With just days to go before Natalia’s arrival, Charlie had his hair cut and bought two new shirts and a new tie and briefly considered – and rejected – new shoes, and alternated his two suits so that he could have both cleaned and pressed.
And then, finally, Charlie decided he was ready: there was nothing left to be done that he hadn’t already done. All he could do now was wait. He admitted to himself that he was nervous: more nervous than he could remember being on a lot of past assignments, which was virtually how he was regarding this, an assignment. He had some idea, from the photographs, but he still wondered if Natalia would be the same when he saw her again for the first time.
Throughout all the preparations, the Soviet observers maintained their twenty-four-hour watch.
At its most basic a number-for-letter code transliterates directly the letter of an alphabet for its corresponding number, in the case of English the letter A represented by the figure one and running consecutively through to Z, which is twenty-six. There are, however, mathematical variations which can be introduced to make unravelling the cipher difficult – and hopefully impossible – for the codebreakers. If the sender and recipient agree in advance to use a variable of two, for instance, then the transliteration can range over five choices of letter: the intended letter and two either side. It can be further complicated by changing the variable from day to day, from odd to even numbers. And compounded by mixing two languages, English with Russian for example: in Cyrillic Russian there is no easy equivalent for H or J but there are two possible inflections for the letter K.
Having purposely provided the British with what he wanted them to recognize as a number-for-letter code Berenkov had the KGB Technical Division introduce random variations established in advance by a translation key sent to the London embassy in the diplomatic bag.
The intention remained always for the interceptors eventually to be able to read the messages, whatever the variation, but for them to believe the more difficult changes indicated an increasing importance of the contents.
Which was precisely what happened.
The transmission from Moscow on the day Krogh arrived in London was a mixture of English and Russian and had a variable range rising from one to four. It was to take the codebreakers a week to comprehend it and when he received it Richard Harkness ranked it as the most important interception and translation so far made.
It said: REACTIVATE PAYMASTER BY ONE THOUSAND.
He hurried Hubert Witherspoon to the ninth floor.
29
Emil Krogh felt better. Not well and certainly not relaxed but there was no longer the impression that the ground was yielding beneath his feet when he walked, and he could think clearly and logically. The sleep had a lot to do with it, he guessed. And he had slept, soundly and dreamlessly – a combination, he supposed, of Petrin’s tranquillizers and utter exhaustion. He’d awoken ravenously hungry and eaten a large breakfast without any aftermath of nausea, and minutes after he settled into his train compartment at Waterloo he was aware of the Russian slowly passing along the platform outside. The man appeared to be by himself, although Krogh knew that not to be the case, and did not look in to where he was sitting. Krogh wished he hadn’t had the relief at knowing of Petrin’s presence, because he recognized it as a reaction of weakness to have about a man who had inveigled him and was treating him as Petrin was. He just couldn’t help it.
The train was on schedule but Krogh could not see Petrin when he got off at Southampton, not even during the three or four minutes he had to wait in the taxi queue. There was a flicker of alarm, which the American regretted as much as the earlier sensation of relief, but he forced himself on. At the hydrofoil terminal he saw Petrin get from a taxi, still alone, two vehicles behind him. Krogh went to the front on the hydrofoil and Petrin to the rear, so they were separated by the central driving platform and control cockpit, and when they disembarked at Cowes again there was no sign of the Russian.
There was a chauffeur-driven limousine waiting for him as promised on the taxi-packed jetty and when Krogh’s approach to it became obvious a haphazardly dressed man with fly-away white hair came forward and introduced himself as Robert Springley. They shook hands and parroted how pleased they were to meet each other and on the way to the chain ferry Springley said that with the imposed traffic detour it was as quick to walk but they’d thought a car was more convenient. Throughout the journey to the factory the project chief maintained the conversation, hoping Krogh was not too jetlagged and was this his first time in England and how was he enjoying it. Krogh only had to respond minimally to keep up his side of the exchange.
At the factory gate, with Springley apologizing in advance, they had to get out of the car to go through the security formalities of signing Krogh in and getting him a temporary authority badge, and for the first time Krogh felt the briefest dip of apprehension. It was here, for the first time, that Springley referred to the Star Wars project. Still apologizing, Springley said they had tightened security since being awarded the contract and Krogh said the precaution was essential, surprised how level his voice was as he mouthed the hypocrisy.
‘Everyone’s waiting in the boardroom,’ announced Springley.
‘Everyone?’
Springley was walking slightly ahead of him so the man was unaware of Krogh’s frown. The project chief said: ‘The chairman, managing director. Most of the other directors and the senior people in the project team.’
Krogh supposed he should have anticipated a social situation but stupidly – preoccupied, he excused himself – he hadn’t. Confronting the thought for the first time Krogh conceded he hadn’t known what to expect, at all, apart from some half-formed idea of being with Springley and getting to the drawings. There was nothing he could do but go along with whatever they had laid on. Krogh hoped it wouldn’t last long. Although he hadn’t prepared himself with expectations there was one positive intention: Krogh wanted to get it over with, in the same urgency with which he’d wanted to finish what the Russians had forced him to do with the material from his own plant. He said: ‘We will get around to seeing the actual work, won’t we?’
‘Sure,’ said Springley, vaguely.
The boardroom was on the top floor of the main, three-storey building, a pleasantly large room glassed on two sides for a panoramic view of the river and the yacht moorings at its mouth. Inside the room the elongated conference table had been moved to one side and some chairs removed, to enable more standing room, and Krogh guessed the two smaller tables, one for the canapés, another for an array of drinks, were an addition to the usual furniture. Krogh later put the number at about eight but his first impression on entering the room was that a crowed of people awaited him. He succeeded in getting the chairman’s name as John Bishop and that of the managing director as James Spear or Dear but after that the introductions were too quick and the identities blurred. Krogh accepted a scotch and soda, needing it, but declined the frequently offered snacks because there was a faint suggestion of sickness. The conversation began almost as aimlessly general as it had been with the project leader on the way from the hydrofoil terminal, but then a positive direction did start to emerge, initiated by the chairman. Bishop talked of his company’s awareness of the importance of the shared contract and the managing director, whose name turned out to be Spear, picked up the theme and smiled anxiously and said they hoped it became not only entirely satisfactory but the beginning of a long and mutually beneficial association. And Krogh realized that Petrin’s surmise the previous day, that the British firm saw him as an essential conduit for further American defence contracts, was correct.