A Perfect Spy

“Home is a little seaside town in Wales. It has a very ugly Victorian church. It has a very strict landlady who shuts him in at 10 p.m. And one of these days Magnus is going to lock himself in that upstairs room and write his ass off till he comes out with all twelve volumes of Pym’s answer to Proust.”

Brotherhood might not have heard. He strode faster.

“Home is childhood re-created, Mr. Brotherhood. If defection is a self-renewal, it requires also a rebirth.”

“That his stupid phrase or yours?”

“Mine and his equally. We discussed all this and we discussed much, much more. Know why so many defectors redefect? We had that one straight too. It’s in and out of the womb all the time. Have you ever noticed that about defectors — the one common factor in all that crazy band? They’re immature. Forgive me, they are literally motherfuckers.”

“Have a name, this place?”

“Pardon?”

“This Welsh paradise of his. What’s it called?”

“He never said a name. All he said was it was near the castle where he grew up with his mother, in an area with great houses, where he and his mother used to go to the hunts, dance at the Christmas balls and mix quite democratically with the servants.”

“Have you ever come across Czechs using back numbers of newspapers?” Brotherhood asked.

Momentarily thrown by the change of tack, Lederer was obliged to pause and consider.

“It’s a case a colleague of mine is running,” Brotherhood said. “He asked me. Czech agent always grubbing around for last week’s newspapers before he takes a walk up the road. Why would he do that?”

“I’ll tell you why. It’s a standard thing,” said Lederer, recovering. “Old hat, but standard. We had a Joe like that, a double. The Czechs trained him for days, just in how to roll exposed film into newspaper. Took him out into the streets at night, made him find a dark area. Poor bastard nearly froze his fingers off. It was twenty below.”

“I said back numbers,” Brotherhood said.

“Sure. There’s two ways. One way they use the day of the month, the other way they use the day of the week. Day of the month is a nightmare: thirty-one standard messages to be learned by heart. It’s the eighteenth of the month so it’s ‘Meet me behind the gentleman’s convenience in Brno at nine-thirty and don’t be late.’ It’s the sixth so ‘W here the hell’s my monthly pay cheque?’” He giggled breathlessly but Brotherhood did not reciprocate. “The days of the week, that’s a shortened version of the same thing.”

“Thanks, I’ll pass it on,” said Brotherhood, drawing to a halt at last.

“Sir, I can imagine no greater honour than taking you out to dinner tonight,” Lederer said, now quite desperate for Brotherhood’s absolution. “I cast aspersions on one of your men, that’s duty. But if I were ever able to separate the personal and the official sides, I’d be a happy man, sir. Jack?”

The taxi was already drawing up.

“What is it?”

“Do you think you could give Magnus a message for me — a friendly one?”

“What is it?”

“Tell him any time — when it’s over — any place. I’ll be there as his friend.”

With a nod Brotherhood climbed into the taxi and rode away before Lederer could hear his destination.

What Lederer did next should go into history, if not into the larger history of the Pym affair then at least into his own exasperating personal chronicle of seeing everything with perfect vision and being repeatedly dismissed as an unwelcome prophet. Lederer struggled into a phone box intending to call Carver, only to discover he had no English coins. He dived into the Mulberry Arms, fought his way to the bar and bought a beer he did not want in order to have change. He returned to the phone box to find it didn’t work, so he pelted back down the road in search of his driver, who, having watched Lederer march by with Brotherhood, had assumed he was no longer required and had driven home to Battersea where he had a friend. At nine o’clock, Lederer burst in upon Carver at the U.S. Embassy, where Carver was drafting a signal on the day’s events.

“They’re lying!” Lederer shouted.

“Who are?”

“The fucking Brits! Pym’s flown the coop. They don’t know where he is from the man in the fucking moon. I asked Brotherhood to pass him this totally subversive message and he sweet-mouthed me to keep me off the track. Pym jumped ship at London Airport and they’re looking for him the same way we are. Those Czech radio transmissions are kosher. The Brits are looking for him, we’re looking for him. And the fucking Czechs are looking for him all over. Listen to me!”