KGBand the Red Army panicking on the Russian side of the Aras River, and therefore the Shah sending Iranian aircraft out to patrol
their
border—and the Russian expedition was indeed canceled, with no evidence that the circumstances had had anything to do with Philby, who obviously had no choice then but to return to England. So far so good, you’ll say.”
Hale straightened up from under the table to replace the drill and lift the pick and the little microphone. “Consider it said,” he told the old man in a conversational tone, and then ducked under the table again. The drill bit had been well chosen—the plastic cylinder slid tightly into the new, oblique hole without needing any help from the pick, and its fine antenna was invisible in the shadows. He knew Theodora wouldn’t be sending an activating signal to the microphone, making it vulnerable to electronic security sweeps, until such time as Macmillan’s government fell and a Labour Party Prime Minister took office.
“But the secret Russian directors were suspicious of Philby anyway,” he could hear Theodora saying over the rapid, covering rattle of the ivory fan, “clearly wondering if he had been turned there in Turkey, or in London the year before when MI5 interrogated him about Burgess and Maclean, or even right after the failure in ’48. They’ve always been so leery of Ararat, since Lenin got killed fooling with it, that they’d jump at any honorable excuse to leave it alone; we’ve had to nudge them at every turn to encourage them to try it again, so that we’ll be able to step in at the last moment and finally close down the whole show. And so we had to leave Philby out trailing his coat, for another six years, before they worked up the nerve to get back in contact with him.”
Hale pocketed the sawdust and wiped his hand on the pocket lining, then stood up and laid the pick on the handkerchief. “Six years of it,” he said respectfully as he slowly sat down in his chair, “and he wasn’t working for SIS anymore.” He reached for his own handkerchief, but it was in the coat he had left in the Peugeot; so he mopped the sweat from his forehead and cheeks with the new coat’s rough sleeve.
“No,” agreed Theodora, nodding with evident satisfaction as hereached forward to fold the handkerchief and sweep it back into his own pocket, “he was as attractive as we could make him—virtually bankrupt and doing odd ghost-writing jobs, drinking too much, his wife going crazy, avoided by all his old friends. And then after the Prime Minister exonerated him in Parliament, SIS gave him some charity chicken-feed jobs in Beirut, where he’s been doing journalistic piecework. And Angleton’s CIA men in Lebanon have been harassing him and getting him arrested on trivial suspicions, which certainly hasn’t made it look as though he had any
usefulness
to anybody. We painted them a proper picture, with him. And still it was mere KGB that finally approached him, very tentatively, in ’58. But he continued to look genuinely abandoned—brilliant man, he even tried to get Indian citizenship in 1960!—and now he’s fully back on the old Russian force, as trusted by them as anybody ever is.” He finally clicked his fan closed and tucked it back into his pocket.
Hale pushed away the fresh memories of having installed the microphone, trying to do it so thoroughly that he would even be able to deny the action convincingly in a polygraph interrogation. He focused all his attention on the old man’s story. “And—me?” he asked now. Hale recalled Theodora telling him, in 1941,
It’s not so much
our
plans for you that are at issue.
“Yes. Well, this has to move fast. Last night in Beirut”—he glanced at his wristwatch—“sixteen hours ago, someone shot Kim Philby as he stood too near the bathroom window of his Beirut apartment; it was a .30-caliber rifle round, fired from the roof of a building across the street. He’s alive—the bullet nearly
their
border—and the Russian expedition was indeed canceled, with no evidence that the circumstances had had anything to do with Philby, who obviously had no choice then but to return to England. So far so good, you’ll say.”
Hale straightened up from under the table to replace the drill and lift the pick and the little microphone. “Consider it said,” he told the old man in a conversational tone, and then ducked under the table again. The drill bit had been well chosen—the plastic cylinder slid tightly into the new, oblique hole without needing any help from the pick, and its fine antenna was invisible in the shadows. He knew Theodora wouldn’t be sending an activating signal to the microphone, making it vulnerable to electronic security sweeps, until such time as Macmillan’s government fell and a Labour Party Prime Minister took office.
“But the secret Russian directors were suspicious of Philby anyway,” he could hear Theodora saying over the rapid, covering rattle of the ivory fan, “clearly wondering if he had been turned there in Turkey, or in London the year before when MI5 interrogated him about Burgess and Maclean, or even right after the failure in ’48. They’ve always been so leery of Ararat, since Lenin got killed fooling with it, that they’d jump at any honorable excuse to leave it alone; we’ve had to nudge them at every turn to encourage them to try it again, so that we’ll be able to step in at the last moment and finally close down the whole show. And so we had to leave Philby out trailing his coat, for another six years, before they worked up the nerve to get back in contact with him.”
Hale pocketed the sawdust and wiped his hand on the pocket lining, then stood up and laid the pick on the handkerchief. “Six years of it,” he said respectfully as he slowly sat down in his chair, “and he wasn’t working for SIS anymore.” He reached for his own handkerchief, but it was in the coat he had left in the Peugeot; so he mopped the sweat from his forehead and cheeks with the new coat’s rough sleeve.
“No,” agreed Theodora, nodding with evident satisfaction as hereached forward to fold the handkerchief and sweep it back into his own pocket, “he was as attractive as we could make him—virtually bankrupt and doing odd ghost-writing jobs, drinking too much, his wife going crazy, avoided by all his old friends. And then after the Prime Minister exonerated him in Parliament, SIS gave him some charity chicken-feed jobs in Beirut, where he’s been doing journalistic piecework. And Angleton’s CIA men in Lebanon have been harassing him and getting him arrested on trivial suspicions, which certainly hasn’t made it look as though he had any
usefulness
to anybody. We painted them a proper picture, with him. And still it was mere KGB that finally approached him, very tentatively, in ’58. But he continued to look genuinely abandoned—brilliant man, he even tried to get Indian citizenship in 1960!—and now he’s fully back on the old Russian force, as trusted by them as anybody ever is.” He finally clicked his fan closed and tucked it back into his pocket.
Hale pushed away the fresh memories of having installed the microphone, trying to do it so thoroughly that he would even be able to deny the action convincingly in a polygraph interrogation. He focused all his attention on the old man’s story. “And—me?” he asked now. Hale recalled Theodora telling him, in 1941,
It’s not so much
our
plans for you that are at issue.
“Yes. Well, this has to move fast. Last night in Beirut”—he glanced at his wristwatch—“sixteen hours ago, someone shot Kim Philby as he stood too near the bathroom window of his Beirut apartment; it was a .30-caliber rifle round, fired from the roof of a building across the street. He’s alive—the bullet nearly
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