POWER PLAY

July 1977

“…They were good years to be a spy…” Kim Philby

ONE: The Brief

“Another drink, Mister Ryderbeit?”

The girl looked pretty enough but she had just committed the cardinal sin and I crossed her off my list of possible future activities. I just nodded. I can be as petulant as the next man when it comes to having one’s surname mispronounced. Any fool knows that Ryderbeit is pronounced RyderBATE. And as a globe-trotting airline stewardess she, if anyone, should have known better. I’m nobody’s vegetable! Besides which I was in a foul mood. Not her fault, of course, the foul mood. But she hadn’t helped. And when I’m in a foul mood, control freak that I am – or like to think I am - I tend to take it out on the nearest body.

Then I remembered that Burgess, who was the cause of my ill temper, was still making that same mistake after over four years of prompting. But he does it out of spite. Come to think of it almost everyone makes that mistake. Could that be why I don’t have many close friends?

The girl smiled primly and wafted back down the aisle. She did have a lovely backside however. And nobody’s perfect, are they? But Burgess was something else again. Plenty on the negative side, probably nothing on the plus side. His most recent nasty was to con me into this job. What was it he had said? A few days holiday in the sun? I let my thoughts wander back a touch.

Burgess had telephoned me about four in the morning. Yesterday it was.

Deep in my thoughts, I felt the drink being placed in my hand. I took a slurp.

Yesterday. Christ! Seemed like a year. Call it a small party he’d said. Impromptu. That should have given me a clue. Burgess never threw parties. Even small ones. And it was good and small. Just Burgess, me, and this military-looking gent with the problem that Burgess had slipped into my court before I’d realized it.

I was tired. Burgess knew this and took advantage of the fact. Casual, he was. Another uncharacteristic hint that I failed to pick up. A couple of undernourished whiskies, some inane small-talk and then the slammer. At five-a-bloody-clock in the morning!

“George has got this double agent swanning about one of his stations.”

I’d nodded politely, sympathetically, as befits a man of my dubious temperament. Which was all very well, but I should have been on the ball.

“Yes,“ went on Burgess returning my nod, “and we’ve been asked to sort it out…Let me top you up.”

I remember holding out my glass and saying something like, “Oh, really? All agog with disinterest.

“Mmm…“ said Burgess clinking his glass chummily on mine and lapsing into a momentary spasm of deep thought. “Our fame spreads!“ Then he shoots a warm smile over at the military gent on the couch. “The higher echelon seems to think that it’s important enough to warrant a Class-A operation. I have to send my best man…You’re looking tired. Still, you’ll be off the register for a bit, won’t you? Holiday or something?”

I had slurped my drink and made a few affirmative noises. Burgess had hit the nail on the head. I thought about the cottage in Devon. It was the damn drink that scotched me. That and the tiredness. As I was conjuring up images of a gently lapping river full of fat, accommodating trout, Burgess was pumping me full of stories of double-agents and how much nicer the weather would be in Greece at that time of year. And I, in my stupor, was agreeing with him hook, line, sinker, trout and all, Then I was bundled out his door with an, “I’ll call you in an hour or so with the details. In the meantime get your head down. You look a bit peaky.”

I was back in my poky flat before it all clicked into place. Too late then, of course. Some party! And I hadn’t exchanged two words with the military gent. The rest is history. Burgess had spoken, may he rot in hell-fire.

I looked up. It wasn’t Burgess doing the talking any more. It was the nice-bottomed stewardess.

“We’re starting our descent into Athens, sir. Would you like another drink before I close the bar?”

I looked down at the empty glass in my hand. Empty, for Christ’s sake! I couldn’t remember drinking the stuff. I handed her the glass as if it were made of frozen nitro and mumbled a no-thanks. Then I heard Burgess’s voice again. We were in his office this time.

“There are two very good reasons why it has to be you. The first is that you came to us from INTERNAL. And since it was never made public that you changed horses that will be your cover.“

“You can be shot for that! “ I said.

Burgess frowned. “For what?”

“Going behind the lines dressed as someone else.”

Burgess tutted. But he didn’t rise to my attempt at humour. My humour can be something less than humorous at the best in times. I sometimes mix it up with ironic sarcasm. He went on: “It’ll be something like Bangkok, except that here we don’t know who it is. But there’s not many of them to screen. It’s only a mail-drop, after all.”

“Hang on a bit,” I said, doing some frowning of my own, “Are you saying that I’ve got to do the sniffing too?”

Burgess nodded. My frown deepened. I could feel it pulling my eyebrows down. I said, “You do have a few pointers though…”

Hopefully.

He shook his head and dashed on. “Roberts will be your trigger-man again. He’s out there already. He’ll contact you at the airport.”

I grunted. Shit, Roberts again! Roberts was bad news. He’d cracked up in Bangkok. He’d used his gun right enough and his aim was as good as ever. But I had had to lead him to the job. Literally. And afterwards he had cried like a baby and told me that he was through. I should have put that in the report. I should have done a lot of things. But I hadn’t. And now, down there, was an unknown double-agent and, God help me, Roberts!

Here was Burgess again. “You’ve got a choice from perhaps five men. Can’t be more specific about the numbers because I don’t know. And we don’t require an arrest. When you find him, kill him! The big man wants this mail-drop cleared post-haste. But keep your INTERNAL cover. That’s important. Let Roberts do the dirty work. That’s what he’s paid for. And no frills. If Roberts has got to do it in broad daylight and leave the body in the gutter, then so be it.”

I’d said that I understood. But I’d lied. I did not understand at all. Burgess normally insisted on every frill that was available. Here was something new. Though I’ve never done a job for the section that had not involved a corpse or two, they have - had!- always, without exception, had to be nice corpses. Accidental-death type corpses. Or corpses that are never found. That’s what E.L. trades in. Corpses.

E.L. is our designation, by the way. And E.L. is not about detective work (see above); it is about rubbing out agents who have become unstable for one reason or another. We get handed a name and are left to get on with it. The donkey work would have already been done, either by the section involved or INTERNAL. E.L., I think, is the big man’s condensation of the word Elimination. But I could be wrong. And the big man I refer to is Burgess’s boss, who could be anyone. To put us in a nutshell; we are what happens when something gets too dirty for INTERNAL to risk dealing with. As socially acceptable as the plague but, to Burgess’s growing happiness, a number in the little black books of almost every department of Military Intelligence.

Just by-the-by; I was respectable myself once, believe it or not. A happy, hard-working field man for C.I.6. Then some bright spark - not to dwell too long on a boring subject - thought that I would be of more use to INTERNAL. We killed people there, too. Sometimes. But mostly we just had to prise the baddy out of his burrow and hand him over for trial. I was good at that. Prising, I mean. Then, to end this short biography, one fine spring morning I get sent to Burgess’s warren and, without so much as a by-your-leave, I’m up to my armpits in E.L. That was four years ago. Lesson over.

I looked out of the window, and there was southern Greece stretched out below us. Nothing down there yet but parched-looking hills. But it looked like beautiful weather out there.

Burgess was saying: “Roberts will have the lie of the land sussed out by the time you get there and he’ll leave instructions on the airport notice board.”

“Information,” I said dully, “Roberts will leave information on the notice board. Roberts does not give me instructions! There’s a subtle difference.”

Burgess hadn’t liked that. He doesn’t like to think that his boys don’t love each other madly. Burgess can get stuffed. Roberts had already got off lightly in my book. If he thought that he had authority to dish out instructions he would really fall apart. These played-out trigger-men are all the same. Played out! Then I tried again to convince Burgess that I was no longer a winkler of baddies out of holes. But he would have none of it. Pedantic git!

We were landing at last. I shoved Burgess to the back of my mind.

Athens Airport was hot. And it was dusty. I’d been through there before, doing things for C.I., but I’d never caught the summer. It was a bit of a shock to the system. Two minutes after leaving the plane I was sweating like a porker.

Roberts was there all right. I saw him hovering about outside the wire as I entered the terminal building. I tell you now that he did not look like everyman’s idea of the cold-blooded killer. He is  - was, rather (poor sod’s not with us anymore) - a wan little chap who always managed to look half dressed. Too many bones and not enough skin. But I can’t talk. I’m an ugly sod myself. But I’m a long way from the scrap-heap. That's if I'm ever asked, of course.

When I finally made it through the red tape, Roberts was nowhere to be seen. Then a taxi draws up. He’s in it. And there was only the one. This seemed odd. Perhaps I should have looked at the notice board. We shouldn’t really travel together. Not done, and all that. I dropped my suitcase on the ground and lit up a fag whilst having a cagey peek up and down the road. Definitely just the one taxi. I glanced over and saw Roberts jerk his head. So, not wishing to over-dramatize the situation, I walked over.

“Shoot.” I said as I slid in beside him, “Only try not to take me literally!“ Quite pithy, I thought, all things considered.

Was that a smile? Probably not.

“I wanna thank you, Jackie.” Roberts muttered as the taxi pulled away. Jackie - Jackson, for my sins - is my first name, so there was no reason why Roberts shouldn’t use it. I forget his first name. When I’m not calling him Roberts, I just call him chum. Or matey. Or whatever.

“What for, chum?”

He looked down at his spindly hands. He was embarrassed. I have to admit it, though I shouldn’t, I felt sorry for the old blighter. “Oh, that! “ I said magnanimously “Forget it.”

Roberts shook his head. “I won’t forget it.” He kept his eyes on his hands. “I might have been beached.”

“And for that you thank me?” The man’s a fool, I thought. I’d give my back teeth to get my demob papers all legal. That’s another trouble with this business; you never get to resign when you feel like it. But Roberts was not thinking straight. If I’d reported the Bangkok thing the way it happened he would not just have been beached; Burgess would have had another of his two-man teams give him the old heave-ho. Goodnight, nurse! It’s an odd business, this. Best left alone if the choice is there. While Roberts was studying his thumbnails Burgess was droning on in my mind.

“I’ll tell you why Athens is so important…“ I’d asked him, just for something to say. “…it’s because everyone has got a mail-drop there. It’s a beehive now that the Lebanon is closed. All the big outfits go through there and all the little ones are chasing after them. Devil of a job to keep a finger on every pulse. And that, so I gather, is what the colonel (remember the colonel?) needs to do. And he can’t do it if he’s got a spanner in his works.”

“Okay. But what’s the colonel’s speciality?” I thought I’d ask. It would have been out of character for me not to ask those kinds of questions.

Burgess replied in his usual manner. “None of your damned business! None of mine either, come to that. We’re just the janitors, remember?”

That’s us. Muck-shovellers extraordinary. Everybody’s plaything and nobody’s friend. Ask anyone about us and they’ll spit on the ground, if not on you. Justice? You’re joking.

“It seems,“ went on Burgess, without waiting for a reaction, “that the colonel has lost track of a couple of his top men. Queer goings-on, and all that. And all roads lead to his Athens drop.”

I thought about this. Then, after due consideration, I said, “So there’ve been some queer goings-on. Fascinating stuff. But hardly grounds for yelling double-agent. If – “

Burgess raised a hand and sighed hugely. “No ‘ifs’! We’ve been given the brief and that’s that. Besides, the conclusion is theirs. You make your own mind up when you get there.”

I shrugged. “Message received, Chief. So where is the drop? I mean a little more precisely than Athens. Or do I have to guess at that, too?”

Burgess, showing a remarkable turn of patience, ignored my gibe. “The front is a paper shop in the Astoria Hotel. The top man there is called Hadley.”

“What’s his security clearance?”

“A damn sight higher than yours.”

Why did I bother asking? “Fair enough. Others?”

“Here is the second reason why it’s you going and not someone else. Remember Teague? Pat Teague?”

Groan. I sure as hell remembered Patrick Teague. Another in the Roberts’s mould. He’d dropped me in it somewhere. Beirut, I think it was. Back in the C.11 days. The details escaped me for the moment. But it had been a nasty business. Perhaps, I thought, I could get to even the score. “What’s he doing there?” I asked, straight-faced.

“Communications number. Runs his transmitter up in the mountains. Place called Pretmia. You’ll have clearance to use that radio to report back direct to me. Every day! Use the Class-A scramble code. Make today day-one in the sequence. Got it?”

Silly boy. “Anyone else I might know?”

“The only other name I have is of the runner. Man called Peters. Glean more from Hadley. Now listen, Hadley will be under the impression that you are nothing more than an INTERNAL ferret. Don’t disappoint him.”

“Perish the thought.” I said, with a silly grin on my face.

Burgess had not liked that either. Flippant, he’d called it. Stupid beggar.

“I’ve got a room in a pensione a couple of doors up from the hotel. I can fix you up there too if you like.”

“Eh?”

“I said…“

This was not Burgess. This was Roberts woken from reverie. I told him that I’d heard what he’d said and added, “Since I don’t have to hide in the woodwork on this one I reckon I’ll go for a room in the hotel. Live it up a bit.”

Roberts shook his head. “Full! I checked for you.”

Somehow I thought at the time that he should not have done that. We weren’t supposed to know each other. And we were already riding in the same cab. But it was too blasted hot for an inquest. I just sighed.

Correction. It was not just hot, it was scalding. The road ahead was palpitating and little whirlpools of dust flared up in whatever sea-breezes managed to drag themselves bodily over the sand to the road. It was about this time that I became aware of this funny feeling. Right down in the depths of my belly. Nothing that I could put a finger on. Just this odd feeling that I’d overlooked something. Perhaps it was just that we were not being as furtive as we should have been.

I said, “What else have you got for me?”

Roberts seemed to drag himself out of the doldrums, “Funny business,“ he began.

“Queer goings-on.“ I put in.

Roberts looked at me sideways before continuing. “There’s this bird. She and Teague have got something going between them. I was up giving Teague’s place the once-over and she visits him. Stays for a bit, then leaves. Didn’t think much about it then. Then she turns up again opposite the hotel. Just standing there under the trees. She’s tailing Hadley, I’m sure. Twice she was there. Each time Hadley shows up she shows up. And she’s always got a camera in her hand.”

It could be something. I said: “What’s she like?”

Roberts pursed his lips. “All right, I suppose. Greek, I think. You want me to check her out for form?”

I sighed. “Answer to your question: No. I’ll do the checking from here on in, not that I’m ungrateful for your efforts. And the answer I would have preferred for my question might have gone along the lines of: dark, shoulder-length hair, swarthy features with a mole on the end of her nose, or what-have.you. Snap out of it, chum. It’s too hot to start a stud farm!”

Roberts’s eyebrows joined hands. Then the penny dropped. “Oh, sorry. Well, just about the way you described her except for the mole. About twenty, I guess. Well built. You couldn’t miss her in a crowd. And too bloody young for Teague. You’ll get a surprise when you see him.”

“And you’re sure she was tailing Hadley?”

“Absolutely.”

At least it gave me a starting point. I said: “Where are we going?”

“I’ll drop you off near the hotel. Perhaps you can - ”

I held up my hand. “Never mind that, batman. I’ll drop you off then cut along up into the mountains.“ I figured that I might as well hold the reins from the word go. Provided of course that we hadn’t already passed the word go.

Roberts did not seem to be put out. He just said, “Teague?”

“Right. Anything else I should know before we split up?”

He shook his head. “Only the girl.”

“Okay. What’s the address of your pensione for when I need you?”

“Number forty-three. First floor. Same street as - ’

“As the hotel. I know.” Then I heard Burgess’s voice in the back of my mind.

“Your man could be any of them. When you have him nailed down, don’t wait for contact with me. Just give Roberts his orders. If you’re wrong, there won’t be too much harm done!

You see? Every rule in the book was being broken on this one. But then, are there really any hard and fast rules in this game?