"What are you going to do?" he asked.
"Oh, I don't know - maybe Australia," I replied.
The wet fenland fields flashed past the car. In the distance I could feel the draw of the Cambridge spires.
"You want to be persuaded to go, don't you?" said Victor after a while.
"I suppose so."
I was morose. I was on the losing side. The Reformation had taken place in British Intelligence. Catholicism had given way to Protestantism. My wars were wars of the past.
"You should go, Peter, get out there to the sun, get better, get fit, let someone else take the strain. You've done the work of three men," said Victor.
The car engine droned.
"Your problem, Peter," he said, "is that you know too many secrets."
---
Abwehr - German Intelligence Service.
ARL - Admiralty Research Laboratory (UK).
ASIO - Australian Security and Intelligence Organization.
ASSA - Armed Services Security Agency (USA).
AWRE - Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (UK).
BSC - British Security Coordination.
CIA - Central Intelligence Agency (USA). Its main function is foreign intelligence and espionage. Known internally as "the Company."
CPGB - Communist Party of Great Britain.
D Branch - Counterespionage Branch of MI5 (UK).
D1 - Head of Russian Counterespionage (D Branch) (UK).
DRPC - Defense Research Policy Committee (UK).
DSI - Defense Scientific Intelligence (UK).
DST - French Counterespionage Service (equivalent to MI5).
EN CLAIR - uncoded.
FBI - Federal Bureau of Investigation (USA). Its main function is domestic counterintelligence.
GC&CS - Government Code and Cipher School (UK).
GCHQ - Government Communications Headquarters (UK).
GKNIIR - Joint organization between the KGB and GRU on scientific and technical intelligence (USSR).
GPU - see OGPU.
GRU - Soviet Military Intelligence.
ISOS - Abwehr hand ciphers broken by British cryptanalysts.
JIC - Joint Intelligence Committee (UK).
KGB - Komitet Gosuderstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee of State Security) (USSR).
MGB - Ministry of State Security (USSR). The forerunner of the KGB.
MI5 - British Security Service. (Formerly Section 5 of Military Intelligence, hence the name, still commonly used.) Roughly equivalent to the American FBI (internal security) but it does perform certain counterintelligence functions overseas. Its main charge is to protect British secrets at home from foreign spies and to prevent domestic sabotage, subversion, and the theft of state secrets.
MI6 - British Secret Intelligence Service. (Formerly Section 6 of Military Intelligence.) A civilian organization with functions resembling those of the American CIA. It is charged with gathering information overseas and other strategic services. Both MI5 and MI6 are controlled by the Joint Intelligence Committee.
NKVD - A forerunner of the KGB (USSR).
NSA - National Security Agency (USA).
OGPU - A forerunner of the KGB (USSR)
OSS - Office of Strategic Services (USA). The wartime forerunner of the CIA.
PF - Personal File (in the MI5 Registry).
RCMP - Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
RNSS - Royal Naval Scientific Service (UK).
ROC - Radiations Operations Committee (UK).
RSS - Radio Security Service (UK).
SDECE - French Secret Intelligence Service (equivalent to MI6).
SERL - Services Electronics Research Laboratory (UK).
SF - Special Facility. A phone-tapping device.
SIME - Security Intelligence Middle East (UK).
SIS - MI6.
Traffic - Morse, telegraph, or radio communications signals containing genuine messages.
UB - Polish Intelligence Service.
Watchers - Officers of MI5's A Branch charged with visual surveillance and identification of persons presenting a security risk.
Whitehall - A street in London where the principal government offices are situated. Used to signify the civil service or the bureaucracy.