Having done so, the head of MI6 was interrupted by the arrival of a large brown envelope, containing information that he had requested especially for this meeting.
Making his apologies, the envelope was opened and the contents scrutinized.
His visitor waited patiently, sipping an extremely pleasant sherry.
Major General Sir Stewart Graham Menzies read through the list carefully, the third time he had done so since the document had arrived on his desk.
It was uncomfortable reading, no matter how many times his eyes passed over it.
“Dear God.”
Suddenly remembering the other man in the room, he passed the document across, something he would never have dreamed of doing only a week previously.
“Sorry, Colin. This is a list of Philby’s commitments and involvements, and this,” he indicated the considerably larger document he had not yet read, “Is his roster and itinerary since 1st February.”
The head of SOE flashed his eyes over the single page summary that screamed nothing but trouble for the Allied cause.
“J-Cip? He’s part of J-Cip? How on earth did that happen?”
“I’ve no idea, Colin, but that could spell disaster for all our intended operations. We need to have a chat with him right now. If he’s talked, then we will find out and warn our leaders that we could be walking into an unmitigated disaster!”
“Either way, we need to have a word in the ear of someone at SHAEF.”
“Indeed. I’ll have a quick chat with Kenneth Strong and let him know that there may be a problem.”
Both men stood, knowing that delay was not in anyone’s best interests.
“Thank you for the sherry, Stewart. I’ll leave you to it, but do let me know if I can help further.”
“Thank you, Colin. I will do.”
Showing the SOE head to the door, Stewart Menzies voiced both their concerns.
“Let us pray that we can avoid a disaster.”
Kim Philby sat at the desk, smoking calmly, his face betraying some amusement at his predicament, or perhaps a confidence in his cause, or in his understanding that the British played by gentlemen’s rules, or perhaps mere bravado.
The hidden observers couldn’t decide which.
The door opened and the main players entered to start a process that, once he saw who confronted him, he had little doubt, would end up not going well for him.
The hidden observers watched his bravado waver.
Sat opposite him were MI6’s main hatchet man and his sidekick, men with a reputation for being quite ruthless in pursuit of the truth.
“Right then, Philby. For now, I’ve no sodding interest in your political motivation. No interest in the whys and wherefores of what you’ve done, so save us all any political justification tosh to excuse your treachery.”
Philby gave nothing away, but was disappointed, as he had been practising the defence of his personal convictions since he had been dragged out of his office and driven off to God knew where some time beforehand.
“I think it’s fair to say that you and I both know that you are in the shit up to your fucking neck. And talking of your neck, we already have enough to slip a noose round it and send you to Hades.”
Schofield and Tester, MI6’s men to call on when ‘wet work’ was the order of the day, stayed silent to let the former’s words burrow home.
The two had been selected very deliberately, Menzies believing that Philby’s knowledge of their reputation would give the proceedings a head start.
In this assumption, he was wholly correct.
Philby was dragged swiftly from his thought process, as Tester cracked his knuckles noisily.
Behind the two-way mirror, Menzies smiled at the theatrical but effective move.
Schofield leant forward.
“So, Philby,” he spat the name out like it was poisonous, “I want to know what you have passed on to your Communist bosses, and we will start with your involvement with J-Cip.”
Philby smiled.
“Sorry, can’t tell you. It’s Top Secret.”
In a blur, Tester moved forward and planted a hard slap directly on the traitor’s left ear.
The pain was excruciating, as the shock wave did damage internally.
Philby yelped and started to shed tears, as much from the shock of being struck as from the pain.
“You can’t do that, you bastards. We don’t do that!”
Schofield laughed.
It wasn’t a pleasant laugh and would have graced a Hammer horror villain’s repertoire.
“You useless piece of shit! No one cares about you. Understand, you fuck? No-one cares about you at all? Your only chance to see the fucking sun again is to sing like a fucking canary on heat.”
He sat back, lit two cigarettes, and passed one to his companion.
“Now, before my agricultural friend decides to hit you hard, I suggest that you tell me what you’ve passed to your masters.”
“This isn’t right. You can’t do this. Ask Sir Stewart. Ask him. He won’t stand for this abhorrence!”
Leaving his observation point, Sir Stewart Menzies entered the interrogation room as if by magic. Schofield and Tester leapt to attention.
“Ah, Philby.”
“Sir Stewart. Help me please. This is all a mistake and I can explain everythi…”
“No mistake, you traitorous swine. None at all. You’ll answer each and every question these men ask you. That’s all that you need to think about right now.”
“But Sir Stewart, this is wrong, so wrong. Now you’ve seen this, you have to stop it…please!”
Menzies leant forward, his nose almost touching Philby’s, the malevolence in his eyes telling the traitor everything he needed to know about his future, should he not talk.
Menzies words reinforced his inner screams.
“Who do you think ordered this, you treacherous scum?”
He let the words sink in and watched as Philby’s eyes betrayed him.
“Listen to me, you worthless piece of shit. You are here because I want you here. Talk and you will live. Hold anything back and my two men here will have no qualms in introducing you to death in a variety of awful ways, and, for the record, they will be acting under my orders.”
Without a further word, the head of MI6 exited the room, climbed the basement stairs and departed from the MI6 safe house, knowing that his men would get all that was needed.
Tester cracked another few fingers and chuckled audibly.
Schofield hawked and spat a gobbet of phlegm straight in Philby’s face.
Philby fell apart.
“Good God man! You tell us this now? Now?”
This was an Eisenhower that Bradley had seen once before, but was an all-new experience to Sir Kenneth Strong.
“It was felt that… I felt that I needed to know exactly what had happened before I brought this to you, Sir.”
Eisenhower lit another cigarette in his anger, the one he had let at the start of Strong’s report still smoking away by his right hand.
“So we could be compromised across the board, Sir Kenneth?”
“Yes we could, Sir, but I take another view.”
Eisenhower and Bradley exchanged glances, and it was Bradley that gave voice to their feelings.
“And how do you get to this view, Sir Kenneth?”
“The wretch Philby was incorporated into J-Cip group on March 16th. We’ve examined his official business and involvements, and there are no cross-overs with anything that could bring him good information on Spectrum or Pantomime, not until the J-Cip involvement.”
The two American officers remained silent and impassive.
“That involvement presented him with a disinformation folder containing the efforts being made to mislead our Soviet enemy. Now, much may be extracted from that, but it would be without proof. Furthermore, we have seen some enemy responses which would indicate that our operation with the French was successful in planting the false file in such a way as they have taken it as fact and moved some forces accordingly.