Suez had given him the idea; Eden’s muddled ‘collusion’—they would do it properly this time: a scheme for Moscow which would once and for all bring about a complete Soviet grip on the Middle East: the subversion of the Nasser regime by creating a war for them against Israel, which they would necessarily lose and which would subsequently allow for a massive Soviet military and political build-up in Egypt, which in turn would lead to their virtual control of the country and the other Arab satellites — a position Moscow would never achieve as long as Nasser remained in power.
The steady, honest, loyal Marlow was to be the man who took the fall here, the ‘plant’ who carried the virus, the British agent dealing with Israel, to be unmasked by Egyptian security in Cairo with a secret memorandum, a forged copy of an Israeli Ministry of Defence document from the Chief of Staff General Rabin to General Elazar, Commander Northern Front, outlining details for an advance on the Syrian border — troop dispositions, attack schedules, primary targets — orders, in fact, for an Israeli preemptive strike against Syria.
With a message of this sort, found on a genuine British agent, Nasser would have his MiG’s and Sochi bombers over Tel Aviv within forty-eight hours, and Israel would have shot them out of the sky and been on the canal by the end of the week.
The Moscow Resident’s department in London had had Marlow under surveillance for some time and as soon as he packed his bags for Cairo their plan with him would come into operation: the hidden document which Egyptian Security would “find”—on a tip-off from Moscow.
Williams had chosen Marlow as the carrier of this virus because he had initially agreed to his recruitment into the service, years before, for just such an eventuality as this. Every Intelligence Department needed people like Marlow on hand — men in whom nothing had been invested and whose account could only show a profit when it was closed. And that, after all, was the proper use — the only positive justification — for an intelligence service, Williams thought: to make war for a country that didn’t want one, and couldn’t win it, in order to bring on better times …
Marcus turned away from the window, sat down and stretched himself amiably, easing his muscles, tilting his head back, in a happy cruciform.
“You’re right. There’s no real warning for Edwards in the Yunis plan. It’s reasonable — or as reasonable as some of the other schemes I’ve come across in the files here. It takes time to accustom oneself, that’s all — from the Highland Development Authority to Cairo back alleys — it’s a different sort of intrigue. It was just a thought about Yunis.”
Williams suspected the intrigue was probably identical.
“We’ve all had too many second thoughts. The ones we started with are all right. You can depend on it. Let’s get some coffee. The trolley must be about by now.”
Williams got up, looked into the still empty room next door, and went now to the window, pulling the last bit of curtain back firmly to the edge of the casement. The secretaries were flocking in through the back entrance — Navy Recruitment used the front one — and he looked at the bobbing scarves and heard the click-clack of small feet beating on the concrete like a football rattle and found that he could no longer interpret what his senses told him about the view in any meaningful way. Abruptly, there was no name which he could give to what he saw; the idea that the “things” crossing the car park could be described as “women” or “secretaries” or by any other word was ludicrous. It was like looking at a fork for so long that it lost its identity, its forkiness. It sometimes happened to him, this: it was a rapid sensation, hardly more than seconds, like brief concussion, during which everything lay suspended.
But as soon as he managed to put words back to his vision — “those are the secretaries in scarves and stilettoes arriving for work”—he knew that Marcus was lying. That querulous Scottish logic of his that had eased up so many stones in his department, smashing the insects, had now suddenly disappeared. He had not climbed down in the face of Williams’s explanations about Yunis, he had argued all the way and had then suddenly fallen headlong backwards. He had accepted everything, given up the questions.
“Of course there’s no warning implicit in Edwards’s directions to contact Yunis. Of course not. It was sound thinking, so that he won’t suspect his trip has any other motive …” Marcus might as well have said the words there and then, Williams thought, sitting back, arms triangled behind his head, like someone who has at last seen the light in an argument and taken pleasure in the admission. Williams had been prepared to argue the case for subverting Yunis — as he had done, convincingly, in the face of persistent arguments against the plan for Marcus. He was not now prepared to accept the man’s capitulation. There was something completely out of character in it.
And that was what disturbed Williams: the break in the logic, in the slow precise meanderings which had always before got Marcus out of the maze and into the truth; Marcus had broken off too soon. Now there was a real threat to his own long sense of security in his cover in Holborn; he could feel it, like a proffered knife. He had come to depend so much for his safety on intuition, on the sense which he had developed which monitored every detail of his work and office routine: the low-grade memos and files he was passed and the others he received on a strictly limited circulation: a new secretary in the next office but one, a different messenger in the corridor, a click at the wrong time on an outside calclass="underline" he had come to assess all the minute paraphernalia of his work as a single picture, which he glanced at every hour of the day, and which, if it changed even in the smallest detail, like a degree on a barometer, alerted him like a gun blast. He had been safe for so long; the picture had remained exactly the same for thirty-five years. And now Marcus had turned it upside down, in seconds, while his back was turned.
He knew now that Marcus had finally agreed with him because in some way he had seen the light; he had seen exactly what was going to happen: Edwards was going to give them the slip. He would never get near Cairo — or make contact with Mohammed Yunis; that ridiculous rider to the plan would warn him and he’d run for Moscow long beforehand: Marcus had seen all that. And the next thing Marcus would see, or confirm — how long had he? — days or hours? — was that the man who had carefully rigged this red light for Edwards was himself.
Williams looked out at the last of the girls, a few tall stragglers in silk scarves and twin sets, crossing the rear car park; the “better class” of girl who still lived with Mummy and Daddy in Tunbridge Wells and never made it on time. Marcus was on to him — or dead set in the right direction for him at least; there was no doubt about that. His ordinary senses had failed a minute before, like that passage of time on a train ferry when the carriages pass from one guage to another, but he had come now into full possession of those other senses, every one beyond the fifth — the ones which warned one, at just the right moment, so that even in the most hazy circumstances where logic was useless, one felt impelled towards the right decision …
A woman knocked and came into the room.
“Morning, Rosalie. Two coffees, please. Both with. And sugar.”
He would have to break cover, contact Moscow. There was nothing else for it. It was not Marlow now who had to be dispensed with, it was Marcus. And there weren’t many ways to do that, without inviting more suspicion upon himself. It wasn’t going to be easy. Yet in thinking of Marlow he had the clue already, saw a way out.