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“My problem is, I find it hard not to believe,” replied ex-Secretary of State James Baker. “This has gone to both our governments. ... Nigel?”
“Yes.”
“And they are not going to do anything?”
The remaining thirty-nine members, grouped around the conference table, were staring at the former spymaster as if seeking some reassurance that it was just a nightmare, a figment of the dark, that would vanish in some way.
“The received wisdom,” said Irvine, “is that officially nothing can be done. Half of what is in the Black Manifesto could well have the agreement of a good proportion of the Russian people. The West is not supposed to have it at all. Komarov would denounce it as a forgery. The effect could even be to strengthen him.”
There was a gloomy silence.
“May I say something?” said Saul Nathanson. “Not as your host but as an ordinary member. Years ago, I had a son. He died in the Gulf War.”
There was a series of somber nods. Twelve of those present had played leading roles in the creation of the multinational coalition that had fought the Gulf War. From the far end of the table General Colin Powell stared intently at the financier. Because of the eminence of the father, he had personally received the news that Lieutenant Tim Nathanson, USAF, had been shot down in the closing hours of the combat.
“If there was any comfort in that loss,” said Nathanson, “it was to know that he died fighting against something truly evil.”
He paused, searching for words.
“I am old enough to believe in the concept of evil. And in the notion that evil can sometimes be embodied in a person. I was not old enough to fight in the Second World War. I was eight when it ended. I know some of you here were in that war. But of course, I learned later. I believe Adolf Hitler was evil, and what he did also.”
There was utter silence. Statesmen, politicians, industrialists, bankers, financiers, diplomats, administrators are accustomed to address the practicalities of life. They realized they were listening to a deeply personal statement. Saul Nathanson leaned forward and tapped the Black Manifesto.
“This document is evil. The man who wrote it is evil. I do not see how we can walk away and let it happen again.”
Nothing broke the silence of the room. By “it” everyone realized he was referring to a second Holocaust, not only against the Jews of Russia but against many other ethnic minorities.
The silence was broken by the former British premier. “I agree. This is no time to go wobbly.”
Ralph Brooke, head of the giant Intercontinental Telecommunications Corporation, known in every stock exchange in the world as InTelCor, leaned forward.
“Okay, so what could we do?” he asked.
“Diplomatically ... apprise every NATO government and urge them to protest,” said a former diplomat.
“Then Komarov would denounce the manifesto as a crude forgery, and much of Russia would believe him. There is nothing new about the xenophobia of the Russians,” said another.
James Baker leaned forward to turn sideways and address Nigel Irvine.
“You brought us this appalling document,” he said. “What do you advise?”
“I advocate nothing,” said Irvine. “But I offer a caveat. If the council were to sanction—not to undertake but to sanction—an initiative, it would have to be something so covert that come what may nothing would or could ever attach to any reputation in this room.”
Thirty-nine members of the council knew exactly what he was talking about. Each of them had been party to, or had witnessed, supposedly covert governmental operations fail, and then unravel right up to the top.
A gravelly German-accented voice came down the table from a former U.S. Secretary of State.
“Can Nigel undertake an operation that covert?”
Two voices said “Yes” in unison. When Irvine had been Chief of British Intelligence he had served both Margaret Thatcher and her Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington.
The Council of Lincoln never passed formal, written resolutions. It reached agreements, and on the basis of these each member then used his or her influence to further the purpose of those agreements within the corridors of power in their own countries.
In the matter of the Black Manifesto, the agreement was simply to delegate to a smaller committee the members’ desire that the committee consider what might be for the best. The full council agreed only not to sanction, nor condemn, nor ever be aware of anything that might ensue.
Moscow, September 1990
COLONEL Anatoli Grishin sat at his desk in his office in Lefortovo jail and surveyed the three documents he had just received. His mind was a torrent of mixed emotions.