Background to Danger (4 page)

The unofficial representative of the U.S.S.R. in Switzerland was a broad-shouldered man of about thirty-eight, with brown, curly hair that shot up at an angle of forty-five degrees from his forehead. His clean-shaven face was ugly, but not unpleasantly so. “Knobbly” would have been an unkind description; “rugged” would have been a trifle too romantic. His nose was large and pugnacious, and he had a habit of shooting out his lower jaw when he wished to be emphatic. His eyes were of a surprising blue and very shrewd. Now, they moved from unseeing contemplation of the screw-cutting lathe to a sheet of paper on the desk, stayed there for a moment, then glanced towards the door leading to the outer office.

“Tamara, come here,” he called.

A few moments later a girl came into the room.

Tamara Prokovna Zaleshoff was not, by ordinary standards, beautiful. Her face was an idealised version of her brother’s. The complexion was perfect and the proportions were good, but the bone structure was a little too masculine. Her hands were exquisite.

“Have you decoded the letters?”

“Yes, Andreas; there were only two.”

No correspondence came direct to Kiessling and Pieper. Those who had dealings with the firm at that time always addressed their communications to a Fräulein Rosa Neumann, care of the poste restante. Twice a day Tamara became Rosa Neumann and collected them. It was then her business to translate into sense the jumbled strings of letters and numbers, and enter the results in an innocent-looking book marked with the German equivalent of “Bought Ledger” before passing them on to her brother. Most of the messages were dull and the routine bored her exceedingly.

She took off her coat and hung it behind the door. Then she looked at her brother curiously.

“What is it, Andreas?”

“While you were out collecting the letters, Tamara, Petroff telephoned from Berlin.”

“Petroff! What did he want?”

“He says that he was notified by Moscow last night that Borovansky has turned traitor.”

“Borovansky?”

“Yes, they found out at headquarters that he’d taken photographs of all B
₂
mobilisation instructions and was on his way to Germany. Petroff says that Borovansky took the train to Ratisbon this afternoon and that he bought a through ticket to Linz. It looks as though he delivers the photographs there.”

“Has he got them on him?”

“Yes, in the inside pocket of his coat.”

“But can nothing be done to stop him?”

Zaleshoff smiled wanly.

“Yes, Tamara, plenty; but not yet. Petroff has put Ortega on the job.”

“Ortega?”

“That Spaniard of Petroff’s. The fellow uses a knife, I
believe. Petroff, who is not, to my mind, fastidious, admits that the man is an obscenity, but says that he is very useful.”

“Can he be trusted?”

“That is one of his virtues in Petroff’s eyes. Ortega is wanted for murder—he slit a woman’s throat in Lisbon two years ago—and Petroff would put the police on to him if necessary.”

Tamara looked thoughtful.

“I never liked Borovansky very much.”

Zaleshoff shook his head.

“Neither did I. I always thought they trusted him too much. But they said he was useful because he had worked for years in German factories and knew the Germans well. Silly nonsense! Borovansky could work all his life in a country and not even learn to speak the language like a native, much less think like one. Besides, I’d sooner be served by a fool I could trust than an expert who might betray me.”

He lit a large pipe and then put it down.

“It’s no use, Tamara,” he said, irritably, “I cannot—I will not smoke a pipe. It makes me sick.”

“It is better than those interminable cigarettes. You must try.”

Zaleshoff picked up the pipe impatiently, but he merely tapped the stem against his strong white teeth. His attention seemed suddenly to have wandered. The girl watched him for a minute.

“Just how serious is this affair, Andreas?” she said at last.

For a moment she thought he had not heard her. Then he shrugged.

“Nobody quite knows—yet. You see the difficulty, Tamara? Borovansky only took photographs of the stuff and it might be put about that they are forgeries. But we have so little to work on. If we knew even who was paying him, we could move. You see. those B2 instructions aren’t just
ordinary military information. If it were gunnery reports, or fortification details, it would probably find its way to the bureau at Brussels and we should know where we stood. But it isn’t. I feel in my bones that there is a political end to this business, and I don’t like it. If Borovansky wanted something to sell there are so many more marketable things he might and could have stolen. Why, Tamara, must he photograph these specific instructions? Why? That is what I ask.”

“Either because he hadn’t time to get anything else or because someone had offered him money for them.”

“Exactly! Now, if he was merely going to steal and photograph anything of value he could find, he would realise that the B2 papers were, for his purpose, valueless. Would he risk his life getting away with something that he knew to have no market value? No; someone wanted the B2 stuff and Borovansky is being paid to get it. The worst of it is that nothing can be done to stop him until he gets into Austria. Berlin wants an excuse for another anti-Soviet drive and we don’t want to provide it. We must hope that he does not deliver the goods before he leaves Germany.”

“Why in Heaven’s name wasn’t he stopped before he could leave Soviet territory?”

“They didn’t know anything was wrong. Borovansky was acting as liaison between Moscow and our people in Riga. If the man who took the photographs hadn’t grown suspicious and made up his mind to tell the police about it, we should probably still be in the dark. Borovansky was a fool, too. He might have remained unsuspected for several extra days if he’d had the sense to report at Riga before he made for Germany.”

“Still, it’s no affair of ours.”

“No, I suppose not.”

But he still looked thoughtful. Suddenly he rose abruptly, walked to a cupboard in a corner of the room, took a bulky
file from it and started turning the pages absently.

“A report came in from the Basel agent this afternoon,” said Tamara. “He says that the British agent has moved. The Englishman used to work from an office in the Badenstrasse. It was called the Swiss Central Import Company. Now he’s gone to the Koenig Gustavus Platz and is working from the apartment of a dentist named Bouchard. It’s a very good idea. You can’t keep a check on everyone who visits a dentist.”

Zaleshoff, immersed in the file, grunted.

“Oh, and the Geneva agents reported this morning that it’s not Skoda, but Nordenfelt who did the bribing over that new Italian order for howitzers; and they’re going to ship from Hamburg to Genoa,” Tamara went on. “He also reports that one of the South American League delegates is visiting a woman calling herself Madame Fleury. He says that she is actually a Hungarian named Putti and that she worked for Bulgaria in nineteen-sixteen. He doesn’t say who she’s working for now, and anyway I don’t see how he expects us to keep track of all these South American peccadillos.”

Her brother went on reading.

“There’s one rather interesting thing in his report. He says that the British, the Germans and the Italians met at a small hotel across the lake to decide what the Germans and Italians are going to reply to the Note the British are sending them next week. He hears that the Italians objected to one question in the Note—something to do, he thinks, with Italian intentions in the Sudan—and that the English agreed to leave it out if the Italians would accept loans from London and guarantee to use them to subsidise Italian heavy industries. That means that London wants the lira forced down a point or two.” She paused, then: “I don’t believe you are listening, Andreas Prokovitch.”

“Yes, yes, Tamara, I am listening. Go on, please.” But
he was clearly finding the file of absorbing interest.

“The Geneva agent also reports,” said Tamara, “that the Pan-Eurasian Petroleum Company of London has failed to obtain a revision of their oil concession by the Rumanian Government. Pan-Eurasian Petroleum is, he reminds us, an English company under the control of Joseph Balterghen of Gracechurch Street, London, who also holds thirty-five per cent of the ordinary shares of Cator and Bliss Limited, the English munitions firm, and is a director of the Imperial Armour Plating Trust. I have turned up Balterghen’s record. He is an Armenian by birth and was naturalised English in nineteen-fourteen. From nineteen hundred to nineteen hundred and nine he sold arms for the Nordenfelt company, but he had his fingers in the oil business as early as nineteen hundred and seven. In nineteen-seventeen he endeavoured to negotiate a concession for the Baku fields with Kerensky. It is believed that he had actually reached some arrangement with the Provisional Government immediately before Kerensky’s fall. In nineteen-eighteen he arrived in Odessa and again tried to negotiate for the Baku fields, this time with General Almazoff, a White Army commander in the sector. He worked through an agent named Talbot. He—”

But Zaleshoff had leapt across the room and was shaking her by the arm.

“What name did you say, Tamara?”

“Talbot.”

“And Odessa in nineteen-eighteen? Balterghen was there?”

“Yes.”

“Then look, Tamara, at this!”

He thrust the file into her arms and dashed into the outer office. A second or two later the girl heard the hook of the telephone rattling furiously.

She sat down, lit a cigarette slowly, then, nursing the file
in her lap, began to read from the strips of typewriting pasted to thick yellow paper.

DOSSIER
S
8439
Copy
31
Zürich
.

Name
. Stefan Saridza.

Place of birth
. Adrianople (believed).

Date of birth
. 1869 (about).

Parents
. Not known.

Political sympathies
. Not known.

Remarks
. No useful photograph obtainable. This man has been known since 1904. See below.

Following details transferred in
1917/18
from Ochrana archives
(
Kiev
). Court martial of General Stessel 1904. Subject: Stessel’s failure to hold fortress of Port Arthur against forces of Japanese General Nogi. Stessel pleaded betrayal of fortress. Examination of suspects negative. Stessel accused Bulgarian named Saridza (or Sarescu). Failed to secure Saridza for examination. Reported in Athens January 1905.

Trial of Heinrich Grosse, Winchester Assizes, England, 1910, for espionage. Man named Larsen described as Grosse’s employer at trial. Believed Saridza. (Identification claimed by D.24.)

Trial of Captain Bertrand Stewart (British) in Berlin 1911 for espionage. Stewart victim of
agent provocateur
named Arsène Marie Verrue, alias Frederic Rue (see Dossier R77356) stated to have been employed at instance of German contra-espionage bureau by R. H. Larsen, alias Muller, alias Pieters, alias Schmidt, alias Talbot. Believed Saridza.

Following details supplied by Commissariat for Interior
,

Odessa
. December 1918. Reported (K. 19) that agent named Talbot (see above) attempted negotiations with General Almazoff for petroleum concession at Baku. Believed
acting for English oil interest.

Commissariat for Foreign Affairs
. March 1925. Reported (V. 37 Barcelona) that agent named Luis Gomez engaged in anti-Soviet propaganda particularly with reference to Soviet petroleum imports in Spain. Believed acting for English oil interests.

Note
. Above agent identified as Saridza 1929. See remarks below.

February
1930. Case heard before Judge Mahoina in New York City. Cator and Bliss (New York) Inc. (defendant) versus Joshua L. Curtice (plaintiff). Curtice alleged nonpayment of $100,000 expenses in connection with work done at second disarmament conference Geneva. Nature of work: Alleged contra-disarmament propaganda. Curtice employed by London directors of Cator and Bliss Limited. Hearing of case in New York arranged by plaintiff. Judgment on case given in accordance with agreement reached between litigants. Curtice claimed Swiss citizenship. Identified as Saridza by B.71.

Remarks
. Saridza is understood (Report ZB356/28) to possess large organisation, principally in Europe and Near East. Activities now mainly political propaganda on behalf of industrial and banking groups. Excellent organiser. Unscrupulous. Speaks English (slight accent), French (bad accent), German, Russian and Slovene.

Appearance
. Height, average. Thin build. Grey hair, nearly bald, sallow complexion. Small grey clipped moustache stained with nicotine. Has been known to carry fire-arms.
Important Note
. On every occasion on which Saridza has been identified it has been through the fact that his left arm is incapable of full articulation at the elbow. This disability produces an unmistakable awkwardness in the use of the arm.

Standing Instructions
(May 1926). Any agent securing
information, even from an unreliable source, of Saridza’s activities, to report immediately.

Tamara closed the file and crushed out her cigarette. Through the open door she could hear her brother speaking rapidly.

“… the Pan-Eurasian Petroleum Company, there is not a doubt of it, Petroff. The affair becomes a little clearer, my friend, does it not? You have heard of Balterghen’s failure in Rumania?… yes, yes, that is so … but I will leave you to notify Moscow … no … yes … I shall go straight away to Linz … yes … I shall take Tamara. I will recall J12 from Berne to take charge here. Please be good enough to warn Vienna …”

There was a long pause. Tamara could feel her heart beating.

“Ortega?” went on Zaleshoff. “Yes, I remember his face. Who could forget it? He has a skin like elephant hide and eyes like a snake.
Au ’voir.”

There was a clatter as he hung up. When he came bustling back into his office, Tamara was looking at the file again.

“You have read it? You heard me speaking to Petroff?” He was looking excited.