The Envoy (42 page)

‘But …’

‘Poor you, Kit – the Russians fed stuff to you to make us think the Kremlin was panicking about a stolen bomb.’

‘So after the Russians tricked you with a duff bomb, you
swallowed
your pride and went begging to the Americans.’

‘That’s your view, but in the meantime our scientists learned from failure and did explode some viable H-bombs by the end of ’57.’

‘But Blue Steel, the bomb you finally deployed, was just a US Mark 28 with a Union Jack logo.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I got one of your predecessors drunk.’

‘I know you can’t be trusted, but I still like you. Can I stay with you again tonight? It doesn’t matter that the bed’s so narrow.’

The affair continued for three years. Frances managed to
persuade
her superiors that Kit’s intelligence assessments and inside knowledge of the Washington establishment were worth three or four visits a year. Her marriage continued to deteriorate – and there were money problems too. The worse thing was that she saw the effect it was having on her children. They all needed a change. She left MI6 for a well-paid job in the City. They bought a farmhouse in Suffolk that they did up for weekends and holidays. Things were a little better. The marriage was stumbling along towards the finishing tape: that blessed day when the
youngest
finishes university. She wrote a long letter to Kit explaining all this. He didn’t answer. His new agent handler only came to Stanley once every two years – and it was a welfare visit rather than an intelligence gathering one.

On the eve of his sixtieth birthday, Kit was summoned to Port Stanley. A lot of changes had occurred in the last two years. In the 1982 war there had been little action on West Falkland. In fact, there had been no fighting at all. Part of the reason for the peaceful outcome was that Kit had persuaded a vainglorious Argentine colonel to surrender without firing a shot. The
negotiations
had taken place in the early hours of the morning over a bottle of Fundador Brandy. The colonel was convinced that Kit was a Guatemalan naturalist who had been stranded on the island when hostilities broke out. The British were grateful for Kit’s intervention.

When Kit got to Port Stanley he was told to go to Government House instead of the usual sheep station. He was greeted by the Governor with a bottle of champagne. There was also a
representative
from MI6. It was a small birthday celebration – only the three of them. They had a present for Kit: a British passport and the freedom to leave.

Kit’s new passport was in the name of Patrick Louis Ferrar, although he still called himself Kit. He spoiled several cheques before he remembered to sign them P. L. Ferrar. He liked his new initials, PLF, the acronym for Parachute Landing Fall. The art of the PLF was landing on the balls of your feet with slightly bent knees, then twisting your body in a ballet gesture of consummate grace so that calf, thigh and the fleshy back muscles next to your armpit absorbed the force of your landing. PLF, how apt. The art of coming back to earth in one piece.

Kit spent a fortnight in a London safe house learning about his new identity and the precautions he would have to take. He felt uneasy in London after so many years. It was a different country and he knew no one. And there was also something that haunted him, something that he wanted to know. On the last day of the ‘re-orientation course’, Kit began to ask his agent handler a
question
, but then stopped. ‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s not really any of my business.’

Although Kit was twenty-eight years older and his black hair flecked with grey, he still was recognisable as Counsellor Fournier. Kit began to grow a beard and let his hair grow long to give himself the air of a retired academic or art lecturer. He wanted to slop about in a derelict farmhouse wearing espadrilles, torn jeans and a smock as he painted watercolours. With the help of an MI6 handler who had been brought up near Halesworth, Kit found a cottage overlooking a Suffolk river valley. He spent most of the first week just loving the trees. It had been so long since he had seen trees. He watched their branches tossing in the wind; he smelled them and caressed their trunks; he stroked their leaves and fondled their fruit.

Kit was picking plums when a car stopped at the bottom of his garden. He frowned. It was probably another nosey pest
demanding
something for the Harvest Festival or selling a ticket to some ghastly concert. He picked an overripe plum from his basket and began to take aim at the driver’s window. He wanted to cultivate his image as a grumpy loner, but the plum was still in his hand when the woman started walking up the path. Frances was now in her fifties. ‘Would you like a plum?’ he said.

She put the fruit in her mouth, then removed the stone.

Kit reached forward. ‘I’ll take that.’ The plum stone was warm and wet with her saliva. He closed his palm tight around it.

‘They told me you were here – I don’t live far myself.’

Kit looked away: his face was a blank.

Frances touched his arm. ‘That empty look of yours frightens me.’

‘Sorry, it’s not meant to.’

‘Why don’t you have supper with me this evening?’ She squeezed his arm. ‘Don’t look so nervous.’

‘Why don’t you come here instead? I like to cook.’

‘Is it because you’ll feel safer?’

‘Yes.’

Frances looked closely at Kit and saw, for the first time, his fear and shame. His experiences hadn’t broken him: he’d been broken from the start.

HAWKSBEARD has been repatriated to the UK for
humanitarian
reasons. He was originally known as Kitson Fournier, but now goes under the name of Patrick Louis Ferrar for reasons of
personal
protection. During his recruitment process, and at various times since, Fournier/Farrar has been fed plausible explanations for events surrounding TURNSTONE. These explanations were largely based on half-truths and misinformation fabricated to create the atmosphere of ‘trust’ necessary to recruit Fournier/ Farrar as a UK intelligence provider. It is essential that
personnel
working with Fournier/Farrar are familiar with his ‘version of events’ and do nothing to make him doubt their veracity. It is not our wish that Fournier/Farrar be detained in permanent isolation, but knowledge of any of the following areas of intelligence would make such detention inevitable.

During the recruitment of Fournier/Farrar, Director White truthfully revealed that Jennifer and Brian Handley were serving SIS officers. The Director did not, however, inform Fournier/ Farrar that the couple were also part of the UK/USA spy ring that passed atom bomb secrets to the Soviet Union in the late 1940s. Brian Handley first came under suspicion in 1949, but betrayed his fellow scientist spy, Klaus Fuchs, to preserve his own cover and credibility. Handley’s top secret security clearance was restored on the advice of Harold ‘Kim’ Philby, who was at the time SIS/CIA liaison. There is, however, no evidence that Brian Handley was a committed Marx-Leninist. He seems to have been motivated solely by greed.

Fournier/Farrar was also given misinformation concerning the deaths of Brian and Jennifer Handley. Their deaths had nothing to do with a bondage game that went wrong. They were executed by MOD security police who later claimed to have been acting under the instructions of (
…name removed to protect security…
). None of these executions was authorised by Director White – and, indeed, such non-judicial executions fall outside the guidelines by which all UK security services operate. The investigation carried out by the MOD Tribunal and Inquiries Unit decided that the security police could not offer sufficient evidence to prove that they were acting on the orders of (
…name removed to protect security…
). The security police were subsequently informed that they would be court-martialled for murder and rape. They were, however, offered the alternative of a resettlement package and new
identities
– which they accepted. It has since been verified that both men died while fighting as mercenaries in the Congo.

When (
…name removed to protect security…
) first came under suspicion of being a Soviet spy, he successfully denied all charges and continued in post until his retirement in (
…deleted…
). As more evidence came to light, (
…name removed to protect
security
…
) was again interrogated by D Branch – and finally confessed in exchange for immunity from prosecution. The following facts emerged from subsequent debriefings:
 

The aim of any handler dealing with Fournier/Farrar is to assure that he live out his days anonymously and quietly. It is essential that the press and media remain unaware of his background and presence. Press speculation about ‘vast conspiracies to deceive’ or a ‘Secret State’ can only damage the image of the Security Service and the SIS – and, therefore, our ability to act effectively.

Fournier/Farrar seems to have developed an emotional
attachment
to his current agent handler. He appears to trust her and is willing to accept her advice and guidance.