He stepped out into an echoing concrete corridor. He waved his ID quickly at the duty security officer opposite the doors of the lift. The man nodded, even smiled briefly. Shelley was known, Shelley was senior…
The refrain ran in his head like a mocking jingle. Shelley was recognisable to everyone at Century House, Shelley was a coming man, Shelley was known, Shelley was senior, senior, senior…
Known came back at him out of the darkness in his head. It was easy to get into Registry, easy to fulfil Massinger's request. And easy for others to remember he was there, what he wanted.
A second duty officer, then the doors opened automatically to admit him.
The cavern of Registry retreated before him, the strip-lighting in the ceiling shedding a dusty light. There was a musty, underground chill to the place, too, despite the efficient heating. Registry was a sterile, low-ceilinged library, even a cathedral nave. The confessionals of partitioned booths lay to his left, each of them containing a microfiche viewer and a VDU terminal with access to the main computer files. It was a place to which Aubrey very rarely came; he dispatched emissaries if he required files, digests, or information. Shelley shivered with his own nervousness. The place repelled him, too, at that moment.
Registry retreated into shadows where rows of ceiling-high metal shelves held the hundreds of thousands of low-grade files that had not yet been sifted for transfer to computer tape or for shredding. The place was almost deserted. He showed his identification at the desk, and the clerk gestured towards an empty booth. Shelley hurried to it like a man on whom it had suddenly begun to rain.
The VDU screen was blank and coated with a film of dust. Shelley's fingers touched it reluctantly. He sat down in front of it, and switched on. Immediately, a request for his security classification and identity code appeared on the screen. His hands poised over the keyboard. Once he tapped out his code and identity, he was logged into the computer. On record, for anyone who looked to see, would be his name, the date, the files he had asked for. He had thought of disguising his request, approaching the information regarding the Vienna Rezident obliquely. Hurriedly, he identified himself, and a few moments later the screen accepted him with its permission to proceed.
He could still postpone, or avoid, identifying himself with any particular file, any area of information. He cleared his throat; a weak, dry little noise.
Garden swing, daughter passing through a white beam of sunlight, haloed… Aubrey on the rack… Hyde at risk… collusion—
He looked at the ways of escape — Reset key, Control key, Escape key; the ways out.
The screen cleared, and then the request for his orders tiptoed across the screen again.
Why do it? Why even be here? The commuter train is waiting — get on it, retreat to Surrey. Did Massinger have the nerve to go through with this? Wouldn't he be left, Joe Muggins, holding the baby or caught with his trousers down when the lights went on? Why be there at all?
Massinger, he understood, had been drawn back to the secret life. There was something beyond friendship towards Aubrey or a concern with truth. Another junkie of the secret life, as Hyde had once described it to Aubrey, who had pursed his lips in disownment of the colloquial epithet. Massinger, Hyde, Aubrey, most of all… and himself. Junkies. Secrets direct into the vein; pure, uncut, as Hyde had said. Yes…
It was simple to explain his being there. The smell and taste and touch of a secret. The passion that swept away reason, caution, nerves, sometimes even self.
Shelley typed in his request with eager fingers. First, the general code. Visitors. Then the more precise identification, KGB. Then, London. Then Home Base to identify the Soviet Embassy. Finally, Team Manager to identify the Rezident, Pavel Koslov. Then he typed in the request for All Information — Digest.
The screen went blank for a moment, then began spilling its information in a green water fall. Age, place of birth, education, training — Shelley watched the past unroll with indifference. The VDU screen filled and emptied, filled and emptied again and again like a glass bowl, with green, luminous water.
The years fled — early postings, successes, contacts — Paris, Cairo, Baghdad, Washington. Each place had its appropriate reference number for extracting the full files on each period of operational residence.
Vienna—
Shelley looked at his watch after he had stopped the progress of the information. Then he entered the request for the full Vienna file. It was a childish precaution; someone enquiring into Shelley's logged use of the computer, however, might just be put off by the London Rezident's idem and look no further. Now, he had jumped sideways, into Vienna Station's records.
He was aware of the clatter of another keyboard in a neighbouring booth, and could not shrug off the sense that he was being checked upon by whoever was operating that second terminal. He shivered. In the distance, the central heating clunked.
Vienna, during Pavel Koslov's period as deputy Rezident. Shelley knew that the current Vienna Rezident, Karel Bayev, had been Koslov's superior during that time, and his friend. He tapped the keys, demanding access to Koslov's biography and record in Vienna. Then, he summoned information on Koslov's relations with his superior, then information on that superior.
Finally, he called for an update on the Vienna Rezident, under contacts with Koslov in recent years. Trips by one to Vienna, the other to London, holidays, meetings throughout eastern Europe…
The information unrolled, cancelled, sprang up again; none of it betrayed what Shelley had hoped for. He summoned surveillance reports by SIS on Koslov and the Rezident in Vienna — as recently as the previous year, a long weekend visit by Koslov.
Women — professional? Reference earlier reports, same woman — ? Yes. Regular visits by the Vienna Rezident, a long-term strictly professional arrangement. A file number was supplied.
Shelley exhaled, inhaled deeply. If someone followed him this far, they would guess. If they took the next step with him, they would know—
And he might kill Hyde and Massinger, because he had found what he wanted, and he knew what they would put into effect on the basis of this information; Massinger's crackpot plan.
He demanded that section of the Vienna Rezident's file dealing with Social/Sexual Contacts, looking once more at his watch. His tension flickered in his mind, short-circuiting him to an image of his wife waiting to serve dinner, and the clock at eight-thirty; it wasn't important, but expressed his desire to leave Registry, get out of the place, finish this.
There it was. The girl's name, address, security check, together with the decision that she could not be used. The Vienna Rezident visited her once a week; a prostitute. No other involvement, no leverage. Payment in US dollars, equivalent to a hundred and fifty pounds sterling. The girl supplied him with nothing but her body and her ersatz passion. Even the sex was uncomplicated. No deviations; no kinks. Sex without strings, sex without danger of compromise.
Shelley memorised the address and the other details, and then pressed the Escape key. He had to force himself to return the screen's interest to Pavel Koslov. His fingers trembled. It was a futile bluff, but it might just confuse a bored officer assigned to keep surveillance on Shelley. The screen supplied information concerning Koslov's relationship with the Vienna Rezident until the section of file was completed.
Shelley logged off and shut down the terminal. He had read none of it, simply sat there until the programme had ended; a man waiting for the end of a previously-seen and not-much-liked film.
He stood up, feeling cramped and chilled. He had to force himself to walk at a leisurely pace past the desk, to nod a goodnight to the clerk, to pass the two duty men in the corridor with a neutral expression on his face, hands thrust casually into his pockets. He felt cold, suppressing an almost feverish shiver until the doors of the lift had closed behind him.