"We're going to need some time on this, Paul. This isn't like tobacco. Our whole civilization is built on petrochemicals. We're not denying the science. But you can't just turn off the gas."
She had been thirteen. A difficult age. But still listening at keyholes. Her brother, ten years older, had been away. Universities. Oxford, of course, and then the Sorbonne before America. Now he was working in the Foundation.
"No, no, no, I don't think anyone's talking about denial. Not yet anyway. But, let me float this past you: isn't science all about challenge? The clash of ideas? Wouldn't it be, well, scientific to make sure people can hear the dissenting view?"
"Paul, y'know what I like about you? You always know just how to show how godblessed reasonable we are. I like what you're saying. How do we make it happen?"
"Well. On the question of science. Accademia is so… cutthroat about funding, these days, I hear. A little grant money, perhaps…"
"Oil the wheels."
"Not quite the words I'd use."
"Sure as hell it ain't. But that's why we pay you so goddamned much."
"Say: research and development. It might even be tax deductible.
The fourth time they met was in a country pub. Georgie could hardly think of a place less likely for the man from the Ministry, but there were the screens all set up on a trolley in the snug.
"I understand that the cottage pie is particularly excellent," he said. "Do feel free to order. Today I have the time to wait."
She bought a drink but didn't order food. And didn't sit.
"Does the name Innocent Von Hurt mean anything to you?"
"No."
"Are you sure you don't remember. Remember."
She remembered. Paul. And the wild-haired man. Paul had called him Innocent. She'd thought at the time it was a joke she wasn't supposed to get. She hated it when Paul made jokes she wasn't supposed to get.
"No," she said again more firmly.
He changed tack, apparently unperturbed.
"I understand that your brother may have had a disagreement with your father over the direction of the Wade Foundation."
"Well that's bollocks. Paul was always Daddy's creature. His special creation."
"Is it not surprising how often the created rebels against the creator?"
"Not Paul. He was Daddy's representative on Earth, first, last and forever."
"Sometimes, rebellion is the only freedom. Oh no! Don't tell the Ministry that I said that. Did Paul Wade never rebel at all?"
"My brother… had a destiny to follow. To follow in Daddy's footsteps, follow Daddy's orders, doing Daddy's will. He was so bloody privileged I doubt the idea of choosing differently ever even occurred to him."
"And you are certain that Innocent Von Hurt means nothing to you?"
"Very sure."
"Perhaps… Let me show you something. It might prompt something to surface."
1977, Singapore
Background:
Freddie "Reptile" Rutkin, a freelance journalist in South-East Asia and occasionally one of the Service's less reliable agents was approached by the senior Russian agent code-named "Katherine". "Katherine" wished to contact a senior overseer with a view to possible defection.
Naturally, we were highly suspicious, particularly of her insistence of being met by an overseer rather than an agent. However, the possibility of obtaining "Katherine" was quite simply too good to resist.
Actions:
To minimise Service exposure, Mrs XXXXXXXX was briefed directly by the Star Chamber and instructed to report only to there, to employ only Freddie Rutkin and make no contact with Station S. Without Mrs XXXXXXXX's knowledge, Lord XXXXXXXX travelled personally to Singapore with a team of undertakers to provide covert support to her mission should he feel she needed it.
Mrs XXXXXXXX instructed Rutkin to arrange a second meeting with "Katherine" and there to request proof of her good intentions. Three days later, "Katherine" replied with a partial copy of a Soviet case file, detailing a spy ring operating in the UK, known to the Russians by the code-name "Angelus". Several names in the file were subsequently confirmed by five, but several more were completely unknown to us.
Under orders from the Star Chamber, Mrs XXXXXXXX then had Rutkin try to persuade "Katherine" to remain in position as a double agent. Obviously, she would be far more valuable to us there, able to feed us "live" data and without the risk that the intelligence she possessed would instantly become obsolete the moment that the Russians learned of her defection. She, however, was having none of that: her need to defect was urgent but her reasons would only be discussed with an overseer. She had been ordered to return to Moscow in three days and she must meet the overseer before then.
Lord XXXXXXXX was instantly alarmed when he heard of this deadline. Nevertheless, he agreed to the Star Chamber sanctioning Mrs XXXXXXXX meeting with "Katherine".
The initial meeting was set up hurriedly for the evening two days later, with a chance for another meeting or an actual exfiltration the following day.
Rutkin scouted the area but, inexperienced as he was, he failed to notice a Soviet special team staging around the rendezvous. Mrs XXXXXXXX went into the meeting and spoke for about an hour with "Katherine", mostly about the reasons for her sudden and urgent need to defect.
The reasons set out by "Katherine" were as follows: she had, in her capacity as a KGB Colonel in counter-intelligence, been engaged for the last several years in the penetration of a secret organisation that she had initially believed to be an American operation. However, more recently, she had traced links to a caucus within her own country and also, possibly, to Hong Kong. This international conspiracy had, she believed, a connection to what the Russians describe as "ulteriors" but which Mrs XXXXXXXX immediately recognised as "foreign powers".
Before she could begin to expose this conspiracy to her superiors, new orders from the very highest level moved her sideways. At the same time several of her key agents vanished or were assassinated. It quickly became apparent that far from rolling up the conspiracy, her network was itself about to be broken.
How much of this story, if any, is true is unclear. If any, then our enemies, the "foreign powers", have a far more extensive network in this "sphere" than we have previously suspected.
However, it is more likely that this was in fact a carefully constructed story, prepared by "Katherine" to draw Mrs XXXXXXXX into her trap. We suspect that Mrs XXXXXXXX may have confirmed her own value to Katherine in the course of this meeting.
At the meeting's conclusion, "Katherine" gave Mrs XXXXXXXX a series of requests, comforts that she required for her "retirement" to the West. In return, Mrs XXXXXXXX indicated that a certain amount of hard intelligence, both on Soviet operations and on those of the "ulteriors" would be required to "assist" her transition. It was agreed that they would meet again at a new location the following day when, if both sides were content that their requirements were satisfied, the next step could be taken.
As Mrs XXXXXXXX was leaving the meeting, the Soviet team closed in to strike. Immediately, Lord XXXXXXXX's team of undertakers engaged the Soviets while the team leader, Col. Turner, made contact with Mrs XXXXXXXX and spirited both her and "Katherine" away.
Here is where events began to go wrong.
Freddie Rutkin, wounded in the fight with the Soviets, retreated to a known safe house. Only there, he discovered Lord XXXXXXXX dead, murdered.
Turner had apparently been suborned. Initially, we suspected the Soviets and it was only much later, amid much recriminations, that we learned the truth.
Turner took Mrs XXXXXXXX to a fish restaurant, which concealed a gambling casino and a high-class brothel. "Katherine" and Mrs XXXXXXXX were imprisoned in the refrigerated cellar.
They were left there for several hours, the atmosphere metaphorically as well as literally frosty between them, both suspecting the other of betrayal. At the end of this time their captor arrived to interrogate "Katherine".
He was Mr Monkfish.
Apparently unaffected, or unconcerned, by the cold, he questioned her there in the cellar and in front of Mrs XXXXXXXX, equally unconcerned about letting her hear the other's story.
From "Katherine" he wanted to know about a Soviet agent named Genardy Karkarov who had been working in Mesopotamia from the late 1960s.
Naturally, Mrs XXXXXXXX immediately connected this to Monkfish's own known involvement at that time, however his questions seemed to reveal an uncertainty or lack of knowledge that did not bear that out.
"Katherine" resisted his questioning, but he attached a leach-like metallic device, obviously of "foreign power" manufacture, to the side of her neck. She rapidly became drowsy and pliable. Mrs XXXXXXXX suggests that it contained a drug similar to sodium-pentathol, which it slowly injected into her body. This, however, is merely speculation.
Under the influence of Monkfish's device, "Katherine" confessed that Karkarov was a Russian agent, supposedly working with the GRU [Soviet military intelligence] but in fact with strong links to the KGB. In January 1965 he asked to be assigned Soviet liaison for the Republic of Iraq and the gulf region, possibly assisting the July 1967 Ba'athist overthrow of the then military dictator, by supplying Soviet weaponry.
However, "Katherine's" counter-intelligence commission had begun to gather evidence against him, beginning in late 1969, that he was in fact using his position as a cover for tracing a man called Von Hurt.
Von Hurt was a name known to Mrs XXXXXXXX. Believed to be an agent of the "foreign powers" he had disappeared in the United States many years earlier. Until now, no one had connected him to the Mesopotamia region at all.
"Katherine" continued: Karkarov had traced Von Hurt to a machine factory near to the city of Samarra, "Katherine" followed him there and discovered that he was in contact with Lord XXXXXXXX's affiliate, Mrs Riches – supplying her with support and information. The Soviets suspected, correctly as it happens, that Mrs Riches was working with the British Secret Service. As far as "Katherine" was concerned, this was enough evidence to arrest Karkarov and interrogate him.
Questioned, indeed tortured, Karkarov revealed that he was under special orders from a senior general in the KGB to trace Von Hurt and, in particular, an item that he was believed to have had stolen for him from a decadent American university. He thought he had located Von Hurt at the Samarran factory, but the other had eluded him, perhaps to a ruined temple in the desert that he had been known to speak of: the Shrine of Oannes. Karkarov had tried to learn more of this temple from Mrs Riches.
"Katherine" attempted to contact her superiors in Moscow to try and confirm any part of this story. Before she could do so, Karkarov disappeared.
Further investigation of the factory showed no trace of Von Hurt, either, assuming he had ever been there.
Finally, she learned that the KGB General named by Karkarov had been arrested on suspicion of spying for a Chinese faction and shot whist trying to escape.
With no other leads to follow, "Katherine" had followed Mrs Riches into the Iraqi desert and observed her make covert contact with a British mission that arrived by light aircraft.
"Katherine" followed the British mission at a distance, observing the disastrous outcome of their attempt to penetrate the shrine and the escape of the survivors.
Rather than return to their aircraft, for some reason the British chose to flee overland, in some disarray, towards the Iranian border and, presumably, the waiting arms of the Shah.
A Soviet "archaeological" expedition was despatched to the site with all speed but nothing but a ruined temple was ever discovered.
Her story told, Monkfish allowed "Katherine" to collapse and made some adjustment to the device at her throat. Again, Mrs XXXXXXXX suggests that this was to flush out or draw back the drug from her system to prevent future analysis. Whether she is right or wrong, he left the device thus for several minutes before removing it and leaving.
In her debriefing, Mrs XXXXXXXX reported this final exchange:
"Katherine": We will stop you, tovarisch!"
Monkfish: You can't; you're already seven years too late.
Presumably, Monkfish intended for "Katherine" and Mrs XXXXXXXX to perish there in that cellar, but he had counted without the tenacity of the Russian special forces. They had overcome our undertakers and ultimately managed to trail Turner to Monkfish's lair. They burst in to discover the two women in the cellar. "Katherine" was executed at once; Mrs XXXXXXXX was taken, under guard, to a Soviet safe house, and later to the airport and hence to a KGB facility somewhere in the Soviet Republics – possibly Kazakhstan. We were later able to trade Russian agents from the "Angelus" spy ring for the return of Mrs XXXXXXXX.
Conclusions:
Beyond gaining confirmation that Monkfish did indeed survive the debacle in Mesopotamia, these events appear to make little sense as he – clearly – already has personal knowledge of that affair.
It is necessary to infer that Monkfish, for himself or for a larger organisation of which we are unaware, needed to discover the extent of Russian intelligence on his previous business. This suggests that the Mesopotamian business has some significance greater than that we attached to it.
