The Secret Families Read online

  Sara and Dick continued to pine for their daughter, Caroline, who had spent much of the Second World War with Josephine, and was still far away in America. She was due to return to England during the following year, like Jo-Jo shattered by her experiences since 1945, which were the true cause of her prolonged absence from Redhill.

  Both Richard and Sara — who had not been at Caspar’s interment — greeted family and friends as they arrived, while one of the nurses looked after Caspar’s widow, Phoebe. She had always, since anyone could remember, been called ‘Old Phoeb’, and now, at seventy years, had indeed become almost prematurely ancient with the onset of Parkinson’s disease which made her hands shake like some terrible, sick clockwork toy. Phoebe was truly prostrate with grief. She had loved Caspar deeply since they were both in their early twenties. Years had not wearied that love. They were like Naldo’s father and mother, and the same as Dick and Sara. Some people said marriages were not made like that any more.

  Naldo’s father, James, travelled to the Manor with his wife, Margaret Mary, in a hired car, while Naldo drove Barbara and their two children: Arthur — a tall, astute sixteen-year-old, down from Winchester for Christmas — and Emma, who was at the exclusive St Mary’s School, in Haversage.

  ‘I always thought Great-Uncle Caspar a cheery old buffer,’ Arthur said, in the patronising manner of public schoolboys of his age. They were negotiating Redhill in the blue 3.5 litre Rover. ‘Never talked much about himself though.’ The boy continued as though everyone hung on his words. ‘Always turned the conversation over to you. Used to ask him something, and then find myself going on about my own life and problems.’

  ‘You haven’t got any problems, Art,’ from his sister, a shade cattily. ‘Except for your pimples, of course.’

  ‘Like the boys from the grammar school you ogle all the time,’ her brother snapped.

  Barbara chuckled, and Naldo thought, if they only knew. Caspar had been ADC to the first ‘C’ — the shortened title for CSS, Chief of the Secret Service — during the 1914 —18 war, and had gone on to greater things in the same Secret Intelligence Service, MI6. Naldo himself had seen his uncle at work as a skilled interrogator, and knew how this extraordinary, physically crippled man had set up networks, run agents and knew the trade backwards. Naldo had even been on a postwar operation with his uncle, together with Dick’s nephew, Arnold Farthing, and the then fledgling Kruger, the man he had glimpsed from Caspar’s graveside. In fact he had first met, and courted, Barbara while that operation was running.

  That morning at Redhill there was much talk of Caspar, and also a great deal of shop concerning world affairs. At the time, there was grave concern throughout the Western world, at what appeared to be the beginnings of a closer United States involvement in the affairs of South Vietnam, which faced a full-blown Communist assault from the North. ‘Can’t see how the Yanks can avoid being dragged in. Really they’re in already, and their hard-headed foreign policy means they’ve got to show a heels-in stand against Communism,’ one senior intelligence officer was saying to Barbara, who nodded gravely. Naldo had talked about the problem at length, so the intelligence man was preaching to the converted.

  For years the Americans had tried to stabilize that small and split South-East Asian country. At the end of the Second World War they had backed the Viet Minh revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh. Later, they had put in military advisers, and ‘technicians’ — another word for skilled intelligence and training officers.

  For the past decade the United States had actively supported the politically ambitious Ngo family, conniving to maintain the South Vietnamese leader, Ngo Dinh Diem, who had dealt crushing blows to the Communists in their midst, in power. But last year had brought great changes. Diem was known to be talking to the Northern Communists, playing them off against the Americans, who had become embarrassed by his ruthless and corrupt regime — run in conjunction with his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, together with the latter’s powerful wife, Madame Nhu.

  On 1 November 1963, Diem’s generals and rebel soldiers completed a bloody coup in which Diem and Nhu died — shot and dumped into the back of an armoured personnel carrier, part of the American aid. Madame Nhu and her entourage fled. Three weeks later, President Kennedy was himself killed, in Dallas, by an apparently lone assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.

  Now, in South-East Asia, the signs of a forthcoming bloody war were there for all to see. There was little chance of the United States extricating itself from the potential blood-bath. As Naldo mingled with his relatives, and his uncle’s old colleagues that morning, he heard snippets of conversation which ranged from the American dilemma to the recent fall of the British Conservative government which had led to Harold Wilson becoming Prime Minister. ‘Wouldn’t have happened but for that damned girl,’ Sara said loudly.

  Certainly, the change of government could, in part, be attributed to a great scandal during the previous summer, which contained all the ingredients so beloved of the gutter press: a Conservative minister — the Secretary of State for War no less — caught with his hand in the sexual till, though forthright Sara had used a more apt anatomical simile. The Secretary of State for War had conducted an illicit love affair with a lady who was also engaged in similar assignations with the assistant naval attaché of the Russian Embassy: almost certainly a member of the GRU. These people were to become household names — Profumo, Ivanov, Keeler, and her so-called pimp, Stephen Ward. There were court cases, and one suicide: Ward, who claimed he was working under the instructions of MI5. Years later this was proved to be true, but the ground swell of this cause célèbre had certainly gone a long way towards toppling the government.

  As he passed through the room, Naldo also heard the trivia of the times: last night’s TV play, and the latest movie in glorious technicolor — ‘I say, have you seen the latest James Bond film, Goldfinger? Really super,’ from some young braying relative. Or comments on new popstars — ‘Damned cacophony these rolling people, what’re they called? Stones, is it? Ought to get their bloody hair cut!’ loudly from old Dick.

  Politically, Harold Wilson was in Number 10, and saying little; Lyndon Johnson was in the White House, becoming dangerously bellicose; and Nikita Khrushchev, the out-spoken and aggressive Russian leader for the best part of a decade, had been ousted from the Kremlin, his power taken by two men whose names as yet meant little to those at Caspar’s funeral — Leonid Brezhnev and Aleksei Kosygin. As for himself, Naldo simply wanted to get away, to be alone for a while and think of his dear dead uncle. Politics, terrorism, wars, rumours of wars, shifts in power held no magic for him.

  He threaded his way through the drawing room, hoping to seek peace in the rose garden which had always provided a kind of sanctuary at Redhill.

  Naldo reached the door before he sensed that Herbie Kruger, who stood huge and ungainly by one of the tall windows, was at the funeral for more reasons than his own need to pay respect.

  Pausing, Naldo quickly took in the presence of his dead uncle’s colleagues. He could not miss the pompous Maitland-Wood, C’s current food-taster; and the reedy, skeletal figure of ‘Tubby’ Fincher. If Maitland-Wood sat on the right hand of God, then ‘Tubby’ was firmly planted on the left. ‘Have care,’ a voice whispered in his head. Today, in this big and wonderful old house, nestling below the Berkshire Downs and the old Roman Way, there were pitfalls, swamps and quicksands. ‘Have care, this day.’ Naldo turned from the door, shouldering his way towards the window and Kruger.

  ‘What’s up, Herb?’ he said quietly on approaching the German, who was now a naturalized British citizen, still working for the SIS.

  ‘Read me like a bloody book, Nald, eh?’

  ‘Sometimes. I have the right, old son, I helped train you.’

  Kruger nodded his head, an exaggerated movement, like an ungainly Buddha. ‘True. You. Arnie. The boys at Warminster. Even the old bugger Maitland-Wood. He was first officer to interview me when you brought me back to England.’ He paused and visibly swallow
ed. ‘Then there was poor old Caspar, of course.’ There was a catch in his voice, but most people knew that Herbie wept easily, especially in drink or when listening to the works of Gustav Mahler. Only Naldo, and the few people who had run the agent, knew that his tears were part of a very elaborate cover built, brick upon brick, over the years. Herbie could turn on what he called ‘the blubbings’ like a tap.

  ‘Spit it out.’ Naldo looked across the room to see his fourteen-year-old daughter deep in gloomy conversation with Alexander, one of Caspar’s sons — still in the trade and working at the so-called Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) now firmly established in Cheltenham. Alexander’s brother, Andrew — a solicitor who looked like one — spoke rapidly to Maitland-Wood who paid no heed, only nodding occasionally as he square-searched the room with his eyes.

  ‘Okay, I spit.’ Herbie gave a rueful smile. ‘Arnie wants to see you. He says very personal. Most covert. Typische CIA, huh?’

  ‘Been a long while.’ Naldo had not seen Arnie Farthing for around six years, though there had been a time when they were never out of each other’s pockets. The special relationship which existed between the American CIA and British SIS had become strained and full of mistrust when the Soviet penetration agents had been unearthed, too late, in the past decade or so. That had been the time of what the press called the Cambridge Spy Ring. Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, and, much later, Kim Philby — potentially the greatest defused threat of all, for there had been one very brief tarnished moment when the C of the time had put Philby’s name forward as his successor.

  What rankled, on both sides of the Atlantic, was the fact that a CIA officer — formerly of the FBI — had made the Philby connection, putting together the jigsaw of his treachery long before anyone else; and even then the Brits took little action. At the end, when Kim made a kind of confession before skipping to Moscow, he was still in the employ of the SIS.

  It was only in recent years that the SIS and CIA had resumed a close, if uneasy, partnership, and only then because of a fluke, a defector in a million, a man with enchanted information, from whom the two intelligence communities shared the product and so, people believed, had brought the world back from the brink of another war.

  Now, Naldo wondered if Arnie had been pushed towards him because of new information. Only eight months previously, the so-called ‘fourth man’ in the Cambridge conspiracy, Anthony Blunt, had made a reluctant confession to having been a spy for Russia — the confession carrying with it a promise of immunity. A very tight circle within the British intelligence and security organisations knew this truth. At the time, they said it would be a disaster if all the facts were leaked to the entire American agency. Certain people had to know, but it was a careful knowledge. The British suspected the CIA of being leaky. After all, there were many senior members of that service who had told Philby more than they should, and ended up with red faces. In turn, the CIA feeling was that the British intelligence service was, as they would say, like a piece of gruyère.

  ‘Know what he wants, Herb?’

  ‘No clue, Nald. Just that it’s urgent.’

  ‘Where’d you see him, Bonn?’

  Kruger’s eyebrows twitched, and he shifted from foot to foot. He had run a superlative network in East Berlin, cryptoed the Schnitzer Group, until the building of the Wall had decisively split that unhappy city in two during the August of 1961, three years before. Herbie had got out in his socks, as the old argot had it. Since then, Naldo knew that he was working under a very tight trade cover, and without the knowledge, or sanction, of the BfV or BND — the West German Security and Intelligence Services — running his Schnitzer Group at long range. The Germans took a dim view of people operating on their patch without even a by-your-leave. Herbie was in and out all the time, doing the Bonn-London shuttle. They would not let him get within spitting distance of Berlin.

  Now the big German gave Naldo a sly look and nodded. ‘He make a special trip to see me. Last week. From Berlin. I had just heard of Caspar’s death.’ He paused, looked away, then back again. ‘So had Arnie. He’s forbidden London at the moment. So he give me telephone number.’ Almost under his breath, Kruger rattled off the Berlin number and Naldo repeated it. ‘He says to ask for Mr Dove. If OK he will say it is good to hear from you again. Those exact words, OK? You are Mr Cline. Time will be plus three hours. Whatever place he gives you, on the telephone, the meet will be in lobby of Kempinski. You got it?’

  Naldo nodded and started to turn away, but the big man rested a hand on his forearm. ‘Sorry about Cas, Naldo. Truly sorry. He was good. One of the best.’

  ‘Sure, Herb. Thanks.’

  Much later, Naldo thought the two first threads came together on that day at Caspar Railton’s funeral. First with the words, ‘Now it begins’, by the graveside; second with Herbie’s ‘Arnie wants to see you.’

  That was when it all really started.

  2

  Arnold Farthing had risen in his chosen trade. Two weeks before Caspar Railton’s death and funeral, he had received a flash signal to return to Washington. He was, at this time, Head of Berlin Station — an appointment, in those years of the Cold War, not only of responsibility, but also danger.

  He got into Dulles International around eleven on the morning after his recall, taking a taxi into town and going straight to the small pretty house in Georgetown, owned by his family for many years and always used by Arnie when in Washington. His wife, Gloria, stayed on in Berlin, for he only expected to be away for three or four days at the most. By telephoning ahead, Gloria had made certain that the house was prepared for him: food in the refrigerator, clean towels in the bathroom, fresh sheets on the bed, and the heating turned on. Nights in the late autumn can be very chilly in Washington.

  Arnold showered and shaved, changed his clothes, then called the agency. A car would be sent for him at once. Tired and lagged though he was, Arnold waited on the corner for the limousine with smoked glass windows to arrive. They took the usual two sweeps across Washington Bridge, using the turning circles at each end to make sure nobody was dogging their tyres, then drove north on the Washington Memorial Parkway, crossing under Key Bridge and on into the Virginian countryside. It was autumn and the view — the trees brown, gold and blazing with fire in weakening sunlight — never failed to excite him.

  They passed the sign to Turkey Run Creek, then turned off after the indicator for the Federal Highway Commission, onto the exit marked, unashamedly, Central Intelligence Agency, Langley. The sign had only recently been replaced. During Kennedy’s presidency it had disappeared. The President had been appalled that the United States intelligence service was so publicly marked — even though everyone knew exactly where the headquarters complex stood, deep among the trees, guarded by dogs, wire and sensors.

  The driver took the car right into the basement, saying that Arnie should see the people at ‘reception’. At the desk there was a message for him to report to the head of counter-intelligence — James Jesus Angleton, already a legend in the agency. They jested of Angleton that he would be buried in an unmarked grave to preserve his anonymity.

  Angleton had been known variously as ‘the Cadaver’, because of his gaunt aesthetic appearance, and ‘the Poet’ because of his love for poetry — there were always collections of Pound, Keats or Eliot in his office, sometimes almost hidden by the mounds of paper which grew, like snowdrifts, around him. He was behind his paper-littered desk now, a cigarette between his fingers. There were three other senior field officers ranged about the room. ‘Heck,’ Arnie said, ‘The Sovs must be having a ball, looks like you have every European station head over here.’

  ‘You’re not far wrong. Nice to see you, Arnie.’ Angleton’s thin hand seemed to shoot out from the piles of paper to grasp at Arnold’s huge paw. The office was cold, and Angleton apologised. ‘They still haven’t got the heating and air-conditioning right after three years,’ he said. ‘I hear we might sue the contractors. This campus is a mess.’
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br />   The three other officers said their hellos. They were all known to each other.

  ‘I’d only just started putting these guys in the picture.’ Angleton dragged on his cigarette. ‘There’re ten other guys in town, and another seven expected any minute. As I was saying, you’ll be in Washington for about three days. Nobody wants the whole European team here with Mother — let alone the other far-flung heads — but there’s no way to avoid it. We’re getting a necessary briefing from our cousins, the Brits, and this is the only totally secure way.’

  ‘More trouble?’ The head of station from Sydney, Australia, raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I don’t think you’d call it trouble.’ Angleton’s face seemed to alter, going into a reflective mode. ‘No, not trouble, but a slight embarrassment. That’s why this is all silent as the grave. They’ve finally come up with the “fourth man” as their tabloids would call him. Only, to lay the ghost, they’ve had to give him immunity from prosecution. The files won’t be unlocked until around the time Gabriel blows taps.’

  ‘The long march still goes on then?’ Arnie said it almost to himself. The Russians, they all knew from defectors, had started what they called ‘the long march through the institutions’ by recruiting likely penetration agents in the 1930s — men and women who stood a real chance of being placed in positions of responsibility within the government establishments and political power bases of every non-Communist country in the West.

  ‘It would seem so.’ Angleton sounded briskly cheery about the whole thing. ‘Our cousins took a fancy to him quite a while ago. A little hint here, an inconsistency there. Since the early fifties, I gather. But we had a small hand in the final unmasking — Uncle Sam, I mean, not us as in the agency. FBI had a line on a US citizen — Michael Straight, son of the famous Whitney Straight. Michael was up at Cambridge with all that gang, Burgess, Maclean, Philby, and the final mark. He spilled the whole can of worms. Juicy evidence, including a direct approach from the man concerned. Five could never prove anything in a court of law, mind you — and I shouldn’t imagine they particularly wanted a court of law.’ He gave a dry little laugh. ‘But they needed co-operation. Don’t we all? They certainly had to get a confession.’ Another laugh, short and unsweetened. ‘This fourth man in the little nest of Communist spies is none other than the famous art historian, former Surveyor of Her Majesty the Queen’s pictures, and a “Sir” to boot …’