Authors: Gerald Seymour
The present DG spent much of his working day wrestling with the budget the Security Service was allowed by Parliament, striving to keep his force efficient, while at the same time remaining solvent. It was a soul-destroying job, and one which he detested. Nor was he paid much for his pains - slightly less than the Fleet Street average for a middle-ranking columnist. But inside the department the new man had revitalized morale simply because his subordinates knew that the man who now controlled them understood their work, was sympathetic to their problems, and was always available. The Irish problem had also played its part in lifting the tempo in Curzon Street. Instead of their dealing almost to the exclusion of everything else with the activities of the Iron Curtain embassies and the huge Soviet trade mission on Highgate Hill, an extra dimension had been brought into the work. On top of that came the more recent wave of Arab terrorism throughout Europe. The DG could note with satisfaction that the building no longer operated on a five-day week, and that many of the heads of key sections were at their desks through the weekend, even in high summer.
The Director General was a short, heavily-built man.
Spread across his desk, occasionally breaking off to pencil a few words on a pad, he scanned the files that had been left for him to digest, his eyes only a few inches from the paper. There was monumental concentration, head quite still, seeking for flaws in the arguments, high spots in the information. He believed totally in paperwork, required it to be short and explicit, but demanded all relevant facts to be set out in the files. He had hooked his coat over the end of his chair and undone the top button of his shirt, while his tweed tie hung down loose at the neck. He smoked incessantly, non-tipped and one of the strong brands, drawing deeply till there was hardly enough of the rolled paper left for him to hold without him burning his fingers.
Promptly at eight-thirty came the knock at his door, and Jones, followed by Fairclough and Duggan, came into the bright first-floor office. The DG gestured to them to pull up chairs and continued to read the last pages of the file on Ciaran McCoy. The section heads made a half-moon as they sat down on the far side of the desk, and waited for him to finish. The office was bare, but not to the point of being Spartan: there was a picture of the Queen - the Annigoni print; a water colour of a bowl of fruit; a table littered with yesterday's newspapers; wall-to-wall carpets (as his position decreed); and heavy plain curtains drawn back to let in the sunlight. Not much to gaze at, but they all felt the after-effects from the night just past, and none was in the mood for day-dreaming or staring at irrelevancies.
When he had finished the DG closed the McCoy file, piling it neatly with the others. He threw an eye quickly over the notes he had made, and then looked at the three men facing him. He could see their tiredness. A short meeting was required.
'There's not much time, gentlemen,' he started. Voice calm, easy, fluent from his Welsh background. 'Our guest here on Monday night, his public appearance on Tuesday, and the flight out undecided between Wednesday and Thursday. We can probably ensure that he goes on Wednesday. On what we have at our disposal the threat seems real enough. There is one factor we should consider before recommendations are made to the Home Office. If this were simply an IRA affair saturation protection would probably see us through. They tend to like to make it home all in one piece, so if they see the odds placed heavily against them they like to try again when conditions are more auspicious. But there's the added factor of the Middle East involvement. Different people, different philosophy, more prepared to go with the target. If the other half of the team is Arab — Palestinian — then we must accept he is prepared to die along with our scientist friend. It makes the operation of protection infinitely more complicated.
The suicide killer always has things stacked in his favour.
It means for us that we have to widen the number of people involved, and mount a much wider screen than I would otherwise advocate. That means police, uniformed and CID. Thoughts, gentlemen?'
Duggan spoke. 'This McCoy is a hard operator. Given them a long chase across the water, but he's on strange ground here. It's reasonable to suggest he'll need a safe house, somewhere he can hole up with the other man. He has two alternatives. He can go in with the usual crowd.
Provo supporters, that lot. On the other hand he can go elsewhere, somewhere right outside the norm. The only line we have on that could be some connection with his sister. She's no longer in London, back in the Republic, but she went through a spell in a commune, one of those in North London, but drifting. McCoy was reported as disapproving, but it could have given him the contact.'
'Half the raids the Special Branch mount are aimed at communes,' said the DG. it's a good suggestion, but it'll take time to check out, and that's one for the police.'
'Presuming that the Palestinian has joined up with McCoy — and we have to believe that from the rendezvous call,' said Fairclough,' - then we can just about guarantee that he's dependent on McCoy for his accommodation, and probably for the guns too. We've had the French report in overnight, and no firearms were found in the car, the one that was shot up and burned out. If the third lad made it away from the car there's little chance he could have carried the necessary firearms, explosives or whatever for three men. And it makes sense that the Arabs would provide the attack team, the Provisionals what local knowledge they needed.'
it's strange they should have chosen McCoy, then. No history, no past form of operations in London or anywhere else outside his little patch. But with his associations no problem with firearms if he wanted them - plenty of access, could all be fixed. No problem there.' The DG was thinking aloud, picking his words carefully and slowly.
'The firearms would be McCoy's part. But what we have to consider is this. If the original team is decimated, and the one man wants to go on with it, how far does McCoy involve himself?'
'He's a killer,' said Duggan decisively, without hesitation or doubt, it's clear from the file. He'll think about it, he'll try and make sure he walks out of it, but he's a killer. He won't step back, not unless the odds are right against him.'
'And our unknown friend will need him?'
'He's essential,' said Duggan. 'The Arab, whoever he is, needs him - and badly. But the two make a formidable threat. Quite a handful.'
'To become more general' — with a slight wave of his hand the DG terminated the conversation - 'to delve into the theory of the attack: what brings these two together?
No common ideology . . . '
'Necessity only,' said Duggan. As the protege of the head of the Security Services, and one whose career was well mapped, and his future charted, he had the confidence to speak his mind. 'The Palestinians must have the accommodation and transport, and if it's provided locally then the trails can be that much better covered. It's infinitely more satisfactory from their point of view, particularly if they can also travel clean of firearms. Same for the Provisionals: they'll have become involved through the advantages that will come to them. They've tried hard enough to get their hands on Iron Curtain weapon systems
.. . Europe's difficult as a supply source; nothing coming direct - they don't want to know over there. The American market is inadequate, and difficult on resupply. But the Middle East offers them a major opportunity. If they pull this one in successful harmony then it'll be a guarantee that Kalashnikovs, rocket launcher RPG 7s, perhaps even a SAM 7 missile will be turning up on the border for the boys in South Armagh and Tyrone. I'd put it down as a straight swap — immediate help by the Provos, and they get top-grade hardware in the close future. And talk to any army man, not HQ but the guys in the field, and ask them how they'd feel about having that sort of gear on tap for the opposition.'
'And the man Sokarev?...'
important to the Palestinians, big coup if they drop him. Irrelevant to the Irish. If we lose him — heaven forbid!
- the chances are the Provos wouldn't even claim him, nor their part in it.'
'And this bomb that the Israelis keep so much under the table, and that our Mr Sokarev is credited with, what state is that in?'
'The Americans call it the "screwdriver" state. That's a good description. Probably not assembled, but way off the design bench. Just needs putting together.'
There had been enough talking, the DG decided. He straightened in his chair. 'I think we'd better get the following done this morning. Details on McCoy to all police stations in London, particular reference to communes. Run a check on all immigration forms coming in via ferries from Boulogne yesterday, that's for Ports Unit of Special Branch. Liaise with the Israelis, the security attache - not here, though. Fix a meeting with him at Home Office, and don't let him think that he's running the show. Jones, I'd like you to co-ordinate. Final point. I'd like a man on the ground beside this professor night and day, not just Special Branch - they can look after themselves - but one of our own. So we know what's going on.'
Jones spoke for the first time, mock hesitant, a smile on his face. 'There's Jimmy.'
is he on the bottle or off it at the moment?'
'About half-way. He'll fit the job.'
'There are plenty of others,' said the DG.
'He's the best of them.' It was Jones's opinion. None of the other men in the room was prepared to make an issue from it.
For differing reasons both Fairclough and Duggan were '
disapproving of the choice, but neither spoke. Jones's loyalty to the men who worked for him was familiar to his colleagues. It was recognized there was a personal bond between the section head and Jimmy; the detail of it had never been explained to them. But to criticize the judgement that Jones had made of his man would be futile, and both stayed silent.
The DG nodded. He knew Jimmy, had known him for a long time, liked his results, stayed ignorant of his methods.
He said, 'I'm going to see the Minister this morning. I'll be back at lunch-time. If you want me, try about a quarter to one. That's it, gentlemen. Remember, there's very little time.'
From the outer office Helen called the home number of the Commander in charge of Special Branch, and put him through to Jones. Copies of McCoy's file together with the fingerprint and photograph folder that had now arrived from Northern Ireland were sent by motorcycle to Scotland Yard. The conversation also served to activate the search of the immigration forms, thirty-nine thousand of them, representing the number of persons who had crossed to Britain on ferries from Boulogne the previous day.
Helen also called the Israeli embassy, introduced herself as Home Office, left a number - the direct one to Jones's desk — and asked that the security attache should call back as soon as he had been located with a view to arranging an urgent meeting in mid-afternoon. Next she traced the Assistant Commissioner (Crime) to a golf club in North Hertfordshire. He arranged to see Jones in his office at Scotland Yard immediately after lunch. That would set in motion the sifting of scores of reports and observations made by undercover drug squad detectives who worked in the communes. The conversation with Jones was impressive enough for him to scratch from the four-ball game he had arranged, make his apologies to his partners, and drive home for a morning's work on the telephone before going to London.
Lastly she raised Jimmy, still waiting beside the receiver, but dressed now. His trousers were creased at the back of his knees, his jacket had great lines carved across the flap at the back, and the shirt was not quite clean. But he was dressed. Would he come in at four-thirty? 'Course he bloody well would. And after that? She didn't know.
Going at it like a lot of maniacs, she'd said, and rung off.
The Cabinet Minister who rejoiced in the title of 'Secretary of State for Home Affairs' liked to keep in touch with his constituents. On Saturday mornings he held a 'surgery', where the electors who had returned him to Westminster for the past eighteen years could come to him with their problems. His opponents claimed it was simply window-dressing, and that as he allowed each of his 'patients' a bare four minutes there was little that could effectively be talked about in that time. Clogged-up drains and the lateness of school buses was about all that could be managed. Anything as detailed as council house rents or the redundancies at the local car-body factory could not, to the relief of the Minister, be dealt with in the limited time of his schedule.
He had dealt with fifteen constituents in the straight hour that he set himself, and was preparing for the drive across country to the hall where he would eat a sandwich lunch with the faithful and make a short speech, when the Director General of the Security Services was put through on the telephone in his agent's office on the first floor of the constituency headquarters. On matters of state security the Director General had direct access to the Prime Minister, but there were occasions when that was not suitable.
Going too high up the ladder too fast, and then leaving no one senior to fall back if the initial contacts with Government went sour. The DG liked to leave his options open, but it was rare for him to seek an interview outside normal working routine with his Minister - rare enough for the Minister to be puzzled, and to be left confused after he had arranged that they should meet at the hall and talk while the tea and food were being consumed.
When the Director General arrived in mid-morning he was shown into a room behind the stage of the hall, and he waited there among the piled chairs and old scenery props for the Minister to come in.
'I'm sorry to trouble you,' he began.
'I'm sure you wouldn't have done so if you hadn't thought it important.' The Minister was wary of the other man. Security was fraught with whirlpools in the political ocean; when everything was going well you never heard from them; they only surfaced when the gales were blowing.
'I think we're running into some bother, something you ought to hear about.'