melt. No living thing would survive within sixty-five square miles. That was one H-bomb – and yet Kit knew that London was targeted with eight.
And London was, in megaton-speak, ‘lucky’. Kit remembered a Pentagon briefing that had started as surreal, then quickly took off into the absolute un real. It began turning funny when General Curtis LeMay pointed to a map of Moscow pinpointed with four hundred H-bomb targets. Four-fucking-hundred ! A junior White House staffer had the temerity to ask why. Kit remembered how LeMay puffed his cigar and smiled. ‘The Russian bear’s a big beast. We need,’ said the general, ‘to take his leg off right up to his testicles. On second thought, let’s take off his testicles too.’ Kit remembered how fond his father was of quoting St Thomas Aquinas. It wasn’t only a matter of Jus ad Bellum , but of fighting a ‘Just War’ with ‘Just Means’. If, thought Kit, twelfth-century ignoramuses were able to work that one out, what does that say about us? When did our own savagery begin? Sherman marching through Georgia? Hamburg and Dresden? Hiroshima and Nagasaki? When did deliberately killing civilians become an acceptable means to achieve military and political goals? Collective punishment. You can’t get the top brass, so you kill little kids instead. Why is it OK for us to do it, but not the other guys?
Kit poured himself another glass of brandy. None of those qualms mattered. He was a servant of the State and had a job to do. He remembered how the DCI had faulted him for not having recruited any journalists to spout the American line. It was a subtle game. The strategy was to target progressive and centre-left publications. No sense in preaching to the converted. An anti-American paper changing its tune was the more effective form of propaganda. And you shouldn’t ignore book reviewers and publishers either – they were often strapped for cash and vulnerable . Good reviews for ‘good’ writers and vice versa. Sometimes it verged on the ridiculous. His predecessor had ‘subsidised’ a London house to publish a Swahili translation of the complete poetry of T.S. Eliot. If that doesn’t stop Africa from going communist , nothing will.
Kit went to the bedroom to undress. The walls were bare, except for a statue on a plaque of the Virgin Mary. Pepita, the Indian woman who looked after Kit when the family had been stationed in Managua, had given him the statue. She was his favourite of several nannies. The statue was pure Latino tat. The Virgin was painted with luminous white so that her image glowed in the dark. A symbol of purity. Pepita would always say, ‘Remember, Kit, she is always looking at you.’ A few years later, Kit realised that Pepita’s words were a veiled warning about masturbation. The warning worked. Puberty arrived as a horny storm, but Kit was always dissuaded from self-love by the glowing nocturnal image of Pepita’s Virgin. She’s watching . Then somehow, the Virgin became an object of desire and that desire became manifest in the person of his cousin, Jennifer. Jennifier – body, mind, soul, voice – became Kit’s Holy Virgin. And then Jennifer went with another man – and did strange things. Kit poured another brandy, a final one he hoped. It was all complicated in a way that he could never explain to anyone, could never explain to himself.
Kit stared into the mirror above the chest of drawers. His eyes were bloodshot and his face had the drawn look of a monk in an ascetic order. Maybe that was his role: a modern Knight Templar serving the Holy State. But he wasn’t any good. He hadn’t recruited a single journalist or publisher. And worse, he hadn’t spotted Burgess and Maclean. He’d worked closely with both of them when they were stationed in Washington, but hadn’t detected a whiff of treachery. Sure, Guy was a queer and a drunk, but that isn’t particularly unusual in the trade. And Maclean, a devoted family man, seemed an
And London was, in megaton-speak, ‘lucky’. Kit remembered a Pentagon briefing that had started as surreal, then quickly took off into the absolute un real. It began turning funny when General Curtis LeMay pointed to a map of Moscow pinpointed with four hundred H-bomb targets. Four-fucking-hundred ! A junior White House staffer had the temerity to ask why. Kit remembered how LeMay puffed his cigar and smiled. ‘The Russian bear’s a big beast. We need,’ said the general, ‘to take his leg off right up to his testicles. On second thought, let’s take off his testicles too.’ Kit remembered how fond his father was of quoting St Thomas Aquinas. It wasn’t only a matter of Jus ad Bellum , but of fighting a ‘Just War’ with ‘Just Means’. If, thought Kit, twelfth-century ignoramuses were able to work that one out, what does that say about us? When did our own savagery begin? Sherman marching through Georgia? Hamburg and Dresden? Hiroshima and Nagasaki? When did deliberately killing civilians become an acceptable means to achieve military and political goals? Collective punishment. You can’t get the top brass, so you kill little kids instead. Why is it OK for us to do it, but not the other guys?
Kit poured himself another glass of brandy. None of those qualms mattered. He was a servant of the State and had a job to do. He remembered how the DCI had faulted him for not having recruited any journalists to spout the American line. It was a subtle game. The strategy was to target progressive and centre-left publications. No sense in preaching to the converted. An anti-American paper changing its tune was the more effective form of propaganda. And you shouldn’t ignore book reviewers and publishers either – they were often strapped for cash and vulnerable . Good reviews for ‘good’ writers and vice versa. Sometimes it verged on the ridiculous. His predecessor had ‘subsidised’ a London house to publish a Swahili translation of the complete poetry of T.S. Eliot. If that doesn’t stop Africa from going communist , nothing will.
Kit went to the bedroom to undress. The walls were bare, except for a statue on a plaque of the Virgin Mary. Pepita, the Indian woman who looked after Kit when the family had been stationed in Managua, had given him the statue. She was his favourite of several nannies. The statue was pure Latino tat. The Virgin was painted with luminous white so that her image glowed in the dark. A symbol of purity. Pepita would always say, ‘Remember, Kit, she is always looking at you.’ A few years later, Kit realised that Pepita’s words were a veiled warning about masturbation. The warning worked. Puberty arrived as a horny storm, but Kit was always dissuaded from self-love by the glowing nocturnal image of Pepita’s Virgin. She’s watching . Then somehow, the Virgin became an object of desire and that desire became manifest in the person of his cousin, Jennifer. Jennifier – body, mind, soul, voice – became Kit’s Holy Virgin. And then Jennifer went with another man – and did strange things. Kit poured another brandy, a final one he hoped. It was all complicated in a way that he could never explain to anyone, could never explain to himself.
Kit stared into the mirror above the chest of drawers. His eyes were bloodshot and his face had the drawn look of a monk in an ascetic order. Maybe that was his role: a modern Knight Templar serving the Holy State. But he wasn’t any good. He hadn’t recruited a single journalist or publisher. And worse, he hadn’t spotted Burgess and Maclean. He’d worked closely with both of them when they were stationed in Washington, but hadn’t detected a whiff of treachery. Sure, Guy was a queer and a drunk, but that isn’t particularly unusual in the trade. And Maclean, a devoted family man, seemed an
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