'Alas,' said von Munte, holding up his hand to decline. 'I cannot afford your doctor. I must keep to one a week.'
I lit the cigar Silas had given me. It was typical of him that he had to select what he thought suitable for us. He had well-defined ideas about what everyone should have and what they shouldn't have. For anyone who called him a 'fascist' – and there were plenty who did -he had the perfect response: scars from Gestapo bullets.
'What do you want to ask me, Bernard?' said von Munte.
I got the cigar going and then I said, 'Ever hear of martello, harry, jake, see-saw or IRONFOOT?' I'd put in a few extra names as a means of control.
'What kind of names are these?' said von Munte. 'People?'
'Agents. Code names. Russian agents operating out of the United Kingdom.'
'Recently?'
'It looks as if one of them was used by my wife.'
'Yes, recently. I see.' Von Munte sipped his port. He was old-fashioned enough to be embarrassed at the mention of my wife and her spying. He shifted his weight on the wicker seat and the movement produced a loud creaking sound.
'Did you ever come across those names?' I asked.
'It was not the policy to let my people have access to such secrets as the code names of agents.'
'Not even source names?' I persisted. 'These are probably not agent names; they're the code names used in messages and for distribution. No real risk there, and the material from any one source keeps its name until identified and measured and pronounced upon. That's the KGB system and our system too.'
I glanced round at Silas. He was examining one of his plants, his head turned away as if he weren't listening. But he was listening all right; listening and remembering every last syllable of what was being said. I knew him of old.
'Source names. Yes, martello sounds familiar,' said von Munte. 'Perhaps the others too, I can't remember.'
'Two names used by one agent at the same time,' I said.
'That would be unprecedented,' said von Munte. He was loosening up now. 'Two names, no. How would we ever keep track of our material?'
'That's what I thought,' I said.
This was from the woman arrested in Berlin?' said Silas suddenly. He dropped the pretence of looking at his plants. 'I heard about that.' Silas always knew what was happening. In earlier days, while the D-G had been settling in, he'd even asked Silas to monitor some of the operations. Nowadays Silas and the D-G kept in touch. It would be foolish of me to imagine that this conversation would not get back to the Department.
'Yes, the woman in Berlin,' I said.
Walter von Munte touched his stiff white collar. 'I was never allowed to know any secrets. They gave me only what they thought I should have.'
I said, 'Like Silas distributing his food and cigars, you mean?' I kept wishing that Silas would depart and leave me and von Munte to have the conversation I wanted. But that was not Silas's way. Information was his stock in trade, it always had been, and he knew how to use it to his own advantage. That's why he'd survived so long in the Department.
'Not as generously as Silas,' said von Munte. He smiled and drank some of the Madeira and then shifted about, deciding how to explain it all. 'The bank's intelligence staff went over to the Warschauer Strasse office once a week. They would have all the new material in trays waiting for us. Old Mr Heine was in charge there. He'd produce for us each item according to subject.'
'Raw?' I said.
'Raw?' said von Munte. 'What does that mean?'
'Did they tell you what the agent said or did they merely tell you the content of his message?'
'Oh, the messages were edited, but otherwise as received. They had to be; the staff handling the material didn't know enough about economics to understand what it was about.'
'But you identified different sources?' I asked yet again.
'Sometimes we could, sometimes that was easy. Some of it was total rubbish.'
'From different agents?' I persisted. My God, but it was agony to deal with old people. Would I be like this one day?
'Some of their agents sent only rumours. There was one who never provided a word of good sense. They called him "Grock". That wasn't his code name or his source name; it was our joke. We called him "Grock", after the famous clown, of course.'
'Yes,' I said. But I'm glad von Munte had told me it was a joke; that gave me the cue to laugh. 'What about the good sources?' I said.
'You could recognize them from the quality of their intelligence and from the style in which it was presented.' He sat back in his chair. 'Perhaps I should explain what it was like in the Warschauer Strasse office. It wasn't our office. It is supposed to be an office belonging to Aeroflot, but there are always police and security guards on the door, and our passes were carefully scrutinized no matter how often we visited there. I don't know who else uses the building, but the economic intelligence staff met there regularly, as I said.'
'And you were included in "economic intelligence staff'?"
'Certainly not. They were all KGB and security people. My superior was only invited to attend when there was something directly affecting our department. Other bank officials and Ministry people came according to what was to be discussed.'
'Why didn't the briefing take place at the KGB offices?' I asked. Silas was sitting upright on his metal chair, his eyes closed as if he were dozing off to sleep.
'The Warschauer Strasse office was – perhaps I should say is – used at arm's length by the KGB. When some Party official or some exalted visitor has enough influence to be permitted to visit the KGB installation in Berlin, they are invariably taken to Warschauer Strasse rather than to Karlshorst.'
'It's used as a front?' said Silas opening his eyes and blinking as if suddenly coming awake from a deep slumber.
'They wouldn't want visitors tramping through the offices where the real work was being done. And Warschauer Strasse has a kitchen and dining room where such dignitaries can be entertained. Also there is a small lecture hall where they can see slide shows and demonstration films and so on. We liked going over there. Even the coffee and sandwiches served were far better than anything available elsewhere.'
'You said you could tell the source from the quality and the style. Could you enlarge on that?' I asked.
'Some communications would begin an item with a phrase such as "I hear that the Bank of England" or whatever. Others would say, "Last week the Treasury issued a confidential statement." Others might put it, "Fears of an imminent drop in American interest rates are likely to bring…". These different styles are virtually sufficient for identification, but correlated with the proved quality of certain sources, we were soon able to recognize the agents. We spoke of them as people and joked about the nonsense that certain of them sometimes passed on to us.'
'So you must have recognized the first-class material that my wife was providing.'
Von Munte looked at me and then at Silas. Silas said, 'Is this official, Bernard?' There was a note of warning in his voice.
'Not yet,' I said.
'We're sailing a bit close to the wind for chitchat,' Silas said. The choice of casual words, and the softness of his voice, did nothing to hide the authority behind what he said; on the contrary, it was the manner in which certain classes of Englishmen give orders to their subordinates. I said nothing and von Munte watched Silas carefully. Then Silas drew on his cigar reflectively and, having taken his time, said, 'Tell him whatever you know, Walter.'