and wasteland so that only one bomb in ten was likely to hit anything worthwhile.’
Sir Henry was fingering the coloured cards upon which there were graphs and charts showing various statistics mostly concerned with the skilled and unskilled working population of the German Democratic Republic. ‘Go on, Bret.’
‘When Spaatz and Jimmy Doolittle took the US Eighth Air Force into the bombing campaign they went in daylight with the Norden bombsight. Precision bombing and they had a plan. They bombed only synthetic-oil plants and aircraft factories. No wasted effort and the effect was mortal.’
‘Weren’t they called panacea targets?’
‘Only by the ones who were proved wrong,’ said Bret sharply.
‘I seem to remember some other aspects of the strategic bombing campaign,’ pondered the old man, who hadn’t missed the point that the RAF got it wrong and the Americans got it right. Neither did he miss the implication that the efforts of the SIS had up till now been ninety per cent futile.
‘I wouldn’t want to labour the comparison,’ said Bret, who belatedly saw that this example of the RAF’s wartime inferiority to US bombing performance might be less compelling to an English audience. He tried another approach. ‘That “Health and Hospitalization” chart you are holding shows how many physicians between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five are holding their health scheme together. I estimate that the loss of twenty-five per cent of that labour force – that’s the red sector on the chart – would make the regime start closing hospitals, or hospital departments, at a rate that would be politically unacceptable. Or take civil engineering: look at the chart I see on the table there …’
‘I’ve looked at the charts,’ said Sir Henry, who had never liked visual presentations.
‘We must target the highly skilled labour force. It will put acute strain upon the communist society because the regime tells its people that they endure low wages and a drab life to get job security and good social services: health care, urban transportation and so on. And a brain-drain is something they can’t counter. It takes seven years to train a physician, an engineer or a chemist: even then you need a bright kid to start with.’
‘You mentioned political opposition,’ said the D-G, and put Bret’s charts aside.
Bret said, ‘Yes. We also have to change our disdainful attitude to these small East German opposition groups. We must show a little sympathy: help and advise the Church groups and political reformers. Help them get together. Did you see my figures for Church denominations? The encouraging thing the figures demonstrate is that we can forget the rural areas: Protestants in the large cities will give us enough of the sort of people we want and we can reach townspeople more easily.’
‘Strategic bombing. Ummm,’ said the D-G. Even the Cabinet Secretary might see the logic of that approach when he was being told about all the extra money that would be needed.
‘And the people we want are the people in demand in the West. We don’t have to invent any fancy high-paid jobs for the people we entice away. The jobs are here already.’ Bret pulled out another sheet. ‘And see how the birth-rate figures help us?’ Bret held up the graph and pointed to the curving years of the early Eighties.
‘How do we get them here?’
Bret grabbed another chart. ‘These are people leaving East Germany for vacations abroad. I have broken them down according to the country they vacation in. Under the West German constitution every one of those East Germans is entitled to a West German passport on demand.’
The D-G stopped Bret’s flow with a gesture of his hand. ‘You are proposing to offer a crowd of East German holidaymakers getting off a bus in Morocco a chance to swap their passports? What will the Moroccan immigration authorities say about that?’
Bret gave a fixed smile. It was typical of the old man that he should take a country at random and then start nitpicking. ‘At this stage it would be better not to get bogged down in detail,’ he replied. ‘There are many ways for East German citizens to get permission to travel, and the numbers have been going up each year. The West German government press for a little more freedom every time they fork out donations to that lousy regime over there. And remember we are after the middle classes – respectable family men and college-educated working wives – not blue denim, long-haired hippy Wall-jumpers. And this is exactly why we need Mrs X over there looking at the secret police files and telling us where the effective opposition is; who to see, where to go and how to apply the pressure.’
‘Tell me again. She’s to …?’
‘She must get access to the KGB files on opposition groups – who they are and how they operate – Church groups, democrats, liberals, fascists, even communist reformers. That’s the best way that we can evaluate who we should team up with and prepare them for real opposition. And we need to know how the Russian army would react to widespread political dissent.’
‘You are the right man for Mrs X,’ said Sir Henry. He remembered the PM saying that every Russian is at heart a chess-player, and every American at heart a public-relations man. Well, Bret Rensselaer’s zeal did nothing to disprove that one. The sheer audacity of the scheme plus Bret’s enthusiasm was enough to persuade him that it was worth a try.
Bret nodded to acknowledge the compliment. He knew there were other things that had influenced the old man’s decision. Bret was American. And if Sir Henry was persuaded by Bret’s projections for the East German economy then Bret must be the prime choice to run the agent too. He had a roomful of experts in statistics, banking, economics, and even an expert in ‘group and permutation theory’ he’d raided from the cryptanalysts. Bret’s economic analysis department was a success story. It would make perfect deep cover for a case officer. And since a woman was involved there was another advantage: now that he was separated from his wife, Bret could be seen in the company of a ‘brilliant and beautiful woman’ without anyone thinking they were discussing their work.
‘I take it that Mrs X has managed without a case officer for a long time,’ said Bret.
‘Yes, because Silas Gaunt was involved. You know what Gaunt is like. He squeezed a promise from me that nothing would be on paper and that he would be the only contact.’
‘Literally the only contact?’ said Bret, without dreaming for a moment that the answer would be in the affirmative.
‘Literally.’
‘Good God! So why …?’
‘Bring someone else in now? Well, I’ll tell you. Gaunt only comes up to town once a month and I’m not sure that even that isn’t too much for him.’
And of course Silas Gaunt was a dedicated exponent of the sort of public school amateurism that the D-G apparently had rejected. ‘Has something happened?’
Bret’s reaction confirmed the D-G’s belief that this was the right man for the job: Bret had instinct. ‘Yes, Bret. Something has happened. Some wretched Russian wants to defect.’
‘And?’
The D-G sipped some whisky before saying, ‘And he’s made the approach to Mrs X. He took her aside at one of those unacknowledged meetings those Foreign Office fellows like to arrange with our Russian friends. I have never known anything good to come from them yet.’
‘A KGB man wants to defect.’ Bret laughed.
‘Yes, it is a good joke,’ said the D-G bitterly. ‘I wish I were in a position to join in the merriment.’
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Bret. ‘Was this a high-grade Russian?’
‘Pretty good,’ said the D-G guardedly. ‘His name is Blum: described as third secretary: working in the service attaché’s office: almost certainly KGB. The contact was made in watertight circumstances,’ he added.
‘She’ll have to tell them,’ said Bret without hesitation. ‘Watertight or not, she’ll have to turn him in.’
‘Ummm.’