‘Yes, sir,’ said Stuart. ‘In fact, the research office is collecting all references to the Merkers mine-worldwide in all languages.’
‘Are you trying to tell me that we have this damned TV programme material already on record?’
‘Not quite all of it, sir. Research picked it up from their routine scrutiny of police permission for filming. The BBC wants to send a camera crew to get footage of the Foreign Office exterior and interior, for the beginning of their documentary. We asked the FO to request a copy of the treatment before giving permission. They would have got a copy of the script too, as soon as it was completed. That was to be a condition of giving the BBC the permits.’
‘Oh, well,’ said Sir Sydney philosophically. ‘I suppose it’s better that we catch it twice, and find it harmless, than miss it altogether and have a disaster on our hands.’
‘Precisely, sir. Perhaps you underestimate the organization you have yourself created.’
‘Don’t butter me up, Stuart. I can’t abide it.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘How is the interrogation of young Stein going?’
‘He doesn’t seem to know very much, sir. His father probably doesn’t confide in him a great deal.’
The DG nodded. Such paternal secretiveness came as no surprise. He hadn’t discovered the names of his father’s clubs until the old man was almost on his deathbed. What man did confide in his son, he wondered. ‘Nothing at all, eh?’
‘Inference, sir. I think we can rule out this house in which Colonel Pitman lives. Stein says his father told him he’d moved the documents out of there some time ago, and I believe that. Stein senior has a protective attitude towards Colonel Pitman. I think he’d remove such documents simply to make it safer for the colonel.’
‘It sounds extraordinary to me,’ admitted the DG, who could not imagine any of the young men in his department adopting such a protective attitude towards him.
‘I believe it, sir,’ said Stuart. ‘Wherever the documents are, I think that the Pitman house can be eliminated.’
He looked Stuart up and down. ‘Has something happened?’
‘We have a positive identification on the photo, Director.’
‘Start at the beginning,’ said the DG. He sat down on the sofa, stifling a sigh, to convey to Stuart the complexities of his job.
‘The photograph of three men that was found in the safe belonging to Franz Wever,’ said Stuart. ‘It was taken in wartime. One of the men was Franz Wever himself, the second man was Max Breslow. Now we have identified the third person in the photo.’
‘And…?’
‘His name is Wilhelm Hans Kleiber. He made quite a name for himself during the war. We have references to him from the Berlin documents centre. He’s also on RFSS microfilm series T- 175 in the Washington National Archives, and we found him in the Hoover Institution document collection at Stanford University. He was born in a village near Konigsberg, East Prussia. Kleiber joined the army in 1938, became an Abwehr officer and then the SS took him into the RSHA as they took over all the intelligence services. He was taken into the Gehlen organization when it got going again after the war.’
‘A dedicated fellow,’ said the DG bitterly, but there was a trace of respect in the irony.
‘A cynic perhaps,’ said Stuart. ‘A mercenary.’
‘Consistently anti-Communist, isn’t he?’ said the DG. Before Stuart could answer, he asked, ‘Still alive then?’
‘Very much alive,’ said Stuart. ‘Resident in Munich, at least that seems to be where he pays his tax. He is the senior partner of a security company. They own a small fleet of armoured cars used to transport bullion and bank notes… for bank and factory payrolls.’
‘What else?’ It was impossible to guess how much the DG really knew.
‘That’s all we have officially, sir.’
The DG smiled. ‘And unofficially, Stuart? Am I to be taken into your confidence about what you’ve learnt unofficially?’ The DG was able to imbue even the friendliest words with a tone of biting sarcasm.
‘He might be a Moscow Centre operative,’ said Stuart.
‘And who has provided us with this alarming scenario?’
‘The collator, sir.’
The DG was taken aback. He had been expecting Stuart to name some junior clerk in the Identity Department, or some long-retired field agent to whom Stuart had indiscreetly mentioned his quest. ‘So the collator says he’s Moscow Centre,’ said the DG thoughtfully. He pulled his nose, ‘Not such an anti-Communist as I thought, eh Stuart?’
‘If there is some sort of war-crimes guilt hanging over Kleiber’s head, the Russians might have used it to blackmail him into working for them.’
‘You read my mind, Stuart. We’ve seen that one before, haven’t we?’
‘We have indeed, sir. Many times.’
‘It’s a tricky one,’ admitted the DG.
‘We are still “red-flagged”,’ said Stuart. ‘No computer read-outs, no police files, no foreigns.’
‘Are you complaining, Stuart?’ He said it mildly.
‘Such a decision was obviously necessary, sir. But we are being overtaken by events. Unless we have a chance to use the normal channels and procedures, there is a danger that these people will do what they plan to before we have a chance to frustrate them.’
‘You put your case most judiciously,’ said the DG, but he gave no sign that he was swayed by it.
‘Shouldn’t we tell Washington about Kleiber, sir? They could help us such a lot on the German end.’
‘How would you go about it?’
‘A request for information exchange. Give them details of the King’s Cross murders, the explosion at Wever’s farmhouse and the photo of Kleiber. Ask them if they can link any of it with Max Breslow and so on.’
‘Very well, Stuart. Assemble a telex and let me have a look at it after lunch. I don’t like the idea of Moscow Centre getting involved.’
‘No, sir.’
‘I don’t like the sound of that at all, Stuart. Think what the Kremlin could do with the Hitler Minutes if the stuff was turned over to their propaganda machine.’
‘Exactly, sir.’
Boyd Stuart’s meeting with his opposite number in the CIA’s London station was unofficial.
‘And the old man agreed?’ said the CIA man.
Stuart swallowed some gin and tonic before answering, ‘He’ll make it official this afternoon.’
‘You told him what we think about Kleiber?’
‘I said our own collator thought Kleiber was a Moscow Centre agent,’ said Stuart.
‘Suppose he checks?’
‘That’s OK. I talked with the collator. The collator will hum and haw and say maybe. You know what Leslie is like. He’s been there too long to make the mistake of giving anyone a definite opinion.’
The CIA man laughed. ‘Especially when that opinion might explode in his face and dribble all down his Eton tie.’
‘ Harrow,’ said Stuart. ‘Leslie went to Harrow, and his tie is Guards Armoured Division.’
The CIA man punched Stuart playfully. ‘You’re a goddamned kidder, Boyd.’
‘It’s true,’ said Stuart. ‘I’m simply stating facts.’
‘And I like the way you tell ’em,’ said the CIA man. He waved a hand and ordered more drinks from the barman. They were in the Salisbury, an old pub in St Martin ’s Lane, glittering with cut-glass mirrors, shiny brass fittings and shiny brass show-biz people, getting into the swing of the midweek matinee performances which they would soon take on stage at the nearby theatres. A lady with pink hair and stage make-up blundered backwards into Stuart and spilt his drink. ‘Don’t worry about it, dear,’ she said, ‘no harm done.’
Stuart patted the whisky drops from his sleeve.