Neither in the photographs nor the books did Miss Tuckey make the least attempt to hide her interest in irregular warfare, but upon reflection, why should she? She had impressed on them at the Fort that the more people who knew the rules of secret war, the more would be good at it. She wanted a country ready to rise, invisibly, in arms. The books included Orlov, Che Guevara, the IRA handbook, M. R. D. Foot, Miksche, three by Miss Tuckey herself… Maxim took down a small American paperback about ambushing semi-armoured cars; it was remarkably frank stuff "The trouble is, most of our best people didn't write books." He realised she was talking to him. "They were terribly dedicated, the moment the war was over-or they thought it was-they threw themselves into making the peace work. Became teachers, missionaries, New Town planners, they believed in things. You really had to; it got too lonely otherwise " She coughed heartily and sat down opposite George "Let me say this," she began carefully; "that I cannot see, from these incidents and anything I've noticed for myself, that there is anydéstabilisationcampaign directed against the government. If anything is going on, it's directed against one aspect of government policy, relations with the Soviets and the Warsaw Pact countries. It may be even narrower than that "Normally, one only wants to change one or two aspects of a government's policy, but one attacks on the broadest front possible Suggest that its health programme lets babies die, that its ministers are building beach-houses with money diverted from slum clearance, that its generals buy too many tanks that they can't maintain. Now, all these things may be true-they often are-but one really only cares that the government is getting too cosy with Moscow or, from the other side, Washington. But you launch your covert attacks on all these other points because everybody knows that babies and slum clearance are good, beach-houses and tanks bad-people who may have only the haziest idea of where Moscow and Washington are or what they mean And of course, this has the added advantage of concealing your true reason for wanting that government overthrown.
"That is very important The objective of a Resistance movement is plain You try to keep its members secret, but want everybody to believe that they're lurking behind every door A déstabilisationcampaign has its best chance if it cannot be proven that it is going on at all Am I really telling you anything new, Mr Harbinger'"
George smiled reflexively "You're putting it with, shall I say?-rather more honesty than one usually finds in this field. How does this apply to this present situation? Is there a present situation?"
With obvious reluctance, Miss Tuckey shuffled the papers into two piles. "Don't you have computers for just this sort of thing' Analysing events and finding patterns?"
"Oh yes: you wait six months for somebody to write it a programme, feed in the data and quick as a flash you have a gas bill for a million pounds and twopence."
Miss Tuckey grinned and held out the two clutches of paper "Those I think back up your theory; these 1 rather doubt."
George flicked through the Yes pile. "You've decided in favour of the Reznichenko Memorandum, then."
"Well, you know, Moscow really ought to be able to get money into organisations more subtly than that-but that's the one thing they can't say in their own defence. It would have needed some professional skills, and some inside knowledge of Lord Ettington's behaviour which I don't have. Perhaps you do."
George just smiled at that. "And the shooting at the Abbey."
"Well… when somebody takes the trouble-and skill -to get past a security cordon and fires off a rifle at, what would it be?-forty yards?"
"Nearer thirty," Maxim said.
"And hits somebody in the heart, then I'm bound to wonder if he didn't intend to do that all along. I think I was talking about that up at the Fort."
Maxim nodded.
"And the KGB should be able to do better, just as with the Reznichenko Memorandum. But-and everybody goes around saying that the press always gets the facts wrong-here the facts were a Russian rifle, grenade and the telephone numbers. Those facts weren't wrong, though I'm pretty sure the inference was You have the KGB looking very active at a time when, I would have thought, it would be trying to stay out of the limelight-in this country, at least. But a lot of people in a lot of pubs are going to be saying. But if they didn't actually arrange it, they must have given them the weapons and telephone numbers. It was a good smear."
George shuffled the papers for a moment. "But you don't think they tried to smear the KGB by planting that story about the Archbishop and the choirboys?"
"Because that made the KGB look clumsy-in our sophisticated eyes? No, it's another example of what I've been saying. A lot of European, Catholic, peasants are sitting around in theircaféssaying they could well believe it of a leader of a Church which, to them, is a heresy. On the balance of trade, Mr Harbinger, I think the KGB would count that a successful smear. And how do you penetrate the KGB's disinformation line? I doubt if even our friends at Langley could pull that off."
George grunted and shuffled on. "But you accept that somebody could have been behind Westerman's performance at the Church House disarmament conference?"
"You chose all these examples," Miss Tuckey pointed out. "All I'd say there is that it's no great trick to make a man seem drunk if you know he'll take a drink before going on to the platform. You need access to his drink -but it was presumably in a crowded room-and a little chemistry, but one man in the right place could do it."
"It was a great show," George remembered, chuckling. "I heard a private tape of it. One felt he rather lost the Methodist vote when he called the Bishops a bunch of limp old pricks… I do apologise."
But Miss Tuckey rocked with laughter. Maxim had expected her to wobble-she had enough figure for it-but she must have been very tightly corseted.
George put the papers face down on the sofa, so Maxim gave up the attempt to read over his shoulder and gazed across at another collection of photographs on the opposite wall.
"So," George said; "on the balance of this trade…?"
"Oh Lord." Miss Tuckey slumped back and fingered her pursed lips. "We have two prominent anti-NATO campaigners made to look like traitors or fools, two apparent instances of the KGB interfering clumsily in our affairs… all a bit fortuitous. Yes, I have to say there's something going on, but…"
"But?"
"It's all very small-scale. A true, broad-frontdéstabilisationcampaign would take a lot of men, money and organisation. Even if you limited it to undermining the government's soft policy on Russia in Europe, I'd still expect a back-up of pro-NATO articles planted in the press, lecturers offering their services free on the circuit (and nobody's approached me), nasty rumours about our ministers floated in the Continental papers… all needing a lot of organisation, a lot of money."
"Like Charlie India Alpha."
"Indeed. The CIA's the only people who could take it on-and it's the only way that they'd do it. They do throw money and men at a problem. But that suggests to me that they aren't behind this. Perhaps thirty years ago, when they were just getting started with the old wartime OSS people and not much funding… Oh, but not now. Anyway, we keep talking about the right people in the right places. Those would all have to be British, just to have the access."
"These people don't sound like a bunch of amateurs."
"No, there's some training and knowledge there, and they have the right toys: Russian typewriter, rifle, grenade and so on. But no back-up to broaden the attack." She lit a cigarette and blew a blast of smoke towards the ceiling beams. "Tell me, Mr Harbinger, do you think these people are winning?"
George went very still except for a perplexed blinking. "No-o… from where I stand I don't think they've influenced the Cabinet in any significant way, not on its policy towards Russia…"