with his Remington. Then he shook a little dust into the basin and touching it with his fingers felt justified. Afterwards he turned on his electric water-pick. The low buzz was enough to drown the tap on his door, so he was surprised when in the mirror he saw the door swing open and Doctor Percival pa.s.s diffidently in.

'Sorry to disturb you, Daintry.'

'Come in, do. Forgot to pack something? Anything I can lend you?'

'No, no. I just wanted a word before bed. Amusing little gadget, that of yours. Fas.h.i.+onable, too. I suppose it really is better than an ordinary toothbrush?'

'The water gets between the teeth,' Daintry said. 'My dentist recommended it.'

'I always carry a toothpick for that,' Percival said. He took a little red Cartier case out of his pocket. 'Pretty, isn't it? Eighteen carat. My father used it before me.'

'I think this is more hygienic,' Daintry said.

'Oh, I wouldn't be so sure of that. This washes easily. I was a general consultant, you know, Harley Street and all, before I got involved in this show. I don't know why they wanted me-perhaps to sign death certificates.' He trotted around the room, showing an interest in everything. I hope you keep clear of all this fluoride nonsense.' He paused at a photograph which stood in a folding case on the dressing-table. Is this your wife?'

'No. My daughter.'

'Pretty girl.'

'My wife and I are separated.'

'Never married myself,' Percival said. 'To tell you the truth I never had much interest in women. Don't mistake me not in boys either. Now a good trout stream...'

'Know the Aube?'

'No.'