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Four years before the lunch date he had finally retired to his home near Swanage on the Isle of Purbeck in the county of Dorset, where he wrote, read, walked the wild shoreline over the English Channel, and occasionally came by train to London to see old friends. Those same friends, and some much younger ones, reckoned he was still spry and active, for his mild blue eyes hid a mind as sharp as a razor.
Those who knew him best of all were aware that the old-fashioned courtesy he demonstrated to all he met dissimulated a steely will that could on occasion turn to utter ruthlessness. Henry Coombs, despite the age gap, knew him pretty well.
They both came from the tradition of Russia specialists. After Irvine’s retirement the chieftaincy of SIS had fallen to two Orientalists and an Arabist in turn before Henry Coombs marked a return to one of those who had cut his teeth in the struggle against the Soviet Union. When Nigel Irvine had been the chief, Coombs had proved himself a brilliant operator in Berlin, pitting his cunning against the KGB’s East German network and the East Germans’ own spymaster Marcus Wolf.
Irvine was content to let the conversation remain at the level of small talk in the crowded downstairs bar, but he would have been less than human not to wonder why his former protégé had asked him to make the train journey from Dorset to a steamy London for a single lunch. It was not until they had adjourned upstairs to a window table overlooking St. James’s Street that Coombs mentioned the purpose of his invitation.
“Something happening in Russia,” he said.
“Rather a lot, and all of it bad, from what the newspapers tell me,” said Irvine. Coombs smiled. He knew his old chief had sources far better than the morning papers.
“I won’t go into it in depth,” he said. “Not here, not now. Just the outline.”
“Of course,” said Irvine.
Coombs gave him a sketchy outline of the events of the past six weeks, in Moscow and in London. Notably in London.
“They’re not going to do anything about it and that’s final,” he said. “Events must take their course, lamentable though they may be. That, at any rate, is how our esteemed Foreign Secretary put it to me a couple of days ago.”
“I fear you much overestimate me if you think I can do anything to put some dynamism into the mandarins of King Charles Street,” said Sir Nigel. “I’m old and retired. As the poets put it, all races run, all passion spent.”
“I have two documents I’d like you to have a look at,” said Coombs. “One is the full report of everything that happened, so far as we can discern it, from the moment a brave if stupid old man stole a file from the desk of Komarov’s personal secretary. You can judge for yourself whether our decision that the Black Manifesto is genuine is one with which you can agree.”
“And the other?”
“The manifesto itself.”
“Thank you for the confidence. What am I supposed to do with them?”
“Take them home, read them both, see what you think.”
As the empty bowls of rice pudding laced with jam were taken away, Sir Henry Coombs ordered coffee and two glasses of the club’s vintage port, a particularly fine Fonseca.
“And even if I agree with all you say, the dreadfulness of the manifesto and the probability it is true, what then?”
“I was wondering, Nigel ... those people I believe you are going to see in America next week …”
“Dear me, Henry, even you are not supposed to know about that.”
Coombs shrugged dismissively, but privately he was glad his hunch had worked. The Council would be meeting and Irvine would be part of it.
“In the time-honored phrase, my spies are everywhere.”
“Then I’m heartened things haven’t changed too much since my day,” said Irvine. “All right, supposing I am meeting some people in America. What about it?”
“I leave it to you. Your judgment. If you think the documents should be thrown away, please burn them both to small ashes. If you think they should cross the Atlantic, your choice.”
“Dear me, how very intriguing.”
Coombs produced a flat sealed package from his briefcase and handed it over. Irvine placed it in his own, along with the purchases he had just made at John Lewis, some needlepoint canvases for Lady Irvine who liked to stitch cushion covers on winter evenings.
They parted in the lobby and Sir Nigel Irvine took a taxi to the station to catch his train back to Dorset.
Langley, September 1989
WHEN Aldrich Ames moved back to Washington, his nine-year career as a spy for the KGB still had an amazing four and a half years yet to run. Rolling in money, he began his new life by buying a half-million-dollar house for cash and tooling into the parking lot in a brand-new Jaguar. All this on a $50,000-a-year salary. No one noticed anything odd.
Because he had been running the Soviet desk at the Rome mission and despite the fact that Rome came under Western Europe, Ames himself had remained part of the crucial SE Division. From the KGB’s point of view it was vital that he remain where with the right access he might once again look at the 301 files. But here he had a major problem. Milton Bearden had also just returned to Langley, having supervised the covert war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The first thing he did as new head of the SE Division was try to get rid of Ames. However, in this, like others before him, he was frustrated.